Nuclear power isn't carbon free. It takes years of heavy equipment and carbon intensive materials to create a nuclear power plant. It takes carbon to mine uranium. It takes carbon to refine uranium. It takes carbon to transport the refined uranium to the plant. Then it takes carbon to demolish the plant at the end of its life. The only part of the chain which is carbon free is the actual generation, which is the most expensive way to boil water ever devised.
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Nuclear power
- Thread starter eledille
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- Energy Environment Policy
AntronX
Member
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
True... but from that perspective we don't have any 'carbon free' sources. The key point is does it displace the amount of carbon required in it's creation through generation. For nuclear wind and solar the answer is yes.
Moot point anyway since the odds of breaking ground on a new nuclear plant decrease as wind and solar keep getting cheaper while nuclear just gets more expensive.
True.
On a side note I once got a push poll from a nuclear power company who wanted to open up a nuclear power plant in this province. I used that rant to shut up the pollster. She didn't have an answer to that. The poll never got any press, so I guess they didn't get the results they wanted even trying to skew the results with pro-nuclear framing of the questions.
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For some reason, it bugs me that most people will be wrong about the reason nuclear disappears. A lot of people will think that it has to do with that "scary" radiation thing, when in reality it's just clear economics. Nuclear is an interesting power source and I'm glad we know it exists. There may come a time that it'll return in a revamped fashion to save us.
This just in from Watts Bar 2. EDIT: This is a transformer fire, not a nuclear fire. This quote is very telling:
Transformer fire forces TVA to shut down Unit 2 reactor indefinitely
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The cost of electricity produced by Hinkley Point C does appear to be quite high relative to any other method of generation. PV Solar would be far cheaper. However solar isn't dispatchable. Anyone have an idea of how many $/MWh battery storage adds to PV Solar?
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Looks like a standard case of people in power looting the public for their benefit.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Obviously new nuclear plants are for the most part uneconomic relaitve to solar/wind/storage moving forward, but what does Elon's Mars vision do to people's opinion of fission in general?
It certainly sounds like his transit system to Mars is a taylor-made fit for blasting nuclear waste toward the Sun. I'm not familiar with the amounts of waste produced by these facilities annually, but the cost must drop significantly once they can simply get rid of it, even at an absurd price.
It certainly sounds like his transit system to Mars is a taylor-made fit for blasting nuclear waste toward the Sun. I'm not familiar with the amounts of waste produced by these facilities annually, but the cost must drop significantly once they can simply get rid of it, even at an absurd price.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Digging a hole is always going to be cheaper and safer than launching a rocket. Can you imagine the consequences of a nuclear waste laden rocket experiencing a RUD before reaching orbit? Waste is not a problem. There are plenty of geologically stable parts of the US where nuclear waste can be safely buried and it's impossible for it to reach ground water in the next 50M years... which by that time it would have decayed into non-radioactive isotopes.
Nuclear Power has 99 problems but waste ain't one of 'em.
The radiation is actually the root cause of the economics. The radiation damages all the pipes and equipment, causing accelerated decay of materials. The transmutation caused by nuclear decay and by fission creates a chemical stew which is corrosive and difficult to contain. The radiation and the fission itself cause high heat which also causes accelerated decay of materials. Fundamentally, working with a very hot, mixed-chemical, radiation-emitting stew is... hard. It's not the sort of thing which makes for easy materials design (chemists like nice pure stable materials). This is at the root of the very high expense.
In the form of nuclear fusion located 93 million miles away from earth, with the power collected from the radiation using little black collector plates, it is already saving us. The sun is a horrific hot stew of plasma and radiation and transmutation, but it's a nice long way away and we don't need to build a containment box for it!
AntronX
Member
PG&E proposes [$1.77 billion] 8-year rate increase to cover Diablo Canyon closure
The comments in that article are delicious.
The comments in that article are delicious.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
While I think there are some good arguments against nuclear, I don't think this is one of them. Take heavy equipment for example. Heavy equipment being carbon intensive is not the fault of nuclear. It's the fault of the heavy equipment. Heavy carbon intensive equipment is building the Gigafactory right now. Is that the Gigafactorys fault? Not really.
AntronX
Member
So? Nuke subsidies proposed in NY are still ~3 times less per kWh compared to what they are spending on solar subsidies there.
Jlwine
Member
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
How about lets make a deal?
Solar supporters stop demonizing nuclear technology and accept that it's an advanced concept worthy of ongoing R&D (including public funding for national labs and cooperative projects like ITER) and at the very least for use in special cases like maybe deep space missions and military submarines.
Nuclear supporters accept that nuclear fission for commercial power generation has too many hurdles and accept that solar should be the the leading commercial power generation technology for the future at least until such time that R&D demonstrates radically improved fission reactors or commercially viable fusion reactors.
Nuclear supporters accept no new nukes for now, and closing of nukes where substantial cause exists.
Solar supporters accept no closing operation nukes without substantial cause when there are other fossil fuel plants that could be closed first. Yes, we will probably all still bicker about what "substantial cause" is.
Solar supporters stop demonizing nuclear technology and accept that it's an advanced concept worthy of ongoing R&D (including public funding for national labs and cooperative projects like ITER) and at the very least for use in special cases like maybe deep space missions and military submarines.
Nuclear supporters accept that nuclear fission for commercial power generation has too many hurdles and accept that solar should be the the leading commercial power generation technology for the future at least until such time that R&D demonstrates radically improved fission reactors or commercially viable fusion reactors.
Nuclear supporters accept no new nukes for now, and closing of nukes where substantial cause exists.
Solar supporters accept no closing operation nukes without substantial cause when there are other fossil fuel plants that could be closed first. Yes, we will probably all still bicker about what "substantial cause" is.
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nwdiver
Well-Known Member
I would define 'THERMAL' power as what's doomed. If it has to use heat as an intermediate step it's not worth investing in... that includes fusion. Solar and Wind PLUS storage are cheaper than turning heat into electricity... even if the heat source is free.
The difference there is that nuke subsidies are required for nuclear survival while solar subsidies are being used to accelerate expansion. Strip away ALL subsidies and nuclear power would not be cost effective while solar growth would only slow.
AntronX
Member
LooL, look how fast solar companies are pulling out of Nevada once the net metering subsidy is gone. Solar standing on their own, yea right...
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