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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

#371

Post by 7952 »

zaroth wrote: post #24
pydry wrote: post #7

Why Renewables Aren't the Reason for California Blackouts: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/why-renew... LCOE of various energy sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... https://neon.energy/Hirth-Ueckerdt-Edenhofer-2015-Integratio... suggests that wind energy has up to 50% higher "real" cost than typical LCOE measurements because of variability, however, this still put…

The National Geographic article attempts to make the point that the problems in CA aren’t fundamentally an issue with renewables. CA’s specific mishandling of their push for a renewable-heavy power supply is the cause, but renewables aren’t inherently the cause. This is technically true in a way, while denying the reality of the situation on the ground in CA.

I don't think the fundamentals of the technology are ever the most important aspect of the debate. What constrains us are human, political and market factors. That is why America has been slow to adopt renewables and why the nuclear industry has declined. That is why the US grid is in such a poor state.

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

#372

Post by eeZah7Ux »

cambalache wrote: post #217
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Spot on. People often ignore the political problems of nuclear power: - Centralization of control encourages corruption and the hiding of incidents - Power stations make excellent targets in case of war. The bigger they are, the bigger the impact - Nuclear power stations a…

We already have something 10000000X worse: Nuclear Weapons, that cat is out of the bag. So either we dismantle all nuclear arsenals in the world or we stop giving the "potential socio-political inestability"as a reason to not building more nuclear plants. You are stopping the butcher to use big knives for fear he may go insane in the future and kill some customers with them, when millions of weapons are highly availa…

> that cat is out of the bag

Not at all, this is a logical fallacy.

A small fraction of countries have nuclear weapons and yet they still engage in conventional warfare because they really don't want to trigger a nuclear holocaust.

On top of that, terrorist organizations, guerrilla fighters, criminal organization and so on never managed to launch an ICBM.

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

#373

Post by ThinkBeat »

radford-neal wrote: post #29

From the article: "No nuclear energy program has ever launched without heavy state intervention — the capital costs are just too high for private entities to take on." I think this misses the real reason. High capital costs are no barrier to private financing as long as the eventual profits will accrue to the investors . But in this highly-regulated industry, investors can't put money into nuclear plants thinking tha…

In the US insurance is another issue. The cost is massive if any company is willing to offer it.

So the people paying tax has to cover both the building, the insurance, so if anything should go wrong, it si 100% on the tax payers.

Then the tax payer has to pay for facilities to store all the waste for hundres of years. Something no Americans wants close to them. Last I heard the The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository will not happen.

Presently the US does not have secure facilities to store highly radioactive waste. That still has to be built and that will cost gigantic sums of money. If it has to be sized to accommodate an increase in the production of said waste, then it has to be even bigger.

Presently highly radioactive waste is stored on site where it is being produced. That far from an ideal situation.

At the end we have to pay for the decommissioning.

It is a huge sinkhole of tax money.

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

#374

Post by cambalache »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #372
cambalache wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have something 10000000X worse: Nuclear Weapons, that cat is out of the bag. So either we dismantle all nuclear arsenals in the world or we stop giving the "potential socio-political inestability"as a reason to not building more nuclear plants. You are stopping the butcher to use big knives for fear he may go insane in the future and kill some customers with them, when millions of weapons are highly availa…

> that cat is out of the bag Not at all, this is a logical fallacy. A small fraction of countries have nuclear weapons and yet they still engage in conventional warfare because they really don't want to trigger a nuclear holocaust. On top of that, terrorist organizations, guerrilla fighters, criminal organization and so on never managed to launch an ICBM.

> Not at all, this is a logical fallacy.

I dont think you understand what a logical fallacy is. The number of nuclear weapons in the world is in the 5 figures order, that is fact. Nuclear weapons are a fact.

> and yet they still engage in conventional warfare because they really don't want to trigger a nuclear holocaust.

Most experts assessed the chance of a nuclear war during the Cuban missiles crisis at 1/3. Maybe that is a number you feel comfortable with, I dont. In +70 years of nuclear plants the 3 "big" accidents (3 Miles Island,Chernobyl, Fukushima) are nothing compared with that.

> On top of that, terrorist organizations, guerrilla fighters, criminal organization and so on never managed to launch an ICBM.

And never managed to sabotage a nuclear installation and cause an accident so your point is moot.

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

#375

Post by epistasis »

DennisP wrote: post #362
epistasis wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

I can't believe it took me reading it 5 times and two corrections to understand that ! Ugh.

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

#376

Post by [deleted] »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #351
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. If we build nuclear plants to fulfill peak energy demand (which coincides with a lack of energy production from solar) then there's not reason not to just run the nuclear plants 24/7 and skip building solar altogether. This is why nuclear power and intermittent sources end up being a dichotomy in practice. Solar does provide a good way to mitigate carbon emissions in the meantime, even if it's role in a fully…

You're missing the point, which is that if you don't use a nuclear plant to 100% capacity (or run at 100% capacity and throw away most of the energy), you end up paying more for every Joule you actually use. How much would it cost to build nuclear power generation capacity to meet peak demand, vs. building a grid with renewables, long-term transmission and storage? The levelized cost of solar and wind power is way be…

[deleted]

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

#377

Post by pfdietz »

sofixa wrote: post #363
rayiner wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

India gets about 2% of their power from nuclear. They are not "nuclear heavy."

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

#378

Post by LinuxBender »

tl wrote: post #301
tertiary wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, at least not according to Ocasio-Cortez [1]. It is a pretty new idea though and is probably in flux, so it may have been different in the past? [1] https://morningconsult.com/2019/05/06/ocasio-cortez-green-ne...

AOC can claim any position she wants, but the Green New Deal says (page 7, lines 6-9 as linked in another post) says "meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources". That's a clear anti-nuclear stance.

Following that logic, then Solar Panels are off the table. They don't last forever and their waste is not environmentally friendly. Mining the material to produce them also creates a large amount of greenhouse gasses.

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

#379

Post by manfredo »

skitout wrote: post #343
manfredo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, nuclear power is more expensive than natural gas. But natural gas still emits carbon dioxide. If our goal is to curtail climate change, then our goal is to decarbonize our economy. There are additional culprits too like methane and some refrigerants. But carbon dioxide accounts for the lion's share of climate change.

And nuclear is much much more expensive than solar or wind ! https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/

In terms of raw generation costs, maybe. Nuclear's price is historically a factor of 4 less when built at scale. Building nuclear plants one at time, like the US is doing currently, does not leverage economies of scale.

And when taking into account cost of storage, which is necessary when using intermittent sources, the actually cost increases drastically.

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

#380

Post by rch »

wmf wrote: post #269
rch wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to see that. I was only reading the text.

It might have been https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462962... which shows the line items.

I've seen that one, and it does the illustrate economics supporting a premise that leveraging "synergies between the goals of reducing CO2 emissions substantially and quickly and tackling income and wealth inequality" could be at least feasible. I'm not sure that it supports the cost ratio you quoted however.
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