An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse • Hacker News Board

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#21

Post by bryanlarsen » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #18

mattnewton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a mention of the costs needed for storage in renewables that would keep the electricity under the operating cost of nuclear, albeit in a somewhat indirect way- > It would often even be affordordable to pay 1 – 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity storage in addition to the generation costs for wind and solar power and still be below the operating costs of nuclear power plants. And here we have to ask…

My guess is that the article is thinking of other kinds of storage, such as water pumping. I very much doubt battery storage could be cost effective at this time.

Battery storage is cheaper than HVDC power lines.

https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#22

Post by rich_sasha » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no energy storage for renewables?

Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#23

Post by akvadrako » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15

aksss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now. Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely. Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably,…

If the world was completely solar, we'd need 30TWh of batteries, which would cost about $3T. [0] $3T would buy 200 GW of nuclear power plants, about 3% of what's needed. 0: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/06/21/is-nuclear-pow...

Current all-in battery costs are about $200/kWh. Daily global energy use is about 400 TWh. That would be an 80 trillion dollar battery for just one day of backup.

That just isn't feasible to build near term and it isn't even enough to prevent blackouts. Plus the current methods probably don't scale that far, so the cost is even higher.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#24

Post by worik » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #22

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no energy storage for renewables? Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

Yes there is.

Two sorts of grid storage batteries: Elon Must has made Lithium batteries work on grid scale. Flow batteries or fuel cells, are probably more economic. And then there is pumped hydro

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#25

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

Why do all the anti-nuclear people just through out the marginal cost and then move on...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#26

Post by wernercd » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #20

wernercd wrote: post #12

I'm going to hesitate to say this article is very short sighted... it talks about "nuclear is expensive, renewables are cheap and we don't know how to store nuclear waste". Nabla's comment is a good start on the conversation (good frame but no real apples to apples comparisons). Personally, with the talk about "what about all that nuclear waste"... where's the talk about the recyclable waste? Batteries, solar panels,…

> Batteries, solar panels, wind mills are all very hard to recycle Everything the world creates is unprofitable to recycle except for aluminum soda cans. Compared to the average commercial waste, batteries, solar panels and wind blades are straightforward to recycle. > Where's the talk about all the "rare earth minerals" that's going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with "clean energy"? There's n…

> straightforward to recycle

Except they aren't.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/09/04/innovati...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#27

Post by ArkanExplorer » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

The solution is smaller, modular nuclear reactors. Run them for 30 years, and then just leave them in place- waste included - forever.

Eventually we can probably figure out how to operate them for 50, then 100 years.

The downsides of this are much less than the potential downsides of excess CO2 in the atmosphere, which are civilization-ending.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#28

Post by dctoedt » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #25

Why do all the anti-nuclear people just through out the marginal cost and then move on...

> Why do all the anti-nuclear people just through out the marginal cost and then move on...

In the article, the interviewee didn't — he specifically talked about decommissioning costs.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#29

Post by akvadrako » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

worik wrote: post #24

rich_sasha wrote: post #22

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no energy storage for renewables? Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

Yes there is. Two sorts of grid storage batteries: Elon Must has made Lithium batteries work on grid scale. Flow batteries or fuel cells, are probably more economic. And then there is pumped hydro

Elon didn't make any grid-scale energy storage. The largest grid battery installation in the world can only supply power for a couple minutes – that's a buffer at most.

Edit: removed first sentence.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#30

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Mar 14, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15

aksss wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now. Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely. Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably,…

If the world was completely solar, we'd need 30TWh of batteries, which would cost about $3T. [0] $3T would buy 200 GW of nuclear power plants, about 3% of what's needed. 0: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/06/21/is-nuclear-pow...

Finally and (slightly) anti-nuclear piece worth reading. Yes, solar is easy for capitalism, but I'm not sure building all those batteries is. Building smaller pre-fab nukes vs building larger battery arrays seem pretty close in terms of challenges.

You don't have a citation on "$3T would buy 200 GW of nuclear power plants", and I very much doubt that extrapolation, because if any sane planner got the $3T budget, the first thing they would do is invest heavily in pre-fab.