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Activists who embrace nuclear power

newyorker.com

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Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#551

Post by nl »

liminvorous wrote: post #488
nl wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same level of risk. This is a ( very ) common misconception. A MIT study found that safety and regulatory increases contributes less than 1/3 of the cost increase in nuclear plants since 1975 (after adjusting for inflation): Since many of the researchers are in the Department of Nuclear Engineering…

> Figuring out what's causing those changes involved diving into detailed accounting records on the construction of these nuclear plants; data on that was available for plants built after 1976. My understanding was that the cost of nuclear started skyrocketing around the mid-late 70s, so around the period this study period begins to get data. And I thought the nature of the cost increases was things like being stuck…

> And I thought the nature of the cost increases was things like being stuck iterating on designs optized for being part of a weapons program rather than safety or economics

That's not what the data says - although lots of nuclear proponents claim this. The data seems to show the opposite being true: new designs cost more to produce.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#552

Post by reedjosh »

afterburner wrote: post #477
reedjosh wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, none.

That's what Texas is going for, not working out too well.

Texas energy is traded through ERCOT, an energy market "...governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature."

http://www.ercot.com/about

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#553

Post by reedjosh »

afterburner wrote: post #477
reedjosh wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, none.

That's what Texas is going for, not working out too well.

Ironically in 2020.

"On June 1, Austin Energy issued a notice of suspension and its receipt has been acknowledged, according to the utility’s COO, Charles Dickerson. The energy generation facility will be retired Oct. 31"

https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/whispers/decker-creek-...

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#554

Post by inter_netuser »

mlyle wrote: post #517
epistasis wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the capacity factor of nuclear is much closer to 95% or higher these days, but call it 100% for simplicity PV capacity factor is typically 16%-28% [1], which adjusting the W/kg, gives us: Solar PV: 0.8W/kg - 2.8W/kg, capacity factor adjusted (with supporting infrastructure weighing 2x the panels, a total spitball) Nuclear: 0.8W/kg - 4.5W/kg, capacity factor adjusted, two different modern reactor designs, conc…

You're still not adjusting for actual life (solar ain't making nameplate power 15 years in, for instance). No one claimed an order of magnitude better. Nuclear looks somewhat more sustainable than renewable, and it can do some things renewables can't. We should be doing both .

It's just so funny to read comments on here.

How can one even imagine a space-faring civilization powered by wind mills?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#555

Post by runarberg »

inter_netuser wrote: post #554
mlyle wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still not adjusting for actual life (solar ain't making nameplate power 15 years in, for instance). No one claimed an order of magnitude better. Nuclear looks somewhat more sustainable than renewable, and it can do some things renewables can't. We should be doing both .

It's just so funny to read comments on here. How can one even imagine a space-faring civilization powered by wind mills?

Nuclear is a perfectly cromulant technology for space vehicles. It is not a good technology to power cities on earth in the 21st century however.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#556

Post by afterburner »

reedjosh wrote: post #552
afterburner wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Texas is going for, not working out too well.

Texas energy is traded through ERCOT, an energy market "...governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature." http://www.ercot.com/about

And they failed. You proved my point.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#557

Post by stjohnswarts »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #536
screye wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same level of risk. Disposal of nuclear waste is a huge expense, but the main waste product generated by natural gas (CO2) gets away scot free despite literally being the cause of what might be our generation's biggest problem. The end-of-life expenses of nuclear plants are included in the cost sheets…

> Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same level of risk. Nuclear's problems are neatly encapsulated by one number. It's called the learning rate. The learning rate is how the unit cost of production changes as production increases. As a general rule the more you make, the better you get at it and so the costs reduces. The fast the cost…

Solar is great but until you can store a week's worth of backup power while the weather makes demand spike and while clouds block 70% of the sunlight not accounting for snow and ice covering it I think we are going to need fossil fuel unless OR nuclear. Unless you want to see what happened in Texas last week X10

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#558

Post by afiori »

godelski wrote: post #537
afiori wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP was not saying that proponents of nuclear are arguing for "only-nuclear" but that arguing in favour of nuclear might be a net negative in the progress against fossil fuel. This happens everywhere, every movement needs to be both diverse (to avoid being too close minded to the complexity of the problem at hand) and focused (to avoid wasting efforts in pipe dreams). You and GP disagree on where to apply the cut off…

(G)GP is arguing against the scientific consensus in a extremely complex subject matter. My comment was about the arrogance of people going against expert consensus in complex subjects. We call anti-vaxers out for specifically this reason and I'm tired of pretending like climate (or many other hot topics) is any different. When it comes down to it, if it is some random person on the internet vs someone with decades o…

Rereading your comment (but not the related, thread) I think there was a slight miscomunication. I guess you cared more about the GMO than nuclear (of both of them), while I considered the GMO as a one-off comment distinct from the main argument and focused on (G^n)P argument against arguing in favour of nuclear.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#559

Post by pfdietz »

Robotbeat wrote: post #420
pfdietz wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that was with just batteries for storage, not batteries and hydrogen. Adding hydrogen often greatly reduces the overcapacity needed in those model solutions.

As you can see in that model, you're correct. But I generally find the assumptions in those solutions to be optimistic. Large scale hydrogen storage using salt domes is not as mature of a technology as we would like. Solar and battery are solutions mostly independent of geography (although latitude and weather play a role in solar, of course). Purely replacing nuclear without relying on any backup or geographic trick…

Nuclear on a scale needed to replace fossil fuels is also a technology that is not mature. In particular, it would require such an expansion that a full breeding cycle would soon be necessary.

The deepest flaw of nuclear is that it has failed to show good experience effects. This alone marks it as a doomed technology, when it is facing competition with strong experience effects. Unless this changes, things will only get worse for nuclear, not better.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#560

Post by pfdietz »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #484
pfdietz wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is primary energy use. PV produces electrical energy, not primary thermal energy. Each joule of electrical energy may displace several joules of thermal energy.

I don't think it matters (or perhaps I'm not following)? We need to decarbonize the entire energy sector, not only the electrified segment. That presumably means electrifying all of it and powering it with clean energy. Since we're talking about 100% solar in this thread, we'd need a lot of land to do the job.

It matters because it leads you to overestimate the energy needed. It does not take 1 J of renewable energh to replace 1 J of coal.

And it's not just the electricity sector where this matters. A battery vehicle uses much less energy that a gasoline vehicle, because the latter has maybe 25% average thermal efficiency (that varies with details, of course). It applies to any industrial process using anything below arc furnace level heat: heat can be generated by heat pumps (compress argon to the desired temperature, extract the heat, then expand the cooled argon maintaining its temperature with low grade waste heat to recover some of the work.)

About the only place it doesn't apply is if the electricity is used to make synfuels (aviation fuel, for example) or in chemical processes where the fossil fuels were used directly (hydrogen for ammonia synthesis).

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