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It's incredible the lengths humanity is willing to go to avoid adopting nuclear energy - despite the US navy driving mobile reactors millions of miles over the

It's incredible the lengths humanity is willing to go to avoid adopting nuclear energy - despite the US navy driving mobile reactors millions of miles over the last 70 years.

deepfriedchokes 1y ago
The Navy isn’t constrained by economics. Nuclear doesn’t make sense economically compared to things like solar and batteries.
- timewizard 1y ago
  > The Navy isn’t constrained by economics. In what way is it not? It has a budget and a mission. Economics are a huge part of their existence. Far more is spent on health care every year over the Navy.
  - qnleigh 1y ago
    I think it's more that the Navy isn't constrained by Nimby's and anti-nuclear lobbyists.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    The US Navy has other, very high priorities to balance against cost - national security, global security, freedom, peace, trade, the lives of billions, the lives of its own personnel. The US military may the largest budget of any organization in the world. At the same time, they invest in those mobile nuclear reactors only for specific needs: attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and aircraft supercarriers. They calculate that the benefit of effectively unlimited fuel supply is worth the cost for those ships. The submarines can stay submerged for months at a time and have extensive range, and the carriers can move through the ocean, displacing 100,000 tons of water, to anywhere on the globe without worrying about the logisitcs of the enormous amount of fossil fuel it would require.
- Rury 1y ago
  > The Navy isn’t constrained by economics And solar less so than nuclear. Nuclear receives only ~1-3% of energy subsidies in the US [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies_in_the_United...
- SecretDreams 1y ago
  > things like solar and batteries. Magnets too - let's just go magnets everywhere. Reality is solar isn't viable everywhere. And it's not optimal to put it in places where you use the sun to grow food. We should follow a holistic approach. * Wind where it's windy. * Solar where it's sunny - ideally on buildings/away from farms. * Hydro where possible. * Nuclear where it makes sense, i.e. stable geography, low occurence of natural disasters, lots of land. * Some natty gas plants for overflow - not saying commission new ones or prioritize natty, but it's sensible to utilize existing peaked plants. I'm not a big fan of large scale battery storage solutions, but they can work sometimes. I think they're more sensible for residential/commercial use and, when paired with solar, can really help add robustness to the grid. But, for mega energy storage, I think hydro based solutions are more sensible.
  - djmips 1y ago
    Why doesn't Geothermal make your list?
    - SecretDreams 1y ago
      Great question! Mostly, because I forgot. Second, it's pretty expensive for the gains you get - I'd rather favour it for use in heat pumps; but it makes sense for some regions.
  - Certhas 1y ago
    What do you base all these claims on? Plenty of papers show Solar + wind + storage is viable practically everywhere. Also there is a ton of research on planning energy systems and what technology mixes make sense. This stuff has to be economical. Energy costs are measured in percentage of GDP. Simply liking nuclear doesn't make it viable. Especially in a world with PV meaning you can't sell energy during the day. There really is only one macro fact that will shape the energy system of the future: The price of PV modules is now effectively zero in rich countries. Everything else has to be judged by how well it complements/makes use of free energy during daylight hours. The geopolitical implications of this haven't even begun to be explored.
- Nifty3929 1y ago
  I haven't seen any data that backs that up based on general principals. Most of the cost is in artificially-imposed operational requirements - however well founded. Also, remember that nuclear, unlike solar, has a lot of room for improvement still, both in how it's done, and how it's regulated. Solar has already been tremendously optimized, while nuclear has not. The cost argument seems to be advances by the same people who impose or support the additional operational requirements, and who also just have a philosophical aversion to nuclear power. There are hundreds of nuclear power plants already in operation, many decades old. There have been only a very small number of minor accidents (3 come to mind: Chernobyl, Three mile island and Fukushima), in which only a few dozen people were killed. Nuclear, even using old technology, has proven to be far safer and better for the environment than any scalable alternative, including solar. New designs are even safer.
  - AtlasBarfed 1y ago
    Nuclear has had a century almost to hone its craft. I'm a lftr fanboy, but nuclear had its time to optimize. I can't believe you're calling Chernobyl "minor". Go take a vacation there if you disagree. Anyway, nuclear is not cost competitive in the real world, imo it never will be with solid fuel, nor will it be safe. Certainly not with standards like yours.
  - Certhas 1y ago
    All I see is people with an aversion to solar and wind, that champion nuclear for purely ideological reasons. The aversion seems to be mostly driven by the fact that solar and wind were first championed by eco hippies, and some people seem to find it hard to bear that the eco hippies were right in this case. Nuclear has had tremendously more cumulative R+D spend than solar and wind. The notion that it's less optimized is absurd. And this is where your bias shows: we have empirically proven persistent scaling laws for solar and batteries. We also have seen nuclear become ever more expensive over time. Yet you claim that these trends will come to an end, and in the case of Nuclear will suddenly completely reverse themselves without any evidence. To also bemoan the burdensome operational requirements while championing it's safety record is internally inconsistent. And in the end no one has so far actually built a place where you could store the nuclear waste long term, and the costs of long term storage are not even fully factored into the costs of today's nuclear power plants.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Why do we have to be constrained by economics unlike the navy? The state within the state has access to nuclear powered ships so it is just a question of widening that capability to the members of the state living outside the walls of the keep. Not a matter of establishing precedent or anything. That part is done and long proven. The federal government even has experience managing water and power for entire geographical regions today.
pmontra 1y ago
Many countries would have to buy nuclear fuel from other countries much like they do for gas and oil. On the other side very few countries can build their own solar panels so it seems the same sort of problem. However if you accept to depend from potential hostile countries at least solar panels don't do much harm when they fail and it takes very little effort to install the equivalent amount of power of a nuclear power plant. If we only could all get along and have a global power grid with always 12 hours of sunshine on it.
- abdullahkhalids 1y ago
  Most country that can invest a few hundred million can build their own solar panels that will be significantly cheaper than existing and future fossil fuel prices. It's just those panels will be 2x+ the price of those produced in China. So can't compete in the free market.
- bmacho 1y ago
  You can do solar energy with mirrors (the ancient Greeks were able to produce that) and steam turbine/stirling generator.
  - pmontra 1y ago
    Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power but that's not something anybody can install at home.
- devmor 1y ago
  Until we solve the storage problem, the manufacture of batteries required to store solar power at night and during other low generation times is actively doing harm even without failing. I don’t think this invalidates your point but I do think it is incredibly important to recognize that environmental harm done slowly over time is no less impactful than that done by a disaster.
- fallingknife 1y ago
  Unfortunately the arrangement of the continents would require undersea transmission lines for this. Would be an interesting future where the Bering Strait is the most valuable real estate on Earth for the American-Euraisian grid connection. But more likely we would build fusion reactors or get over our nuclear phobia before building something like that.
grepfru_it 1y ago
Solve the waste problem and you solve nuclear. Waste is still the giant elephant in the room and a lot of people have a fifth grade solution to the problem (we will bury it under ground! We will fly it to the sun! We will resuse it until it is no longer radioactive!) I used to have a neighbor who worked for the DOE, all of the viable solutions are blocked by people who don’t want it in their backyard. Can’t really move forward until that is solved..
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Lftr! Breeds burns almost all the fuel.i think the waste products it does make are shorter term.
  - grepfru_it 1y ago
    300-700 years is still many many generations. Remember waste will continue to be produced, during this time. It’s not a simple fix :)
    - AtlasBarfed 1y ago
      Lftr is supposed to be in the high nineties allegedly of fuel consumption %. And the gas/liquid nature means separation and processing is a lot more viable Contrast that with solid fuel rods using like 20% of its fuel, and that only of the fissile uranium isotopes. The the waste is locked in a solid form of the spent fuel rods I'll take lftr which (theoretically) is so much cleaner. Fusion isnt without waste, the high speed neutrons irradiate/transmute the reactor
      - grepfru_it 1y ago
        Reducing waste without a long term (multigenerational) plan does not solve the waste problem ;)
- fallingknife 1y ago
  Burying the waste is an excellent solution. We are currently dealing with the much more dangerous problem of hydrocarbon combustion waste by releasing it into the atmosphere.

It's incredible the lengths humanity is willing to go to avoid adopting nuclear energy - despite the US navy driving mobile reactors millions of miles over the last 70 years.

deepfriedchokes 1y ago

The Navy isn’t constrained by economics. Nuclear doesn’t make sense economically compared to things like solar and batteries.

timewizard 1y ago
> The Navy isn’t constrained by economics. In what way is it not? It has a budget and a mission. Economics are a huge part of their existence. Far more is spent on health care every year over the Navy.
- qnleigh 1y ago
  I think it's more that the Navy isn't constrained by Nimby's and anti-nuclear lobbyists.
- mmooss 1y ago
  The US Navy has other, very high priorities to balance against cost - national security, global security, freedom, peace, trade, the lives of billions, the lives of its own personnel. The US military may the largest budget of any organization in the world. At the same time, they invest in those mobile nuclear reactors only for specific needs: attack submarines, ballistic missile submarines, and aircraft supercarriers. They calculate that the benefit of effectively unlimited fuel supply is worth the cost for those ships. The submarines can stay submerged for months at a time and have extensive range, and the carriers can move through the ocean, displacing 100,000 tons of water, to anywhere on the globe without worrying about the logisitcs of the enormous amount of fossil fuel it would require.
Rury 1y ago
> The Navy isn’t constrained by economics And solar less so than nuclear. Nuclear receives only ~1-3% of energy subsidies in the US [1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies_in_the_United...
SecretDreams 1y ago
> things like solar and batteries. Magnets too - let's just go magnets everywhere. Reality is solar isn't viable everywhere. And it's not optimal to put it in places where you use the sun to grow food. We should follow a holistic approach. * Wind where it's windy. * Solar where it's sunny - ideally on buildings/away from farms. * Hydro where possible. * Nuclear where it makes sense, i.e. stable geography, low occurence of natural disasters, lots of land. * Some natty gas plants for overflow - not saying commission new ones or prioritize natty, but it's sensible to utilize existing peaked plants. I'm not a big fan of large scale battery storage solutions, but they can work sometimes. I think they're more sensible for residential/commercial use and, when paired with solar, can really help add robustness to the grid. But, for mega energy storage, I think hydro based solutions are more sensible.
- djmips 1y ago
  Why doesn't Geothermal make your list?
  - SecretDreams 1y ago
    Great question! Mostly, because I forgot. Second, it's pretty expensive for the gains you get - I'd rather favour it for use in heat pumps; but it makes sense for some regions.
- Certhas 1y ago
  What do you base all these claims on? Plenty of papers show Solar + wind + storage is viable practically everywhere. Also there is a ton of research on planning energy systems and what technology mixes make sense. This stuff has to be economical. Energy costs are measured in percentage of GDP. Simply liking nuclear doesn't make it viable. Especially in a world with PV meaning you can't sell energy during the day. There really is only one macro fact that will shape the energy system of the future: The price of PV modules is now effectively zero in rich countries. Everything else has to be judged by how well it complements/makes use of free energy during daylight hours. The geopolitical implications of this haven't even begun to be explored.
Nifty3929 1y ago
I haven't seen any data that backs that up based on general principals. Most of the cost is in artificially-imposed operational requirements - however well founded. Also, remember that nuclear, unlike solar, has a lot of room for improvement still, both in how it's done, and how it's regulated. Solar has already been tremendously optimized, while nuclear has not. The cost argument seems to be advances by the same people who impose or support the additional operational requirements, and who also just have a philosophical aversion to nuclear power. There are hundreds of nuclear power plants already in operation, many decades old. There have been only a very small number of minor accidents (3 come to mind: Chernobyl, Three mile island and Fukushima), in which only a few dozen people were killed. Nuclear, even using old technology, has proven to be far safer and better for the environment than any scalable alternative, including solar. New designs are even safer.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Nuclear has had a century almost to hone its craft. I'm a lftr fanboy, but nuclear had its time to optimize. I can't believe you're calling Chernobyl "minor". Go take a vacation there if you disagree. Anyway, nuclear is not cost competitive in the real world, imo it never will be with solid fuel, nor will it be safe. Certainly not with standards like yours.
- Certhas 1y ago
  All I see is people with an aversion to solar and wind, that champion nuclear for purely ideological reasons. The aversion seems to be mostly driven by the fact that solar and wind were first championed by eco hippies, and some people seem to find it hard to bear that the eco hippies were right in this case. Nuclear has had tremendously more cumulative R+D spend than solar and wind. The notion that it's less optimized is absurd. And this is where your bias shows: we have empirically proven persistent scaling laws for solar and batteries. We also have seen nuclear become ever more expensive over time. Yet you claim that these trends will come to an end, and in the case of Nuclear will suddenly completely reverse themselves without any evidence. To also bemoan the burdensome operational requirements while championing it's safety record is internally inconsistent. And in the end no one has so far actually built a place where you could store the nuclear waste long term, and the costs of long term storage are not even fully factored into the costs of today's nuclear power plants.
kjkjadksj 1y ago
Why do we have to be constrained by economics unlike the navy? The state within the state has access to nuclear powered ships so it is just a question of widening that capability to the members of the state living outside the walls of the keep. Not a matter of establishing precedent or anything. That part is done and long proven. The federal government even has experience managing water and power for entire geographical regions today.

pmontra 1y ago

Many countries would have to buy nuclear fuel from other countries much like they do for gas and oil. On the other side very few countries can build their own solar panels so it seems the same sort of problem. However if you accept to depend from potential hostile countries at least solar panels don't do much harm when they fail and it takes very little effort to install the equivalent amount of power of a nuclear power plant. If we only could all get along and have a global power grid with always 12 hours of sunshine on it.

abdullahkhalids 1y ago
Most country that can invest a few hundred million can build their own solar panels that will be significantly cheaper than existing and future fossil fuel prices. It's just those panels will be 2x+ the price of those produced in China. So can't compete in the free market.
bmacho 1y ago
You can do solar energy with mirrors (the ancient Greeks were able to produce that) and steam turbine/stirling generator.
- pmontra 1y ago
  Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power but that's not something anybody can install at home.
devmor 1y ago
Until we solve the storage problem, the manufacture of batteries required to store solar power at night and during other low generation times is actively doing harm even without failing. I don’t think this invalidates your point but I do think it is incredibly important to recognize that environmental harm done slowly over time is no less impactful than that done by a disaster.
fallingknife 1y ago
Unfortunately the arrangement of the continents would require undersea transmission lines for this. Would be an interesting future where the Bering Strait is the most valuable real estate on Earth for the American-Euraisian grid connection. But more likely we would build fusion reactors or get over our nuclear phobia before building something like that.

grepfru_it 1y ago

Solve the waste problem and you solve nuclear. Waste is still the giant elephant in the room and a lot of people have a fifth grade solution to the problem (we will bury it under ground! We will fly it to the sun! We will resuse it until it is no longer radioactive!) I used to have a neighbor who worked for the DOE, all of the viable solutions are blocked by people who don’t want it in their backyard. Can’t really move forward until that is solved..

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Lftr! Breeds burns almost all the fuel.i think the waste products it does make are shorter term.
- grepfru_it 1y ago
  300-700 years is still many many generations. Remember waste will continue to be produced, during this time. It’s not a simple fix :)
  - AtlasBarfed 1y ago
    Lftr is supposed to be in the high nineties allegedly of fuel consumption %. And the gas/liquid nature means separation and processing is a lot more viable Contrast that with solid fuel rods using like 20% of its fuel, and that only of the fissile uranium isotopes. The the waste is locked in a solid form of the spent fuel rods I'll take lftr which (theoretically) is so much cleaner. Fusion isnt without waste, the high speed neutrons irradiate/transmute the reactor
    - grepfru_it 1y ago
      Reducing waste without a long term (multigenerational) plan does not solve the waste problem ;)
fallingknife 1y ago
Burying the waste is an excellent solution. We are currently dealing with the much more dangerous problem of hydrocarbon combustion waste by releasing it into the atmosphere.