A New Reckoning for Nuclear Energy

Yeah, given that you can't put into words what is wrong with it, I'm not really in the mood for a lecture about what I should do in terms of research (especially as I literally provided the most pro-nuclear version of this analysis rather than the newer and less pro-nuclear versions). As pointed out, there is never a perfect metric for just about anything. However, LCOE is heavily used by those that actually estimate costs in regards to power generation.

Let me tell you what you should do:

1. Make an argument as to what, specifically, makes this metric unusable.
2. Provide the alternative metric that you prefer instead.

 

I suspect that it is heavily the first. Essentially, they spent the 2000s mocking the libs for trying to develop solar and wind as something that would never work, and, now that it worked and both are cheaper than burning fuels, they are trying to find anything to deflect from them being so wrong on the technology front. So, they are trying to become nuclear advocates. Anything to avoid the obvious: the medium-term future is likely wind and solar.

The hilarious part: the utilities don't want nuclear. Given the rate of development on solar and wind, nobody wants to be locked in on a technology that is already more expensive. Unless somebody comes up with a way to dramatically decrease the cost of nuclear or pays them absurd levels of subsidies, the utilities aren't going to build nuclear.

 

Wait, so we’re allowed to have nuclear power and Iran isn’t?

 

Westinghouse plans to build 10 large nuclear reactors in U.S., interim CEO tells Trump

 

Wow, you too can have a reactor that comes in $18 billion over cost and 7 years late. I wonder why no utilities were listed as buyers....

 

NuScale Power | Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Nuclear Technology

 

Nuclear is the way to go. We have really dialed the n waste disposal and recycling.

Up in Wyoming now. Trees and solar oh my

 

Con's like nuclear for one reason, they only look at things as if "everything is going to work perfectly". Never look at the risks associated with nuclear.

Nuclear is ok, till it isn't, then you have created a man-made disaster.

All the talk about making small distributed nucs is just asking for a bunch of dirty bombs to be planted around you just waiting for a terrorist to set one off.

 

Look, Chernobyl happened because an aging political gerontocracy cut corners on safety in the name of efficiency and cost savings, could never happen here

 

Not sure but this seems accurate. I'm not liberal but I'm not conservative either, I like things that make logical sense. Wind and solar are definitely viable but so is nuclear. Need the right solution for the right application. Having said that, the bigger issue to me is having so many disparate power grids and no organized way to get power from one area of the country to the other regardless of how it's generated. We have many different power companies, not large enough by themselves to take on big projects like nuclear plants but also don't want to give up their little monopolies. Not sure what to do about that.

 

Considering nuclear would require massive investment / risk guarantees from the government for anyone in the private sector to even build a nuclear plant let alone operate one, it never made much sense as a "conservative" idea IMO. I think mdg has it right, it was just a convenient prop to wield against people who preferred "greener" solutions that got "lib" coded. Nuclear power seems very 20th century to me, rather than the "wave of the future."

 

It would be much easier if you libbies would stop trying to force policy on everyone based on your own cherry-picked metrics. Do your own research. I have no time to do it for you, and then have you blindly ignore it because you don’t like what it tells you. I have already given you a link with other links that point out its shortcomings, and you chose to disregard.

 

Huh? What "policy?" I haven't stated a single policy on this thread.

I did. I didn't just google it. You didn't like it.

What is funny is how bad the people who say things like "Do your own research" are at doing their own research. That is why they generally don't like providing their research.

Yet you have time to type out vapid responses continuously. You provided a google search. You couldn't turn that into a specific argument and were unable to address either of the points that I just made (e.g., you are unable to state why the metric, which is the standard metric for comparing different forms of electricity generation, is unusable nor provide any preferred alternative metric).

 

Good timing for that comment. Just this week that issue came to a head on a massive project addressing “getting power from one area of the country to the other”. It would be generated in Kansas and they have extra power.

A wind farm. Guess what trump said.

Search on “Grain Belt Express”

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The google search provides plenty of links pointing out the shortcomings of LCOE. All you have to do is click on a couple and you might just learn not to stop reading and researching once you find that morsel of information that advances whatever your lunacy of the day is.

Learning is a wonderful thing, you might try it, as opposed to letting other libs, and your own sources tell you what you want to hear. But I must warn you; you have to accept the POV that maybe, just maybe you have enjoyed the lies that you have been spoon fed.

 

And yet you can't answer a very simple question: what metric is the proper metric to use to compare costs? That is because you don't really know much about this topic. That much is clear. So you googled the result you preferred ("the metric that disproved my baseless claims is bad!"). But you have no clue which of those arguments is strong vs. weak and are worried that I might already know that, which is why you don't want to come here with the arguments attached to your claims specifically.

Nice try.

But if you really want to discuss the topic, I'm happy to shift to other metrics less commonly but still fairly commonly used in the industry and in academic circles, like value-cost ratios. Just let me know which you want to use.

 

Yeah, I asked him that and he completely ignored it. Unsurprising, but annoying that he posts so confidently with so little apparent knowledge that he won’t(can’t) support his position on viable alternative.

 

Then please use all metrics that are applicable to the specific decision. Making strategic decisons based on one metric, is a fools errand . There are too many factors involved in specific decisions to use any single metric, much less one as flawed as LCOE. These are not academic decisions where you get to assume certain variables are constant or within specific ranges. The real world doesn’t work like that.

And just so you know, I run nine facilities across the country and have built an AI lab. Stable power was one of the most important factors involved in the decision of where to build it. Of those nine facilities we have power concerns at seven of them. We lost our shirt in the Texas storm a few years ago. We are in constant contact with those seven power companies and understand their capacities and abilities to handle a long term surge. Wind, solar, and hydro are nice supplements but without feasible large scale battery back up they cannot be relied on to carry the base load. Unlike you who spends all day on liberal rags and deals in academic models, I have to worry about those situations that are outside of your assumptions. Without cost effective, high capacity and reliability battery storage the alternatives are simply that.

Nuclear has proven to be safe over the long term and its long term capability to deliver clean, reliable power at stable cost is unrivaled.

While admittedly fiction, Billy Bob gives a pretty good talk here “alternative energy”. He points out quite a few things that most don’t and/or don’t want to realize.

 

Okay, let's start with average value-cost ratios. For this, you want a higher value:

Solar Hybrid (this is with batteries): 0.93
Onshore wind: 0.88
Nuclear: 0.47

Generally, to build a project, you want this around 1 or higher. Nuclear isn't even close on average. In fact, nuclear's maximum is well below solar hybrid and onshore wind's minimum. Their maximum is over 1, suggesting many scenarios in which one or the other should be built from a financial perspective.

Now in terms of all your rambling about how the "real world" works, if you are right, utilities must be rushing to build nuclear, right? Oh wait, they aren't. The real world is rushing to build solar and wind, not nuclear. I'm fact, nuclear capacity is shrinking while total power produced is increasing.

https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-generating-statistics

Meanwhile, solar capacity is pretty much a straight line up over the last 10 years.

Installed solar energy capacity


Wind capacity has increased in the US by 46% since 2019 and by 135% from 10 years ago.

So the real world is not even vaguely agreeing with you. The real decisions are being made for solar and wind, not for nuclear.

 

I think these small reactors that use the molten salts are the future for nuclear technology.