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Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#21

Post by nonethewiser »

jeffbee wrote: post #4

I know HN is just desperate for that i-told-you-so moment when fission rises from irrelevancy to save us all from climate change, but it's just not going to happen. Look at this figure [1]. The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects. And one big difference is the renewables are actually…

Wind and solar are fighting very hard to replace existing supply at a comparable cost. It's a luxury substitute. We need more supply for cheaper.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#22

Post by philwelch »

photochemsyn wrote: post #12

Funny article in that it doesn't discuss lifecycle costs. A side-by-side comparison of the cost of grids powered by nuclear power plant relative to those powered by wind/solar/storage is what I'd expect to see from a 'paper of record' like the NYTimes. Except in some specific cases (Finland, other Arctic regions with long periods of low sunlight) I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of w…

> ... I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of wind/solar/storage. Storage is the main cost barrier for 100% renewable-powered grids, but this is also an area where technological development is possible.

Sure, if you handwave the unsolved-at-scale technical problems with grid energy storage and make a series of generous assumptions about future technology, that's probably true. Nuclear technology has been up to the task for the past fifty years.

> Another factor that this article should have mentioned is the reliability of the global uranium ore -> fuel rods supply chain.

Seawater extraction is an option if that's ever a real concern, as is using breeder reactors to reprocess spent fuel. And the exact same issues apply to storage.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#23

Post by jeffbee »

rectang wrote: post #7
jeffbee wrote: post #4

I know HN is just desperate for that i-told-you-so moment when fission rises from irrelevancy to save us all from climate change, but it's just not going to happen. Look at this figure [1]. The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects. And one big difference is the renewables are actually…

Are there any Y Combinator companies who are invested in the advance of nuclear power?

There's Helion, a supposed fusion power company, but everything about it screams "fraud".

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#24

Post by VBprogrammer »

mikece wrote: post #9

I would love to see nuclear be far more of the base-load production in the US, but rather than large gigawatt-scale reactors I think it would benefit everyone more if we moved to using SMRs (small modular reactors). Not only could manufacturing economies of scale be realized but SMRs can passively cool themselves in the event they need to scram or shut down. The scenario that concerns me the most is a terrorist attac…

I think your perception of the risk from terrorist attack on a Nuclear power plant and the actual risk involved are out of whack. Especially given that human error is a much more likely source a radioactive leak.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#26

Post by philwelch »

nonethewiser wrote: post #13

Small distributed reactors sound great, but don't they exacerbate the waste disposal problem? I think the logistics and politics would be easier to manage if the waste production was highly centralized.

As long as the deployment of nuclear power is large and growing in scale, there's zero waste disposal problem, because all of the long-lived wastes can be reprocessed into fuel using breeder reactors.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#27

Post by mgfist »

jeffbee wrote: post #4

I know HN is just desperate for that i-told-you-so moment when fission rises from irrelevancy to save us all from climate change, but it's just not going to happen. Look at this figure [1]. The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects. And one big difference is the renewables are actually…

> The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects

Because the public has been anti nuclear energy for the past 4 decades.

> And one big difference is the renewables are actually built, while the fission projects never make progress.

Nuclear energy regulations are an absolute nightmare and make building anything virtually impossible.

You're not necessarily wrong with your point, but man the world would've been so much cleaner if we didn't abandon nuclear energy 40 years ago. Now that we've lost all expertise and have neglected research, yes it's very hard for nuclear energy to make a huge resurgence.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#28

Post by photochemsyn »

nonethewiser wrote: post #13

Small distributed reactors sound great, but don't they exacerbate the waste disposal problem? I think the logistics and politics would be easier to manage if the waste production was highly centralized.

I think the idea is that you'd have something like 10 100 MW reactors enclosed in a single facility rather than 1 1000 MW reactor in that facility. You'd probably put all the hot fuel rods in a single cooling pond in that scenario. Security for such a facility would be less expensive than having to manage 10 plants scattered acrooss a wide region, as well. Note that provision of cooling water is also a major issue in all these designs.

Whether or not this would be cheaper overall is anyone's guess. There are also questions about the reliability and efficiency of small modular reactors in general; past novel nuclear reactor designs like the pebble-bed reactor were similarly promoted but never went anywhere.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#29

Post by adrianN »

nonethewiser wrote: post #17
photochemsyn wrote: post #12

Funny article in that it doesn't discuss lifecycle costs. A side-by-side comparison of the cost of grids powered by nuclear power plant relative to those powered by wind/solar/storage is what I'd expect to see from a 'paper of record' like the NYTimes. Except in some specific cases (Finland, other Arctic regions with long periods of low sunlight) I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of w…

Sunlight and wind distribution is quite uneven.

Uranium ore distribution is also quite uneven. Fossil fuel distribution is also quite uneven.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#30

Post by ZetaZero »

nonethewiser wrote: post #21
jeffbee wrote: post #4

I know HN is just desperate for that i-told-you-so moment when fission rises from irrelevancy to save us all from climate change, but it's just not going to happen. Look at this figure [1]. The amount of proposed solar and wind and battery projects in the United States at the end of 2021 was 1000s of time larger than the amount of proposed nuclear power projects. And one big difference is the renewables are actually…

Wind and solar are fighting very hard to replace existing supply at a comparable cost. It's a luxury substitute. We need more supply for cheaper.

Is Nuclear cheaper?
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