this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The people with money to invest in the energy sector don't seem interested in nuclear. They're looking at the history of cost and schedule overruns, and then putting their money in solar and wind. Regulators do seem willing to greenlight new nuclear projects, but nobody is buying.

If the public were to finance a nuclear power, we have to ask why there's a good reason to do so when private investment is already rejecting it. There has to be some reason outside of cost effectiveness. One answer to that is recycling all the nuclear waste we already have.

[–] Maggoty 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's because private companies are incapable of large scale engineering. They want fast profits, not stable infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nuclear is not going to help that. It doesn't synergize well with wind and solar. You want something that can scale up when wind and solar drop off. Nuclear only makes sense if you can run it at the same level all the time.

[–] Maggoty 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's no reason you can't run it at the same level all the time?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There is. Clouds come in, and all that cheap solar goes away. You want something else to ramp up. Clouds go away, solar is dumpling dirt cheap power to the grid, and those other things ramp down.

Nuclear is not the solution to that.

[–] JJROKCZ 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Batteries and other power storage exist though.. just run nuclear to x% percentage and y exists in battery form to cover potential solar/wind/geothermal/tidal outages.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

When you have batteries, you don't need nuclear. You just need solar and wind.

Edit: I'll also point out that there are other arguments from nuclear advocates (bad ones that don't realize where we are in the tech development) saying storage solutions aren't ready. Estoppel much?

[–] guacupado 1 points 10 months ago

Clouds come in, and all that cheap solar goes away

I can't believe we're about to hit 2024 and people are still saying this.

[–] Eyelessoozeguy 1 points 10 months ago

What do you mean it doesnt scale up? It sure does. What do you think the control room operators are doing? Nukes turn water to steam and run that steam through turbines much like any other steam driven plant. Using control rods you can adjust the energy output of the plant. Could a single nuke cover a whole state covered in solar? Not likely. But neither can a single battery.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Need some smaller, shipping crate sized nuclear generators that can be rented. If smaller set ups end up helping with knowledge and new tech then awesome. If not, it's still pretty fucking cool.

[–] afraid_of_zombies -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The good reason is cost externalities. Nuclear is the only power source that deals with its own waste. No one demands the solar industry recycle their stuff for free or that they pay a carbon tax for the trees that don't exist because of the panels in the space. Same for wind but add on the birds killed. Same for hydro but the fish killed. Same for coal but add all of us killed.

We all subsidize the waste disposal of the other power sources. Coal gets to dump all that stuff in the air and our collective resource is that much lowered in quality.

Change the market conditions to reflect the true cost and nuclear comes out on top. Even the CO2 used to make the plants is laughably small when you consider that the plants can last over 50 years while solar has to be almost completely replaced in 15.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

It deals with its own waste by leaving it sitting in a big pit. That's not a viable long term strategy. It needs to go to a central facility to be buried for 100k years, or (my preference) recycled in other reactors designed to do that. Neither is being done right now in the US, and both would almost certainly require public subsidies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Who do you think is paying for the Yucca Mountain facility?

[–] elephantium 1 points 10 months ago

What facility?

[–] afraid_of_zombies -1 points 10 months ago

Who do you think paid the banks all that money to keep housing artificially high? Who do you think have GM all that money to make oversized trucks?

Noticed you didn't mention all the costs inside of the plant to deal with the waste nor the transportation costs to Yucca.