> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want to live in. Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2]. [1] http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-ene... [2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-…
The problem is scale. Here is a really good analysis of renewable resources in the UK: http://www.withouthotair.com/ Conclusion: The UK doesn't receive enough sunlight or have enough wind/waves/tidal pools/land to grow food, power cars (of any kind) and meet other energy needs. The UK can never get all of their energy carbon free without nuclear or importing power. The US is in a better place because of solar in the…
The New Atomic Age We Need
171–180 of 211 posts
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shure, China is atm mostly using a more than 30 year old design bought from france and everyone knows safety is not their primary concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor...
Yes, that French design that has such a horrible safety record in France. Oh wait, it has an excellent record and France is still exporting power from those designs. And I don't think everyone knows that safety is not their primary concern. What other country shoots CEO's in the head when they put citizens at risk with poisoned products or environmental disasters?
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shure, China is atm mostly using a more than 30 year old design bought from france and everyone knows safety is not their primary concern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Reactor...
Yes, that French design that has such a horrible safety record in France. Oh wait, it has an excellent record and France is still exporting power from those designs. And I don't think everyone knows that safety is not their primary concern. What other country shoots CEO's in the head when they put citizens at risk with poisoned products or environmental disasters?
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
US has lots of sunny areas with little people, agriculture or wildlife, but UK doesn't. Many European countries are dense and cloudy. It can still help.
I'm surprised they don't invest in production just south in North Africa, it would be pretty trivial to lay cables across to Gibraltar. They would of course have to do it with a sense of economic fairness and fairly pay the countries in money and technology / education transfer.
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#175> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want to live in. Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2]. [1] http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-ene... [2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-…
These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…
There is a lot of hand waiving and fudging the numbers when it comes to the cost of nuclear. One-off proprietary designs, using proprietary fuel systems, using proprietary operational methodologies is not cost effective. Economies of scale are not in nuclear's favor, and even "at scale" you're looking at billions of dollars worth of investment before the first watt is produced. The need for large-scale waste transportation, storage and reprocessing is not a solved problem. The Nuclear Solves Everything™ thought process requires a lot of head-in-the-sand thinking.
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is scale. Here is a really good analysis of renewable resources in the UK: http://www.withouthotair.com/ Conclusion: The UK doesn't receive enough sunlight or have enough wind/waves/tidal pools/land to grow food, power cars (of any kind) and meet other energy needs. The UK can never get all of their energy carbon free without nuclear or importing power. The US is in a better place because of solar in the…
This argument is one massive false assumption. Renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper and are already cheaper than coal and nuclear. Cheap means they will become pervasive and replace the majority of existing sources. There is technically no reason we couldn't do it [3], rather "the key roadblocks are: climate change denial, the fossil fuels lobby, political inaction, unsustainable energy consumption, outdated…
In chapter 25, he acknowledges that while the cost of photovoltaics will fall, he does not see it doing so in a timeline that will be useful in terms of getting everything deployed for a ~2050 deadline. Economically speaking, carpeting deserts with concentrating collectors will be the cheaper of the solar options. The book is careful about doing all the math, citing all its sources and carefully explaining the scenarios it models. It is a very good book[+].
But cost is not the only issue—even as prices fall, there is still the problem of land use area. Efficiencies aren't going to pass 30% (without going to much more expensive materials) and for mass production, we can halve that; cheap as panels may someday become, places with high pop densities (on top of seasonal variations/not being near the equator) are going to have trouble meeting their needs. Especially if they don't want to get rid of their curling irons, hair/clothes dryers, toasters and electric stove/kettles. But panels/turbines aren't the whole picture.
Already today, panels take up only a fraction of the cost of solar. You ideally, want an MPPT controller. You might need voltage regulators, you'll need a rack for the panel and batteries, an appropriately sized inverter, wiring and installation. Batteries—to save more money long term—you want to oversize them so you rarely hit a low depth of discharge. But more batteries means more panels. You also want enough batteries such that you can wait out ~4 days of low light (speaking from experience, on cloudy days you can go the entire day at ~13% typical amp output). Even those at the equator will only get ~6 good hours of sunlight (~8 hours for an appreciable amount), so even for the best case scenario, 12 hours of storage per person is not going to cut it. Solar is great but it's no panacea. And the math doesn't work out for chemical energy storage. Molten salt storage, compressed air look to be more logical at the grid level but even they won't be sufficient.
That said, Mr Theil is also incorrect to place Nuclear in opposition to renewables. Renewables will be in addition to Nuclear [-]. As well as looking into more DC appliances, more HVDC and working out circuit breakers for them, optimal manufacturing layouts such that 'waste output' can be redirected to where it is needed. More energy efficient devices, energy routing algorithms (and a global grid of superconducting HVDC while we're at it—seems far fetched but still at a much higher technological readiness level when compared to fusion), better city planning, climate control with geothermal heatpumps, more material reclamation and recycling, nuclear waste as fuel, carbon capture, extracting CO2 from the ocean for fuel and a cultural move away from an over consuming disposable society.
[+] I am biased in that I'd already known the author for one of the best free books on information theory and machine learning. Anyone interested in the link between learning, energy and thermodynamics should see this book as a starting point. http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/itprnn/book.pdf
[-] Ch. 24 of sewtha.pdf goes into numeric data backed detail on why most build out, waste, cost arguments against nuclear are weak. Personally, I think at best, we only have a couple hundred more years where we can all be justifiably irrationally paranoid over Nuclear. We should have DNA repair down by then.
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#177> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want to live in. Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2]. [1] http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-ene... [2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-…
They have a tendency to break links, so a community-oriented individual might feel inclined to save/cache the link ;)
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#178> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want to live in. Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2]. [1] http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-ene... [2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-…
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…
Scaling down power generation when demand is low is not something nuclear is good at. Battery or energy storage systems that could store excess power from the grid would help any sort of power generation technique become more efficient and reliable. There is a lot of hand waiving and fudging the numbers when it comes to the cost of nuclear. One-off proprietary designs, using proprietary fuel systems, using proprietar…
Isn't that what control rods do?
Re: The New Atomic Age We Need
#180Nuclear technology's achille's heel is waste disposal. Sure, there are technical aspects to it, but it's mostly a problem in the political realm.
The Feds were supposed provide a disposal mechanism, but there's apparently no political will to do that any longer. Instead, we have nuclear waste piling up all over the place at facilities that were never meant to store it. As soon as we have a natural disaster at one of these facilities, it will be like fukushima all over again. Such a shame.