201–210 of 393 posts
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They assumed electrochemical storage which is really expensive and invalidates there findings, renewables would be significantly cheaper than there suggesting.
Battery cost are projected to drop significantly over the next 5 - 10 years.
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Apparently, most nuclear power plants even produce less energy than if their area was instead covered by solar panels. Says Musk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-n6xJOFbvA
I seriously doubt that claim.
btw. i'm against nuclear and non renewable energy, however I think its hard to actually replace ever "bad" energy in the next 10-20 years. we will need a longer time for that. especially since building renewable energy plants fast isn't good for our environment either.
The history of large exotic reactor designs is poor. Sodium-cooled reactors have sodium fires. Helium-cooled reactors have helium leaks (The Ft. St. Vrain story is sad; good idea, but some badly designed components in the radioactive section.) Pebble bed reactors jam. (A small one in Germany is jammed, shut down, and can't be decommissioned.) Molten salt reactors require an on-site chemical plant which processes the radioactive molten salt. Chemical plants for radioactive materials are a huge headache and have the potential to leak. With pressurized water reactors, you only have to handle water, not radioactive fluorine salts.
All designs where the radioactive portion of the system has much complexity have had major problems. Fixing anything in the radioactive part is extremely difficult. But the reactor has to run for decades to be profitable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station
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The same scale as Chernobyl? Chernobyl irradiated whole countries and caused thousands of deaths. Fukushima isn't even within a couple of magnitudes of irradiation.
There were only 31 direct deaths, and it did not "irradiate" whole countries except in the most technical sense of the word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...
I'm not willing to live next to a reactor and I'm not willing to force someone else to. If people really think nuclear is the best option put your money where your mouth is and raise your family next to one.
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Yeah, there are a lot of alternate nuclear reactor designs that look great on paper but have never had the full scale engineering done to see if it is practical. And they look cheap because you don't even know half of the stuff you have to do that makes it expensive. It's like rocket design where you go "just put a bunch of explosives in a tube and go into space, this shouldn't be too expensive or difficult..."
True; many of these dream reactors probably won't work, because that is the nature of things. But the full-scale engineering never gets done because of anti-nuclear propaganda playing on mass public ignorance, so at the rate we're going now we'll never know.
Actually, renewable energy is, when you actually run the numbers in a sensible way, pretty cost effective: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312... - this finds that with 90% solar/wind and modest amounts of storage, electricity would be cheaper in 2030 than it is today, and that the cheapest option is actually a vast overcapacity. There are plenty of flaws with that article, but still less tha…
Apparently, most nuclear power plants even produce less energy than if their area was instead covered by solar panels. Says Musk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-n6xJOFbvA
Ivanpah has the capability of producing about 400 MW. It produces no energy at night, and doesn't max out the rest of the time. It rests on 4,000 acres of land. [1]
The Palo Verde nuclear plant can produce 3,939 MW from three reactors (currently operating at 3,875 MW). It's located on 4,000 acres of land. It can actually generate 3,875 MW, and can do it all day long if necessary. Most nuclear plants don't run at max capacity often, but it's irrelevant given the extreme difference, reduce it by 75% and it stomps Ivanpah. [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...
Actually, renewable energy is, when you actually run the numbers in a sensible way, pretty cost effective: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312... - this finds that with 90% solar/wind and modest amounts of storage, electricity would be cheaper in 2030 than it is today, and that the cheapest option is actually a vast overcapacity. There are plenty of flaws with that article, but still less tha…
Sure, solving renewable energy is a really valuable thing to do, but it's still only solving 1/3 of the problem.
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I seriously doubt that claim.
it's true. somewhat. I mean the energy of the nuclear station stays constant. however the peak power of the solar panels will be higher. but I doubt that the solar panels will still be creating less energy over a longer period of time. unless you build both inside a desert and there you would have other problems like the sand which affects the lifetime of your panels, etc.. btw. i'm against nuclear and non renewable…
The highest capacity US nuclear power plant can out-produce the best utility scale solar installation by 10 fold, with both at max capacity, on an equal amount of land.
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When I was studying, we had an active (research) reactor running on the campus under thousands of student dorms. Less than 10km from the center of the capital (Helsinki) too. Most people do not even know it's there. Most people don't know that a lot of hospitals on densely populated areas also house running reactors. The power plants generally are pretty dull industrial sites. I don't blame for people not wanting the…
MIT has a nuclear reactor on campus right on Massachusetts Ave, between Harvard and Boston. (It's not a power-generating reactor.) There is also a cogeneration plant that produces electricity, steam heat, chilled water, and compressed air. I've never heard anyone complain about either. Most people don't know or care except if it's super obvious (generating tons of obvious smoke/steam). However, they will raise all so…