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Activists who embrace nuclear power

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Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#581

Post by belorn »

runarberg wrote: post #531
belorn wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation match pretty well the phrase "Talking past each other". Environmental activists that are also in favor of nuclear power are not interested in nuclear power for nuclear power itself. The goal is to get rid of fossil fuels, with the strategy to do so simply left open for both storage and nuclear. Since we are in an agreement on the questions about fossil fuels then everything else are unimportant. Let…

> Environmental activists that are also in favor of nuclear power are not interested in nuclear power for nuclear power itself. The goal is to get rid of fossil fuels And the is the point with the anti-nuclear campaign. It is to argue that nuclear is not a solution to the climate crisis (or at least a very bad option next to renewables). I would argue that environmental activists that argue for nuclear are doing the…

It would look a bit more sincere if the anti-nuclear green party would not be the one talking warmly (in more than one sense) about using oil power plants as reserve energy and increasing the capacity for importing coal energy.

I am sure not all anti-nuclear green activists are like this, but its the reality in the here and now. This is why I started the conversation about those issues. Oil and coal is not the way forward, and since that is the proposed deal currently on the table on the renewable side then I reject it and look to someone who can offer a better deal.

I would be much more open to the anti-nuclear side if they clearly came out against the practice of using fossil fuels for grid stability and reserve.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#582

Post by snowwindwaves »

runarberg wrote: post #518
godelski wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It reminds me of how people would pit GMO as a solution for world hunger You lost me here. How is this not? Because Monsanto is a bad company? GMOs can be good and Monsanto can be bad at the same time. Also I stressed a lot in my comment that you don't have to use nuclear, just don't take it off the table. My comment complaining about how people are saying "only nuclear" vs "only renewables" is being replied to as…

Like I said, I get defensive when people pit nuclear as a solution to the climate crisis , this is regardless of the context. I get equally defensive if the pit is “nuclear + renewables” or “nuclear only”. The reason is that I am skeptical of the claim that it is (there are ample nibling comments that demonstrate why) and that a false premise might affect public policy that hinders politicians from pursuing real solu…

Nuclear + renewables = 0 carbon and a consistent reliable base load ... sounds ideal?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#583

Post by snowwindwaves »

kragen wrote: post #519
EricE wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of the factors in Peabody's problems is that in the Southwest of the USA, where some of their major customers are, continuing to operate already built coal power plants like the San Juan Generating Plant and the now-defunct Navajo Generating Station is no longer economic; solar energy has driven down prices (averaging US$26.58/MWh at the Palo Verde trading hub in 02019 according to this article) well below the c…

I don't think this is the full context for CA's rolling blackouts, although it's true that the Navajo Generating Station did sell to California. The California rolling blackouts were back in the summer, when solar energy production is highest. If reliance on solar were the whole story, those blackouts would have gotten worse and worse from summer through fall and winter. Instead, they only lasted a total of about thr…

Thanks for the great posts.

Have you seen any numbers for the life expectancy of grid connected batteries? I heard A solar project in Hawaii expects to replace the batteries every 5 years with daily cycles. So for California it would be $111 million /yr in battery costs. Manageable, but not a trivial amount to be factoring in to the cost of firming up the capacity of wind/solar.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#584

Post by Hypx »

sir_bearington wrote: post #579
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sweet spot in most models is a mix of hydro, batteries, and H2. While scaling up the industry isn't trivial, it's absurd to claim it's impossible or that demand outpacing supply will somehow reduce investment in greater supply.

Well let's hear it then. What is the mix? How many GWh of each storage type are we going to use? Typically plans for renewables + storage assumes some magical silver bullet like hydrogen or thermal storage that will make storage nearly free. Except neither of those have actually seen commercial deployment so they're no telling if they'll actually pan out. You haven't actually given a plan to provision this much stora…

Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s...

While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#585

Post by sir_bearington »

Hypx wrote: post #584
sir_bearington wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's hear it then. What is the mix? How many GWh of each storage type are we going to use? Typically plans for renewables + storage assumes some magical silver bullet like hydrogen or thermal storage that will make storage nearly free. Except neither of those have actually seen commercial deployment so they're no telling if they'll actually pan out. You haven't actually given a plan to provision this much stora…

Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s... While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.

If someone actually finds a way to make a feasible storage solution from it. Nobody is installing hydrogen energy storage right now.

Again, the answer is point to an unproven form of storage and assume it'll be a silver bullet.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#586

Post by Hypx »

sir_bearington wrote: post #585
Hypx wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s... While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.

If someone actually finds a way to make a feasible storage solution from it. Nobody is installing hydrogen energy storage right now. Again, the answer is point to an unproven form of storage and assume it'll be a silver bullet.

It's underground salt caverns. This is extremely feasible and has been done for decades with natural gas.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#587

Post by sir_bearington »

Hypx wrote: post #586
sir_bearington wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone actually finds a way to make a feasible storage solution from it. Nobody is installing hydrogen energy storage right now. Again, the answer is point to an unproven form of storage and assume it'll be a silver bullet.

It's underground salt caverns. This is extremely feasible and has been done for decades with natural gas.

How many Gigawatt hours of underground H2 storage are currently deployed? What company can I call to install 1 GWh of hydrogen storage?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#588

Post by pfdietz »

trashface wrote: post #430
cycomanic wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's simply not true. Nuclear has always and is still receiving significant indirect subsidies. A huge subsidy that nuclear power gets is that plants are not insured against incidents (because essentially nobody is willing to sell them insurance), so it's essentially the state that does it. Also many argue that the nuclear waste storage costs are significantly underestimated, I mean I understand estimating cost for…

I used to hear stories about using a breeder reactor to recycle used waste, which reduces the storage requirements for the remainder to a few centuries. Not sure if that is a pipe dream though.

Nuclear is uneconomical even if you totally ignore waste disposal costs.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#589

Post by pfdietz »

pydry wrote: post #467
godelski wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can often run these numbers in ways with varying hyper parameters that can get you to nuclear or others as cheaper. I know Brookings did one such analysis in 2014 (note higher solar and wind prices back then)[0] where they included carbon costs at $50/ton and found nuclear to be fairly cheap in that respect. I've also seen some do health and that gives nuclear an edge too. But these are difficult to accurately do…

>Being pro nuclear isn't "nuclear vs renewables" it is "nuclear + renewables vs fossil fuels". Since nuclear competes with renewables for subsidies it is kind of a competition. Propaganda is dictates by market realities. We likely wouldn't be seeing this much pro nuclear stuff pushed to the front of hacker news if nuclear didn't require subsidies and hence favorable public opinion to survive in the face of cheaper gr…

It's not that the compete for subsidies, it's that they don't work well together on a grid. Nuclear needs to be selling at a high average price; renewables crash the price too often to let the average stay high.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#590

Post by pfdietz »

arrosenberg wrote: post #490
ncmncm wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many crops benefit from partial shade, as do industrial-building roofs, and parking lots. So, claiming that land used for solar can't be used for anything else, and must be new development displacing ecosystems, is not honest. There are numerous viable storage alternatives; the only open question is which will turn out to be cheapest. Underground compressed air is interesting because it can use otherwise-mothballed t…

> Many crops benefit from partial shade, as do industrial-building roofs, and parking lots. So, claiming that land used for solar can't be used for anything else, and must be new development displacing ecosystems, is not honest. Rooftop and parking lot solar are not nearly enough to meet our energy needs. 1,400 acres per GW! Are there fully-functional farms that can operate on 1,400 covered acres? Is there a function…

> Storing hydrogen is a nightmare

It's not. It can be stored underground. This is a demonstrated technology, little different from how natural gas is stored.

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