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- cross-posted to:
- videos@quokk.au
- technology
- solarpunk@slrpnk.net
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He lives in Illinois, the state with over 50% of it’s electricity provided by Nuclear Energy. I really wish people who are all about renewable energy would acknowledge the extremely important role nuclear power should hold even in the future. He mentions nuclear as an aside, but there really should be a wider push amongst environmentalists for emissions free nuclear reactors.
Allow existing nuclear to keep operating? Yes
Allow new nuclear to be built, assuming the constructors fully finance and assume the risk of the project themselves? Also yes
Subsidize nuclear over renewables? No
Allow nuclear to be used as a wedge for the fossil fuel propaganda machine to keep their emissions going, since building nuclear takes decades and costs far more than renewables, displacing potential investment in renewables? Not a chance in hell
I have nothing ideological against nuclear, but it is way overdue that nuclear boosters face the music and acknowledge what role the technology is having in the political landscape at the moment.
building nuclear takes decades
regulatory: 3-5 years
site prep and build: 3-5 years
stocking, staffing, startup: 1-2 years
If we rush the regulatory, it’s then 4-7 years; or not even one decade.
I’m not saying it’s overnight, but it’s not ‘decades’.
Rushing regulatory for a construction project where failures are as severe as they can potentially be with nuclear is beyond deranged.
Getting to the timelines you’re mentioning would require a mature nuclear industry with standardized builds, something which would take more than a decade to develop, at a steep premium.
Again, I support any investor willing to go there to do so, but there’s a good reason none do - these things quite simply do not pencil out.
SMRs take a few years, and a fraction of the price, which is why China is building them and already has one on line.
Where’s a real world example of a nuclear plant being built in just 4 years? In the US it’s more like 10 years, at least.
No one’s building them because they’re barely profitable even after they’re up and running for many years.
Why is profitability a requirement for infrastructure? Is mass-transit profitable? Is air travel profitable? Are highways profitable? Are suburbs profitable? Why is that even a concern? Would coal or gas plants be profitable? Hell, are solar panels actually profitable? I’m not so sure.
Where’s a real world example of a nuclear plant being built in just 4 years?
Chinese SMR.
Ontario is building 4 SMRs, the first will be operational in 2028.
This thread is like US nuclear, 40 years behind.
Where’s a real world example of a nuclear plant being built in just 4 years?
39 months for Unit 6 of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan
Subsidize nuclear over renewables? No
Allow nuclear to be used as a wedge for the fossil fuel propaganda machine to keep their emissions going, since building nuclear takes decades and costs far more than renewables, displacing potential investment in renewables? Not a chance in hell
You are literally doing what you claim to decry. Anti-nuclear means you are supporting fossil fuels. No one except people whose trigger word is “nuclear” thinks we should build fossil fuel power plants. The reality is that every time a nuclear powerplant is decommissioned it’s not replaced by wind/solar, its replaced by fossil fuel plants. If you don’t care about the environment at least be honest, since i really doubt you are being paid by the fossil fuel industry, no need to push their anti-nuclear propaganda.
I’m not anti-nuclear, as is beyond clear from the post I wrote.
I even spelled out in my post that we should keep the ones that exist running.
But you realize that if you don’t build new nuclear plants, you are going to get fossil fuel plants instead right?
Look at this: https://cleanenergy.illinois.gov/tracking-illinois-progress/electricity-generation-mix.html
Since the 90’s almost every state has increased their fossil fuel based generation even as they have increased solar and wind deployment. Only Illinois kept their fossil fuel generation static while also increasing nuclear generation by 25Million MWhrs (in addition to an extra 30Million MWhrs of mostly wind) But even within their static fossil fuel generation, they still built A LOT of new fossil fuel plants in the form of natural gas plants. Imagine if they had replaced those coal fired-plants with nuclear while also continuing to build out their wind power? The states fossil fuel burn rate for electricity would be <15% as opposed to the 30% it is today and will be in the future. And of course if they had built like 10 new 4GW plants in the 90’s then all the surrounding states wouldn’t be building fossil fuel plants as they wouldn’t need them. They would be free to focus on just Wind/Solar while letting nuclear be their base load.
We do not live in a world where Solar/Wind can replace fossil fuels, only nuclear can actually do that.
Since the 90’s almost every state has increased their fossil fuel based generation even as they have increased solar and wind deployment. Only Illinois kept their fossil fuel generation static while also increasing nuclear generation by 25Million MWhrs (in addition to an extra 30Million MWhrs of mostly wind) But even within their static fossil fuel generation, they still built A LOT of new fossil fuel plants in the form of natural gas plants. Imagine if they had replaced those coal fired-plants with nuclear while also continuing to build out their wind power? The states fossil fuel burn rate for electricity would be <15% as opposed to the 30% it is today and will be in the future. And of course if they had built like 10 new 4GW plants in the 90’s then all the surrounding states wouldn’t be building fossil fuel plants as they wouldn’t need them. They would be free to focus on just Wind/Solar while letting nuclear be their base load.
The 90’s are irrelevant when it comes to discussing renewables. The price has dropped by 99% since then. It’s literally not even in the same ballpark.
Yeah, we would probably have been in a better place if we built nuclear in the past. Hindsight and everything. Does that mean it’s wise to do public investment in nuclear today? Not even a little bit.
We do not live in a world where Solar/Wind can replace fossil fuels, only nuclear can actually do that.
Zero grounds for this being the case.
Can you point to a single instance of a power plant being decommissioned and replaced with renewables?
That’s not how grids work and I think you know it
We do not live in a world where Solar/Wind can replace fossil fuels, only nuclear can actually do that.
Care to expand on this?
The grid needs consistent power. We can power the grid by solar and wind only , but don’t expect 120V when you plug into the wall socket.
but don’t expect 120V when you plug into the wall socket.
Why is that?
hey, reminder to give an explanation if you don’t want everyone to assume you’re full of shit
We are constantly expanding the amount of energy we use. Right now we build lots of solar/wind, but also still build a magnitude more fossil fuel power plants (by generation capacity). Since we are still building power plants, in addition to solar/wind it’s obvious that solar wind cannot replace the need for power plants, otherwise we wouldn’t be building power plants at all. So if we do need to build power plants, the only comparable non-fossil fuel option would be nuclear reactors.
Is there some kind of upper limit on how much wind/solar/storage we can build out that I’m unaware of?
Not my state, we decommissioned our coal plants and are probably going to be 100% renewable by 2030
Nuclear is just a money pit at this point in time. Its not wort it anymore. The same energy can be achieved by solar + battery farm for way less money. Even in places like britain where it rains al ot its still cheaper and wind is even more so.
The same energy can be achieved by solar + battery farm for way less money.
It’s 8pm and the wind died, now what.
I can’t tell if you’re uninformed or a troll.
battery farm
Also - and it’s literally addressed in the video - a grid exists for a reason. The wind blows somewhere
Nuclear is not intermittent and can maintain very stable turbine rotation though, which is great if you want to have a stable grid.
Wind energy requires either a very stable high-power backup (not only due to intermittency, but also variable output frequency), or losses to AC-DC-AC conversion and issues associated with inverters and sensitive motor-based devices.
Solar is intermittent and needs inverters, too.
So, all have their place. Some solutions do emerge, like pumped hydro storage, which both buffers intermittency and allows to directly obtain AC power with desired characteristics, but they’re not universally applicable and can fail through long no-power streaks.
What about building DC nets, then?
Totally not viable for a grid-scale installation.
Main issue is that voltage transformation in DC comes with massive losses, and so does power transfer at 100-200V.
AC allows you to easily and efficiently scale voltage up and down. Transmission lines are typically at 10.000-500.000V, allowing them to move massive amounts of energy with low amperage. As energy losses are dictated by amperage, keeping it low means your grid is very efficient.
Also, while there’s a growing requirement for various kinds of AC to DC converters to charge various batteries and use electronic devices, switching grid to DC will come with a giant reverse problem, as everything with a motor would need to convert from DC to AC. There are plenty of electric motors out there, some of them very sensitive to the imperfect output of most converters.
So, yeah, as much as I love the simplicity and low-scale efficiency of DC, it just won’t work too well when scaled.
Maybe in Finland it has a place (high latitude, a low supply of hydro power). Also in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (densely populated mountainous countries with a low supply of hydro power).
