Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
do not let "perfect" be the enemy of "good enough"
edit: quick addendum, I really cannot stress this enough, everyone who says nuclear is an imperfect solution and just kicks the can down the road -- yes, it does, it kicks it a couple thousand years away as opposed to within the next hundred years. We can use all that time to perfect solar and wind, but unless we get really lucky and get everyone on board with solar and wind right now, the next best thing we can hope for is more time.
I completely agree with everything you said except for ONE little thing:
You are grossly misrepresenting how far that can is kicked down, for the worse. It doesn't kick it down a couple thousand years, it kicks it down for if DOZENS of millennia assuming we stay at the current energy capacity. Even if we doubled or tripled it, it would still be dozens of millennia. First we could use the uranium, then when that is gone, we could use thorium and breed it with plutonium, which would last an incomprehensibly longer time than the uranium did. By that point, we could hopefully have figured out fusion and supplement that with renewable sources of energy.
The only issue that would stem from this would be having TOO much energy, which itself would create a new problem which is heat from electrical usage.
Then you just move the planet slightly further away from the sun! Problem solved!
No man you gotta move the moon closer, since it's cold
I like the cut of your jib, sir.
The U235 is good for about 3 years, and pinning everything on something that has never had more than a half proof of concept is a bad choice.
As if breeder reactors don't exist
Some of the biggest blunders of all time come across because too many people let perfect be the Nemesis of good
Why is it supposed to be easier to get people onboard with nuclear (which is decreasing) than wind and solar (which are increasing at triple the rate of the nuclear construction peak in the 80s and growing at 20% p.a.)?
People are on board with VRE. Some of the are on board with nuclear too, but it's not working.
Nucleur isn't all it's cracked up to be, maybe it would be economical if we had heavily invested in the tech decades ago. But current plants have major issues, here is a snippet from another article:
The study also questions the reliability of the nuclear fleet, particularly given the dramatically low availability of French power plants this year – nearly half of the 56 nuclear reactors were closed even though the EU was in a complicated period of electricity supply with frequent peaks in the price of electricity above €3/kWh.
The availability of this electrical source is also questioned in view of the increasingly frequent droughts expected in the coming years, causing, in particular, low river flows and therefore associated problems of cooling power plants.
I really cannot stand that phrase because it’s commonly used as poor rationale for not favoring a superior approach. Both sides of the debate are pushing for what they consider optimum, not “perfection”.
In the case at hand, I’m on the pro-nuclear side of this. But I would hope I could make a better argument than to claim my opponent is advocating an “impossible perfection”.
But that is exactly what's happening. People are pretending like the alternative to investing in nuclear is living off 100% renewables from tomorrow.
Buying time isn't a great argument for nuclear when it takes so much longer than wind or solar to build a plant - median time of 88 months to build a nuclear plant compared to 8-14 for solar.
People will get on board when they see the cost per kwh.
So best time to do it was 88 months ago... What the next best time to do it?
Doing solar that's several times faster to build, cheaper per kwh, and doesn't require digging radioactive bullshit out of the ground seems like a better idea, no?
The answer is actually both. Highly developed nations have huge energy demands and they're probably going to need everything.
Not even close.
cheaper per kwh Solar is only cheaper per kWh if you take it in a vacuum. You need storage for times when solar generation isn't sufficient alone... You know... the literal half of the day that the sun isn't out. Solar + battery is not cheaper last I checked and won't be for a while. Forget the "digging lithium out of the ground" since you want to bring up the next point...
doesn’t require digging radioactive bullshit We have enough in currently accessible stockpiles for a long time... like a really long time. IIRC from current stockpiles we could last until 2100... So we'd have ~70 years to plan for either digging more or figuring out breeder reactors.
better idea, no? No.
You do understand that you can't quickly scale up nuclear production, necessitating storage for that too, right? Wind is comparable cost to solar too, and (depending on the area), does generate through the night.
The nuclear nonsense is pushed by the fossil fuel industry for good reason - it buys them an extra decade of being able to sell their product while people fight nuclear plants in their back yards that take years longer to build - all as we run out the clock to such a degree that we're at the point of that narrate pivoting to "well it's too late now - why dump fossil fuels?"
There is a proof of concept to beam solar energy from the space. Airbus is working on it, that could be a revolution.
Nuclear is most of the time over budget and planning. That's a fact.
Over budget and over planning is bad.
...but also irrelevant - I gave the average real world delivery times.
Which isn't unusual for large construction projects. Nuclear is biggest cost problem is that each power plant is essentially a mega civil engineering project. They require cooling ponds, cooling towers, huge reactors, turbines, and radiation shields.
All of which are fairly large structures that have to be built to pretty high tolerances and have little room for construction defects which are very common in the industry. I work in construction and I can tell you that the majority of construction projects, whether they are an office building, a highway or a bridge run over budget.
There are always going to be factors outside of the control of the design team and the developer. Contractors may run out of labor, supply chains may have many years to complete some of the equipment and these issues compound the schedule which is already very complicated. Do we have an even discussed the expanded and politicized planning and safety rules and certifications that a new nuclear plant is going to need to follow.
I think the solution for micro reactors is pretty intriguing, except we need lots of power not small amounts of power. But a mass-produced reactor that rules off of an assembly line in a factory is likely to be on time and on budget because they can correct for for the problem of building things in the field. It's really hard for people to fabricate complicated machines when they're being rained on in the middle of winter during a storm.
The problem with Nuclear's "good enough" is that Nuclear is currently worse than other technology we have in almost every way.
It is absolutely true that solar and wind are better because more money has gone into their research. But because of that, they are better options in almost all real world power situations.
The problem with focusing on nuclear is... why waste all that political capital just to spend 100x the money or more that you could spend to be 100% renewbles in the short term? The front-loaded TCO is the real issue with that one. If you wanna hit 0 emissions tomorrow with Solar/Wind, you're just paying the up-front costs, knowing there are per-year costs (still cheaper than fossil fuels) to keep it going. If you want to do the same with nuclear, you're paying for almost all of it out of the gate for 50 years worth. Suffice to say, that's a budgeting nightmare.
And what's left is space. Nuclear creates a lot of power in a small area. But wind and solar are both far more easily/efficiently integrated into the space we are already using.
Higher total lifetime cost per kwh than solar or land-based wind (and hydro, but that’s niche), even after factoring in capacitors for weather and time of day/year
No way. Batteries are expensive as hell. Solar+Battery is at best equal to nuclear in the current numbers. And probably worse overall... forget the actual damages as far as mining all the lithium and other rare metals.
The front-loaded TCO is the real issue with that one.
You're in the green after about 10-15 years with nuclear. So I'm not sure why you bring this point up repeatedly. https://youtu.be/cbeJIwF1pVY?t=600
TCO shouldn't matter to stop climate change.
And what’s left is space. Nuclear creates a lot of power in a small area. But wind and solar are both far more easily/efficiently integrated into the space we are already using.
There's plenty of decommissioned coal/gas/oil plants that are perfect sites for nuclear. Ironically it costs more to clean up the radioactivity left behind by these plants than the nuclear plant will release in it's whole lifetime.
No way. Batteries are expensive as hell
Batteries+solar runs $77/MWH with current technology. Nuclear runs $175/MWH with current technology (both of these numbers are TCO, not just running costs) 1 and 2. Months back I did a fairly exhaustive analysis on reddit. Wish I'd kept a link of that, but I cut and ran. More importantly, a nuclear plant is usually "locked in" to current efficiency for 50 years or more, where solar farms and battery farms can be traded up. By end-of-life, that nuclear plant will still be a $175/MWH-TCO plant, but could be competing against solar+battery in the order of $50/MWH TCO as large scale battery tech is skyrocketing of late.
I ended up anti-nuclear from a position of knowledge and research, not a position of "omg it's nuclear". I started pro-nuclear until I did the math a LOT.
You’re in the green after about 10-15 years with nuclear. So I’m not sure why you bring this point up repeatedly
Per Nuclear Power Economics and Project Structuring, the capital cost accounts as 60% of the total cost of ownership. Yes it's in the green (capital-wise), by year 10-15. But 60% of Every penny that needs to be spent on a nuclear plant is spent before you hit the "on" button. Solar plants go green in 5 years, but more importantly, you amortize the cost (and continue to do so) over the life of the plant. The latter is always more feasible for a large scale project.
There’s plenty of decommissioned coal/gas/oil plants that are perfect sites for nuclear. Ironically it costs more to clean up the radioactivity left behind by these plants than the nuclear plant will release in it’s whole lifetime.
Compare that to solar roofs, solar parking shades, windmills that can often be installed in "spare lots", etc.
EDIT: And to be clear, I'm not even saying there may never be an appropriate use for a nuclear plant in going green. There's just very few of them. Going solar in a big city is a custom gig, but dropping a nuclear plant in its outskirts, not so much. Luckily for me in the US, there's a whole hell of a lot of unused or unusable land just begging for solar plants.
According to the EIA.gov, nuclear is between 36 and $88 per megawatt hour for LCOE for advanced nuclear. Your numbers are way off.
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf
Strange. I must be mis-reading your numbers, because the chart I'm reading on your link shows an LCOS/LCOE between $88 and $98... The numbers I was quoting was probably conventional nuclear, and that's a fair correction. I would really appreciate if you are able to address why my references disagreed with your reference, as I didn't come out with my numbers off-the-cuff. Is it conventional vs advanced nuclear, or is it a different measurement entirely?
Note also, however, that Advanced Nuclear still loses to Solar handily in every single chart presented in that document. In addition, none of that addresses the front-loaded cost of nuclear vs solar, which amounts to an entire order of magnitude.
Months back I did a fairly exhaustive analysis on reddit.
And yet you made simple mistakes like assuming that nuclear reactors only last 40 years?
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/whats-lifespan-nuclear-reactor-much-longer-you-might-think
As the average age of American reactors approaches 40 years old, experts say there are no technical limits to these units churning out clean and reliable energy for an additional 40 years or longer.
When your assumption is flawed by literally a possible 50% (or more) of the nuclear reactors lifetime your evaluation is useless. Your numbers are useless without evidence or citation especially when you make easily disprovable assumptions from the get go.
as large scale battery tech is skyrocketing of late.
What magic technology have we invented? You realize that lithium ion batteries are 1980's technology right? We haven't made any significant advancements in battery technologies in decades. All we do is repackage it so we can charge/discharge them faster. That's not capacity.
Yes it’s in the green (capital-wise), by year 10-15.
Yes, that's what I said. Remember we're in it for long term solutions. Not bullshit hand-wavy nonsense.
Compare that to solar roofs, solar parking shades, windmills that can often be installed in “spare lots”, etc.
Yes 100,000 little projects vs 1...
And I'm not even Anti-solar... after all it's literally just second-hand nuclear production... But it's just that. Second-hand, and why settle for "Second" when we can harness first hand? I'm just not dumb enough to assume it's the answer to all our problems.
And yet you made simple mistakes like assuming that nuclear reactors only last 40 years?
No. No I didn't. I was using the lowest life expectancy for nuclear because it steelmanned nuclear for my other critiques. You want to use longer ages, that means you're prepaying 60% of that longer age at cost. I find it interesting that you called me out on trying to give nuclear more benefit. That said, IAEA holds with 30-40 year life expectancy on a nuclear plant so I think the steel-man I chose is acceptable.
What magic technology have we invented? You realize that lithium ion batteries are 1980’s technology right?
Lithium Ion batteries are being used at large scale now, sure. It's dishonest to say the ones being built today for utility-scale power are 1980's technology, just as it's dishonest to pretend that nuclear power is what it was in the 1950's. But there are also advancements in molten sand batteries, and even utility scale water energy storage is going down in price (though I believe it's still slightly more expensive than nuclear).
Yes, that’s what I said. Remember we’re in it for long term solutions. Not bullshit hand-wavy nonsense.
So how is $140/MWH total cost of energy over the life of a nuclear plant "the long haul" over $77/MWH total cost of energy over the life of a nuclear farm? Do we need to discuss how that kind of math works? Building solar+battery plants, running them till EOL, rebuilding them from scratch and repeating several times is still **half ** as expensive as producing the same amount of energy with a nuclear plant until it reaches EOL.
And considering that cost is effectively more like $1,000/MWH or more for the first few years, how exactly are we going to get carbon neutral any time soon by literally adding an order of magnitude to our costs?
Yes 100,000 little projects vs 1…
Sure. Being able to plop it down at a massively high price does have its uses. Note I said there CAN be appropriate uses for nuclear. Just not many of them. The price is just unreasonable. And very often, space isn't really an issue. Those 100,000 little projects are still cheaper than that 1 project nuclear for the amount of energy created.
And I’m not even Anti-solar… after all it’s literally just second-hand nuclear production… But it’s just that. Second-hand, and why settle for “Second” when we can harness first hand?
For several reasons. First, the sun is in a state of nuclear fusion which is at least 4x more efficient than can be achieved with fission. Second, the sun is gonna burn whether we harvest that energy or not. Third, the most expensive part of a any nuclear power prospect is causing and containing it. We get to skip that step with solar.
I’m just not dumb enough to assume it’s the answer to all our problems
I guess I am "dumb enough". Between the power created from the sunlight itself, and wind and hydroelectric power created indirectly by it. The numbers all work out.
How much of that $140 is labour?
Seems an odd question. Since I'm not sure what you're getting at, my answer might or might not be of value.
The only thing I know offhand about the breakdown is 60% of the total lifetime cost of electricity is in construction costs, a number that is disgustingly through the roof and why using nuclear power for the whole world is unfeasible. It's that bad.
The rest is "day to day costs" which are far lower with nuclear than other forms of energy. Which would be great if it didn't cost so much to build a nuclear plant.
Countries with a lower PPP would get the lifetime cost closer to parity, if a handful of project experts etc are brought in at Western rates and local labour is used for the build and operation. If the federal system of government for that country streamlines the registration process while mandating key critical compliance steps (for instance, full test and verification on the containment system but not the light switch in the control room toilets, which I have read is an issue with the US regs) it would seem that non-us countries would be able to do nuclear cheaper per MWh.
Cheaper than $140, or cheaper than Solar? Someone just got back to me with claims of lower Nuclear numbers... and even in those claims, Nuclear simply could not get anywhere close to Solar.
Probably a third of that cost is tied up in NRA certification with 32 different federal and state licensing bodies, planning, EIS statements which average 6 years to write, and the political approval process.
While you're waiting those six to 10 years to get your project started, you're going to see a construction cost inflation rate of what, 25 to 30%?
Care to substantiate that the red tape amounts to more than 100 years worth of the same MWH of solar? Or is that just your gut feeling?
Also note, even if the construction cost were 30% inflated, nuclear is still losing handily to solar by the figures I cited.
I was half joking, although cost escalation would actually account for a major portion of the cost increase.
We did a new building project. Started during 2021, and by the time we received the final bids costs had increased 50%. All within 6 months. We're at 10% cost escalation this year alone.
Imagine 6 years of that.
However, it also sounded like these companies had no clue what they were doing. Similar to California High Speed Rail.
Of course. That happens. Luckily, we have countries like China with less red tape to use to measure. They've been building a lot of nuclear and solar. Their end-to-end solar looks like around $750M per GW (possibly including storage? Not sure. About $2.2B for a 3.3GW plant). Looks like they're spending about $5B per GW of nuclear.
Sorry I don't have the solar reference anymore. I was building a math equation for another comment and realized they weren't talking price, so scrapped it without thinking.
Since those numbers seem to match US figures, I think people in the Western World forget that a lot of bid cost increases or "escalations" are due to the fact that companies try to low-bid to win the contract, knowing every little inconvenience will require a cost increase. It evens out more than people want to admit.
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But this is my argument against those who complain about Solar and Wind -- those won't kill you or destroy a location for hundreds of years if they break down and once they're installed they don't have to be fed by more mining, or anything else. Just wind and sun.
And maintenance, it apparently takes quite some effort to keep those running
Funny you say that. Solar and wind each have more human deaths per kWh than nuclear.
Worth mentioning that fossil fuels blow those numbers completely out of the water, though.
Where are you getting that from?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
I was mistaken. Nuclear lays in between wind and solar.
The death rate for nuclear was mostly from Fukushima, where about 2,300 elderly people died from the stress of moving from their homes. But their houses were also wiped out from a 35 ft tsunami so...
Chernobyl and Fukushima didn't directly kill very many people. Only 1 person died from radiation at Fukushima.
From the author:
"People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.
The key insight is that they are all much, much safer than fossil fuels.
Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe."
This attitude is about a decade out of date. It made sense around 2010 when wind and solar weren't widely deployed and cost more than nuclear per megawatt hour. Now we have more wind and solar deployed than nuclear, and they're significantly cheaper and faster to construct and make better economic sense than nuclear.
I hear this point all the time, but it's simply not true. The total power that humanity consumes could perhaps eventually be generated with wind and solar, but they don't generate on demand, scalable power to provide the actual base load needed.
Don't get me wrong, I think every new building (and probably the old ones too) should have solar panels, but that doesn't negate the need to move the base power generation to nuclear from coal and oil.
This is why people now compare cost of nuclear with cost of solar PLUS capacitors/batteries to handle for base load. Surprisingly, with recent achievements in molten sand batteries, solar is still comfortably cheaper than nuclear per kwh. As the base load. Yes, solar as the base load is more expensive than solar on-demand, but if we're comparing to nuclear, Solar just wins.
And solar's cost is far less front-loaded, making it more affordable than the "cost per kwh" implies.
The point is, if we are not at the point of moving our base load to renewables today, we would be faster than we would be with nuclear and provisioning all the locations needed for secure, regulated, nuclear plants across the country/world. And the "world" part is a big one. Nuclear power material might not be fully weaponizable, but allowing some countries nuclear power plants could still create risk.
I fail to understand how managing wastes remotely toxic to all forms of life for 500K years would be economicaly viable. This just calls for increasingly more power demand. It is hard to sell when there are alternatives that are cheaper, cleaner, more scalable, easier to build (eg offshore wind).
By realising that what we now call waste will be the fuel source of the future. And also understanding that the renewables require a lot more area, material and energy to build than nuclear: https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-iron-law-of-power-density-part
Well you see we store this nuclear waste in what we call breeder reactors and continue generating power
Ironically nuclear waste is more of a problem if you don't build these.
Last time I checked, they were actually spending energy to cool wastes during several years.
Look up the Finland deep geologic repository, it's meant to be as passive as possible. Also nuclear waste isn't nearly as dangerous as most people imagine it to be.
It's only economically viable if we use the same thinking that got us here in the first place. Fuck the future.
There are plenty of safer, quicker technologies available. Repairing the US grid would give us 20% more power.
There are no available technologies safer than nuclear, unless you're talking about the construction. You're literally more likely to fall and hit your head on a solar panel. Which can be serious electrical hazards for firefighters if you're ever unlucky enough to get caught in a house fire.
In a stable world yes, but we also wouldn't have all those news when Russia puts boxes on solar panels instead of nuclear reactors and we don't need no fly zones and fog machines around wind turbines.
Well it's a good thing this is only an issue in the states then...
Is the USA doing anything to block other countries from going nuclear?
Not what I'm implying