12 ms·

I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear vs solar energy, although I do have some background knowledge. As with many things, I make up for my lack of expertise b

by bhuber 4y ago

I'm certainly not an expert on nuclear vs solar energy, although I do have some background knowledge. As with many things, I make up for my lack of expertise by seeking the analyses and opinions of real experts. No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong - nuclear is far more expensive than solar, and the gap is growing as solar gets cheaper. Of the first four results[1][2][3][4], only one argued that nuclear was even remotely competitive[3], and it's 6 years out of date and the most convincing data it cites is from 2005. I found [4] to be the most straightforward and pithy explanation. Basically, nuclear wins on capacity factor, but solar makes up for it by a) still being cheaper even when you have to build 4-6 times more capacity, and b) it takes 10 years to build a nuclear plant vs 1 for solar, so you get to start using your electricity and paying off capex (and reducing CO2 emissions) much sooner. Now it's possible all these sources are so deeply flawed that they came to the completely wrong conclusion, but the onus is on you to present evidence of your assertion and provide a convincing argument. Saying (and I'm obviously paraphrasing here), "the calculations are simple and you all are idiot sheep" doesn't cut it. 1. https://www.literoflightusa.org/solar-vs-nuclear/ https://www.literoflightusa.org/solar-vs-nuclear/ 2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nuclear-energy-too-slow-too-expensive-to-save-climate-report-idUSKBN1W909J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle... 3. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-problem-with-comparing-learning-rates-across-energy-technologies https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/the-problem-wit... 4. https://earth911.com/business-policy/solar-vs-nuclear-best-carbon-free-power/ https://earth911.com/business-policy/solar-vs-nuclear-best-c...

Gibbon1 4y ago
> No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . That same rando built one in his backyard isn't nothing burger.
- bhuber 4y ago
  Agreed, it's actually fairly impressive. Beware the false equivalence fallacy however - there's little overlap in the expertise needed to design and install a home solar array, and that needed to analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Based on my links above, I think op is a far better electrician than economist. Also, I doubt op ever built a nuclear reactor in his backyard :D
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Except I have been responsible for the design, construction, installation and operation of large complex industrial installations. That is what I did 40 years ago. Not solar, of course, but beyond a certain scale a project is a project, whether you are building a bridge, road or chemical processing installation. Of course, the private sector has different dynamics when compared to government projects. Also, as I mentioned in my other reply to you, I never made financial claims about solar. This is a branch introduced by someone who could not argue against what I was saying and chose to divert the conversation. My claim was simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 "if you want the equivalent of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, the minimum size of your solar array is at least 7 GW peak" So, please, don't charge me with something I did not enter into the argument.
robomartin 4y ago
> A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 You see, what happened here is that @ncmncm masterfully diverted the conversation into cost and project failures. A typical political argument form when you can't discuss the actual subject. You spent a lot of time researching and composing an argument against something I didn't even touch in my comment, at all. I can definitely get into relative cost discussions. I am not in the habit of making comments unless I devote a serious amount of time to understanding what I am talking about. In this case my research into this was triggered by trying to understand the realities of converting our entire ground transportation fleet (US, 300 million vehicles) to electrics. That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. For example, my power requirement model, done about five years ago, predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I other words, we would have to double what we have now. That's what led me to try to understand how we could go about doing something like that. Solar isn't going to do it. It can be a part of it, but solar and wind are not what people seem to think these technologies are in real life. So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. This is a matter of physics and it requires understanding how real-world solar systems work, not imaginary pink unicorn systems. My favorite saying, by Mark Twain: "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way". A corollary to this is to listen to someone who has before believing it's easy.
- bhuber 4y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to reply. > Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment Ok. "There simply isn't a comparison between nuclear and solar. Nuclear is a far better solution on all fronts... The comparison is brutally tilted in favor of nuclear." Two of the most important factors in choosing a grid-scale energy solution are cost and time to deployment, so they're included in your statement. Perhaps you intended to convey a different assertion, but based on any reasonable interpretation of what you actually wrote, @ncmncm didn't divert the conversation, he focused it on a subset of your claim. > The simplest calculations clearly show this... > That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. Ah, so we've gone from the "simplest calculations" to "a series of mid-sophistication models" :) > [I] predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I[n] other words, we would have to double what we have now. I haven't done any research to verify this, but based on your reasonable assumption of transport fleet electrification, these numbers seem reasonable. So we agree we'll need more electricity generation in the future. I don't see how that's evidence that nuclear is a better source for it than solar. > ...done about five years ago... You may want to update your models, the cost of utility-scale solar has roughly halved in the last five years worth of data points: https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-of-cost-declines-for-pv-systems.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-... > Solar isn't going to do it. Why not? None of the evidence you've provided supports this assertion. > [Solar] can be a part of it... Your original assertion was that, "The comparison is brutally tilted in favor of nuclear." An obvious corollary is that we should invest all our resources into nuclear deployment instead of solar. By saying solar can be a part of it, you're implicitly changing your original position. > So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. The sources I cited above say a factor of 4 - 6, but it obviously varies a lot depending on climate and latitude. So sure, let's say 7 conservatively. So what? Even taking that into account, solar is still a fraction the cost of nuclear. It has myriad other advantages such as being faster to deploy, safer, has unlimited fuel, doesn't have any significant waste products, has much more predictable costs, etc. So why should we bother investing in new nuclear deployments? I realize you're saying you're not making an economic argument, but you haven't made any other kind of argument either. The biggest thing nuclear wins on is steady output - as everyone knows, we can't rely on solar generation 24/7. So perhaps that's what you're trying to get at? As sister threads have discussed, however, a) we have a lot of solar to install before we have to worry about excess peak capacity, and b) there's been great progress in utility-scale energy storage systems which mitigate this problem.

by bhuber 4y ago

Gibbon1 4y ago

> No offense, but I trust them over a rando on HN who built a solar array in his backyard :) . That same rando built one in his backyard isn't nothing burger.

bhuber 4y ago
Agreed, it's actually fairly impressive. Beware the false equivalence fallacy however - there's little overlap in the expertise needed to design and install a home solar array, and that needed to analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Based on my links above, I think op is a far better electrician than economist. Also, I doubt op ever built a nuclear reactor in his backyard :D
- robomartin 4y ago
  > analyze the economics of complex industrial technologies. Except I have been responsible for the design, construction, installation and operation of large complex industrial installations. That is what I did 40 years ago. Not solar, of course, but beyond a certain scale a project is a project, whether you are building a bridge, road or chemical processing installation. Of course, the private sector has different dynamics when compared to government projects. Also, as I mentioned in my other reply to you, I never made financial claims about solar. This is a branch introduced by someone who could not argue against what I was saying and chose to divert the conversation. My claim was simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 "if you want the equivalent of a 1 GW nuclear power plant, the minimum size of your solar array is at least 7 GW peak" So, please, don't charge me with something I did not enter into the argument.

robomartin 4y ago

> A simple google search of "nuclear vs solar cost" strongly suggests that you are very wrong Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31430747 You see, what happened here is that @ncmncm masterfully diverted the conversation into cost and project failures. A typical political argument form when you can't discuss the actual subject. You spent a lot of time researching and composing an argument against something I didn't even touch in my comment, at all. I can definitely get into relative cost discussions. I am not in the habit of making comments unless I devote a serious amount of time to understanding what I am talking about. In this case my research into this was triggered by trying to understand the realities of converting our entire ground transportation fleet (US, 300 million vehicles) to electrics. That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. For example, my power requirement model, done about five years ago, predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I other words, we would have to double what we have now. That's what led me to try to understand how we could go about doing something like that. Solar isn't going to do it. It can be a part of it, but solar and wind are not what people seem to think these technologies are in real life. So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. This is a matter of physics and it requires understanding how real-world solar systems work, not imaginary pink unicorn systems. My favorite saying, by Mark Twain: "A man holding a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way". A corollary to this is to listen to someone who has before believing it's easy.

bhuber 4y ago
Thanks for taking the time to reply. > Kindly show me where I was making a cost comparison between nuclear and solar in my original comment Ok. "There simply isn't a comparison between nuclear and solar. Nuclear is a far better solution on all fronts... The comparison is brutally tilted in favor of nuclear." Two of the most important factors in choosing a grid-scale energy solution are cost and time to deployment, so they're included in your statement. Perhaps you intended to convey a different assertion, but based on any reasonable interpretation of what you actually wrote, @ncmncm didn't divert the conversation, he focused it on a subset of your claim. > The simplest calculations clearly show this... > That led to creating a series of mid-sophistication models to try to arrive at parameters, from technical to financial. Ah, so we've gone from the "simplest calculations" to "a series of mid-sophistication models" :) > [I] predicted we would need between 900 GW and 1400 GW of new, additional power generation. I[n] other words, we would have to double what we have now. I haven't done any research to verify this, but based on your reasonable assumption of transport fleet electrification, these numbers seem reasonable. So we agree we'll need more electricity generation in the future. I don't see how that's evidence that nuclear is a better source for it than solar. > ...done about five years ago... You may want to update your models, the cost of utility-scale solar has roughly halved in the last five years worth of data points: https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-of-cost-declines-for-pv-systems.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/documenting-a-decade-... > Solar isn't going to do it. Why not? None of the evidence you've provided supports this assertion. > [Solar] can be a part of it... Your original assertion was that, "The comparison is brutally tilted in favor of nuclear." An obvious corollary is that we should invest all our resources into nuclear deployment instead of solar. By saying solar can be a part of it, you're implicitly changing your original position. > So, my claim was simple: In order to build a solar system that delivers power equivalent to that of a nuclear power plant you need a system with at least 7 times the peak generation rating. The sources I cited above say a factor of 4 - 6, but it obviously varies a lot depending on climate and latitude. So sure, let's say 7 conservatively. So what? Even taking that into account, solar is still a fraction the cost of nuclear. It has myriad other advantages such as being faster to deploy, safer, has unlimited fuel, doesn't have any significant waste products, has much more predictable costs, etc. So why should we bother investing in new nuclear deployments? I realize you're saying you're not making an economic argument, but you haven't made any other kind of argument either. The biggest thing nuclear wins on is steady output - as everyone knows, we can't rely on solar generation 24/7. So perhaps that's what you're trying to get at? As sister threads have discussed, however, a) we have a lot of solar to install before we have to worry about excess peak capacity, and b) there's been great progress in utility-scale energy storage systems which mitigate this problem.