I would rather see more investment on better renewable tech then relaying on biohazard.
You would be surprised to know the amount of scientific research with actual solutions that aren't applied cause goes against the fossil fuel companies and whatnot. Due to the fact that they have market monopoly.
Nuclear is the best and most sustainable energy production long term. You get left with nuclear waste which we are still figuring out how to deal with, but contemporary reactors are getting safer and more efficient. Not to mention breeder reactors can use the byproducts of their energy production to further produce energy.
What are you talking about? In 2023, solar power alone generated 1.63 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity. Twice as much as was generated by coal, and more than half as much as was generated by nuclear. Solar plus wind out performed nuclear by hundreds of gigawatts.
The only thing holding back renewable power is grid level energy storage, and that's evolving rapidly.
The problem with renewables is the fluctuation. So you need something you can quickly spin up or down to compensate. Now you can do that with nuclear reactors to some extent - but they barely break even at current energy prices, and they keep having the same high cost while idle.
So a combination of grid storage and power plants with low cost when idle (like water) is the way to go now.
I would rather see more investment on better renewable tech then relaying on biohazard.
Modern nuclear energy produces significantly less waste and involves more fuel recycling than the historical predecessors. But these reactors are more expensive to build and run, which means smaller profit margins and longer profit tails.
Solar and Wind are popular in large part because you can build them up and profit off them quickly in a high-priced electricity market (making Texas's insanely expensive ERCOT system a popular location for new green development, paradoxically). But nuclear power provides a cheap and clean base load that we're only able to get from coal and natural gas, atm. If you really want to get off fossil fuels entirely, nuclear is the next logical step.
Every commercial fuel recycling plant in existence releases large amounts of radioactivity into the air and water, so I dont really see them as a good alternative.
Considering how long it would take to build safe reactors, how expensive it would be and how much radioactive contamination would be created both at the production of fuel and later when the storage ever goes wrong after thousands of years, I just dont see any reason to ever invest into it nowadays, when renewables and batteries have gotten so good.
I just dont see any reason to ever invest into it nowadays, when renewables and batteries have gotten so good.
Renewables and batteries have their own problems.
Producing and processing cobalt and lithium under current conditions will mean engaging in large-scale deforestation in some of the last unmolested corners of the planet, producing enormous amounts of toxic waste as part of the refinement process, and then getting these big bricks of lithium (not to mention cadmium, mercury, and lead) that we need to dispose of at the battery's end of lifecycle.
Renewables - particularly hydropower, one of the most dense and efficient forms of renewable energy - can deform natural waterways and collapse local ecologies. Solar plants have an enormous geographic footprint. These big wind turbines still need to be produced, maintained, and disposed of with different kinds of plastics, alloys, and battery components.
Which isn't even to say these are bad ideas. But everything we do requires an eye towards the long-term lifecycle of the generators and efficient recycling/disposal at their end.
Nuclear power isn't any different. If we don't operate plants with the intention of producing fissile materials, they run a lot cleaner. We can even power grids off of thorium. Molten salt reactors do an excellent job of maximizing the return on release of energy, while minimizing the risk of a meltdown. Our fifth generation nuclear engines can use this technology and the only thing holding us back is ramping it up.
Unlike modern batteries, nuclear power doesn't require anywhere near the same amount of cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese. Uranium is surprisingly cheap and abundant, with seawater yielding a pound of enrichable uranium at the cost of $100-$200 (which then yields electricity under $.10/kwh).
We can definitely do renewables in a destructive and unsustainable way, recklessly mining and deforesting the plant to churn out single-use batteries. And we can do nuclear power in a responsible and efficient way, recycling fuel and containing the relatively low volume of highly toxic waste.
But all of that is a consequence of economic policy. Its much less a consequence of choosing which fuel source to use.
Economicaly might be viable, but there is so much unused experimental tech that has higher potential and scales better (higher scientific development as well).
It's far, far more expensive than renewable energy. It also takes far, far longer to build a plant. Too long to meet 2030 targets even if you started building today. And in most western democracies you wouldn't even be able to get anything done by 2040 if you also add in political processes, consultation, and design of the plant.
There's a reason the current biggest proponents of nuclear energy are people and parties who previously were open climate change deniers. Deciding to go to nuclear will give fossil fuel companies maximum time to keep doing their thing. Companies which made their existence on the back of fossil fuels, like mining companies and plant operators also love it, because it doesn't require much of a change from their current business model.
Agreed, building a nuclear facility takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money. However... This doesn't need to be the case at all.
A lot of the costs go into design, planning and legal work. The amount of red tape to build a nuclear plant is huge. Plus all of the parties that fight any plans to build, with a heavy not in my backyard component.
If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly. Back in the day we could build them faster and cheaper. And these days we build far more complex installations quicker and cheaper than nuclear power plants.
The anti-nuclear movement has done so much to hold humanity back on this front. And the weird part is most people do think nuclear fusion plants are a good thing and can solve stuff. But they have almost all of the downsides nuclear fission plants have in terms of red tape, complexity and cost.
You can't cut the red tape. The red tape is why we're able to say nuclear is safe.
the weird part is most people do think nuclear fusion plants are a good thing and can solve stuff. But they have almost all of the downsides nuclear fission plants have in terms of red tape, complexity and cost
Huh? Nuclear fusion doesn't have any downsides or upsides. Because it doesn't exist. We've never been able to generate net power with fusion. (No, not even that story from a couple of years ago, which only counted as 'input' a small fraction of the total energy used overall. It was a good development, but just one small step on the long journey to it being practical.)
Being anti-nuclear was a poor stance to have 20, 30 years ago. At that time, renewables weren't cost effective enough to be a big portion of our energy generation mix, and we should have been building alternatives to fossil fuels since back then if not earlier. But today, all the analysis tells us that renewables are far cheaper and more effective than nuclear. Today, being pro-nuclear is the wrong stance to take. It's the anti-science stance, which is why it has seen a recent rise among right-wing political parties and media organisations.
I have never heard being pro-nuclear is the anti science stance and it being on the rise among right wing political parties. All the right wing is talking about it more coal and less things to be done about the climate.
The people who I talk to who are pro nuclear seem very well informed and not anti science at all.
I believe nuclear can help us get to the future we want and we should have done it a lot sooner. Nuclear doesn't mean anti-renewable, both can exist.
Nuclear doesn’t mean anti-renewable, both can exist.
Not easily, for the reasons explained in my reply to @Frokke.
The people who I talk to who are pro nuclear seem very well informed
I doubt it, because the science itself is against nuclear. Evidence says it would be too expensive and take too long to deliver compared to renewables.
Very well, let's agree to disagree. Perhaps I am wrong. But I am in no way right wing or spreading misinformation.
The people I've spoken who work in the nuclear field bitch about unneeded red tape all the time. Some of it is important for sure, but a lot of it can be cut if we wanted to without safety becoming an issue. The price of nuclear has gone way up the past 20 years, whilst the knowledge and tools have become better. This makes no sense to me. We should be able to build them cheaper and faster, not slower and more expensive. And there are countries in the world, that can get it done cheaper, so why can't we?
I'm all for renewables, I have solar panels. But I'm not 100% convinced we have grid storage figured out. And in the meanwhile we keep burning fossils in huge amounts. If we can have something that produces energy, without fucking up the atmosphere, even at a price that's more expensive than other sources (within reason) I'm all for that. Because with the price of energy from coal, the money for fixing the atmosphere isn't included.
We should be able to build them cheaper and faster, not slower and more expensive. And there are countries in the world, that can get it done cheaper, so why can't we?
It's because we stopped building them. We have academic knowledge on how to do it but not the practical/technical know-how. A few countries do it because they're doing a ton of reactors, but those don't come cheap either.
Atkeast in my country, the only two pro-nuclear parties are fsr-right climate change deniers and the same old fucks who're only pro-nuclear because the green party isnt.
If however a country would be prepared to cut through the red tape and have a standard design developed for say 10 plants at the same time, the price and construction time would be decreased greatly.
That's a pretty big ask for a democratic government where half of the politicians are actively sabotaging climate initiatives....
The only countries where this is really feasible are places where federal powers can supersede the authority of local governments. A nuclear based power grid in America would require a complete reorganization of state and federal authority.
The only way anyone thinks nuclear energy is a viable option in the states is if they completely ignore the political realities of American government.
For example, is it physically possible for us to build a proper deep storage facility for nuclear waste? Yes, of course. Have we attempted to build said deep storage facility? Yes, since 1987. Are we any closer to finishing the site after +30 years.......no.
Blah blah blah nobody wants to hear actual evidence and suggestions that solar and wind might be better. We're on a mission for Nuclear power damn the Fukushima refugees and who cares if we store the waste encased in concrete at the bottom of the ocean which we know will eventually leak into the food stream
Huh. So those of us that have always advocated for a nuclear baseline with wind/solar topping off until we have adequate storage solutions are climate change deniers? That's new.
First, no, that's not what I said. If you're only going to be arguing in bad faith like that this will be the last time I engage with you.
Second, baseload power is in fact a myth. And it becomes even worse when you consider the fact that nuclear doesn't scale up and down in response to demand very well. In places with large amounts of rooftop solar and other distributed renewables, nuclear is especially bad, because you can't just tell everyone who has their own generation to stop doing that, but you also don't want to be generating more than is used.
Third, even if you did consider it necessary to have baseload "until we have adequate storage", the extremely long timelines it takes to get from today to using renewables in places that don't already have it, spending money designing and building nuclear would just delay the building of that storage, and it would still end up coming online too late.
I used to be a fan of nuclear. In 2010 I'd have said yeah, we should do it. But every time I've looked into it over the last 10 years especially, I've had to reckon with the simple fact that all the data tells us we shouldn't be building nuclear; it's just an inferior option to renewables.
Aaaw, someone doesn't like the tone used? Well that's unfortunate. How about you start with leaving dem bad faith arguments?
Renewables will not cover your usage. Period. You will need something to cover what renewables won't be able to deliver. Your options are limited. Nuclear is the only sustainable option for many places. Sure you got hydro (ecological disasters) or geothermal in some places, but most do not have those options.
False. Multiple countries are already able to run on 100% renewables for prolonged periods of time. The bigger issue is what to do with excess power. Battery solutions can cover moments where renewables produce a bit less power.
All the countries that manage 100% renewable power use high levels of hydropower. Which is not an option for many countries and has it's own ecological problems associated with it.
Also, these 100% renewable countries have very little electricity requirements.
The United States produces at least produces four million Gigawatt hours of electricity per year. Compare that to some of these "100% renewable" countries.
Oh noes, facts. The bane of all renewables evangelicals.....
Just wait till you have to tell them they're looking at irrelevant data. Not only are they using specific usecases that are not applicable to a large majority of countries, but they're also using data that doesn't support the long term fossil fuel goals.
Just wait till you tell them how much the electricity requirements will skyrocket once we're transitioning to EV, dropping fossil fuel heating, cooking, cargo trucks switch to EV, etc etc.
Sure, most countries that already made it use hydro. But Denmark is already up tp 80% without hydro, and the UK and Germany are already nearly halfway there without any meaningful hydro. And there's still so much solar and wind that can still be installed. They're nowhere near their maximum production capacity yet.
100% from renewables is clearly feasible and achievable. Of course it takes time and investments, but nuclear energy will takre more time and investments to get going again.
Sorry to report, hydrogen is also hopeless. It’s cool tech, but making it work in practice is hopeless because it diffuses straight through every container you try and keep it in, and achieving reasonable energy densities requires cryogenic storage.
Also, developments have been stalling out relative to electrical solutions because of this and because of the heavy investment in electrics.
I can only see it really working in practice in niche applications where you will be close to cryogenic facilities.
Locking hydrogen up in ammonia is what the industry looks to be moving to to avoid the problem you describe.
Also, look up the 7 Hydrogen Hubs in the US as an example of this market getting started. There are no downsides to developing a hydrogen market if we're going to have oodles of excess renewable energy.
Locking hydrogen up in ammonia is what the industry looks to be moving to to avoid the problem you describe.
I believe we’re still using more hydrogen to make industrial ammonia than that we produce from green sources, so I guess even if we only switch over ammonia production without worrying about fuel cells or hydrogen vehicles or power generation, we still come out ahead.
Then there’s the hydrogen used in oil refining that, iirc, is still mostly sourced from methane, but I’m hesitant to suggest we replace that with green hydrogen since if you want to be carbon-negative the oil refining will have to go down A LOT anyway.
Anyway, I guess my point is that hydrogen is an important commodity for all sorts of things. Before we start burning it for energy it’s easier to use it as is in industrial processes. The methane we save that way (that would be used to produce industrial hydrogen) we can burn as is in existing gas power plants.
But this is the kind of pragmatic common sense thing that gets no one excited.
I mean, if anything, the fact that the Oil & Gas industry uses hydrogen for refining means that there is a possible, robust market for green hydrogen to get into (don't like this because it means oil is still the focus, when we need to consider green chemistry and stop with oil).
The O&G industry also helped usher in solar PV at an early stage because of the needs of remote power in hazardous environments such as offshore rigs and near potential sources of release like oil tanks (I used to work as an engineer in O&G myself).
There's actually a lot of work by GE and Mitsubishi to start shipping new gas turbines to be capable of firing a non-zero amount of hydrogen in addition to natural gas. I think some plants are even capable of doing 50/50 hydrogen/natural gas, with that former number increasing year over year.
Hydrogen could outstrip conventional fuels someday. The bottleneck has always been supply though.
If renewables are so abundant and cheap, then we'll finally have a reason to deploy hydrogen infrastructure on a massive scale (at least in the US). Hell, you look at the major inverter manufacturers for utility PV like Sungrow, and they have containerized electrolyzers ready for implementation. I haven't done a market survey, but if they're in the game, then so are other players.
If you want to be convinced of the progress of hydrogen, I would look into the project that Sargent & Lundy is working on in Utah. They're planning on using a salt cavern for hydrogen storage, and I believe there is a CCGT onsite as well to make use of the generation.
Hydrogen is even on the minds of offshore wind developers like Siemens.
The substance isn't doomed like others in this thread make it out. There is active interest in the market to develop a supply chain and economy.
Edit: The one thing I don't see a lot of people talk about though is where the raw materials for this hydrogen will come from... Likely groundwater unfortunately. Since groundwater is already a highly sought after resource for consumption and agriculture, I'm not sure if hydrogen in this way will take off. This is why offshore hydrogen seems to be more promising, but as we see with wave and tidal power, the ocean environment just sucks for any commercialization.
It's an uphill battle, but the same can be said for the climate crisis in general. Hope we make enough progress before it's too late.
There are a bunch. But solar panels have gotten a lot better in the last decades, whereas thermodynamics has remained the same. They are not worth the investment anymore.
Australian politicians have been arguing about nuclear energy for decades, and with whats going on now, petty distracting squabbling while state governments are gutting public infrastructure
The most frustrating thing is the antinuclear party is obviously fine with nuclear power, and nuclear armaments, just look at the aukus submarines
labors cries about the dangers to our communities and the environment are obviously disingenuous, or they wouldnt be setting a green light for the billionaire robber barons to continue tearing oil and minerals out of the ground (they promise to restore the land for real-sies this time)
Anyway, a nuclear power plant runs a steam turbine and will never be more than what, 30% efficient?
Photovoltaic cells are even less efficient, I think they're somewhere between 10-20% efficient. I think the way to go would be a solar collector, like the Archimedes death ray, but much much bigger.
That is already a thing and it's called concentrated solar power. Basically aim a shit load of mirrors at a target to heat it, run some working fluid through the target and use that to make steam to turn a turbine. There are a few power plants that use it but in general it has been more finicky and disruptive to the local environment than traditional PV panels would be.
There are designs for a giant glass cone put in the middle of the desert. Air under the cone gets warmed and it rises up through a couple turbines on its way out of the device.
The fantastic thing about renewables is how much they lend themselves to a less centralised model. Solar collector? Sure, why not‽ Rooftop solar on people's houses? You bet! Geothermal? If local conditions are favourable to it, absolutely!
Instead of a small number of massive power plants that only governments or really large corporations can operate individuals can generate the power for themselves, or companies can offset their costs by generating a little power, or cities can operate a smaller plant to power what operations in their city aren't handled by other means. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach.
This contrasts with nuclear. SMRs could theoretically do the same thing, but haven't yet proven viable. And traditional plants just put out way too much power. They're one-size-fits-all by definition, and only have the ability to operate alongside other modes with the other modes filling in a small amount around the edges.
I would remind you that Aukus is a mess of the Coalition's making - after they made a mess of the original submarine replacement project under Abbott and Turnbull, insisting on Diesel.
But for Labor to withdraw from Aukus would cause a shitstorm of unseen proportions.
No, you're right. It's not an option for everyone. Which is why I mentioned that there are many other solutions which are similar and over production which is simpler and cheaper
What? You don't have Google? Options I know of (other than batteries and pumped hydro) :
Compressed Air Energy Storage, Thermal Energy Storage,, Fly wheels, Hydrogen, Supercapacitors,
Gravitational Storage
Nobody wants energy stored for months. Whatever storage is used needs to get through temporary decreases in efficiency. In places that use solar, that means from one afternoon to the next morning. In places that use wind, it means until the wind picks up. We're talking storage on the order of tens of hours at the most.
The fact that you descend into complete science fiction should give you pause for thought. I doubt it will, but please think about how fantastical your proposed solutions are - "a massive lake of molten salt under every city" (I actually like that one!)...
Given you're making up things I never said I can only imagine what you're respinding to? Where did a massive lake of molten salt under every city come from?
Sorry this is a late reply. I can see that mentioning molten salt was a bit left-field, However, it is one of the more realistic ways to store the huge amounts of power needed to fuel an economy for a couple of weeks (which you need in northern europe/US if you want to use solar/wind). Here's a link about it:
I am pro nuclear, but if we are going to descend into this renewable hell, then we need to actually think about how you store terawatt-hours of power. I really think that this kind of storage might be the nearest we have to a solution. we'll only need it once we try to turn off the gas turbines, of course. It is fascinating that so many smart people don't see that the whole jigsaw is missing vital pieces.
Oil & Gas companies didn't want Solar, Wind, and Storage to proliferate, yet they did because of cost savings.
I think we could start to see that for these alternative-ion batteries if lithium supply ever becomes an issue. There will always be a niche that has the opportunity to grow in the economy. Just takes the right circumstances and preparation
Price driven consumption has been done by industrial users for decades. And countries like UK has been storing energy in storage heaters at home for decades as well. EVs can do wonders here.
Fuck I wish the politicians would give this to us straight like that.
Why is Albo's party spreading memes about three eyed fish instead of saying "yeah Dutton's nuclear plan is safe, but it maximises fossil fuel use in the short term and we'd prefer to focus on renewables"
Where the fuck we gonna put all the waste product? I'm not saying nuclear power is bad, far from it, but we have two problems here:
Its cost prohibitive to build new Third Generation reactors that are fault tolerant, and moreso to assure that all the Second Generation reactors are fully fault tolerant given how adjacent they are to flood plains and fault lines...
Where the fuck are we gonna put the waste ad? Yucca Mountain is off the table for good, WIPP is nearing capacity for a pilot plant, and we have nothing like Onkalo planned out despite the funding being there many times over
All the waste a plant ever produces in its lifetime can be contained with ease on site. Waste certainly isn't the main issue, though it's portrayed to be. Cost of deployment and staffing are more prohibitive issues, and both are surmountable. I don't think it's a bandaid for all power issues, but it's a powerful tool that should be used more often, not phased out.
Also we do have the ability to re-utilize waste in different types of reactors until it is essentially entirely spent. There is a complete cycle available. Nobody talks about it though because you know, not as cost-effective
All the waste a plant ever produces in its lifetime can be contained with ease on site.
Won't that create a bunch of targets all over the country? Then terrorists or enemy states can use simple small bombs to make whole areas uninhabitable for the next millennium.
Strong enough to be hit by a train full speed too IIRC, plus if we actually built Yucca Mtn anyone getting within 500 miles of Fallon is getting vaporized over the sand long before they can try busting any bunkers
Or much much longer. It's not going anywhere. It can't escape its cask, and outside human intervention the casks won't be breached. It's just locked-up metal that gives off some radiation, fully contained within the cask. It isn't oozing green goo.
No, it's not the best we have. Solar and wind are way safer, cost less and don't produce waste.
Sure, nuclear power is safe until it isn't. Fukushima and Chernobyl are examples of that. Nuclear plants in Ukraine were at risk during Russian attacks. Even if you have a modern plant, you don't really think that under capitalism there is an incentive to care properly for them in the long run. Corners will be cut.
Besides that they produce so much waste that has to be: a) being transported
b) stored somewhere
Looking at the US railroad system and how it is pushed beyond it's capacity right now and seeing how nuclear waste sites are literally rotting and contaminating everything around them I'd say it's one of the least safe energies. Especially if you have clean alternatives that don't produce waste.
Renewables are unreliable. That's a fact. Yes you have moments, days even weeks where they can deliver what is currently required. In total output. Not yet in delivers when you actually need it output.
Sure you can have 100% renewable generation for a 24hr period, but if your generation is during the day and your usage is spread into the night, you're not really covering your needs, no matter how good it looks on paper.
It is also your current usage. Now do the math and replace all fossil fuel usage with electric alternatives. Cars, buses, trucks, heating, cooking, etc. Now calculate just how much more renewables you need to cover all that in ideal circumstances.
Now do the same for windless winter days.
If we're going to step away from fossil fuels entirely, you're going to have to accept nuclear as an option. Thinking we'll manage only with renewables is a dream. While you dream, we're burning fossil fuels non-stop. Cuz that's reality.
You can have renewables with nuclear, or renewables with fossil fuels. You're actively choosing renewables with fossil fuels.
by insulating the roof of my house better i cut my useage of oil by more than 50%, next time i'll insulate the outer walls, and after that i'll switch to electric heating that would need just 20% of the original energy.
you forget that the energy consumption not neccesarily always rises. All appliances get better and better in efficiency, for example.
Yes, your total energy consumption drops, but your electricity consumption rises as a result. Electrification of stuff that relied on burning fossil fuels means that electricity consumption goes up even while total energy consumption stays the same or drops. I'm not necessarily saying that nuclear is the solution, but it's a solution that can at least buy us a few decades for renewables and energy storage to catch up to demand.
An EV will double your electricity usage. Look into the requirements for EV cargo transport. Swapping out all the diesel trucks, just the heavy transport will come close to doubling the national electricity needs. Add to that small vans and buses.
I urge you to actually do the math. You'll get a much much better understanding of the issue. Just pasting links to articles that look like they support your arguments adds to the dream.
The aim is to drop fossil fuels. Your goal should've been to embrace nuclear while increasing renewables. Atm you seem fine with just burning fossil fuels, killing the planet, cuz the alternative isn't renewable. GG.
Take a look at Germany, Belgium, etc. ditching nuclear because the green parties fought so hard for it. What are they doing now? Back to healthy healthy coal and gas. Thanks for helping kill the planet even faster in your zeal for exclusively renewable energy.
What most people dont' understand, i live in a part of germany, where eating of self collected mushrooms will radiate you, where boars in the forest are radioactive because of chernobyl 30 years ago...
There may be a point when we don't need nuclear, maybe once we dramatically level up our battery technology, but that point is not now, and probably not for the next 50 years
Yeah, nothing back there except tons of highly radioactive waste that nobody knows what to do with for the next million years, nothing back there but the risk of contaminating a whole region with radioactive shit like it happened in Chernobyl and Fukushima, nothing back there except for overly expensive energy that's only cheap because governments subsidized the shit out of it because they thought it was the new big thing you need to have, and now they still do just because. Don't get me worng, it's probably still a tiny bit better than burning fossils. But it's still bullshit.
Dig a deep hole into the bedrock, put the waste in dry casks, put the casks in the hole, backfill with clay.
This has been known for decades!
I live in a suburb north of Stockholm in Sweden, here in Scandinavia we have a very stable bedrock, I would absolutely welcome a disposal site for nuclear waste in my suburb, and I am talking about a site that would accept waste from all over the world (for a fee obviously).
It would be simple, create jobs, and allow us to keep using nuclear power to allow for quicker removal of fossil power plants.
As for Chernobyl, TMI and Fukashima, Chernobyl was a bad design which was run by people who lacked access to information about past nuclear accidents, leading to bad management, TMI had a fail deadly indicator system, where a broken light bulb caused incorrect information to be acted on, and Fukashima was built in a bad location.
I recommend you to watch this 2006 BBC Horizon documentary, it is called Nuclear Nightmares and talks about our fear of radiation, and weather or not it is warranted:
A large coal power plant needs at least 10000 tons of coal every day according to Wikipedia.
A nuclear plant needs about 25 tons per year.
That is a huge, massive difference in logistics, pollution and use of resources, that is not even getting into the coal ash that is produced by cosl plants, according to the EPA, nearly 130 million tons of coal ash was generated in the US by coal power plants. None was generated by nuclear power plants.
Please watch the documentary, it is a few years old, but the premise still holds.
Another point is that there are places outside Chernobyl and Fukashima that have higher background radiation that either exclusion zone, and that is places where people live normally, I seem to recall that being mentioned in the documentary I linked.
So, no, sorry, nuclear power isn’t relevant anymore. I know it’s tempting to cling to outdated technologies sometimes, I enjoy using a typewriter for example, but when it comes to solving climate change, I think we should use the best tools available, which nuclear is definitely not. It’s just too expensive and slow to provision.
DOE Announces $2.7 Billion From President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to Boost Domestic Nuclear Fuel Supply Chain
Wow, some industry lobbyists got government funding, amazing. Global fossil fuel subsidies are at $7 trillion, so I guess those are really relevant to our future as well!
I don’t want developing countries to waste their money on nuclear power when they can get much more cost effective renewables.
Global fossil fuel subsidies are at $7 trillion, so I guess those are really relevant to our future as well!
No of course not. The subsidies at this point at a crime against humanity.
I don’t want developing countries to waste their money on nuclear power when they can get much more cost effective renewables.
If the renewables are cost effective and provide stable power then I too want them to be priority -near zero risks-, but more importantly industry and business will seek them on their own. I just hold that nuclear power should be part of the mix. Take the UAE for example it is investing in both nuclear and solar.
I'm pro nuke energy but to pretend there are no downsides is what got us into the climate mess we are in in the first place.
Cost, being a major drawback, space being another. And of course while they almost never fail, they do occasionally, and will again. And those failures are utterly catastrophic, and it'd hard to convince a community to welcome a nuclear plant, and if the community doesn't want it then it can't or shouldn't be forced onto them.
They also represent tactical strike sites in time of combat engagement. Big red X for a missile.
There are also significant environmental concerns, as we really have no good way to dispose of nuclear waste in a safe or efficient manner at this time.
It's likely that nuclear based energy is the future, but you need to discuss the bad with the good here or we are just going to end up at square one again. There are long term ramifications.
Worth noting that all modern failures have been GE models or ancient Westinghouse models. Modern nuclear reactors built by Westinghouse are virtually immune from meltdown, and Westinghouse is the lead player in new builds. Nuclear safety has come miles since the like of Fukushima, and especially 3 Mile Island. I'd feel perfectly safe living near a new Westinghouse nuclear plant.
There are no unsinkable ships. No matter how safe the Titanic is, keep enough of them on the sea and one will eventually sink the way least people expected. If life on Earth depends on a Titanic never sinking...we're fucked eventually.
Life on Earth depends on no more than a couple on nuclear plants blowing up catastrophically.
I agree with everything you say. It really is spot on. What I don't understand is how, with your awareness, do you still consider yourself pro-nuclear. Honest question, I really am curious.
This is a shocker for many on social media but you can accept that something you want is not perfect but still want it, or see good in a bad person, but still not want them on the throne.
Just because I can be realistic about it's pros and cons instead of blindly parroting that I have been told to parrot doesn't mean I can't be pro nuclear.
Other power sources have more problems. And I say just launch the waste into space and eventually the reactors will just be out of the stratosphere and it won't matter if it explodes.
But you got to walk before you can run.
I just dislike when people pretend there are no downside to nuke, EV, wind, etc, because if they make one little comment on a con suddenly they're some anti enviro Trump sucker and get dogpiled
There's a difference in something being not perfect and being fundamentally flawed. My confusion is because you perfectly verbalized why I think it's flawed.
I could understand being in favor of using nuclear temporarily until renewables are more reliable. I don't agree but I understand the thought process. It's a calculated risk, an acceptable gamble. But being aware of all the issues with nuclear and still be in favor of it long term, in my opinion, doesn't make sense.
Mind you, I'm not trying to attack you, I'm genuinely intrigued and curious.
I dunno what that guy was thinking, but it seems obvious to me that nuclear fusion is the long term solution for energy generation.
Nuclear fission not so much, but it's definitely debatable which has more fundamental flaws between fission and wind/hydro/solar. All renewable energy sources ultimately depend on natural processes which are not reliable or permanent. And they also tend to disrupt the environment to some extent.
Nuclear fission has no such limitations, but instead trades long term risk for short term stability. Basically renewable sources are and always will be somewhat unreliable, and Nuclear fission is the least bad reliable energy source to pair with the renewables. So in the medium term, fission makes a lot more sense than fossil fuels, and in the long term we should be looking to fusion.
This immediately discards like, everything you've said up until now, though. It matters if it explodes on the way up challenger style and irradiates half of the continent with a massive dirty bomb of nuclear waste. It's way more cost effective, efficient, and safer to just put it somewhere behind a big concrete block and then pay some guy to watch it 24/7, and make sure the big concrete block doesn't crack open or suffer from water infiltration or whatever.
I mean to be fair you do make it pretty easy to discredit your entire argument, when you're just gonna say that anyone calling you out on this very obviously stupid idea is a bot. Like that's the same thing again.
Maybe I'm a victim of Poe's law, but I've seen "launch nuclear waste into space" get way more repute than it deserves as an idea from people who have no clue about the actual issues with, even just normal aspects to do with energy generation. It's a shorthand signal that lets me know that someone's had all their thinking on it done for them by shitty pop science and shitty science journalism. It's like if someone believes in antivax, or something. I'm probably not going to really think they're a credible source, after that. This is also bad if the shit they're saying is itself lacking in external sources which I can rely on outside of them.
I'm also flexing my brain right now because none of the shit you said at all really backs up the idea the nuclear energy is the future. Like, if you think it's inevitable that more plants collapse and it's inevitable that nuclear power plants get destroyed by missiles in times of war (also a great idea, on par with disposing of it in space, let me irradiate the exact area I'm trying to capture for miles and miles around), then you wouldn't want nuclear power. If you believe in that and then you also believe in the overblown problem of nuclear waste, then there's not really a point, there's no point at which the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
The reason people aren't going to accept nuclear if they believe it has cons is because like half of those cons are, albeit overblown, catastrophic for life on the planet, and the other half are failures to conceptualize based on economic boogeymen, just the same as with solar power. Political will problems, rather than problems with physical reality or core technologies. But still, problems that conflict with the existence of the idea itself.
You're not going to convince people to go in on nuclear power, your stated idea, if you only point out it's flaws, and then also post ridiculous shit.
People are kind of missing the point of the meme. The point is that Nuclear is down there along with renewables in safety and efficiency. It's lacking the egregious cover up in the original meme, even if it has legitimate concerns now. And due to society's ever increasing demand for electricity, we will heavily benefit from having a more scalable solution that doesn't require covering and potentially disrupting massive amounts of land before their operations can be scaled up to meet extraordinary demand. Wind turbines and solar panels don't stop working when we can't use their electricity either, so it's not like we can build too many of them or we risk creating complications out of peak hours. Many electrical networks aren't built to handle the loads. A nuclear reactor can be scaled down to use less fuel and put less strain on the electrical network when unneeded.
It should also be said that money can't always be spent equally everywhere. And depending on the labor required, there is also a limit to how manageable infrastructure is when it scales. The people that maintain and build solar panels, hydro, wind turbines, and nuclear, are not the same people. And if we acknowledge that climate change is an existential crisis, we must put our eggs in every basket we can, to diversify the energy transition. All four of the safest and most efficient solutions we have should be tapped into. But nuclear is often skipped because of outdated conceptions and fear. It does cost a lot and takes a while to build, but it fits certain shapes in the puzzle that none of the others do as well as it does.
Some personal thoughts:
My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously. We have limited land too, and a housing crisis on top of it. So land usage is a big pain point for renewables, and even if the land is unused, it is often so close to civilization that it does affect people's feelings of their surroundings when living near them, which might cause renewables to not make it as far as it could unrestricted. A nuclear reactor takes up fractions of the space, and can be relatively hidden from people.
All the other parties who heavily lean in to combating climate change at least acknowledge nuclear as an option that should (and are) being explored. And even the more climate skeptical parties see nuclear as something they could stand behind. Having broad support for certain actions is also important to actually getting things done. Our two new nuclear powered plants are expected to be running by 2035. Only ten years from now, ahead of our climate goals to be net-zero in 2040.
I think the option of nuclear needs to be on the table, and in some (or many) circumstances it might be the best fit.
Presently in Australia one of our two major parties is campaigning on a "pivot to nuclear" platform, but we're kind the polar opposite to the netherlands (both figuratively and literally?). The vast majority of Australia is sunny desert, girt by sea, with a tiny population in on the coast. My state is something like 2,000km by 1,250km, with about 2 million people. Nuclear just doesn't seem like a good fit right now.
My concern is that with this pivot to nuclear we basically just keep burning coal for the next 20 years while we're building nuclear plants.
It might be a great idea to build several reactors, while we furiously build out wind and solar.
There are some gargantuan solar hydrogen cracking projects not far from here in the planning phase which just sound amazing to me.
My own country (The Netherlands) has despite a very vocal anti-nuclear movement in the 20th century completely flipped now to where the only parties not in favor of Nuclear are the Greens, who at times quote the fear as a reason not to do it. As someone who treats climate change as truly existential for our country that lies below projected sea levels, it makes them look unreasonable and not taking the issue seriously.
I'm not from Netherlands, but very much belive this.
Most greens are very wierd. They claim to be against malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but when it comes to solutions, they are against them(see golden rice). They are also mostly vegans, but when it comes to insulin, they would rather kill lots of pigs instead of scary-scary GMO yeast. Or when it comes to energy production, they rather would choose one with guaranteed dangers(coal has very nasty byproducts of burning) instead of potential.
I heard some greens in landlocked municipality(or whatever they call it in Britain) ruled against solar in favour of tidal. While same party in costal municipality ruled against of tidal.
I see biggest problem not in production, not in is it nuclear, but in is it buisness as usual. Capitalism knows no end to greed.
Most greens are very wierd. They claim to be against malnutrition and vitamin deficiency, but when it comes to solutions, they are against them(see golden rice). They are also mostly vegans, but when it comes to insulin, they would rather kill lots of pigs instead of scary-scary GMO yeast. Or when it comes to energy production, they rather would choose one with guaranteed dangers(coal has very nasty byproducts of burning) instead of potential.
I think this is probably because they represent a more dangerous and legitimate opposition to the powers that be, and, as a result, tend to be one of the most astroturfed groups on the planet. Couple that with a kind of extremism, where they will oppose golden rice or GMO yeast on the basis of evergreening IP laws (a fair complaint, imo), and then you can kind of see why they keep opposing things that are presented as solutions and keep getting hit with the terminally annoying "well, why don't you have any solutions, then?" style of criticism.
In germany we use more space for golf courses and christmas trees than renewables. Compared to the land used tongrow animal feed thats a drop in a bucket. You could eat a little less meat and have more than enough room for 100% renewables.
Sorry, but that is far from correct. Of course you can throttle wind and solar production if you want, but the problem of to much energy is a nice to have. You could create Hydrogen or desalinate water in large scales if you got energy left over
Regarding nuclear power: If you calculate the cost of nuclear and include that you need to store the waste for thousands of years it's not cheap either. And you also need to source the fuel from somewhere. Uranium is not abundant. And also it takes 20 years to build an new plant. By then it will be even lest cost effective. Rather continue with wind and solar and then batteries for the money.
If you calculate the cost of nuclear and include that you need to store the waste for thousands of years i
This hasn't been true for decades.
High Level Nuclear waste, aka spent fuel, can be run through breeder reactors or other new gen types to drastically reduce their radioactive half-life to decades and theoretically years with designs proposed in the last few years. Only reason reactors don't do this is lack of funding and demand for such things, the amount of high level waste produced is miniscule per year. And there are theories proposed already that could reduce ot further but nuclear phobia pushed by the oil lobby prevents proper funding and RnD to properly push those advancements to production.
You can certainly try to use the power as much as possible, or sell the energy to a country with a deficit. But the problem is that you would still need to invest a lot of money to make sure the grid can handle the excess if you build renewables to cover 100% of the grid demand for now and in the future. Centralized fuel sources require much less grid changes because it flows from one place and spreads from there, so infrastructure only needs to be improved close to the source. Renewables as decentralized power sources requires the grid to be strengthened anywhere they are placed, and often that is not practical, both in financial costs and in the engineers it takes to actually do that.
Would it be preferable? Yes. Would it happen before we already need to be fully carbon neutral? Often not.
I'd refer you to my other post about the situation in my country. We have a small warehouse of a few football fields which stores the highest radioactivity of unusable nuclear fuel, and still has more than enough space for centuries. The rest of the fuel is simply re-used until it's effectively regular waste. The time to build two new nuclear reactors here also costs only about 10 years, not 20.
Rather continue with wind and solar and then batteries for the money.
All of these things should happen regardless of nuclear progress. And they do happen. But again, building renewables isn't just about the price.
My issue with nuclear energy isn't that it's dangerous or that it's inherently bad. The world needs a stable source of energy that compensates for wind and solar fluctuations anyways. For the current realistic alternatives that's either going to be nuclear or coal/oil/natural gas. We have nothing else for this purpose, end of discussion.
My problem is the assumption underlying this discussion about nuclear energy that it somehow will solve all of our problems or that it will somehow allow us to continue doing business as usual. That's categorically not the case. The climate crisis has multiple fronts that need to be dealt with and the emissions is just one of them. Even if we somehow managed to find the funds and resources to replace all non renewable energy with nuclear, we would still have solved just 10% of the problem, and considering that this cheap new energy will allow us to increase our activities and interventions in the planet, the situation will only worsen.
Nuclear energy is of course useful, but it's not the answer. Never has technology been the answer for a social and political issue. We can't "science and invent" our way out of this, it's not about the tech, it's about who decides how it will be used, who will profit from it, who and how much will be affected by it etc. If you want to advocate for a way to deal with the climate crisis you have to propose a complete social and political plan that will obviously include available technologies, so stop focusing on technologies and start focusing on society and who takes the decisions.
One simple example would be the following: no matter how green your energy is, if the trend in the US is to have increasingly bigger cars and no public transport, then the energy demands will always increase and no matter how many nuclear plants you build, they will only serve as an additional source and not as a replacement. So no matter how many plants you build, the climate will only deteriorate.
This is literally how the people in charge have decided it will work. Any new developing energy source that is invented serves only to increase the consumption, not to replace previous technologies. That's the case with solar and wind as well. So all of this discussion you all make about nuclear Vs oil or whatever is literally irrelevant. The problem is social and political, not technological.
Given that solar and wind are cheaper, get built to schedule and far less likely to have cost overruns, this meme is bullshit.
Sure, nukes are great. But we need clean energy right the fuck now. Spending money on new nukes is inefficient when it could be spent on solar and wind.
Renewables are cheaper per kwh, but it's yet to be seen if they're cheaper when you get to higher grid renewable percentages and need to involve massive grid storage.
In the US we already have something like 30% which alleviates pretty much all the storage concerns. For our dollar right now, solar and wind are the best place to invest.
We already have 30% nukes. Right now we need more solar and wind. I’m not saying shut down nukes. They are good. They are just a waste of money and time to build new when we have cheaper and easier to produce alternatives.
Correct, but don't forget that renewables is an umbrella term.
If you use solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and bioenenergy, you're diversified and it's all renewable. Add in storage and there's not much of an issue anymore.
Are you really bringing up resource limitation when your point is energy sources that depend on finite fuel?
Besides, the current form of renewables is the best option we have right now, so we should put all efforts into that. Once we find something better, absolutely go for that.
Uranium is actually quite common on earth, hence it not being included in the rare Earth's minerals. Go get a shovel full of dirt. Anywhere on earth that shovel of dirt on average will contain something like a micro or nanogram of uranium. Shit's everywhere.
People just feel like there has to be a catch with renewable energy and latch onto the idea of rare earth metals. Besides cobalt having some use in some kinds of lithium batteries right now, theres not really rare earth stuff going into renewables. Solar panels are silicon and aluminum, wind turbines are simple machines connected to a magnet spinning inside coils of copper, lithium batteries are already being made with iron as the other component.
This, this should be common sense, and I don't understand why it's not.
Okay, so, say I need some energy that's pretty dense in terms of the space that it takes up, say I need a large amount of constant energy draw, and say that I need a form of energy that's going to be pretty stable and not prone to variation in weather events. I.e. I seek to power a city. This isn't even really a far-fetched hypothetical, this is a pretty common situation. What energy source seems like the best for that? Basically, we're looking at hydropower, which generally has long term environmental problems itself, and is contextually dependant, or nuclear.
Solar also makes sense, wind energy also makes sense, for certain use cases. Say I have a very spread out population or I have a place where space is really not at a premium, as is the case with much of america, and america's startling lack of population density, that might be the case. But then, I kind of worry that said lack of population density in general is kind of it's own ongoing environmental crisis, and makes things much, much harder than they'd otherwise need to be.
I think the best metaphor for nuclear that I have is the shinkansen. I dunno what solar would be, in this metaphor, maybe bicycles or something. So, the shinkansen, when it was constructed, costed almost double it's expected cost and took longer then anyone thought it would and everybody fucking hated it, on paper. In practice, everybody loves that shit now, it goes super fast, and even though it should be incredibly dangerous because the trains are super light and have super powerful motors and no crash safety to speak of, they're pretty well-protected because the safety standards are well in place. It's something that's gone from being a kind of, theoretical idiot solution, to being something that actually worked out very well in practice.
If you were to propose a high speed rail corridor in the US, you would probably get the same problems brought up, as you might if you were to plan a nuclear site. Oh, NIMBYs are never gonna let you, it's too expensive, we lack the generational knowledge to build it, and we can patch everything up with this smaller solution in e-bikes and micromobility anyways. Then people don't pay attention to that singular, big encompassing solution, and the micromobility gets privatized to shit and ends up as a bunch of shitty electric rental scooters dumped in rivers and a bunch of rideshare apps that destroy taxi business. These issues which we bring up strike me as purely being political issues, rather than real problems. So, we lack generational knowledge, why not import some chinese guys to build some reactors, since they can do it so fast? Or, if we're not willing to deal with them, south korean?
I'm not saying we can't also do solar and renewables as well, sure, those also have political issues that we would need to deal with, and I am perfectly willing to deal with them as they come up and as it makes sense. If you actually want a sober analysis, though, we're going to need to look at all the different use cases and then come up with whichever one actually makes sense, instead of making some blanket statement and then kind of, poo-pooing on everything else as though we can just come up with some kind of one size fits all solution, which is what I view as really being the thing which got us into this mess. Oooh, oil is so energy dense, oooh, plastic is so highly performing and so cheap and we don't even have to set up any recycling or buyback schemes, oooh, let's become the richest nation on the planet by controlling the purchasing of oil. We got lulled into a one size fits all solution that looked good at the time and was in hindsight was a large part in perhaps a civilization ending and ecologically costly mistake.
You know renewables aren't even the same thing as nuclear right?
renewables aren't consistent and it's currently not possible to store the renewables anywhere.
We already have over-capacity of renewables.
Spending money on more doesn't help when there's no where to put that energy.
I’m curious how you think adding nukes have an advantage here. You understand that nukes are not easily shut down? If we have a problem with an over abundance of energy, adding nukes to the grid only makes that problem worse.
Have you any idea how a modern day grid functions?
The only other thing that can provide a reliable baseload 24h/day is hydro, which in upon itself is high $$$ to implement and has its own environmental issues.
You should familiarize yourself with the complexities of grid management.
That's the fun part about being in a place where you can hold a discussion. Some people don't agree with you, but they can still see the benefits of the option you are talking about or even agree that they are a great solution for now.
The funny this is that I was a nuke person for a long time, until the facts changed. Nukes were really great fifteen years ago. But solar and wind have surpassed them in terms of cost so my opinion changed. Good shit.
Are solar and wind really "clean" energy? Everyone in this thread seems to ignore the costs of these methods.
Every modern wind turbine requires 60 gallons of highly synthetic oil to function, and it needs to be changed every 6 months. That's a lot of fossil fuel use.
Lithium mining for batteries is extremely destructive to the environment.
Production of solar panels burns lots of fuel and produces many heavy metals. Just like with nuclear waste, improper disposal of these toxic elements can be devastating to the environment.
Of course, solar and wind are a big improvement over coal and natural gas. I dont want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I just want to be realistic about the downfalls of these methods.
I believe, with our current technology, that nuclear is our cleanest and greenest option.
Ok so, realistically, if we all agree on this today, when would new nuclear power plants begin generating electricity? With all the regulations which are in place today?
If we "all agree" and do a moonshot construction plan we could have electricity in 8 years. This is a fantasy, tho.
Best case scenario in the real world is operational in 12 years.
In the capitalist hellscape here in the US, a reasonable expectation would be 18-20 years.
20 years also happens to be the lifespan of our wind turbines. In 20 years, all of the currently running wind turbine blades will be in a landfill and new ones will need to be manufactured to replace them.
No reasonable person is suggesting nuclear as a short-term option. It's a long term investment.
≈20-30 years, outside of China. They should have the first molten salt reactors being turned on in another 8 years or so, but they started those projects in 2020
Global leader in nuclear is also China. They are actually building the reactors that cannot meltdown, but you also can't make weapons from them, and they can run on the nuclear waste we have already produced with the crappy cheap reactors we use. We designed the reactors that China is now building 60 fucking years ago, and just shelved the design.
Windmil blades need to be replaced far more often than anything even half that expensive at nuclear facilities and require huge costs in chemicals and transportation. Off shore blades need even more frequent replacement. The best gelcoats in the world arent going to stave off salty air and water spray for long, and as soon as water gets in one small spot, the entire composite begins to delaminate. You don't pay as much down the line with nuclear and you dont have to worry about offsetting the carbon output of manufacturing new blades so frequently.
If I had money to invest in the energy sector, I don't know why I should pick nuclear. It's going to double its budget and take 10 years before I see a dime of return. Possibly none if it can't secure funding for the budget overrun, as all my initial investment will be spent.
A solar or wind farm will take 6-12 months and likely come in at or close to its budget. Why the hell would I choose nuclear?
Then we just move the problem. Why should we do something that's going to take longer and use more labor? Especially skilled labor.
Money is an imperfect proxy for the underlying resources in many ways, but it about lines up in this case. To force the issue, there would have to be a compelling reason beyond straight money.
That reason ain't getting to 100% clean energy in a short time. There is another: building plants to use up existing waste rather than burying it.
Nuclear is nothing bog standard. If it was, it wouldn't take 10 years. Almost every plant is a boutique job that requires lots of specialists. The Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design was meant to get around this. It didn't.
The experts can stay where they are: maintaining existing nuclear power.
Renewables don't take much skilled labor at all. It's putting solar panels on racks in a field, or hoisting wind blades up a tower (crane operation is a specialty, but not on the level of nuclear engineering).
China built a few Ap1000 designs. The Sanmen station started in 2009 with completion expected in 2014 (2015 for the second unit). It went into 2019. The second, Haiyang, went about the same.
This is pretty similar to what happened in the US with Volgte.
There are downsides to nuclear these days. Incredibly high cost with a massive delay before they're functioning. Solar + wind + pumped hydro + district heating is where it's at in 2024.
Also, tie together more countries' power grids to even out production and demand of renewables, and reduce the need for other backup sources.
For a fraction of the cost of nuclear, increase the storage capacity as well. We've had days where the price per MWh was negative in many hours, because of excess production.
The barriers to carbon free energy aren't technical, they're purely political.
it has got cheaper, but it has to get cheap enough that you can buy enough batteries with the difference.
I'm not sure it has become that cheap. Maybe these sodium battery things will get developed.
No, there is pumped storage. Honestly, despite the plethora of start-ups claiming to have a solution (sodium batteries, molten-salt, etc) The only really proven way to store electricity for later is pumped storage, but that relies on geography (hills) which not everyone has. Batteries are great for phones, and cars but they simply don't scale to countries.
That is actually very impressive. Thanks! I remain a bit skeptical as its only 1/5th of what they need and it's only one region of one (rich) country. Still, 10GW of lithium battery would be one hell of a fire ;-)
Or convert excess to hydrogen and provide resilience, or have arrangements for industry to consume the excess. Or ramp down your generation at those times. Or shift excess to neighbouring grids.
This is wrong. Right now, europe is experiencing high pressure and doesn't have any wind. Check this out Can you provide a source that says " the wind is always blowing somewhere" or is it just a platitude?
You probably also didnt heard about Thorium based molten salt reactors, they are much safer than conventional nuclear, also cheaper, and you can have a 50MW installation in space not much larger than a shipping container. A 50MW solar installation is close to 1km2 and thats without any storage included. It even can be modified to run on spent fuel of conventional nuclear power plants.
Please understand that negative prices are the market for electricity breaking down! That is not a good thing. It should mean that if you have solar panels on your roof you have to pay to participate in the national grid because you are dumping energy into the grid when it can't use it, but special rules have been made for renewable plants. Literally, imagine a contract-to-supply for wind or solar...
I understand very well the implications of the negative price, which is why I advocated NOT to spend trillions in nuclear, when issues of balancing demand and production can be solved for a fraction of what nuclear costs.
Still not a reason to not build them, the entire point is for nuclear to handle the load when solar/wind can't provide due to weather. Other renewables will still be producing the bulk of the power we need, but at night nuclear will be handling any demand spikes, each of them would greatly reduce the number of batteries required to satisfy the demand. They can stay until our solar output is so high we can just start electrolyzing water into hydrogen as energy storage.
Though pumped hydro is sometimes opposed by environmental groups because it does absolutely decimate local environments.
I have high hopes for sodium batteries. The ones that have been released on the market are simply perfect (if scaled up) for local grid storage in countries with a lot of space and will hopefully get better energy density in line with Lithium Iron Phosphate with time.
Salt batteries have been the cold fusion of battery tech for like 10 years, but now it is finally coming to fruition. I hope to install a solar installation with salt batteries in 5 years or so, myself.
If you're suggesting using Nuclear as a peaker plant or to turn it off and on whenever wind/solar is not up for it then I'm sorry to say that it's not viable. Nuclear generators don't handle well being turned off and on.
You can make Thorium reactors much smaller and cheaper, basically a 50MW unit is not much larger than a shipping container, while being much more safe than standard nuclear plants.
The largest issue is over-regulation of the nuclear power in general.
there is simply no way to call a 50MW solar plant cleaner than nuclear and its probably not even that much cheaper in the end. Compare that to a shipping container sized reactor... Only thing in the way, is the nuclear scare and government regulations.
The cost is less from the design and more from the safety regulations. Best case scenario the state just starts making nuclear power plants, it's just not a good idea to mix profit incentive with nuclear.
One of the saddest bits of the show was when they kinda just gave up talking about socio-economic issues and made the whole show revolve around Homer being a big dumb-dumb.
Some of the harshest criticism they had around nuclear power revolved around its privatization and profitization. A bunch of those early episodes amounted to people asking for reasonable and beneficial changes to how the plant was run, then having to fight tooth and nail with the company boss for even moderate reform.
Nuclear lobby really tries to sell us to the fact, that it's better to have control over power by a few big players. Must be terrifying to think about people creating their own power eventually.
Who says it needs to be controlled by a few big players?
I mean, obviously we never would, but there could absolutely be a right way to do this. Nationalization could be a solution. Or something like co-determination.
