31–40 of 397 posts
Tax carbon at $200 per ton and magically the financing for nuclear will appear.
The economics don't make sense and probably never will. Taxing carbon isn't going to make renewables more expensive.
The Green New Deal is at worst nuclear-neutral in favor of stressing wind and solar. Biden's climate plan, which has a bunch of the same stakeholders and says the GND is a great idea, is on top of that more explicitly and vocally in favor of reactor development and a focus on efficiency improvements and waste processing and reclamation. Hell, even greenpeace has been pro-reactor for a while now. I don't see a short-t…
Hrm. Do you have a reference for where you read about Greenpeace's stance on reactor development?
Their nuclear energy page[1] currently says: "Nuclear energy has no place in a safe, clean, sustainable future."
[1] - https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/issues/nuclear...
From the article: "No nuclear energy program has ever launched without heavy state intervention — the capital costs are just too high for private entities to take on." I think this misses the real reason. High capital costs are no barrier to private financing as long as the eventual profits will accrue to the investors . But in this highly-regulated industry, investors can't put money into nuclear plants thinking tha…
By contrast wind got about £39-£41 for two years. Future years will likely be even lower.
It seems very unlikely to me that there will ever be sufficient desire for fission based power in most countries, no matter how safe scientists say it is. I still think nuclear power will be important. It seems plausible that governments will continue to fund research into fusion power but I am doubtful that much more money could be raised than was raised for ITER, especially as the results from ITER will not be part…
>the way to make fusion generate power more efficiently without changing the underlying technology is to make it bigger Actually there was a front page item on here a couple of weeks ago showing that there's a new superconductor that can generate a stronger magnetic field, which will allow new, much smaller fusion reactors. So according to the guy from MIT who gave the talk, ITER is already obsolete technology. Havin…
>It's amazing in theory but we have yet to achieve a fusion reaction that is energy positive and the path to that is still fraught.
He also said that fusion has a funding issue, not a science or engineering issue. Also- being able to make them smaller mostly solves the funding issue.
First off, you can have both. Green new deal doesn't ban reactors or anything. Second, I'm on the fence over whether I support more reactors and not because nuclear==bad. I trust the technology, but my concern is whether we can maintain a stable political environment for the decades/hundred years required to responsibly take care of nuclear. Buying into a fission reactor means you pay billions up front, but you also…
Why Renewables Aren't the Reason for California Blackouts: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/why-renew... LCOE of various energy sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... https://neon.energy/Hirth-Ueckerdt-Edenhofer-2015-Integratio... suggests that wind energy has up to 50% higher "real" cost than typical LCOE measurements because of variability, however, this still put…
Is the higher cost for nuclear related to the high regulation put in place? Are the low costs for solar and wind using subsidies and considering lifetime/replacement/disposal? Don’t know. Actually asking.
And even those who say that regulations are the reason for high prices don't seem to have any specific suggestions of how to change regulations, just a general "regulations are a problem" vibe, with the implicit suggestion of "get rid of all regulations" since no other change is offered.
But I would love to encounter somebody who says that regulations are the problem and also has ways to change them to allow more economic construction. Just hasn't ever happened despite tons of discussions with lots is people over the past five years I've been following nuclear closely.
I agree, but why set up a false dichotomy? Nuclear energy should be part of a "Green New Deal", which shouldn't just be about energy, but pragmatic environmentalism in all fields.
> It isn't nuclear vs renewables, it is nuclear + renewables vs renewables. You use the best technology for the local environment and situations. Why take something off the table?
Seems like the author is buying into the common false dichotomy because it is more sensational.