Canadian provinces band together to develop nuclear reactor technology

Post by Retric » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #186

Retric wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar charge batteries/pumped hydro at vastly lower prices. If you take 2c/kWh solar add 50% oversupply to cover seasonal issues you’re at 3c/kWh. Thus it’s really storage that Nuclear needs to compete with not generation. Further, as nuclear takes years to build it’s competing with future battery prices 5-55 years from now. Using conservative total system costs of say 200$ per kWh of storage every day for 1…

As wind/solar scales, it's likely to get more regulation. There will be fires in battery facilities. People in San Bernardino county will put a moratorium on large solar installations in the desert due to dust storms, etc. This kind of thing always happens, and with wind/solar it will be because they take up so much land and raw materials. Nuclear was once a wonder energy source (in 1958), but as it scaled it ran int…

Post by neltnerb » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #201

Accujack wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>one concern with nuclear reactors is what to do with the waste. Actually, no. The reactor designs in use generate very little waste, just spent fuel rods that have to be kept in safe storage until their radioactivity level goes down to something reasonable. That doesn't take decades, either. The big problem with nuclear waste is the waste from weapons production, and people don't differentiate just like they don't f…

I'm pretty sure I've read articles saying America doesn't currently have a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste such as spent fuel rods, and that the creation of one is politically controversial - have matters changed since I read those articles?

Post by cm2187 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

natmaka wrote: post #134

kortilla wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop comparing solar and wind to nuclear. That’s a cudgel to ignore the fact that being anti-nuclear means being pro-fossil fuels. Bringing online solar and wind does not displace nuclear because they do not provide a stable base. You highlight that storage is a challenge, but it’s the entire blocker at this point. Until storage is solved, solar/wind do nothing more than displace some peaker plants.

Nuclear power generation also implies using fossil-fuels powerplants. Even in 'all-nuke' France 7 to 11% of the powergrid is produced by fossil-fuel plants. This could be alleviated thanks to decentralized production (small units). Granted, this is theoretically true for nuclear and solar/wind alike, however civilian practical small solar/wind units do exist, nuclear units don't. Many write just as if nuclear plants…

Post by cf498 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #183

cf498 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure sounds great, what are the best and worst case costs of storing that stuff for how long? And yes i know dry cask storage is much less problematic, but i would still want a realistic plan of what is happening to that stuff and what this is going to cost. What irks me so much is that i am not simply told, look here it what it currently costs, how it would scale and what the realistic liabilities are. If you were a…

Are we all aware that nuclear power plants pay for waste disposal as part of their electricity sales cost in a trust fund called the Nuclear Waste Fund that has a balance around $50B in the US at the moment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle... As far as I know, nuclear is the only energy source that pre-pays for waste disposal.

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

andbberger wrote: post #37

marcosdumay wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small nuclear plants are actually something that can possibly help (differently from the large ones). But I doubt anybody will get the costs down enough to make them viable, wind and solar are power horses. It's like creating a non-mainstream computer architecture at the 90's and early 00's, it won't improve fast enough to even match their speed. About emissions, coal is responsible for a huge share of emissions on e…

> But I doubt anybody will get the costs down enough to make them viable [citation needed] This was discussed recently and I really down understand the immense skepticism exhibited on HN (and in general) towards nuclear energy. Sure it's expensive now, but it's been misregulated into a pulp and all extant nuclear reactors are using decades old designs. AND you need to compare the cost of nuclear to renewables PLUS st…