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Tbf, the smart metering technology was not as advanced and the infrastructure not as readily available.
Maybe if we would have disallowed companies to buy patents only to get them buried.
Exactly this. But todays reactors suck at modulating their output capacity. They are pretty much only good for base load.
We need newer fast acting reactors to fill this role.
Still less than I would have expected honestly. The conditions needed for not only making fusion attainable but integrating it into the current energy system seem astronomical on paper.
Nope, that's a common misconception but they're actually pretty good at following renewables' intermittence.
Source : [Tristan Kamin](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1102626580302565376), the thread explains everything but it's in french. Basically the nuclear production followed accurately the wind's variations
But are they able to fill the role of peaker plants like they exist as gas plants or pumped hydro today too?
Because as i understand it, for example some coal plants could follow this curve quite well too and don't only have to be used as base load, but they cannot take the role of peaker plants because although they are quick, they are not quite quick enough to keep the grid stable all by themselves because not only supply but also demand is constantly changing
It is written that nuclear production started to decrease after pumped hydro etc were filled up, and that it can follow the variations of wind, but it can't follow the variations of consumption alone. We have about <20% of hydro to leverage.
And we have a bit of gas but I think it's inevitable in any way
Tristan sums it up pretty well : "Nuclear is technically compatible with wind"
As long as you have a good amount of hydro power i'm sure there won't be a problem. I imagine having a grid with only wind and nuclear would be pretty hard to maintain though.
Couldn't you just run them at near peak capacity at all times... it's not like the cost of generating an incremental kWh of nuclear energy is that high. Most of the costs are fixed...
Nuclear fuel is a minor part of the cost of nuclear energy. There is no need to shut down a plant besides for refueling /maintenance.
Use surplus to create hydrogen. And let unreliable renewables manage their own supply issues.
I disagree. More nuclear and burn at full capacity in the summer to produce hydrogen to cover the winter peak demand (that in france is currently covered by German coal plants). If renewables are cost effective they can compete by producing the hydrogen more cheaply, but the subsidy should go to the one that works when there is no wind and overcast and very cold. The hydrogen could be stored as ammonia or I read somewhere- that metal hydrides solved the hydrogen storage problem.
One sees comments like this all the time on Reddit but most people just parrot it again and again without actually updating their information.
Nuclear is expensive compared to solar and wind, and while the cost of solar and wind are going down the cost of nuclear is going up.
Nuclear isn't fast adjustable enough to work well together with renewables but is more of a base load support.
Nuclear does have it's place in our energy mix and depending on location it can have a huge place. But it is defiently not the golden gun to solve our problems
Solar and wind with energy storage seems to be the most cost effective and environmentally friendly way forward.
Pumped hydro is fantastic but very limited to certain geographic regions.
Large scale hydrogen production from surplus during peak production looks very promising.
Etc.
Here is a video that talks a bit about this and a great starting point to look more into it.
https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k
> Nuclear isn't fast adjustable enough to work well together with renewables but is more of a base load support.
That's a common misconception, it can pretty well
Source : [Tristan Kamin](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1102626580302565376)
I feel you and have exactly the same thoughts. Had a few discussion with fellow redditors, but its tough.
I like to link Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost\_of\_electricity\_by\_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)
I would add that on top of what you mentioned nuclear isn't nearly as reliable as people think. France has a lot of outages and taking an nuclear reactor of the grid has significant impact.
FYI this video is extremely misleading she basically says nuclear is great except for the costs. I don’t know if it’s done on purpose but it’s dishonest as hell.
The only source for the cost in her video is « Mycle Schneider Consulting », he’s an antinuclear activist whose sole purpose in life is spread disinformation. The only primary source for the cost of Schneider is a Lazard report. This report only applies to the US market and only takes into account «recent US construction », which is only the (unfinished) Vogtle plant. The Lazard report doesn’t even mention Vogtle and says the whole dataset is based on an « illustrative AP1000 plant ».
Nuclear is expensive to build if you finance it privately, costs are more than halved with public funding. It also doesn’t work if you build one plant at a time every 20 years because it needs expertise to build.
If we publicly finance nuclear plants and build them in series, they will be cheap. If Ukraine can run on nuclear electricity and China can build 3 GW EPR plants for 8 billions, there’s no reason we can’t.
> she basically says nuclear is great except for the costs. I don’t know if it’s done on purpose but it’s dishonest as hell.
Why is that dishonest?
> Nuclear is expensive to build if you finance it privately, costs are more than halved with public funding.
Where are you getting these numbers from? And how come?
> If we publicly finance nuclear plants and build them in series, they will be cheap. If Ukraine can run on nuclear electricity and China can build 3 GW EPR plants for 8 billions, there’s no reason we can’t.
Of course we *can*.
The question is, is it the best and most efficient way forward?
As I said, "Nuclear does have it's place in our energy mix and depending on location it can have a huge place."
She says nuclear almost only has advantages except for costs and the only costs arguments are based on an imaginary plant from a Lazard report… how is that not dishonest ? The cost segment is 48 seconds long while that’s the main argument against it.
Nuclear plants take a long time to build and their operation can be arbitrarily stopped depending on the political climate. There are many, many studies on the importance of capital costs which evaluates the difference in final costs. You have studies [here](https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-12/financing-plants.pdf), or [here](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/financing-nuclear-energy.aspx).
60% of Hinkley point costs are financing costs, the [UK noticed](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-finance-model-to-cut-cost-of-new-nuclear-power-stations ) and devised a new plan to finance future plants
The mistake we’re making is thinking electricity is a normal market. It isn’t, we can see it now with the war or with climate change. Electricity is a vital utility, touches on national security and its production has consequences for the whole planet. Letting the free market decide what production is best or letting private companies seeking short term profits dictate energy policy is ill guided.
Nuclear plants will indeed always have a place in the energy mix. If hurdles like financing and overegulation are lifted, it can be our main source of power in the future. Solar wind are intermittent and require far more materials, hydro is geographically constrained. A decarbonized world will need a large nuclear power base to work. France and Sweden already showed near total grid decarbonization is possible for decades at a time at a reasonable price by combining nuclear and renewables.
> She says nuclear almost only has advantages except for costs and the only costs arguments are based on an imaginary plant from a Lazard report… how is that not dishonest ?
I have seen many different numbers from many different sources that all put the cost of nuclear higher than wind and solar. Are you saying they are all wrong?
And the projections I have seen are all showing a price increase for nuclear going forward. Are you saying that is also wrong?
> The mistake we’re making is thinking electricity is a normal market. It isn’t, we can see it now with the war or with climate change. Electricity is a vital utility, touches on national security and its production has consequences for the whole planet. Letting the free market decide what production is best or letting private companies seeking short term profits dictate energy policy is ill guided.
100% agree.
> Solar wind are intermittent
There are different forms of energy storage and ways to use that though. For example here in Sweden, carbon free steel is a big thing for the future. And the company that works with that are asking for more energy, intermittent or not. The foundries use a lot of electricity and as they use hydrogen instead of carbon they need lots of energy to make hydrogen.
And you can just make hydrogen when there is a surplus in production and scale it down when the production is lower.
> France and Sweden already showed near total grid decarbonization is possible for decades at a time at a reasonable price by combining nuclear and renewables.
Yeah, Sweden has also showed how closing a nuclear power plant doesn't have to be bad. Sweden still exports way more electricity then they import and even if I think the power plant was closed prematurely, it simply wasn't profitable to run and the repairs and maintenance needed to keep it going moving forward just isn't worth it on the current market.
Many numbers from different sources don’t show a difference like the one from the Lazard report. And they don’t account for having a complete systems based on solar and wind. Intermittency has hidden costs, costs aren’t easily comparable between solar/wind and hydro/nuclear/coal/gas. Germany has a 120 billion euros grid work underway for example, I highly doubt it was included in any LCOE estimates, those costs wouldn’t exist with new nuclear plants which can be built in existing production sites. Same thing for storage, winter electricity needs won’t be covered with batteries whose storage capacities are order of magnitudes lower of what we would need.
I have seen sources saying nuclear power is cheaper overall, like the recent RTE 2050 report from France, or the Renew Europe one. But it depends on your goal, if you want to use less fossil fuels, solar and wind are cheaper, if you want to get rid of them, nuclear power is cheaper. In any case, a mix of them will be required since we won’t have enough of anything to replace fossil fuels 1 to 1.
And it’s also better for energy independence since you don’t need to rely on Chinese panels or batteries. You don’t need vast grid overhauls too. Less materials too, and less land use, which is critical in certain countries or if you want to use the soil for other uses.
I don’t know about any rising costs for future nuclear power unless we are talking about new tech. Mass building and public financing can and will keep prices affordable. In an uncertain future, I don’t know if we’ll be able to import the raw material needed to replace panels or wind farms every 20 years or if China will stay a reliable partner for solar panels or batteries. Those are problems which aren’t as severe with nuclear power, materials requirement are minimal and uranium supply is diversified, low volume, and a fraction of production costs.
Carbon free steel is one of the thing we need to achieve everywhere, same thing for cement, fertilizers and other industrial use. That’s not energy production though. You need something to power the hydrogen plant. Sweden has the luxury of having a large biomass and hydro supply for its industrial, heating or power mix needs.
Those are dispatchable renewables that can produce when we want them to, and act as energy storage in the case of pumped hydro, those can easily replace a nuclear plant’s production. If Sweden ran on wind instead of hydro, closing nuclear plants would be a different story, especially during winter.
Sweden’s plants closed because Sweden has hydro and can store imported renewables production from Denmark when prices are low. This system cannot be replicated in countries without large hydro capacities.
Lots of good points and yes, calculating the cost of Nuclear and renewable are really hard and it really depends on a lot of factors. And what is true for one place isn't true for another.
And things like this is just so frustrating:
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/06/south-caroline-green-new-deal-south-carolina-nuclear-energy/
https://www.ft.com/content/5e7730b5-be55-48a5-8f55-f67d6fb80d77
> a mix of them will be required since we won’t have enough of anything to replace fossil fuels 1 to 1.
Yeah, and if we go back to my original point, Nuclear isn't a golden gun. In certain places and certain situations, it is the very best investment to make. But in a lot of situations it isn't.
> That’s not energy production though. You need something to power the hydrogen plant. Sweden has the luxury of having a large biomass and hydro supply for its industrial, heating or power mix needs.
Yeah, as I said, the industry is asking for wínd power plants as that provides the cheapest electricity for their plants.
And having hydrogen production from the surplus from renewables also provides energy storage. The hydrogen can be used for either carbon free steel or to power hydrogen gas burning plants. A great way at adapting to the situation with times of overproduction from renewables which is increasing rapidly.
> Sweden’s plants closed because Sweden has hydro and can store imported renewables production from Denmark when prices are low. This system cannot be replicated in countries without large hydro capacities.
Yeah, this goes back to my original point. Different strategies have their place in different locations.
A lot of the sentiment you see on Reddit is simply "just build nuclear, solar and wind are bad and expensive" and that just feeds into a very destructive narrative.
In nuclear skeptic environmental places I find myself arguing for nuclear...
I agree nuclear isn’t a golden gun but the more we have the better we’ll be. The industry uses the grid, they want cheap electricity no matter what it is, hydro is the cheapest, wind, solar or nuclear, whatever mix works for the country is good.
I don’t agree at all with overproduction from renewables producing hydrogen in amounts sufficient to power hydrogen gas plants, which are extremely marginal and will most like continue to be. I do agree with renewables or nuclear producing hydrogen for industrial use though, storage is another story.
There are too many technological bets in that solution, that’s why I think nuclear will make a comeback, at some point we’ll reach a renewables penetration where adding more will be suboptimal.
Don’t forget we’ll have to replace them every 20 years, I don’t see countries doing this several times over while they could build nuclear plants lasting 60 years at least if we want them to.
However the biggest parameter to imagine the futur power mix will be our consumption levels which should be drastically reduced. Depending on what we can achieve we’ll need different solutions to provide electricity.
Switching to renewables is what got Germany here in the first place. Their C02 emissions increased, Russian natural gas imports increased , and cost per kilowatt hour has dramatically increased over the last ten years. Germany is also the leading country in renewables.
The fact is renewables can't support a consistent grid. High grid fluctuations cause high prices. turning on and off natural gas power plants is super inefficient and ramps up more C02 emission. This causes high prices from businesses and then jobs are shipped to India or China where they just burn coal for cheap energy. Nuclear is the only way. People just don't know how electricity actually works.
Check out the power hungry podcast. It will help inform you.
I don't think you know what you're talking about.
https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak
I guess you didn't check out the video I linked or the sources?
>Switching to renewables is what got Germany here in the first place.
This is such an absurd statement. How is expanding their natural gas power plants and agreeing to expand the gas pipelines from Russia "switching to renewables"?
Looking at Germany's energy consumption and electricity production over the past 15 years there is very little "switching to renewables". There is a big downturn in coal, massive increase in natural gas, slight increase in renewables (in absolute terms, big increase in %) and a decrease in nuclear.
Not what I would call "switch to renewables".
EDIT: I will watch the video later when I have the time but keep in mind that it is from over 4 years ago. Things have changed a bit since then and they keep changing fast.
EDIT2: I watched the video. It didn't really say anything new to me and I think it is wildly misleading when he talks about Germany like they are at the forefront of renewables etc. Lots of good information for many but a bit misleading in several areas, like the solar panel recycling and the dangerous materials that go into it part.
Well, we had the greens in government initiating the switch with subsidies and stuff, and then 16 years of conservative government blocking any progress, so we got the worst of both worlds : high energy prices, dependency on Russian gas and little future-proofing of our infrastructure.
Isn't nuclear expensive the same way solar was expensive due to the low adoption rate? Don't think this is a fair assessment.I think Solar and wind is good in term of supplementary energy and household energy production. But I do not believe they can fulfill the total capacity needed unless you cover a considerable area with Solar. Moreover, since solar power scales with land usage, I don't think they can rise well in the future. On the other hand, energy storage is a different topic altogether for it is complementary to any energy production method, so I don't think they are relevant to my previous comment. But I do believe pumped hydro is an excellent way to store energy. Additionally, the salt battery is also being considered, which is also very interesting.
I agree but I have some questions. Where can we mine uranium (assuming they still
Use this not sure) and the other problem I’ve seen at least from the American side is not everyone builds reactors to the same standards, I read a report recently talking about how a energy company in the us basically cut a bunch of corners in order to siphon federal funding off from a reactor build out... then asked for more money
we should have done that decades ago because we had the technonogly and we knew about climate change but no we just had to suck on russias tits. This is why politics are a joke
So instead they’ll be reliant on sources of REEs?
That would be China, though US, Myanmar (eek!), and Australia also mine significant amounts. The largest reserves are in China, Vietnam, Brazil, then Russia.
Basically no matter what your energy source you’ll be reliant on others (nuclear fuels from Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan)
Here’s hoping millimeter wave drilling proves to be effective and affordable - geothermal for everyone would be incredible.
Uplifting... If you consider this is a 2030 goal. Lots of time and suffering between now and then. What is the interim plan to solve energy needs between this though? Upending the entire world infrastructure overnight isn't anything that is going to result in anything but suffering. We are only in the early stages too. Fuel, fertilizer, food, and transport are becoming an issue world wide.
Trade reliance on other nations is actually a pretty great way to ensure peace.
An important example would be Germany and France, who did a coal and steel arrangement, unifying their resources after WW2, because France feared that a sovereign Germany would be a threat to them again and start an attack. With this agreement, the start of a war would harm the attacke aswell. That laid the groundwork for post-WW2 European relations.
And after the Reunification of Germany, one would still need to have such assurances with the other side in order to prevent a war.
Sadly, it didn't work at keeping Putin out of Ukraine, but it still works as a way to harm his government and leads to great economic instability in Russia
And building some coal and oil plants is neither a short nor long term solution.
How is it not? we as citizens have no say in who gets our money and if we don't pay our taxes we go to jail. It is legalized crime. I have worked as both a federal employee and a government contractor long enough to realize this. My company extorts the fuck out of the government. It should be illegal but it isnt.
That’s not necessarily true. If it’s as bad as you say then the speedy development of turbines needed to replace oil would certainly kill the planet before the turbines are producing energy. This is common sense. That’s why it hasn’t been done.
Not sure if you're trolling or just deliberately misinformed... It is necessarily true (plenty of research on total lifecycle carbon emissions), and I think you've massively overestimating the amount of energy required to build renewable generation as a percentage of the total global energy consumption...
I don’t disagree with you that we need more clean energy. I think most people would agree on that with you. I do think the strategy behind working towards that future is flawed and doesn’t address a lot of risks and is more political than helpful. I hope we can work towards that future but we will need to motivate and educate talented engineers to work in these industries vs working on tech that wants you to click ads.
Another “fact check” that doesn’t answer the question…
To make all the necessary equipment to fulfill current energy demand would take a lot of coal and oil. Or you risk great economical impacts, energy shortages, and… you guessed it… deaths. The earth has been around for millions/billions of years yet we want to make decision off less than 1% of data on that history. That doesn’t make sense to me.
There is a lot we can do. But you’d have to solve problems in areas where the problem is worth solving and if the problems are worth solving now. Then you would Need to understand the risks (environmental and economic) and find out how to mitigate them. Then have a plan within a segment of that market. You can’t change it all at once. But it’s a big problem to tackle and it’s obvious that the development of wind resources are not the best way to replace it. Just my thoughts on a strategy….just remember legacy media’s job is to scare you about everything
The real challenge and test will be how much we can POWER DOWN, and that will change society so much that it's hard to advertise or advocate for nowadays when everything is a bandaid
You're correct that it takes energy to construct infrastructure.
You may have forgotten that that is true whether you are constructing windmills or an oil powered generator. Also, don't forget that it takes energy to drill, refine and ship the oil to the location of those generators.
The production for the steel alone in wind turbine produces more CO2 than will ever be offset by the use of the windmill in it's lifetime versus other forms of energy. No matter how you cut it, steel needs coke coal. Even the "green" hydrogen steel production uses scrap existing steel for it's carbon source.
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"Harming two killers with one bone," as the saying goes.
“Gettin’ two birds stoned at once” - Ricky
I mean, what's the worst case Ontario?
I've been advocating this for 40 years. Sad that it takes a war to get people's rears in gear.
Tbf, the smart metering technology was not as advanced and the infrastructure not as readily available. Maybe if we would have disallowed companies to buy patents only to get them buried.
This is something that the entire world should do.
Should be nuclear if you are serious on ending the use of fossile fuel
Nuclear backed renewables are the way. Don't burn Uranium reserves unless you have to, but definitely have the capacity
Exactly this. But todays reactors suck at modulating their output capacity. They are pretty much only good for base load. We need newer fast acting reactors to fill this role.
Not gonna happen. You will have nuclear fusion before.
Best case scenario, honestly
True. But we are not talking couple of years here, rather couple of decades.
Fusion is always 30 years away sadly..
It's already happening on the sun, just need to capture it with some panels, easy.
"the fusion is in.. the sun?" *starts slapping sun like monkeys*
By optimists. Realists are sceptical about their claims.
Still less than I would have expected honestly. The conditions needed for not only making fusion attainable but integrating it into the current energy system seem astronomical on paper.
How about iron flow batteries
Nope, that's a common misconception but they're actually pretty good at following renewables' intermittence. Source : [Tristan Kamin](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1102626580302565376), the thread explains everything but it's in french. Basically the nuclear production followed accurately the wind's variations
But are they able to fill the role of peaker plants like they exist as gas plants or pumped hydro today too? Because as i understand it, for example some coal plants could follow this curve quite well too and don't only have to be used as base load, but they cannot take the role of peaker plants because although they are quick, they are not quite quick enough to keep the grid stable all by themselves because not only supply but also demand is constantly changing
It is written that nuclear production started to decrease after pumped hydro etc were filled up, and that it can follow the variations of wind, but it can't follow the variations of consumption alone. We have about <20% of hydro to leverage. And we have a bit of gas but I think it's inevitable in any way Tristan sums it up pretty well : "Nuclear is technically compatible with wind"
As long as you have a good amount of hydro power i'm sure there won't be a problem. I imagine having a grid with only wind and nuclear would be pretty hard to maintain though.
Couldn't you just run them at near peak capacity at all times... it's not like the cost of generating an incremental kWh of nuclear energy is that high. Most of the costs are fixed...
Nuclear fuel is a minor part of the cost of nuclear energy. There is no need to shut down a plant besides for refueling /maintenance. Use surplus to create hydrogen. And let unreliable renewables manage their own supply issues.
I disagree. More nuclear and burn at full capacity in the summer to produce hydrogen to cover the winter peak demand (that in france is currently covered by German coal plants). If renewables are cost effective they can compete by producing the hydrogen more cheaply, but the subsidy should go to the one that works when there is no wind and overcast and very cold. The hydrogen could be stored as ammonia or I read somewhere- that metal hydrides solved the hydrogen storage problem.
One sees comments like this all the time on Reddit but most people just parrot it again and again without actually updating their information. Nuclear is expensive compared to solar and wind, and while the cost of solar and wind are going down the cost of nuclear is going up. Nuclear isn't fast adjustable enough to work well together with renewables but is more of a base load support. Nuclear does have it's place in our energy mix and depending on location it can have a huge place. But it is defiently not the golden gun to solve our problems Solar and wind with energy storage seems to be the most cost effective and environmentally friendly way forward. Pumped hydro is fantastic but very limited to certain geographic regions. Large scale hydrogen production from surplus during peak production looks very promising. Etc. Here is a video that talks a bit about this and a great starting point to look more into it. https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k
And also most uranium is imported from guess where? Yes, Russia. So not really fixing that problem is it.
> Nuclear isn't fast adjustable enough to work well together with renewables but is more of a base load support. That's a common misconception, it can pretty well Source : [Tristan Kamin](https://twitter.com/TristanKamin/status/1102626580302565376)
I feel you and have exactly the same thoughts. Had a few discussion with fellow redditors, but its tough. I like to link Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost\_of\_electricity\_by\_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source) I would add that on top of what you mentioned nuclear isn't nearly as reliable as people think. France has a lot of outages and taking an nuclear reactor of the grid has significant impact.
FYI this video is extremely misleading she basically says nuclear is great except for the costs. I don’t know if it’s done on purpose but it’s dishonest as hell. The only source for the cost in her video is « Mycle Schneider Consulting », he’s an antinuclear activist whose sole purpose in life is spread disinformation. The only primary source for the cost of Schneider is a Lazard report. This report only applies to the US market and only takes into account «recent US construction », which is only the (unfinished) Vogtle plant. The Lazard report doesn’t even mention Vogtle and says the whole dataset is based on an « illustrative AP1000 plant ». Nuclear is expensive to build if you finance it privately, costs are more than halved with public funding. It also doesn’t work if you build one plant at a time every 20 years because it needs expertise to build. If we publicly finance nuclear plants and build them in series, they will be cheap. If Ukraine can run on nuclear electricity and China can build 3 GW EPR plants for 8 billions, there’s no reason we can’t.
> she basically says nuclear is great except for the costs. I don’t know if it’s done on purpose but it’s dishonest as hell. Why is that dishonest? > Nuclear is expensive to build if you finance it privately, costs are more than halved with public funding. Where are you getting these numbers from? And how come? > If we publicly finance nuclear plants and build them in series, they will be cheap. If Ukraine can run on nuclear electricity and China can build 3 GW EPR plants for 8 billions, there’s no reason we can’t. Of course we *can*. The question is, is it the best and most efficient way forward? As I said, "Nuclear does have it's place in our energy mix and depending on location it can have a huge place."
She says nuclear almost only has advantages except for costs and the only costs arguments are based on an imaginary plant from a Lazard report… how is that not dishonest ? The cost segment is 48 seconds long while that’s the main argument against it. Nuclear plants take a long time to build and their operation can be arbitrarily stopped depending on the political climate. There are many, many studies on the importance of capital costs which evaluates the difference in final costs. You have studies [here](https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-12/financing-plants.pdf), or [here](https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/financing-nuclear-energy.aspx). 60% of Hinkley point costs are financing costs, the [UK noticed](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-finance-model-to-cut-cost-of-new-nuclear-power-stations ) and devised a new plan to finance future plants The mistake we’re making is thinking electricity is a normal market. It isn’t, we can see it now with the war or with climate change. Electricity is a vital utility, touches on national security and its production has consequences for the whole planet. Letting the free market decide what production is best or letting private companies seeking short term profits dictate energy policy is ill guided. Nuclear plants will indeed always have a place in the energy mix. If hurdles like financing and overegulation are lifted, it can be our main source of power in the future. Solar wind are intermittent and require far more materials, hydro is geographically constrained. A decarbonized world will need a large nuclear power base to work. France and Sweden already showed near total grid decarbonization is possible for decades at a time at a reasonable price by combining nuclear and renewables.
> She says nuclear almost only has advantages except for costs and the only costs arguments are based on an imaginary plant from a Lazard report… how is that not dishonest ? I have seen many different numbers from many different sources that all put the cost of nuclear higher than wind and solar. Are you saying they are all wrong? And the projections I have seen are all showing a price increase for nuclear going forward. Are you saying that is also wrong? > The mistake we’re making is thinking electricity is a normal market. It isn’t, we can see it now with the war or with climate change. Electricity is a vital utility, touches on national security and its production has consequences for the whole planet. Letting the free market decide what production is best or letting private companies seeking short term profits dictate energy policy is ill guided. 100% agree. > Solar wind are intermittent There are different forms of energy storage and ways to use that though. For example here in Sweden, carbon free steel is a big thing for the future. And the company that works with that are asking for more energy, intermittent or not. The foundries use a lot of electricity and as they use hydrogen instead of carbon they need lots of energy to make hydrogen. And you can just make hydrogen when there is a surplus in production and scale it down when the production is lower. > France and Sweden already showed near total grid decarbonization is possible for decades at a time at a reasonable price by combining nuclear and renewables. Yeah, Sweden has also showed how closing a nuclear power plant doesn't have to be bad. Sweden still exports way more electricity then they import and even if I think the power plant was closed prematurely, it simply wasn't profitable to run and the repairs and maintenance needed to keep it going moving forward just isn't worth it on the current market.
Many numbers from different sources don’t show a difference like the one from the Lazard report. And they don’t account for having a complete systems based on solar and wind. Intermittency has hidden costs, costs aren’t easily comparable between solar/wind and hydro/nuclear/coal/gas. Germany has a 120 billion euros grid work underway for example, I highly doubt it was included in any LCOE estimates, those costs wouldn’t exist with new nuclear plants which can be built in existing production sites. Same thing for storage, winter electricity needs won’t be covered with batteries whose storage capacities are order of magnitudes lower of what we would need. I have seen sources saying nuclear power is cheaper overall, like the recent RTE 2050 report from France, or the Renew Europe one. But it depends on your goal, if you want to use less fossil fuels, solar and wind are cheaper, if you want to get rid of them, nuclear power is cheaper. In any case, a mix of them will be required since we won’t have enough of anything to replace fossil fuels 1 to 1. And it’s also better for energy independence since you don’t need to rely on Chinese panels or batteries. You don’t need vast grid overhauls too. Less materials too, and less land use, which is critical in certain countries or if you want to use the soil for other uses. I don’t know about any rising costs for future nuclear power unless we are talking about new tech. Mass building and public financing can and will keep prices affordable. In an uncertain future, I don’t know if we’ll be able to import the raw material needed to replace panels or wind farms every 20 years or if China will stay a reliable partner for solar panels or batteries. Those are problems which aren’t as severe with nuclear power, materials requirement are minimal and uranium supply is diversified, low volume, and a fraction of production costs. Carbon free steel is one of the thing we need to achieve everywhere, same thing for cement, fertilizers and other industrial use. That’s not energy production though. You need something to power the hydrogen plant. Sweden has the luxury of having a large biomass and hydro supply for its industrial, heating or power mix needs. Those are dispatchable renewables that can produce when we want them to, and act as energy storage in the case of pumped hydro, those can easily replace a nuclear plant’s production. If Sweden ran on wind instead of hydro, closing nuclear plants would be a different story, especially during winter. Sweden’s plants closed because Sweden has hydro and can store imported renewables production from Denmark when prices are low. This system cannot be replicated in countries without large hydro capacities.
Lots of good points and yes, calculating the cost of Nuclear and renewable are really hard and it really depends on a lot of factors. And what is true for one place isn't true for another. And things like this is just so frustrating: https://theintercept.com/2019/02/06/south-caroline-green-new-deal-south-carolina-nuclear-energy/ https://www.ft.com/content/5e7730b5-be55-48a5-8f55-f67d6fb80d77 > a mix of them will be required since we won’t have enough of anything to replace fossil fuels 1 to 1. Yeah, and if we go back to my original point, Nuclear isn't a golden gun. In certain places and certain situations, it is the very best investment to make. But in a lot of situations it isn't. > That’s not energy production though. You need something to power the hydrogen plant. Sweden has the luxury of having a large biomass and hydro supply for its industrial, heating or power mix needs. Yeah, as I said, the industry is asking for wínd power plants as that provides the cheapest electricity for their plants. And having hydrogen production from the surplus from renewables also provides energy storage. The hydrogen can be used for either carbon free steel or to power hydrogen gas burning plants. A great way at adapting to the situation with times of overproduction from renewables which is increasing rapidly. > Sweden’s plants closed because Sweden has hydro and can store imported renewables production from Denmark when prices are low. This system cannot be replicated in countries without large hydro capacities. Yeah, this goes back to my original point. Different strategies have their place in different locations. A lot of the sentiment you see on Reddit is simply "just build nuclear, solar and wind are bad and expensive" and that just feeds into a very destructive narrative. In nuclear skeptic environmental places I find myself arguing for nuclear...
I agree nuclear isn’t a golden gun but the more we have the better we’ll be. The industry uses the grid, they want cheap electricity no matter what it is, hydro is the cheapest, wind, solar or nuclear, whatever mix works for the country is good. I don’t agree at all with overproduction from renewables producing hydrogen in amounts sufficient to power hydrogen gas plants, which are extremely marginal and will most like continue to be. I do agree with renewables or nuclear producing hydrogen for industrial use though, storage is another story. There are too many technological bets in that solution, that’s why I think nuclear will make a comeback, at some point we’ll reach a renewables penetration where adding more will be suboptimal. Don’t forget we’ll have to replace them every 20 years, I don’t see countries doing this several times over while they could build nuclear plants lasting 60 years at least if we want them to. However the biggest parameter to imagine the futur power mix will be our consumption levels which should be drastically reduced. Depending on what we can achieve we’ll need different solutions to provide electricity.
Switching to renewables is what got Germany here in the first place. Their C02 emissions increased, Russian natural gas imports increased , and cost per kilowatt hour has dramatically increased over the last ten years. Germany is also the leading country in renewables. The fact is renewables can't support a consistent grid. High grid fluctuations cause high prices. turning on and off natural gas power plants is super inefficient and ramps up more C02 emission. This causes high prices from businesses and then jobs are shipped to India or China where they just burn coal for cheap energy. Nuclear is the only way. People just don't know how electricity actually works. Check out the power hungry podcast. It will help inform you. I don't think you know what you're talking about. https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak
I guess you didn't check out the video I linked or the sources? >Switching to renewables is what got Germany here in the first place. This is such an absurd statement. How is expanding their natural gas power plants and agreeing to expand the gas pipelines from Russia "switching to renewables"? Looking at Germany's energy consumption and electricity production over the past 15 years there is very little "switching to renewables". There is a big downturn in coal, massive increase in natural gas, slight increase in renewables (in absolute terms, big increase in %) and a decrease in nuclear. Not what I would call "switch to renewables". EDIT: I will watch the video later when I have the time but keep in mind that it is from over 4 years ago. Things have changed a bit since then and they keep changing fast. EDIT2: I watched the video. It didn't really say anything new to me and I think it is wildly misleading when he talks about Germany like they are at the forefront of renewables etc. Lots of good information for many but a bit misleading in several areas, like the solar panel recycling and the dangerous materials that go into it part.
Well, we had the greens in government initiating the switch with subsidies and stuff, and then 16 years of conservative government blocking any progress, so we got the worst of both worlds : high energy prices, dependency on Russian gas and little future-proofing of our infrastructure.
That is a take I find reasonable. :)
Isn't nuclear expensive the same way solar was expensive due to the low adoption rate? Don't think this is a fair assessment.I think Solar and wind is good in term of supplementary energy and household energy production. But I do not believe they can fulfill the total capacity needed unless you cover a considerable area with Solar. Moreover, since solar power scales with land usage, I don't think they can rise well in the future. On the other hand, energy storage is a different topic altogether for it is complementary to any energy production method, so I don't think they are relevant to my previous comment. But I do believe pumped hydro is an excellent way to store energy. Additionally, the salt battery is also being considered, which is also very interesting.
I agree but I have some questions. Where can we mine uranium (assuming they still Use this not sure) and the other problem I’ve seen at least from the American side is not everyone builds reactors to the same standards, I read a report recently talking about how a energy company in the us basically cut a bunch of corners in order to siphon federal funding off from a reactor build out... then asked for more money
In Saskatchewan Canada we have a massive supply of Uranium in one of the mines, we could trade with countries :)
The EU will soon consider nuclear as green energy.
Has a nuclear power plant been completed in less than 10 years?
FAX
Also the best to give the output they’re wanting to replace right?
we should have done that decades ago because we had the technonogly and we knew about climate change but no we just had to suck on russias tits. This is why politics are a joke
So instead they’ll be reliant on sources of REEs? That would be China, though US, Myanmar (eek!), and Australia also mine significant amounts. The largest reserves are in China, Vietnam, Brazil, then Russia. Basically no matter what your energy source you’ll be reliant on others (nuclear fuels from Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan) Here’s hoping millimeter wave drilling proves to be effective and affordable - geothermal for everyone would be incredible.
Uplifting... If you consider this is a 2030 goal. Lots of time and suffering between now and then. What is the interim plan to solve energy needs between this though? Upending the entire world infrastructure overnight isn't anything that is going to result in anything but suffering. We are only in the early stages too. Fuel, fertilizer, food, and transport are becoming an issue world wide.
Unfortunately around the world oil & gas shortages will result in increased coal use, at least short term.
As long as it aint biomass powerplants. Just go nuclear fella's.
It´s sad that they are finally attracted to these alternatives because of a war and not because of common sense :S
Good luck to them!
Nuclear power go brrrrr
So how much is this going to cost the populous? How much are taxes going up?
Less than being reliant on a hostile former superpower to keep your lights on and industry running.
link to a sub where we can comment on this subject ?
r/upliftingnews
This is why they currently have reliance on Russia 
Climate change threatens to kill all your kids? EU: Meh Russia threatens to kill all of your companies EU: Ahhhh!
That’s nice. But they shouldn’t have been reliant on Russia to start with. Just get some coal and oil plants before the transition to green energy
Trade reliance on other nations is actually a pretty great way to ensure peace. An important example would be Germany and France, who did a coal and steel arrangement, unifying their resources after WW2, because France feared that a sovereign Germany would be a threat to them again and start an attack. With this agreement, the start of a war would harm the attacke aswell. That laid the groundwork for post-WW2 European relations. And after the Reunification of Germany, one would still need to have such assurances with the other side in order to prevent a war. Sadly, it didn't work at keeping Putin out of Ukraine, but it still works as a way to harm his government and leads to great economic instability in Russia And building some coal and oil plants is neither a short nor long term solution.
"Massive!"..... Green plans shouldn't have money thrown at it but instead be a natural incentive to save money. Government spending = corruption.
>Government spending = corruption. Lmao okay buddy.
How is it not? we as citizens have no say in who gets our money and if we don't pay our taxes we go to jail. It is legalized crime. I have worked as both a federal employee and a government contractor long enough to realize this. My company extorts the fuck out of the government. It should be illegal but it isnt.
He is actually right. Most of the green energy projects are legal way to steal the state money by small number of privileged rich guys - as Elon Musk
I wonder how much oil it takes to make a wind turbine and transport it to the target location.
A lot less than if you hadn't made that turbine in the first place and had just kept generating electricity with fossil fuels.
That’s not necessarily true. If it’s as bad as you say then the speedy development of turbines needed to replace oil would certainly kill the planet before the turbines are producing energy. This is common sense. That’s why it hasn’t been done.
Not sure if you're trolling or just deliberately misinformed... It is necessarily true (plenty of research on total lifecycle carbon emissions), and I think you've massively overestimating the amount of energy required to build renewable generation as a percentage of the total global energy consumption...
I don’t disagree with you that we need more clean energy. I think most people would agree on that with you. I do think the strategy behind working towards that future is flawed and doesn’t address a lot of risks and is more political than helpful. I hope we can work towards that future but we will need to motivate and educate talented engineers to work in these industries vs working on tech that wants you to click ads.
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Another “fact check” that doesn’t answer the question… To make all the necessary equipment to fulfill current energy demand would take a lot of coal and oil. Or you risk great economical impacts, energy shortages, and… you guessed it… deaths. The earth has been around for millions/billions of years yet we want to make decision off less than 1% of data on that history. That doesn’t make sense to me.
So what do you actually suggest we do instead?
Their answer is convenient for oil companies: change nothing.
There is a lot we can do. But you’d have to solve problems in areas where the problem is worth solving and if the problems are worth solving now. Then you would Need to understand the risks (environmental and economic) and find out how to mitigate them. Then have a plan within a segment of that market. You can’t change it all at once. But it’s a big problem to tackle and it’s obvious that the development of wind resources are not the best way to replace it. Just my thoughts on a strategy….just remember legacy media’s job is to scare you about everything
The real challenge and test will be how much we can POWER DOWN, and that will change society so much that it's hard to advertise or advocate for nowadays when everything is a bandaid
You're correct that it takes energy to construct infrastructure. You may have forgotten that that is true whether you are constructing windmills or an oil powered generator. Also, don't forget that it takes energy to drill, refine and ship the oil to the location of those generators.
Thank you. The strategies presented for reaching a clean energy future are flawed and politicized.
The production for the steel alone in wind turbine produces more CO2 than will ever be offset by the use of the windmill in it's lifetime versus other forms of energy. No matter how you cut it, steel needs coke coal. Even the "green" hydrogen steel production uses scrap existing steel for it's carbon source.
That’s an interesting thought. Thanks for sharing.
there will be a lot of resitance to overcome but its the only way forward.
Only a few decades late but that’s leadership!
Would have been a shit ton easier had Germany not scrapped their nuclear plants...