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Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

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Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#31

Post by jessaustin »

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added.

This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated in TFA. 20 years ago was essentially a zero point for the statistic they cite. It was less than 5 gigawatts, anyway. It grew by over 100 times in that 20 years, and it will be "unprecedented" to grow by 5 times in the next 20? (5 Don't believe me, take a look at the charts here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

Sure those don't include wind, but when you find those charts they will look the same. Anyway wind isn't growing as fast as solar.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#32

Post by pjc50 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #24
ilaksh wrote: post #3

I grew up in San Diego. I have seen a very encouraging amount of solar deployment on houses there. But there is still a massive potential for more residential solar. When I visited my brother in Ft. Worth I saw almost no residential solar. I also noticed that there was a massive supply of wind blowing around the neighborhood. Is it really not feasible to harness solar and wind better? Maybe it requires moving to a mo…

The urgency of needing to deal with climate change mandates we do both renewables and nuclear. We have the resources to push hard on both sides. There's this idea that we should prioritize resources on one or the other. In my opinion, we have plenty of resources such that we'll reach diminishing returns (due to employment/skill/geographical/material bottlenecks) if we applied all of those resources to one or the othe…

> We have more money than time (and costs of nuclear, if scaled out, are exaggerated).

Getting the money from the taxpayer or energy consumer is the number one obstacle to all of these things. The costs of nuclear if anything seem to be underestimated: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#33

Post by nickik »

Nuclear power was once the fasted growing energy producer in world history. Adoption happened faster then coal, faster then oil or pretty much anything else.

The world was on track to essentially replace fossil fuels with nuclear on a pace that was outside of human experience.

Humanity was quickly entering a new age. But then a small number of accidents lead to a political change, witch lead to regulatory changes that essentially killed nuclear power in most places.

Since the US regulatory system changed the amount of new plants built has essentially gone to 0, far below replacement. And many of the same effects were mirrored in most of the west with the US taking the lead.

The worst thing is that the new regulatory system not only killed the building of new plants, but essentially ended any hope of getting new reactor types into commercial use. No new reactor type have been licensed since then.

This seems rather strange because in the 60-70 new reactor-types were build at a rapid rate, constant innovation even with relatively small amounts of money. All of this was destroyed. Even in places where nuclear power is so clearly a huge win like NASA.

Nuclear fuel storage issues has entered into a political limbo where anti-nuclear lobby has essentially managed to deadlock the whole process and can since claim that nuclear storage issues can't be solved. At the same time the government collects money from nuclear power stations to handle the waste issue.

This is one of the saddest and most depressing stories in human history if you ask me. There is 0 scientific or technical reason why shouldn't have cheap nuclear power even in remote places, even in space.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#34

Post by detritus »

nickik wrote: post #26
Tepix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, quite the contrary. Just as an example, in Germany the search for the ultimate disposal place has just started over from scratch after decades of failed attempts. In the US, a nuclear waste dome is leaking in to the Pacific: https://www.civilbeat.org/beat/a-dome-holding-nuclear-waste-... Here's another story from 12 days ago: "Years of mismanagement, delays at nuclear waste sites could pose risk, report says" htt…

Typical lie. In fact nuclear waste management from civilian power has fantastic. In fact all nuclear power stations include cleanup and waste management as part of the cost. Germany problem is not technical but political and anybody that has ever looked into nuclear power in Germany knows this. Not to mention that finding a 'ultimate disposal' a pretty unnecessary and wrongheaded that is only being perused because li…

Really? I'm envious about your government's competency in the matter, in that case!

I'm fairly pro-nuclear, at least as part of a broadly renewable energy portfolio, as I think industry and transportation will need at least something more than solar and wind to reach none-emission energy production saturation any time soon.

However, if my own Government's record is anything to go by here in the UK, waste management is a perenially-deferred problem and clean up was not part of the original billing of any existing Nuclear facilities. It's all stored on site pending long-term secure solutions or - if optimisim is t obe believed - until we can develop technologies to eke every last joule of energy from the ever-growing mountain of waste.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#35

Post by [deleted] »

mbell wrote: post #19
Tepix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, quite the contrary. Just as an example, in Germany the search for the ultimate disposal place has just started over from scratch after decades of failed attempts. In the US, a nuclear waste dome is leaking in to the Pacific: https://www.civilbeat.org/beat/a-dome-holding-nuclear-waste-... Here's another story from 12 days ago: "Years of mismanagement, delays at nuclear waste sites could pose risk, report says" htt…

> In the US, a nuclear waste dome is leaking in to the Pacific That has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power. This is the type of fear mongering that caused the current situation.

[deleted]

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#36

Post by isolli »

jessaustin wrote: post #31

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated…

It reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/866313289306963969/p...

tl;dr The International Energy Agency kept predicting, year after year, in the face of all the evidence, that solar production would plateau.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#37

Post by BurningFrog »

throwanem wrote: post #5
ilaksh wrote: post #3

I grew up in San Diego. I have seen a very encouraging amount of solar deployment on houses there. But there is still a massive potential for more residential solar. When I visited my brother in Ft. Worth I saw almost no residential solar. I also noticed that there was a massive supply of wind blowing around the neighborhood. Is it really not feasible to harness solar and wind better? Maybe it requires moving to a mo…

Given the lead time required to bring new nuclear generation capacity online, it probably makes more sense the other way around: before you get too serious about letting the nuclear power industry die, you just really need to be sure it's feasible to replace it with solar and wind. (I don't love that nuclear reactors, as opposed to the turbines that generate electricity from the steam they produce, should be in the h…

> having a profit motive involved in such a safety-critical set of processes is a recipe for disaster

The empirical evidence of Chernobyl is a small sample, but points in the opposite direction.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#38

Post by grecy »

jessaustin wrote: post #31

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated…

[flagged]

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#39

Post by [deleted] »

umvi wrote: post #4

Haven't nuclear waste recycling and safety features gotten really good in the past few decades? I feel like not many people know just how little waste is created with modern recycling and just how safe nuclear is with modern safety features. Seems like we need a positive PR campaign to help convince folks that nuclear is way better than fossil fuels. This could easily be bipartisan.

[deleted]

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#40

Post by thinkcontext »

bilbo0s wrote: post #12
umvi wrote: post #4

Haven't nuclear waste recycling and safety features gotten really good in the past few decades? I feel like not many people know just how little waste is created with modern recycling and just how safe nuclear is with modern safety features. Seems like we need a positive PR campaign to help convince folks that nuclear is way better than fossil fuels. This could easily be bipartisan.

In fairness, no one needs to be convinced that nuclear plants are better than coal plants. The problem is the renewables. In Iowa, they are in the process of shuttering their nuclear plants. Now no one in Iowa was out protesting the plants or anything, but here's the issue. Windmills have reached a level of practicality and low cost that encouraged Iowans to slap them up almost everywhere. (Seriously, drive through I…

> no one needs to be convinced that nuclear plants are better than coal plants

Germany decided to shut their nukes before their coal plants

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