Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#201

Post by NaNDude » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:26 AM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #120

stjohnswarts wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

> We know the French model works really well It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. It's so fantastic that every summer they have to buy dirty coal energy from Germany because their rivers get too hot and every winter because...it's too cold and their agein…

looks like you missed the most important part of your own source : "Atomic power from France’s 58 reactors accounts for over 75 percent of its electricity needs. Available nuclear power supply was down 1.4 percentage points at 65.3% of total capacity compared with Wednesday."

this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_.

a large part of the EPR slowdown in fr is due to security concern that changed while the project was already started, china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time.

on the price: 25% of the energy produced by nuclear in fr is sold under the market price to private retailers because of anti-monopolistic EU laws and stupidity of our governement. the electricity price in EU is usualy indexed on the worst gaz plant available, with the actual price of gaz raising and all of the 25% already acquired, a lot of them are just closing.

given those constrains, yes this model works more than well...

the project to close "50%" (in fact 15 reactors) until 2030 is another political subject which will probably never become a reality given that most renewable alternatives projects end up being blocked/hated everywhere.

funny fact: replacing ALL the current transport and electric energy supply in fr by wind turbines has been evaluated to require one of the most efficient available turbine for each km² on ALL the french territory...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#202

Post by portpecos » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:26 AM UTC

shirro wrote: post #199

stjohnswarts wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Hedging bets is fine but there is a lot of money and influence using nuclear to muddy the climate debate and reframe the the issue as nuclear power vs greens/environmentalists. People should be aware of how the debate is being manipulated by fossil fuel apologists/lobbyists. The moment people blame things on tree huggers they have fallen into the trap. Tree huggers are not the problem. The problem is carbon emissions…

>The moment people blame things on tree huggers

https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazin...

The late 1960s through 1980s saw a shift in the antinuclear movement toward protesting the development of nuclear power as an energy source. The antinuclear movement succeeded in virtually halting the governments' development of nuclear power.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#203

Post by opo » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

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…

Cost should always be a consideration, but when you see people conveniently ignore some costs and focus on others, it does a disservice to the goal of decarbonizing the grid and it isn't clear what they are really trying to accomplish.

The levelized cost for residential rooftop solar is about as high as nuclear, but that cost doesn't seem to matter to some advocates and they continue to strongly support subsidizing it. Why is that?

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2020

The potential costs for renewables + storage is about the cost of nuclear, but that cost also doesn't matter to some advocates. (If grid storage was cheap, we would have built it decades ago.)

Some advocates recommend massively overbuilding solar or wind to deal with seasonal differences. This is obviously at least a direct cost multiplier but that doesn't seem to matter to some advocates.

Advocates also describe how we will rebuild the electrical grid to move vast amounts of solar or wind power across the USA. This will not be cheap, simple or easy to protect against terrorism. Even the relatively small proposed Tres Amigas super station hasn’t been completed yet. The potential costs don't seem to matter to some advocates for some reason.

Some advocates for renewables seem happy with relying on natural gas peaker plants to get around the costs of building grid storage, but methane is a very potent GHG in the short term. (There are lots of atmospheric losses in the capture and distribution of natural gas.) No one concerned about climate change seriously thinks that burning natural gas is a long term answer.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#204

Post by coryrc » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:30 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #128

stjohnswarts wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. We need different nuclear reactors, fast reactors or thorium that use uranium more efficiently to stave this off, but they're more dangerous and sti…

You don't spend money proving new reserves when you have eighty years worth.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#205

Post by sandworm101 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #128

stjohnswarts wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 curre…

Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. We need different nuclear reactors, fast reactors or thorium that use uranium more efficiently to stave this off, but they're more dangerous and sti…

>> we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. Then the price will skyrocket

This has already been addressed. Natural uranium can be gathered from seawater at about 2 to 5x the current cost. Considering how small fuel costs are in nuclear, that isn't much of a problem. And the amount available from all the world's oceans is orders of magnitude greater than that available from terrestrial mines. Even if we start extracting vast quantities from seawater some believe that more will be leached from rock, renewing the supply.

https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-extrac...

https://cna.ca/2016/07/27/theres-uranium-seawater-renewable/

"The advances by PNNL and ORNL have reduced the cost of extraction by a factor of four in just 5 years, but the cost is still about $200/lb compared to traditional uranium mining which ranges between $10 and $120/lb."

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#206

Post by another_story » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

portpecos wrote: post #202

shirro wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hedging bets is fine but there is a lot of money and influence using nuclear to muddy the climate debate and reframe the the issue as nuclear power vs greens/environmentalists. People should be aware of how the debate is being manipulated by fossil fuel apologists/lobbyists. The moment people blame things on tree huggers they have fallen into the trap. Tree huggers are not the problem. The problem is carbon emissions…

>The moment people blame things on tree huggers https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazin... The late 1960s through 1980s saw a shift in the antinuclear movement toward protesting the development of nuclear power as an energy source. The antinuclear movement succeeded in virtually halting the governments' development of nuclear power.

How does one manage to stop nuclear energy but not fossil fuel use? These are arguably the same sorts of groups, with probably a large overlap. How did they have such power in one area, but not in another? If there is lack of lobbyist or industry pressure pushing for it, then we have to wonder why? Nuclear isn't cost effective as a business is the likely answer, and under our current system that drives most of the decisions.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#207

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:40 AM UTC

sfifs wrote: post #193

throwoutway wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy) Then perhaps the US Navy and their US Navy Corps of Engineers need to be tasked with building & maintaining a system of land-based reactors

Yes in retrospect this was definitely a missed opportunity to not put Rickover's org in charge of civillian reactors. But then the problwm outside US would persist. However trust is now lost, will be very difficult ro regain

Rickover was in charge of developing Shippingport, the USA's first terrestrial nuclear power plant. After that, it was largely necessary to pass things over to the private sector because of capitalism.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#208

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

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…

Shoot, Germany's Energiewende was designed as a denuclearization from the start. It was the primary goal. Climate concerns came later.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energiewende#The_term_Energiew...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#209

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:44 AM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #103

mrjangles wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thos…

What costs aren't being paid for exactly?

The ones that ensure with several 9's that the lights come on 24/7 regardless of time of day or weather. LCOE covers the generator alone, but not transmission lines, idled gas plants, energy storage, smart load balancing, etc.

You can keep big gas plants around in a high intermittent grid and fire them up 10% of the time. The way we view LCOE right now, those plants would be insanely expensive while wind/solar would be super cheap. But we would still pay for the backup capacity. This kind of system cost is what matters dramatically more than LCOE.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#210

Post by coryrc » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #103

mrjangles wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thos…

What costs aren't being paid for exactly?

Grid stability/storage, plus sunk costs.

Say it's a cold cloudy day with no wind and it's been so for a week. You'll need the capacity of that coal/nuclear plant those days. And let's say every other day of the year solar and wind make enough power. So who pays the extremely high fixed cost of the nuclear and coal plant so it's available that one week you need it? No one wants to, so they're shutting them down. The power company could still be paying the bond for the plant, but ultimately that's the consumer's money. Then, surprise, you end up with blackouts or you pay for new natural gas plants to be built. Prices and fragility go up.

It's likely cheaper to make demand more flexible, but that has a cost too.