Energy

Solar photovoltaic has dropped in cost significantly which is awesome for many applications. The problem for an individual or the grid for renewable intermittents is the consistency: the true cost is the cost not just of generation but generation plus storage (or backup).

Batteries have not had the step change in cost vs deliverable, and the question of effective and not carbon intensive recycling of batteries and most e waste remains. If solar is x cents a kWh, must add cost of storage or fossil backup generation to make sense in both terms of cost as well as carbon.

For instance, the expected cost per kWh of the Powerwall is about 35c/kWh which must be added to cost of generation and the maximum amount of time for delivering that power back at peak discharge is only a few hours. Leaves some development still to do for power in the morning after the night, or even for a cloudy day. Solar thermal has run into similar reliability problems as solar photovoltaic.

So, comparing the report in your link for cost, Solar PV capital cost is a bit more expensive than "Advanced Nuclear" capital cost. However, the ongoing maintenance costs for solar PV are less than 50% of the ongoing maintenance costs for Advanced Nuclear. In fact, the additional (over Solar PV), annual maintenance costs for Advanced Nuclear are about 17% of the entire capital costs. After just a few years, Solar PV will be saving massive amounts of cost over Advanced Nuclear, just in maintenance.

This seems to at least be partially taken into account in the "Total LCOE" numbers (sorry, but this report doesn't seem to have much as far as exactly how these numbers are calculated). Without subsidies, Solar PV is about 30% higher. However, when you look more closely at the actual ranges behind the averages that are the primarily cited data, you'll find that the Total LCOE estimate ranges for Advanced Nuclear and Solar PV actually overlap. The "minimum" Solar PV estimate is 97.8 and the Advanced Nuclear "maximum" is 101.0.

The claim that atomic energy has major advantages over solar is not borne out in this EIA report. In fact, the report seems to show that solar is highly competitive with almost every generation source and actually has a huge advantage in ongoing maintenance costs, being practically at the bottom.

I haven't investigated the other links yet, since the first one didn't seem to pan out.

Waste isn't a significant issue for either of the ycombinator projects. One is mostly-aneutronic fusion, the other is a fast reactor. Fast reactors produce about 1% as much waste and it goes back to the radioactivity of the original ore in a couple centuries.

Fusion has no significant risk. With fission it depends on the design; I don't know much about UPower, but the IFR, another small fast reactor, demonstrated very impressive safety.

Hurricanes also produce Terawatts of energy. The question is the way the energy is turned into electricity, and how it's stored or backed up because an economy requires reliable electricity

I'm a supporter of solar, and trying to get it on my house.

But I also did some back of the envelope calculations that showed, just if we had enough Powerwalls to backup US peak demand for one hour it would require 10x the global annual mining production of lithium. And that's just one hour. And that doesn't include the electricity production.

It's generally estimated that US power, with good transmission, would require enough solar panels to cover the entire state of Massachusetts. I think you're right that it isn't the land cover that would have much effect, after all buildings and roads already cover a lot of land. I think it's sheer material production.

Mining is almost entirely powered by fossils, it has to be. And so is most transport. And so is recycling of metals. So the energy density of an energy source really is a zero sum game. If it takes a millionth the material for one source versus the other, that adds up.

Then in maintenance, solar farms are truly "farms"- they require a lot of water to wash away dust to operate optimally. A states' worth of water is significant.

Then in recycling at end of life, and this is why I got so excited about nuclear as a somewhat hippie child growing up around oil companies in Oklahoma, solar is going to require a lot of energy to recycle, while nuclear can produce energy in recycling its fuel.

The main reality check, to me, is: what is the energy density of this energy, and if emitting, how much pollution? Coal is far more energy dense than wind, which is why humans evolved from windmills and wood to coal. But it's so polluting which is why we are all working towards better sources.