Nuclear power is still better than burning fossil fuels regardless, and probably has a role to play as a scaleable demand-responsive source.
However for the past decade or so, every time a new nuclear project starts the cost of wind and solar drops substantially before it’s complete. This absolutely ruins the nuclear project’s original cost/benefit analysis and makes continued spending on it look irresponsible. Wind and solar are outcompeting everything else, which is probably a good thing overall. If energy storage tech becomes more affordable/effective we might not need nuclear at all.
Salon has no respect from me, so I’m not going to generate a click for them.
Since I’m not too familiar with nuclear - how would the on-demand scalability work? My impression has always been that reactors are generating energy at a fairly constant rate.
Oh no, the whole point of control rods is to adjust the rate of reaction in the core, which adjusts the rate of neutron output which adjusts the rate of steam production. Newer reactor designs are even more flexible in how the rods can be used.
Huh, the more you know. I always though the rods were only adjusting it at a single percentage point rate, just enough to not let it blow up!
Thanks for the answer!
has a role to play as a scaleable demand-responsive source
Nuclear is best used a base load, it scales in the sense that you can build more plants, but the plant output can’t be adjusted as rapidly as the tiny natural gas turbine plants, reservoir-storage, battery array, or other sources.
The best use for nuclear output in a surplus phase would be storing the energy (water reservoir pumping, battery arrays, etc.) or expensive wasteful processes (electric steel plant ovens, hydrolysis to generate hydrogen fuel.)
The experts are right; there are real and serious risks with nuclear energy. However, there’s one huge benefit: you can increase power generation on-demand. If it’s calm and overcast, you make not be able to generate significant power from wind or solar, and nuclear can fill that gap. On days where you can generate a lot of power from solar or wind, you can decrease the amount of power that a nuke plant is generating.
I think that we’re going to need more nuclear, even as we build more and more renewables.
Personally, I’m expecting solar and wind energy to become so cheap to produce, i.e. multiple times cheaper than nuclear, that storage can be paid from that difference.
Here’s a fun graph illustrating the current trends:
The only reason nuclear is not outpacing solar and wind right now is because nuclear phobia about accidents that happened before half their critics were even born and those flaws fixed a long time ago. If Nuclear benefitted from the same RnD and public support as other green energy sources we probably would have functional thorium reactors so cheap to run rural comminities could run co-ops operating minature versions to power towns under 1000 homes.
Despite nuclear being shunned and forced out using technology thats stagnated since the 80s its still competitive. With renewed funding and grants to develop further generations of reactors they could easily be the cheapest and safest per kwh bar none.
I hope that’s true, but so far, there aren’t great solutions for large-scale electricity storage. For individual users, you can get large lithium-ion batteries that can store enough power for 2-3 days for a typical American home, but last time I checked those were in the $5000+ range, exclusive of the costs of wiring your home so that you have an immediate back-up in case of power failure.
And, just so I’m clear, I’m 100% in favor of renewables like hydro, solar, wind, and even waves.
I hate the argument that nuclear is unsafe. Sure its unsafe, but how is killing the ocean with record temperatures caused by coal and other fossil fuels any safer?
Greenhouse gases are polluting the air we breathe. Seems pretty unsafe to me to be emitting literal metric tons into the atmosphere for all of us to choke on.
Because fuck logic.
While that’s true, the counter arguments are Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl.
The risk with nuclear is that we trade one problem–climate change caused by CO2 emissions–for another significant problem down the road.
At the same time, climate change is here now, and we need to act or else there isn’t going to be anything we need to worry about in a century.
Opportunities are higher for wind and solar than for nuclear IPCC AR6 page 28 https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6syr/pdf/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf
Something that pollutes both ground and water is not a fix for climate change lmao
A nuclear power plant doesn’t pollute either of those more than any other large building, and sure uranium mining is still mining, but renewables and battery storage also depend on raw mined materials.
I hate the argument that nuclear is unsafe. Sure its unsafe, but how is killing the ocean with record temperatures caused by coal and other fossil fuels any safer?
Greenhouse gases are polluting the air we breathe. Seems pretty unsafe to me to be emitting literal metric tons into the atmosphere for all of us to choke on.
Because fuck logic.
Not as bad as something that spreads false info and fake news. Nuclear reactors don’t pollute their surroundings like that, all waste is containef on site. A camp fire pollutes the environment more than nuclear power plants are allowed to leak.