this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago (32 children)

Yeah no shit. We already knew nuclear was not profitable, but it’s clean & makes tons of power, so it’s a good deal for everyone that isn’t a business & wants cheap & clean energy.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (23 children)

The question has always been what does one do when the renewables aren't providing enough power (ex: nights, etc). The current solution is natural gas. It would be a big improvement if we would use a carbon-free source like nuclear instead.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity is an old and proven method for load balancing intermittent power sources. Would like to see more of that as geography permits.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The "as geography permits" part is a big obstacle, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Actually it isn't if you stop only looking at places that are also suitable as power plant, that is, have a big river flowing through them.

You can do pumped hydro in an old mineshaft.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

According to the article, the researchers concluded that nuclear reactors are not a good fit for that role.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The growing idea is to just have a shit load of renewables, everywhere. The wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun shines through the clouds. If you have a ridiculous excess total capacity then even when you're running at limited capacity you could still cover the demand. Basically, most of our renewable infrastructure would actually be curtailed or offline a lot of the time.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Here's an example of what can be done with 5 hours of storage. 5 hours is a 25% participation rate of V2G where the participants offer a third of their battery capacity.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100pct-renewable-grid-for-australia-is-feasible-and-affordable-with-just-a-few-hours-of-storage/

If going with the (false) assumption that nuclear can hit 100% grid penetration, it would take decades to offset the carbon released by causing a single year of delay.

The lowest carbon "let's pretend storage is impossible and go with 100% nuclear" would still start with exclusively funding VRE.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

consumers may also help reduce system costs by adapting their electricity consumption to the availability of renewable energy

From the linked paper. They mention some other options for storage like batteries (plenty of environmental issues there though) but based on the quoted text I have a hard time taking this seriously if they actually expect people to change their behavior.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Plug in car. Press the "I would like to only pay $100/yr to fuel this please" button.

Later when you leave for work press the "I would like the house to be cool when I get home and also want to pay half as much for AC" button.

Buy the 1.5m wide water heater that stores 10kWh of hot water and lasts a week between heatings rather than the 70cm one that lasts a day.

Such an unconscionable burden.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Profitability is so much not the point here and also, there's no reason for different energy production sources (especially ones that are base power vs incidental power) to be in conflict. Do both of them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We don't have to like it but unfortunately profitability is by far the number one driver for...well everything. So little is accomplished by way of altruism. People are greedy. The best way to successfully incentivize climate action is for environmentally friendly actions to become the most profitable and be advertised as such.

So I agree with you that both options should be used. But I disagree that profitability is not the point. Money is always the point and always has been.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Price of energy is key to the success of every economy.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

That's not difficult. Nuclear is extremely expensive.

With renewables you just sell it to the grid for whatever gas generated electricity is going for. Which is currently still a fucking lot. Thanks Russia.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nah, the power company likes the profits from nuclear way better.

The secret is that they can bill the ratepayers for all the cost overruns, while keeping the extra profits on the cost-plus construction contract for the shareholders.

(Source: I'm a Georgia Power ratepayer being absolutely reamed for Plant Vogtle 3 and 4, and the Georgia Public Service Commission isn't doing a single goddamned thing to hold Georgia Power to account or to help people like me.)

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Stop all the hate for nuclear. It's just a way for the fossil fuel industry to cause infighting among those of us who care about the climate. If we can make energy free or close to it, we should. The closer everything comes to being free the better.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Nuclear is the future. Stop trying to deny it. We should all be running it by now this shit was made like 60 years ago. But no, we'll just eat smog I guess. Damn my feeds are kind of depressing today.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fission is today. Fusion is the future.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

It blows my mind we are avoiding this? You want jobs? Clean stable energy? Its fucken here dude. Just build some plants. They only need to be properly maintained to avoid disaster. If we truly are an intelligent species that should be easy as hell.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They only need to be properly maintained

And there is the issue.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

"disaster" is a big word for what happens with a nuclear accident.

The fire in Hawaï or the climate change are disasters. A hurricane is a disaster. Chernobyl or fukushima were disasters in the media much more than in the reality of things.

Cars kill more people every year than nuclear energy did since we use it. In fact, this is still true even if you account for atomic bombs...

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

K, but this isn't about profits. This is about not destroying the environment, which nuclear can help with (you know if nobody bombs the plant)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (18 children)

But it's also about cost. Nuclear is far more expensive upfront, more expensive to maintain, and more expensive to decommission. Cheap, agile renewables will be an easier option for the vast majority of the planet

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Everything is about profits. Otherwise we wouldn't even be in this mess.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

More profitable AND safer. Humans are too stupid, lazy and bureaucratic to use nuclear.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Until we are able to sort out the cost/tech to make a green-sourced grid (such that the role of utilities is to capture surpluses from when the sun shines and the wind blows and sell it back when transient sources aren't producing) nuclear is going to be an important part of a non-carbon-producing energy portfolio.

Already it's cheaper to bring new solar and wind online than any other sort of electrical production; the fact that those are transient supply sources is the last major obstacle to phasing carbon fuels entirely out of the grid. If nuclear can be brought safely online it could mean pushing the use of fossil energy entirely into use cases where energy density is critical (like military aviation)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

If we had an energy system owned by the people and not ran for profits, nuclear would be a viable, and probably even the preferred, option. We do not. We're probably going to have to fix that to get a practical and reliable clean energy grid.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Its a relatively recent development however since the panels and turbines got quite a bit cheaper. Nowadays solar/wind ends up fairly similar and Nuclear is about 3x the price (with gas being more and coal being nearly 7x more). That is only some of the story as you need some storage as well but it doesn't end up in favour of Nuclear. 15 years ago Nuclear was a clear win, its just not anymore the price of Solar come down fast.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Gotta love anti nuclear activists getting more and more desperate. You're being decarbonised. Please do not resist.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If we measured the amount of destruction to our environment that fossil fuels cost long-term I bet they'd stop being profitable really quick.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Who fucking cares about profit, our planet is dying.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What about when the grid is almost entirely renewables? Is nuclear cheaper than just storage? What about storage one it's already been implemented to the point of resource scarcity?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

No, nuclear is always more expensive in real world conditions. Places with mostly renewables plus in-fill from batteries and transient gas generation are a lot cheaper than nuclear. eg. South Australia.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This is such a weird thing to research because a government (or governments) can directly or almost directly control what is profitable in a society based upon what is needed.

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