Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by cbmuser on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:21PM
(#24296795)
Even the best batteries in the world have absolutely ridiculously small energy densities compared to Uranium (about a factor of 10^6).
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Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by adrianN on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:45PM
(#24297118)
Energy density almost doesn't matter for grid scale things. It's not like we don't have space where we could put batteries. Cost is really the only important measure and nuclear is very expensive, while batteries keep getting cheaper.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by throwaway0a5e on Thursday August 27, 2020 @03:08PM
(#24297394)
Energy density matters greatly because cost is a function of the material you have to handle and the amount of facilities you need to build to generate the power in the first place.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by bob29 on Thursday August 27, 2020 @04:01PM
(#24297977)
In that case energy density would be reflected in the cost. That is why cost is often used to compare energy technologies, and not cherry picking a random metric which favors one particular technology.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by throwaway0a5e on Thursday August 27, 2020 @04:29PM
(#24298279)
The cost of nuclear reflects the fact that toxic waste you can't see, smell or taste is scarier in the minds of the public so we insist upon far more government involvement and rigor in the construction of nuclear plants and insist they pay their decommissioning costs up front. Dare I say nuclear's costs are internalized whereas other modern manufacturing's costs are externalized.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by ascorbic on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:34PM
(#24296972)
They don't need a whole nuclear power station built around them though.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by bob29 on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:37PM
(#24297008)
They also have orders of magnitude (10^3 - 10^4) more charge/discharge cycles than uranium.
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by saagarjha on Thursday August 27, 2020 @02:41PM
(#24297065)
This is a joke, right?
Re:Wind and solar are cheaper than thought, admits UK govern...
by bob29 on Thursday August 27, 2020 @03:06PM
(#24297371)
Its an observation that comparing vastly different technologies using just a single metric produces mostly misleading asinine statements that aren't sufficient to influence any meaningful policy or engineering decisions without additional supporting explanation and justification.