Re:Why More and More Environmentalists Want to Go Nuclear
by deepnotderp on Monday March 07, 2022 @12:31PM
(#30590712)
Well, the fuel is only like 20% of the cost of nuclear power, with the majority being capex, so there’s really little reason to build even more expensive reactors with more regulatory issues to save on opex which isn’t even significant.
Re:Why More and More Environmentalists Want to Go Nuclear
by ncmncm on Monday March 07, 2022 @02:51PM
(#30592510)
Opex "isn't significant" only in comparison to capex for nukes. Nukes' opex is, like capex, outrageously huge compared to both for renewables. Every penny spent on building nukes instead of building out renewables/storage adds to global climate disruption.
It makes perfect sense if you consider the original reasoning - to make weapons, then progressively adapted to make them less useful for making weapons.
Still, I can't help but feel that fans of this mythical "innovative private sector" have a lot to answer for. Here's a 100-fold optimization in fuel use - not in fact a trivial cost, even for nukes - that's been on the table for more than fifty years, with the only drawback that nobody has literally given you the schematics. Now we're burning a shit-ton of gas and funding the tanks for the privilege.