Comment by epistasis

Comment by epistasis 4 hours ago

It would actually cost a lot less to use renewables and storage than a bunch of nuclear.

For a completely decarbinized grid, there are two paths: 1) 100% renewables plus storage, or 2) ~90% renewable plus storage, and 10% nuclear/advanced geothermal.

There's lots of debate about which one would be cheapest. But the true answer depends on how the cost curve of technologies develops over the coming 20 years. (Personally, I think 100% renewables will win because projections of all experts severely overestimate storage and renewables costs, while simultaneously severely underestimating the costs of nuclear. Renewables and storage are always over delivering, while nuclear always under delivers. So I think that trend will continue...)

You won't hear much about this in the popular media though, because they are too afraid of offending conservatives with politically incorrect facts. Sites like Ars Technica cover it though:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22092022/inside-clean-ene...

LtdJorge 17 minutes ago

> projections of all experts severely overestimate storage and renewables costs, while simultaneously severely underestimating the costs of nuclear

Does that mean you’re expert-er?

Reply View 0 replies

ZeroGravitas an hour ago

Yes, this is the real answer. Nuclear, which is currently dropping as a percentage of global electricity demand and is now under 10% needs a miracle to reverse that and maybe reach 15% if everything goes well for it.

Meanwhile renewables are surging and every relevant expert suggests they'll dominate the future.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-is-gettin...

The graph without the relatively flat hydro is even more stark.

The stuff people say about nuclear on this forum is on the level of flat earthism and they seem totally unashamed of this.

Reply View 0 replies

realusername 3 hours ago

> Renewables and storage are always over delivering, while nuclear always under delivers

Well no, storage would need another 100x improvement for being usable in a 100% renewable scenario in any country you have any sort of winter.

Say what you want on nuclear but we have example of countries which managed it successfully, for renewables, we still haven't.

Reply View 1 reply

ViewTrick1002 21 minutes ago

Which is entering emergency reserve territory. Nuclear power CAPEX to build an emergency reserve would seem to be utterly insane.
The easy solution is gas turbines. We already have them and as aviation and maritime shipping decarbonize utilize the same fuel. Whether that is syngas, ammonia or biofuels.
Or earmark the biofuels for grid usage. Today the US produces enough ethanol used as a blend in for gasoline to run the grid without help for 14 days.
As we switch to BEVs repurpose that for grid duties while ensuring the inputs also decarbonize.

Reply View | 0 replies