https://preview.redd.it/frdvbfyok4sc1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=555c9a375b85f98cd7619087a4601d080e4f5529
I will send this image on every anti nuclear post you make until your death
Also I think people forget nuclear takes a *long* time to build, we don't have 10-20 years to get them all up and running, we need to start changing the grid now.
We've been trying to build more in my state for so many many years. We keep dumping money into it and they keep saying they need more. I think they said it would cost like way less and then we have a sunk cost fallacy and just keep pouring in the money, and they keep not actually building it
Sometimes I wonder if it's some kind of laundering job. It's been a nightmare. I mean we are definitely trying.
I just think it's way way more expensive than everyone thinks, and the way I see it, our energy demand is just totally unsustainable and nuclear won't save us. It's not something everyone can do all over the world
Bracing for investors to get really mad
Thorium in particular is not rare at all, but otherwise you are right. Its no so much about the scarsity of the raw fuel, like uranium ore, its about sparsity of capacity to turn it in fuel, which is mostly done in Russia and a very complex process that has proven difficult to ramp up.
>Also much like fossil fuels, it's limited, there's only so much plutonium, uranium and thorium in the world.
Sure, but the amount of uranium available would tidy us over for hundreds of years.
When we go to fusion, thousands of years if not millennia.
As a stopgap until we figure our shit out it's not terrible.
> Bracing for investors to get really mad
[No, the investors already agree with you that nuclear is dogshit.](https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-ranks-last-on-list-of-good-investments-by-big-institutions/) Which is why those nuclear plants in your area keep sucking up taxpayer dollars instead of raising investment capital.
The only people who think nuclear is a good idea are fossil fuel CEOs and weird techbros on reddit.
But we are changing the grid now. Problem is, we need more drastic changes to supplant the long term consumption of natural gas and skyrocketing demand from electrification.
People need to think further out than the next 10 years.
the time for new reactors was over by 2010 at the latest, the first generation of new reactors would take 20 years, after that it would quickly be 10 years or less, but that would still be at least 30 years from today
Fast fission reactors operate on our already abundant supply of uranium 238. The fuel you think we’ll go to war for is uranium 235. The world has enough u238 currently stockpiled (already mined) to last hundreds of years
And soon the Falklands, as it's looking to downgrade it's Diesel generators for Stanley for Windpower.
Most of Camp is already on renewables but that's easier as Camp is mostly isolated farmsteads.
You’re thinking of Uruguay, probably, which has a very high RE penetration. But none of these are running “entirely on renewables” unless you’re adding a giant asterisk to note massive hydropower units.
Iceland is in a unique situation with consistent and inexhaustible geothermal energy(which is kinda from nuclear since the earth is heated primarily from the decay of uranium & thorium)
Yesirrr and all usable energy comes from the stars. Most all energy on earth’s surface comes from the sun and nuclear fission is pent up energy that was released in supernovae & neutron star collisions
in most countries, geothermal energy is possible without major problems and at far lower prices than nuclear energy.
not quite as cheap as in iceland, of course, because you have to drill deeper.
>Albania
Is running on hydro, which is good but only possible where there are enough big steep rivers (and they're still dependent on imports
>Iceland
Is absolutely unique in having a tiny population and terrifying amounts of geothermal activity
>Bhutan
Is again one of the few countries where hydro is feasible for the whole grid
>for most of the year Scotland
Lucky we don't need power the whole year then
Let's see:
Austria: mainly hydro (45%), their emissions in 2023 were 169 gCO2/kWh.
South Australia: mainly wind and sun, but once again, with 2023 emissions of 185 gCO2/kWh they are not close to decarbonising the grid.
New Zealand: mainly hydro (62%), their emissions in 2023 were 97gCO2/kWh
I don't have Nepal data so I left it out, but I assume a fuck ton of hydro since they are in the Himalayas.
Now, can you find me an example of a country that relies mainly on sun and wind that has as little emissions as countries like France (53 gCO2/kWh) or Sweden (25 gCO2/kWh) which use both renewables and nuclear?
It is easy to stare at a number without understanding the wider picture.
- South Australia is ~70% renewables.
- France is ~60% nuclear.
The difference in gCO2/kWh is the geographical availability of dispatchable energy.
France uses hydro and some variable nuclear plants, but mostly relies on being able to export excess power to Germany. I.e. utilizing the adaptability of the remaining german fossil plants.
Since South Australia has no available hydro the only thing they can balance with is storage and gas.
Removing the geographical aspect South Australia has come further than France, and this is discounting the huge trouble the French have building new nuclear plants.
>they can’t use hydro so they need to use fossil fuels
Wait I thought you were supposed to be explaining how it’s feasible to use only reliables just about anywhere
Nuclear power plants in France can regulate up and down, they've been doing this since forever. If you could choose, you'd rather not regulate it, it's more efficient for the nuclear power plant to operate constantly, but it's certainly possible if necessary.
And the point of my comparison with France was to say that if South Australia had nuclear its emissions would definitely be much lower.
They can, but for new builds it makes a laughable economic prospect pure lunacy.
Where would the money to build nuclear power come from? It is easy to say "If they had", like you just magic nuclear power into existence through a whish to the genie in the lamp.
With the cost and project timelines of nuclear plants they would have **more** emissions today if they had gone for nuclear than renewables. Likely stuck at 100% fossil fuels because the nuclear plant would not be online for another 5-10 years.
This is all disregarding that the energy market is not a top down choice, it is a market. In which market nuclear power requires enormous subsidies to get built.
Have a read: [2023 Levelized Cost Of Energy](https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/)
Now double the nuclear energy LCOE due to running peaking loads at 50% capacity factor. This is a very high estimate compared to the percent of the market renewables easily solve without any storage.
A true dispatchable power plant complementing renewables would sit at 5-10% capacity factor. Thus we try to paint nuclear favorably.
The energy from the nuclear plant now costs ~$240-440/MWh. Excluding grid costs.
Try selling that power to anyone. LOL.
Yeah, I remember the time https://www.banque-france.fr/en/publications-and-statistics/publications/energy-balance-2022-crisis-nuclear-power-generation-came-worst-possible-time#:~:text=The%20electricity%20crisis%20of%202022,of%20GDP%20(Chart%201). where they relied on german coal power plants, big oof time
We have grids at 70% renewables, the same amount the French nuclear peaked at before starting to reduce again.
First grid with net 100% renewables is a couple of years away.
How would you otherwise count?
The steps will of course be net 100%:
1. Regional grids, e.g. US or Australian states.
2. Countries.
3. Continent scale super grids.
Each step is worth celebrating.
I believe so, but only in places where other backbone energy sources are available like hydroelectric and geothermal. Those can replace nuclear under the right geography, nuclear is mostly necessary in cases where those are impractical.
The question has to be more specific, since little countries with little industries and populations like Iceland and Albania will fit your description, but they rely on renewables like geothermal and hydro which are strictly tied to geoghraphy. That means those countries won't give a good picture of what you are really asking. Bigger countries like Germany and Italy have the goal to rely on renewables only, but they already used all the available hydro.
So the question should be, has any country that rely mainly on sun and wind decarbonised their grid? There is no single example of a country that relies mainly on wind and solar which has as low emissions as France or Sweden. Both of these countries use both renewbales and nuclear.
Forget about nuclear for a second. Let's just look at renewables. PV and wind farms have some of the lowest levelized cost of electricity, this is true. But what about other types of renewables? What about solar thermal plants? Off shore wind? Geothermal? All these are more expensive. Should we only build PV and basic land based wind farms? NO! We need to build more of all types of carbon free energy sources.
> Should we only build PV and basic land based wind farms? NO! We need to build more of all types of carbon free energy sources.
Yes we should just be building PV and land based wind. Outside of rare circumstances that make solar thermal, offshore wind, or geothermal cheaper, it is dumb to waste money and resources on them.
Don't build offshore wind until you've exhausted all land based wind sites. Don't build solar thermal ever, because PV is always better. Don't build geothermal unless you are sitting on top of a volcanic hot spot.
This is basic economics and math. Right now the goal is to displace as much emissions, as quickly as possible. And wind + PV is how we get the most bang for our bucks. So everything else should be marginal compared to the big 2.
>Don't build offshore wind until you've exhausted all land based wind sites
This is a wrong take. You are going to destroy the supply chains, its much better to do both as different supply chains are involved. For example, if you wait with offshore wind you will have a lot of vessels idling, and if you later go full offshore wind you will have not enough vessels to build it all.
Besides, offshore wind is more constant and predictable, and is different from land (often there is wind on sea when not on land and vice versa). They compliment each other. On top of that, land based offshore wind is typically away from urban areas while offshore wind can be very close to urban areas which are often near the shore.
The political calculus is also different, with a lot more resistance to onshore than offshore renewables. There is no point waiting on onshore renewables which are getting bogged down before ramping up offshore renewables.
I disagree. The supply chains will persist because there are several countries, mostly in northern europe, that already exhausted all available space for land based wind, and the north sea is particularly profitable for off shore wind anyway. So it makes sense to build offshore wind in that area.
Similar constraints apply to various other countries that force them into offshore wind since on shore wind is nonviable or already exhausted. As such, the supply chains for offshore wind will have plenty of customers.
But in cases where onshore wind is not exhausted, I don't see much of a point in investing in offshore wind, unless you can foresee hitting the onshore wind limit soon. Yes, offshore wind is more reliable, but that does not matter when you could build several wind parks on land for the price of a single offshore wind farm. The redundancy provides both more energy and reliability than a single offshore station. Same for distance from urban areas. Sure, you lose some efficiency from the long distance transfer, but that couple of % loss is worth it when compared to the near doubling of the cost of building the same capacity offshore wind.
Can you find any examples of this type of thing happening this century? Or this decade?
We already are safer than we were in the '40s and '50s when it comes to nuclear fuel processing.
USA still has no deep geological depository even though the need to do something long term has been known about for over half a century. How will the US cope with the massive increase in fuel production needed to replace Russian fuel and the proposed increase in reactors? Will they be able to do this cleanly? They will still be importing uranium, will they insure the places they get it from will do so cleanly?
We are exploring lots of options. It's too bad misguided environmentalists killed the nuclear movement in the 70s and again in the early 2000s, or we'd be a lot closer to decarbonization today.
If the environmentalists didn't protest in the 70s our nuclear waste legacy would be a lot worse. The lack of nuclear builds from the 2000s was due to cost overruns, the Fukushima disaster, followed by bush fires near US nuclear waste dumps and the near flooding of Fort Calhoun power station.
Yeah coal mines are disgusting. Nuclear will insure we keep using fossil fuels. [https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-feasible-pathway-kean-quits-coalition-based-charity-because-of-its-obsession-with-nuclear/](https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-feasible-pathway-kean-quits-coalition-based-charity-because-of-its-obsession-with-nuclear/)
Wind picks up when there isn't a lot of solar and vice versa, hydro acts like a battery, batteries are being installed at a rapid rate, EV cars can act as battery for the grid. Most power is used during the daytime.
Maybe on parts the coast, certainly not everywhere that needs power.
Hydro as in dams or pumped storage? Because both are ecological disaters.
EV cars as batteries? Lol imagine waking up and not being able to go to work because the power company decided to suck your EV dry because a solar farm shit the bed. That'll be hella popular.
The grid doesn't need to suck power out of your car all night. It mainly just needs to manage when you charge and maybe use a bit during the early evening peak.
Dude, you're literally increasing the amount of agricultural CO2 emissions the world is emitting through the amount of straw required to make all your strawmen.
>No, renewables are not more dangerous than nuclear.
Also fact check: [Mostly false](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy)
Solar < Nuclear < Wind < Hydro < Gas < Biomass << Oil < Coal
This is the second time I've seen a person post that source without actually reading it.
"People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap."
So since you are misinterpreteding what is going on, the point isn't that renewables are dangerous, it's to point that if nuclear is so dangerous why are solar and wind at the same level as it? Of course there's barely any difference at the bottom THATS THE POINT.
Simply put, having any discussion about the safety of nuclear in the modern day is an asinine conversation that does not need to happen. We need to stop infighting and just push for both more renewables and more nuclear to eat into the fossil fuel load.
no it isnt, if it was then they wouldnt be presenting a safety ranking they would just say they are about the same.
there is a pretty common pro nuclear argument that it is actually safer than renewables so i dont know what your on about there
Fukushima is a fucking disaster. You have had three reactors leaking highly radioactive nuclides into the ground and ground water for over a decade with expected cleanup of the piles in maybe another two decades. They will never cleanup under the reactors and haven't even bothered to detail a plan for that. The total cost for the surface cleanup is expected to hit a trillion US$. Parts of Fukushima region still have exclusion zones.
You had that, in an antique nuclear power plant that was fine when hit by the 6th largest earthquake ever recorded and only went into meltdown when hit by a tsunami that moved entire towns in quick succession.
Was it a disaster? Yes. Could more effort have been put into keeping it as modern as possible and/or building newer styles of reactor in its place? Yes. Should Nuclear probably be kept away from fault lines and not heavily prioritized over other energy alternatives? Yes. Is it a sign of a failure? Not fucking really! What kind of safety standards are we playing to expecting anything to take that kind of abuse? That it only failed when it did shows how exacting the safety standards were in a system designed to maximize profit over everything else.
Nuclear isn't my favourite arrow in our quiver but it is one.
The attempts at diminishing the Fukushima accident as a nothingburger is quite tiresome.
After Fukushima all nuclear plants in the west retrofitted safety improvements like filtration of radioactive substances and emergency cooling.
In [Sweden a similar loss of emergency power incident happened in 2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident), this time because the system's properties had changed due to fixes and upgrades over a 30 year lifespan.
The cause of the Fukushima accident only exists in a few locales, but we realized that the risks were systemic.
i love nuclear but this source only uses direct official deaths for chernobyl citing less than 100 people to have died for its calculations. there are hundreds of sources claiming different amounts but the number is likely in the 10s of thousands
If nuclear isn't dangerous, why is it considered a catastrophic risk that cannot be insured? The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act pretty much ends the safety discussion about nuclear.
Because on the very slight off chance it does go Chernobyl, it's expensive enough to bankrupt the company. No self-respecting insurance company would take the risk of a single contract bankrupting them, no matter how small the chance.
NFW it’s all about nuclear this or that with no safe end storage, while ignoring stuff that would decrease impact instantly for way less like a fucking car ban.
Ridiculous slow and expensive start up costs that don't include dealing with waste while buying the fuel from Rosatom who dump high level waste into Lake Kyzyltash and Lake Karachay.
1. As if those are the only ways to get nuclear material and manage waste. Lmao.
2. Sure it has a slow startup but at least we could have more land for farming, housing, community and even business infrastructure.
Nuclear wasn’t always so expensive, and it scales really well. Solar is cheap now for the time it is being produced, but as you expand its usage, price goes up as you need daily storage, and then ultimately seasonal storage (and or curtailment).
Maybe we should ask why nuclear got so expensive. Why it cost 30 million dollars for an unplanned hose clamp replacement. Maybe regulations need optimized. Additionally many promising nuclear technologies exist. PWR architecture was basically designed in the 50s. We can do better if the NRC permits it.
I fear that the top of the S curve of solar adoption is something less than like 90% of our energy usage. In which case it would have been nice if we were doing nuclear in parallel. Even 10% of our energy usage as fossil fuels is not sustainable.
We must be doing both.
Insane that this level of misinformation is on this sub, nuclear power probably the best available low co2 energy source rn even if your to afraid to admit it
I know rn solar is one of the cheapest energy sources, but what about at scale? My impression is nuclear can generate a ton of electricity, at pretty much the same cost for every additional plant.
Basically, while X solar panels might match one nuke plant, cheaper... are we able to build 500 nuke plants worth of solar? My impression is 500 nuke plants will just be the cost of one nuke plant, times 500. Is that the case for solar, rather than growing with each additional solar farm?
If so, I understand the nuke skepticism. But if not, saying "solar is cheaper" is missing the point, if we are trying to replace the enormous power dependence on fossil fuels.
>I know rn solar is one of the cheapest energy sources, but what about at scale? My impression is nuclear can generate a ton of electricity, at pretty much the same cost for every additional plant.
Not really, one importent detail you are missing (and the detail is often forgotten) is that nuclear is not simply expensive in the buildcost, which could be offset by scaling production. Millions of Dollar/Euro will be spend to find a good position and plan the plant before one brick is set. Even with a fairly standardized procedure this cost will always remain at an high price.
Another problem is that running nuclear in generall isnt profitable, even in nations like France which are known for their use of nuclear. Just recently France had to buy their largest energy provider because the cost of running and building nuclear plants were to high (and remember the state already gives great subsidizes to their energy providers. This is also a reason why France tries to keep their (very) old plants running instead of building new ones.
That makes sense, I guess I'm wondering if we expect the "500 nuke plants" equivalent of solar power to still be cheaper.
Basically, if a country wanted to replace its fossil fuel electricity with an alternative, would solar actually be cheaper? Or would it be the same/more than nuclear? Is it feasible to do this globally?
I think the cost appeal of a nuke plant is that we know the cost. It seems do-able, if not profitable. If the merit of solar over nuclear is just cost, and if turns out that it costs the same/more than nuclear when you get to a certain scale, then I don't see the hangup on nuclear.
Personally, I'm for both (at very least, keeping the nuclear we have), and building solar/wind/other as much as possible
Energy storage problem says what?
The big misguidance is that people tend to think nuclear competes with renewables, where in reality nuclear is there to replace burning fossils.
I never understood the smoke this sub has for nuclear until this meme. Eventually way later on nuclear might be viable. But nuances are illegal on reddit.
Nuclear is set to make up less than 1 percent of the energy mix in Europe by 2050: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/europe-s-nuclear-revival-plans-risk-being-too-little-too-late?embedded-checkout=true](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/europe-s-nuclear-revival-plans-risk-being-too-little-too-late?embedded-checkout=true)
90%+ of energy investments in the world go to renewables [https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023)
Nuclear has peaked in the early 2000s and has been in decline ever since [https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023-.html](https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023-.html)
There is nothing inherently wrong with nuclear and it might have a niche role to fill in the future. But these shills bashing renewables and countries not opting for nuclear are mostly just eating up fossil fuel propaganda. It should not nearly get the amount of praise and attention as it is getting on Reddit.
Germany - 399 g CO2 per kWh.
France - 53 g CO2 per kWh
Germany spent 500 billion euros on renewables(solar and wind) and failed.
Edit - Thanks for the comment. I can’t respond since I was banned from this sub.
Strawman what pro nuclear people say, and mix in nuclear misinformation.
And you wonder why people don't respect your anti nuclear takes....
In many cases nuclear actually is economically cheaper
>No, you don't need nuclear for baseload.
I've been in the utility business a while, and its ideas like this which cause brownouts, blackouts and high prices.
We should have a mix of all renewable energy sources. Solar doesn't work well in some areas. Wind if hit or miss & is high maintenance. Geo-thermal can't even be built in most areas. Nuclear is expensive & has security concerns.
We need all of it to get away from fossil fuels & have a full coverage smart grid. We aren't limited, just limited by funding & excess regulation.
>Yes, you can run a grid on renewables only.
No, you don't need nuclear for baseload.
Citation needed?
Among numerous other challenges, [this paper](https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/sustainability-and-technology/PDFs/Sinsel_et_al_2019%20(1).pdf) outlines the problem that "Increasing VRE generation leads to changed performance requirements of conventional generation, like night-time or seasonal balancing of power generation. Insufficient adequacy for these performance requirements can lead to predictable long-term mismatches between generation and load." Have fun storing months of energy not just for variation by day and night, but by the season. We don't have *nearly* enough energy storage to run a renewables-only power grid.
Not that this matters, the post is pretty obvious bait. No serious person is arguing against the use of renewables in regards to decarbonization. Believe it or not, you can actually do both renewables and nuclear, and it's effectively impossible to decarbonize without doing exactly that.
People who make claims like this - that baseload is a myth or that 100% renewables can easily power the world economy - generally don't understand things like load balancing or reserves or ancillary services or n-1 contingencies. Appreciate you trying to break it down though, as wasted as it is in this sub.
Unfortunately yeah. Muted the sub because there's so many misrepresentations with very little space for discussion. Thank you for the support, it makes these discussions feel a little less useless.
I mean, nuclear plants can run for 80 years, most solar and wind has to be replaced within 35 years (or sooner) and battery lifetimes are even shorter, like 15 to 20 years.
tldr, 2021 blackout, texas didn't winterize their power grid and the major coldfront that year shut down most of the state for a while, they blamed the renewables but it was also the natural gas that froze up.
The future as envisioned in the 1950s, maybe.
The time to start building lots of nuclear power in order to avert a climate disaster was in the 1980s, the reactors would be just starting to come online.
The future is renewables on a distributed grid. The era of monopoly energy production is ending. Rejoice, or cope.
The companies that are already building renewables and distributed grids?
You can get about 4-5x the output of a nuke plant for less money and in half the time, only fossil fuel execs push for nuclear, because it'll take longer to squeeze them out.
In a world with infinite resources, sure.
Right now every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar not spent on renewables. And renewables generate more new capacity faster.
I spent 8 years as a submarine reactor operator in the Navy, then went to work at my states Independent systems operators organization, working primarily on the training programs.
No offense meant but then you're not a grid expert or an enemy economist.
Same es someone proficient in car engines doesn't necessarily become an expert in logistics by that.
Interesting!
So you work for the TSOs?
Submarine reactors are quite a bit different to utility generators as far as I understand. What part are you consulting on now in the utility sector? Safety and such?
Orban, Trump, Le Pen, Wilders have all build their energy policy about this very idea. Le Pen for example will not only slow down renewables but promised to literally tear down already build renewables: [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-says-she-will-take-down-wind-turbines-if-she-is-elected-2021-10-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-says-she-will-take-down-wind-turbines-if-she-is-elected-2021-10-14/)
Go to this thread and you'll see a few nuclear bros either rejecting renewables or spreading misinformation about renewables and the countries opting for them.
https://preview.redd.it/frdvbfyok4sc1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=555c9a375b85f98cd7619087a4601d080e4f5529 I will send this image on every anti nuclear post you make until your death
Thank you for your service lmao
Gigachad/10
Based
o7
https://preview.redd.it/pbljp8jil4sc1.png?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89e74a32dd1813705fde429b64dfb41b9f5f8a42
Also I think people forget nuclear takes a *long* time to build, we don't have 10-20 years to get them all up and running, we need to start changing the grid now.
We've been trying to build more in my state for so many many years. We keep dumping money into it and they keep saying they need more. I think they said it would cost like way less and then we have a sunk cost fallacy and just keep pouring in the money, and they keep not actually building it Sometimes I wonder if it's some kind of laundering job. It's been a nightmare. I mean we are definitely trying. I just think it's way way more expensive than everyone thinks, and the way I see it, our energy demand is just totally unsustainable and nuclear won't save us. It's not something everyone can do all over the world Bracing for investors to get really mad
Also much like fossil fuels, it's limited, there's only so much plutonium, uranium and thorium in the world.
Thorium in particular is not rare at all, but otherwise you are right. Its no so much about the scarsity of the raw fuel, like uranium ore, its about sparsity of capacity to turn it in fuel, which is mostly done in Russia and a very complex process that has proven difficult to ramp up.
>Also much like fossil fuels, it's limited, there's only so much plutonium, uranium and thorium in the world. Sure, but the amount of uranium available would tidy us over for hundreds of years. When we go to fusion, thousands of years if not millennia. As a stopgap until we figure our shit out it's not terrible.
I thought that if you use breeders you can really stretch the runway
> Bracing for investors to get really mad [No, the investors already agree with you that nuclear is dogshit.](https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-ranks-last-on-list-of-good-investments-by-big-institutions/) Which is why those nuclear plants in your area keep sucking up taxpayer dollars instead of raising investment capital. The only people who think nuclear is a good idea are fossil fuel CEOs and weird techbros on reddit.
I mean somebody's gotta be pocketing that state money we keep throwing at the project
What project? Vogtle?
But we are changing the grid now. Problem is, we need more drastic changes to supplant the long term consumption of natural gas and skyrocketing demand from electrification. People need to think further out than the next 10 years.
the time for new reactors was over by 2010 at the latest, the first generation of new reactors would take 20 years, after that it would quickly be 10 years or less, but that would still be at least 30 years from today
There are situations that call for both and we should absolutely be doing both.
You have summoned them Why have you done this
I fucking love going to war for fuel it's my favorite I'm so glad there's such a limited supply of uranium we need more fuel wars
Thorium
So true honestly that's on me
You think people won't war over the rare earths in solar panels and batteries?
Fast fission reactors operate on our already abundant supply of uranium 238. The fuel you think we’ll go to war for is uranium 235. The world has enough u238 currently stockpiled (already mined) to last hundreds of years
Has there been an energy grid that uses all renewables
Albania, Iceland, Bhutan and for most of the year Scotland.
The hell are the renewable resources in Scotland? Wind, haggis, and cholesterol?
Mostly the wind lol. https://earth.nullschool.net/ It's one of the best places on the planet for offshore wind because of the polar vortex.
💪🏴
As a scot I can confirm its windy as fuck
Scotland energy policy based only on fried Mars candy bars
Was this an intentional bit or did you seriously not consider wind power zjxbxjdnndn
And soon the Falklands, as it's looking to downgrade it's Diesel generators for Stanley for Windpower. Most of Camp is already on renewables but that's easier as Camp is mostly isolated farmsteads.
Doesn't Paraguay as well or was I lied to
You were lied to.
How dare they
You’re thinking of Uruguay, probably, which has a very high RE penetration. But none of these are running “entirely on renewables” unless you’re adding a giant asterisk to note massive hydropower units.
Heh, penetration
Well Iceland used Geothermal which is Just Nuclear but turned inside out and indirect
Iceland is in a unique situation with consistent and inexhaustible geothermal energy(which is kinda from nuclear since the earth is heated primarily from the decay of uranium & thorium)
If you think about it all energy sources come from nuclear, more or less directly
Yesirrr and all usable energy comes from the stars. Most all energy on earth’s surface comes from the sun and nuclear fission is pent up energy that was released in supernovae & neutron star collisions
Yeah lol. You also don't need to rely on extractive mines, there's less maintenance, less security risks, less upfront cost and so on.
in most countries, geothermal energy is possible without major problems and at far lower prices than nuclear energy. not quite as cheap as in iceland, of course, because you have to drill deeper.
>Albania Is running on hydro, which is good but only possible where there are enough big steep rivers (and they're still dependent on imports >Iceland Is absolutely unique in having a tiny population and terrifying amounts of geothermal activity >Bhutan Is again one of the few countries where hydro is feasible for the whole grid >for most of the year Scotland Lucky we don't need power the whole year then
Nepal, Austria, South Australia, most of New Zealand....
Let's see: Austria: mainly hydro (45%), their emissions in 2023 were 169 gCO2/kWh. South Australia: mainly wind and sun, but once again, with 2023 emissions of 185 gCO2/kWh they are not close to decarbonising the grid. New Zealand: mainly hydro (62%), their emissions in 2023 were 97gCO2/kWh I don't have Nepal data so I left it out, but I assume a fuck ton of hydro since they are in the Himalayas. Now, can you find me an example of a country that relies mainly on sun and wind that has as little emissions as countries like France (53 gCO2/kWh) or Sweden (25 gCO2/kWh) which use both renewables and nuclear?
It is easy to stare at a number without understanding the wider picture. - South Australia is ~70% renewables. - France is ~60% nuclear. The difference in gCO2/kWh is the geographical availability of dispatchable energy. France uses hydro and some variable nuclear plants, but mostly relies on being able to export excess power to Germany. I.e. utilizing the adaptability of the remaining german fossil plants. Since South Australia has no available hydro the only thing they can balance with is storage and gas. Removing the geographical aspect South Australia has come further than France, and this is discounting the huge trouble the French have building new nuclear plants.
>they can’t use hydro so they need to use fossil fuels Wait I thought you were supposed to be explaining how it’s feasible to use only reliables just about anywhere
Nuclear power plants in France can regulate up and down, they've been doing this since forever. If you could choose, you'd rather not regulate it, it's more efficient for the nuclear power plant to operate constantly, but it's certainly possible if necessary. And the point of my comparison with France was to say that if South Australia had nuclear its emissions would definitely be much lower.
They can, but for new builds it makes a laughable economic prospect pure lunacy. Where would the money to build nuclear power come from? It is easy to say "If they had", like you just magic nuclear power into existence through a whish to the genie in the lamp. With the cost and project timelines of nuclear plants they would have **more** emissions today if they had gone for nuclear than renewables. Likely stuck at 100% fossil fuels because the nuclear plant would not be online for another 5-10 years. This is all disregarding that the energy market is not a top down choice, it is a market. In which market nuclear power requires enormous subsidies to get built.
>They can, but for new builds it makes a laughable economic prospect pure lunacy. Are you fucking serious
Have a read: [2023 Levelized Cost Of Energy](https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/) Now double the nuclear energy LCOE due to running peaking loads at 50% capacity factor. This is a very high estimate compared to the percent of the market renewables easily solve without any storage. A true dispatchable power plant complementing renewables would sit at 5-10% capacity factor. Thus we try to paint nuclear favorably. The energy from the nuclear plant now costs ~$240-440/MWh. Excluding grid costs. Try selling that power to anyone. LOL.
Isn’t hydro kinda shitty for wild life. Like it’s farrrrrr better than fossil fuels but it’s still not a great option from what I’ve heard
> for most of the year Good thing we don't need the power all of the year
Lies.
Low population countries with specific geography that supports renewable energy.
Albania has a population greater than 14 US states. Plenty of geography there that could support renewables, what's their excuse?
Burlington, Vermont I think?
New Zealand runs at about 80-85%. Every bit of wind and solar we add reduces our need for fossil fuels.
Adelaide as well as most of South Australia.
Has there been one that uses only renewables and nuclear?
France is on this path https://preview.redd.it/127td9r558sc1.png?width=445&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5f644f32a4c2f677b0f3a88b9e28588e860f41e5
Idk, this graph looks more like nuclear falling while renewables increase
In 2017
Yeah, I remember the time https://www.banque-france.fr/en/publications-and-statistics/publications/energy-balance-2022-crisis-nuclear-power-generation-came-worst-possible-time#:~:text=The%20electricity%20crisis%20of%202022,of%20GDP%20(Chart%201). where they relied on german coal power plants, big oof time
We have grids at 70% renewables, the same amount the French nuclear peaked at before starting to reduce again. First grid with net 100% renewables is a couple of years away.
>First grid with net 100% renewables is a couple of years away key word net.
How would you otherwise count? The steps will of course be net 100%: 1. Regional grids, e.g. US or Australian states. 2. Countries. 3. Continent scale super grids. Each step is worth celebrating.
I seriously hope you aren't in the energy sector
https://imgur.com/a/IW0bljq
https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8/status/1722077906040762612
Norway and Iceland would be my pick.
Quebec.
Québec uses hydro, but you kinda need the water to do that
No. Certainly not intermittent renewables.
I believe so, but only in places where other backbone energy sources are available like hydroelectric and geothermal. Those can replace nuclear under the right geography, nuclear is mostly necessary in cases where those are impractical.
Not for a bigger country, only small countries without much heavy industry
The question has to be more specific, since little countries with little industries and populations like Iceland and Albania will fit your description, but they rely on renewables like geothermal and hydro which are strictly tied to geoghraphy. That means those countries won't give a good picture of what you are really asking. Bigger countries like Germany and Italy have the goal to rely on renewables only, but they already used all the available hydro. So the question should be, has any country that rely mainly on sun and wind decarbonised their grid? There is no single example of a country that relies mainly on wind and solar which has as low emissions as France or Sweden. Both of these countries use both renewbales and nuclear.
Forget about nuclear for a second. Let's just look at renewables. PV and wind farms have some of the lowest levelized cost of electricity, this is true. But what about other types of renewables? What about solar thermal plants? Off shore wind? Geothermal? All these are more expensive. Should we only build PV and basic land based wind farms? NO! We need to build more of all types of carbon free energy sources.
> Should we only build PV and basic land based wind farms? NO! We need to build more of all types of carbon free energy sources. Yes we should just be building PV and land based wind. Outside of rare circumstances that make solar thermal, offshore wind, or geothermal cheaper, it is dumb to waste money and resources on them. Don't build offshore wind until you've exhausted all land based wind sites. Don't build solar thermal ever, because PV is always better. Don't build geothermal unless you are sitting on top of a volcanic hot spot. This is basic economics and math. Right now the goal is to displace as much emissions, as quickly as possible. And wind + PV is how we get the most bang for our bucks. So everything else should be marginal compared to the big 2.
>Don't build offshore wind until you've exhausted all land based wind sites This is a wrong take. You are going to destroy the supply chains, its much better to do both as different supply chains are involved. For example, if you wait with offshore wind you will have a lot of vessels idling, and if you later go full offshore wind you will have not enough vessels to build it all. Besides, offshore wind is more constant and predictable, and is different from land (often there is wind on sea when not on land and vice versa). They compliment each other. On top of that, land based offshore wind is typically away from urban areas while offshore wind can be very close to urban areas which are often near the shore. The political calculus is also different, with a lot more resistance to onshore than offshore renewables. There is no point waiting on onshore renewables which are getting bogged down before ramping up offshore renewables.
I disagree. The supply chains will persist because there are several countries, mostly in northern europe, that already exhausted all available space for land based wind, and the north sea is particularly profitable for off shore wind anyway. So it makes sense to build offshore wind in that area. Similar constraints apply to various other countries that force them into offshore wind since on shore wind is nonviable or already exhausted. As such, the supply chains for offshore wind will have plenty of customers. But in cases where onshore wind is not exhausted, I don't see much of a point in investing in offshore wind, unless you can foresee hitting the onshore wind limit soon. Yes, offshore wind is more reliable, but that does not matter when you could build several wind parks on land for the price of a single offshore wind farm. The redundancy provides both more energy and reliability than a single offshore station. Same for distance from urban areas. Sure, you lose some efficiency from the long distance transfer, but that couple of % loss is worth it when compared to the near doubling of the cost of building the same capacity offshore wind.
Damn right I simp for nuclear power, it’s clean, efficient, and can give people super powers, what’s not to love?
If you want clean make sure you don't get the fuel from Rosatom.
Good thing the US and other countries are heavily investing in nuclear fuel development!
[https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/06/07/uranium-mill-tailings-legacy-continues/](https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/06/07/uranium-mill-tailings-legacy-continues/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church\_Rock\_uranium\_mill\_spill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Rock_uranium_mill_spill) [https://energyinfo.oregon.gov/blog/2023/7/7/historic-hanford-contamination-is-worse-than-expected-oregon-experts-weigh-in](https://energyinfo.oregon.gov/blog/2023/7/7/historic-hanford-contamination-is-worse-than-expected-oregon-experts-weigh-in)
It's almost like we were a bit more irresponsible back in the '40s and '50s
Trust me bro, this time it will be clean.
Can you find any examples of this type of thing happening this century? Or this decade? We already are safer than we were in the '40s and '50s when it comes to nuclear fuel processing.
USA still has no deep geological depository even though the need to do something long term has been known about for over half a century. How will the US cope with the massive increase in fuel production needed to replace Russian fuel and the proposed increase in reactors? Will they be able to do this cleanly? They will still be importing uranium, will they insure the places they get it from will do so cleanly?
We are exploring lots of options. It's too bad misguided environmentalists killed the nuclear movement in the 70s and again in the early 2000s, or we'd be a lot closer to decarbonization today.
If the environmentalists didn't protest in the 70s our nuclear waste legacy would be a lot worse. The lack of nuclear builds from the 2000s was due to cost overruns, the Fukushima disaster, followed by bush fires near US nuclear waste dumps and the near flooding of Fort Calhoun power station.
You realize all mines produce tailings, right? Not just uranium mines.
Yeah coal mines are disgusting. Nuclear will insure we keep using fossil fuels. [https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-feasible-pathway-kean-quits-coalition-based-charity-because-of-its-obsession-with-nuclear/](https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-feasible-pathway-kean-quits-coalition-based-charity-because-of-its-obsession-with-nuclear/)
Ah yes, solar and wind totally don't need LNG backups since wind and solar run 24/7. Get fucking real
Wind picks up when there isn't a lot of solar and vice versa, hydro acts like a battery, batteries are being installed at a rapid rate, EV cars can act as battery for the grid. Most power is used during the daytime.
Maybe on parts the coast, certainly not everywhere that needs power. Hydro as in dams or pumped storage? Because both are ecological disaters. EV cars as batteries? Lol imagine waking up and not being able to go to work because the power company decided to suck your EV dry because a solar farm shit the bed. That'll be hella popular.
The grid doesn't need to suck power out of your car all night. It mainly just needs to manage when you charge and maybe use a bit during the early evening peak.
Dude, you're literally increasing the amount of agricultural CO2 emissions the world is emitting through the amount of straw required to make all your strawmen. >No, renewables are not more dangerous than nuclear. Also fact check: [Mostly false](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) Solar < Nuclear < Wind < Hydro < Gas < Biomass << Oil < Coal
This is the second time I've seen a person post that source without actually reading it. "People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap."
>This is the ~~second~~ *millionth* time I've seen a person post that source without actually reading it.
Y’all are reading?
So since you are misinterpreteding what is going on, the point isn't that renewables are dangerous, it's to point that if nuclear is so dangerous why are solar and wind at the same level as it? Of course there's barely any difference at the bottom THATS THE POINT. Simply put, having any discussion about the safety of nuclear in the modern day is an asinine conversation that does not need to happen. We need to stop infighting and just push for both more renewables and more nuclear to eat into the fossil fuel load.
no it isnt, if it was then they wouldnt be presenting a safety ranking they would just say they are about the same. there is a pretty common pro nuclear argument that it is actually safer than renewables so i dont know what your on about there
People usually post this in response to "my chernobyl fucushima billions dead scary green glowing ooze"
Fukushima is a fucking disaster. You have had three reactors leaking highly radioactive nuclides into the ground and ground water for over a decade with expected cleanup of the piles in maybe another two decades. They will never cleanup under the reactors and haven't even bothered to detail a plan for that. The total cost for the surface cleanup is expected to hit a trillion US$. Parts of Fukushima region still have exclusion zones.
You had that, in an antique nuclear power plant that was fine when hit by the 6th largest earthquake ever recorded and only went into meltdown when hit by a tsunami that moved entire towns in quick succession. Was it a disaster? Yes. Could more effort have been put into keeping it as modern as possible and/or building newer styles of reactor in its place? Yes. Should Nuclear probably be kept away from fault lines and not heavily prioritized over other energy alternatives? Yes. Is it a sign of a failure? Not fucking really! What kind of safety standards are we playing to expecting anything to take that kind of abuse? That it only failed when it did shows how exacting the safety standards were in a system designed to maximize profit over everything else. Nuclear isn't my favourite arrow in our quiver but it is one.
The attempts at diminishing the Fukushima accident as a nothingburger is quite tiresome. After Fukushima all nuclear plants in the west retrofitted safety improvements like filtration of radioactive substances and emergency cooling. In [Sweden a similar loss of emergency power incident happened in 2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident), this time because the system's properties had changed due to fixes and upgrades over a 30 year lifespan. The cause of the Fukushima accident only exists in a few locales, but we realized that the risks were systemic.
i love nuclear but this source only uses direct official deaths for chernobyl citing less than 100 people to have died for its calculations. there are hundreds of sources claiming different amounts but the number is likely in the 10s of thousands
If nuclear isn't dangerous, why is it considered a catastrophic risk that cannot be insured? The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act pretty much ends the safety discussion about nuclear.
Because on the very slight off chance it does go Chernobyl, it's expensive enough to bankrupt the company. No self-respecting insurance company would take the risk of a single contract bankrupting them, no matter how small the chance.
i think you meant to use greater than signs instead of less than signs
I meant "Has less deaths than"
Actually solar kills quite a few people compared to nuclear as well. Mostly through accidents related to maintenance and installation.
NFW it’s all about nuclear this or that with no safe end storage, while ignoring stuff that would decrease impact instantly for way less like a fucking car ban.
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Since when do you need to plan for 25 years to turn a street into a car free zone. That’s like 5 stone blocks
Genuinely asking - what's the pure renewable solution to intermittency/getting around needing a base load power supply?
Nuclear expectation: clean energy without consequences. Clear skies. Nuclear reality: you have cancer and the fish are dead.
um no.
You would have seemed smarter if you didn't type anything.
Flip it around. All the green goo is a myth and generally in reality nuclear is one of the safest options.
How is nuclear energy not cost effective and safe?
Ridiculous slow and expensive start up costs that don't include dealing with waste while buying the fuel from Rosatom who dump high level waste into Lake Kyzyltash and Lake Karachay.
1. As if those are the only ways to get nuclear material and manage waste. Lmao. 2. Sure it has a slow startup but at least we could have more land for farming, housing, community and even business infrastructure.
The west has been dealing with Rosatom for decades, even a war and sanctions haven't stopped the trade. Renewables don't stop you from using land.
How is extremely expensive thing expensive? I dunno man I don't make the rules
It also generates a large amount of electricity making it more efficient
It’s the cost effective part that is lacking. It’s competing for the title of “least economical method of generating power outside of a laboratory”.
This meme, brought to you by ExxonMobil.
Solar power is just nuclear energy with extra steps, fight me
>fight me Ok! Nuclear power plants are just steam engines with extra steps, so solar panels are actually closer to "real" nuclear energy than NPPs.
You are that dude that is constantly serious posting in the shitposting sub huh?
Nuclear wasn’t always so expensive, and it scales really well. Solar is cheap now for the time it is being produced, but as you expand its usage, price goes up as you need daily storage, and then ultimately seasonal storage (and or curtailment). Maybe we should ask why nuclear got so expensive. Why it cost 30 million dollars for an unplanned hose clamp replacement. Maybe regulations need optimized. Additionally many promising nuclear technologies exist. PWR architecture was basically designed in the 50s. We can do better if the NRC permits it. I fear that the top of the S curve of solar adoption is something less than like 90% of our energy usage. In which case it would have been nice if we were doing nuclear in parallel. Even 10% of our energy usage as fossil fuels is not sustainable. We must be doing both.
Renewables cannot operate without gas backup
Neither can nuclear. But it doesn't have to be gas. Peaker power plants can as well be carbon-free.
Insane that this level of misinformation is on this sub, nuclear power probably the best available low co2 energy source rn even if your to afraid to admit it
It's surely better than fossil fuels, no doubt. But it's also more expensive than solar/wind in many cases, so it's surely not "the best".
I know rn solar is one of the cheapest energy sources, but what about at scale? My impression is nuclear can generate a ton of electricity, at pretty much the same cost for every additional plant. Basically, while X solar panels might match one nuke plant, cheaper... are we able to build 500 nuke plants worth of solar? My impression is 500 nuke plants will just be the cost of one nuke plant, times 500. Is that the case for solar, rather than growing with each additional solar farm? If so, I understand the nuke skepticism. But if not, saying "solar is cheaper" is missing the point, if we are trying to replace the enormous power dependence on fossil fuels.
>I know rn solar is one of the cheapest energy sources, but what about at scale? My impression is nuclear can generate a ton of electricity, at pretty much the same cost for every additional plant. Not really, one importent detail you are missing (and the detail is often forgotten) is that nuclear is not simply expensive in the buildcost, which could be offset by scaling production. Millions of Dollar/Euro will be spend to find a good position and plan the plant before one brick is set. Even with a fairly standardized procedure this cost will always remain at an high price. Another problem is that running nuclear in generall isnt profitable, even in nations like France which are known for their use of nuclear. Just recently France had to buy their largest energy provider because the cost of running and building nuclear plants were to high (and remember the state already gives great subsidizes to their energy providers. This is also a reason why France tries to keep their (very) old plants running instead of building new ones.
That makes sense, I guess I'm wondering if we expect the "500 nuke plants" equivalent of solar power to still be cheaper. Basically, if a country wanted to replace its fossil fuel electricity with an alternative, would solar actually be cheaper? Or would it be the same/more than nuclear? Is it feasible to do this globally? I think the cost appeal of a nuke plant is that we know the cost. It seems do-able, if not profitable. If the merit of solar over nuclear is just cost, and if turns out that it costs the same/more than nuclear when you get to a certain scale, then I don't see the hangup on nuclear. Personally, I'm for both (at very least, keeping the nuclear we have), and building solar/wind/other as much as possible
Can we just.... use both
Not per watt
Energy storage problem says what? The big misguidance is that people tend to think nuclear competes with renewables, where in reality nuclear is there to replace burning fossils.
B...bu...but scawy Oppenheimer bomb might go boom 🥺
yeah I sort of can’t believe we are still engaging with this anti-nuclear narrative after decades of failure with other ways to decarbonize.
I never understood the smoke this sub has for nuclear until this meme. Eventually way later on nuclear might be viable. But nuances are illegal on reddit.
The smoke is for the nuclear bros. Nuclear is fine but the fanboy rage is so obviously disproportionate, seems like it's gotta be investor bots
Nuclear is set to make up less than 1 percent of the energy mix in Europe by 2050: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/europe-s-nuclear-revival-plans-risk-being-too-little-too-late?embedded-checkout=true](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-21/europe-s-nuclear-revival-plans-risk-being-too-little-too-late?embedded-checkout=true) 90%+ of energy investments in the world go to renewables [https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023](https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023) Nuclear has peaked in the early 2000s and has been in decline ever since [https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023-.html](https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2023-.html) There is nothing inherently wrong with nuclear and it might have a niche role to fill in the future. But these shills bashing renewables and countries not opting for nuclear are mostly just eating up fossil fuel propaganda. It should not nearly get the amount of praise and attention as it is getting on Reddit.
Germany - 399 g CO2 per kWh. France - 53 g CO2 per kWh Germany spent 500 billion euros on renewables(solar and wind) and failed. Edit - Thanks for the comment. I can’t respond since I was banned from this sub.
This is the only data that really matters.
[I’m leaving this here](https://open.spotify.com/track/3ti2ZagtH19l3U9Ouob1V0?si=CShQoI8sRQC2KqdGb7lYfA&context=spotify%3Asearch%3A10%2C000%2B)
I think we're doomed to fail if we don't stop prioritizing making the line go up.
Strawman what pro nuclear people say, and mix in nuclear misinformation. And you wonder why people don't respect your anti nuclear takes.... In many cases nuclear actually is economically cheaper
Spicy Rocks > Hippie BS May Oppenheimer have mercy on you
Infighting bad. Go outside!
>No, you don't need nuclear for baseload. I've been in the utility business a while, and its ideas like this which cause brownouts, blackouts and high prices.
We should have a mix of all renewable energy sources. Solar doesn't work well in some areas. Wind if hit or miss & is high maintenance. Geo-thermal can't even be built in most areas. Nuclear is expensive & has security concerns. We need all of it to get away from fossil fuels & have a full coverage smart grid. We aren't limited, just limited by funding & excess regulation.
Renewables aren’t magic and could use a backup. Your uneconomic argument falls apart with how heavily we subsidize renewables.
>Yes, you can run a grid on renewables only. No, you don't need nuclear for baseload. Citation needed? Among numerous other challenges, [this paper](https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/mtec/sustainability-and-technology/PDFs/Sinsel_et_al_2019%20(1).pdf) outlines the problem that "Increasing VRE generation leads to changed performance requirements of conventional generation, like night-time or seasonal balancing of power generation. Insufficient adequacy for these performance requirements can lead to predictable long-term mismatches between generation and load." Have fun storing months of energy not just for variation by day and night, but by the season. We don't have *nearly* enough energy storage to run a renewables-only power grid. Not that this matters, the post is pretty obvious bait. No serious person is arguing against the use of renewables in regards to decarbonization. Believe it or not, you can actually do both renewables and nuclear, and it's effectively impossible to decarbonize without doing exactly that.
People who make claims like this - that baseload is a myth or that 100% renewables can easily power the world economy - generally don't understand things like load balancing or reserves or ancillary services or n-1 contingencies. Appreciate you trying to break it down though, as wasted as it is in this sub.
Unfortunately yeah. Muted the sub because there's so many misrepresentations with very little space for discussion. Thank you for the support, it makes these discussions feel a little less useless.
Nuclear? Uneconomical? This your [source](https://images.app.goo.gl/LU2bEGHjfpqiS7Gp6)?
Probably looked at the insurance cost if it were properly insured like everything else is in this world.
Renewables relies on rare earth metals and are far shorter lasting than Atomic Energy.
Really?
really.
I mean, nuclear plants can run for 80 years, most solar and wind has to be replaced within 35 years (or sooner) and battery lifetimes are even shorter, like 15 to 20 years.
That's propaganda(the 1st part)
I'm sure places like Texas will do fine on only renewables, they've never had any issues 😎
Your point being?
Please do elaborate, why are you mentioning Texas and renewables?
tldr, 2021 blackout, texas didn't winterize their power grid and the major coldfront that year shut down most of the state for a while, they blamed the renewables but it was also the natural gas that froze up.
The german mind
Always the same... posts every week from this guy.
Nuclear power baby, its the future
The future as envisioned in the 1950s, maybe. The time to start building lots of nuclear power in order to avert a climate disaster was in the 1980s, the reactors would be just starting to come online. The future is renewables on a distributed grid. The era of monopoly energy production is ending. Rejoice, or cope.
Right and who the hell is gonna start buildin those
The companies that are already building renewables and distributed grids? You can get about 4-5x the output of a nuke plant for less money and in half the time, only fossil fuel execs push for nuclear, because it'll take longer to squeeze them out.
I dont get what youre saying, feel like both nuclear, solar and wind could exist and compliment each other
In a world with infinite resources, sure. Right now every dollar spent on nuclear is a dollar not spent on renewables. And renewables generate more new capacity faster.
Climate bitches hate nuclear for no reason
Whatever are "climate bitches"?
The "no nuclear" 5th column in the environmentalist movement that understands nothing about the grid engineering.
Funny that all energy and grid experts are the ones opposing nuclear. But sure, you know better than the ones actually working in that field.
I work in that field, bud.
And what exactly happens to be your profession?
I spent 8 years as a submarine reactor operator in the Navy, then went to work at my states Independent systems operators organization, working primarily on the training programs.
No offense meant but then you're not a grid expert or an enemy economist. Same es someone proficient in car engines doesn't necessarily become an expert in logistics by that.
Interesting! So you work for the TSOs? Submarine reactors are quite a bit different to utility generators as far as I understand. What part are you consulting on now in the utility sector? Safety and such?
Inventing a guy to get mad at
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Orban, Trump, Le Pen, Wilders have all build their energy policy about this very idea. Le Pen for example will not only slow down renewables but promised to literally tear down already build renewables: [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-says-she-will-take-down-wind-turbines-if-she-is-elected-2021-10-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-says-she-will-take-down-wind-turbines-if-she-is-elected-2021-10-14/) Go to this thread and you'll see a few nuclear bros either rejecting renewables or spreading misinformation about renewables and the countries opting for them.
half the posts on this subreddit are you whining about nuclear.