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We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

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Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#361

Post by pvaldes »

wolfram74 wrote: post #184
est31 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the currently deployed, old nuclear plants certainly aren't as safe as the new, unbuilt ones the nuclear proponents always like to showcase. Even if you decide towards using nuclear in the future, you should build new reactors from scratch using those new safer designs.

There's that branch of minimalist environmentalism where their favorite nuclear reactor is whatever doesn't already exist. The instant it starts getting built, /somebody'll/ start protesting it.

> The instant it starts getting built, /somebody'll/ start protesting it.

Is normal when the hype does not correspond with the reality and the promises of behaving well and to be responsible are replaced by "hide under a rug and find a scapegoat" five seconds after having the green light.

Citizens have the right to ask about how their taxes had been spent, specially when the construction costs increased exponentially, the whole structure is ruinous after 50 years and there are lots of new surprises in tiny characters in an appendix of the social contract that they signed, but never received.

Nuclear plants can only make a limited amount of money in this lifetime but the cost seems almost unlimited.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#362

Post by DennisP »

epistasis wrote: post #306
mulmen wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not making a statement to the validity of DennisP’s comment. Just clarifying the perceived meaning.

Sorry, didn't mean to direct that at you. But since I had been downvoted so much I wanted to at least poke at the general narrative here. I still find it odd is that an unfounded accusation of bias is supported with a link to a clearly biased source, and that's somehow acceptable here.

Um...just to be extra clear, my "unfounded accusation of bias" was directed to the source you find "clearly biased."

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#363

Post by sofixa »

rayiner wrote: post #255
aplummer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define short term; I think by the time a reactor you start today comes online, we are already pretty screwed

It’s really already too late. Even if we the developed world decarbonizes in the next 20 years, India, China, and Africa will not. That means what we really need to be looking at is technology to power carbon capture.

India is nuclear heavy, China has a serious nuclear focus and is actively decarbonising, so what are you talking about?

Various African countries can be helped to pick/prefer carbon-free energy options.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#364

Post by pydry »

0xy wrote: post #281
pydry wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK Hinkley point C got a strike price of £92.50 per megawatt hour guaranteed for (i think) 35 years. By contrast wind got about £39-£41 for two years. Future years will likely be even lower.

Ignores the price of inconsistent delivery and the inevitable huge costs of batteries and/or gas peaking plants to supplement the inconsistent power from wind. Nobody ever factors in these costs to the price of solar or wind, and I find it extremely disingenuous. Nuclear can still be pumping power on a windless sunless day with 100% green energy. Solar and wind? Either use batteries (expensive, not really renewable)…

>Nobody ever factors in these costs to the price of solar or wind, and I find it extremely disingenuous.

Speaking of extremely disingenuous, I already shared a study on exactly that in this thread 4 hours before you wrote your comment.

Here it is again:

https://neon.energy/Hirth-Ueckerdt-Edenhofer-2015-Integratio...

Sincerely,

Nobody

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#365

Post by Schiendelman »

carlosdp wrote: post #337
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

> First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. The FAQ AOC released after the document explicitly ruled out nuclear energy, iirc.

No. It said we need to decommission our old reactors, which we do regardless. It’s linked in the first major thread in this discussion.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#366

Post by Schiendelman »

kova12 wrote: post #338
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

If your concerns are valid, perhaps we should just stay with coal and gas. Renewables amid other problems are not going to work without massive energy storage systems, which we don't and won't have anytime soon

Please please please stop repeating this. It’s an assumption about a solution to a problem that doesn’t even exist yet.

As we build more renewables, we’re also building better grid connections to serve demand response. You build until most places are overproducing.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#367

Post by Schiendelman »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #188
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can transmit power over long distances with surprisingly little energy loss with high-voltage DC. Any sane national plan for renewable energy would include a large amount of long-distance power transfer, if for no other reason than to minimize the variance in power production.

When I look at it I notice that current variation in cost per mwh is much larger than transmission line losses or storage losses. You look on a map and you notice places where the days of sun shine aren't very conductive to solar are usually within 1500 miles of places where solar works great. Seattle to the Mojave desert is 1200 miles for instance.

And as the owner of a solar off grid home north of Seattle, I can tell you solar works fine there too. ;)

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#368

Post by winfortheworld »

I have two main points against solar and wind @ large scale. Please destroy them.

First point. Solar relies on rare earth materials and are mostly being bought from China since they are cheaper. The estimate is that these solar panels last less than other panels. So imagine the land area needed to power the USA and China top polluters in the world and then imagine replacing all of that every n years. Plus we will run out way faster in rare earth material for solar than fission material for nuclear. For wind turbines maintenance costs increases as the structure ages. Imagine this at large scale.

Second point. Dams are way better than solar and wind. But they are dependent on the region, so is solar and panel. So picture the winter where the sun sets @ around 3pm-5pm and wakes up around 7am. Or cloudy days. And @ night! We're talking storage that can last weeks, months. I don't know if in 30 years grid level storage will reach a level that can satisfy these requirements.

so nuclear energy per density kills solar and wind, can produce 24/7 energy on the order of MW to GW and produces minimal waste with current technologies.

If the argument is that solar/wind energy will improve, then so will nuclear energy.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#369

Post by speleding »

carlosdp wrote: post #337
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

> First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. The FAQ AOC released after the document explicitly ruled out nuclear energy, iirc.

There is an economic reason you cannot have both: Nuclear power plants need to run near capacity to be economical. If you have a lot of intermittent power from wind and solar then nuclear plants will only be able to get a reasonable price for their output 40% of the time (at night when it's not windy).

Conversely, if the nuclear power plant is running anyway and has enough capacity to cover a windless night, you may as well get rid of the solar and wind.

This equation will change if we ever get storage to be cheap enough so we can store intermittent power, but there is nothing on the horizon that will do that.

Re: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal

#370

Post by speleding »

aplummer wrote: post #37
tertiary wrote: post #30

First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…

Define short term; I think by the time a reactor you start today comes online, we are already pretty screwed

Rosatom will sell you a floating reactor you can tow into a harbour and hook up to your grid [1]. So short term can be pretty short if you want. And don't worry about the fuel, they simply tow it back to St. Petersburg when the fuel is expired and keep the dirty stuff there.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power...

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