If you add batteries to the mix, nuclear is better.
Not to mention the quantity of power produced. Nuclear is expensive because it's long term investment.
Renewables also cost more in resources (concrete, steel, copper), there are sourced charts about this.
Renewables are better than coal and gaz, but not better than nuclear.
There's nothing wrong with renewables, but it's not enough to offset co2 emissions.
We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems.
The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of energy production and nuclear isn't an exception. It is only clean if you reduce the question to CO2.
Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the EU we basically maxed out those years (decades?) ago. We won't be getting much more. (I mean, without actual mountains, your pump storage plant is going to be prohibitively expensive.)
> The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of energy production
True. In France, we had a very recent report[1] that outlines various scenarios towards 2050, and it appeared that the least risky ones involved a fairly diverse energetic mix.
[1]: https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2022-01/Energy%20p...
Pumped storage is not limited to hydro power dams. All you really need is a hill and water, although it costs less with a depression near the hilltop. No watershed needed.
Actually you do not need the hill. An underground cavity suffices.
And, there are numerous other cheap alternatives.
Right now I would bet on a highly unfavourable comparison to be honest. Dams have the overwhelming advantage of letting you build a relatively small wall (compared to the lake you're holding), to hold a gigantic volume of water. The mountain an the river are already there, so you don't need to build them.
Hydro power systems need to store a year or more. Utilities will need at most a few weeks. You don't need or want a river. Dams are f'ing expensive because they need geological support for extreme pressure. An earthen dike suffices if you don't already have a depression.
Only the penstock needs to hold back high pressure.
I'm aware of dams. I'm not aware of your fancy alternatives. It is therefore reasonable to assume that those fancy alternatives aren't widely deployed. And that the main reason for this is that they're more expensive (per energy unit).
Without sources, your (admittedly plausible) qualitative arguments are just a pretty story.
California has constructed dozens of high-altitude, low-head earthen dams on the same principle, over the past century, with penstocks down to lower-altitude turbines, and has lately converted many of them for pumped hydro.
When there are articles about pumped storage plants the usual problems are not legislative or infrastructure. The biggest issue is that investors don't like to create overcapacity, which mean that there isn't a lot of available renewable energy to buy cheap in order to sell expensively later to recover the cost of storage. When overcapacity occur the enthusiasm for more capacity quickly drop. The secondary issues tend to be more physical in nature. Salt water is very problematic in any situation, so putting pumped storage plants near the ocean has many problems. If you use fresh water you compete with existing utilization, and most suitable locations for pumped storage already have existing hydroelectric power. Fresh water has often a very complex ecosystems and everything from nature to human depend on it.
Hydroelectric power and pumped storage have synergies, they aren't competing.
Stored power isn't overcapacity. Investors care about expensive energy and renewables are the cheapest and cleanest option.
All the existing pumped storage facilities that I know of do not generate their profit from buying low and selling high. They generate profits by providing a service of balancing the grid for short duration so that when a power plant is ramping down, there is a equal force being provided as a service so that the grid doesn't break down. The period of ramping down/up need to be covered somehow, a cost that either the grid operator or the individual power plants need to pay for. The end customer who pays by the kw/h do not see this cost, and it is a very insignificant cost of the whole since it only occur at start and stop.
But I am happy to be proven wrong. Please give me that link of one that buy low and sell high. A commercial operated pumped storage that buy renewable energy when its low and sell when it is high can be scaled up to be used whenever the price difference between low and high is great enough. The cost of operation and investment just need to be low enough that the margin between low and high price points can support it.
It is extremely disingenuous, not to say dishonest, to make up scenarios based on status quo when there is still very little renewable generation capacity.
If you want to blame the lack of renewable generation capacity then feel free to do so. Pumped storage could in theory, in the future, when the time is right, be cost effective. We don't know. We are not there yet. Its a financial model to be to be tested when and if we get there.
For now the financial model for existing pumped storage do not care about the purchasing price or selling price, or what kind of power it is being charged with.
Utilities will need storage, and will build whatever is cheapest. In some places that will be pumped hydro. End of story.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal...
This was probably made possible by the half-dozen pumped storage hydro plants in Portugal. Now they’re putting floating solar on some as well.
But thanks for that link. Tâmega energy storage complex is actually looking like it will be a real renewable storage, using two attached wind farms. Just like with solar, when renewable is combined with storage it makes more sense when the renewable plants is located next to the storage and operated by the same company.
It would be really interesting to hear some numbers from that plant, like how much money they gain by storing the wind power and selling it at a later point in time. It would also be very interesting to see the cost per kw/h, even through at this point in time with energy prices being what they are, I will likely not matter too much.
Ofcourse, you first need surplus solar and wind, and that's what the real problem is. There is still plenty of headroom to build more solar and wind for immediate use before we reach the point where some of the produced energy needs to be stored.
Ammonia will probably turn out more practical as a transportable storage medium. Hydrogen works stored underground.
Therefore a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity will lead us to exploit mines at always lowering ore grades => more emissions.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222817608_Life_cycl...
It's more expensive than mining but not by an order of magnitude
If every country over provisioned renewables, then you have a transmission problem not a storage problem.
The sun does always shine, the wind does always blow.
A worldwide grid is absolutely possible from a technical perspective even with boring non-superconducting aluminium and/or copper, it's just that the combined cross section needs to be in the order of 3m^2, which is 17 years of current global output of both metals combined and has a current cost of a few trillion USD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32198057
(That said, my old linked estimates are over-simplified, that's a single minimal ring, and only works if the 64% resistive losses for current existing HVDC cables over that distance match the possibly lower demand because people do less at night).
I'm kinda leaning towards expecting batteries (specifically batteries and not storage in general) to be the first way a continental power grid gets to 100% renewable, even though I prefer the aesthetic of a global grid. But I don't have any skin in the game, and wouldn't bet against e.g. a cheap high temperature superconductor grid or liquid hydrogen.
My guess is this transition will take 15-20 years to complete, but I have low certainty on that.
The loss is 2-3% per 1,000 km depending on the voltage of the system.
The response was around how the newest transmission technology isn't so lossy. But that would mean we'd have to replace all transmission lines.
This doesn't apply to nuclear because it doesn't rely on generation potentially coming from 500 miles away to make it work.
Technically if you were to over provision, yes that would work, but the problem is more that you cant even do it because of multiple different reasons. It's easier to understand when you realize that we don't have more hydro because most of the good places already have a damn. The best place for mills is currently in Denmark where they are being deployed at sea, thats not most places.
Nuclear is the way to go for base power and the voltage adjustments can be done with windmills, solar and as a last resort with a coal/gas plant.
Denmark is not the only place the wind blows in the world. There are many windy places globally.
But I agree nuclear is another option, but it’s not the only way
This would solve storage issues, vehicles could be refilled pretty much the way they are now, gas boilers could be swapped for hydrogen, no need for polluting batteries, no major upgrades of electric grid, etc.
From "Electrochemical synthesis of ammonia as a potential alternative to the Haber–Bosch process" (2019) :
Water electrolysis, combined with an improved smallerscale Haber–Bosch process, seems to be a short-term solution for the generation of ammonia from renewables at a matching scale. There is a major research focus on reducing the NH3 synthesis reaction pressure and temperature, while keeping the catalyst cost and means to follow the intermittent electrical power input. These technologies are anticipated to be developed within next few years. Electrochemical ammonia production is much more distant from commercialization, however, potential benefits of electrochemical ammonia production, such as reduced energy consumption and associated footprint, scalability, lower process pressures and temperatures, the ability to follow the intermittent electrical power input and use nitrogen with reduced purity justify further research.
From "Electrochemical Synthesis of Ammonia: Progress and Challenges" (2021) :
On the whole, a lot of attempts and significant progress have been made, but the electrochemical synthesis of ammonia is still in the infancy stage with great challenges remained to be addressed.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and is found in great abundance in all galaxies. It is particularly present in the Sun, which is problematic because it is not very accessible to us :) On Earth, there is also a lot of hydrogen in water and in hydrocarbons. However, it does not exist in free form, i.e. just hydrogen. It is always associated with something else, for example with oxygen in water, or with carbon in hydrocarbons.
There are, however, small sources of native hydrogen in the earth underground, but the quantities are nowhere near what we would need to use if we wanted to do anything significant with it. At least not beyond what we are already doing, because hydrogen is already used a lot these days. Nearly 100 million metric tonnes of this element are produced in the world every year.
To be transported, hydrogen must be kept under high pressure or extremely low temperature. This should already raises some question about the feasibility :)
Half of this production is used to de-sulphurize fuels and the other half to make fertilizers (Haber-Bosch process). Thus, hydrogen is already used extensively in the world, but there is a small problem: it is made from hydrocarbons, fossil natural gas, oil or coal, which represents 10 to 30 (metric) tonnes of CO2 per metric ton of hydrogen.
With the way it is made, should we go even further towards this fuel despite global warming? We could then imagine making hydrogen for other applications that do not exist today. For example, like you imagine, to power vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells or to make steel without emitting CO2.
There is a process for making iron with blast furnaces that do not emit CO2. There are also plans by steelmakers to make steel without emitting CO2 by converting iron ore into iron with hydrogen. The hydrogen then removes the oxygen from the iron ore, which is released into the atmosphere as water vapor. To do this, large quantities of hydrogen are needed and, for example, to replace a blast furnace, a nuclear plant is needed to generate the electricity that will enable the water to be electrolyzed, which is the only way to make "clean" hydrogen without emitting CO2. Something like a thousand wind turbines would be needed to replace a nuclear plant (and remember: wind turbines does not work all the time)
When you see the amount of electricity it would take to be able to produce carbon-free hydrogen in large quantities, you realize that there will never be much of it in transport. Not all the world's aircraft will be replaced by hydrogen-powered aircraft, for example. The applications that could then be made with carbon-free hydrogen would be to keep the production of fertilizers and carbon-free steel. Achieving this would already be a big step.
Your calibration is off by quite a few years. The current off-shore turbines being built are 15 MW with capacity factors of around 60%.[1] So lets do 50% for wind and 90% for nuclear.
Wind: 1,000 * 15 MW * 0.5 = 7.5 GW
Nuclear: 1 * 1650 MW (EPR) * 0.9 = 1.485 GW
The HYBRIT plant, a pilot project for fossil free steel is going to utilize an over sized green hydrogen production side to enable it to work as a smart consumer and therefore balance the grid. Thus it is completely dependent on cheap renewables to operate and enables deeper penetration of renewables.
> The HYBRIT initiative was launched in 2016 by the three owners; SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall. The hydrogen storage facility will play a very important role in the overall value chain for fossil-free iron and steel production. Production can take place without a storage facility, but storage provides the opportunity to vary the demand for electricity and ensure stable production. By producing hydrogen gas when there is a lot of electricity, for example when there is a lot of wind, and using stored hydrogen gas when the electricity system is under strain, will ensure production.
> “The hydrogen storage facility has a stabilising effect on the electrical system. It reduces the risk of the system overloading. We want to develop HYBRIT technology so that it is in line with the future electricity system with more weather-dependent electricity generation,” says Mikael Nordlander, Development Manager for Vattenfall’s industrial partnerships.
https://www.hybritdevelopment.se/en/hybrit-a-unique-hydrogen...
[1]: https://www.vestas.com/en/products/offshore/V236-15MW/V236-1...
I'm thinking a key metric is the efficiency of it all.
If you wouldn't mind, could you please source the charts?
> The base load[1] (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying power plants,[2] dispatchable generation,[3] or by a collection of smaller intermittent energy sources,[4] depending on which approach has the best mix of cost, availability and reliability in any particular market.
Wind and solar are intermittent sources.
Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year. To put that in perspective, the strategic oil reserve is 100 million cubic meters. A single aircraft carrier is 2 million cubic meters.
Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem like a massive problem.
Just keep the waste on site and then, if a plant is decommissioned, add it to another reactor's pile.
It's not a permanent solution for millions of years, but it's also likely fine for the next 100 years and that's a reasonable tradeoff (imo).
This is just hyperbole though. All the other arguments aside, it's perfectly possible for humans to plan, and make risk estimates, beyond a human life span.
I think a small pile of hot rubbish well hidden is the least of our problems
But I'm not comparing Nuclear to perfection; I'm comparing it to existing alternatives. Climate change is real, the stakes are high, and nuclear brings a lot to the table.
Nuclear can provide base load energy. To provide base load with renewables requires battery storage that doesn't exist. I'm sure the technology exists but whether because expense or other issues, energy grids around the world don't use grid level storage. And consumers are not interested in trading a little reliability for greener grids; they consistently insist that dirty alternatives close the gap.
And very rough estimate here (it is going to vary considerably based on the solar panels and plant in question, but the principle is unchanged): 1 nuclear plant is roughly 4,000 sq km of solar panels. So like 80 Manhattans ever inch of it a solar panel array. The environmental destruction caused by solar panel array and wind farms is real. The amount of mining required to create the materials needed for 4k solar panels also has a very high environmental cost. Nuclear is compact and requires less materials.
We deal with all kinds of waste that we know would be damaging if it was released in the environment. Radioactivity is dangerous, but I would argue far better understood than many other phenomenon (like micro plastics). It is a challenge, but there is no avoiding challenges. The tradeoffs feel well worth it to me.
My point is that we already deal with many substances that are toxic forever. Something about the danger reducing over the course of thousands of years seems to make people more concerned about the future than when the danger is permanent.
And all those extra 5k cubic meters per year of nuclear waste needs to be stored for around a million years until they are again safe.
This take is absurd. Humanity barely exists for a few thousand years and you somehow assume that it's feasible and economically justifiable to create a health and security hazard that will exist until the end of times.
And all for what? Because you want to shave off a few cents from an energy bill?
How about your backyard?
In the literal backyard of my house? No. Of course, I also support windmills, water reservoirs, lithium mining, and electric car factories and don't want any of those in my literal backyard either. The idea that it is hypocritical to advocate anything you wouldn’t want on your own residential property seems like such an obviously ridiculous idea, I'm not sure it makes sense to rebut. There are countless things society wants (factories, mines, landfills, warehouses, etc…) that don’t make sense to do in residential areas.
In my figurative backyard, like the state I live in? Sure, I would definitely support California creating a nuclear waste storage facility.
This isn't really anything groundbreaking. We already have millions of acres of landfills in the US. Like radioactive waste, trash is basically permanent and will be decomposing for at least hundreds of years. And no one wants a landfill "in their backyard," but somehow we still managed to create the thousands of landfills we have today. We can spare a few dozen acres to build a nuclear waste facility.
Ok, so storage is a problem.
The only problems I would have with it being in my hypothetical back yard would be other people thinking it was dangerous, leading to an urban decay cycle (this also applies to property with unlucky numbers, like 13 in the anglosphere), and/or lots of protesters and/or would-be terrorists not realising how deep the stuff is buried nor now hard it is to shift a multi-ton concrete-filled steel barrel.
From what I know of deep geological storage, I wouldn't mind living in a house on top of one of these sites. Since they're usually in the middle of nowhere, it would probably be even safer than living in a polluted city.
How convenient
What's your point??
Nuclear has several problems. The main one of which is simply its cost. It is complex technology that involves dangerous materials that need protective measures against both technical failures and security measures against people doing things like building dirty bombs with these materials. You don't need a lot of nuclear waste to make a really effective dirty bomb.
All solvable, but it adds to the cost. Security generally involves babysitting reactors for their operational life as well as securing any sites where the waste is stored.
Solar is about an order of magnitude cheaper and faster to deploy. That's conservative. It's hard to not emphasize just how simple solar panels are in comparison. Mass producing them seems to lead to all sorts improvements in production processes and cost reductions. So they are an order of magnitude cheaper now. It might be two or three in some decades.
A solar panel just works for a few decades. You put it wherever and at the end of it's life you either recycle it or not. That's mostly a cost driven decision. We're talking perfectly inert material that you can have on your roof for decades without being exposed to anything harmful. Really, landfills of the stuff would not pose that many challenges. Certainly not compared to the other stuff we dump there like household electronics, old phones, depleted non rechargeable batteries, etc.
However, landfills of this stuff seem wasteful and probably the trace elements of various minerals and precious metals will be too tempting for recycling companies for that not to not happen. It will be some decades before we know because most panels in use today just got installed fairly recently and will be operating for some decades to come. Same with lithium ion car batteries. We already recycle lead acid batteries for decades. The value of lead is comparatively low to nickel and lithium. This might be a multi billion dollar industry. Nuclear waste is not very profitable at all. Just cost. People might get smart about lowering that cost is the best you can say about it.
I doubt the math will ever add up for nuclear to matter much. When your competition is orders of magnitudes cheaper, it doesn't matter how rosy a picture you paint for dealing with terrorists, nuclear waste, and the potential for area depopulating disasters. It's still too expensive. Mitigating those things will never be free. That's the problem.
Nuclear needs water to cool, hot water then goes into rivers. This, until the river becomes too hot for the life in the water, then you cannot use your plant anymore (or you can, at the risk of killing all life in the area).
Also water evaporates when it's hot and vapor is a greenhouse gas even worse than carbon dioxyde. This might sound like a minor problem in the short term but it might be a huge issue in the future.
Also Uranium is sold at a negative ROI right now because of the decline of demand from Japan and Germany since Fukushima. But as those countries roadmap for nuclear changes, and as China is building more plants, the price for Uranium (which is quite inelastic) will increase significantly. Problem is, you don't build a plant for a year or two, you build it only if you intent to use it for decades. The commitment is huge.
I believe nuclear is useful as part of the mix but isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.
Some plants were built without cooling towers. Those are now a problem.
Can you back that up? From what I understand most of the cooling happens in the cooling towers by evaporation?
It can't be that hard to google? That being said, only 14% of reactors use rivers to cool, so OP may be exaggerating a bit.
Let's say we shut down a coal power plant, which was 30% of a region's energy mix, and want to replace its output. What's the total cost and environmental impact of doing that with solar vs nuclear? This is the only thing that matters. Even if solar panels are 100x better per-peak-watt, by the time you add all the overprovisioning and storage necessary to cover the baseline during nights and overcast days, the numbers look very very different.
The only question that matters is what solution can cover the need, currently met by fossil fuels. That solution isn't just the generation method, it's everything else we need in order to match not just the baseline and peak output, but the entire curve.
With prices climbing there is a lot of room for things to compete.
Similar inside europe (https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/energy-prices).
I think a lot of household would accept a contract for 40 pounds per MWh for the whole year regardless of weather with guarantied capacity, and under liability in the case the contract is not fulfilled.
Context: They are responding to a complaint that isn't explicit here. That complaint usually comes in the form of: "we have nowhere to put the waste" or "Yucca Mountain was canceled and we'll never have such a facility because of NIMBY." So the response is more "We can store on site and don't need deep geological depositories, here's others who have done it. But if you really want a geological depository, here's Onkalo." We can already do on sight, and this is already being done, so it makes sense to argue about this. If we want to do some smaller scale DGDs then we can do things substantially smaller than Yucca Mountain and have decades to build it.
I think without this context, it comes off as extremely hand-wavy. I'll admit that there is some hand-wavyness, but without something in place all you can argue is "this problem isn't as hard as people think. We can do it, here's real world examples elsewhere." I'm not sure what other argument they are supposed to make.
> Context: They are responding to a complaint that isn't explicit here. That complaint usually comes in the form of: "we have nowhere to put the waste" or "Yucca Mountain was canceled and we'll never have such a facility because of NIMBY." So the response is more "We can store on site and don't need deep geological depositories, here's others who have done it. But if you really want a geological depository, here's Onkalo." We can already do on sight, and this is already being done, so it makes sense to argue about this. If we want to do some smaller scale DGDs then we can do things substantially smaller than Yucca Mountain and have decades to build it.
So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste?
And just dismissing the reasons as NIMBY is grossly over simplifying things, there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc..
> I think without this context, it comes off as extremely hand-wavy. I'll admit that there is some hand-wavyness, but without something in place all you can argue is "this problem isn't as hard as people think. We can do it, here's real world examples elsewhere." I'm not sure what other argument they are supposed to make.
Where are the real world examples? The only place that has now opened a long term storage facility is Finland who just opened it (and that supposedly was largely due to political pressure because the project had run so much over time and budget), we actually don't know if they can run it let alone for 1000s of years. The low energy storage facility in Germany is a mess already after a few 10s of years (in Asse 2 they stored the low intensity waste in meta drums inside a former salt mine. Water got in, not really a good combination).
> So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste?
No, that is not the argument.
1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving)
2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0]. Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely. I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely.
> there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc..
Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing.
> Where are the real world examples?
> now opened a long term storage facility is Finland
It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods.
[0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
[1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968
I am trying to give a good faith response, but I feel that the original article is not arguing in good faith and I don't understand your justification.
> > So the argument is: because we haven't managed to actually find a long term storage we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste?
> No, that is not the argument.
> 1) Those lifetime numbers aren't made up. I'm not sure why you would claim so. You can easily check these numbers. (This is why I'm concerned about good faith. You are just saying that the article is flat out lying, not hand waving)
The lifetime numbers are not made up and I never said the original author was lying. However, saying that solar cells have an issue because they at this moment can not commercially recycled 100% (which is incorrect but besides the point), but at the same time arguing that nuclear waste is not a problem because we can ignore everything with a lifetime >300 years because it is potential fuel and could be somehow recycled in the future is dishonest. You can't in the same argument criticise one technology based on the current state of the art and at the same time use some hypothetical future development to say the other technology does not have an issue.
This is what I criticised, many discussions boil down to exactly this. Renewables are criticised based on some current state, while nuclear is good because all issues will somehow be solved through future developments.
You argued that it was OK to be handwavy because of NIMBY preventing a repository. I disagree that ignoring long lifetime components because they somehow could be recycled in the future is handwavy, that is wishing the issue away.
> 2) We don't need repositories. There are other sources, including our own acidburnNSA[0].
What do you mean acidburnNSA? I could not find anything on the link you provided.
> Storing things on sight is perfectly fine and we can do so for hundreds of years safely.
While I agree that storing things on site is currently the best solution. It is completely unproven that we can do this for 100s of years. Neither is it clear that the containers will last that long, nor the social/political structures.
>I think many miss a lot of the purposes of deep geological repositories and the strange constraints they have on them. One such constraint (driven by cold war fear) is that these sites can't accidentally be dug up by future archeologists or aliens thousands of years after we are gone and who may not understand our language. It is a weird constraint because it's assuming we have a nuclear war, wipe everyone out, and forget everything about radiation. This is really unlikely.
What do you mean? Understanding languages that are several hundreds to thousands of years old is not straight forward. We don't need to think of aliens either. We don't even have established information storage mechanisms that lasts that long.
> > there are massive uncertainties about not just the storage, but also the logistics of the transport, the maintance etc..
> Would you care to explain? We've advanced storage techniques in the last 70 years we've been using nuclear. What is the concern with transportation? We've had them fall out of planes (during a period where engines would also fall off planes, but this doesn't happen anymore) and hit by trains all without any problem. It sounds like we have room for mistakes/error. Those examples are success of real world testing.
I'm talking about that they are obvious targets for terrorist attacks, protests etc.. All of these increase the costs of transports. Also I recall some experiments or expert assessments for at least the french/German castor containers which showed possible (impropabale but not unrealistic) scenarios that they would not withstand.
> > Where are the real world examples?
> > now opened a long term storage facility is Finland
> It feels like you answered your own question. But here's France's storage[1] and Russia's[2]. You should also read [0] because it discusses easier methods.
You are moving the goalposts, first Onkalo is even by the nuclear industry acknowledged to be the first long term repository, and it can't have been proven to work having just opened. The French facility (and I assume Russian one, I don't speak Russian) is much more like a temporary storage, also not proven yet that it will work. I covered recycling already, it is highly uneconomical produces a lot of low rate waste and is only done for political/military reasons in France.
> [0] https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
> [1] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968
Okay, and in that spirit I'll not how I'm interpreting some of your responses. They may not be what you intended but I feel that if I note how I see what you are saying that this can prevent us from talking past one another, which is an easy thing to do accidentally. Let's try to work through this together.
> The lifetime numbers are not made up and I never said the original author was lying.
When you said:
>> we can make up numbers about recycling and lifetime of the waste?
I assumed that it was "make up numbers about lifetime of waste." I'm still having a hard time reading this another way tbh. Would you care to clarify?
> You argued that it was OK to be handwavy because of NIMBY preventing a repository.
No I argued
>>> I'm not sure what other argument they are supposed to make.
Under the condition
>>> without something in place all you can argue is "this problem isn't as hard as people think. We can do it, here's real world examples elsewhere."
I still stand by that. I'm not sure what else you can argue other than "We can do it, here's examples" when there isn't an exact thing in place. I should mention that there are plenty of simulations that show that this is the case. What are we supposed to argue? "Here's an example in the US and that's why we should do it in the US?" That doesn't make sense because we'd then be doing it and wouldn't need to argue in favor of doing said task. I'm still confused what your problem is. Which brings me to
> It is completely unproven that we can do this for 100s of years.
Which again, I'm not sure what you mean. We have simulations. We have small scale testing. We even have medium/long scale testing. The only thing we really don't have is a literal experiment where we've tested this containment for 100 years. But we have for almost 100 years. The likelihood that things become more dangerous after 80 years (from Manhattan project) seems unlikely given literally everything we know about radioactivity and it's nature to reduce in danger over time. So I'm not sure what you're asking for as "proof".
This also is, in my view, silly in the same way it is silly for a recruiter to ask for 10 years of Carbon experience. Carbon is less than a year old, so it is impossible to have 10 years of experience. Though, from personal experience, I've seen this literal argument made by the government to a DoE lab. DoE wanted to improve storage based on simulations and physical testing but the gov said "can't do it because it isn't proven" with "proven" being "full lifetime" physical testing. This is a rather silly, and understandably frustrating, argument. Clearly if you aren't allowed to test something because it isn't "proven" then you can't fulfill the conditions to prove it. The situation is set up to fail and, understandably, make people angry. It is circular logic. If you aren't intending it in this manner, please elaborate because that is how I'm interpreting and I apologize if it isn't the intent. If your intent is to say that we can't have the technology proven until we have a full lifetime example (and thus hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years), please let me know. I will have a followup.
> and at the same time use some hypothetical future development to say the other technology does not have an issue.
Actually, I don't think the author argued anything that wasn't already being done either in another country or through lab scale testing (as in physical testing. Well past simulations).
> What do you mean? Understanding languages that are several hundreds to thousands of years old is not straight forward.
Sorry, I am arguing a different point. Allow me to clarify. I think the premise that literally all human knowledge from now (and previously) will be lost, is a bit naive and an EXTREMELY high bar. While it is something we should be concerned with, it shouldn't be a deal breaker. After all, the bar is so high that it is essentially impossible to meet this bar. We've also got plenty of historical examples to prove that this is unlikely, given that no such event has ever happened and that we also know not to drink water from ancient Roman pipes which are lead lined and who believed that stagnant water was safe. Personally, I believe that if a future civilization is capable of digging miles into the ground and breaking open several feet of steel and concrete, then there's a high likelihood that they also know about radiation. True, it isn't guaranteed, but by the time we were able to achieve such a feat, we also knew about radiation. What I'm saying here is that "worst case scenario" shouldn't prevent us from making steps in the right direction. I'll also argue that this bar is only set for nuclear materials. We produce substantially more amounts of waste with lead and other heavy metals, which are both toxic and *are toxic forever*. At least radioactive materials becomes less dangerous over time (and with exponential decay!).
> I'm talking about that they are obvious targets for terrorist attacks, protests etc..
There's almost a hundred years worth of history on this and we haven't seen a single one. Actually, fun(?) story. A company I used to work for was looking at DoD proposals and we were going to submit one on dirty bombs (well we did). But in the research phase (I have a physics degree and specialized in nuclear) I couldn't find a single case of a dirty bomb actually being used in the wild. This is despite several nuclear weapons and a lot of weapons grade material being stolen/lost after the fall of the USSR. Why? Because it is fucking stupid. Dirty bombs don't increase your kill count. They drastically increase your risk of dying before you deploy your weapon. They also increase your chance of getting caught (there are examples) due to how good we are at sensing radiation. And it is just difficult to get your hand on (and quite expensive). It may increase the terror part of terrorism, but it really just isn't worth it. You could set off thousands of pipe bombs for the price of one dirty bomb.
> Also I recall some experiments or expert assessments for at least the french/German castor containers which showed possible (impropabale but not unrealistic) scenarios that they would not withstand.
Wait, I want to zoom in
> improbable but not unrealistic
What's the bar then? Does it have to be impossible? You have to know that isn't a realistic bar, right?
> The French facility (and I assume Russian one, I don't speak Russian) is much more like a temporary storage, also not proven yet that it will work.
What do you mean unproven? They have successfully stored THE ENTIRE COUNTRY'S RADIOACTIVE LIFETIME WASTE for decades. DECADES. What is unproven?
> I covered recycling already, it is highly uneconomical produces a lot of low rate waste and is only done for political/military reasons in France.
Actually, the reason we don't do it in the US is because it is just cheaper to buy new Uranium. This is not true for France, so they recycle. While it is economically advantageous for France, it isn't for the US. That's besides the point though as fuel is an extremely small part of the cost of the reactor (including waste). But a good reason to do it is to reduce the waste "problem." I REALLY encourage you to read [0] and I find it hard to have a conversation without this per-requisite.
I'm not sure how I moved the goal post tbh, but I will now. To something I feel is actually much more fair. Why does nuclear energy have to be so much safer than other sources of energy? Clearly no source of energy is perfectly safe nor is perfectly green. My question is why nuclear technology has to be leaps and bounds ahead of others. With generations old technology: fewer people die, there's far less environmental damage, it operates at zero carbon emissions, and we've safely stored the material for nearly a hundred years without killing a single person. Hell, we can't say the same about literally any other energy source. After decades of use, in dozens of countries, we've only killed a few hundred people and almost all of those are due to a singular event (Chernobyl) that was at the birth of the technology. Are we not allowed to improve? Are we to be but the sins of our fathers? (bad analogy since that was Russia) Rooftop solar, hydro, geothermal, and natural gas kills more people, so I'm a bit confused. Why does nuclear have so much higher of a bar than any other source of energy? Is it just you don't like nuclear or is there a legitimate reason to the higher bar? Why are we even having this fight? The position is renewables + nuclear not renewables _vs_ nuclear. The point is to get rid of coal, gas, and oil. The situation in Ukraine would definitely be different if Germany didn't kill off their nuclear plants. I honestly don't know what conditions (what level of proof) is needed to convince you. This is why I'm unsure if there is a good faith argument to come from here. If there's no argument that can be convincing then it really isn't good faith.
The reality is nobody uses power reactor for making bombs. The desired reaction is U-238 + n -> U-239, decay to Np-239, decay to Pu-239. However, if you leave the fuel in for too long you get an increasing amount of Pu-239 + n -> Pu-240. Pu-240 is a neutron emitter that gives bombmakers big headaches. If someone were to make off with a load of plutonium from a reprocessor they're going to have a hard time turning it into a working bomb.
However, there's another approach to avoiding theft: Most of these isotopes don't matter. The fuel is "spent" because of a few neutron absorbers. Remove those, don't clean up the rest of it. Leave stuff like that Ba-133. The resulting fuel works just as well but unlike fresh fuel it's very nasty to deal with. The industry will have no problem with it--it's no nastier than the rods were when they came out, they have the machinery to handle it safely. The thief doesn't. You're not walking out with a gamma emitter in your pocket without setting off a bunch of alarms and if you try to steal much it will kill you before you manage to make off with it.
There still is one political headache, though--a reprocessor plant + a reactor built for quick fuel changes is the heart of a plutonium bomb program. It's hard to say we can have such plants but places like Iran can't.
Plasma disposal is also feasable for reducing the waste even further. RE : https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...
Fossil fuels release about 33 billion tonnes annually in co2 release. And that's not even possible to contain. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and...
So the `~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year` mentioned elsewhere really is a grain of sand in comparison.
And than all you bring up is some technology which is in testing proving OPs argument.
Sure there are ways of reducing highly radioactive waste...at the cost of creating more waste you still have to store...and yeah sure you can dispose some of it in the sea. Also it costs a hell lot of money.
> Fossil fuels release about 33 billion tonnes annually
Nobody questions the bad side of fossils.
The topic is renewables vs. nuclear though.
And we went pretty heavy on Nuclear. Overall, I wouldn't say the problem is insignificant. But it is certainly a small problem, compared to building, maintaining, and renewing all the nuke plants themselves.
Which is surely just the fuel. Which itself is a tiny amount of the whole amount of waste a nuclear reactor is responsible for in his lifetime.
Now there's this thing called "global warming", caused by fossil fuels. That thing is poised to displace billions of people as parts of the planet becomes unfit for human life. That means wars, famine, and disease, whose scale will increase with the warming.
What's the greater risk? Those mid-level nuclear waste, or the continued use of fossil fuel? Sure we could have energy storage to make wind and solar work, but the costs to make that work at scale without a secondary source are enormous (I believe Jancovici once reported it would multiply the costs of renewable by 6 or so).
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There's no such thing as "clean" energy. It's a tradeof all around. Our problem right now is to find the least bad source of energy. Which by the way depends on the geographical and geopolitical situation of each part of the world. Nuke plants make more sense in France than they do in other countries. Iceland for instance has more geothermal opportunities.
No. That's just a proper grid with renewables. It works already within the single market of the EU.
> Now there's this thing called "global warming", caused by fossil fuels.
Yeah we've heard of it. Actually the country which is most ridiculed for turning off their nuclear fleet is the only one with an LAW to phase out coal completely. The only reason it took so long is because of the jobs in the industry. Other countries have other reasons. Some are just ideologically retarded. See states in the USA.
Nothing of all that has anything to do with nuclear. Nuclear isn't part of the calculation anymore. If you start building a reactor now in a civilized country where safety rules are relevant, you won't be finished by the time it's too late to save us from the results of global warming.
The topic "nuclear and global warming" is a straw man. It makes no sense at all.
> Nuke plants make more sense in France than they do in other countries.
You did get the news that it's just another year where France needs to turn off their nuclear fleet because their rivers get too hot? How do you even get the idea? I mean France has a huge coast, hills, whatever. There is ample opportunity for renewables. They just messed up their jump on the train tot the future. This is why they need to buy dirty coal power from Germany and the UK these days...again...
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I assume the fact that you didn't touch waste again is that you agree with me on that issue.
Yeah, in retrospect we should have put more plants around our coastlines.
> The topic "nuclear and global warming" is a straw man. It makes no sense at all.
Okay let's start over. We need to somehow reduce our emissions down to near zero. No oil, no gas, no coal. That leaves renewables (wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, forest wood), and nuclear. And energy savings.
Among all those, what can scale, at what cost, and what can we do with those? Hydro is maxed out in many parts of the world, geothermal doesn't work everywhere, forest wood is probably maxed out already (we can burn more, but it would cease to be renewed). That leaves wind, solar, and nuclear. With current tech, nuclear is the thing that takes the least concrete, the least real estate… and with the exception of regular maintenance and hot rivers delivers its full power at will.
Wind and solar however not only cost way more (per energy unit), they only deliver when the sun shines or the wind blows. In practice this puts a significant strain of the network. There are 3 ways to compensate for that: nuke plants, energy storage, and cutting off non-essential power.
Thing about nuke plants is, they're not less expensive when they run at less than full power. Beyond a certain point, more renewables doesn't need less nuke plants. It means just as many nuke plants, running below capacity. Having any more than that would be pure waste. One huge disadvantage however is that they're very capitalistic: we need a huge investment to make a single plant, and that requires a very stable political environment (a similar argument works for nuclear waste).
Energy storage is currently very expensive. It's nice to have some (like hydro dams), and it does mean that we can reduce the nuke installed based accordingly. But building huge swaths of batteries or flywheels may be much more problematic.
Finally we could cut-off non-essential power. I'm not entirely against that, but we need to keep in mind that this is not exactly a painless change (I do like my comfort).
Of course, we could mix the 3.
But takes the most time, cost hilarious amounts of money, creates waste for generations and is just another finite resource energy generation technology from the past.
This is not what we need to reduces our emissions down to near zero now. We need technology which is cheap, deployable before it is too late to reduce our emissions and accessible for every country on this planet. This technologies are renewables and only those.
So please...if you really care about the environment and are not merely one of those people who blindly recite Michael Shellenbergers Astro-Turf campaign, don't mention nuclear on this topic again. It doesn't make any sense.
> Thing about nuke plants is, they're not less expensive when they run at less than full power.
Think about nuke plants is, they're least expensive when they are turned off. Even the grid profits from that since you don't have that expensive nuclear crap clogging up the lines so cheap renewable energy generation has to be turned off.
Time to face it: nuclear is done....at least in the civil sector.
> But [nuclear] takes the most time, cost hilarious amounts of money
Depending exactly what you mean, this is either very true, or dead wrong. It is true that a single nuke plant costs gigantic amounts of time, money, and resources. But it also deliver significant power, typically 1GW (sometimes a bit less, generally more). Windmills are vastly cheaper, but typical ratings are around 1MW, and that’s a maximum, not an average, and if you need to control energy output you’ll need a buffer (batteries, flywheels, dams…).
To replace a single nuke plant, you’ll probably need something like 2000 windmills, and energy storage to match. Or less if you’re okay with temporary power shortages (a harsh but valid political choice).
Now which is cheaper? One nuke plant? Or 1-2K windmills? All those windmills will need a lot of concrete, for which we’re destroying quite a few beaches (desert sand does not work unfortunately). You’ll also need quite a bit more rare earth materials to get that thousand dynamos to work. And eventually you’ll need to transport all that in a world without oil (one reason renewable energy is cheap is because transport is still cheap, thanks to oil).
> We need technology which is cheap, deployable before it is too late to reduce our emissions and accessible for every country on this planet.
Agreed.
> if you really care about the environment and are not merely one of those people who blindly recite Michael Shellenbergers
Here’s my main source: https://jancovici.com/
One thing to note: the guy doesn’t even pretend nuclear power will replace what we have now. He’s just saying that no matter what we do, our energy consumption will inexorably go down, and that will start soon, if it hasn’t already. Since energy is a physical measure of how much we can transform our world, that means we’ll be able to transform it less and less, a.k.a. the economy will shrink, a.k.a. big ass long term recession. And that’s before we make it even worse in the name of staving off global warming.
His thesis is that nuclear power will not be enough to stop the fall. But it might significantly soften it, and we can only hope that it will be enough.
I'm only commenting on a portion of the argument against nuclear based on its waste.
The fact is the waste is negligible. Esspecially so when you consider the return of energy from a nuclear reactor Per square meter of real estate versus most viable renewables
I'm personally of the opinion why not both. So I'm biased of course, but nuclear isn't something to be afraid of. Purely BECAUSE of technology.
It doesn't matter how much energy it "returns". It doesn't make the waste less worse for generations.
> Per square meter of real estate versus most viable renewables
You can literally put solar on roofs of private buildings...if your local fossil/nuclear lobby allows it. I don't even get how this is relevant. Especially because of the issue with constantly running nuclear reactors in an old grid clogging it up so cheap renewable energy needs to be turned off.
> but nuclear isn't something to be afraid of. Purely BECAUSE of technology.
Those jumps you make here from unfunded claims about waste disposal over derailing into fossil, whitewashing of that waste and old school baseload myths make me thing you're the one who's afraid of technology.
What about the 16% of americans living in apartments? that’s just apartments, not counting condos or other units where you don’t have permission to install things on the roof. what do these people do for power?
I didn't say this is supposed to be the only way of getting power. You can put solar everywhere. Not just on roofs and you might have heard about wind. That's a thing too.
> I didn't say this is supposed to be the only way of getting power.
Your previous comments do sign you up very much in favour of anything other than nuclear.
> . Not just on roofs and you might have heard about wind. That's a thing too.
It certainly is, but to my previous point of 'per square meter return' .. Are you planning to organise a turbine with the local people of each apartment block ?
I sound facetious, but actually I'm not sure you know how energy is delivered.
Renewable's are amazing, the more the merrier. But discarding nuclear over it's waste isn't a genuine argument.
We've gotten better than the 60s/70/80 when old plants were built - granted through horrific experiences. That shouldn't stop us from pursuing cheap energy.
Thanks to technology we know how to even automate where humans fail. We know how to distribute more efficiently.
We also know how to use solar, wind and aqua. It will never be as efficient as splitting the atom though.
Again I reiterate - Why not both ?
How isn't it when it actually is in Germany?
> We've gotten better than the 60s/70/80 when old plants were built
How so when the waste from those reactors is still stored next to those reactors?
> That shouldn't stop us from pursuing cheap energy.
Nuclear is not cheap.
> We also know how to use solar, wind and aqua. It will never be as efficient as splitting the atom though.
It doesn't have to be as "efficient" as your steam engine with generations-waste-extra. It's cheap as hell and it's getting cheaper and better fast. Something you can't say about nuclear. A technology from the past.
> Again I reiterate - Why not both ?
Because:
a) you didn't offer any solution for the waste
b) you can spend every dollar only once
c) we're right on the path to the new cold war....you should get rid of those rotting vulnerabilities and opt in for decentralised independence.
It’s getting cheaper. The primary reason it’s not cheap currently is every reactor built is site specific. This will soon change with smaller reactors being built in factories then installed.
> Something you can't say about nuclear. A technology from the past.
This seems like an attack again on nuclear. Stars use nuclear reactions for energy, you’re alive because of a nuclear reaction. Why are you so quick to throw it out?
And you still haven’t answered my question. What do these people do for power? I can’t put a wind turbine on the roof of my apartment anymore than a solar panel. And as your parent stated, there’s transmission and physical surface area concerns.
Once we solve the energy problem, population growth is our next one. We can’t make anymore land, and people advocating for taking large swaths of land, or even ocean, are setting us up for future land use issues. Think beyond the immediate next step.
I'm looking forward to those sources on that bold claim.
> This will soon change
...and I hope that claim was not based upon that wishful thinking but on actual facts which are valid today.
> Stars use nuclear reactions for energy, you’re alive because of a nuclear reaction. Why are you so quick to throw it out?
Nobody wants to turn off stars. This is a unnecessary derailment.
And we're quick to throw it out because the money needs to go into renewable technology which can be deployed fast and cheap to face the current global crisis.
> What do these people do for power? I can’t put a wind turbine on the roof of my apartment anymore than a solar panel
What do these people do if they want to eat a hamburger? Do they all have a cow in their basement? I mean seriously...what is this?
> Once we solve the energy problem, population growth is our next one....
I don't even...
https://www.ien.com/operations/news/21107432/nextgen-factory...
> Nobody wants to turn off stars. This is a unnecessary derailment.
I don’t see it that way, what I see is someone ignoring science because they’re scared.
> What do these people do if they want to eat a hamburger? Do they all have a cow in their basement? I mean seriously...what is this?
Actually if you go back in history, yes before food storage and transport was a thing people did have to have a cow in their basement, or close by. I can go lay eyes on the reactors close to me, and other coal fired plants. Where will we put the massive panels and wind turbines? You’re still avoiding the question.
> I don't even...
So ignore the housing crisis? Again only think one step ahead? Do you think our population numbers are decreasing? How much land are the land factories putting out these days? Think ahead, taking large swaths of land is going to come back to bite us.
First they are practical - unlike all renewables nuclear energy plant provides stable influx of energy to the electric grid, regardless of the weather condition. As long as we don't have good and, again, practical energy storage, renewables usability will be always limited. And so far we don't see any true innovation in the long term, large scale batteries tech - ritual monthly "at last, new battery tech invented in X" article in popular magazines is not enough since those "new" batteries either has to work in 10 Kelvin temperature or would need to have size of the Moon. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is, unfortunately, not practical as it requires very specific terrain and water sources. It is great we can build them here and there, but that's not the solution for the problem.
Secondly, nuclear energy plants does not produce CO2 and this is what we want to get rid off, as I understand.
Nuclear wastes are different story, unfortunately for the past 50 years there was almost no innovation in nuclear plants sector as well since everyone who would like to work on this was treated by the Academia like Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccination activists. Nuclear wastes are radiating, which means there is energy there, let's try to find the way how to use is, maybe it is easier than the search for the battery Holy Grail.
That was "practical" in the 80s. Today it's a problem. You need to have a flexible grid to profit from the cheapest energy available. Having some expensive energy source clog up the grid so you have to turn off solar or wind is a bad thing.
> As long as we don't have good and, again, practical energy storage, renewables usability will be always limited
That baseload myth is dead these days. Batteries are merely one way to store energy but they’re not the only way. They’re not even the leading way.
A combination of efficiency, demand response, transmission, optimal mix of wind and solar, along with some storage will be more than enough to get us beyond 100% of current service demand.
And all of this is already working in parts of the world. For example in the EU where all that green and brown energy from Germany is saving Nuclear-Frances ass at the moment and has been every summer and winter for at least the last decade.
> nce everyone who would like to work on this was treated by the Academia like Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccination activists.
Billions disappear in nuclear research and has been since it's been invented. Billions which could have been invested into renewables which unlike nuclear produces real and fast progress so please...don't spread fake news.
How is it a myth? Weather systems are big. it is not unusual for eg. the entirety of North-western Europe to have a calm spell of little to no wind. You need something to keep the lights on when there's no wind, night time etc. That's your base load right there.
> And all of this is already working in parts of the world. For example in the EU where all that green and brown energy from Germany is saving Nuclear-Frances ass at the moment and has been every summer and winter for at least the last decade.
Pointing to a bunch of german coal plants keeping the lights on is not a great argument. Germany has a very polluting "base load" generation capability in comparison to other countries. imagine how much less carbon they would be emitting right now if they had just kept their nuclear plants going.
Renewables cannot get rid of a need for base load generation capability at 100% of demand. Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century. So the options are - handwave about batteries and pumped storage, ensuring that coal and gas is what actually used to meet base load, or invest in nuclear. If you actually want low carbon electricity generation, nuclear is the only option.
OK, but the EU grid is bigger than that, so the question should be "how common are weather patterns that combine low wind with low sun over the entire continent rather than just a quarter of it?"
> Batteries and storage just aren't going to scale up to do that (or even 1% of it) in this century.
If cars are electrified, their batteries have enough for grid storage even after losing to much capacity to remain in the vehicles.
This isn't a guarantee they will be built, but I think it's likely as people are building battery factories (and mineral mines to supply them) as fast as they're allowed to.
Even if you built enough wind turbines to satisfy 10000% of EU demand within the EU (which is what you would need to have a shot at this kind of redundancy) the amount of huge HVDC interconnects you would need criss-crossing the continent make it completely impractical.
That just isn't true - there's been plenty of times where eg the UK is generating wind power at just a few percent of total capacity because of low wind. And it just is not unusual for periods of calm in the UK to also be calm in neighbouring countries.
Even at a continental level, and averaged out over months long periods, wind is pretty variable and unpredictable: https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-w... - if you look there we can see that wind power generation at a European level was down 32% on long term average over summer and autumn 2021.
That's not what that article says, but even if it was it would imply a need of only x1.47 not x100:
"""For instance, UK-based power company SSE stated that its renewable assets produced 32% less power than expected."""
(SSE being initials for "Scottish and Southern Energy").
Why do you regard HVDC within Europe as impractical? Sure it would take a while, but there's already a grid. This is certainly achievable in my lifetime even without any interesting new tech like better superconductors or automation.
However for the "renewables can be base load" requirement it is completely impractical because of simple back of the envelope calculations. Suddenly you need multiple TWs of wind generation capability in every spot where it might be windy when calm elsewhere, and you need enough transmission to get TWs of power out from any random location within the EU. This is pipe dream territory.
What I don't know is how long such a cable would last, which matters for total lifetime cost. But construction cost at current prices is on the order of a few trillion, which sure, is loads, but that's for a genuinely global infrastructure project that essentially replaces the multi trillion dollar per year fossil electricity industry.
Biggest problem is probably the geopolitics.
Nuclear has the opposite problem of wind/solar in that they need to be run at 100% capacity basically all the time because of their absurd building costs and low operating costs. Building enough nuclear to support that load that then sits idle 95% of the year would be absurdly expensive.
You could of course then use that idle capacity to make say methane [0] which is what we currently use to heat our homes but then why spend 3x [2] the money to make that storage when you can just use wind/solar to do it?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
[1]: https://mashable.com/article/polar-vortex-2021-cold-temperat...
[2 in the US]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
under “Load following”
Nuclear is "base load" through and through. Yes it would be awkward to manage spinning nuclear plants up and down if you were targeting 100%, but France manages pretty well with 70% of energy coming from nuclear so it is an actually existing counterpoint.
How is that embarrassing state "pretty well"? They use dirty power from their neighbours to manage their support holes created through that narrow minded energy infrastructure. Just like every summer, they've been struggling due to too hot rivers and now those "cracks" in those reactors...France has shown that focusing on nuclear is sheer stupidity. Stupidity funded by the French taxpayer btw and it goes only downwards from here since their old fleet is not getting younger and everything they build takes too long and costs too much.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/nuclear-po...
https://jeromeaparis.substack.com/p/edfs-woes-are-a-bigger-l...
And now we are looking of some development in the future. The usual argument I keep seeing is that with the exponential cost reduction in solar and green hydrogen we will have in the future a combination that will be cheaper than the nuclear costs of today. A comparison of the current state of nuclear to some future potential solar + storage solution. Maybe we should use the same description for this and call that dishonest comparison?
The current state in northern Europe are wind and some solar in combination with large capacity gas (and some coal/oil). This is why Russian gas, oil and coal has such a huge impact of the electricity price in Europe, and why countries are currently setting up plans to disconnect part of the grid if the threat of limited gas supply continues to next winter. The grid is built on renewables when they are available, running around 50% on average in some countries, and for the remaining we burn a lot of fossil fuels. All the waste of those burned fossil fuels are put into the environment for society to address at a later date.
Maybe it is time for honesty in energy discussions, and also make intention clears. We should ban fossil fuels from being used in the energy grid, and we should set an date for that ban which corresponds to the common scientific understanding of global warming. We should also take in the data from doctors and health scientists that have first hand experience with fossil fuel pollution. With that, we need to build an energy grid that operates without having fossil fuels to fall back on.
Thats what its like today. That's probably why the nuclear PR articles almost never try to compare costs or speed of construction with demand shaping + solar + wind + storage. It does not stack up well.
No one is burning green hydrogen commercially for grid power, through a lot of people would be happy to pay the average nuclear cost (~3 cent per kw/h) if you want to provide it. Selling green hydrogen for $1 per kg would be very welcome in Europe right now, with a basically bottomless demand if someone would be willing to provide it at current nuclear prices.
Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe, but if you have any evidence to support the opposite then provide them. The fact is, if it was then the crisis that currently exist would not be a crisis, it would be an investment rush.
Of course, if you personally want to offer green hydrogen for $1 per kg this winter, and sign a liability contract for supplying the many tons needed, then sure. Lets do it!
Pumped storage + (to a lesser extent) grid scale batteries (e.g. in hawaii) are actually real, being used and economic. The lobbying and PR muscle behind each is a bit less though - especially boring old pumped storage.
>Demand shaping + solar + wind + storage is not economical viable in Northen Europe
It very much is. It's already being done. In fact a lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.
Grid scale batteries work great when you got 365 charge cycles. Each day it charge, each night it sell and generate profits. Current economics makes it worth having a few hours of capacity, and after a few years of daily charge cycles you got profits. Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind. You need capacity to last the whole period, and you get maybe a 10 or so charge cycle each year.
> A lot of that storage in the alps has been used for excess nuclear power from France.
Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable?
Looking at the European report on energy storage, the answer is that it is not. Pumped storage is not used for that purpose in the alps. It is used to balance the grid when power plants ramp up or down, a role which gas and oil power plants usually do. For this, nuclear energy can be used since the profits are not from buying low and selling high, it is from the utilization of keeping the grid balanced when power plants are ramping up and down. They get paid for the service, which makes the economics of it very different from selling capacity to the market during periods of low wind.
Not sure what you mean here. Like, a link to fengning? Kaprun? Snowy 2?
Also you dont buy "green power" on the grid. You just buy power.
We dont have much pumped storage right now coz (at least until feb) basically nothing could compete with gas as a peaker. Some is under construction though in anticipation of it being economic in a few years. With the subsidies nuclear eats for breakfast we could accelerate and bring online even more stable power than nuclear possibly could at lower cost.
>Wind doesn't have day and night cycles like that, but rather have periods lasting weeks or months of either good wind or poor wind.
It tends to anticorrelate with solar production which has a smoothing effect. Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth. Offshore in particular is a lot more stable than its reputation, topping out at 67% capacity factor, which is only slightly below France's 71% for its nuclear plants in 2020 (frances plants are getting decrepit).
Pro nuclear articles almost invariably avoid delving into this and comparing the economics and focus almost exclusively on safety because this isnt an argument it can really win.
>Since nuclear is presented as being the most expensive method to create energy, if you then store it in pumped hydro and add this additional storage cost, how in the world would that be economical viable?
Coz France subsidized the shit out of its nuclear industry in the 70s in reaction to the oil crisis. You can make anything economic if you throw subsidies at it. Whether those subsidies were well spent is another matter.
If you assume construction is a sunk cost, existing nuclear plants are economically competitive which is partly why new US nuclear legislation is focused on extending plant life. However, running decrepit old nuclear plants until the bitter end isnt particularly safe.
Hence why it's important to prime the public to think that it is with all those "nuclear power is the future!" articles. Consent must be manufactured.
Provide a source that shows a company which business model is to buy renewable energy when the price is low and then sells it when the price is high, recovering the cost of investment and operations by the margin between the low and high price point.
Shouldn't be hard. I can provide a link of a company which business model is to buy groceries at a cheap price and then sell them to customers at a higher price. Buy low sell high is one of the most simplistic business model that exist.
What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up. They don't get paid per kw/h, and they don't sell just when the price is high.
> Also the idea that whole months go by with little to no wind is a myth
There is statistics about this if one do a few searches. The risk that you get a whole month with little to no wind is a statistical probability higher than 0. More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months, with individual day that have slightly more or slightly less. Just as there can be unusual stormy weather a few months, there can be months with unusual calm weather.
If you read the literature of any of the three projects I just mentioned it will give the numbers.
>What does not count is a pumped storage that operate as a grid balancer, where the profits is not from the margins between price points but rather to provide a service of keeping the grid balanced when other power plants are ramping down or ramping up.
The 350GWh of storage provided by, for example, snowy 2 puts it just a little bit beyond what would be required for adjusting the frequency of the grid.
>There is statistics about this
Yeah, this is an interesting conversation that only ever seems to happen seven thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article about how nuclear is totally truly 100% the future and just like, so safe.
It definitely deserves its own thread.
>More commonly there are periods of low wind lasting weeks to months
More like days. We dont need months of storage. Anyway, whilst Id love to refute the same FUD i encountered two weeks ago on a complex topic six levels down in Yet Another Hacker News link started about how Nuclear Power is Just The Best Thing Ever im afraid I am rather busy today.
If you scroll through my history you should see that i have addressed this before though and posted research.
Snowy 2 is expected to come into operation in 2024. The key role, published on their website: System security and reliability – Snowy 2.0’s on-demand energy generation can respond within minutes to changing market needs.
They also have feasibility studies:
3. Commercial (omitted) 4. Business Analysis and Modelling (omitted)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A5ol58HEbqSaKG9D21CVGt-ntWx...
It will still be an interesting project to keep an eye on once it get online. If they can operate beyond doing grid system security and reliability, then it might become a proof of concept for renewable storage solution.
So do you got any source for a current operated pumped storage that buy renewables when supply is high, store the renewable energy, and then sell the supply when supply is low? If pumped storage for renewable is a solve and currently economical viable solution then surely a single example should exist? Rather than talking about FUD or "thread layers deep into the 1,543rd article", just link to an existing company doing pumped storage for renewable and be done with it. Do they exist or do they not?
If the answer is no, they don't exist but they may in the future then that is that. It is good that they try. It is good that they built infrastructure that may be used in the future for this purpose. Continue with the experiment and proof of concepts. With energy prices going up in many places they might very fast be working for this purpose, or at the very least replacing gas based generators that exist to create system security and reliability.
Now sure, if you could snap your fingers and build a new nuclear plant tomorrow, that would be great. But you can't. By the time a plant breaking ground today starts generating power, it will be too late to make sense.
Sadly nobody in charge seems to be bothered. Europe should have been plating the Iberian peninsular in solar for the last 10 years, especially after Crimea. Germany was doing great with solar until about 2015, when it pretty much stopped. From 2009-2014 solar went from 1% of electric consumption to 6%. From 2014-2019 it went from 6% to 8%, not even the same increase let alone continuing on the exponential line.
But while the best time to be building out like your civilisation depended on it was 10 years ago, the second best time is now. Especially with Europe's reliance on Gas from Russia, it should be building everything it can, no moaning about planning permission or people complaining about the scenery etc. Every kWh of solar, or wind, generated is 1kWh of gas not used. More high voltage interconnections should be built to shift power everywhere, especially from Southern Spain, Siciliy and the Penlopenese (where solar should be going), and from Denmark/Netherlands for offshore wind, funded from ECB loans.
Overproduction is not a problem, it can be dumped into green hydrogen generation if nothing else (although again places like Finland are making strides with hot sand storage).
Enough? No, but more than others.
Denmark is good with wind, but should be generating 150% of its usage from wind over the course of the year by now
The biggest thing pro-carbon afficiandos complain about is that renewables require storage. No they don't. If you need to use gas or oil for 30 days a year due to cloudy windless winter days, that's 90% of your energy use with renewable, that's a massive benefit.
Until there's a significant problem for a month or two with excess renewable energy in the EU, and the vast majority of home heating system has been converted from gas to electric, and the same with transport (both cars and trains) then there is a demand for increased renewable production even without storage.
If renewables in the EU had continued the 2005-2010 growth it would be generating 36% of Europe's electricity by now instead of 22%. That rate should have increased from 2010, not decreased. It should be aiming for well over 100%, with excess dumped into electric cars, green hydrogen generation, hot sand, etc.
Renewables need to increase 10-fold across the EU to offset energy imports.
But instead short term thinking won out, as it always does in democratic countries.
Everything is a win-win scenario as long fossil fuels stays in the ground.
For nuclear powers, a civilian nuclear industry is a strategic asset that sharply brings down the cost of maintaining nuclear weapons/subs/carriers. This is partly through skills exchange and partly due to the presence of a shared industrial ecosystem.
For certain non nuclear powers (sweden, iran, south korea) an overpriced civvie nuclear industry is kind of like buying an option on quickly becoming a nuclear power which theyd like to keep in case of geopolitical emergency.
Countries that dont see a necessity for MAD and arent nuclear powers almost universally cant be bothered with the expense and will just build something else.
This is why the nuclear industry/the US government are so keen to coopt the green movement to support throwing more subsidies after nuclear plants in the name of solving global warming. Also why theyre so keen to foment a split between the traditionally united antinuclear and green groups.
Either renewable + storage will be cheaper, renewables + nuclear power, or renewables and dependency on trade, or renewable + nuclear + storage + trade.
Yes, governments are keen for this not to happen. Gas, oil and coal is still much cheaper than any of the alternatives listed above. Energy prices in Europe as can be seen here (https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/energy-prices), are crazy high. It is expected to climb further as gas and oil prices continue to rise. Governments will step in and subsidize whatever they can to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the grid.
Gas, oil and coal still need to stay in the ground. The green movement could easily stop being fragmented by joining behind that statement, but for some it is more important to be anti-nuclear than keeping gas, oil and coal from being burned. They can continue to be anti-nuclear for as much I care as long they don't advocate to keep gas, oil and coal power plants operational. Thus we need a law that sets a specific date when gas, oil and coal is no longer allowed in the grid.
The media is, in general, oblivious about the connection between civilian nuclear power and military nuclear requirements in the west. They dont explicitly deny it but it would tend to be mentioned in passing in, like, congressional hearings not propaganda targeted at the general public (like the OP's link).
However, you might have noticed that when Iran tries to build a nuclear industry for peaceful purposes the propaganda outfits argue vociferously that We Definitely Do Not Believe Them.
And of course, they were entirely right. Iran did want a civilian nuclear industry for not entirely peaceful purposes - their economics didnt stack up either.
And that is why the cynical attempt to foment a split between anti nuclear campaigners and the green movement goes on. They want greens to be, well, pro nuclear-weapons as a condition of them being seen to be "green".
This propaganda attempt has been quite successful. Not a day goes by on hacker news when somebody doesnt take a dump on anti nuclear campaigners/the german green party while Poland's enormous coal industry that isnt going anywhere is ignored by the very same propaganda/people who listen to it.
They just need to say: "Lets close this fossil fuel power plant".
If people then ask them about nuclear they can be just as anti-nuclear they want. They will get follow up question about what to do when energy demand exceed that of supply, but that is a separate debate between them and those arguing in favor of nuclear.
To take a example out of Swedish politics this last winter. The right movement wanted to replace an oil power plant by reopening a closed nuclear generator. The oil power plant is operating in the south of Sweden, and the plant is also the single largest contributor of green house gases in that area. To quote from memory, the green representative said "Oil power plants is a natural part of the reserve energy plan in Sweden, and there is nothing strange that it need to burn oil when demand exceed supply".
There is something broken when the highest representatives of the green movement is standing in public debates saying that oil power plants are a natural part of the grid. If that is caused by propaganda then the people who is listening need to stop doing it.
They could have said "No, lets replace that oil power plant with a green hydrogen plant". Or they could have said "No, lets replace that oil power plant with a pumped hydro storage". It would make following discussion about costs a bit more difficult, but they would still be the green movement arguing in favor of the environment. Instead they argued in favor of keeping the oil power plant running.
It really is as simple as that. No propaganda, no plot by a pro nuclear-weapons organization trying to turn the world MAD. Just politics where everything the other side say must be countered. If pro-nuclear want to close fossil fuel plants and replace them with nuclear then the anti-nuclear people want to keep the fossil fuel plants.
Keep the gas, oil and coal in the ground. It used to be slogan of the green movement. It should be again. It is a statement that both pro and anti-nuclear people could agree on if they wanted to.
Then when it comes to nuclear waste however, the argument is we can ignore pretty much all long lasting waste, because of some development in the future will make recycling of spend fuel rods feasible. So essentially he is comparing the current state of solar panel recycling to some future potential nuclear waste recycling. That's a dishonest comparison. Moreover ignoring the amount of waste from dismantling the nuclear power plant (which needs to go into nuclear storage because it is radioactive due to irradiation), while talking about the carbon fibre from wind turbines is also disingenuous.
We see the same argumentive structure when talking about the economics; the current state of renewables is compared to some potential future state of nuclear. While in reality renewables are on an exponential cost reduction trajectory and all the nuclear potential is completely unproven.