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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#191

Post by tjmc »

joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

> 2. A nuclear reactor cannot be shipped, it has to be build on site.

Does it? This is the premise behind NuScale's modular SMRs. https://www.nuscalepower.com/technology/fabrication-and-asse...

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#192

Post by addicted »

jaredklewis wrote: post #187
joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

Oil refineries also take years to build and are built on site. The difference is that oil goes onto open markets and it is thus possible for oil refiners to get a return on their investment. We don’t need innovation in nuclear. The nuclear technology we have today is already a miracle technology. Can’t speak to Europe but in the US the issue absolutely is regulation. The exact regulations vary by state, but energy gr…

Oil is the incumbent with vast majorities of the costs already sunk. As a result it’s cheaper (there’s also massive geo political aspects where certain countries entirely depend on selling it so will try to make it work no matter what).

That’s why the best thing that can happen for nuclear is a carbon tax/alternative carbon pricing system, that has sources like oil paying all their costs, including externalities they offload to everyone else.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#193

Post by m2fkxy »

afterburner wrote: post #188
joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

I'm glad this kind of comment is floating to the top of these threads now, instead of the straw man arguments more commonly propagated in the past which consisted of blaming "fear". It's always been $money$. Let's spend the money on the better alternative sources wherever we can. If nothing else, we will see the benefits faster, which is now an even more critical factor than ever as feet have been dragged for decades…

What are better solutions for low-carbon, dispatchable, high power electrical energy generation?

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#194

Post by afterburner »

timr wrote: post #56
anonporridge wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few good arguments against nuclear, especially large installations that produce a huge percentage of a region's power. Even if you can design it in such a way that an external attack is very unlikely to cause a meltdown, it's a juicy and easy target for an adversary to cripple your electricity production. A few dozen well placed missiles might be all you need to take an entire nation that's heavily…

> it's a juicy and easy target for an adversary to cripple your electricity production. A few dozen well placed missiles might be all you need to take an entire nation that's heavily nuclear dependent to its knees. This is true for any other system of centralized energy production, including, notably, the one we have right now.

Note that we actually have wind and solar right now.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#195

Post by indymike »

vlunkr wrote: post #78

Really interesting to see how much people fight nuclear power. We’ve been complaining about fossil fuels for decades, and now that the US seems to be seriously exploring a viable alternative you’re going to complain about it? I get that there are issues and unknowns, but it’s better than the current death march, isn’t it?

> I get that there are issues and unknowns, but it’s better than the current death march, isn’t it?

This is really what the whole argument boils down to: nuclear, or global warming. There's really not real, feasible renewable answer. It takes over 1300 wind turbines to match the power output of a single reactor. Solar? 1-3 Million panels. Most civilian facilities operate 3-6 reactors. Fission is the only technology that can make a dent in co2 emissions quickly. The only viable argument against nuclear is "cost" and that is only because of the ridiculous level of regulation and litigation surrounding nuclear power.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#196

Post by brutusborn »

crmd wrote: post #47

The most interesting thing in the article for me was that the 250 reactors needed to power Europe would produce 1.3 cubic kilometers of nuclear waste per year. That’s actually way more waste volume than I assumed. I wonder what the figure is for the United States.

I couldn't find that number. Is it hidden in the figures or did you calculate it off something?

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#197

Post by tcfhgj »

credit_guy wrote: post #177
kitkat_new wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sense (or at least not in the next 30 years). where's your crystal ball?

It's just math. If you have a storage solution where you can recoup you capital costs by charging every day and selling electricity every night, you will recoup only one hundredth of that if you charge one day and sell 100 days later. Currently the capital costs of batteries add a few cents to the kWh (the average price of 1 kWh in the US in 2021 was 14 cents). If you multiply that number by one hundred, you end up w…

Logical fallacy: Every storage technology is scaled up/down linearly in terms of cost from a daily to monthly or even higher cycle

Another thing: Demand based power consumption

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#198

Post by afterburner »

vlunkr wrote: post #78

Really interesting to see how much people fight nuclear power. We’ve been complaining about fossil fuels for decades, and now that the US seems to be seriously exploring a viable alternative you’re going to complain about it? I get that there are issues and unknowns, but it’s better than the current death march, isn’t it?

> and now that the US seems to be seriously exploring a viable alternative

This phrase sounds weird to me, given that US explored nuclear power more than 50 years ago, and is also exploring other viable alternatives now (wind and solar).

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#199

Post by addicted »

trashtester wrote: post #123
cesarb wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure I believe the reason people worry less about hydroelectric dam failures is because, if they fail, they do not leave behind a contaminated area. Besides, it's just water; many people are used to floods caused by…

> many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar. I don't know what "people feel", but the reality of a large dam that is blown up is more like a tsunami than a normal flood. If it hits a city, casualties can easily reach the 10s or 100s of thousands, instantly. In a way, an upstream dam is a health hazard for anyone in the area that might be flooded that should be concerning at the…

For a busted dam to destroy a city, the city necessarily would have been built on land that was literally underwater until before the dam.

This isn’t common, to say the least.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#200

Post by krupan »

addicted wrote: post #189
joak wrote: post #165

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks. However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dyn…

Nuclear projects globally aren’t collapsing because they aren’t “green”. They’ve been collapsing because of the economics despite green subsidies. And where they have succeeded they’re charging customers a lot more money than equivalent solar and wind alternatives have. This is the problem that needs to be solved. And it’s not clear to me how it gets resolved in a much higher cost of borrowing environment than what w…

Is there really a place where there is equivalent power from solar and/or wind alone?
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