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China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

johnmenadue.com

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Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#11

Post by robertlagrant »

TeeMassive wrote: post #3

I've always found these articles about China adopting green policies and shifting its industries towards green energy sources to be suspicious. If they were true then why are China's emission ever increasing year after year: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china If their share of renewables / nuclear energy were increasing then there would be a decrease in C02 emissions per capita, but that has never been the…

> If their share of renewables / nuclear energy were increasing then there would be a decrease in C02 emissions per capita

This seems a bit obvious to say, but that wouldn't be the case if the standard of living were also being raised. Also, there's a huge amount of CO2 generated by non-energy means; e.g. building with concrete.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#13

Post by MostlyStable »

aurareturn wrote: post #2

On HN, there are a lot of nuclear proponents. Any comments from them on this article? Just curiosity from me because I don't know much about this topic.

its short and mostly just a description of whats happening. Not much to comment on. Except for the last sentence that says that nuclear "can't" compete with renewables.

Firstly, it's actually competing with coal, which is what is going in instead, and secondly, any regulatory regime that slows nuclear deployment so much that you instead install coal is deeply, deeply flawed. Nuclear is orders of magnitude more safer than coal, and has been for 50+ years. They need to figure out which roadblocks are slowing it down and remove them.

Regulation is a choice. Sometimes it's a very good choice. But if your options are "highly regulated nuclear" and "coal", then you have made some poor regulatory choices.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#14

Post by spacebanana7 »

tomohawk wrote: post #8

China is building a lot of coal power plants. https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-new-coal-po... And industrializaing vast swaths of land by covering it with solar panels. https://www.facebook.com/XinhuaSciTech/videos/solar-panels-o...

Coal has excellent politics, especially in India & China.

It’s mineable almost everywhere people live, is burdened by little international regulation (at least compared to nuclear), and is labour intensive enough to create powerful local advocates.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#15

Post by socks »

TeeMassive wrote: post #3

I've always found these articles about China adopting green policies and shifting its industries towards green energy sources to be suspicious. If they were true then why are China's emission ever increasing year after year: https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china If their share of renewables / nuclear energy were increasing then there would be a decrease in C02 emissions per capita, but that has never been the…

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-dominates-rene...

"There is also a caveat to China's rapid build-out of renewable capacity because at the same time it is still adding substantial coal-fired generation."

"China already accounts for 53% of the world's 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world."

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#16

Post by pfdietz »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #10

It’s very difficult to estimate the true cost of nuclear power because so many resources are spent on safety features rather than the basic stuff essential to power generation. New construction cost per energy out can vary by 5x, even against the grain of expected purchasing power parity advantages: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-britain-is-building-...

Safety features aren't essential to power generation?

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#17

Post by pfdietz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5
aurareturn wrote: post #2

On HN, there are a lot of nuclear proponents. Any comments from them on this article? Just curiosity from me because I don't know much about this topic.

Nuclear is slower and more expensive to deploy than solar or wind. Nobody should dispute that. We should deploy the latter as quickly as possible. In addition , we should build nuclear plants, certainly until we’ve phased out coal and oil for primary generation. The article describes China scaling back new plants at a slower pace—about 5 a year instead of ten–but that’s still a multiple of anything we’re doing.

The analysis I've seen doesn't support the position we should also be deploying nuclear. We come out ahead rolling out renewables and storage as fast as possible, driving these technologies down their experience curves. Any new nuclear added will likely close early when it can't even make an operating profit.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#18

Post by janalsncm »

tomohawk wrote: post #8

China is building a lot of coal power plants. https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-new-coal-po... And industrializaing vast swaths of land by covering it with solar panels. https://www.facebook.com/XinhuaSciTech/videos/solar-panels-o...

The undeniable fact is that humans are very electricity hungry. Cheap electricity opens up tons of downstream benefits.

I am envisioning something like an international market for clean electricity. Something like an internet for power. This would enable developing countries to leapfrog dirty methods like coal, similar to how many countries leapfrogged over credit cards and cheques we still have in the US. Of course the UHVDC technology may not be ready for it yet.

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#19

Post by henry2023 »

To this day I think that nuclear is the best way to produce clean and abundant energy. There only one problem. Only governments build nuclear reactors and if you want to innovate in this space you need to deal with these institutions which adds a lot of complexity.

Solar on the other hand appeals to the public and can be deployed in large scale facilities. Large scale economics apply directly and we can see that by looking at the historic price per kW[1].

Finally, me as a nuclear advocate own 14x550w panels + a 20 kWh battery. I’m off grid > 95% of the year. Solar is unstoppable now.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

Re: China's quiet energy revolution: the switch from nuclear to renewable energy

#20

Post by spacebanana7 »

pfdietz wrote: post #16
spacebanana7 wrote: post #10

It’s very difficult to estimate the true cost of nuclear power because so many resources are spent on safety features rather than the basic stuff essential to power generation. New construction cost per energy out can vary by 5x, even against the grain of expected purchasing power parity advantages: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-britain-is-building-...

Safety features aren't essential to power generation?

Yes, but after a certain point it becomes a matter of risk tolerance.

Apparently some radiation standards in nuclear power plants work out at millions/billions of dollars per year per life saved

https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/nuclear-power-is-too-saf...

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