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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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There are downsides to nuclear these days. Incredibly high cost with a massive delay before they're functioning. Solar + wind + pumped hydro + district heating is where it's at in 2024.
This.
Also, tie together more countries' power grids to even out production and demand of renewables, and reduce the need for other backup sources.
For a fraction of the cost of nuclear, increase the storage capacity as well. We've had days where the price per MWh was negative in many hours, because of excess production.
The barriers to carbon free energy aren't technical, they're purely political.
Yeah, back in 2010 and before nuclear was the way to go but with the incredible advancements in solar and wind it's no longer the best option.
Still shame on Germany for decommissioning nuclear reactors and deciding to build Nordstream 2 and burn coal as a replacement.
I haven't heard of any advancement that makes solar generate energy when the sun doesn't shine and wind generate energy when the wind isn't blowing.
The wind is always blowing somewhere and overproduction is cheaper than batteries
You can't overproduce electricity. You have to match the load.
I know. There are many solutions to this
No, there is pumped storage. Honestly, despite the plethora of start-ups claiming to have a solution (sodium batteries, molten-salt, etc) The only really proven way to store electricity for later is pumped storage, but that relies on geography (hills) which not everyone has. Batteries are great for phones, and cars but they simply don't scale to countries.
California is doing pretty good with their battery storage. And if all the electric car batteries get old we can use them as stationary grid storage.
That is actually very impressive. Thanks! I remain a bit skeptical as its only 1/5th of what they need and it's only one region of one (rich) country. Still, 10GW of lithium battery would be one hell of a fire ;-)
South Australia implemented a 100mw battery for their power system in 2016
This is wrong. Right now, europe is experiencing high pressure and doesn't have any wind. Check this out its map that shows you how much wind is being produced right now! Can you provide a source that says " the wind is always blowing somewhere" or is it just a platitude?
Overproduction is how you get blackouts from damaging the grid
Lol, just dump energy into resistors. Or desync two generators.
Or convert excess to hydrogen and provide resilience, or have arrangements for industry to consume the excess. Or ramp down your generation at those times. Or shift excess to neighbouring grids.
You haven't heard of any advancements in energy storage at all?
Not that we need them, the best energy storage is old AF and excellent
it has got cheaper, but it has to get cheap enough that you can buy enough batteries with the difference. I'm not sure it has become that cheap. Maybe these sodium battery things will get developed.
You probably also didnt heard about Thorium based molten salt reactors, they are much safer than conventional nuclear, also cheaper, and you can have a 50MW installation in space not much larger than a shipping container. A 50MW solar installation is close to 1km2 and thats without any storage included. It even can be modified to run on spent fuel of conventional nuclear power plants.
SMRs are DOA. They have been “the next big thing” for decades now. They need to shit or get off the pot.
No industry has quite so much vaporware technology as nuclear power. Any idiot can promise and never deliver. Look at Elon Musk.
You don't need to tie grids to transfer energy between them.
Please understand that negative prices are the market for electricity breaking down! That is not a good thing. It should mean that if you have solar panels on your roof you have to pay to participate in the national grid because you are dumping energy into the grid when it can't use it, but special rules have been made for renewable plants. Literally, imagine a contract-to-supply for wind or solar...
I understand very well the implications of the negative price, which is why I advocated NOT to spend trillions in nuclear, when issues of balancing demand and production can be solved for a fraction of what nuclear costs.
You don't have those in 2024? Commies built central heating in every city.
Iceland, where I'm from, has had it for ages in pretty much every house.
Well that's unfair, all you have to do is take a corkscrew to the floor and stick a pipe in it!
Currently all you have to do is heat up an insulated pile of sand with almost free electricity and stick a pipe in too.
You can make Thorium reactors much smaller and cheaper, basically a 50MW unit is not much larger than a shipping container, while being much more safe than standard nuclear plants. The largest issue is over-regulation of the nuclear power in general.
A 50MW of solar installation is HUGE, and thats 50MW at the sunniest part of the planet: https://newsaf.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-15/Kenya-launches-Chinese-built-50MW-solar-power-plant-MqC575l6Te/index.html, We are basically talking about close to a square kilometer installation...
there is simply no way to call a 50MW solar plant cleaner than nuclear and its probably not even that much cheaper in the end. Compare that to a shipping container sized reactor... Only thing in the way, is the nuclear scare and government regulations.
The cost is less from the design and more from the safety regulations. Best case scenario the state just starts making nuclear power plants, it's just not a good idea to mix profit incentive with nuclear.
Still not a reason to not build them, the entire point is for nuclear to handle the load when solar/wind can't provide due to weather. Other renewables will still be producing the bulk of the power we need, but at night nuclear will be handling any demand spikes, each of them would greatly reduce the number of batteries required to satisfy the demand. They can stay until our solar output is so high we can just start electrolyzing water into hydrogen as energy storage.
If you're suggesting using Nuclear as a peaker plant or to turn it off and on whenever wind/solar is not up for it then I'm sorry to say that it's not viable. Nuclear generators don't handle well being turned off and on.
My good friends Xenon and Samarium.
That's why they mentioned "pumped hydro"
Though pumped hydro is sometimes opposed by environmental groups because it does absolutely decimate local environments.
I have high hopes for sodium batteries. The ones that have been released on the market are simply perfect (if scaled up) for local grid storage in countries with a lot of space and will hopefully get better energy density in line with Lithium Iron Phosphate with time.
Salt batteries have been the cold fusion of battery tech for like 10 years, but now it is finally coming to fruition. I hope to install a solar installation with salt batteries in 5 years or so, myself.