511–520 of 672 posts
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Trade is not bad?
Trade is not bad. Saying you don't have a use for nuclear and then using it anyways while badmouthing it is bad.
The Lazard report cited is two years old. There’s an updated version here: https://www.lazard.com/media/451881/lazards-levelized-cost-o... Better visualization of the key chart here: https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2022/~/media/Im...
Nuclear energy costs about $170/MWh, coal about $100 and solar/wind about $50/MWh.
For comparison, the average price of electricity in the US in 2021 was $140/MWh.
It's almost guaranteed that in 2022 it will be much higher, because the jump in price of both natural gas and coal.
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Germany could have cancelled their nuclear shutdown process. But saving face is more important than Ukrainian lives.
> saving face is more important [for Germany] than Ukrainian lives. I understand that the propaganda works, but lets not fall in the error of blaming Germany for this war. Germany are victims in this situation, not aggressors. This narrative just divert the focus from the only responsible. Paying somebody for a product will not force him/her to invest the money in crimes. Russia could have spent this money in buying…
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Small modular reactors don’t actually solve any significant issues for the nuclear industry. Construction costs are dwarfed by operating costs and the idea that N small reactors with N times as many parts will somehow require less maintenance is wishful thinking. They very well could be slightly cheaper over the first 15 years, but nuclear reactors are designed for ~50 year lifespans and are really expensive to decom…
Most SMR are sealed designs that can't be opened before their 20 year lifetime is over.
It’s the same thing with steam turbines, they last a long time but not 50 years. So initially they are part of construction costs but eventually they are part of maintenance costs.
Essentially 50 years is used because cooling towers, buildings, plumbing, etc can last at least that long so decommissioning early is a waste. But eventually repair or replacement gets too expensive.
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France doesn't accept EU law supremacy either despite being a founding member.
EU law is always supreme. If a law in France violates EU law, then any foreign EU national in France with standing can use French courts to have the law annulled. > The revolutionary case of NV Algemene Transport-Expedite Onderneming Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (9), addressed this matter, but also the issue of supremacy. In regard to Article 12 EEC (now Article 30 TFEU), The ECJ held…
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I think you would benefit from reading TFA. It looks at the actual operating costs of current designs and the dropping price of renewables and points out that the fundamental economics of the nuclear industry are not great right now. It also points out that most of the high-priced daytime usage is about to be scooped up by renewables. This may or may not be fatal to the nuclear industry, but it points to the need for…
Sorry. Largest power density is still in the atom. Can't work your magic around this. The only reasonable and sane strategy is to R&D around nuclear. Whoever gets it right will rule, the others will be ruled. Not single bubble kept its integrity; renewables will burst as well.
Yes, it makes sense to focus some R&D on nuclear. However after seven decades, it would seem that an alternative to turbines is not so straightforward. The alternatives mentioned in the article are at least a decade (and probably much more) away from commercial use. Even then the other overheads would remain.
As with many engineering problems, an apparently decisive advantage can be overwhelmed by secondary effects.
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The whole argument about base supply (not load), only made sense in the old times when there were expensive variable supplies which could quickly follow load, and cheap base supplies which would run constantly at the same output (typically coal, nuclear...). The situation completely changed now the highly variable loads are cheaper now than the former base supplies. So you would always use your money to overbuild on…
It seems unreasonable to think that wind and solar could be overbuilt to an extent they could serve as a sole supply. Everyone has had the experience of walking around on a windless night. You can have many such nights in a row.
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It seems strange to me that they'd want that rather than finding out up-front before they spent a much greater amount of money actually building something which might be rejected.
They do want that. The guys didn't want blid acceptance, just doing this in stages so that they can focus on the things that might need improvement.
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The other aspect of the Ukraine war used for advocating for nuclear, which the nuclear proponents like to omit is that 25% of European uranium comes from Russia, so Europe's dependence on Russia is even stronger for Uranium than for gas. It's simply dishonest to use the current situation as an argument for nuclear. If anything it shows that we should have invested into renewables much more strongly, but nuclear propo…
> so Europe's dependence on Russia is even stronger for Uranium than for gas I’d argue that it’s not about % coming from Russia that reflects dependence, it’s how easy you could switch to another supplier. How difficult would it be to find a different provider for that Uranium?