Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

iea.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 248 posts

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#141

Post by NotPaidToPost »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #69
NotPaidToPost wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err, they say production grew by 580 GW in the past 20 years and that it must grow by another 5x580=2,900 GW in the next 5 years. Nothing misleading and indeed an unprecedented production increase. It's not the ratio that is hard, it's the raw amount.

> their deployment would have to accelerate to an __unprecedented__ level Parent comments point is that the 5x growth is not unprecedentedly fast compared to the past 20 years, its unprecedentedly slow compared to the past 20 years. Contrary to what the quote claims, and in line with projections from the past, the solar business would have to seriously slow down to miss the 5x milestone.

And what I replied is that this is not the point of the article, and that ratios in themselves are not the relevant metric.

The article is clear and accurate. Deploying close to 3000 GW is an unprecedented effort.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#142

Post by beat »

Retric wrote: post #87
Zigurd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't overtake oil without spending a comparable amount on developing renewables. While it isn't quite there yet, soon renewables will be a bigger business than oil. That's impressive, and it makes the kind of growth needed to replace nuclear power plausible. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/renewables-investment-overtak...

As renewables are currently vastly cheaper than oil or nuclear, it’s going to take far less investment to reach the same place.

The main reason for the current inflection point is that the cost per unit energy for solar/wind has dropped precipitously (and continues to drop), while the cost/energy for most fossil fuels is growing rapidly (natural gas is an exception, due to new fracking tech). And nuclear is such a massive long-term capital investment in a rapidly developing energy picture that the risk profile is really bad, even if a new plant operates perfectly with no problems for its entire planned lifespan. Nobody wants to be the one who decided to build a nuclear plant for X dollars/gigawatt (most of that cost up-front), only to have solar going for .5X before the new plant is even operational.

And it's not just the cost of solar/wind that's dropping... it's the cost of short-term energy storage, by way of batteries/thermal/hydro/etc. Nuclear plants are base-load power, good for long-term stable output rather than quick spikes up and down. But short-term storage allows solar/wind to act as baseline as well, capturing more when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, and dumping it from storage when needed.

Committing to expensive nuclear power plants now, with this much disruption going on, is a good way for a utility to go bankrupt twenty, thirty years from now.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#144

Post by battletested »

Interesting, especially when you consider the environmental disaster that occurs when something goes wrong with nuclear power. Think Fukushima or Chernobyl. From the actual HN list right now: https://moxie.org/stories/chernobyl-scene-report/

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#145

Post by beat »

snowwrestler wrote: post #131
maxerickson wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've picked the wrong number of years, the article says But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. The current linear growth trajectory is 2,000 GW over 20 years, and that is likely to be a hilarious underestimate.

Why is it likely to be a hilarious underestimate? That seems like a statement that needs some support. Graphs don't go up forever; growth curves level off; growth gets harder the bigger you get. Linear growth forever should not be the default assumption for any energy technology, even one that is growing fast now. Or do I misunderstand what you're saying?

But why does the curve level off? Supply and demand. Assuming that renewable energy is superior to fossil fuel from both environmental and cost perspective (it is, or soon will be), then it can reasonably be expected to grow until all fossil-based sources have been displaced, and it is no longer profitable to build more capacity.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#146

Post by Ygg2 »

benj111 wrote: post #76
pjc50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoisting my previous comment on Greenpeace from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17774347 The backlash against nuclear comes from four points and a meta-point: 1) Weapons proliferation. The standard fission cycle is just too convenient for this (after all, that's why it was developed) and so an international infrastructure needs to be developed around restricting this. See Iran for example. This also prompted a l…

All reasonable points, but would you not agree that in the here and now, our first priority should be replacing that coal power station with renewables, and then the gas, then the nuclear?

That's also a bit impossible. There aren't any easy solutions going forward.

You want to replace most power station with non-base load renewables (wind + solar). Well, at peak power are going to add more batteries, to make sure your energy doesn't go to waste. Want to add more batteries, oh you'll need more renewable sources keep it net positive during the winter months and probably keep those battery from draining completely. This is ofc, before the quetion arises, what happens if you have weeks/months of no sun at all :)

Geothermal? Not everyone has access plus possible increases in tectonic activity.

Hydro? Not everyone has access plus possible destruction of ecosystems.

Burning waste to produce power? Probably not enough burnable waste.

Don't get me wrong. Solar scales great if you have a backup to fallback to. California going from 1.9-2.5% of solar would cost as much as a small nuclear plant (around $18 billion dollars).

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#147

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tim333 wrote: post #48
isolli wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of this: https://twitter.com/AukeHoekstra/status/866313289306963969/p... tl;dr The International Energy Agency kept predicting, year after year, in the face of all the evidence, that solar production would plateau.

That's quite impressively wrong from the IEA. I wonder how come.

One of the comments there points it out: The government keeps passing subsidies for solar that nominally expire, then renewing them again before they expire. Then the government's models assume the subsidies expire when the law says they will rather than getting renewed time and again.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#148

Post by andrekandre »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #128
jessaustin wrote: post #31

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated…

> 20 years ago was essentially a zero point for the statistic they cite. It was less than 5 gigawatts, anyway. It grew by over 100 times in that 20 years, and it will be "unprecedented" to grow by 5 times in the next 20? Do you expect the growth rate of Google over the next 20 years will be the same as it was between 1999 and today? As things mature you don't get the same level of exponential growth. Meanwhile the su…

> That doesn't really work because solar can't produce at night

photovoltaic no, molten salt yes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_...

btw, driving by them at daytime is pretty weird... the collectors look literally like close-up stars floating above the surface

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#149

Post by beat »

rakoo wrote: post #132
dreamcompiler wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Solar is winning because of economics. Nuclear is losing because of economics.

And yet, for the same quantity of energy over the same timeframe, nuclear is cheaper. It's not so much that it loses because of economics, it's losing because of the perceived uncertainty of the economics.

Risk, not uncertainty. The long-term (or even medium-term) pricing situation for renewables is highly volatile right now. It makes investing in new nuclear extremely risky financially. What if you start building a plant now, expecting a certain energy price to pay for it over decades, and by the time you finish, solar power costs half as much as your target? That could well happen. That's how utility companies go bankrupt.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#150

Post by AnthonyMouse »

andrekandre wrote: post #148
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 years ago was essentially a zero point for the statistic they cite. It was less than 5 gigawatts, anyway. It grew by over 100 times in that 20 years, and it will be "unprecedented" to grow by 5 times in the next 20? Do you expect the growth rate of Google over the next 20 years will be the same as it was between 1999 and today? As things mature you don't get the same level of exponential growth. Meanwhile the su…

> That doesn't really work because solar can't produce at night photovoltaic no, molten salt yes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_... btw, driving by them at daytime is pretty weird... the collectors look literally like close-up stars floating above the surface

Sure, and so does hydro and geothermal and biomass.

But people are interested in photovoltaics because they're cost-competitive (during the day at least).

Post reply on HN