1. Please look at actual data for power plant construction times. [1] provides an overview. Estimates are useless - if we look at how long things actually take to build... "The mean construction time of 441 reactors in use today was 7.5 years."
3. Are you actually serious right now? Radioactive waste sitting in temporary pools that will be an environmental catastrophe for hundreds of years if they leak isn't a problem? No, just because we tolerate other ecological disasters doesn't make this one ok.
4. This is no longer true, and will definitely not be true in another 5 years. Battery costs are decreasing at a reliable rate year over year. Power plants are already being built making use of them. Here's one going up now with 300MWh of storage [2].
5. No, you look up per capita demand. Here: [3]. It’s been dropping for a decade.
6. Your link does not report solar farm deaths because as far as I can tell there haven't ever been any. Unless you count birds. Rooftop solar is "dangerous" because installers fall off roofs.
[1] http://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucle...
[2] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2019/10/08/the-sun-shines-only-a...
Spent fuel is sitting in cooling pools because it emits enough residual heat to melt if not in water. Spent fuel will typically sit in these pools for around a decade. At which point the residual heat is low enough to process it via vitrification (turning it into chemically inert glass) and then moving it to a permanent storage site. Vitrified spent fuel is radiologically and chemically safe. The only way it can become a danger is if somehow liquefied or aerosolised. The volume needed to store a century worth of all humanity's spent nuclear fuel is less than a single large landfill site, of which we have hundreds of thousands.
> that will be an environmental catastrophe for hundreds of years if they leak
If what leaks? Do you actually know what's in those pools and why? Spent fuel pools are harmless. You can go for a swim in them and receive a lower radiation dose than background. There's nothing to leak. The only failure mode is if water is not supplied to them and eventually evaporates.
> This is no longer true, and will definitely not be true in another 5 years
Cite this. Show that at any point in the foreseeable future the cost of energy storage with regard to total capacity is not superlinear. China would love to hear from you since they're stuck unable to use renewables at large scale because of this issue.
> No, you look up per capita demand. Here: [3]. It’s been dropping for a decade.
Per capita is not a relevant number, The number that is being discussed is total demand. The number that matters, since power sources need to supply a total demand not a per capita demand, whatever that would even mean. The number that's rapidly increasing.[1]
Actually take the time to read up on induced demand, then you will understand that it results in a per-capita decrease in consumption (since higher efficiency) and a paradoxical higher total consumption, since now there are more consumers who were previously priced out.
GP post is bad and your post is bad. Sorry. If you don't understand the very eli5 basics of nuclear power like the purpose of cooling ponds (and the fact that most modern reactor designs don't need them), then be aware that you're perpetuating a bunch of myths every time you talk about it. Energy science is not a topic where all opinions are equal.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Trend...
What do I think is in the pools? Radioactive waste that will have a mini meltdown if the pools leak enough water to expose the waste to air. You know, the kind of leak that can result from a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or just plain old maintenance negligence [1]. But that's ok, we'll just pretend Fukushima never happened, I guess.
I already provided a link to a renewable power plant that's going up, backed by battery storage for non-generating hours. Perhaps you didn't like it? Here's a report on how costs of batteries are dropping fast enough to make them cost competitive with traditional sources [2]. You probably won't like that, either, since you're hung up on the whole "linear with demand" thing, which no one actually cares about. What they do care about is total cost per reliable kWh, taking into account all negative externalities. But I guess we'll just pretend nuclear accidents don't occur, especially small ones [3], and that the whole long-term storage problem doesn't exist because that whole Yucca Mountain thing is just needless worrying.
I like how you focus on total demand globally because if you look at total demand in the West, it's been flat for years. You conveniently don't point out that the places demand is increasing are in the developing world, which is the last place we should build nuclear plants. Do you want more accidents due to poor maintenance or operating procedures? Because that's how you'll get them.
And I understand induced demand perfectly - my whole point of showing per capita consumption is to point out that it's bullshit in this case. Electricity has been plentiful in the US and EU for decades, but per capita use peaked 9 years ago. Induced demand is only relevant in developing markets where there is latent demand, which again is back to the developing world where I will never agree we should build nuclear.
You like nuclear, I get it. It's a good power source. It's just not the best one anymore and it's time to recognize that. But it's clear you have already made up your mind on the issue, so I won't be engaging in any more discussion with you on this.
[1] https://thebulletin.org/2017/08/pushing-the-storage-horse-wi...
[2] https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/09/indian-point...
...Yeah. And since the topic of this entire post is climate change, the developing nations and induced demand are all that matters. No one gives a fuck about per capita energy consumption in the US, the question is about the total energy demand of the planet and how it's supplied.
What the developed world does from here on out is irrelevant in terms of first order effects on climate change. It's already done the bulk of the damage it was going to do. Switch all of the developed world to fairy-powered zero emission fusion overnight, or anything else you want, it won't make a difference.
The deciding factor for climate change is how China and India will power themselves, and if the answer isn't nuclear, then we're all screwed. Just like TFA states.
Which means you need a lot more power. Solar and wind still factor in but you still want that massive amount that a power plant provides, because all current storage technology won’t be able to keep up.
Plus if all reactors were the same design such as in France it lowers costs dramatically as well.
> “ Most of the wait time is due to lack of demand”
None of the Quora answers cited this as a reason. And the Quora answers are the low end of the scale (40 months) only included construction time in their answer, not site finding, licensing, or startup.
For example, the article you link does not seem to account for the 2000+ deaths that occurred due to the Fukushima evacuation, nor those that survived but later starved due to their homes and livelihood being destroyed in the Chernobyl accident.
A proper model needs to take into account the economic implications of a nuclear incident.
Most of the wait time is due to lack of demand, e.g. it takes multiple years to build a pressure vessel but this production could be ramped up 10-100x if need be. The Quora source you cite actually says 48 months for modern reactors so I'm not sure where >7 years came from.
> 3. Authors ignore the waste storage problem, which is a debt future generations will be saddled with for hundreds or thousands of years.
There is no waste storage problem. This is a myth that should have died a decade ago. Vitrified nuclear waste is inert and harmless. Modern reactors are also able to consume most of current waste. We already tolerate far worse waste products from e.g. the coal industry where it's a non-newsworthy occurrence for toxic tailings to completely destroy river systems.
> 4. Authors ignore the power storage problem, which causes lots of energy to be wasted.
The energy (not power) storage problem is unique to unreliable peaky power sources like solar and wind. Nuclear power plants provide a consistent and diallable power output. Energy storage is also a big impediment to large scale rollout of renewables because energy storage costs are superlinear with respect to demand.
> 5. Authors ignore energy efficiency trends (electronics get more efficient over time).
Increase in efficiency does not lead to decrease in consumption. It does the opposite. Look up induced demand.
> 6. Authors ignore the safety data and that safety incidents are likely under-reported.
Nuclear power is orders of magnitude safer and cleaner than anything else that exists including renewables.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
This comment is entirely misleading and the author is seriously misinformed about nuclear power. This should not be top comment on any discussion of nuclear power. This is just perpetuating FUD and myths that have all been deconstructed years ago.