231–240 of 1001 posts
See also: "Georgia nuclear rebirth arrives 7 years late, $17B over cost" https://apnews.com/article/georgia-nuclear-power-plant-vogtl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...
Surely much of the crippling cost is due to hostile lawfare and regulation.
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Nuclear might not be able to compete in the U.S. and Europe, but that’s largely because of a ridiculous regulatory regime and has very little to do with the actual tech.
China has installed more renewable energy than the rest of the world put together last year. I'm pretty sure we can rule out any "ridiculous regulatory regime" issues there.
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> have to overbuild renewables to handle seasonal variation At which point it ceases to be as cheap.
Unlike nuclear, which is too expensive when you don't overbuild it, and becomes simply stupidly expensive if you contemplate overbuilding it. Overbuilding nuclear is so preposterous that nuclear fans just pretend you magically don't need to, to prevent their fragile dream from being crushed by reality, and let them continue to steer at renewables and all the problems they face as every nation on earth builds then out…
> Overbuilding nuclear is so preposterous that nuclear fans just pretend you magically don't need to, to prevent their fragile dream from being crushed by reality, and let them continue to steer at renewables and all the problems they face as every nation on earth builds then out at massive scale.
Why would you need to overbuild nuclear power plants? Other than planning for future growth, but I don't think that's what people generally mean by overbuilding, it's more like avoiding "it's been cloudy/windless for a few weeks now so back to the 1800s it is."
This caught my eye: "Prior to Vogtle Unit 3, the last nuclear reactor to start in the United States was Watts Bar Unit 2 in Tennessee. Construction on Watts Bar 2 began in 1973 but was suspended in 1985. Work resumed in 2007, and the reactor came online in 2016." More on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Plant#Unit_2
Jeez. Imagine walking into a construction site from 2 decades ago.
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for long-term storage it might be better to convert the hydrogen to something more easily storable, such as propane or octane, or to make a different electrolytic product such as aluminum
Ammonia is another interesting storage fuel option.
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> The new 1,114 megawatt (MW) Unit 3 reactor joins two existing reactors It's indeed not a lot. At a great cost. That kind of is the point. Nuclear is very costly. Solar, wind, battery storage, and other cheap alternatives are indeed being rolled out at a plural orders of magnitude larger scale.
Nuclear is costly _now_*. It wasn't getting built, for years. There is so much energy to be had from that, and cost learning curves can come down. France's ("small") modular reactors, SMR, they even aim to sell internationally, in their 2030 plan, are a model. To China no less. China also builds nuclear reactors, and we can't fall behind them. I cannot abide an SMR gap.
I, uh, have some uncomfortable news for you.
China are currently building 22 nuclear reactors [1]
China installed 230GW of solar and wind in 2023 [2]
China has over 40,000kms of High Speed Rail, and continues to expand [3]
By any measure, you're falling way behind them.
[1] https://www.economist.com/china/2023/11/30/china-is-building...
[2] https://www.asiafinancial.com/china-seen-installing-230-gw-o...
[3] https://www.statista.com/topics/7534/high-speed-rail-in-chin...
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> One kilogram of uranium-235 (50 cm^3) can theoretically produce about 20 terajoules of energy. One square kilometer of solar panels can theoretically produce the same amount (as 50cm^3 U235) in a day. Does the US have more 50cm^3 sized blocks of U235, or more square kilometers of land with low land values and high annual insolation? There's an estimated 6 million tonnes of mineable uranium reserves in the world [0]…
It’s worth noting that the dichotomy you set up isn’t quite right. The land use for solar and wind isn’t an exclusionary zone. The area around a wind turbine can be used same as before (most often as farmland) without a negative impact on its productivity. And the same is true for solar. In fact, a growing number of agro-voltaic projects are seeing a net positive on crop yields from solar panels due to the increased…
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> Seems to me the people saying solar and battery only future do not live in areas that can be cloudy for multiple weeks. Or we've researched it and understand the basics of solar technology. In sunny California solar has a capacity factor of around 25%. In Germany, which is prone to many cloudy days this drops to around 10%. So yes cloudy days have an impact but do not entirely eliminate solar from contention and ce…
I think you might want to fix that link address. :)
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That was tried, nuclear reactors on civilian ships, and found to be a stupid idea. Too expensive and no real benefit over ship engines. By the way, tha vast majority of military ships and boats are not nuclear powered.
The NS Savannah [1] was indeed a marketing stunt. But in the 1960s climate change wasn't really an issue. If you have to ship bulk cargo across the Pacific, nuclear is largely your only option. Hydrogen is another potential choice, but you'd need a carbon neutral way of producing that option. Electrolysis isn't efficient, and steam reformation emits carbon dioxide. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
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Our electeds simply don't care what anything costs, and as a result we have (probably) the worst cost disease on the planet.
> electeds simply don't care what anything costs California has a referendum system. That so few referendums focus on cutting costs says something about its voters’ priorities.
On the other hand, the state is losing population on an absolute basis (and relatively even more so against a backdrop of national growth). So some folks are voting with their feet. I'm eagerly awaiting the day when I'm free enough to do the same.