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A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> assume that we need 24 hours of storage or roughly 57600MWh. A modern redox flow or lithium ion battery can cost as little as $100 per kWh I think the flow battery can get even cheaper than this for 24hr storage. Recent price claims[1] were $150/kWh at 4hr, and $100/kWh at 8hr - this puts the cost of charge/discharge rate at $400/kW and the cost of the energy storage at $50/kWh. 1kW @ 4hrs = (400+ 50* 4) /4 = 150$…

Is it really sensible to believe any press release about future batteries?

I would rate the reliability of a battery press release slightly higher than a signed-off budget and timeline for nuclear construction.

And when it's press from a battery maker, rather than a battery researcher's university press department, the battery press release is far far more reliable. I'd say their cost overruns will be at most 20%-30%, compared to nuclear's usual 200%-300%.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same about solar which needs fuelcell technology we dont have. Nuclear waste is not problems that we have no idea to solve.

Solar doesn't need fuel cells. Fuel cells are a high capital cost solution to the problem of turning hydrogen into electricity, at higher efficiency. That's not what solar or wind need -- they need low capital cost, mediocre efficiency backup sources.

And if they cant get that then they will never be a baseline energy source as you cant count on them, so keep dreaming.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#173

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

The cost of nuclear power is tribute paid to the global evil empire that opposes anything that threatens its ability to rule the world, the British Empire! A country that has nuclear power is a country that is energy independent and has a basis for advanced industry and medicine.

To lower the cost of nuclear power 10-fold in the short term, exit NATO and exit Five Eyes, and expose the British imperial anti-science frauds, beginning with Isaac Newton and Bertrand Russell. Without the irrational fear of radioactive materials and nuclear accidents that these frauds create, by depriving the population of understanding of the method of scientific investigation that has proven fruitful throughout human history, nuclear power plants would be the cheapest plants you could build per gigawatt of actual capacity, if fuel and maintenance costs for the first 10 years are considered. In time, with experience, it would be the cheapest to build, period.

An honest evaluation of the risk would open the door to the use of molten salt breeder reactors, molten lead breeder reactors, and the very high temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactors, all of which are far safer than the best light water reactor, which already has an excellent safety record (but irrational fears restrict us to already-approved designs, designs approved back in the days when anti-nuclear paranoia was less psychotic, and make the process of approving new designs, however meritorious, prohibitively expensive). The breeder reactors offer the advantage of using all isotopes of uranium, plutonium, transuranics and thorium as fuel, and the pebble bed provides the highest temperature industrial process heat possible by any method not requiring the production of electricity first, with the possible exception of using thermite. Fast neutron breeder reactors using the U238-Pu cycle can generate enough extra Pu to power the pebble bed.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we say a source is "baseload", we're not saying something good about it. What that means is that source's business case depends on being able to sell its output most of the time. It's a word describing economic inflexibility. There is no reason why a grid needs any baseload sources whatsoever.

It’s not good or bad, it’s just the nature of the beast. The nature of a nuclear plant is that it is incredibly capital intensive, and needs to operate at capacity to work financially. Solar is interesting because it’s peak output aligns with peak demand. Your solar farm isn’t going to do much for you st night, but that’s ok because you don’t need the power!

PV is also interesting because the levelized cost of power from it has become very good, especially in areas of high insolation, and because its costs continue to rapidly decline. Low cost gives all sorts of headroom for such things as overbuilding and low efficiency storage.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar doesn't need fuel cells. Fuel cells are a high capital cost solution to the problem of turning hydrogen into electricity, at higher efficiency. That's not what solar or wind need -- they need low capital cost, mediocre efficiency backup sources.

And if they cant get that then they will never be a baseline energy source as you cant count on them, so keep dreaming.

They can, when teamed with dispatchable sources, destroy the economic case for expensive baseload sources.

This is why you're not seeing new nuclear plants much in the west. The decision makers know they face huge risk from future cost declines of renewables which, combined with gas, would leave those reactors unable to amortize their construction, financing, and fixed operating costs.

There are other solutions for long term storage of renewable energy to make it dispatchable. For example, making hydrogen, then burn it in turbines. The efficiency of this is lousy, but the capital cost can be quite low.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#176
post #28

I see so many people against nuclear but I wonder if they read books such as Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air. As I understand it, either we kill ourselves fast, or we use this as a stop-gap until we can figure it out for real. With newer reactors being much better, maybe another generation (helped by more implementations) will even be good enough not to have to be a stop-gap solution.

Three questions that I have never had satisfactorily answered by nuclear advocates: * If nuclear is that safe, why don't we eliminate or at least, significantly raise the nuclear liability cap? The nuclear industry keeps trying to sell us (this article included) on the idea that disasters are now close to impossible. It'd be an easier sell if they voluntarily increased their liability, to, say $150-400 billion and fo…

Fukushima didn’t have any serious human or ecological costs, compared to accepted industry norms for fossil fuels. It looked bad, but did not cause serious damage. Coal has done far worse to Japan and it is accepted.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#177
post #28

I see so many people against nuclear but I wonder if they read books such as Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air. As I understand it, either we kill ourselves fast, or we use this as a stop-gap until we can figure it out for real. With newer reactors being much better, maybe another generation (helped by more implementations) will even be good enough not to have to be a stop-gap solution.

Three questions that I have never had satisfactorily answered by nuclear advocates: * If nuclear is that safe, why don't we eliminate or at least, significantly raise the nuclear liability cap? The nuclear industry keeps trying to sell us (this article included) on the idea that disasters are now close to impossible. It'd be an easier sell if they voluntarily increased their liability, to, say $150-400 billion and fo…

A) The reason why the liability cap don't follow rational argument is that policy does not follow rational arguments. Politics dictate that and just like with airport security, security management is about the perceived risk rather than true risk.

B) Transparency is not great when it come to power plants. It is impossible for citizens to make a informed decisions about which countries has safe power plants and which are unsafe.

C) The environmentalist argument is not that renewable electricity is worse than nuclear, but that we still burn material and put co2 into the air for power and heat. Even in a place like Sweden, we still sometimes burn coal. If we could ban all such usage without building more nuclear than great, but we don't look like we are any nearer a ban on burning gas, oil and coal today than when renewable prices was prohibitive expensive. Nuclear power plants directly replace other power plants, while wind and solar seems mostly just supplement the market with cheaper electricity during good conditions while coal keep burning when the wind is calm and the sun is set.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#178
post #143
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am somewhat sympathetic to your points, but was responding to a comment that seemed to claim it was a non-issue. I’m only “somewhat” in agreement because humans are terrible at reading warning signs, especially from long-dead people. “Oh,” they say, “that was ages ago. It’s just a primitive superstition. Anyway, we’re special.”

Agree, but that being said you can walk around in Rome and read signs that were written 2000 years ago. Same characters, similar language than most european languages. English is the modern latin, and I would argue, with even more significance than latin given its global scope. I just can't think of a scenario where our descendants would not know what radiactivity is, and would have forgotten english.

As a collective culture, I agree with you (assuming we don’t turn the planet into a Dyson swarm in that timeframe, which is surprisingly plausible and I don’t know how to start making forecasts).

Absent scenarios which Isaac Arthur has already made YouTube videos about, I’m more worried about atomic analogs of antivaxxers or homeopaths. Or “Traditional Chinese Medicine”. Or… well, you get the idea.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#179
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries can be recycled, nuclear waste is stockpiled with no permanent disposal or recycling plan in sight. Solar and wind, unsubsidized, with storage, are already cheaper than nuclear. Those costs will continue to plummet, especially as EV battery demand ramps (rapidly expanding battery manufacturing capacity). Nuclear lost because it’s too expensive, and has its own externalities to ignore (decommissioning, waste…

Most of this nuclear "waste" could be recycled as well by processing and further burning it in breeder reactors. Of course the processng equipment gets contaminated but that's life.

[deleted]

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link, solar doesn't rely on the grid, and in fact it acts independently of it on some islands.

For the network effects and efficencies, solar absolutly needs a grid. If not a grid, you need local storage, another inefficiency.

I think that is about to change in the near future.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/08/20/enphase-going-einstei...

https://enphase.com/en-us/ensemble

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