Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 354 posts

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#321

Post by Manuel_D »

ghouse wrote: post #296
mrjangles wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something people get confused about. Grid scale batteries are definitely not cost effective or in existence. The media does their best to obfuscate this. What has been built around the places are battery packs to absorb dangerous power fluctuations caused by windmills. They destroyed the grid in South Australia a few years ago, and Elon Musk famously went in and installed batteries (maybe that is what you are…

> Grid scale batteries are definitely not cost effective or in existence. California has more than 1.5 GW of utility-scale chemical batteries interconnected to it's grid with another 1 GW anticipated to enter service by the end of the year. Most of these batteries can sustain full output for four hours. This is in addition to the more than 3.0 GW of pumped hydro "batteries." 1 GW is roughly the output of one nuclear…

1GW is roughly the output of one nuclear reactor (most plants have 2 or more) for one hour.

We'll need at least half a day's worth of storage, likely much more if we want to use wind for a significant portion of power generation.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#322

Post by natmaka »

moogly wrote: post #280
mrjangles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an excellent article written in Physics Today by a nuclear physicist once. For the life of me I have never been able to find it again. But he describes this in detail. Basically, in his description this is entirely due to the environmental movement. Any time a nuclear plant gets planned the green groups move in a mountain of lawyers and lock down the process for years and years. The costs this adds to the proj…

> In Europe, people have no problem building nuclear cheaply and on time Very much no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#... "The main contractor, Areva, is building the unit for a fixed price of €3 billion, so in principle, any construction costs above that price fall on Areva." [...] "The total cost of the project, therefore, is estimated to be €11 billion." Since it's hard for me to track…

China: overbudget and overdelay. Then a reactor leaked and was shutdown for maintenance.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/31/asia/taishan-nuclear-plan...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#323

Post by natmaka »

Bayart wrote: post #136
Krasnol wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Imports and exports help to smooth out the load curve, but I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. French net CO2 emissions remain stable and low the entire year, that's it. As far as I'm aware, heat waves have very little impact on nuclear energy production. Their impact on river temperatures is a few tenth of a degree and they can function on fairly high water…

> much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades

In 1999 a new reactor started in France (Civaux-2).

In 2005 a new building site started (at Olkiluoto, Finland).

Even by considering start dates (Civaux-2: 1991) and neglecting that skills are needed during the building (and not only when it started) they only are 14 years apart.

Moreover many skills are needed for the maintenance of the existing fleet (in France).

Olkiluoto was planned as soon as in 2000, when its builder Areva NP created an agency in Finland in order to sell the project.

Also: most skills (concrete, welding...) aren't completely specific to the nuclear industry: part of those are shared with many other fields.

How a huge and well-organized heavy industry which sells projects could let key skills evaporate in a few years (no, not 'decades')?

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#324

Post by natmaka »

NaNDude wrote: post #201
Krasnol wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tech…

> china EPRs which was similar but a lot less constrained was done in time

No, it was late and overbudget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Taishan_...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#325

Post by natmaka »

chelical wrote: post #181
sfifs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is socially and therefore politically non-viable because (1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech (2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to pre…

Does France not exist? Also Japan is already restarting its nuclear reactors because their projected emissions targets are impossible to hit without restarting the plants.

France: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29126898

Japan: in the past they invested in nuclear power, now they don't want it anymore BUT need gridpower and have no other way to obtain it than to (reluctantly) restart some reactors.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#326

Post by natmaka »

laurencerowe wrote: post #117
hilbert42 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the UK at least, it takes decades for planning permission and more decades for design, build, commissioning, and finally entry of a reactor into operational service." In France it's another matter altogether, there are nuclear power stations everywhere and about 70% of the country's energy comes from nuclear. (Years ago, during a conference I was at in Avignon we even had a tour of the nearby UF6 gaseous diffusio…

While it used to be a different matter in France, they last completed a reactor more than 30 years ago and the one currently being built is beset with the same time and cost overruns as those in the U.K. > A third reactor at the site, an EPR unit, began construction in 2007 with its commercial introduction scheduled for 2012. As of 2020 the project is more than five times over budget and years behind schedule. Variou…

The "decades lost between projects" is a fable, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29137107

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#327

Post by 7952 »

mrjangles wrote: post #278
7952 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are talking about is the marginal cost of producing an extra kWh of electricity. That does vary between different sources. For nuclear, solar and wind it is exceptionally low. For gas and coal it is higher due to fuel costs and market volatility (see gas prices now). A further factor is how quickly a generator can turn on, maintenance costs, and fuel efficiency. Also, different locations have better grid con…

While it's nice to believe that through the magic of the market, everything just evens out, a simple thought experiment easily shows this isn't the case. Take the simplest case and ignore CO2 and carbon tax for now. The base power stations have to be sufficient to supply the whole power grid when the wind doesn't blow, and the sun doesn't shine. Ok, so now imagine what happens if we simply remove all the solar panels…

You seem to be fixating on the word "market". I don't mean that in a liberal economic way. Electricity markets are natural monopolies and need intervention. That is what subsidies are. The energy markets let you bundle up different issues into a single price per kwh. But that doesn't always work. For example in the UK there are capacity markets that give fixed payments for reliable capacity. Most of which are fossil fuel power stations.

You are trying to simplify things too much. Unpicking a few factoids to make an argument. The advantage of this kind of energy market is that individual companies don't have to do that. Small developers don't need to worry about building backup for their solar panels. And nuclear power stations can take on a big risk. All bundles into the price.

But all this is specific to particular markets. No idea what is going on in the USA and as a European I assume it is probably a mess.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#328

Post by fsflover »

empthought wrote: post #291
fsflover wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Planes are socially and therefore politically non-viable because (1) When flight accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of cars (2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents…

Except plane casualties happen to the people actively opting into air travel; an individual choice can mitigate one's exposure to air travel risk. Not so nuclear accidents.

There is no practical risk in both cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Safety

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#329

Post by pvaldes »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #72
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 curre…

Yeah, we are unable to make a good product that is actually safe and to show a real sensible solution to deal with the residues, but lets undust again the stupid narrative of the big bad tree huggers. Yawn. Please cut the BS an don't blame other people for your own failures that are incredible expensive for everybody and erase the benefits.

It seems that in their strange world every citizen is either pro-nuclear or a hippie living in a caravan. This is not how they will sell it.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#330

Post by pydry »

Manuel_D wrote: post #321
ghouse wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Grid scale batteries are definitely not cost effective or in existence. California has more than 1.5 GW of utility-scale chemical batteries interconnected to it's grid with another 1 GW anticipated to enter service by the end of the year. Most of these batteries can sustain full output for four hours. This is in addition to the more than 3.0 GW of pumped hydro "batteries." 1 GW is roughly the output of one nuclear…

1GW is roughly the output of one nuclear reactor (most plants have 2 or more) for one hour . We'll need at least half a day's worth of storage, likely much more if we want to use wind for a significant portion of power generation.

I remember people saying something similar about the amount of deployed solar and wind shortly after it became cost competitive. There used to be a tiny amount deployed but it was the cheapest form of power.

Then over the course of a few years there was a lot.

All that really matters is A) is it cost effective B) will there be scaling problems C) will there be political impediments.

Post reply on HN