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Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

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Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#71

Post by rsj_hn »

natmaka wrote: post #52
m0zg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, you can't "believe in climate change" and be against the cleanest, most abundant energy source we have: nuclear. It's just not a logically consistent position, a litmus test to determine if one's environmental advocacy is real or merely performative. That is why China has announced they're building 150 new nuclear reactors in the next 15 years. The US will _inevitably_ have to follow suit to remain competitive.

China: * 50GW nuclear already in place, producing 5% of the gridpower. Previsions: up to 200GW in 2030. * 790GW renewables already in place, producing 26% of the gridpower. Previsions: 1200GW in 2030. In 2020 alone China added 71.6GW of windpower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China

> In 2020 alone China added 71.6GW of windpower.

The problem here is that China's share of total energy from renewables has decreased from about 33% in 1990 to 13% in 2018[1].

Solar and Wind are not particularly useful given they are unreliable. Hydro is useful as it is reliable, but after the three gorges dam project, there isn't a lot left on the table in terms of hydro for China.

Note that this is not because China is reducing renewables but rather it's energy needs are increasing so rapidly.

And 58% of China's energy usage - 74 Terrawatt hours - is from coal, and that number is increasing -- 220 million more tons of coal being added just this year[2]

[1] https://www.worlddata.info/asia/china/energy-consumption.php

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-coal/chinas-coal-consu...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#72

Post by stjohnswarts »

shirro wrote: post #40

Nuclear is one of a number of alternatives that needs to be seriously considered but due to the long timelines and high costs of nuclear it is also one of the best stalling tactics for the fossil fuel industry seeking to extend the life of their assets. Possible increased adoption of nuclear in the future is not a reason to avoid setting sunset dates for emitting technologies now and commence transition to whatever l…

We can't afford to wait or not to hedge our bets. Nuclear is a hell of a hedge since we know it works. We know the French model works really well, but for some reason we, the country with the most heavily armed forces in the world, can't "protect" it. BS, moneyed interests and tree huggers are keeping us from fixing the problem until fusion comes along or uber cheap battery density 100x better than what we have currently comes along.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#73

Post by KarlKemp »

corban1 wrote: post #56
KarlKemp wrote: post #35

The International Monetary Fond, not known to be populated by treehugging hippies with naturalistic fallacies as a major character trait, published this beautiful graph: https://blogs.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/eng-april-4... Nuclear now costs three times as much as solar & wind! And that data ist from 2017. Both technologies are also not showing any slowdown in improvements, while nuclear tends to get more e…

So you are comparing two energy sources, one that provides constant power 99.999% of the time and one that provides volatile power ~35% (if best) of the time? These price graphs hide the obvious fact. Normalize solar and power by adding the price to make the source constant(shitload of ESS maybe?) and removing government incentives.

Yeah, I, too, read slashdot when those arguments were still current. Now, they just aren’t. The stats above are already levelized. The change in output is also smaller than what people believe: with solar and gas as two independent systems, some improvements to interconnects to allow averaging over larger regions, smart devices on the consumer side picking the right times to recharge (and maybe even de-charge when it’s useful), and the improvements in battery tech, the path is all but inevitable.

It also wasn’t solar or wind power that lead to blackouts in France last summer, but nuclear plants that ran out of cooling opportunities because the rivers they use were overheating. And in Texas, it was natural gas that failed.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#75

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

sebow wrote: post #36
gefhfff wrote: post #14

Not true, it's too late for nuclear power. Additionally it is quite expensive compared to renewables and makes the burden on future generations even bigger. Anyway, don't shut down any working plant early... We need everything we have atm

More expensive?Yeah, probably, because the alarmist message about nuclear has been the rhetoric for decades.I would argue nuclear is greener, yes, than some renewable sources like wind/solar (of whom the effects to our atmosphere and fauna are still vastly ignored or not documented enough). Many people focus on carbon or some other element that in vast amounts is damaging to our climate, but forget the fact that anim…

You're very welcome to argue that renewables are less green than nukes, but you're going to have a hard time backing up your argument with independent research, because the facts argue against you.

As for animals etc undoing the effects of pollution "in some cases" - some practical examples would be helpful, because I suspect most people have never heard of any examples that aren't trivial or anecdotal.

The whole point of zero carbon is literally to keep the planet as hospitable to life as possible. Your vague argument about... something is the exact opposite of the point here.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#76

Post by stjohnswarts »

godelski wrote: post #21
TheDudeMan wrote: post #9

California is prematurely closing its perfectly good nuclear reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#Clos...

What I don't understand from these groups is why they don't go after nuclear _after_ coal, natural gas, and oil are gone from the grid. There are arguments against nuclear, but they aren't that great when there are still fossil fuel plants operating. Also, a pet peeve of mine is when people say "replacing nuclear with zero-carbon sources" (as per the wiki article). That doesn't exist. There's energy sources that have…

Russia essentially has Europe right where it wants it with natural gas because Europe is closing all their coal plants. I really don't want that in the USA. I want us to be domestic energy only, nuclear, solar, and wind mix makes the most sense by far until real Fusion comes along if we are really serious about the climate.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#77

Post by KarlKemp »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #69
KarlKemp wrote: post #35

The International Monetary Fond, not known to be populated by treehugging hippies with naturalistic fallacies as a major character trait, published this beautiful graph: https://blogs.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/eng-april-4... Nuclear now costs three times as much as solar & wind! And that data ist from 2017. Both technologies are also not showing any slowdown in improvements, while nuclear tends to get more e…

I think it's misleading to compare peak nuclear generation against peak solar/wind- in order to be comparable with nuclear's baseload, renewables need to be built in conjunction with a boatload of batteries. Otherwise you just end up burning fossil fuels at night time.

It’s not comparing peak-to-peak. That’s what “levelized” means. It’s price per actual megawatthour produced.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#78

Post by mrjangles »

elihu wrote: post #50

I'd be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper, that's what's going to get built. Also, renewables don't require a high degree of trust in the human operators to manage risks appropriately. I think that's really the main sticking point with nuclear; reliable reactors can be made, but how do you manage the humans who maintain the plants in a way that's not susceptible to corru…

Solar, wind plus batteries (and other intermittent sources) are only cheaper because it is subsidized by the base power stations.

Only about 20% of the cost of coal and 5% of nuclear comes from the fuel. Almost all costs are fixed costs. They need to be paid regardless of whether people use the power or not. But in the current system, those who use solar or wind and only use base power occasionally aren't paying those costs. Instead everyone else has to cover those costs, which is why the price of electricity skyrockets wherever there are more 'renewable' (or specifically, 'intermittent') sources.

This is why electricity costs 10c per kwh in many parts of the US, but 40c per kwh in European countries with lots of windmills.

basically it is a huge market distortion. The real cost of base power is a fixed yearly fee to get access, then 2c per kwh after that (i.e the 20% fuel cost). If this is what was charged no one would use wind or solar at all. (or you would have people using solar but disconnected from the grid, which would be great too).

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#79

Post by fastball »

pirate787 wrote: post #65
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is more expensive mostly because the government creates economic incentives for renewables, and disencentivises nuclear. Politicians act this way because public was taught by the militant ecoactivists that nuclear energy is baaaaaaad (better use coal, right), and now vote against politicians that support it.

The Fukushima disaster was a stark lesson that had nothing to do with "militant ecoactivists".

How so? The Fukushima (nuclear) disaster killed a single person (and then that was a legal finding, not a scientific one).

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#80

Post by stjohnswarts »

elihu wrote: post #66
ekianjo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> d be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper Cost is not just a single factor. Energy density is very important too. Solar farms take huge amounts of space to produce very little energy compared to a nuclear plant.

Solar farms can be pretty big, but we have the space for it. If you look at a map of the United States, there's a lot of land in the Southwest that gets a lot of sunlight and isn't usable for growing crops. It's an ecosystem, and anything that intrudes on that ecosystem will be somewhat disruptive, but as long as reasonable care is taken I don't see it as a problem to use a smallish fraction of that land for solar pr…

Not all of the United States is in the southwest, and why should the southwest destroy all their natural environments to power the rest of the rest of the country over lossy power lines when local nuclear could do it?
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