5 ms·

Just build more nuclear lol

by Mrdarknezz 3y ago

stavros 3y ago
Can we stop with the false dichotomy? More nuclear is good, and more solar is good too.
- acdha 3y ago
  Co-signed. Nuclear has a potentially key role for dealing with things like heavy industrial demand in areas where there might not be great options for storing enough renewable power to make it through down periods for renewables, but the ramp up time is considerable and there’s plenty of usage we can shift before we need to tackle the most demanding customers. The only honest way to advocate for nuclear power is paired with maximum renewable deployment – otherwise it starts to look like the known strategy of arguing for nuclear power to delay reducing fossil fuel industry profits, knowing that it’ll be 3-4 decades before anything changes.
- fmajid 3y ago
  Don't forget more grid-scale electricity storage, whether batteries or pumped hydro like the massive Coire Glas project in Scotland.
ragebol 3y ago
Fine, just start. Find a place that has willing neighbors, then spend 10-20 years building it and plz prevent cost overruns. It'll be ready too late to contribute to our near-term (2030) goals. But not for the later goals of course. Good start building ASAP anyways, but not at the expense of things that are faster to deploy.
- mdp2021 3y ago
  > willing neighbors There is a chance I cannot compute (not a specialist) that the long drought wave in Europe - meaning, the lack of certainty of the reliable flow of rivers - may impose extra burden on the selection of eligible fitting places.
- justrealist 3y ago
  Building massive undersea transmission lines are not a weekend job either. We're talking many years either way.
  - ragebol 3y ago
    Yes indeed. And wind farms also doesn't just sprout from the ground either. But still, they are much faster to deploy than a nuclear plant, plenty of examples for that around.
- illiarian 3y ago
  > Find a place that has willing neighbors You mean Germany right now after it stupidly shut down its last nuclear reactors, and is dependent on coal, and imports from France (75% of whose electricity comes from nuclear).
  - ragebol 3y ago
    In a different comment, I mentioned `40-50 years of momentum against them`, yes, that Germany indeed. In my native Netherlands we're looking to build 2 nuclear plants. I doubt they'll ever be built, as they take a long time to build and the current public in opinion is mildly in favor I suppose (if that at all) but that will swing up and down over the build time. But yes, shutting them down at this moment is at least bad timing, but the preparations for that have been going on for years apparently. I'm not a nuclear power plant operator so I don't know what is involved with extending operation once certain decisions have been made.
matthewdgreen 3y ago
The Xlinks Morocco-UK interconnect is building 10.5 GW of renewable generation, 20 GWh of battery storage and a 3.6 GW high-voltage direct current interconnector to carry solar and wind-generated electricity from Morocco to the UK. Total cost estimated at 16bn GBP, with break-even at 48 GPB/MWH. Hinkley Point C is a 3.2 GWe nuclear plant and is currently estimated at 32.7 GBP with a total energy price of 92.5 GPB/MWH. Right now importing renewables from thousands of kilometers away is hugely cheaper than nuclear, and the economics are only getting more stark. Not every problem is solved with renewables (yet), and nuclear has its place. But anyone who looks at the plummeting price of renewables and thinks “just build more nuclear” isn’t paying attention to the economics.
- LiamMcCalloway 3y ago
  92£/MWh in 2012 £, and indexed in inflation - on mobile and can’t adjust but we’re talking 120-130 now.
- fmajid 3y ago
  The peak UK power consumption is 30GW, so this would make a huge impact. But the UK also needs to do something about its deficient power grid which does not allow plentiful Scottish wind power to be transported to South England where most of the demand lies: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/ https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...
- illiarian 3y ago
  > Total cost estimated at 16bn GBP Somehow this estimation is taken at face value, and yet: > Hinkley Point C is a 3.2 GWe nuclear plant and is currently estimated at 32.7 GBP This is taken at actual value. Even though original cost was estimated at 12.4 bn GBP. A lot of cost and budget overruns for nuclear plants are purely political, amidst a rising ocean of FUD. Meanwhile, https://www.offshorewind.biz/2016/12/02/offshore-wind-projects-have-less-delays-and-cost-overruns-says-ey/ https://www.offshorewind.biz/2016/12/02/offshore-wind-projec... --- start quote --- Ernst & Young (EY) has found that an average power and utility megaproject is delivered 35% over budget and two years behind schedule Of the megaprojects surveyed, 64% were delayed and 57% were over budge. Almost three-quarters of hydropower, water, coal and nuclear infrastructure projects were over budget by 49% on average, --- end quote --- So that estimated 16bn GBP is very likely to be significantly over 25bn GBP by the time it's completed. Edit. More: https://percepto.co/solar-construction-delays-budget-overruns-data-shows-the-avg-50mw-pv-construction-project-delays-cost-2m/ https://percepto.co/solar-construction-delays-budget-overrun... "Data shows the avg. 50MW PV construction project delays cost $2M. The average solar construction project is delayed by about 20% with the consequences hovering around $2M in costs." https://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/1-s2.0-S2214629614000942-main%281%29.pdf https://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/... "we assessed the construction costs affiliated with 401 electricity infrastructure projects worldwide. We found that these projects collectively involved $820 billion worth of investment, and represented more than 325,000 MW of installed capacity and 8500 km of transmission lines. Taken together, these projects incurred $388 billion in cost overruns, equivalent to a mean cost escalation of $968 million per project, or a 66.3 percent overrun per project." And so on.

Just build more nuclear lol

stavros 3y ago

Can we stop with the false dichotomy? More nuclear is good, and more solar is good too.

acdha 3y ago
Co-signed. Nuclear has a potentially key role for dealing with things like heavy industrial demand in areas where there might not be great options for storing enough renewable power to make it through down periods for renewables, but the ramp up time is considerable and there’s plenty of usage we can shift before we need to tackle the most demanding customers. The only honest way to advocate for nuclear power is paired with maximum renewable deployment – otherwise it starts to look like the known strategy of arguing for nuclear power to delay reducing fossil fuel industry profits, knowing that it’ll be 3-4 decades before anything changes.
fmajid 3y ago
Don't forget more grid-scale electricity storage, whether batteries or pumped hydro like the massive Coire Glas project in Scotland.

ragebol 3y ago

Fine, just start. Find a place that has willing neighbors, then spend 10-20 years building it and plz prevent cost overruns. It'll be ready too late to contribute to our near-term (2030) goals. But not for the later goals of course. Good start building ASAP anyways, but not at the expense of things that are faster to deploy.

mdp2021 3y ago
> willing neighbors There is a chance I cannot compute (not a specialist) that the long drought wave in Europe - meaning, the lack of certainty of the reliable flow of rivers - may impose extra burden on the selection of eligible fitting places.
justrealist 3y ago
Building massive undersea transmission lines are not a weekend job either. We're talking many years either way.
- ragebol 3y ago
  Yes indeed. And wind farms also doesn't just sprout from the ground either. But still, they are much faster to deploy than a nuclear plant, plenty of examples for that around.
illiarian 3y ago
> Find a place that has willing neighbors You mean Germany right now after it stupidly shut down its last nuclear reactors, and is dependent on coal, and imports from France (75% of whose electricity comes from nuclear).
- ragebol 3y ago
  In a different comment, I mentioned `40-50 years of momentum against them`, yes, that Germany indeed. In my native Netherlands we're looking to build 2 nuclear plants. I doubt they'll ever be built, as they take a long time to build and the current public in opinion is mildly in favor I suppose (if that at all) but that will swing up and down over the build time. But yes, shutting them down at this moment is at least bad timing, but the preparations for that have been going on for years apparently. I'm not a nuclear power plant operator so I don't know what is involved with extending operation once certain decisions have been made.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

The Xlinks Morocco-UK interconnect is building 10.5 GW of renewable generation, 20 GWh of battery storage and a 3.6 GW high-voltage direct current interconnector to carry solar and wind-generated electricity from Morocco to the UK. Total cost estimated at 16bn GBP, with break-even at 48 GPB/MWH. Hinkley Point C is a 3.2 GWe nuclear plant and is currently estimated at 32.7 GBP with a total energy price of 92.5 GPB/MWH. Right now importing renewables from thousands of kilometers away is hugely cheaper than nuclear, and the economics are only getting more stark. Not every problem is solved with renewables (yet), and nuclear has its place. But anyone who looks at the plummeting price of renewables and thinks “just build more nuclear” isn’t paying attention to the economics.

LiamMcCalloway 3y ago
92£/MWh in 2012 £, and indexed in inflation - on mobile and can’t adjust but we’re talking 120-130 now.
fmajid 3y ago
The peak UK power consumption is 30GW, so this would make a huge impact. But the UK also needs to do something about its deficient power grid which does not allow plentiful Scottish wind power to be transported to South England where most of the demand lies: https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/ https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-p...
illiarian 3y ago
> Total cost estimated at 16bn GBP Somehow this estimation is taken at face value, and yet: > Hinkley Point C is a 3.2 GWe nuclear plant and is currently estimated at 32.7 GBP This is taken at actual value. Even though original cost was estimated at 12.4 bn GBP. A lot of cost and budget overruns for nuclear plants are purely political, amidst a rising ocean of FUD. Meanwhile, https://www.offshorewind.biz/2016/12/02/offshore-wind-projects-have-less-delays-and-cost-overruns-says-ey/ https://www.offshorewind.biz/2016/12/02/offshore-wind-projec... --- start quote --- Ernst & Young (EY) has found that an average power and utility megaproject is delivered 35% over budget and two years behind schedule Of the megaprojects surveyed, 64% were delayed and 57% were over budge. Almost three-quarters of hydropower, water, coal and nuclear infrastructure projects were over budget by 49% on average, --- end quote --- So that estimated 16bn GBP is very likely to be significantly over 25bn GBP by the time it's completed. Edit. More: https://percepto.co/solar-construction-delays-budget-overruns-data-shows-the-avg-50mw-pv-construction-project-delays-cost-2m/ https://percepto.co/solar-construction-delays-budget-overrun... "Data shows the avg. 50MW PV construction project delays cost $2M. The average solar construction project is delayed by about 20% with the consequences hovering around $2M in costs." https://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/1-s2.0-S2214629614000942-main%281%29.pdf https://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/... "we assessed the construction costs affiliated with 401 electricity infrastructure projects worldwide. We found that these projects collectively involved $820 billion worth of investment, and represented more than 325,000 MW of installed capacity and 8500 km of transmission lines. Taken together, these projects incurred $388 billion in cost overruns, equivalent to a mean cost escalation of $968 million per project, or a 66.3 percent overrun per project." And so on.