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Google to back three new nuclear projects

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Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. Today solar & wind are the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushes nuclear as a distraction.

>20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. The histories of pretty much every green party in the western world and their anti-nuclear activism suggests otherwise.

You ever notice how "green parties" are somehow so incredibly effective against nuclear and not effective against fossil fuels?

Why do you think that is? Somehow I'm not convinced its the activism holding nuclear back.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#52
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer Solar power is great but intermittence is the main issue with it. If you look at 30 year historical weather data, many highly populated regions have two week periods with almost complete cloud cover. Storage and intercontinental power transmission are usually listed as the solutions to this, but the costs of these solutions are rarely inc…

> the costs of these solutions are rarely included. Solar plus storage is included in all the major levelized cost reports, like from the NREL.

Not in any realistic sense. This report

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...

just mashes together a PV array with about an hour of storage and quotes a price for that which is low and is certainly not going to get you through the night.

So many things drive me nuts about that report and the discourse around it that, I think, contribute to people talking past each other. For instance, quoting one price for solar energy is nonsensical when the same solar panel is going to give much more energy in Arizona than it is in upstate New York. The cost of a solar + battery system is going to be different in different places. In upstate NY we deal with a lot of retailers that are based in places like Bentonville, AK who just can't believe you might need an electric space heater in late April or otherwise your chickens might die. Since 95% of the world's population lives in a milder climate it's no wonder our needs don't get taken seriously.

The intermittency problem involves: (1) diurnal variation (overnight), (2) seasonal variation (do you overbuild solar panels 3x so you have enough generation in the winter or do you invest in very long term storage?) and (3) Dunkelflaute conditions when you are unlucky and get a few bad weeks of weather.

I've seen analyses of the cost of a grid that consider just smoothing out one day, but not one that covers seasonal variation. (So much of it comes down to: "how many days of blackout a year can people tolerate?")

With a significant overbuild or weeks worth of storage capacity costs are not going to be so favorable against nuclear energy. The overbuild offers the possibility that you could do something useful with the extra power but it is easier said than done because "free" power from renewables is like a free puppy. You have to build power lines to transmit it, or batteries to store it, or you have to feed it into some machine whose capital costs are low enough that you're not going to worry about the economics of only running it 20% of the time. (Go tell a Chemical Engineer about your plan to run a chemical factory 20% of the time and that's probably the last time you'll hear from them.)

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#53
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be revisionist history trying to position nuclear power as some underdog?!?!? We threw absolutely massive handouts at the nuclear industry 20 years ago. Only look to Vogtle, Virgin C. Summer, Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville 3 and all other projects. Moorside, Oldbury, Wylfa and countless in the US. Had new built nuclear power delivered on budget and on time nuclear power would definitely have been part of the…

Remember that time France went from 7% to 70% nuclear energy? https://youtu.be/1WNjyxeBsWc?si=kVa2qf0uBeFrAyYB

Yes? That was half a century ago. The equivalent choice in 2025 is renewables with storage.

Today they are wholly unable to build new nuclear power as evidenced by Flamanville 3 being 7x over budget and 13 years late on a 5 year construction schedule.

Their EPR2 program is also in absolute shambles continually being pushed into the future while revising up the costs.

Now hopefully targeting investment decision in mid 2026 and the first new reactor online by 2038.

Until 2038 we should of course stop decarbonizing. No point reducing the area under the curve.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#54

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

Google can’t have blackouts. So helps to have some nuclear in the energy mix.

[deleted]

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#55

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

You’re skeptical of nuclear, a proven technology with excellent safety record, the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle, and believe in a technology we don’t have. If we (the West) had built out nuclear to satisfy our electricity needs, implementing new nuclear power tech as it improved, we could have electricity subscriptions like we have mobile / home internet planes. You’d just pay fo…

Yeah, if we went back in time and built nuclear then we'd have nuclear today, and the fixed costs would have been paid by a previous generation. Is that surprising?

But that doesn't inform us on what the optimal policy decision is in the current year of 2025 given 2025 prices and time-to-build of the various options.

In Australia renewables have the perfect confluence of multiple factors:

- low seasonable variability of insolation in the north

- high wind speeds in the south

- land availability for solar

- high statistical diversification of renewables due to size

- higher than normal costs of nuclear due to first-of-a-kind costs dominating the total build-out costs due to the small energy needs of the country, and higher labor costs

The CSIRO studied this for Australia and released a report about it. Even when you factor in storage and transmission costs, renewables are significantly cheaper than nuclear.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#56
I suppose like anything there are multiple reasons, but what are the top 3 why California electric rates are so high (compared to the rest of the U.S.)?

https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/

Why doesn't the state encourage more capacity to bring costs down? (to encourage electrification/EVs, etc.) Is it because they are phasing out natural gas? Is it to encourage roof top solar? Or trying to reduce consumption by having high prices? Or environmental permitting? "Lobbying" by entrenched incumbents? Or maybe the high price is due to taxes and not the price of generation?

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#57
post #8

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

US Net Zero is 2050. With 25 years remaining, I think shooting for 2030 seems reasonable. We’ve just about hit peak coal. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/18/coal-use-to...

> The world’s coal use is expected to reach a fresh high of 8.7bn tonnes this year, and remain at near-record levels for years as a result of a global gas crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Not sure that counts as "just about hit peak coal".

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#58

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

You’re skeptical of nuclear, a proven technology with excellent safety record, the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle, and believe in a technology we don’t have. If we (the West) had built out nuclear to satisfy our electricity needs, implementing new nuclear power tech as it improved, we could have electricity subscriptions like we have mobile / home internet planes. You’d just pay fo…

> the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle

What exactly are you talking about? It does not sound like it describes the way nuclear power, uranium mining, and nuclear waste storage works.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#59
post #56

I suppose like anything there are multiple reasons, but what are the top 3 why California electric rates are so high (compared to the rest of the U.S.)? https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ Why doesn't the state encourage more capacity to bring costs down? (to encourage electrification/EVs, etc.) Is it because they are phasing out natural gas? Is it to encourage roof top solar? Or trying to reduce…

It's because the California government doesn't believe in markets, prices as incentives or anything like that. California govt believes in state mandates

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#60
post #15

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

> intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer Solar power is great but intermittence is the main issue with it. If you look at 30 year historical weather data, many highly populated regions have two week periods with almost complete cloud cover. Storage and intercontinental power transmission are usually listed as the solutions to this, but the costs of these solutions are rarely inc…

Solar can still generate up to 25% of their peak power with full cloud cover.
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