Nuclear is a solution to a problem; however, it's not THE solution to THE problem. It doesn't solve the extractive nature of the global economy. It doesn't solve power hungry ghouls hoarding every last piece of wealth for themselves while the planet dies. It doesn't solve the water crisis. Imagine widespread nuclear power being managed by the same lizard people who are currently running the industrial economy. Beliefs are fine, but the science is clear: we are beyond the point of no return. From here on out it's a matter of harm reduction.
Right, but we aren't to the point that the Earth will be unliveable most places. The other problems we'll need to deal with. Having cheap, abundant energy is the first step in the right direction, and nuclear is the only solution we have that can scale enough to replace fossil fuels in time (from everything I've seen).
Government Scientists ‘Approaching What is Required for Fusion’ in Breakthrough Energy Research Magnetic fields tripled the energy output of a fusion experiment at the National Ignition Facility, reports a new study.
Nuclear, in it's current state with the safety measurements required is 5 times more expensive than renewables (for production). Once you factor in the cost of storage required to mitigate the intermittent nature of renewables - this cost disparity is smaller (of course, once you factor in the cost of keeping spent fuel safe for a very long time, it opens up a bit). At this point, I would believe that the cost of storage (batteries) for renewables is more likely to fall than the cost of Nuclear. There is a reason there is a lot more investment in these technologies, and it is not politics as Nuclear fans say, it is a simple cost / benefit analysis. There are places where Nuclear makes sense, but as a grand energy source for the plant at large, renewables are cheaper now and are more likely to continue and improve overall as storage solutions and micro-grids are coming up, not to mention that Nuclear in it's current state, especially in the US market, is a lot slower to bring online, even if the costs were identical.
We don't have the materials or production capacity to expand renewables and storage enough. And that's not going to improve (in fact, that problem is likely to get worse). Most places on the planet can't get power from renewables. It's simply not feasible to replace fossil fuels over something like 80% of the planet. As much as I would love for renewables to be the solution, they just aren't. Nuclear is slower in the US because we have stopped doing large projects like that here. We just don't have the expertise. It'll be slow to start, but far easier and less resource intensive to scale. Nuclear just makes SO MUCH more power compared to the amount of input than anything else.
That's not true in Europe or frankly, anywhere that does not have huge government subsidies. https://www.forbes.com/sites/christ...an-nuclear-power-dont-add-up/?sh=64ae12b5e5d0 If we are talking about density of the storage (nuclear materials vs. fossil fuels or renewable) - that's true. That means nothing when it comes to costs however. Nuclear without a major breakthrough - is not financially competitive. The world, at large, seems to believe that renewables and storage are the future and that's where most of the investment is going. Sure, there is investment in other things as well, but just like electric cars, once the industry seems to settle on something - most of the investment goes there - and that's exactly what seems to happen with renewables and storage. I expect that's where we will see the biggest improvements going forward and that's the way the majority of the stakeholders (governments, utilities, industry) seems to be going. That's just like ICE vs. BEV vs. Hydrogen use for transportation. ICE is the fossil fuel, BEV is renewables and hydrogen is nuclear in this analogy. There is a lot of hand wringing about BEVs by both the proponents of ICE and the ones that try to push hydrogen, but it is clear that ICE is a problem that the world can not sustain and hydrogen, like Nuclear, is just not economically competitive. So, while the storage of the medium (nuclear material) is superior to everything else, the huge costs of creating safe plants to process it, transport it, guard it - make it financially too expensive.
Germany has built out enough renewables to generate 200% of their electricity. Why are they so concerned about Russian fossil fuels? We can't make enough power using renewables to replace fossil fuels for another couple hundred years at least. Just like we can't replace all ICE vehicles with electric either. We simply don't have the materials, technology, or labor. Switching to renewables will require technological breakthroughs in production, material (for both generation and storage), and an exponential increase in globalization and labor (while the world is ending globalization and nearly every country is in the middle of a population bomb which will drastically reduced potential productivity) We do have the ability via nuclear. We have the ability and technology today. And it's not density of storage, it's power output compared to the amount of production inputs. Of course government should be a part of this solution. We're going to have to get realistic about this sooner rather than later.
I have heard from enough people in the industry that I believe they think they are realistic and the nuclear arm chair enthusiasts are the ones that are not, since Nuclear is just too expensive.
Then why is Germany so hard up for fossil fuels when they have built out 200% of their electricity capacity in renewables? As much as I love the idea of decentralized renewables being the solution, it just doesn't pencil out. Like was said above, beliefs are fine. But they don't actually solve our problems... at current rates of production it would take us 400 years to build enough renewable to replace fossil fuels. And our production capability is in the process of restricting starting in 2022. The pandemic sped it up by a couple years, but 2022 is the year the average world boomer population passed retirement age. And there isn't a generation in place to replace them. For at least the next 15-20 years we'll have more people leaving the workforce than entering it worldwide (likely longer).
Not sure where you get your information from, but in 2022 Germany's energy production from renewables is 49% https://www.reuters.com/business/su...y 5 (Reuters),industry groups said on Tuesday. Germany is correctly investing in renewables but they are hit hard because a large portion of their production is not from it. The fastest way they can reduce their dependency on fossil fuels will be to increase their renewable transition, not spend more and wait longer for nuclear. FWIW, Germany was supposed to phase out their last nuclear plants this year and iirc, they extended them by 3 more years because of the war, so what Germany does and what you think they should be doing are diametrically opposed. But they are definitely working on adding more renewables, not nuclear. Again, not sure where you get your information, but it does not seem to match with what I hear. FWIW, my better half works in the industry and attends many conferences dealing with the grid, it's resiliency etc... - so I have just a little bit of 2nd hand knowledge here. The industry at large seems to believe that renewables are the way forward and like most commercial enterprises that work within a regulated industry - there is a lot of research that goes into that. My understanding is that without a breakthrough in nuclear technology - it is not likely to be the main contributor to the transition from fossil fuels unless people are willing to accept a lot more risk.
Thank you very much for sharing. From everything I have read (and I am not an expert), these are the problems we face with solving our energy issues. I would be VERY interested in finding out the solutions people in the industry have to these problems. It doesn't get much safer than nuclear... And newer nuclear is exponentially safer. We don't have enough lithium production in the world to ramp up for even US demand for electric cars. Let alone utility scale. We'll need new technologies that are as yet unproven/undiscovered. 49% is about all Germany's grid can handle. They have built out twice as much renewable infrastructure as theoretically needed, but they don't get sun or wind for long enough periods to be able to effectively use it without new battery technology. They can only store that energy for a couple hours, then they are back on fossil fuels. It's simply not sunny or windy enough there. Most places in the world suffer from the same problem. What is needed is base load power. This will have to come from some mix of batteries*, fossil fuels**, synthetic or e-fuels****, nuclear, hydro***, tidal****, and geothermal****. * We don't have enough, and can't make enough with current technology ** These are the problem *** We're pretty much maxed out **** Not current technology at the needed scale Again, I would be very interested in finding out what the industry has come up with to solve these problems.
I am not familiar with how much renewable generation Germany has, but generating more even if they have a small window of time where they have sun / wind - is cheap to solve (I am certain there are many structures where solar panels can be installed that do not have them), just like in the US or elsewhere. The the #1 issue is obviously storage - and there is so much research into alternatives to lithium-ion batteries that I am certain we will see a breakthrough in that area before we will see a breakthrough in nuclear - simply because there is so much more investment in it. If it is Sodium Ion batteries or solid state state batteries, I am not certain, there is a lot of research into solid-state batteries simply because they are so safe for mobile applications (transportation) and they are very dense, but sodium-ion batteries have just gone into a commercial phase - so I would not be surprised if this will be the preferred medium for utilities to use for renewable produced energy storage. https://www.arenaev.com/worlds_firs...ttery_production_line_goes_live-news-1101.php Sodium ion batteries are not as dense as lithium ion batteries and at this point in time (very early in commercial availability) are a little more expensive, but the raw materials are readily available and cheap so you would assume that once more and more are developed and commercialized - they will become cheaper and unlike lithium ion, there is much less of an issue with raw material availability. Solid state batteries are still in pre-commercial phase - but there is a belief that there will be multiple offering starting in 2024 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/06/solid-power-begins-pilot-production-of-solid-state-ev-battery.html (I believe QuantumScape were supposed to already have commercial availability of their solid-state batteries, but I have not seen that, so let's assume that like Solid Power they are still in alpha/beta testing phase). Of course, for large installations run by utilities you can use things like kinetic energy storage (pumped hydro or stacked big rocks up a mountain when generation happens, recreate the energy by sliding them down when you have demand) or pressurized air - so even if these other batteries technologies do not pan out, there are alternatives for energy storage that are no resource limited) So in summary, no nation on earth has maximized it's ability to generate power from renewables, there are tons of untapped roofs all over the world ready for solar production. In addition, the issue of storage is one that is going to be solved - there are so many options to do that even if we run out of lithium ion (which frankly, is not likely to happen for a decade or two, it has not been researched as much as oil - and there are many deposits that can be found if needs be, the Salton Sea, for example has a huge reserve of lithium deposits that if/when it makes financial sense will be mined, in the US there is only one place where Lithium is mined (Nevada) - and I am sure more and more will be mined with time). Let's also remember that all these EVs that the world is slowly moving to, at some point, when they are decommissioned, their batteries - even if they lost too much range for transportation purposes, are perfect for local storage in micro-grids, great for applications in residential homes or small businesses. Storage is not a problem that can not be solved and the world is spending a lot of money to research it. Nuclear, as I said, unless a breakthrough happens, seems like a niche technology that is not likely to grow. It is simply too expensive.
There isn't nearly enough pumped hydro or kinetic to make any significant difference. I've seen those other options, but none are proven, nor will they be ready for mass production in the next decade. You keep saying we need a breakthrough for nuclear, but many countries have used it for decades. France gets 75% of it's electricity from nuclear today. There is no breakthrough needed to get our base power mostly from nuclear. The US already gets 9% from nuclear. We can make better plants with some breakthroughs for sure. But that's true for literally everything. At least nuclear is already here. Of course, the nuclear breakthrough that will change everything is fusion. But like new battery technology, it's not there yet. I'm not at all suggesting we should avoid battery technology, just not count on it like it's already here. We should be doing everything possible to get to negative carbon emissions with what we have available now, IMO. And we're not doing that. Not even close.
It's not cost competitive - that's what the breakthrough is needed for. It also has a much longer build time. If we want quick transition from fossil fuel which is cost effective, nuclear is not the answer. Simple as that
France is 75% nuclear And has very similar electricity costs as we do here in the US. $0.19 compared to our $0.16 here in the US. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/ If nuclear is so much more expensive how is that possible? Nuclear has a high up front cost but a very low long term cost. Over the long run it's far less expensive than the fossil fuel sources we've been using for over a century. The upfront cost is because you're paying for all of the waste and decommissioning up front. Unlike with fossil fuels and even most renewables, which hide or ignore those costs. Yes nuclear can take a long time, but so does solar. A solar farm takes 3-5 years in permitting, which is very similar to why nuclear takes so long (roughly 4-6 years)....
Well, you are a logical person, tell me what you think is more likely: 1. All these independent studies are wrong and the French are so good at technology that they figured out stuff that no one else has (If you do, maybe I can find a lovely Renault 11 to sell you - or as it was known in this country, the Renault Alliance) 2. This is not the real cost and the real cost is reflected in lackluster maintenance and safety records, losses and government subsidies. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-france.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/05/fra...-strategy-faces-big-problems-this-winter.html from the article: “Yes, it’s low carbon but it’s not economic. You need to nationalize EDF to make it happen. Yes, it offers baseload but wait a second, sometimes a whole plant disappears for weeks and months, so that baseload promise is not really there,” Ruecker said. If we are talking about building new Nuclear power plants, France is a good thing to look at. Their newest one in Flamville started construction in 2007, it was supposed to be up and running in 2012. They are now hoping it will finally be running by the end of this year. (That's 15 years to build a power plant). I mean, if study after study shows that it is not economical, I am going to believe all these different experts that study it in depth. Well, that's not true either. Decommissioning costs are very high, San Onfore in San Diego county cost about 1/2 as much to decommission as it did to build (in year converted dollars). On top of that, unless there is a place for spent fuel - there are costs to guard it years after it was decommissioned. San Onfore was decommissioned in 2012 but Edison and SDGE (the utilities that own it) still pay to keep it safe, over a decade after it was shut down. So, sure, if we ignore the huge upfront costs and the huge getting rid of it costs, it is cheap to operate, but in reality, it is not.
No, those costs are figured in for nuclear, not other forms of power generation. How do you think solar got so cheap? Massive government subsidies. Any solution to climate change will require massive government subsidies. And we still can't physically make enough renewables to replace fossil fuels this century. Just to level off emissions over the next 50 years, the world’s solar capacity would have to increase 100-fold, according to research by the Princeton-based Carbon Mitigation Initiative. https://cmi.princeton.edu/resources/stabilization-wedges/ We don't have the Labor pool to do that. And that spent nuclear fuel can also be used to create far more power using proven technology we've had for decades. Using that "spent" fuel we have enough to power the whole world for hundreds of years. But these aren't projects that can be left to the free market. It's going to have to be government funded. So I certainly see why industry isn't hopping on nuclear. Investors don't have the patience to wait for that return.
