this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Best time to build a nuclear reactor was 20 years ago.
Second best time is now.
Isn't nuclear one, if not the most, expensive form of energy production once you factor in stuff like maintenance and disposal?
Not trying to do the whole hot take thing here, I genuinely don't get why investing in nuclear is still pursued versus investing in renewable sources when mobility and land isn't an issue.
EDIT:
kind of provides at least a partial answer: Time. Though this quote gave me graphite control rod vibes:
There's a lot to unpack in nuclear being the most expensive form of energy production, like:
While nuclear absolutely must be held to extremely rigorous safety standards, I seem to remember that the fossil industry leveraged the nuclear panic in the 80s to lobby all manner of bullshit red tape on top of good regulations, and that has dramatically increased time and financial cost to building new reactors.
Does that also factor in all externalities, like radiological waste from coal fire plants, and the damage from carbon emissions contributing to climate change? Or are we only counting the externalities of nuclear?
Are we also including new generations of reactors, which are supposedly safer, produce less waste, and less able to be used for nuclear weapons production? Or are we just looking at the reactor designs from 70 years ago that represent all of what's in operation in the US today? Can you imagine trying to argue for solar or wind with designs from 70 years ago? It'd be a pretty hard sell.
Thank you for taking the time.
I'm pretty sure that nuclear power is vastly more expensive to produce and maintain. Especially when comparing to solar/wind, since fossil power isn't desirable at all due to emissions.
Solar and wind generation is so much more efficient than even two decades ago, newer designs of nuclear plants aren't really any more efficient, but safer and more expensive. So I'm still not getting the push for more nuclear.
I think for me, the best argument is having an energy backbone. I, admittedly, have little evidence on this front, but I'm skeptical about the long term cost effectiveness of grid scale batteries. Batteries don't last forever, and these are fuck off big batteries, and we're going to need a lot of them by yesterday, and they have to work, and they have to not burn down the entire grid capacity if one of the batteries cooks off (something lithium is terrible at, but I don't think they use lithium at grid scale, usually). And on top of that, from what I recall, grid scale batteries are really, really, really expensive, though I'm not 100% sure if I'm remembering that rught. It just seems like it would make more sense, both in terms of logistics and economics, to have an energy backbone comprised of safer, modern fission reactors.
Yeah, I mostly agree on that. Nuclear may be more expensive and risky, but it's also very predictable. That kind of enables it to act as a sort of safety net to smooth over the variable nature of renewables, though changing the output of a nuclear power plant is a very slow process, AFAIK.
I'm not against nuclear power per se, I'm viewing it as more of a band-aid until more mature and universal grid buffers can fill the gap smoothing out the renewable input. Nuclear may very well be a necessary step for some nations to reach their climate targets, I'm not informed enough to judge that. But I fear that the money invested, lobbying and public opinion influenced by that seemingly easy alternative directly hinder the development and deployment of technologies that lead to a renewable, cheap and reliable grid.
I think we could go back another decade or two and still be correct.
Best time to build a reactor is never. Better to use the fuckton of money for cheaper and better renewables...
But then you would need another excuse in ~2 decades but having build not enough expensive nuclear power, still struggling to get the ones in production finished and still burning fossil fuels...
And we all know that destroying the planet for profits is the actual goal here.
The exact same people spending huge sums on deying climate change for decades are now paying for "it's all too late and we are doomed anyway, so why try to do anything" and "nuclear power, especially future designs far from actually being production ready, will safe us" messaging.
Hydro and wind kill more people per terawatt hour. That leaves solar (and possibly tidal as that development ramps up). Putting all your eggs in just one form of renewables (solar) would be an insane risk. Base loads need to be addressed in order to phase out the fossil fuels.
There are more options with modern reactor designs. Small modular reactors can be built and brought online cheaper and faster than previous designs. That would allow a faster ROI (reducing fossil fuel usage faster).
Solar, wind, tidal and nuclear should be scaled simultaneously to reach our goals and not think it's just one or the other.
Wind kills 0.04 per TWH, nuclear 0.03 and solar 0.02. Why is nuclear acceptable for you and wind not?
Wind IS acceptable. Read the last paragraph. The first part of the comment is merely addressing the people that suggest solar only as it's the only source with less attributed deaths per terawatt hour. I'm also partial to the Norwegian hydro model.
France just brought an older reactor back online using recycled fuel https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/French-reactor-using-full-core-of-recycled-uranium