I hope this goes well. I can't help but to think about what kind of society lead us here [1] and how can we avoid in the future. I'm looking at you, California, with a stern gaze.
> Opposition to nuclear power increased when President Richard Nixon called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000.
At some point the anti-nuclear movement should have to admit they were completely wrong.
40 years of trying to avert climate change and we are still waiting for the windmills and solar, with no way to store enough electricity so we can stop using fossil fuels.
When we get all our power from renewables and storage at a tiny fraction of the cost of nukes, I will not wait for nuke boosters to admit they were wrong. I will blissfully ignore them.
There are a couple of things at play here. First of all, and most importantly, the quality of the panels you are getting for your 20k€, and thus the total amount of power they'll produce over their lifetime has gone up dramatically. Secondly while the cost of the panels has come down slightly, the cost of getting people to install them hasn't, and that has on the whole increased. If you where to install the solar panels as part of of either building the house or replacing/repairing an old roof that needed fixing anyway then it will be significantly cheaper.
There are people bad at math everywhere, nuke promoters not less so. Recent experience in Finland, what, $8B for a plant quoted at $3B? Vogtle 2GW quoted, what, $5B, spent $15B but not delivered, estimate $10B more to complete?
Quotes for nukes never include the cost of 10 years of coal while they are being poured.
It's against nuclear everything. The dominant anti-Diablo Canyon group is called Mothers For Peace, which really tells you everything you need to know.
Building near the coast is pretty useful to get access to seawater for cooling. You could build near the coast and not near known faults, but that doesn't prevent faults from being discovered later as happened to Diablo Canyon.
It's likely that if DCPP was to be relicensed they'd have to build cooling towers.
The environmental impact studies alone would likely take years, especially because Mothers For Peace, the Surfrider Foundation, the local Chumash band, and every other group under the sun would tarpit the project. They hate nuclear like Everytown hates guns, and no amount of logic will change their minds.
FWIW, I think the damage is done and DCPP shouldn't need to put in cooling towers — the output cove has different sea life than the ocean just a bit beyond it and has for decades. However, I don't make the rules.
We should almost certainly phase out Diablo Canyon. However, only because we supplant it by bringing on more newer and safer plants in more seismically stable locations to replace it. Replacing it without a plan just increases fossil fuel usage or results in outages. In the interim there should be very good plans to shut off the plant in case of a natural disaster.
We should phaseout Diablo Canyon because propping up that ramshackle contraption would burn enough money to build out twice the PV capacity it would take to replace it.
Each dollar diverted to nukes from renewables brings climate disaster nearer.
The big booster of nukes today is Big Fossil, because each nuke project started represents at least ten years of solid sales of NG, or worse, while construction is delayed again and again. With any luck, it will be cancelled before completion, and none of those dollars will have gone to panels that would immediately displace their product. Certainly none will be refunded.
No nuke has ever been built with money not coerced from somebody.
Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own. It is not possible to heat houses or power a grid during low-wind periods in winter or at northern latitudes for sustained periods (weeks to months) with wind and solar. Nuclear can act as a zero carbon base load power. And we need to be making those investments now, or we'll be stuck with fossil for a lot longer than 10 years.
I'll also add that renewables were made possible by massive government subsidies while they developed enough economies of scale to compete with other power sources. High carbon tax with subsidies for ALL zero carbon energy, including nuclear, are the way forward.
"Usage" is a bit vague but we're already at 10% EV sales worldwide since it doubled for each of the last couple of years:
> Growth has been particularly impressive over the last three years, even as the global pandemic shrank the market for conventional cars and as manufacturers started grappling with supply chain bottlenecks. In 2019, 2.2 million electric cars were sold, representing just 2.5% of global car sales. In 2020, the overall car market contracted but electric car sales bucked the trend, rising to 3 million and representing 4.1% of total car sales. In 2021, electric car sales more than doubled to 6.6 million, representing close to 9% of the global car market and more than tripling their market share from two years earlier. All the net growth in global car sales in 2021 came from electric cars.
You'd think EVs and Nuclear would be a great pairing but it's unusual to see someone praising both. A somewhat weird place to be in preferring nuclear to gas (and renewables) but not EV to ICE.
Money is fungible. A dollar split between pouring concrete for a nuke and paying for coal in the meantime is a dollar not available to spend on immediately much more productive solar.
Solar and wind are cheap. Mostly due to scale. A scale we could have reached faster if people didn't keep repeating false things like:
"Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own”
You should check out graphs of renewables deployment (minus hydro which has been steady for a while) it makes reaching 10% wind/solar a lot more hopeful than you state it. The growth is staggering.
> There are now 50 countries that have crossed that 10% wind and solar generation mark, and seven countries hit that milestone in 2021: China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Argentina, Hungary, and El Salvador, according to the report. Three countries in particular have shown a particularly fast transition, with Vietnam, Australia, and the Netherlands having moved 8% of their total electricity demand over to wind and solar from fossil fuels in only the last two years. These countries set a precedent, Jones says, to show other policy makers “there are ways to do this and not worry about keeping the lights on.”
Construction of Solar and wind farms amounts to pouring the exact same concrete foundation over and over and installing equipment manufactured elsewhere. It is so simple in comparison.
Each dollar spent on solar or wind brings climate and energy disaster nearer. Nuclear is the only way to go. At the moment there's no other technology that can support exponential energy requirements from our civilisation. Solar can't provide that. Wind definitely can't provide that. We can see right now what it means when country relies too much on solar/wind energy. Look how Germany's grid is unstable last couple of years, and it'll only get worse with increased dependence on unreliable energy sources.
The funny thing reading this is that the last power outage in Germany I can remember was in 2009. While I also spent 2 years in between in Canada, where I experienced 6 power outages.
I'm not sure if power got more unstable in recent years, but as long as North America sticks to above-ground power delivery, I'm sure the effective stability here is way better.
The tone of the article is not very objective at all. Especially not in the way it characterizes the environmentalist movement. It appears that this nuclear plant in California will stay open because president Biden has signed a bill that will ensure that the plant will receive federal bailout money to keep operating. I.e Americans not living in California will subsidize California's nuclear plant. Hard to frame that as a massive win for nuclear.
DCPP is not going to stay open. That bridge was crossed long ago, and it's difficult to imagine a realistic scenario where the plant gets relicensed and power purchase agreements are guaranteed such that running DCPP remains profitable even with California's renewables mandates.
Renewing a plant's license is like building a rate case (which takes years), but harder. It takes time and money and we don't have enough of either to succeed, no matter what Biden or Newsom claim. NRC could waive certain things to speed it up but they won't (nor should they).
FWIW, I live just a few miles from DCPP, have been onsite there a number of times when I worked for PG&E, and I sleep very well at night. PG&E may have screwed up in a lot of ways over the years, but DCPP is a well-run facility and it's a shame it has to close prematurely (lots of life left in that plant).
Coercing elevated rates to pay for keeping it open would be a deal as bad as paying federal taxes to help prop it up. DC cannot compete on price even already built, ignoring capex.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] thread> Opposition to nuclear power increased when President Richard Nixon called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000.
Gee...only if we did.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Calif...
40 years of trying to avert climate change and we are still waiting for the windmills and solar, with no way to store enough electricity so we can stop using fossil fuels.
40% of global electricity is still from coal
For whatever reason, we haven’t gotten to that point. Still not cheap enough?
I was hoping Musk’s solar roof would be the start of something big.
At any rate, in 2060 maybe we’ll have incredible batteries, solar energy everywhere, but we’re already way behind schedule.
All this waiting for renewables has cost us years. It’s unlikely that we are going to avert significant climate issues.
But I guess that only applies to the US or the industry.
Here in Europe for an average size roof, it’s 20k € like it’s been for the last ten years.
But really your regional utility should be buying them.
Quotes for nukes never include the cost of 10 years of coal while they are being poured.
But discharging that heat directly into seawater adversely affects sea life. This is what causes bleaching death of corals in warmer waters.
The environmental impact studies alone would likely take years, especially because Mothers For Peace, the Surfrider Foundation, the local Chumash band, and every other group under the sun would tarpit the project. They hate nuclear like Everytown hates guns, and no amount of logic will change their minds.
FWIW, I think the damage is done and DCPP shouldn't need to put in cooling towers — the output cove has different sea life than the ocean just a bit beyond it and has for decades. However, I don't make the rules.
The big booster of nukes today is Big Fossil, because each nuke project started represents at least ten years of solid sales of NG, or worse, while construction is delayed again and again. With any luck, it will be cancelled before completion, and none of those dollars will have gone to panels that would immediately displace their product. Certainly none will be refunded.
No nuke has ever been built with money not coerced from somebody.
I'll also add that renewables were made possible by massive government subsidies while they developed enough economies of scale to compete with other power sources. High carbon tax with subsidies for ALL zero carbon energy, including nuclear, are the way forward.
Why has this been explained repeatedly for decades, yet still not understood?
We’ve basically squandered half a century trying to stop climate change because people don’t like nuclear power
Here’s Carl Sagan from 1985:
https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI
He said China would use all that coal and they did.
We lost decades of time. Now we need a few additional miracles.
Think we’d all like to see much more wind and solar. And wouldn’t it be nice if we reached 10% EV usage in 5 years?
> Growth has been particularly impressive over the last three years, even as the global pandemic shrank the market for conventional cars and as manufacturers started grappling with supply chain bottlenecks. In 2019, 2.2 million electric cars were sold, representing just 2.5% of global car sales. In 2020, the overall car market contracted but electric car sales bucked the trend, rising to 3 million and representing 4.1% of total car sales. In 2021, electric car sales more than doubled to 6.6 million, representing close to 9% of the global car market and more than tripling their market share from two years earlier. All the net growth in global car sales in 2021 came from electric cars.
You'd think EVs and Nuclear would be a great pairing but it's unusual to see someone praising both. A somewhat weird place to be in preferring nuclear to gas (and renewables) but not EV to ICE.
"Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own”
You should check out graphs of renewables deployment (minus hydro which has been steady for a while) it makes reaching 10% wind/solar a lot more hopeful than you state it. The growth is staggering.
> There are now 50 countries that have crossed that 10% wind and solar generation mark, and seven countries hit that milestone in 2021: China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Argentina, Hungary, and El Salvador, according to the report. Three countries in particular have shown a particularly fast transition, with Vietnam, Australia, and the Netherlands having moved 8% of their total electricity demand over to wind and solar from fossil fuels in only the last two years. These countries set a precedent, Jones says, to show other policy makers “there are ways to do this and not worry about keeping the lights on.”
What brings climate disaster closer is that we have lost the ability to effectively build large complex projects such as nuclear plants.
Imagine if we had initiated building out 100% solar decades ago, triggering the PV cost collapse in 1990 instead of 2010.
I'm not sure if power got more unstable in recent years, but as long as North America sticks to above-ground power delivery, I'm sure the effective stability here is way better.
Renewing a plant's license is like building a rate case (which takes years), but harder. It takes time and money and we don't have enough of either to succeed, no matter what Biden or Newsom claim. NRC could waive certain things to speed it up but they won't (nor should they).
FWIW, I live just a few miles from DCPP, have been onsite there a number of times when I worked for PG&E, and I sleep very well at night. PG&E may have screwed up in a lot of ways over the years, but DCPP is a well-run facility and it's a shame it has to close prematurely (lots of life left in that plant).