Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#231

Post by legulere » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #7

legulere wrote: post #6

> Whether or not nuclear power costs too much will ultimately be a matter for markets to decide It’s not a market decision, but a government decision, as nuclear power has always been built with state guarantees and/or subsidies. This article also again equates safety with lack of deaths. That’s like saying a neighborhood is safe, because in the robberies there only a few people die. Chernobyl and Fukushima had drama…

We're comparing two neighbourhoods. One has less deaths and less robberies. It is the one with nuclear power. Chernobyl has done less damage and had less impact on those millions of people than the totally routine burning of coal. I grew up in a coal mining region; I fully expect more people suffer negative health outcomes when coal works as expected than in a Class 7 nuclear catastrophe. We just don't count the heal…

I’m not saying that nuclear is worse than coal (I don’t think so), but only that there are negative effects beyond death and that we should take them into account.

The things we compare are nuclear and renewables. The consensus is already pretty clear that coal is on its way out. Which I think we all can agree on is a good thing.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#232

Post by bryanlarsen » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 9:41 PM UTC

hntrader wrote: post #227

bryanlarsen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. You need natgas peakers (that aren't frozen) or charged batteries to deal with this. Nuclear, wind and solar are all unsuitable for this situation.

What do you think of the claims of user "corty" elsewhere in this thread, who seems to say that nuclear isn't unsuitable for this situation?

The primary problem with nuclear is the fact that it's insanely expensive. If you're not running it flat out 24/7, then the cost per MWh goes up dramatically.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#233

Post by corty » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #222

dispat0r wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wind energy is so cheap why are india and china still building new coal plants?

The wind resource in India is poor. Solar is likely the answer there, with batteries and hydrogen.

Nope

https://qz.com/224275/heres-how-indias-least-windy-places-ar...

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#234

Post by cameldrv » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

lapinot wrote: post #178

cameldrv wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, but show your work. Nuclear gives us 24/7 reliable power. What is the cost comparison for renewables for the same product?

It's obvious that energy sources based on local meteo conditions don't have 24/7 reliability. The question is: how much of that reliability do we need? What would be possible if we did forgo some? Most of our industrial processes are optimized for pure efficiency (optimizing asymptotic behavior with no regard to constants), which is biased towards high-energy, constantly running chains and immense infrastructure. The…

Electricity production in the U.S. is only about 2% of GDP, but basically every economic activity relies on electricity to function. Having very much of the electric supply be truly intermittent would create enormous costs elsewhere in the economy. If you're going to power the U.S. on renewables, you're going to need a lot of storage to get the needed reliability, so if you're comparing costs, you need to compare an equivalent end product.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#235

Post by manicdee » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 12:16 AM UTC

BelenusMordred wrote: post #134

partingshots wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries are also getting cheaper and improving in capacity at immense rates too no? It seems like a double whammy against nuclear, unless there’s something I’m missing?

Average lifetime of those batteries are about 7 years before a full replacement. Everyone also seems to clearly ignore how detrimental they are to the environment. There's huge swathes of toxic wastelands created from mining the materials needed. So cost, lifecycle and externalised environmental damage is what I would say is missing here. https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/27/141282/the-25-tr... Late edit: Batt…

> Average lifetime of those batteries are about 7 years before a full replacement.

Based on what?

> Everyone also seems to clearly ignore how detrimental they are to the environment. There's huge swathes of toxic wastelands created from mining the materials needed.

Ah, you're one of those people.

Never mind, carry on.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#236

Post by belorn » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #201

hntrader wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"four times as expensive as wind" This isn't a valid comparison, since wind isn't capable of base load supply. You would need to factor in storage costs to make the comparison valid.

Here's a project that's supplying energy at $40/MWh *including storage costs* https://www.energy-storage.news/news/developer-8minute-says-...

That project is a great step forward to cutting the dependency on using fossil fuels as "reserve energy" for when demand exceeds what the grid of renewables can create. There are however some details to that design. The linked project storage is 75% capacity for 4 hours, and it usage is for solar and storage which has a daily charge and discharge cycle (customers will be daily buying the stored energy and thus repaying the storage investment on a predictable and daily basis).

In order for Germany to abandon the dependency of using fossil fuels for reserve energy the storage would need to have the capacity of the full grid, it would need to be able to last weeks, and the capacity of wind would need to be able to fill both the storage and grid demands at the same time.

If and people are willing to invest into wind power plants which overcapacity won't have a buyer but will simply be there in case the batteries need to be recharged, and people also investments into batteries which won't be discharged and generating revenue unless the weather makes wind production go below demand, then there exist a chance we can replace the fossil fueled based reserve energy with wind + storage.

Currently there does not seem to exist a single wind + storage project out there. I suspect the above economics is the reason for that.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#237

Post by lmm » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

lawrenceyan wrote: post #20

johncolanduoni wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could do just as badly and still have nowhere near as many deaths (including evacuation related deaths) as a single coal plant causes due to pollution.

I'm not a fan of having cancer rates rise either. I've stated this before, and I'll repeat it here: Solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro are more than enough to power the world. They're cheaper too.

Then how come we're still burning coal?

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#238

Post by belorn » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

lapinot wrote: post #178

cameldrv wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, but show your work. Nuclear gives us 24/7 reliable power. What is the cost comparison for renewables for the same product?

It's obvious that energy sources based on local meteo conditions don't have 24/7 reliability. The question is: how much of that reliability do we need? What would be possible if we did forgo some? Most of our industrial processes are optimized for pure efficiency (optimizing asymptotic behavior with no regard to constants), which is biased towards high-energy, constantly running chains and immense infrastructure. The…

> how much of that reliability do we need?

There are two guiding clues for that. One is to look at https://www.electricitymap.org/ranking and see how Germany is doing. One can derive the weather based on how brown the color is.

The second clue is energy prices swings more heavier as a country replaces nuclear with renewable. Heavy energy using industries can't double production when prices shrink by 50%, but they will stop production when costs exceed profits. This is already happening in Sweden when prices jumped by +70% this winter. It will be interesting to see what happens when the steel industry is becoming even more dependent on energy prices and will have to stop for weeks during the winter, and the effect that will have on employment contracts.

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#239

Post by konjin » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 2:21 AM UTC

jusssi wrote: post #57

konjin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the exclusion zone around Chernobyl has biodiversity higher than anywhere else in Europe. So even if nuclear power is as bad as hippies say it's still better for the environment than human civilization.

It seems that this is debatable, as a simple google search turns up completely opposite conclusions, such as this: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-10819027

Why not cite an actual paper instead of an interview with someone who 'feels their duty' is to tell us about the dangers of nuclear accidents?

>In contrast, our long-term empirical data showed no evidence of a negative influence of radiation on mammal abundance. Relative abundances of elk, roe deer, red deer and wild boar within the Chernobyl exclusion zone are similar to those in four (uncontaminated) nature reserves in the region and wolf abundance is more than 7 times higher. Additionally, our earlier helicopter survey data show rising trends in elk, roe deer and wild boar abundances from one to ten years post-accident. These results demonstrate for the first time that, regardless of potential radiation effects on individual animals, the Chernobyl exclusion zone supports an abundant mammal community after nearly three decades of chronic radiation exposures.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221...

Re: Why Nuclear Must Be Part Of The Energy Solution (2018)

#240

Post by sjwright » Tue, Mar 02, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #198

sjwright wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there’s a massive breakthrough in battery tech, the manufacturing of sufficient batteries would be a guaranteed environmental disaster.

Lithium mining has an impact similar to oil extraction. (On average -- oil sands and fracking are worse, conventional oil production is better). But since batteries can be used a few thousand times and then can be recycled efficiently, the volume required is a tiny fraction of the petroleum requirements. Other materials are used in even smaller quantities. Cobalt is a disaster, but grid batteries don't use cobalt, th…

I was speaking in absolute terms.

When speaking in relative terms to a newly built fossil fuel plant you are most likely correct. You'd be hard pressed to find a plausible source of energy that's worse for the environment (immediate AND long term) than burning dirty sequestered carbon sources like coal and oil.

When speaking in relative terms to a newly built nuclear plant—the context of my response—batteries would be significantly worse per KWh of baseload energy supplied.