A New Reckoning for Nuclear Energy

Great, we get to build ridiculously expensive power because some people were mad that they were wrong about both global warming and the ability of wind and solar to be scaled and improved from a cost perspective (to the point that they are now cheaper than fossil fuels in many cases with battery storage) 20 years ago and can't admit either.

 

This is good news. Nuclear is the way to go. MD has it mostly wrong in that in most (as in the vast majority) of cases wind and solar are no where close to nuclear over the long life cycle.

AI processing on a large scale requires an incredible amount of power(at least here in FL). The existing infrastructure is ill prepared to meet that demand.

 

your article is 8 months old.

Here is a 2 month old article from the same source that discusses how expensive nuclear is.

Nuclear Energy’s Bottom Line

I’m all for nuclear if we can make it cost competitive. We have yet to be able to demonstrate that we can do that.

My guess is that nuclear will be a niche product for specific applications but won’t be a big part of the solution

 

False.

Prior to tax credits (BTW, this report is one of the most friendly to nuclear and least friendly to solar/wind available and is a couple of years old- I'm not working off of Lazard or some of the newer calculations that are even more stark in their differences):

Solar hybrid (i.e., with batteries) has a LCOE of $52.53.

Onshore wind has a LCOE of $40.23.

Nuclear has a LCOE of $88.24.

In fact, the maximum regional costs of both forms of power are less than the lowest potential cost for nuclear.

https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

Yep, it does. Which is why cost matters. And why nuclear fails as a solution without non-market forces pushing it.

 

Your information is about 10 years out of date.

 

Also, it’s a lot easier to put wind and especially solar into place in short order. Nuclear takes many years. The issue with gas plants is we kind of ramped down building them so if we were going to build new ones at the moment there is a shortage of turbines and it would cost 2 to 3 times as much to build a plant as compared to when we were building them years ago.

Nuclear could make sense in niche applications that would be dedicated to AI and server farms where reliability is more important than cost.

 

Demand for Electricity Takes Off. US Power Generation by Source in 2024: Natural Gas, Coal, Nuclear, Wind, Hydro, Solar, Geothermal, Biomass, Petroleum | Wolf Street

 

This sounds like something the Chinese would write. They are the one country that does NOT want us to increase our electrical energy production.

 

Well, the Chinese do "luv them sum American liberals", don't they?

 

LCOE? Really?

 

I think Nuclear is a good option for our power grid

 

Yep, really. Seems like if the goal is to understand the total lifetime costs of generating electricity, that is how one would do it.

 

Using a very flawed metric to “understand” something generally doesn’t end well

 

Probably are going to need it all. It's difficult to transmit power from solar fields in New Mexico or Arizona to Illinois. Also have to look at land usage such as Iowa is needed for food production but wind turbines could be used. No issues with nuclear if it's the right fit for the application.
One that I haven't heard of is off shore tidal power generators. Sounded interesting and would be continuous.

 

Saying a metric is flawed while not providing any basis for such a claim generally doesn't end well. It is a very commonly used metric in both industry and in academic circles to understand the financial costs of different forms of energy.

 

Its flaws are widely recognized. Rather than just reading and accepting something because you like what it projects, you should read research further.

I’ll just keep things simple for you and use google:

Google Search

 

Ok, it’s not a perfect metric. What’s your solution to make a rational comparison between various energy sources?

 

Why are conservatives so obsessed with nuclear power? Almost all the time I've been aware of politics, they cant stop talking about it as the prefered alternative energy. Its it that geothermal, solar and wind seem too lib and gay to them? Liberals generally seem to oppose nuclear? Defiant opposition disorder? Never understood the obsession, especially given the safety record here and around the world. I know NIMBY people complain about solar panels or turbines, but is that worse than having a nuclear power plant near you?

 

Not to mention expensive and takes years to build. 5 -10 years?

“Construction at the two new reactor sites began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and 2017 (Vogtle 4), the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns. The total cost of the project is now estimated at more than $30 billion.”

First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)