301–310 of 709 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The other issue with solar/wind of course being that it’s not a suitable electricity source for base load on a grid :-/
Of course it is, with suitable storage. And probably cheaper than nuclear for that. https://model.energy/
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 t…
At least for solar, that comparison is specious. It would be like separately counting each rod or even each pellet of nuclear fuel in a reactor's core, and using that as an argument against nuclear power. It makes more sense to compare whole solar power plants, not individual panels. From a quick look at the data for my country, most solar power plants have over 20 MW output each, and they are in facilities with 3-10 solar power plants. Looking at the same data source, wind also seems to use a similar grouping here (power plants containing several turbines with a total output over 20MW, then grouped into facilities with 3-10 power plants).
> 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.
Cost is not the only argument. If you want to make it quickly, construction time is just as important, and nuclear loses badly here (though I might be a bit biased on that, since the latest reactor being built near where I live has been under construction for decades, with no end in sight). Solar and to a lesser extent wind have the advantage of simplicity and modularity, which tend to not only reduce the cost, but also enable them to be built quicker and in parallel, and make them much less risky to build; if one out of ten 20 MW solar power plants being built hits a problem, you still have the other nine, but if your single 1350 MW reactor being built since the 1980s hits some unexpected problem, you have nothing.
As for the level of regulation, it's an unavoidable consequence of how dangerous nuclear fuel (and the materials and fluids irradiated by it in the reactor core) is; you have to make sure it stays contained, so that a nuclear power plant is as safe as (or even safer than) other kinds of power plant. But that's not the whole reason for the high cost; there's the complexity of the reactor itself (including materials which can resist the radiation), and nuclear power plants tend to use things like a single hydrogen-cooled gigawatt-power turbine for each reactor core. Just the electrical infrastructure (transformers, circuit breakers, etc) which can deal with gigawatt levels of power at once is already costly.
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> We need the very fastest ways to reduce carbon generation Why does Germany performs abysmally wrt. electrical production carbon intensity despite having enough wind/solar installed capacity to cover their consumption?
Yeah, it’s nice how he just glosses over the impact of subsidies for wind and solar. We could power the whole grid with wood stoves and steam turbines with big enough subsidies. The fact that a heavily subsidized energy production method outperforms a heavily regulated and unsubsidized one shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.
Subsidies are now mostly about solar vs wind. See for example the discussion in [2] about the tax credits and their effects on solar vs wind builds in the US (note that tariffs on solar panels from China offset some of these subsidies). Also note that they are tax credits, so somewhat different to a direct subsidy payment.
Most (non-coal) power generation has tax credits as a subsidy. [3] outlines the tax credit subsidies for the new nuclear plants in Georgia, as well as other subsidies including loan guarantees.
[1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
[2] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php
[3] https://www.georgiapower.com/company/plant-vogtle/vogtle-new...
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…
This presupposes that economics are the most important thing. That isn't really the case. It doesn't matter how much money you have when the climate burns to the ground around you, while energy sources that work when they want to fail to provide for your needs.
Moreover because nuclear is so CAPEX driven both in cost and CO2 budget, it takes a long time to become carbon positive. So we would actually increase CO2 in the short term by building nuclear power plants.
So the best current strategy is to build up renewables to replace fossil as quick as possible, keep existing nuclear running, and develop storage. If the current trends of the cost for solar and wind continue, we might not even need much storage because building overcapacity is so cheap.
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Rio Doce was 43.7 million cubic metres and 18 deaths. If someone blows up Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, it'll be about 18e9 m3, hundreds of thousands dead, wholesale destruction of everything downstream, shutdown of every energy plant that uses the resevoir for cooling, not to mention the hydroelectic station, and untold damage when winds blow the exposed sediment all over the steppe. Which is one of the most productive a…
> This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target Not under the Geneva Convention "Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population." https://ihl…
More sanctions? Direct military action against a major (or any) nuclear power? Condemnation and isolation for decades or longer?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it is, with suitable storage. And probably cheaper than nuclear for that. https://model.energy/
I don't really want wind turbines and solar panels to cover the whole planet. I used that to calculate some numbers for canada, and we'd need about 64k average offshore wind turbines, and 3200 square kilometers of solar farms.
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The cost goes up a bit when you augment solar/wind with enough storage to make it always available. But it's not enough to save nuclear. Of course it's about cost, the cost of achieving that availability. Oh, I see. You are somehow imagining that storage cannot exist. Please stop.
Oh, I see. You are handwaving away the nonexistent storage tech required to stand up a power grid. Please stop. The fact is that without inventing new storage tech, which might or might not be possible, the only options for powering the world are nuclear or burning more carbon. Personally, I'd rather humans still have a viable habitat in a century.
This isn't true.
If you accept 5% non-renewable power generation (which - lets face it - will be with us for a while!) you need storage at $150/kWh to use renewables for everything else[1].
This price is available now (and forecast to drop below $100/kWh next year)[2].
[1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30300-9
[2] https://about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-below-...
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Wind and solar coupled with energy storage systems, all of which have been plunging in price like a rock over the last twenty years.
What large scale energy storage systems are in operation today, or even ready to be rolled out? I quote myself under another of your comment: > Why does Germany performs abysmally wrt. electrical production carbon intensity despite having enough wind/solar installed capacity to cover their consumption?
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And again, the article does the same mistake they always do: attack wind and solar more than fossil or hydro. Instead of selling nuclear as the ideal companion to solar, it's always a sad try to convince us that we are wrong investing in solar and eolic, and the money should be going to more nuclear. My guess is that utilities are not happy with the decentralization of PV. They like fossils, hydro and nuclear because…
Ironically, to me their best play is to board the renewable train as a base load alternative to storage, which is not yet mature.
Carbon capture from gas natural gas (also an alternative that exists today) is another technology you’d have to bet won’t become economically feasible by the time your nuclear power plant finally becomes operational.
Honestly a base-load alternative is not such a strong argument in favor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rio Doce was 43.7 million cubic metres and 18 deaths. If someone blows up Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, it'll be about 18e9 m3, hundreds of thousands dead, wholesale destruction of everything downstream, shutdown of every energy plant that uses the resevoir for cooling, not to mention the hydroelectic station, and untold damage when winds blow the exposed sediment all over the steppe. Which is one of the most productive a…
> This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target Not under the Geneva Convention "Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population." https://ihl…
Couple of 1000lb bombs misplaced, some confusion and you can't stop it, only watch. Has to be a very unfortunate hit, but shit happens.
Compared to that, the Zaporoshya nuclear plant will just shut down as designed even if hit in all its reactors; release maybe a week's worth radiation, completely harmless, and then sit still. And it's just upstream.
Think about it.
So-called 'green energy' bears so much more hazards.