And storage for renewables is a last resort. Instead of storage:
1. build in areas with reliable winds (offshore trade winds)
2. better interconnection ("the wind is always blowing somehwere")
3. over-provisioning. If you build 3 times as much wind power as you need, it's still a lot cheaper than nuclear and you need a lot less storage.
4. storage. It's expensive, but if you did 1-3 correctly, you don't need much of it.
Nuclear is safe, but it's also crazy expensive and takes decades to build.
In France, 70% of the electricity is nuclear, 15% is hydro, pumped by the excess nuclear power generated at during the night.
Now for your arguments:
1. Wind goes from 0 to 50mph at sea. No reliable wind corridor exists. Even if Market Street in San Francisco makes me think otherwise frequently :)
2. The concept of wind proliferation has been debunked, at least on the European level. We built a network between Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Italy. It doesn't work.
3. If you don't have wind, putting 3 wind turbines won't help you more. Germany learned it the hard way where their CO2 emission flat lined since 2009 instead of going down despite their all in on the wind and solar energy. If you install 3 times more than what you need, you also have the side effect of making your renewable energy 3 times more carbone intensive. It kills solar as a viable, scalable option for instance.
4. Yes that would be the required breakthough to change the game. Right now batteries production pollute way too much and cost too much to be climate efficient.
Do you have either a non-paywall version of that article or an alternative article with a similar view? I'm curious what it says, but I can't read it with the paywall in place.
Are we anywhere near the limits of what can be done with time-of-use pricing? If we flatten the "duck curve" then nuclear is a good match.
Variation in renewable energy generation can be reduced by averaging over larger geographic areas. Wind speeds and cloud cover vary much more on local scales than on continent-wide scales.
A combination of demand adjustment and linking of power generation over large geographic areas can reduce the need for energy storage.
We would need to develop a wavesomethingreactor which doesn't exist yet.
Nuclear will not solve our problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
If Fukushima was in New Yersey the USA would have lost New York City.
If global warming is as certain and as dangerous as what's being claimed, the risk of contaminating a few thousand acres (or even miles) with radioactivity is certainly worth it to save the world.
Plus Fukushima basically disproved the China syndrome scare we've been fed for 40+ years.
That's 10sqkm that's been lost basically forever, or as long as it humans require solar power for only 648MW during the day when the sun is shining.
Fukushima Daiichi was 5,306 MW and generated that 24hrs a day.
[1] https://www.originenergy.com.au/blog/5-largest-solar-farms-i...
Michael Shellenberger is one of my favorite writers on this topic. The radiation around Fukushima is less than the naturally occurring radiation in Colorado.
2. huge political hurdles
3. no ROI and no clean energy without billions of up-front investment and 20 years
I think we should have started spending hundreds of billions on nuclear power plants yesterday, but now we have to walk and chew gum at the same time. If it really does take 20 years to build enough nuclear power plants (construction that will be fueled by carbon) we have to make some other clean energy investments RIGHT NOW that will soften the blow until we finish building those reactors.
If it can solve global warming in 20 years, that's an easy win to take. There is no emergency forcing anything faster, and I doubt that it's even possible to find a cure (that isn't worse than the disease) that works faster anyway.
You say nuclear isn't dangerous because of all the safety measures, yet here you're qualifying those safety measures as mere overreaction.
Not to be pedantic, but nothing is going to solve it. We're talking about efforts to mitigate it.
When people start to truly panic and fear death you can be sure the nukes will start getting built quickly. It’s just too bad people on all sides can’t get there before reality sets in further, including those who claim to be legitimately fearful (if they aren’t pushing for nuclear now, and fast, they’re not truly fearful.)
> When people start to truly panic and fear death you can be sure the nukes will start getting built quickly.
By this point it is far too late for any action to have meaningful consequence. People are raising hands now, when the effects are practically nonexistent on a human timescale, because if we wait until the effects affect us, then we are well and truly fucked. Society won’t collapse this century, but it might in a few hundred years.
In retrospect, the advocacy of regressive policies like "everyone should fly less" will be just another chapter of the long serious of luddites thinking the only solution to problems is to reverse technological progress in the face of new, unexpected problems raised through the continual growth of the global economy.
What will never happen is addressing climate change through social engineering.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/20/climate-change-to-slow-globa...
A carbon tax (at least without going 100% to sequestration) is only an behavior penalty. It's not even a net gain, it's just slowing a net loss. There's nothing innovative about that.
The sequestration part of the equation is where there's potential for technological breakthroughs. If we go carbon negative, it won't be because it requires a change in lifestyle, but because we find a cheap way to offset our carbon generation. And I mean literally pulling carbon from thin air (or water). Not using accounting trickery to buy some emission "offset" that a developing population surely would have hypothetically used, had you not paid them cash money (along with a sizable percentage to some broker who has friends in DC).
I think you would find much less opposition, no matter the government's cost, once 1) a plan is laid out that doesn't require a regression in anyone's lifestyle, and 2) doesn't involve a punitive cost to sustain that lifestyle, and 3) doesn't involve any component resembling wealth re-distribution, or buying credit that amounts to paying someone else to not do something.
If you're going for utilitarianism, pick a more politically agreeable utility, like actual sequestration, if you want to be successful.
It prevents addition of co2, but does not subtract. Focus on encouraging and incentives for subtraction, not preventing addition. If you want people to get on board. (I get that reducing emissions means less to sequester. That's thinking short term, and beyond minor cutbacks, a political loser. A successful solution won't require that to be effective.)
I'm saying anything punitive and negatively coercive is the wrong approach. It might technically work, but won't ever be successful politically. Unless we go full authoritarian regime. As soon as a large enough portion of the population is hit with having to change lifestyle, it's done for. Focus on solutions that don't require that.
How do you foresee the other environmental pressures (water, soil etc) being resolved? Are we merely maturing through a series of dirty technologies and are on the cusp of a clean tech revolution that will allow us to arbitrarily increase the Earth's carrying capacity? At what point does absolute decoupling of growth and resource consumption occur?
I do hope you're right, as it seems like the only viable path, but I am still doubtful.
Chernobyl and more recently Fukushima.
You might say those were caused by outdated tech or bad management. I'm someone who doesn't think my local or national government would be immune to those failings.
Prior to Fukushima nuclear power was fairly economical in Japan. Post-Fukushima and in retrospect it would have been cheaper to cover every roof in Japan with solar panels, build loads of offshore wind, and build massive energy storage facilities and pumped storage reservoirs.
I would imagine the expense is difficult to determine and quite controversial. Especially when you consider the costs of the effects to the ocean/environment and whatnot that aren't being borne by the japanese people.
Any nuclear accident is unacceptable, but what do you think the rate of crashes were in the first 1000 Airplanes?
When we don't build nuclear, we don't really get better at nuclear. If the U.S. decided to build 50 Nuclear reactors in relatively remote parts of Nevada to power California. Even if we had another accident, by the time we had finished that project our safety standards would be in a very different place.
The country is already destroying itself with fracking and coal mining. Nuclear power is orders of magnitude more devastating. So while nuclear is plenty safe when handled correctly, it's completely understandable to feel like America is not a country which can be trusted to handle things correctly.
All of this is completely wrong. Fracking has enabled us to simultaneously reduce CO2 emissions (by reducing coal mining) while reducing our reliance on foreign oil. Nuclear would be a huge leap forward, again maintaining energy independence (no reliance on Chinese solar panels) while cutting CO2 output.
You’ve got it backwards. America, and the rest of the world, has a problem with environmentalists who can’t do cost-benefit analysis. Thanks to nuclear, France hit CO2 emissions per capita of 6.5 tons back in 1990. Now it’s at 4.6. Germany is still around 9. By the time Germany gets to similar levels using wind and solar, France will have been sitting at those lower levels for 50 years. Everyone in Germany becoming vegans tomorrow won’t make up for half a century of unnecessary CO2 emissions because environmentalists were afraid of nuclear.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont...
We still can't get companies to tell the public what's in these fluids because they are protected trade secrets.
In my uneducated opinion, the only way I see nuclear working is if there are small modular reactors that are produced quickly in a factory assembly line.
France's nuclearization program took 20 years [2], but that's a hare's pace compared to building the energy storage required for intermittent sources.
1. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messme...
We need both fast actions and we also need actions that take ten years or even thirty. Everything helps.
I've been participating in climate discussions for multiple decades.
The less we do and the later we do, it's going to be worse. But it's still better than not doing anything.
Ie there's no point in time, after which it's not worth doing anything.
For anyone interested, citation is here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/read...
The idea that there is some tipping point in 2030 that must be avoided at all cost is just an internet rumor.
It's more complicated & nuanced than most blogs or stories have time for, but it's not an Internet rumor.
I don't think she says anything I much disagree with. I think this even restates my point, in less inflammatory language:
> and here, my friends, is where the mythical "we have 12 years to fix this or the world ends" narrative comes from. (I'm not pointing my finger at anyone in particular here; I'm just saying I've heard this. A lot.)
> Concl'n: Science does not identify a specific goal, target, or timeline. What it says is simply this: the more carbon we produce, the worse the impacts. The best thing to do is wean ourselves off it, as soon as is humanly possible. As a human I'd add: while minimizing suffering.
Most nuclear plants have been working 20-40 years. We need new designs for safer, cheaper plants, and a viable storage for nuclear waste.
People aren't always rational, people will strongly resist changing their current viewpoints and people will very strongly resist making lifestyle changes. Politicians know this also when looking to get elected.
Reducing meat consumption and reducing the number of flights we take are other areas people need to look at but you'll be met with the same problems at a personal and political level.
And what are the equivalent numbers on solar and wind?
We do have energy storage now, and it is already pretty damn good. Lower costs of production offset the cost of any inefficiencies of storage.
We don't know that since to this day we do not know what cost a nuclear power plant actually imposes on society. The geological issue of ultimate storage for example is absurdly complex and remains unresolved. Here in Germany there's only very few potential locations[1]. None of them without potentially hazardous downsides.
[1]: https://www.bgr.bund.de/DE/Themen/Endlagerung/Bilder/BGR_Ber...
This article even mention it, obviously on the last place in a strange way "and to advanced nuclear plants with zero emissions". As if there were some non-advanced nuclear plants that have non-zero emission.
Solar and wind require energy storage that we don't have now and it does not seem we will without major technological leap. In addition, in large parts of the World they just does not make sense as there is not enough sunny/windy days.
For nuclear energy we have everything - knowledge, infrastructure, experience.
What makes people so blind to the simple solution of the problem we have now? Eco people fought vigorously nuclear energy for years and now we are where we are. Time to say that they've made a costly mistake and move on.