The headline feels very "water is wet" (nuclear does not produce air pollution so replacing is a net loss fir air quality) but the text is slightly more motivated in pointing out that policy should take into account the (predictable) mortality due to air quality when considering ways to phase out nuclear (which they estimate to 5200 death a year in the US if one were to fully replace nuclear power).
The only reason "nuclear does not produce air pollution" is because everyone pretends that there's no air pollution from the massive supply chain the plants require (and no, not just fuel. Consider how expensive almost any part that is destined for a nuclear power plant is, how much technical and administrative and safety overhead there is to everything, etc.)
In the US, nuclear power is being replaced at several times the rate it is being decommissioned...by solar and wind, both of which are significantly cheaper. Those plants are being shut down because they don't make economic sense.
The biggest problem we have right now is that bitcoin mining operators are chewing up massive amounts of power, in many areas causing coal fired power plants to come back into service because of how much demand they're placing on the grid...and states are encouraging this, because it's helping prop up demand for coal.
Of course, there is a polluting supply chain for solar and wind as well. If you do an all-in comparison on the total emissions, nuclear is about the same as wind, and is three times better than solar:
You have 3 power generation systems adjacent to each other. One is a massive solar power field. One is a massive wind turbine field. And one is a nuclear power plant. In the ideal conditions, all 3 generate an equivalent amount of power.
Suddenly, the sun goes down and all the wind stops. Which one is now generating the most power?
Most of Poland's neighbors are situated around the same pond (the Baltic sea) with similar conditions. Winters are dark, and occasionally with little to no wind over the entire region.
Unless you somehow solved storage at a low enough price for it to be viable, we need nuclear or fossil fuels up here - biofuels won't be enough.
I don't believe that's relevant? Unless someone starts selling and building cost-effective and large-scale storage here and now, nuclear and fossil fuels are the only reliable options that will fix the current situation.
Fixing this with trans-European energy transfers is a neat idea, but if you want to send power from i.e. a solar panel on a roof in Spain to my house in Finland, or wind energy from Denmark to Poland, then we'll require infrastructure upgrades at scales that haven't been seen in much of Europe since the early 50's.
Yes the grid must be upgraded, not only for transferring energy across countries, but also for electrification of heating, mobility.
Fossil fuels aren't a solution, and nuclear energy only a smaller part of it. You can see that if you look at the cost and potential in the IPCC report.
There is no way around a massive build out of renewable energy.
PS: I just checked energy charts, and saw that Poland has more wind in the winter as well
And more renewables are not solving any issues until there are more investments in grid and storage.
Alas, at least in Northern Europe, the grids are largely in private hands, and investments are kept down to the legal minimum. There's no way we go all-renewable until someone kicks that hornet's nest.
During multiple months in 2021 there was much less wind than expected in most of Europe, which meant that during the night and when it was overcast, practically the majority of the continent's renewable energy generation was under capacity by a lot.
Artificially inflated prices and administrative overhead causes air pollution? You seriously wrote that with a straight face?
You know what also produces air pollution? Manufacturing and transport of wind turbines. Construction of hydro power dams. Manufacturing and distribution of solar panels. Mining, manufacturing and distribution of grid batteries. By your logic, no grid-scale source of energy is good enough. I hope you're browsing Hacker News using landfill-diverted computer hardware powered by a landfill-diverted off-grid solar power array, because otherwise your objections to nuclear power apply equally to your own life.
> I hope you're browsing Hacker News using landfill-diverted
Just as an aside and a reasonable data point, I can't be the only person with a majority of formerly commercial refabbed EOL equipment (more than just computers + solar panels).
As a non urban Australian in a sparse area scoring and repurposing other people's "crap" has been a way of life for six decades .. nine for my father who is still actively trawling auction sites, curb dumps, and local tip sites.
> Artificially inflated prices and administrative overhead causes air pollution? You seriously wrote that with a straight face?
What artificially inflated prices? And...No? Nice strawman, though? Nuclear power plants have a massively expensive supply chain - their capex and opex expenses are huge, the highest of any form of generation. Every worker the plant requires, every manager, every gauge, every piece of pipe - all has a carbon footprint. And because it's for nuclear, all those parts are a lot more expensive because of all the documentation, engineering and reliability, and that means a higher carbon footprint.
> You know what also produces air pollution? Manufacturing and transport of wind turbines. Construction of hydro power dams. Manufacturing and distribution of solar panels. Mining, manufacturing and distribution of grid batteries.
All the things you name immediately start paying back 'dividends', solar/wind have a fraction of the opex, and produce electricity at a far lower cost than nuclear and are dropping in cost per GWhr, whereas nuclear plants take decades to "break even", only do so if you ignore the carbon footprint of their supply chain, and the cost of electricity from nuclear is going up.
> I hope you're browsing Hacker News using landfill-diverted computer hardware powered by a landfill-diverted off-grid solar power array, because otherwise your objections to nuclear power apply equally to your own life.
Strange, you just fell into the trap of making the exact same point I was making. It is, to any practical standpoint, impossible to exist in this economy without having some footprint of some kind at some point. If not direct, then indirect.
So what then? Are you still contending that constructing nuclear is a bad idea because the supply chain of a nontrivial endeavour has a non-zero carbon footprint?
And yes, memes are a meme for a reason. It seems strange that you think that an idea achieving meme status invalidates it? Are you trying to offer a response, or are you only interested in feeling like you want an Internet debate? I suppose if it’s the latter then… umm… well done? Well done on dodging the actual discussion at hand.
> The biggest problem we have right now is that bitcoin mining operators are chewing up massive amounts of power, in many areas causing coal fired power plants to come back into service
Other than the single time a mining group bought an old coal plant in NY, is there a single other example of this happening?
As a more positive example, I read about crypto miners who had something like shipping containers that they would put at oil wells to capture gases that weren't economical for the energy companies to use and are instead burned off.
While I'm sure some folks would jump on that because it was using Fossil Fuels, I look at as it's profitable for crypto miners to use _excess_ energy where it's produced and would otherwise be wasted, which will happen regardless of how energy is sourced.
The more we obtain uranium (prospecting, mining, milling...), the more we add to the associated carbon footprint. Therefore a sustained growth of installed nuclear capacity (this is your proposition, if I understand correctly) will lead us to exploit mines at always lowering ore grades => more emissions.
Scientific studies are clear: M. Lenzen ("between 10 and 130 g CO2-e/kWhel, with an average of 65 g") and E. Warner et G. Heath ("9 to 110 g CO‐eq/kWh by 2050")...
I’m unfamiliar with the publisher but the content is unquestionably written by someone who has a sub-high-school understanding of nuclear physics and is egregiously misusing numbers out of context for maximum fear.
There is a sibling comment to this one which is flagged and "dead". It was inflammatory in tone but something I would vouch for in substance. My advice to its author is to not give censcorious people an excuse to mob away your views. Avoid the hyperbole.
Greenpeace, for one reason or another, has been obsessed with nuclear power to the objective net detriment of the environment. Their activism has directly resulted in a strengthening of legacy fossil fuel industries and the increased reliance on fossil fuel consumption. Absent the campaigning by Greenpeace there would certainly be more, newer, safer nuclear energy reactors in Europe today. This would directly result in offsetting need for coal power — especially if Greenpeace had applied as much effort to opposing coal as they did nuclear power.
I don't understand the reasoning for phasing out nuclear power. Is that really what we want to aim for? Why?
I understand the public as a whole is afraid because they remember events like Chernobyl and Fukushima, but those were pre-Generation-III reactors (Chernobyl was generation 1, Fukushima was generation 2). Modern designs are far safer. We've learned so much since the mid-20th century.
Micro-reactors in particular could become a huge boon to society. All US submarines and aircraft carriers have been nuclear-powered for decades; and it's been decades without any military reactor-related incidents.
The conspiracy theorist in my head wants to blame it on *someone* in the US government/industrial complex who stands to make a lot of money from selling other energy sources. :-/
All things work perfectly until they don't. We are at a stage of humanity right before fusion power becomes the norm anyway. No point using a short term solution where an accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years.
Fusion milestones have been newly achieved in the past 10 years. You may be right that it'll remain "50 years away" for generations still, but it's not evident to me that this will be the case. We barely had fission energy stable 60 years ago, we now know a lot more about the requirements and limitations for fusion, and we're allegedly still saying 50 years? That's a lot more reliable, and note that n=2 here (a bit more than one set of fifty years having gone by, a second fifty being underway and it still seeming like that). If it were "always 10 years away" since the 50s, that'd be quite a different story.
> where an accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years.
It… really doesn't. Even someone with full control of a modern plant, who actively wanted to cause as terrible an accident as possible, would not be able to cause nearly that much damage. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are poisoning people right now
> accident makes land of the size of a city uninhabitable for 1000 years
Maybe just me, but I would gladly take that risk vs the whole world becoming uninhabitable due to global warming, not to mention the possible nuclear fallout from WW3 due to global unrest.
The greatest political disappointment I've felt in recent years was when the Merkele government decided to shut down a bunch of Nuclear power-plants. It made up for it by burning coal.
Merkele government was played by Kremlin. The previous chancellor, Gerhard Schröder actively lobbied for Russia and had(has?) seats in Russian state-owned companies.
She (and Schroeder) wasn't some puppet put there by Putin, the German people voted for her, several times over actually. It's their fault and their responsibility for the choices they made. That's how democracy works.
Next time choose your leaders more wisely, but sadly, I feel like no lessons have been learned in Germany and the voters will double down on their flawed ideology over reality.
Also, there is no choice in political parties with those issues. After Merkel went back on her promise to strengthen nuclear and changed her mind, there was no party left supporting nuclear power in Germany. The only option one has there is to vote for the far-right AfD (10-15%, shunned by all coalitions, so basically a wasted vote if not >40%) or the capitalist-liberal FDP (5-10%, currently part of the coalition in power, but too small to make a difference).
So no matter what you vote for, it won't change anything.
Do Germans vote for measures/provisions? In US voting for positions is only half, if not less, of the total ballot. The most interesting part is measures and provisions.
BUT, it's only state and municipal provisions, there's no voting for nation-wide issues.
The only country I know where there's a way to vote for particular issues is Switzerland.
If we extrapolate then lets also do it for the impact of the disaster. Gen 3 disaster: nobody dies and nothing leaks outside the reactor containment vessel.
Your implication is that a reactor containment vessel in a Gen 3 nuclear reaction is capable of containing radioactive material no matter what physically happens to it (flooding, earthquake, asteroid impact, etc.) Is that accurate?
Asteroid impact? Is the reaction even going to be critical at that point? Assuming you mean something smaller like a meteoroid, I think most US plants would either be okay, or you have other problems to worry about (like if any people are within multiple miles of the plant in every direction).
There would be an intermediate size asteroid that would be able to penetrate the containment and damage the core. That same size asteroid wouldn't be much of a worry if it just hit a field next to a town. On the other hand, that same asteroid could topple over some skyscraper and kill a few thousand people, which is more than the aforementioned nuclear-asteroid accident would.
I was just listing things that could affect the structure of the core. The real question about nuclear disasters isn't whether or not humanity can respond to them given functioning society, it's what happens when a society collapses (extended power outage, etc.) and then something affects the fissile material. Fukushima took a lot of people to clean up.
It's a rather facetious commentary on the "now it is gen 3's turn for a disaster comment", by implying that if that progression holds, the so too should the scale of damage.
The gen 1 disaster left land uninhabitable, the gen 2 disaster just took some cleanup, therefore the gen 3 disaster will be a non-issue.
So at this point, we are concerned if the remains of people who would be killed by the asteroid, would also be slightly radioactive? An the 'remains' are being probably like finely pulverised ashes?
Like the containment building is basically a bunker, and the reactor vessel is like a thousand tons of steel. If any asteroid gets through that, the neighbourhood is already gone.
So many people pointed out Fukushima to me, and most of them did not know that the tsunami killed 10,000 people and radiation killed zero.
Fukushima was cleaned up by a massive task force using globalized technology. What I'm wondering about is if nuclear power is scaled to have hundreds or thousands of plants across the world, and something happens to humanity's ability to mount a globalized cleanup effort (using diesel, electricity, etc.), are the remaining societies safe from the effects of the decaying plants?
Age doesn't determine the design or it's safety. Soviet early designs had massive flaws, bugs and cost cutting measures to enable the fast deployment needed to keep up with Soviet energy demand growth, at significant risk.
3) It takes about 12-20 years to build new plants. Solar/wind is 1-4 years.
4) 5x is an understatement. It's even more expensive if you properly account for insurance. Dealing with Fukushima cost $800 billion. This is unaccounted for in LCOE and taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima.
5) New power plants aren't being built because it's too expensive. So, old ones are having their lives extended (the latest law in congress was about this). Older plants = more danger. Fukushima happened in large part because it was old.
6) Despite this many countries still build nuclear power. Why? Two reasons: 1) it shares nuclear military costs 2) it lets you build a bomb quickly.
It's expensive because no investment has been made to scale it up and make cheaper & safer, whereas a ton of subsidies and investment went into scaling up solar and making that cheaper over the past 2 decades.
China will probably make it cheap given the pace they're going building out nuclear plants.
Nations that want to invest into solar, wind and storage should do so and illustrate to other countries that such investment will out compete those who would invest in nuclear. This would be a good thing.
What nations who currently invest into solar and wind are doing is to also invest in a lot of fossil fuel reserve energy, like natural gas. This is the official strategy of Germany, and is also the primary strategy of UK. In combination this is what caused the insane energy prices that Europe suffered this winter.
This is why I want a EU ban against building new fossil fuel capacity, especially natural gas. Solar and wind is great, but not if they are combined with natural gas, oil or coal. I loose a lot of trust in politics when green party politicians are advocating to maintain programs to subsidizes fossil fueled power plants while at the same time advocating to shut down nuclear power plants.
In term of insurance for accidents, here I would also advocate for a law that is technology independent. Any damaged suffered to third-parties because of a commercially operated power plant should be covered by insurance. Hydroelectric plants, nuclear power and all plants emitting green house gases would be impossible to cover but the symbolic gesture of such law would be interesting.
The fact that Germany decarbonised so much, so fast and so cheaply and without nuclear power appears to have made a lot of people very angry.
Unlike Poland, who quietly powers itself with 80% coal and attracts very little flak because 1) it didn't make the nuclear industry look unnecessary 2) it preferred to burn coal over gas from America's main geopolitical rival.
Alright, now do it again but this time assign the coal to the countries importing the electricity rather than where it is burnt and include the actual GWP of gas (ie. around the same as coal) and include the actual GWP of France's nuclear fuel which mostly comes from a low yield open pit mine in niger.
> which mostly comes from a low yield open pit mine in niger.
That's literally bullshit. Main import sources of uranium in France are Kzakhstan, Australia, and Canada. Please stop spouting Russian and/or Greenpeace propaganda.
I hope you understand how your comment can easily interpreted like fossil fuel advocacy. Trying to split hair over coal vs natural gas is just a distraction when the issue should be to ban fossil fuels. As a EU ban it would cover both Poland and Germany, and a bunch of other countries that current depend heavily on fossil fuel and who have very few alternatives for periods of high demand and low supply. It would be costly in the short run and require a lot of investment, but every new construction of a fossil fuel plant goes directly against the goal of zero emissions and is a plain failure to reach the global climate crisis.
There is also a huge loss of public trust when green party politicians are advocating to keep subsidizing fossil fuel plants. If environmentalist want to keep oil and natural gas plants, then how will the public be convinced of climate change? The strategy need to be clear and fossil fuel free, and if that solution is wind, solar and storage then that plan need to be up front and part of the budget discussions. It should not be the argument from environmentalists that we should be using natural gas because it happen to be cheaper that nuclear.
> It would be costly in the short run and require a lot of investment
It seems like you already know why it's not realistic. Fossil fuels fulfill the role of a marginal power source very well, neither renewables nor nuclear can replace that role as of yet. There are still plenty of issues that need to be solved towards electrification, lets not make it unrealistically difficult for ourselves.
With the goal of keeping the grid as cheap as possible it is indeed unrealistic to care about global warming or the environment. The only thing that matter is to use what ever technology is cheapest at any given job at any given location, and especially focusing on fast returns on investments and political policies that can provide windfall during a single election cycle.
It is however not a policy I would advocate or vote for. I rather oppose fossil fuels especially when they are being subsidized through taxes. Europe can also not really handle an other winter, especially if the weather would not be exceptional mild. Bailouts can only be paid so many times before it becomes unrealistic.
That's not quite what's happening, there is not just one goal. It's just that having as cheap electricity as possible is one of many competing goals that they try to optimize for.
This winter and perhaps the one after that as well will be interesting for sure, after that the major natural gas risk should be mitigated by having enough LNG terminals and supply. There is still quite a bit of leeway to reduce taxes on electricity, but when you're short on supply you might not want to incentivize electricity use.
When the wind is optimal, wind power is the cheapest possible energy source. When the sun is optimal, solar is cheapest. When neither is true, natural gas is the cheapest solution in the short run. This is not just what the economics say, it is also the official strategy in several nations as I mentioned before.
Trying to disincentivize electricity use during periods of low supply do not work. Governments feel forced to step in if factories has to shut down or people can't heat their homes. Those not willing gets voted out, as was also demonstrated this winter.
All this is a local maximum where every action is rational but the result is terrible for everyone involved. Paying through taxes does not actually make the energy price low, and the massive cost to the environment will have to be paid at some point in the future.
More LNG terminals and more fossil fuel plants will not make the situation better. Demand through electrification is growing faster than the economic savings from using even more fossil fuels, and when winter comes the same scenario as last will occur. The only ones who will profit is those countries that export fossil fuels.
> This is why I want a EU ban against building new fossil fuel capacity, especially natural gas.
Why would you want this?
Fossil fuels are very important for a working electricity grid.
Natural gas is flexible and it outcompetes worse energy sources like coal or oil so it actually reduces the CO2 output compared to what it was before.
Your suggestion would give us high electricity prices.
For point 2, the number are from a Greenpeace study in german. They say they can generate 25TWh per year with 11.2GW of land wind power (so about 3000 wind turbines) taking into account the storage lost (they assume 42.6% round trip efficiency, more than wikipedia figures).
> taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima.
That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but:
If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident.
Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.
It's expensive because the regulation is insane. In times and places with sane regulation, the upfront costs are still high but it soon pays for itself.
People born between 1950 and 1965 come of age as both environmental consciousness started to become a thing and the Three Mile Island accident occurred. This left an indelible impression in many people’s mind that nuclear energy was not compatible with sound environmental policy. That impression has never faded. The answer to question of whether nuclear power ever should return rests with today’s younger generations.
> and it's been decades without any reactor-related incidents.
I'm not anti-nuclear, but using decades to measure substances with half lifes on the order of tens or hundreds of millenia isn't very helpful.
The (legitimate) concern is that even low frequency accidents are frequent enough on the timescale of human civlization that they could present semi-permanent damage to the biosphere.
> could present semi-permanent damage to the biosphere.
Burning coal, gas or oil present immediate, virtually permanent (at least on a human time scale) damages to the biosphere; hydro electric power already killed at least two more orders of magnitude people than even the most delirious casualty estimations of nuclear power accidents; and air pollution is estimated killing millions of people per year.
At some point, people should start learning to count.
Pretty dark take (by all means feel free to correct me), but I am sometimes wondering if the fact that dam failures kill everybody and most of their families at once helps its public image since there's few remaining affected people that can spread awareness.
(not saying that hydro is a bad choice; it looks to be the best when possible thanks to load following and ability to double as storage)
They also produce a ton of methane by trapping a valley's worth of vegetation at the bottom of an artificial lake, and need dredging to stay functional, but who's really counting?
The overwhelming majority of deaths from dam failures in living memory were the result of one disaster in China in 1975 which was suppressed by the communist government. It wasn't until 20 years later that Westerners started to learn about it.
Most of them were not hydro-electric dams, which are statistically more recent and in practice way more effectively monitored (people are permanently occupying most of the not-tiny-ones).
And coal burning emits more radioactive pollution than nuclear power!
All relevant points. I didn't mean to suggest that nuclear power is less safe than alternatives, just that the risk profile is different. The risks of nuclear power are in a long tail of infrequent but potentially large accidents so we can only understand its risks properly by looking at a long timeframe.
People constantly raise the "coAl poLLuTiON!" argument and always do so with a false choice between nuclear and fossil fuel, completely ignoring any renewables like solar, wind, or hydro.
If you're accusing people of not learning to count, maybe you should look at the cost of solar, wind, and energy storage systems - and realize that nuclear is being phased out because it's too expensive, and that's despite nearly a century of heavy government subsidization.
It is, in fact, getting more expensive, while wind and solar get less expensive.
That's not a false choice, there is also hydro (unfortunately my country is more or less saturated there), solar (OK if you're a really sunny country and only need electricity during the day, not so great otherwise) and wind (30% average load factor, risible cost efficiency, huge surface required, needs to be rebuilt every ~10 years).
> maybe you should look at the cost of solar, wind, and energy storage systems - and realize that nuclear is being phased out because it's too expensive,
Tell me then, is that why Germany, after sinking dozens of billions over dozens of billions of euros in renewable, is still producing electricity with carbonation level closer to Bulgaria & Poland than France or Belgium, AND has to buy them electricity whenever there is no wind, and sell it at low price when there is too much wind?
> Comparing derivative doesn't make much sense if the starting point is wildly different.
Indeed, however this is commonly done and I only state that upon this criteria things aren't exactly what they seem.
Moreover this is heavy industry: there is quite an inertia, therefore Germany (starting later with an immature approach (renewables) while dumping existing equipment (nuclear)) is facing an ordeal.
> When do you think Germany's emissions per capita will be lower than France?
This is difficult to predict because it is tied to future decisions and their results, however if France bets 100% on new reactors (either deliberately or because building new reactors continue to sucks too much money while not delivering) and doesn't tackle its current industrial crash it may be done by 2040.
Hydro is apparently dangerous due to the Banqiao disaster, however at it "took place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when most people were busy with the "revolution" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
The "Cultural Revolution" began in 1966.
In such a context an otherwise avoidable catastrophe may happen.
Moreover all this came after a civil war and a violent Japanese invasion, during which dams were bombed, causing "massive flooding in Henan" (same source).
During decades predicting and adverting this catastrophe was possible, even when it unfolded people had days to react... but given such a context nobody was able to do so. One may wonder what an active nuclear reactor will become in such a context.
Didn’t the KMT intentionally blow one of their own dams in Henan to hinder the Japanese but kill a bunch of their own citizens at one point in the war? Ya, that is hard core.
The longer the half-life, the less radioactive something is. By definition.
Something with a half-life of "tens or hundreds of millenia" is not very radioactive.
Something with a half-life of infinity is not radioactive at all.
The really dangerous stuff tends to be isotopes like iodine-131 (half-life 8 days, accumulates in the thyroid gland), strontium-90 (half-life of about 29 years, accumulates in the bones).
> The (legitimate) concern is that even low frequency accidents are frequent enough on the timescale of human civlization that they could present semi-permanent damage to the biosphere.
Any such concern, if legitimate, should at least be fleshed out with some basic assumptions and numbers. What is the (rough, estimate) probability distribution of the number of deaths that this will cause? Then we can compare it with the danger of fossil fuels. Otherwise we're left with hand-wavy expressions like "accidents" and "frequent enough". What are we to do with such statements?
I remember during the Fukushima disaster, every few hours an expert would come onto my television and tell me the next terrible thing could never happen. When it happened a few hours later, they came on my TV and said ok but that NEXT thing will definitely not happen...this repeated at least 3-4 times. I don't remember remember the sequence of events, but I remember the experts were not trustworthy. I wonder if anyone else learned that.
Non-dispatchable renewable require backup power as long as we don't have large scale storage, which we don't. So it's comparing apple to oranges. Let's hope that we get such storage sometime soon since it looks like it's the assumption everybody's making. Otherwise we'll still be burning gas and coal as long as we can get our hands on them when NREs are not generating, making the climate worse in the process.
> Non-dispatchable renewable require backup power as long as we don't have large scale storage, which we don't
And in the time it would take to build a single new nuclear reactor we're going to add a massive, massive amount of large scale storage. It's already well underway.
It's too expensive. Solar and wind + battery (regular and water storage based) are much, much better. Easier to install, expand, maintain, and sunset, and with no incredible risk attached to it that requires state insurance (the society will clean up the mess).
Solar is already CHEEEEEAP and getting cheaper. Nuclear is expensive and not getting any cheaper, in fact quite the opposite.
Market forces are already making this apparent (money talks), but there are still pro nuclear lobbies DESPERATE to hold on.
Not taking into account seasonal storage makes the comparison of nuclear and NREs not pertinent.
> there are still pro nuclear lobbies DESPERATE to hold on.
First, caps don't make right. I believe NREs help in getting emissions down to a point, but since you need backup power I am not seeing it working at 80% production share. In order to emissions to get to zero I believe nuclear makes sense on the longer term.
You don't need any storage to get to 80-90% from renewables, which can be achieved by overbuilding renewables and creating an international market for energy. Denmark is a good case study.
Yes, I do, albeit I fail to find why this is a prerequisite for renewables to provide most of consumed electricity. The referenced study analyzes continental-scale.
Same story with other energy sources. If you don't have coal, natural gas
or uranium reserves, you have to import it. You could argue the risk with renewables is higher, but given the history of oil embargoes in wars I wouldn't say it's a substantial difference, at least not to the point where it's worth destroying the planet over.
I have only argued one thing: since there are many countries barely able to manage their own power grid, if even that, and since no sensible nation will want to tie their grid to such countries’, an international energy market isn’t a solution for everyone.
> an international energy market isn’t a solution for everyone.
Revealed preferences today show that it is a solution, given countries are currently happy to be dependent on other nations for the energy source via oil and gas imports. If importing oil and gas is acceptable, then importing solar should be equally acceptable, if not even more acceptable given you can import from more reliable allies instead of authoritarian rogue states that will engage in energy blackmail.
Your point of view seems to be that of wealthy or semi-wealthy and relatively stable nations, without massive rampant corruption. And sure, for those, it may very well work. Who am I to even have an opinion on that?
But who will accept to connect their power grid to that of those countries who are still having weekly, if not daily, blackouts?
The kind of country where corrupt officials accept being paid to get chemical waste dumped into their laps, and consider it a grand idea to dump those into their country’s power plants crude oil?
The kind of country where people just randomly plug themselves into power lines, without any consideration for safety, and regularly burn down a whole block because of it, and shut down power for an entire city in the process?
The kind of country currently facing a war, civil or otherwise, and who’s grid’s instability would affect anybody connected to them?
Nobody in their right mind would willingly expose themselves to such risks.
So sure, like you so eagerly anticipate, rich and stable countries will happily link their power grids together in some grand international energy market, and maybe it will, as you surmise, solve all their problems. I really have no opinion whatsoever on that.
The non-rich countries would only be consumers/importers to start with. Natural gas and coal is cheaper so they'll transition later. But that's moot since all that's needed is for rich, stable democracies to build it out amongst themselves, there's enough diversity of sunlight and wind between them to get above 90% with no storage. You can even easily go above 70% in many countries with no storage and no international network, just purely domestic sources. The international network is just a cherry on top which reduces the need to overbuild by too much. But it's largely doable without. The nice thing that people forget is that wind and solar are negatively correlated, so the variability is self-cancelling within a country.
> and with no incredible risk attached to it that requires state insurance
I'm with you except for this. Fear mongering about nuclear ("incredible risk") is inaccurate and isn't the way forward. We should save the fear mongering for fossil fuels where it belongs. Renewables are better than nuclear due to the lower cost, and that's mostly it, there aren't other differentiating factors that matter all that much.
> it's been decades without any military reactor-related incidents
If there were, I don't think they'd tell anyone. So maybe it's a trust thing. People know for sure that a wind turbine can't poison nearby communities to death no matter what goes wrong. Personally I'd prefer nuclear, but also this kind of distrust is the only way we can get more transparency.
> it's been decades without any military reactor-related incidents
Excuse me, what? There are quite literally ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents at this very moment. The fact that they started decades ago is hardly a consolation.
This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the pro-nuclear crowd. Maybe if we could manage to contain the waste we've already created (or at the very least if pro-nucs would admit we can't), I might have some faith in our ability to contain the waste we make in the future.
> Excuse me, what? There are quite literally ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents at this very moment. The fact that they started decades ago is hardly a consolation.
> This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the pro-nuclear crowd. Maybe if we could manage to contain the waste we've already created (or at the very least if pro-nucs would admit we can't), I might have some faith in our ability to contain the waste we make in the future.
GP specifically referenced "submarines and aircraft carriers"; Hanford is neither.
There is a cleanup at Hanford, which is understandable for one of the earliest reactors. I think calling it "ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents" is misleading, since it was the normal operation.
Again, GP:
"We've learned so much since the mid-20th century."
Nothing is going to be perfect. All the data I've seen is that nuclear power is safer and has fewer casualties. Picking one of the earliest sites from 70 years ago ignores everything since, as well as comparison to fatalities due to other forms of power generation.
To paraphrase you, "This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the _anti_-nuclear crowd."
A semicolon links two independent (yet related) clauses. The first, "all US submarines and aircraft carriers have been nuclear-powered for decades", is roughly true (that is, if you count 15 years as "decades"). The second, "it's been decades without any military reactor-related incidents", is demonstrably false.
> calling it "ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents" is misleading, since it was the normal operation.
I can't tell what you mean by "it was the normal operation". I can assure you that the plant was not designed to be in a state of constant leakage and need billions of dollars of continuous investment per year to facilitate its cleanup process for decades without end.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. The plant was designed to leak radioactive waste into the Columbia River under normal operation. But that was considered safe, at that time. Just as many nuclear things are now considered safe, at this time. For instance the Monticello leak less than 6 months ago, which was covered up for months before the news finally got out. Perfectly safe, at this time.
If we've really learned so much since whenever, let's use that knowledge to clean up all the messes we made along the way first. Once we know we can do that well, perhaps we can take on more projects. Until then we're the Junior Dev hopping from greenfield project to greenfield project leaving giant steaming piles of shit behind at every stop and telling ourselves "welp, I definitely learned from that experience! no way I'm doing that again!"
> This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the _anti_-nuclear crowd.
I'm not asking anyone to trust me, I'm not an energy expert and never claimed to be. I'm just asking them to not lie in order to push a nuclear agenda. In general, if a concept is truly with pursuing, it should be able to be presented via a convincing argument without lies.
You don't understand why a country wouldn't want to go a hundred billion euros in debt maintaining derelict nuclear plants and being wholly dependent on a hostile foreign power for fuel?
Or you don't understand why people wouldn't want to be left holding the cleanup bill after the company running a power station or mine or mill declared bankruptcy before finishing decomissioning?
Or you don't understand why people wouldn't support ecocide, corruption and worker exploitation in Niger or Uzbekistan to line the pockets of a uranium mining oligopoly?
From what I'm aware nuclear power stations that are older need to all be phased out eventually as they reach end of life and are no longer safe. Whether they are replaced or not is another thing
It's expensive, that's why. You are wrongly assuming public fear and safety have anything to do with this. It's cost. These reactors are approaching their end of life. Keeping them going requires lots of investments. The return on those investments is poor. So, private investors are not really interested. If it had a decent ROI, they'd be all over it. But there just isn't. These are old, expensive plants.
The article is a bit light on numbers and facts, unfortunately. Hard to tell if this is a serious study or paid "study" by some lobby with an agenda. I suspect the latter. It certainly seems to be very selective in what it talks about. And it would explain the hand waviness of the reported "findings".
It kind of makes a big point of avoiding talking about investments in renewables because "In 1985, the closure of reactors in Tennessee Valley prompted a spike in coal use". That's nearly four decades ago. Most of those coal plants have probably been closed by now. And conveniently, wind and solar investments were not a thing at the time.
From what I've seen [1] the long-term investment a nuclear reactor is massive and ROI is often measured in centuries.
Also we still don't have a good solution for power spike handling with renewables + energy storage.
A windless night is the scenario we're talking about here.
So most of this discussion is probably addressing nuclear vs. coal / gas
It costs because there has been almost no research or advancement in the technology since the 70s. And that has happened because of lack of investment, which happens because of public fear.
> Modern designs are far safer. We've learned so much since the mid-20th century.
Have we? There is a nuclear plant being shelled in Ukraine and the US is still arguing over where to dump its waste. Japan is looking to release a million tons of radioactive water into the sea. Those are the ones I can think of that are happening right now. There are plenty more in and out of the news.
I don’t think knowledge is cumulative, it has to be re-learned ever so often.
In relation to the US navy - here is an accident that was covered up 16 years ago. I do not believe there have been none since.
The date line on that was 1989, so 16 years before that is 1973, which is 40 years ago.
Understood about the concern that if they tried to hide a problem once, they’ll probably try to hide one again. But 16 years ago isn’t accurate with the link you shared.
> Our scenario of removing nuclear power results in compensation by coal, gas and oil, resulting in increases in PM2.5 and ozone that lead to an extra 5,200 annual mortalities.
They assume they'll be replaced with fossil fuels. So really the title should be "burning more fossil fuels will increase air pollution".
It could very well increase the rate of casualties (with people falling off roofs when installing solar, for example) as well as fatality rate... though I'm not sure if that takes into account casualty/fatality rates for uranium mining, which is something I'm too unfamiliar with to make any quantitative staatements.
I'm not sure why this is downvoted, it's actually correct. Solar panels are quite often put on roofs of buildings, and falling off buildings causes deaths. Wind turbines are about a dangerous as you think they would be, and especially offshore ones can get iffy. Solar and wind are not really any worse overall than communication towers, etc, but they are still worse than nuclear, as nuclear requires many fewer installations.
Not unreasonable given that renewable capacity is already growing at breakneck speed. For example, Germany upped its use of coal recently as natural gas became less available after shutting down nuclear plants before their designed end of life.
With regulators looking to tip the scales against non-renewables for emissions reasons, there is a huge push on to rehabilitate nuclear as a pragmatic solution to the forecast storage and base load issues over the next 50 (ish) years while we build out renewables. Proponents say modern nuclear reactors are net-better than coal and opponents point to the tail risk. Personally, I am pro nuclear but I certainly see the opposing viewpoint. I think it’s a tricky issue because humans are wired for identification of harms like tigers or 3000 people suddenly dying in a catastrophe. It’s much harder to grasp tail risk harms like 5200 excess deaths from pollution and harder still to turn that into action.
That was true for the first 15 or so years of this century, it's no longer true as Wind and Solar have caught up and have been neck and neck in added output.
The last couple of years are noisy (gas actually went down and coal bounced back up one year) but the long term trend is for wind and solar to continue to extend their lead.
edit: to be clear, because this is a little ambigous
> Natural gas is by far the fastest growing energy source in the US by total output.
Gas is still the biggest energy source for electricity in the US by far, but it's not the fastest growing by far. Definitely not in percentage terms but also recently, not in absolute change either.
Even so, replacing fission reactors (negligible air pollution) with a mix of wind, solar, and natural gas will still probably increase air pollution. Of course, there are arguments that this is an acceptable tradeoff for cost or safety reasons.
If they calculate that the gap would be filled with mostly fossil when new generation is overwhelmingly renewable, and building new renewables is cheaper than running existing coal plants, then they've made a mistake.
Specifically, it looks like they're using the grid makeup as of 2015 to calculate what would be used if nuclear disappeared overnight.
Mathematically, taking nuclear generation that already exists offline while there still exist fossil fuel burning plants is increasing emissions. Any additional renewable capacity could have displaced coal and gas instead.
Why not just "increasing air pollution will increase air pollution"?
You can't just put solar or wind power generation anywhere you want, because solar needs sun and wind needs wind.
Yes, I know, it's a wild concept.
So, in order to shut down Nuclear, looks like the best alternative is to replace them with fossil fuels because there's no good alternative with renewables.
Because probably those nuclear plants are in places where the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow?
>The U.S. has the largest nuclear fleet in the world, with 92 reactors scattered around the country.
Apologies to everyone for the upcoming tangential rant.
Am I the only person who is exhausted with news outlets disingenuously comparing the US to all other individual countries as if that is a fair comparison? A quick google search shows there are 108 reactors operating in the European Union, which is 16 more than in the US. Yes, this also means that the US has more reactors operating per person than the EU.
But why can't news outlets just say that? Why do we default to comparing the absolute number of most things in the United States to individual western countries? This was at its worst during COVID but it seems to have stuck. It makes for a completely misleading narrative.
Probably because there are subconscious and conscious rationales for why they’re creating the comparisons and narratives that they are.
It’s also quite rare that a news story spends time talking positively about a subject, unless it is something emotionally charged (marine vet surprises family by coming home early) or is part of a submarine PR push by the subject of the piece (university researcher finds curse for cancer).
As a non-north-american I can empathize, but I believe the main reason for that is simply these news outlets are from the US, so naturally they'll use that frame of reference. Down here in Brazil news outlets will compare stuff to Brazil.
The fact we are reading English news probably accounts for a good part of that bias.
Over half those in the EU are deployed in France too. For the US to match France’s 80% electricity generated by nuclear energy, we’ll need to deploy about 300 additional equivalent reactors. I my opinion, this a good thing: 1. The per unit reactor costs will plummet if we build 300 identical units 2. France enjoys the lowest per capita CO2 emissions for electrical generation than any nation in the world. America should match them.
what is france doing with all the waste? it's a country a little bit larger than california is with a bit more population... i suppose we could find a way to store all that waste in california somewhere since it is a big state with large swaths of land that are uninhabited.
my dream is to have the main reactors give a lot of the power and then have smaller reactors that use those waste products to turn them into shorter half-lived materials. if i recall correctly liquid salt thorium was something that was trying to do that and it also had the feature that it failed safe instead of a meltdown.
The problem is, we can see and measure it. If anything went wrong, it’d be clear who messed up, so it requires actual time and effort to do it right. That’s yucky. People like it more when the waste is invisible and airborne, for the wind and their children to deal with instead of them. This provides a better level of blame dispersion.
99% of nuc waste is low to medium life, low to medium radioactivity and is mostly recyclable. Russia does most of the recycling.
The total amount (from the beginning of France's nuclear energy production 50+y ago) of highly radioactive, non-reusable waste fits in a cube not bigger than the Eiffel tower, and the goal is to bury that in geological storage, but dumb politics are opposing this (for dumb reasons that were debunked a thousand times).
All those reactors might have been great in the 80s, but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive solution.
France is also in the middle of experiencing a huge amount of maintenance costs due to many of their reactors coming up to critical age milestones. But it's often hidden under the massive layers of obfuscation due to being masked under the total French energy budget.
> but with cheap solar and wind available, it makes no sense to sink that kind of money into a more expensive solution.
Partially true. In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense, and in all geographies as a hedge against long bouts of unusual weather.
Nuclear is a terrible technology to use as a hedge against inclement weather for power generation. The cost is all upfront, so you really want to be running it at 100% basically all the time for it to be at its most cost effective. Only running it when renewables aren't generating is incredibly costly, we'd be better off just overbuilding renewables + storage and having plenty of redundancy in the grid.
True, but you just won't find the necessary storage capacity to run solely on renewables — you'd need a miracle battery breakthrough or a miraculously convenient landscape close to population centers to build tons of reversible water reservoirs.
You need your baseload to come from a steady, highly available, weather independent source. Nuclear is basically this only carbon free solution ticking the boxes.
That depends on where you live, and 80% of the worlds population lives in places where overbuilding enough storage _with current technology_ is still cheaper than nuclear.
For that last 20%, building more grid connections towards the equator is again still cheaper than nuclear.
Also, the overbuilt solar and wind solution is better in other ways. It gives extra, dispatchable capacity which can be used for things like extracting CO2, and making hydrogen. Those will be important, and made fuels could be storage mechanism.
It is likely better to use gas peaker plants for rare times without renewables and extract the CO2 later when sun is shining.
Alternatively just have 3 hours of storage and keep the gas generators hanging around for that one week in two years they're needed.
All the money wasted on nuclear can then be put towards electrification of emissions sources which are vastly more important than that last 0.5% of emissions (which will further increase the flexibility as it does so).
> In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense
I guess you don't realize that much of New England's power already comes from renewables. Remember they get hydro power from Quebec. Maine gets 2/3 of its power from renewables.
Which leads to my second point: your power generation doesn't need to be right next to you.
And in any case, off shore wind is plentiful, and New England isn't the Arctic, it still gets plenty of sun year round.
Not just maintenance costs but some truly eyewatering upcoming decommissioning costs as well as construction on new plants.
EDF already went bankrupt like, last week.
Even despite all of this France is expecting the % of electricity sourced from nuclear power to decline - new plants aren't being built fast enough to replace those aging out.
"at a loss" is highly debatable: the 'Cour des comptes' (local Court of Accounts) officially published figures showing that the production cost was 22€ when this law was passed, and the fixed price is 42€... Not even counting the huge amounts of public money gobbled up by EDF since the very beginning.
Because the costs thet sell at are capped, regardless of what it costs them to generate (and those costs exploded in some areas due to the war and the common European power market), which was the right choice to protect consumers from energy poverty.
I'm ignorant in this area, but does Europe (EU) have a nuclear agreement to party in the space together? If every nation operates their nuclear facilities independently then it's not crazy to compare them directly.
There is EURATOM (ages old, precedes the EC/EU and is a founding "part" of it), but they aren't really running any commercial reactors, it is more of a political body for control and exchange of knowledge.
> Am I the only person who is exhausted with news outlets disingenuously comparing the US to all other individual countries as if that is a fair comparison
They do this tirelessly with health, education, etc... They do it because this is how some people understand the world; a series of orthogonal comparisons thought of as one through false comparison. It's an exercise of marginalizing the readers understanding of competing arguments. Instead of thinking analytically about the arguments and the situation at hand, the reader is invited to think, "This problem is solved, and thus so should be yours."
What really drove this home for me is the book “HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS”. After reading that I see this crap everywhere. Highly recommend that book.
> Am I the only person who is exhausted with news outlets disingenuously comparing the US to all other individual countries as if that is a fair comparison?
It's certainly a fair comparison: they're comparing countries to countries. It may not be a helpful comparison, because no two countries are equivalent in all ways other than the number of nuclear reactors they have.
But, if the point they're making is that no other country would have as much of an effect on air quality by shutting down nuclear power at the national policy level, I think it's fine. Your statistic is also useful, but since air pollution crosses borders, I think talking about absolute rather than per capita is also fine.
I guess what I'm saying is that this didn't bother me.
I see what you're getting at but I still disagree, for a couple of reasons.
First, the sentence itself doesn't strike me as lending itself to the idea that "the point they're making is that no other country would have as much of an effect on air quality by shutting down nuclear power at the national policy level". If the author wants to portray this point, why don't they actually say so in the article, instead of indirectly alluding to it? The sentence in question strikes me more as an exaggerated fun fact to grab the reader's attention and make them gasp, than as a way to set the context of the situation.
Second, the nuclear reactors are shutting down due to rate-setting policy issues on the *state* level, not the at the federal policy level. So it becomes again a disingenuous comparison, because each state can take their own individual course of action to prevent shutdown (or not). The "US" as a whole, that is to say the federal govt, is likely powerless in this situation unless they can get a bipartisan bill passed which is unlikely. Even if passed it's just kicking the can until the rates issues are fixed.
Meanwhile in Minnesota the largest nuclear plant in the state shut down for repairs because it had been leaking radioactive water into the ground. They also didn't inform the public for months after it was discovered.
It's not just Minnesota. Nuclear plants around the country leak Tritium almost constantly...but if it's below some figure (in the range of hundreds of thousands of gallons of contaminated water), no disclosure of any kind is required.
There is required disclosure, certainly for anything on the INES scale and for lots and lots of things below that. But there will always be some kind of lower limit to the reporting requirements, so things don't get ridiculous. Currently we are at "not allowed to bring anything glow-in-the-dark" into a nuclear facility because the tritium contained therein will light up all alarms and trigger reporting requirements.
How much lower should the reporting limit be? "Someone brought a banana for lunch!"? You can certainly measure "elevated levels of radioactivity at 5123456mBq!" there and then claim a coverup because nobody reported it...
Over the years I have changed my perspective on nuclear power. I still think it is useful, yet, I do understand it brings to the table some potentially serious black swan events.
In trying to understand energy transition I have come to the conclusion that neither grid-scale solar nor nuclear are the answer. Wind, however, seems to be. It isn't hard for people to understand why wind is likely a better idea than nuclear. I won't waste any time exploring that comparison.
Wind, I have learned, seems to be massively better than solar across many vectors. BTW, I am not talking about offshore wind. Not sure that compares well at all.
Energy production per installed GW:
Wind: 3.07 TWh/GW
Solar: 1.33 TWh/GW (solar is reliably off half the time)
Land use per GW:
Wind: 750 acres/GW
Solar: 3,900 acres/GW
Land use to provide all Tesla Master Plan solar + wind:
Wind: 1 Hawaii (area of all islands)
Solar: 12 Hawaii's
or,
Wind: 2.5% of California
Solar: 30% of California
Annual Operations and Maintenance costs :
Wind: 1.00
Solar: 1.33 times wind O&M
Initial investment in factories:
Wind: $212 billion
Solar: $ 11 billion
Storage required for 95% reliability:
Wind: 3 hours
Solar: >12 hours
Wind requires 4x less batteries, with all the cost,
recycling and ecological advantages this delivers.
Build supply chain origin:
Wind: Diverse
Solar: Heavy reliance on China
Long term supply chain (maintenance, parts, etc.) origin:
Wind: Diverse
Solar: Heavy reliance on China (forever)
Frankly, I used to think we really needed a large number (200+) of new nuclear power plants to be able to make a full transition to electric ground, sea and air transport as well as 100% electrification of homes and various industrial processes. From my current perspective I think it might be far more intelligent to focus on using wind for grid-scale, no grid-scale solar and residential/commercial solar + storage for local load mitigation.
This is where I disagree with Tesla's Master Plan 3. I don't think that grid-scale solar is a good idea at all.
Now compare wind and solar and existing hydro and 2-5% w2e to just wind instead of just wind vs. just solar. At a mix appropriate for the region (for example some regions get 800kWh/kWp/yr, others get 2400, wind ranges between 2000 and 5000), and include reasonable predictons of demand curves.
We don't need to think regionally. We can move power thousands of miles. Yes, of course, it's easier over the ocean, however, we have the means to do so over land as well. For reference, a project from UK is moving power from approximately 4000 km away (Morocco).
In other words, if wind --as I believe is the case-- has significant advantages over solar, we can locate wind wherever it makes sense and then move the power as far and wide as needed. We could spider out to various storage facilities and distribute to towns and cities.
The point is, power is easy to move. We already do it.
> Now compare wind and solar and existing hydro and 2-5% w2e to just wind instead of just wind vs. just solar
I don't understand why you are asking for this comparison. My point is that grid-scale solar is a bad idea, by itself or mixed with something else, including wind. I gave most of the reasons in support of this conclusion in the comment you responded to.
With solar we are starting with a technology that does not produce any power half the time, every day, forever. Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 (MPP3) figure 12 shows a close-up chart of a few days in July in the US. I reproduce it here for convenience:
And so, reliability, capacity factor, availability, or whatever measure or term one might care to use for solar is always significantly inferior to that of wind. There's data on this.
My question is rooted in optimization at many levels (list is not exaustive):
- Energy production per installed GW
- Land utilization
- Ecological impact
- Operation and maintenance costs
- Storage requirements
- Strategic supply chain factors
- Scale of future waste/recycling problem
Looking back at MPP3, table 6, we can ask a fundamental question:
How much installed grid-sale capacity do we have to build?
No new nuclear or hydro. The table, is reduced to onshore and offshore wind and solar. The total for those technologies is 5,087 GW. That's what we have to build. That's the challenge.
My question is simple:
We have to build 5,087 GW generation capacity.
Given the optimization criteria list presented above.
What combination of solar and wind would be optimal?
Looking at the numbers, I cannot find justification for building almost any grid-scale solar.
Let me give you a simple example of this...
Solar requires at least four times more storage than wind to reach the same or similar reliability.
I'll assume batteries.
Well, that means at least four times more mining, processing, factories, CO2 emissions, damage to the ecosystem, transportation, installation and maintenance costs, mean time between failure, waste, recycling costs and effects, etc.
And that's just one of my comparison vectors. Isn't that enough to at least question the decision?
No?
OK. The land-use ratio isn't something that can be ignored. The same 5,087 GW capacity would use about 2.5% of California if it was wind. Solar would require 30% of the State. Just think about what that implies in terms of every single factor that goes into building and maintaining such systems.
This is why I argue grid-scale solar isn't making sense to me. Why use 12 times the lan...
You are willfully failing to understand the concept of correlation. Sun and wind are anticorrelated in most regions. Adding both reduces the storage needed. It doesn't increase it. Condescendingly stating that solar alone requires 12 hours of batteries does not make it any less true that solar + wind is superior to wind.
Transmission costs money and raw materials and depending on it entirely (as an all wind or all nuclear solution would) makes the whole system brittle.
Seeing as you are positing zero cost for transmission you can just put all of the solar in the least cloudy areas with 30% capacity factor and uncorrelated weather.
Given the assumption of no transmission costs, try this tool:
Plus tilting solar (which this tool does not model) in some regions matches the CF of wind.
Some transmission, some solar, some wind, and some other/hydro will always be a better toolbox to have than just wind and transmission.
Throwing solar away entirely because of an irrational response to the isolated results of a specific residential install with no transmission is just as crazy as trying to shoe-horn more LWRs than it is possible to fuel even once into the solution.
Also you're not putting enough constraints on your land use estimates to make the numbers comparable in any coherent way. A high coverage fixed tilt system at low latitude has a coverage ratio of about 90% or 180W (nameplate) per m^2. A single axis system has a lower coverage ratio around 100W/m^2 but a higher capacity factor. You can't go using median CF if you're assuming transmission is free (what was that about how stupid people who assume averages for everything are?), you'd be putting all your solar in the southwest where capacity factors are 30% for 50% coverage ratios and the *net* energy per unit area would be higher than what you're assuming for nameplate. In either case your figures for land use are not consistent with your assumptions.
Finally wind isn't infinite. You can't just go and find another TW of world class wind resource. There is plenty if used sensibly, but you can't magic more out of nothing.
> You are willfully failing to understand the concept of correlation.
No, I am not.
I am saying that this correlation is irrelevant because wind has overwhelming advantages over solar.
> A single axis system has a lower coverage ratio around 100W/m^2 but a higher capacity factor.
Tilting/tracking systems are a nightmare that is horribly expensive to maintain long term. It makes no sense to consider them at grid scale.
> irrational response to the isolated results of a specific residential install
These conclusions have nothing to do with a residential installation. Pretty much all the data comes from Tesla's plan, the references they provide and other reputable references.
> what was that about how stupid people who assume averages for everything are?
You can't control yourself, can you? I have tried, time and time again, to have a conversation with you over multiple threads. You simply cannot do this without resorting to insults. How sad.
I am curious: What is your solution and how do you justify it?
Do you agree with the findings and plan from Tesla's Master Plan Part 3?
No?
Why?
Don't post a wall of links. Do the work and post a cogent argument people can attempt to follow and discuss.
And stop insulting people in every thread you participate in. It makes it very difficult to develop any level of respect for what you are saying.
That was your insult, not mine. You have repeatedly attacked anyone who uses any aggregated statistic by insulting them. If you want people to respect you, stop talking down to them from a position of ignorance and stop being a hypocryte.
If you disagree with the findings from the tesla plan (such as by blindly asserting that changing all the solar to wind will work without reference) then it's on you to back it up.
> Tilting/tracking systems are a nightmare that is horribly expensive to maintain long term. It makes no sense to consider them at grid scale.
Single axis tilting bifacial is overwhelmingly the cheapest, lowest maintenance cost per energy, lowest LCOE energy in any location with good solar resource.
It makes no sense to build out $30/MWh 35% CF wind resource which you will curtail 30% of or $60/MWh offshore wind when there is $20/MWh 30% CF solar available that produces during the lulls (thus decreasing your storage and curtailment needs).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has already shown this is a bad idea.
The summary reads (emphasis mine):
"Annual energy simulations were updated to evaluate the kWh/m2 boost achieved in single-axis tracking systems using bifacial modules. Measured bifacial energy gains of 7%-9% and rear irradiance gains of 11% were recorded, agreeing with modeled expectation within 1%-2% absolute, and matching global average expectation. Additional system energy gains of 0.5%-1.5% are predicted to be achieved by optimizing tracker behavior, adapting to cloudy conditions."
- single-axis tracking
- bifacial modules
- gains of 7%-9%
Figure 10a shows a best-case maximum annual energy production gain of 1% to 1.3% (aproximately).
Why?
Because, among other things, if you tilt panels you can't pack them in so tightly. That's basic geometry. In fact, if you do the math, it is better to reduce the geographically-dictated optimal tilt angle and fix it at a lower angle in favor of tighter packing. Put simply, rows of panels will cast a shadow on the panels behind the row.
Also, ground-bounce inside the array is seriously curtailed by shading. Bifacial is interesting for some types of installations, not necessarily for grid-scale, where they gains could be in the order of 1% or less.
Wait! How did we go from 9% gains to 1% annual energy gains? What?
Because SOLAR PANELS DO NOT PRODUCE ANY ENERGY FOR 50% OF THE DAY. And, SOLAR PANELS ARE DEEPLY AFFECTED BY CLOUDS, WEATHER AND DIRT. Which means that a 9% power generation gain measured while operating ends-up translating into 1% or less in energy collection gains in a year.
Don't agree?
Well, go argue with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory then. You must know more than they do. Here:
You are still missing the most important point: The advantages for wind are very large and across a range of parameters. You are talking about 1% gains by adding complex and costly-to-maintain tracking systems. I am talking about achieving 95% reliability with 1/4 the storage requirements, with 1/12 the land, 33% lower maintenance cost, etc. Not even close.
Please learn to read, or at least learn some basic arithmetic to check if your misinterpretation is even logically coherent. This is a rather extreme example of condescending from a position of ignorance. Made even worse by literally having the correct answer in front of you. Being so confidently wrong all the time must be incredibly exhausting.
The 1% is the additional gain for smart tracking algorithms (such as going to 0 degree tilt during diffuse light) on top of the bifacial gain of 5-15% which is on top of the tilting gain of 15-25%. This is stated clearly in the paper.
The amount of overprovision needed to provide a consistent monthly output is lower with wind and solar than with either alone. Wind outperforms solar watt for watt significantly in winter. Solar outperforms wind marginally in summer, but at $0.7-1.1/W for a 2022 tilting system vs $1.10-1.30/W for wind. This trend is echoed on a day to day and hour to hour basis as well.
Repeating unsubstantiated statistics based on comparing an all wind system to an all solar system also doesn't add anything to the discussion.
You are correct in that bifacial tilting systems don't magically increase GHI, but they do provably gather the valuable off-noon energy much more cost effectively (whilst leaving 30-40% of the noon energy on the table). More importantly they gather a much larger proportion of diffuse light, so the minima aren't as low during cloudy weather.
The energy produced by 100 acres of wind requires 1200 acres of solar...and you are going on and on about a purported 5%, 10%, 25% gain.
Who gives a fuck?
Any accountant would take a 100 acre solution over a 1200 acre nightmare.
You seem to be exquisitely capable of attempting to derail conversations with irrelevant noise.
Energy production per installed GW:
Wind: 3.07 TWh/GW
Solar: 1.33 TWh/GW (solar is reliably off half the time)
Land use per GW:
Wind: 750 acres/GW
Solar: 3,900 acres/GW
Land use to provide all Tesla Master Plan solar + wind:
Wind: 1 Hawaii (area of all islands)
Solar: 12 Hawaii's
or,
Wind: 2.5% of California
Solar: 30% of California
Annual Operations and Maintenance costs :
Wind: 1.00
Solar: 1.33 times wind O&M
Initial investment in factories:
Wind: $212 billion
Solar: $ 11 billion
Storage required for 95% reliability:
Wind: 3 hours
Solar: >12 hours
Wind requires 4x less batteries, with all the cost,
recycling and ecological advantages this delivers.
Build supply chain origin:
Wind: Diverse
Solar: Heavy reliance on China
Long term supply chain (maintenance, parts, etc.) origin:
Wind: Diverse
Solar: Heavy reliance on China (forever)
These are facts from Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 and the sources they list.
And you are arguing over an imaginary 25% gain? Even if you are right, the comparison isn't even close.
If you want to invalidate my ideas about wind, attack the list I just reprinted above --which means, attack the data and sources provided by Tesla.
BTW, operation and maintenance costs on a fixed solar system --per MPP3-- is already 33% greater than solar. Tracking solar is even more expensive. I don't have a clue how much. I'll guess 50% (and I'll be I am right).
You brought up the weird diversion with strange non-facts about tilting. I merely mentioned (and sourced) that it is now the cheapest source of energy pretty much world-wide. It was just a bizarre misreading of other people's work as what you just posted. This absolute certainty combined with rank ignorance is known as the Dunning Kruger effect. You should look it up (but please refrain from reading half of the wiki article and then lecturing others on some bizarre misinterpretation of it).
The choice to go on a tangent where you ranted about the improvement of a smart tilting algorithm being 1% was yours.
Also I'm not arguing against the tesla master plan. It's founded on the assumption of roughly doubling final energy in the US rather than putting any effort into efficiency (such as by spending one of those trillions on transit, insulation and missing middle housing), but this is to be expected from a car and battery company asking for handouts. It also has a few slightly pessimistic generalisations and assumes the regulatory hurdles for solar will stay, but the inflation driven costs for wind will not. But over all it is fine, and is a broad overview related to reality.
It does not anywhere contain the conclusion that a country can be run on land based wind energy alone, nor does it say anything about solar (which is the current US mix that has a high share of single axis) costing more in O&M.
Nor does it contain the assumption that one power source can be subbed for another without taking into account *when* each power source produces. You cannot substitute them one for one. And you cannot assume transmission is unbouded and free.
You made all of that up and then proceded to try and use other people's words as an argument from authority.
Nobody anywhere is suggesting an all wind grid. It would be incredibly brittle.
Similarly nobody is suggesting an all solar one.
I guess this bizarre rant isn't harmful like the nuclear one though, so I'll leave you to keep raving,
Wind farms can be located as optimally as possible and the power transported where needed.
Storage, both at the plant and along the transmission path if necessary.
Not only does storage make power availability more constant, it can act as an aggregator and repeater. Bring in power from a thousand miles away to a storage station. Do so from multiple wind farms. Store the power and deliver it another thousand miles away to wherever it might be needed.
I think the concerns about optimal wind farm location have been obsolete for a very long time, particularly as storage options improve in cost and performance.
Storage is science fiction. We don't have the technology to store grid-scale power.
Power isn't "easy" to move with transmission lines: there are significant losses for long lengths. 3.1GW is nice, but the US's current generation capacity is roughly 3 orders of magnitude greater than this. The cost for Path 27 alone was $5.5B. Building just the transmission lines for what you describe would cost trillions, and that doesn't include the wind turbines.
> Storage is science fiction. We don't have the technology to store grid-scale power.
That's not true. We haven't built it yet. That does not mean it is fiction. We don't need it today.
> Power isn't "easy" to move with transmission lines: there are significant losses for long lengths.
Except for the few people who live off-grid, every single person on this planet is getting their power through transmission lines. Of course there's loss. So what? That's the way physics works.
> 3.1GW is nice, but the US's current generation capacity is roughly 3 orders of magnitude greater than this
No. Current generation capacity is 1,200 GW. Don't hand-wave to add drama. There's a huge difference between "rough" and "way off".
> Building just the transmission lines for what you describe would cost trillions
Well, yes. And that's what those proposing a transition to full electrification have to contend with and justify.
I am not justifying any of it. I am simply proposing that grid-scale solar does not seem to compare well with grid-scale wind. That's all. Don't go somewhere I am not going.
> What you describe isn't feasible.
Technically, it is absolutely feasible. I am even suggesting the wind-only option might be far more realizable than the wind + solar version of Tesla's Master Plan 3.
Financially? Well, Tesla's plan claims we need about ten trillion. You are welcome to argue against that plan if you'd like. I am not making a financial argument here other than to point out that I think wind would cost significantly less.
Here's a beautiful map of current wind generation resources. We could do a lot more than this:
238 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadIn the US, nuclear power is being replaced at several times the rate it is being decommissioned...by solar and wind, both of which are significantly cheaper. Those plants are being shut down because they don't make economic sense.
The biggest problem we have right now is that bitcoin mining operators are chewing up massive amounts of power, in many areas causing coal fired power plants to come back into service because of how much demand they're placing on the grid...and states are encouraging this, because it's helping prop up demand for coal.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and...
You have 3 power generation systems adjacent to each other. One is a massive solar power field. One is a massive wind turbine field. And one is a nuclear power plant. In the ideal conditions, all 3 generate an equivalent amount of power.
Suddenly, the sun goes down and all the wind stops. Which one is now generating the most power?
Unless you somehow solved storage at a low enough price for it to be viable, we need nuclear or fossil fuels up here - biofuels won't be enough.
Fixing this with trans-European energy transfers is a neat idea, but if you want to send power from i.e. a solar panel on a roof in Spain to my house in Finland, or wind energy from Denmark to Poland, then we'll require infrastructure upgrades at scales that haven't been seen in much of Europe since the early 50's.
Fossil fuels aren't a solution, and nuclear energy only a smaller part of it. You can see that if you look at the cost and potential in the IPCC report.
There is no way around a massive build out of renewable energy.
PS: I just checked energy charts, and saw that Poland has more wind in the winter as well
Alas, at least in Northern Europe, the grids are largely in private hands, and investments are kept down to the legal minimum. There's no way we go all-renewable until someone kicks that hornet's nest.
https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-w...
You know what also produces air pollution? Manufacturing and transport of wind turbines. Construction of hydro power dams. Manufacturing and distribution of solar panels. Mining, manufacturing and distribution of grid batteries. By your logic, no grid-scale source of energy is good enough. I hope you're browsing Hacker News using landfill-diverted computer hardware powered by a landfill-diverted off-grid solar power array, because otherwise your objections to nuclear power apply equally to your own life.
Just as an aside and a reasonable data point, I can't be the only person with a majority of formerly commercial refabbed EOL equipment (more than just computers + solar panels).
As a non urban Australian in a sparse area scoring and repurposing other people's "crap" has been a way of life for six decades .. nine for my father who is still actively trawling auction sites, curb dumps, and local tip sites.
If you use your own 'crap' for long enough, it's has the same impact: you just skip the step of switching ownership.
What artificially inflated prices? And...No? Nice strawman, though? Nuclear power plants have a massively expensive supply chain - their capex and opex expenses are huge, the highest of any form of generation. Every worker the plant requires, every manager, every gauge, every piece of pipe - all has a carbon footprint. And because it's for nuclear, all those parts are a lot more expensive because of all the documentation, engineering and reliability, and that means a higher carbon footprint.
> You know what also produces air pollution? Manufacturing and transport of wind turbines. Construction of hydro power dams. Manufacturing and distribution of solar panels. Mining, manufacturing and distribution of grid batteries.
All the things you name immediately start paying back 'dividends', solar/wind have a fraction of the opex, and produce electricity at a far lower cost than nuclear and are dropping in cost per GWhr, whereas nuclear plants take decades to "break even", only do so if you ignore the carbon footprint of their supply chain, and the cost of electricity from nuclear is going up.
> I hope you're browsing Hacker News using landfill-diverted computer hardware powered by a landfill-diverted off-grid solar power array, because otherwise your objections to nuclear power apply equally to your own life.
So cliche a response it's literally a meme.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
So what then? Are you still contending that constructing nuclear is a bad idea because the supply chain of a nontrivial endeavour has a non-zero carbon footprint?
And yes, memes are a meme for a reason. It seems strange that you think that an idea achieving meme status invalidates it? Are you trying to offer a response, or are you only interested in feeling like you want an Internet debate? I suppose if it’s the latter then… umm… well done? Well done on dodging the actual discussion at hand.
Other than the single time a mining group bought an old coal plant in NY, is there a single other example of this happening?
While I'm sure some folks would jump on that because it was using Fossil Fuels, I look at as it's profitable for crypto miners to use _excess_ energy where it's produced and would otherwise be wasted, which will happen regardless of how energy is sourced.
Scientific studies are clear: M. Lenzen ("between 10 and 130 g CO2-e/kWhel, with an average of 65 g") and E. Warner et G. Heath ("9 to 110 g CO‐eq/kWh by 2050")...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/eus-ageing-nucl...
Seek better sources.
There is a sibling comment to this one which is flagged and "dead". It was inflammatory in tone but something I would vouch for in substance. My advice to its author is to not give censcorious people an excuse to mob away your views. Avoid the hyperbole.
Greenpeace, for one reason or another, has been obsessed with nuclear power to the objective net detriment of the environment. Their activism has directly resulted in a strengthening of legacy fossil fuel industries and the increased reliance on fossil fuel consumption. Absent the campaigning by Greenpeace there would certainly be more, newer, safer nuclear energy reactors in Europe today. This would directly result in offsetting need for coal power — especially if Greenpeace had applied as much effort to opposing coal as they did nuclear power.
I understand the public as a whole is afraid because they remember events like Chernobyl and Fukushima, but those were pre-Generation-III reactors (Chernobyl was generation 1, Fukushima was generation 2). Modern designs are far safer. We've learned so much since the mid-20th century.
Micro-reactors in particular could become a huge boon to society. All US submarines and aircraft carriers have been nuclear-powered for decades; and it's been decades without any military reactor-related incidents.
The conspiracy theorist in my head wants to blame it on *someone* in the US government/industrial complex who stands to make a lot of money from selling other energy sources. :-/
https://www.engineering.com/story/why-is-fusion-power-is-alw...
It… really doesn't. Even someone with full control of a modern plant, who actively wanted to cause as terrible an accident as possible, would not be able to cause nearly that much damage. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are poisoning people right now
Maybe just me, but I would gladly take that risk vs the whole world becoming uninhabitable due to global warming, not to mention the possible nuclear fallout from WW3 due to global unrest.
The greatest political disappointment I've felt in recent years was when the Merkele government decided to shut down a bunch of Nuclear power-plants. It made up for it by burning coal.
She (and Schroeder) wasn't some puppet put there by Putin, the German people voted for her, several times over actually. It's their fault and their responsibility for the choices they made. That's how democracy works.
Next time choose your leaders more wisely, but sadly, I feel like no lessons have been learned in Germany and the voters will double down on their flawed ideology over reality.
So no matter what you vote for, it won't change anything.
The only country I know where there's a way to vote for particular issues is Switzerland.
Then Fukushima happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Closu...
The coal replaced the gas and french nuclear.
Just extrapolating the sequence, the next disaster will take place in a generation 3 reactor.
The gen 1 disaster left land uninhabitable, the gen 2 disaster just took some cleanup, therefore the gen 3 disaster will be a non-issue.
So at this point, we are concerned if the remains of people who would be killed by the asteroid, would also be slightly radioactive? An the 'remains' are being probably like finely pulverised ashes?
Like the containment building is basically a bunker, and the reactor vessel is like a thousand tons of steel. If any asteroid gets through that, the neighbourhood is already gone.
So many people pointed out Fukushima to me, and most of them did not know that the tsunami killed 10,000 people and radiation killed zero.
1) It's ridiculously expensive. LCOE is 5x the cost of solar and wind: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind/st...
2) Yes, still a lot more expensive once you take storage into account. Even for the most inefficient forms of storage: https://theecologist.org/2016/feb/17/wind-power-windgas-chea...
3) It takes about 12-20 years to build new plants. Solar/wind is 1-4 years.
4) 5x is an understatement. It's even more expensive if you properly account for insurance. Dealing with Fukushima cost $800 billion. This is unaccounted for in LCOE and taxpayers will be fully on the hook for whatever the next Fukushima.
5) New power plants aren't being built because it's too expensive. So, old ones are having their lives extended (the latest law in congress was about this). Older plants = more danger. Fukushima happened in large part because it was old.
6) Despite this many countries still build nuclear power. Why? Two reasons: 1) it shares nuclear military costs 2) it lets you build a bomb quickly.
China will probably make it cheap given the pace they're going building out nuclear plants.
What nations who currently invest into solar and wind are doing is to also invest in a lot of fossil fuel reserve energy, like natural gas. This is the official strategy of Germany, and is also the primary strategy of UK. In combination this is what caused the insane energy prices that Europe suffered this winter.
This is why I want a EU ban against building new fossil fuel capacity, especially natural gas. Solar and wind is great, but not if they are combined with natural gas, oil or coal. I loose a lot of trust in politics when green party politicians are advocating to maintain programs to subsidizes fossil fueled power plants while at the same time advocating to shut down nuclear power plants.
In term of insurance for accidents, here I would also advocate for a law that is technology independent. Any damaged suffered to third-parties because of a commercially operated power plant should be covered by insurance. Hydroelectric plants, nuclear power and all plants emitting green house gases would be impossible to cover but the symbolic gesture of such law would be interesting.
Unlike Poland, who quietly powers itself with 80% coal and attracts very little flak because 1) it didn't make the nuclear industry look unnecessary 2) it preferred to burn coal over gas from America's main geopolitical rival.
Decarbonised? They still have the worst CO2/KWh in Western Europe, and among the worst in Europe:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electric...
After literally decades of massive renewables investments and subsidies.
That's literally bullshit. Main import sources of uranium in France are Kzakhstan, Australia, and Canada. Please stop spouting Russian and/or Greenpeace propaganda.
What Poland really does now is quite different: https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/02/03/polands-second-larges...
There is also a huge loss of public trust when green party politicians are advocating to keep subsidizing fossil fuel plants. If environmentalist want to keep oil and natural gas plants, then how will the public be convinced of climate change? The strategy need to be clear and fossil fuel free, and if that solution is wind, solar and storage then that plan need to be up front and part of the budget discussions. It should not be the argument from environmentalists that we should be using natural gas because it happen to be cheaper that nuclear.
It seems like you already know why it's not realistic. Fossil fuels fulfill the role of a marginal power source very well, neither renewables nor nuclear can replace that role as of yet. There are still plenty of issues that need to be solved towards electrification, lets not make it unrealistically difficult for ourselves.
It is however not a policy I would advocate or vote for. I rather oppose fossil fuels especially when they are being subsidized through taxes. Europe can also not really handle an other winter, especially if the weather would not be exceptional mild. Bailouts can only be paid so many times before it becomes unrealistic.
This winter and perhaps the one after that as well will be interesting for sure, after that the major natural gas risk should be mitigated by having enough LNG terminals and supply. There is still quite a bit of leeway to reduce taxes on electricity, but when you're short on supply you might not want to incentivize electricity use.
Trying to disincentivize electricity use during periods of low supply do not work. Governments feel forced to step in if factories has to shut down or people can't heat their homes. Those not willing gets voted out, as was also demonstrated this winter.
All this is a local maximum where every action is rational but the result is terrible for everyone involved. Paying through taxes does not actually make the energy price low, and the massive cost to the environment will have to be paid at some point in the future.
More LNG terminals and more fossil fuel plants will not make the situation better. Demand through electrification is growing faster than the economic savings from using even more fossil fuels, and when winter comes the same scenario as last will occur. The only ones who will profit is those countries that export fossil fuels.
Why would you want this? Fossil fuels are very important for a working electricity grid. Natural gas is flexible and it outcompetes worse energy sources like coal or oil so it actually reduces the CO2 output compared to what it was before. Your suggestion would give us high electricity prices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
That's actually an interesting point. Japan etc. can raise that magnitude of funds, but the whole world benefits from countries that run on nuclear instead of coal and gas. Should we not all pay for that? For already-built reactors that's a bit late, but:
If there were a global standard for new reactors (which would obviously have to meet the minimum requirements of the most stringent participating country), multinationals could build to that spec without a lot of reinventing the wheel per regulatory environment as we do today, everyone would agree it's safe enough (presuming a safe environment; I don't know if a place like Afghanistan can provide that today), and everyone is equally (by GDP or so? TBD) on the hook for helping out if one of them has an incident.
Based on Fukshima being the only INES level >=5 incident in the past 30 years, and one of four since nuclear energy tech became somewhat established in the 1950s, on the hundreds of nuclear power plants that are still in service around the world (I don't know how many have been cumulatively, probably around 1-2k?), that would be stupidly cheap insurance per kWh produced.
I'm not anti-nuclear, but using decades to measure substances with half lifes on the order of tens or hundreds of millenia isn't very helpful.
The (legitimate) concern is that even low frequency accidents are frequent enough on the timescale of human civlization that they could present semi-permanent damage to the biosphere.
Burning coal, gas or oil present immediate, virtually permanent (at least on a human time scale) damages to the biosphere; hydro electric power already killed at least two more orders of magnitude people than even the most delirious casualty estimations of nuclear power accidents; and air pollution is estimated killing millions of people per year.
At some point, people should start learning to count.
(not saying that hydro is a bad choice; it looks to be the best when possible thanks to load following and ability to double as storage)
For example, how much methane compared to one cow?
All relevant points. I didn't mean to suggest that nuclear power is less safe than alternatives, just that the risk profile is different. The risks of nuclear power are in a long tail of infrequent but potentially large accidents so we can only understand its risks properly by looking at a long timeframe.
If you're accusing people of not learning to count, maybe you should look at the cost of solar, wind, and energy storage systems - and realize that nuclear is being phased out because it's too expensive, and that's despite nearly a century of heavy government subsidization.
It is, in fact, getting more expensive, while wind and solar get less expensive.
That's not a false choice, there is also hydro (unfortunately my country is more or less saturated there), solar (OK if you're a really sunny country and only need electricity during the day, not so great otherwise) and wind (30% average load factor, risible cost efficiency, huge surface required, needs to be rebuilt every ~10 years).
> maybe you should look at the cost of solar, wind, and energy storage systems - and realize that nuclear is being phased out because it's too expensive,
Tell me then, is that why Germany, after sinking dozens of billions over dozens of billions of euros in renewable, is still producing electricity with carbonation level closer to Bulgaria & Poland than France or Belgium, AND has to buy them electricity whenever there is no wind, and sell it at low price when there is too much wind?
But yes, please, show me these numbers.
Offshore is way better, up to .6
> risible cost efficiency
This is not true, see the LCOE:
> huge surface required
Offshore solves this and also offers quasi-sanctuaries to our over-exploited seas.
> needs to be rebuilt every ~10 years
https://www.tvindkraft.dk/en/history/the-first-40-years
Moreover the are more and more efficiently recycled.
Germany nowadays reduces its emissions faster than France, while losing its industry at a way slower pace. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
With an average at 560 gCO2/kWh vs. 47 gCO2/kWh, the opposite would be surprising.
CO2 emissions per capita: France 5.82t Germany 10.14t
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?...
Comparing derivative doesn't make much sense if the starting point is wildly different.
When do you think Germany's emissions per capita will be lower than France?
Indeed, however this is commonly done and I only state that upon this criteria things aren't exactly what they seem.
Moreover this is heavy industry: there is quite an inertia, therefore Germany (starting later with an immature approach (renewables) while dumping existing equipment (nuclear)) is facing an ordeal.
> When do you think Germany's emissions per capita will be lower than France?
This is difficult to predict because it is tied to future decisions and their results, however if France bets 100% on new reactors (either deliberately or because building new reactors continue to sucks too much money while not delivering) and doesn't tackle its current industrial crash it may be done by 2040.
As it stands, I would leave the markets, since apparently they're sooo effective, choose what power source would fill in the gaps.
The "Cultural Revolution" began in 1966.
In such a context an otherwise avoidable catastrophe may happen.
This Revolution followed the "Great Leap Forward" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward ), with famines. "In the subsequent famines of the early 1960s popularly attributed to the Great Leap Forward, Henan was one of the hardest hit and millions of lives were lost." Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henan#Modern_Era .
Moreover all this came after a civil war and a violent Japanese invasion, during which dams were bombed, causing "massive flooding in Henan" (same source).
Then a typhoon hit and many dams collapsed ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure#The_c... )
During decades predicting and adverting this catastrophe was possible, even when it unfolded people had days to react... but given such a context nobody was able to do so. One may wonder what an active nuclear reactor will become in such a context.
Estimations of nuclear power disasters are highly disputed, and some claims are very high ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... )
Also: you compare nuclear to fossil fuels, neglecting renewables.
The longer the half-life, the less radioactive something is. By definition.
Something with a half-life of "tens or hundreds of millenia" is not very radioactive.
Something with a half-life of infinity is not radioactive at all.
The really dangerous stuff tends to be isotopes like iodine-131 (half-life 8 days, accumulates in the thyroid gland), strontium-90 (half-life of about 29 years, accumulates in the bones).
Any such concern, if legitimate, should at least be fleshed out with some basic assumptions and numbers. What is the (rough, estimate) probability distribution of the number of deaths that this will cause? Then we can compare it with the danger of fossil fuels. Otherwise we're left with hand-wavy expressions like "accidents" and "frequent enough". What are we to do with such statements?
Nuclear power plants take decades to build and turn on.
Nuclear power has a non-zero risk of very, very bad things happening.
We have no long term strategy for storing nuclear waste.
And in the time it would take to build a single new nuclear reactor we're going to add a massive, massive amount of large scale storage. It's already well underway.
How far along is the next nuclear reactor?
No it's not. Maybe for the first plant of its kind.
Solar is already CHEEEEEAP and getting cheaper. Nuclear is expensive and not getting any cheaper, in fact quite the opposite.
Market forces are already making this apparent (money talks), but there are still pro nuclear lobbies DESPERATE to hold on.
> there are still pro nuclear lobbies DESPERATE to hold on.
First, caps don't make right. I believe NREs help in getting emissions down to a point, but since you need backup power I am not seeing it working at 80% production share. In order to emissions to get to zero I believe nuclear makes sense on the longer term.
An "international market" doesn't help with electricity: you can't transport electricity feasibly across oceans.
Underwater electricity links do exist, and many are planned. https://eepublicdownloads.entsoe.eu/clean-documents/Publicat...
However some existing links are encouraging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NorNed
Projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_power_cable#Proposed...
The underlying approach is not new and is rather rather quickly adopted and improved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects
There are more than a few countries nobody in their right mind would ever want to tie their power grid to.
That’s all. Nothing else.
Revealed preferences today show that it is a solution, given countries are currently happy to be dependent on other nations for the energy source via oil and gas imports. If importing oil and gas is acceptable, then importing solar should be equally acceptable, if not even more acceptable given you can import from more reliable allies instead of authoritarian rogue states that will engage in energy blackmail.
Your point of view seems to be that of wealthy or semi-wealthy and relatively stable nations, without massive rampant corruption. And sure, for those, it may very well work. Who am I to even have an opinion on that?
But who will accept to connect their power grid to that of those countries who are still having weekly, if not daily, blackouts?
The kind of country where corrupt officials accept being paid to get chemical waste dumped into their laps, and consider it a grand idea to dump those into their country’s power plants crude oil?
The kind of country where people just randomly plug themselves into power lines, without any consideration for safety, and regularly burn down a whole block because of it, and shut down power for an entire city in the process?
The kind of country currently facing a war, civil or otherwise, and who’s grid’s instability would affect anybody connected to them?
Nobody in their right mind would willingly expose themselves to such risks.
So sure, like you so eagerly anticipate, rich and stable countries will happily link their power grids together in some grand international energy market, and maybe it will, as you surmise, solve all their problems. I really have no opinion whatsoever on that.
But where do the others fit?
I'm with you except for this. Fear mongering about nuclear ("incredible risk") is inaccurate and isn't the way forward. We should save the fear mongering for fossil fuels where it belongs. Renewables are better than nuclear due to the lower cost, and that's mostly it, there aren't other differentiating factors that matter all that much.
If there were, I don't think they'd tell anyone. So maybe it's a trust thing. People know for sure that a wind turbine can't poison nearby communities to death no matter what goes wrong. Personally I'd prefer nuclear, but also this kind of distrust is the only way we can get more transparency.
Excuse me, what? There are quite literally ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents at this very moment. The fact that they started decades ago is hardly a consolation.
This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the pro-nuclear crowd. Maybe if we could manage to contain the waste we've already created (or at the very least if pro-nucs would admit we can't), I might have some faith in our ability to contain the waste we make in the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
> This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the pro-nuclear crowd. Maybe if we could manage to contain the waste we've already created (or at the very least if pro-nucs would admit we can't), I might have some faith in our ability to contain the waste we make in the future.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
GP specifically referenced "submarines and aircraft carriers"; Hanford is neither.
There is a cleanup at Hanford, which is understandable for one of the earliest reactors. I think calling it "ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents" is misleading, since it was the normal operation.
Again, GP:
"We've learned so much since the mid-20th century."
Nothing is going to be perfect. All the data I've seen is that nuclear power is safer and has fewer casualties. Picking one of the earliest sites from 70 years ago ignores everything since, as well as comparison to fatalities due to other forms of power generation.
To paraphrase you, "This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the _anti_-nuclear crowd."
> calling it "ongoing military nuclear reactor incidents" is misleading, since it was the normal operation.
I can't tell what you mean by "it was the normal operation". I can assure you that the plant was not designed to be in a state of constant leakage and need billions of dollars of continuous investment per year to facilitate its cleanup process for decades without end.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. The plant was designed to leak radioactive waste into the Columbia River under normal operation. But that was considered safe, at that time. Just as many nuclear things are now considered safe, at this time. For instance the Monticello leak less than 6 months ago, which was covered up for months before the news finally got out. Perfectly safe, at this time.
If we've really learned so much since whenever, let's use that knowledge to clean up all the messes we made along the way first. Once we know we can do that well, perhaps we can take on more projects. Until then we're the Junior Dev hopping from greenfield project to greenfield project leaving giant steaming piles of shit behind at every stop and telling ourselves "welp, I definitely learned from that experience! no way I'm doing that again!"
> This kind of wool-pulling makes it very hard to trust the _anti_-nuclear crowd.
I'm not asking anyone to trust me, I'm not an energy expert and never claimed to be. I'm just asking them to not lie in order to push a nuclear agenda. In general, if a concept is truly with pursuing, it should be able to be presented via a convincing argument without lies.
Or you don't understand why people wouldn't want to be left holding the cleanup bill after the company running a power station or mine or mill declared bankruptcy before finishing decomissioning?
Or you don't understand why people wouldn't support ecocide, corruption and worker exploitation in Niger or Uzbekistan to line the pockets of a uranium mining oligopoly?
The article is a bit light on numbers and facts, unfortunately. Hard to tell if this is a serious study or paid "study" by some lobby with an agenda. I suspect the latter. It certainly seems to be very selective in what it talks about. And it would explain the hand waviness of the reported "findings".
It kind of makes a big point of avoiding talking about investments in renewables because "In 1985, the closure of reactors in Tennessee Valley prompted a spike in coal use". That's nearly four decades ago. Most of those coal plants have probably been closed by now. And conveniently, wind and solar investments were not a thing at the time.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw
Have we? There is a nuclear plant being shelled in Ukraine and the US is still arguing over where to dump its waste. Japan is looking to release a million tons of radioactive water into the sea. Those are the ones I can think of that are happening right now. There are plenty more in and out of the news.
I don’t think knowledge is cumulative, it has to be re-learned ever so often.
In relation to the US navy - here is an accident that was covered up 16 years ago. I do not believe there have been none since.
https://apnews.com/article/559da885ca7c3f6252d67e400e92a846
Understood about the concern that if they tried to hide a problem once, they’ll probably try to hide one again. But 16 years ago isn’t accurate with the link you shared.
That’s an understatement, good catch.
They assume they'll be replaced with fossil fuels. So really the title should be "burning more fossil fuels will increase air pollution".
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
With regulators looking to tip the scales against non-renewables for emissions reasons, there is a huge push on to rehabilitate nuclear as a pragmatic solution to the forecast storage and base load issues over the next 50 (ish) years while we build out renewables. Proponents say modern nuclear reactors are net-better than coal and opponents point to the tail risk. Personally, I am pro nuclear but I certainly see the opposing viewpoint. I think it’s a tricky issue because humans are wired for identification of harms like tigers or 3000 people suddenly dying in a catastrophe. It’s much harder to grasp tail risk harms like 5200 excess deaths from pollution and harder still to turn that into action.
Here's a chart of net energy generation in the US by source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/
The last couple of years are noisy (gas actually went down and coal bounced back up one year) but the long term trend is for wind and solar to continue to extend their lead.
edit: to be clear, because this is a little ambigous
> Natural gas is by far the fastest growing energy source in the US by total output.
Gas is still the biggest energy source for electricity in the US by far, but it's not the fastest growing by far. Definitely not in percentage terms but also recently, not in absolute change either.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-production-by...
Natural gas increased 62,675 from 1,626,790 to 1,689,465.
Wind increased 96,874 from 337,938 to 434,812.
Utility-scale Solar increased 56,399 from 89,199 to 145,598
And the deployment of solar seems to be rapidly picking up speed.
Specifically, it looks like they're using the grid makeup as of 2015 to calculate what would be used if nuclear disappeared overnight.
You can't just put solar or wind power generation anywhere you want, because solar needs sun and wind needs wind.
Yes, I know, it's a wild concept.
So, in order to shut down Nuclear, looks like the best alternative is to replace them with fossil fuels because there's no good alternative with renewables.
Because probably those nuclear plants are in places where the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow?
Apologies to everyone for the upcoming tangential rant.
Am I the only person who is exhausted with news outlets disingenuously comparing the US to all other individual countries as if that is a fair comparison? A quick google search shows there are 108 reactors operating in the European Union, which is 16 more than in the US. Yes, this also means that the US has more reactors operating per person than the EU.
But why can't news outlets just say that? Why do we default to comparing the absolute number of most things in the United States to individual western countries? This was at its worst during COVID but it seems to have stuck. It makes for a completely misleading narrative.
It’s also quite rare that a news story spends time talking positively about a subject, unless it is something emotionally charged (marine vet surprises family by coming home early) or is part of a submarine PR push by the subject of the piece (university researcher finds curse for cancer).
The fact we are reading English news probably accounts for a good part of that bias.
my dream is to have the main reactors give a lot of the power and then have smaller reactors that use those waste products to turn them into shorter half-lived materials. if i recall correctly liquid salt thorium was something that was trying to do that and it also had the feature that it failed safe instead of a meltdown.
The problem is, we can see and measure it. If anything went wrong, it’d be clear who messed up, so it requires actual time and effort to do it right. That’s yucky. People like it more when the waste is invisible and airborne, for the wind and their children to deal with instead of them. This provides a better level of blame dispersion.
As they say, out of sight out of mind.
https://international.andra.fr/operational-facilities
The total amount (from the beginning of France's nuclear energy production 50+y ago) of highly radioactive, non-reusable waste fits in a cube not bigger than the Eiffel tower, and the goal is to bury that in geological storage, but dumb politics are opposing this (for dumb reasons that were debunked a thousand times).
France is also in the middle of experiencing a huge amount of maintenance costs due to many of their reactors coming up to critical age milestones. But it's often hidden under the massive layers of obfuscation due to being masked under the total French energy budget.
Partially true. In geographies like New England that aren’t very sunny or windy nuclear makes more economic sense, and in all geographies as a hedge against long bouts of unusual weather.
You need your baseload to come from a steady, highly available, weather independent source. Nuclear is basically this only carbon free solution ticking the boxes.
For that last 20%, building more grid connections towards the equator is again still cheaper than nuclear.
It is likely better to use gas peaker plants for rare times without renewables and extract the CO2 later when sun is shining.
https://www.ge.com/gas-power/future-of-energy/hydrogen-fuele...
All the money wasted on nuclear can then be put towards electrification of emissions sources which are vastly more important than that last 0.5% of emissions (which will further increase the flexibility as it does so).
I guess you don't realize that much of New England's power already comes from renewables. Remember they get hydro power from Quebec. Maine gets 2/3 of its power from renewables.
Which leads to my second point: your power generation doesn't need to be right next to you.
And in any case, off shore wind is plentiful, and New England isn't the Arctic, it still gets plenty of sun year round.
https://sponsored.bostonglobe.com/future-forward/the-gradual...
EDF already went bankrupt like, last week.
Even despite all of this France is expecting the % of electricity sourced from nuclear power to decline - new plants aren't being built fast enough to replace those aging out.
Because the costs thet sell at are capped, regardless of what it costs them to generate (and those costs exploded in some areas due to the war and the common European power market), which was the right choice to protect consumers from energy poverty.
57% and trending rather sharply downward.
You're also thinking of Uruguay for that CO2 thing, or maybe Sweden.
They do this tirelessly with health, education, etc... They do it because this is how some people understand the world; a series of orthogonal comparisons thought of as one through false comparison. It's an exercise of marginalizing the readers understanding of competing arguments. Instead of thinking analytically about the arguments and the situation at hand, the reader is invited to think, "This problem is solved, and thus so should be yours."
It's certainly a fair comparison: they're comparing countries to countries. It may not be a helpful comparison, because no two countries are equivalent in all ways other than the number of nuclear reactors they have.
But, if the point they're making is that no other country would have as much of an effect on air quality by shutting down nuclear power at the national policy level, I think it's fine. Your statistic is also useful, but since air pollution crosses borders, I think talking about absolute rather than per capita is also fine.
I guess what I'm saying is that this didn't bother me.
First, the sentence itself doesn't strike me as lending itself to the idea that "the point they're making is that no other country would have as much of an effect on air quality by shutting down nuclear power at the national policy level". If the author wants to portray this point, why don't they actually say so in the article, instead of indirectly alluding to it? The sentence in question strikes me more as an exaggerated fun fact to grab the reader's attention and make them gasp, than as a way to set the context of the situation.
Second, the nuclear reactors are shutting down due to rate-setting policy issues on the *state* level, not the at the federal policy level. So it becomes again a disingenuous comparison, because each state can take their own individual course of action to prevent shutdown (or not). The "US" as a whole, that is to say the federal govt, is likely powerless in this situation unless they can get a bipartisan bill passed which is unlikely. Even if passed it's just kicking the can until the rates issues are fixed.
https://www.naml.org/policy/documents/2022-12-12%20Position%...
(US) National Association of Marine Laboratories: https://insidestory.org.au/water-water-everywhere/
No disclosure needed for something as minor as this.
How much lower should the reporting limit be? "Someone brought a banana for lunch!"? You can certainly measure "elevated levels of radioactivity at 5123456mBq!" there and then claim a coverup because nobody reported it...
In trying to understand energy transition I have come to the conclusion that neither grid-scale solar nor nuclear are the answer. Wind, however, seems to be. It isn't hard for people to understand why wind is likely a better idea than nuclear. I won't waste any time exploring that comparison.
Wind, I have learned, seems to be massively better than solar across many vectors. BTW, I am not talking about offshore wind. Not sure that compares well at all.
Frankly, I used to think we really needed a large number (200+) of new nuclear power plants to be able to make a full transition to electric ground, sea and air transport as well as 100% electrification of homes and various industrial processes. From my current perspective I think it might be far more intelligent to focus on using wind for grid-scale, no grid-scale solar and residential/commercial solar + storage for local load mitigation.This is where I disagree with Tesla's Master Plan 3. I don't think that grid-scale solar is a good idea at all.
Wind and solar are negatively correlated. Adding both reduces storage and makes the system more robust https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_relationship
We don't need to think regionally. We can move power thousands of miles. Yes, of course, it's easier over the ocean, however, we have the means to do so over land as well. For reference, a project from UK is moving power from approximately 4000 km away (Morocco).
In other words, if wind --as I believe is the case-- has significant advantages over solar, we can locate wind wherever it makes sense and then move the power as far and wide as needed. We could spider out to various storage facilities and distribute to towns and cities.
The point is, power is easy to move. We already do it.
> Now compare wind and solar and existing hydro and 2-5% w2e to just wind instead of just wind vs. just solar
I don't understand why you are asking for this comparison. My point is that grid-scale solar is a bad idea, by itself or mixed with something else, including wind. I gave most of the reasons in support of this conclusion in the comment you responded to.
With solar we are starting with a technology that does not produce any power half the time, every day, forever. Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 (MPP3) figure 12 shows a close-up chart of a few days in July in the US. I reproduce it here for convenience:
https://i.imgur.com/HTxWL6o.png
The variability of solar over time is massive. Not so for wind. particularly if located optimally and geographically distributed.
In the US you cannot do any better with solar than that picture. Clouds, rain, snow and dirt will turn this:
https://i.imgur.com/aNnbmDp.png
Into this nightmare:
https://i.imgur.com/breTHQd.png
And so, reliability, capacity factor, availability, or whatever measure or term one might care to use for solar is always significantly inferior to that of wind. There's data on this.
My question is rooted in optimization at many levels (list is not exaustive):
Looking back at MPP3, table 6, we can ask a fundamental question: No new nuclear or hydro. The table, is reduced to onshore and offshore wind and solar. The total for those technologies is 5,087 GW. That's what we have to build. That's the challenge.My question is simple:
Looking at the numbers, I cannot find justification for building almost any grid-scale solar.Let me give you a simple example of this...
Solar requires at least four times more storage than wind to reach the same or similar reliability.
I'll assume batteries.
Well, that means at least four times more mining, processing, factories, CO2 emissions, damage to the ecosystem, transportation, installation and maintenance costs, mean time between failure, waste, recycling costs and effects, etc.
And that's just one of my comparison vectors. Isn't that enough to at least question the decision?
No?
OK. The land-use ratio isn't something that can be ignored. The same 5,087 GW capacity would use about 2.5% of California if it was wind. Solar would require 30% of the State. Just think about what that implies in terms of every single factor that goes into building and maintaining such systems.
This is why I argue grid-scale solar isn't making sense to me. Why use 12 times the lan...
You are willfully failing to understand the concept of correlation. Sun and wind are anticorrelated in most regions. Adding both reduces the storage needed. It doesn't increase it. Condescendingly stating that solar alone requires 12 hours of batteries does not make it any less true that solar + wind is superior to wind.
Transmission costs money and raw materials and depending on it entirely (as an all wind or all nuclear solution would) makes the whole system brittle.
Seeing as you are positing zero cost for transmission you can just put all of the solar in the least cloudy areas with 30% capacity factor and uncorrelated weather.
Given the assumption of no transmission costs, try this tool:
https://model.energy
Using real costs for real projects that actually exist, and "dispatchable 1" to model existing hydro, you can solve for the optimal mix:
https://model.energy/?results=3491f4124100114a1c3ba169663903...
It almost always involves solar, because PV is the cheapest energy source by at least a factor of two over about 70% of the inhabited world.
The smaller the region and the less long distance transmission, the more correlated the wind and the more solar is optimal.
https://model.energy/?results=732e5306df0bde74aa22f57433e588...
https://model.energy/?results=e0560182e98eef88fa715ec2a0b118...
Plus tilting solar (which this tool does not model) in some regions matches the CF of wind.
Some transmission, some solar, some wind, and some other/hydro will always be a better toolbox to have than just wind and transmission.
Throwing solar away entirely because of an irrational response to the isolated results of a specific residential install with no transmission is just as crazy as trying to shoe-horn more LWRs than it is possible to fuel even once into the solution.
Also you're not putting enough constraints on your land use estimates to make the numbers comparable in any coherent way. A high coverage fixed tilt system at low latitude has a coverage ratio of about 90% or 180W (nameplate) per m^2. A single axis system has a lower coverage ratio around 100W/m^2 but a higher capacity factor. You can't go using median CF if you're assuming transmission is free (what was that about how stupid people who assume averages for everything are?), you'd be putting all your solar in the southwest where capacity factors are 30% for 50% coverage ratios and the *net* energy per unit area would be higher than what you're assuming for nameplate. In either case your figures for land use are not consistent with your assumptions.
Finally wind isn't infinite. You can't just go and find another TW of world class wind resource. There is plenty if used sensibly, but you can't magic more out of nothing.
No, I am not.
I am saying that this correlation is irrelevant because wind has overwhelming advantages over solar.
> A single axis system has a lower coverage ratio around 100W/m^2 but a higher capacity factor.
Tilting/tracking systems are a nightmare that is horribly expensive to maintain long term. It makes no sense to consider them at grid scale.
> irrational response to the isolated results of a specific residential install
These conclusions have nothing to do with a residential installation. Pretty much all the data comes from Tesla's plan, the references they provide and other reputable references.
> what was that about how stupid people who assume averages for everything are?
You can't control yourself, can you? I have tried, time and time again, to have a conversation with you over multiple threads. You simply cannot do this without resorting to insults. How sad.
I am curious: What is your solution and how do you justify it?
Do you agree with the findings and plan from Tesla's Master Plan Part 3?
No?
Why?
Don't post a wall of links. Do the work and post a cogent argument people can attempt to follow and discuss.
And stop insulting people in every thread you participate in. It makes it very difficult to develop any level of respect for what you are saying.
If you disagree with the findings from the tesla plan (such as by blindly asserting that changing all the solar to wind will work without reference) then it's on you to back it up.
That’s a lie!
Provide a link and a quote from a comment where I do that.
And you did say “repeatedly”, this should be easy.
You cannot, because I don’t do that.
Single axis tilting bifacial is overwhelmingly the cheapest, lowest maintenance cost per energy, lowest LCOE energy in any location with good solar resource.
https://list.solar/news/single-axis-bifacial/
https://emp.lbl.gov/utility-scale-solar/
It makes no sense to build out $30/MWh 35% CF wind resource which you will curtail 30% of or $60/MWh offshore wind when there is $20/MWh 30% CF solar available that produces during the lulls (thus decreasing your storage and curtailment needs).
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has already shown this is a bad idea.
The summary reads (emphasis mine):
"Annual energy simulations were updated to evaluate the kWh/m2 boost achieved in single-axis tracking systems using bifacial modules. Measured bifacial energy gains of 7%-9% and rear irradiance gains of 11% were recorded, agreeing with modeled expectation within 1%-2% absolute, and matching global average expectation. Additional system energy gains of 0.5%-1.5% are predicted to be achieved by optimizing tracker behavior, adapting to cloudy conditions."
Figure 10a shows a best-case maximum annual energy production gain of 1% to 1.3% (aproximately).Why?
Because, among other things, if you tilt panels you can't pack them in so tightly. That's basic geometry. In fact, if you do the math, it is better to reduce the geographically-dictated optimal tilt angle and fix it at a lower angle in favor of tighter packing. Put simply, rows of panels will cast a shadow on the panels behind the row.
Also, ground-bounce inside the array is seriously curtailed by shading. Bifacial is interesting for some types of installations, not necessarily for grid-scale, where they gains could be in the order of 1% or less.
Wait! How did we go from 9% gains to 1% annual energy gains? What?
Because SOLAR PANELS DO NOT PRODUCE ANY ENERGY FOR 50% OF THE DAY. And, SOLAR PANELS ARE DEEPLY AFFECTED BY CLOUDS, WEATHER AND DIRT. Which means that a 9% power generation gain measured while operating ends-up translating into 1% or less in energy collection gains in a year.
Don't agree?
Well, go argue with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory then. You must know more than they do. Here:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/72039.pdf
You are still missing the most important point: The advantages for wind are very large and across a range of parameters. You are talking about 1% gains by adding complex and costly-to-maintain tracking systems. I am talking about achieving 95% reliability with 1/4 the storage requirements, with 1/12 the land, 33% lower maintenance cost, etc. Not even close.
The 1% is the additional gain for smart tracking algorithms (such as going to 0 degree tilt during diffuse light) on top of the bifacial gain of 5-15% which is on top of the tilting gain of 15-25%. This is stated clearly in the paper.
Take this EIA report as an example (california utility installations have a high share of single axis): https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
The amount of overprovision needed to provide a consistent monthly output is lower with wind and solar than with either alone. Wind outperforms solar watt for watt significantly in winter. Solar outperforms wind marginally in summer, but at $0.7-1.1/W for a 2022 tilting system vs $1.10-1.30/W for wind. This trend is echoed on a day to day and hour to hour basis as well.
Repeating unsubstantiated statistics based on comparing an all wind system to an all solar system also doesn't add anything to the discussion.
You are correct in that bifacial tilting systems don't magically increase GHI, but they do provably gather the valuable off-noon energy much more cost effectively (whilst leaving 30-40% of the noon energy on the table). More importantly they gather a much larger proportion of diffuse light, so the minima aren't as low during cloudy weather.
The energy produced by 100 acres of wind requires 1200 acres of solar...and you are going on and on about a purported 5%, 10%, 25% gain.
Who gives a fuck?
Any accountant would take a 100 acre solution over a 1200 acre nightmare.
You seem to be exquisitely capable of attempting to derail conversations with irrelevant noise.
These are facts from Tesla's Master Plan Part 3 and the sources they list.And you are arguing over an imaginary 25% gain? Even if you are right, the comparison isn't even close.
If you want to invalidate my ideas about wind, attack the list I just reprinted above --which means, attack the data and sources provided by Tesla.
BTW, operation and maintenance costs on a fixed solar system --per MPP3-- is already 33% greater than solar. Tracking solar is even more expensive. I don't have a clue how much. I'll guess 50% (and I'll be I am right).
You are missing the forest for the trees.
Have a good life.
The choice to go on a tangent where you ranted about the improvement of a smart tilting algorithm being 1% was yours.
Also I'm not arguing against the tesla master plan. It's founded on the assumption of roughly doubling final energy in the US rather than putting any effort into efficiency (such as by spending one of those trillions on transit, insulation and missing middle housing), but this is to be expected from a car and battery company asking for handouts. It also has a few slightly pessimistic generalisations and assumes the regulatory hurdles for solar will stay, but the inflation driven costs for wind will not. But over all it is fine, and is a broad overview related to reality.
It does not anywhere contain the conclusion that a country can be run on land based wind energy alone, nor does it say anything about solar (which is the current US mix that has a high share of single axis) costing more in O&M.
Nor does it contain the assumption that one power source can be subbed for another without taking into account *when* each power source produces. You cannot substitute them one for one. And you cannot assume transmission is unbouded and free.
You made all of that up and then proceded to try and use other people's words as an argument from authority.
Nobody anywhere is suggesting an all wind grid. It would be incredibly brittle.
Similarly nobody is suggesting an all solar one.
I guess this bizarre rant isn't harmful like the nuclear one though, so I'll leave you to keep raving,
Power is easy to move using transmission lines. For example, the Pacific DC Intertie is over 846 miles (1,361 km) long. It moves 3.1 GW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
Path 27 is 488 miles (785 km) and carries 2.4 GW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_27
Wind farms can be located as optimally as possible and the power transported where needed.
Storage, both at the plant and along the transmission path if necessary.
Not only does storage make power availability more constant, it can act as an aggregator and repeater. Bring in power from a thousand miles away to a storage station. Do so from multiple wind farms. Store the power and deliver it another thousand miles away to wherever it might be needed.
I think the concerns about optimal wind farm location have been obsolete for a very long time, particularly as storage options improve in cost and performance.
Power isn't "easy" to move with transmission lines: there are significant losses for long lengths. 3.1GW is nice, but the US's current generation capacity is roughly 3 orders of magnitude greater than this. The cost for Path 27 alone was $5.5B. Building just the transmission lines for what you describe would cost trillions, and that doesn't include the wind turbines.
What you describe isn't feasible.
That's not true. We haven't built it yet. That does not mean it is fiction. We don't need it today.
> Power isn't "easy" to move with transmission lines: there are significant losses for long lengths.
Except for the few people who live off-grid, every single person on this planet is getting their power through transmission lines. Of course there's loss. So what? That's the way physics works.
> 3.1GW is nice, but the US's current generation capacity is roughly 3 orders of magnitude greater than this
No. Current generation capacity is 1,200 GW. Don't hand-wave to add drama. There's a huge difference between "rough" and "way off".
> Building just the transmission lines for what you describe would cost trillions
Well, yes. And that's what those proposing a transition to full electrification have to contend with and justify.
I am not justifying any of it. I am simply proposing that grid-scale solar does not seem to compare well with grid-scale wind. That's all. Don't go somewhere I am not going.
> What you describe isn't feasible.
Technically, it is absolutely feasible. I am even suggesting the wind-only option might be far more realizable than the wind + solar version of Tesla's Master Plan 3.
Financially? Well, Tesla's plan claims we need about ten trillion. You are welcome to argue against that plan if you'd like. I am not making a financial argument here other than to point out that I think wind would cost significantly less.
Here's a beautiful map of current wind generation resources. We could do a lot more than this:
https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/#3.94/38.94/-93.1
BTW, here are wind resources across the US according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/images/US_wind_reso...
Interesting thing is that power is proportional to the cube of wind velocity. A little more wind makes a lot more power.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-is...