I just don’t see why so many people are dead set on only solar/wind/hydro as “green” and nuclear and other more exotic power generation methods that don’t emit greenhouse gases are somehow unacceptable.
Isn’t the goal net zero? Why are we quibbling about how we achieve that?
Can’t we just do whatever we must to get there and move on with our existence?
Mostly because nuclear is incredibly expensive and takes too long to build. If we want to achieve net zero anytime soon, going all-in on renewables is currently the most economically viable option.
Yeah, the best time to start building nuclear plants was 20+ years ago. Unlike most things, the second-best time is not now, however - we’re at a point where the massive expenditure for nuclear power generation is just a big question mark as to whether it’ll be cost-effective by the time it’s finished. There just haven’t been enough breakthroughs in the past few decades to improve the cost-effectiveness of nuclear power substantially, while renewables are faster to install, cheaper to replace, and advancing at a rapid clip.
Definitely should still keep any nuclear plants we still have running, though. My home state of Maryland generates over 1/3 of its power through a nuclear plant. Would be 2/3s if the Obama administration didn’t screw us over ‘foreign’ (EU) suppliers being a ‘security risk’ back in 2010 or so, ffs.
No advancements?
Is SMR a joke to everyone?
Look, I’m not saying nuclear is the only path forward, far from it. I don’t think any path is the only path forward. I believe that we’ll need a compilation of various generation methods to meet the demands of tomorrow.
The only thing I want to see in that future is no coal, nor fuel plants. Those two are the most common types of greenhouse gas-producing plants in use. The objective, in my mind, is to entirely phase them out. Whatever gets us there, is good with me. If that turns out not to be nuclear, that’s fine too. If SMR or any other kind of nuclear is required to make that a reality, that’s also fine.
I. Don’t. Care.
Nuclear is there as a back up for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t have enough space for renewables, or you’ve reached the capacity for building and repairing renewables (Either logistically, in lack of expertise, or lack of public support). If you can’t find a solution for that the result you end up with is just going back to fossil fuels when the times are tough. That’s not carbon neutrality.
Battery storage is also still a breakthrough away from being viable enough to store all the electricity renewables could potentially generate to be able to sustain a 100% load when they are less effective, not to mention the amount of infrastructure required for them to be able to do so. You need some kind of baseline to supplement it that works when nothing else does.
We need both renewables and nuclear, and nuclear should never be a reason not to invest in renewables. But the same goes the other way around. We’re in a crisis, we can’t be pedantic about this stuff when the world waited out the clock to the very end like a teenager the day before his exam. We can pick the perfect options when it is no longer the enemy of good options. Until then every option should be explored.
Nuclear is there as a back up for when the sun doesn’t shine, the wind doesn’t blow, you don’t have enough space for renewables, or you’ve reached the capacity for building and repairing renewables (Either logistically, in lack of expertise, or lack of public support).
Nuclear is a terrible backup. It’s far too expensive, requires a ton of highly educated personnel we don’t have and is not flexible enough to act as a quick backup if renewables fluctuate too much. On top of that there are very few moments where there is almost no wind or sunshine over a very large area all at once, making it economically unviable to an enormous degree.
Obviously the best backup is battery storage, which is ramping up in production capacity quite quickly. And it allows far more decentralisation: a lot of homes can be fitted with a small battery pack, which combined with some solar allows them to be basically off the grid. Combined with more research showing PV cells are still up to 80% the efficiency they were designed for after 30 years (suggesting they last far longer than estimated), it seems solar is becoming an ever stronger long-term solution. It’s also becoming cheaper each year beyond even the most optimistic scenarios.
But even something like gas is a more preferable alternative to nuclear. It’s very cheap and still viable when needing to spin up or down quickly. It also requires less educated personnel than nuclear and most countries have at least a few built already. Sure there’s more emissions, but for those 30 days of the year you really need them that’s still well over 95-98% of emissions cut when compared to the current fossil fuel mix.
nuclear should never be a reason not to invest in renewables
Unfortunately it is, because money is finite. And investers choose whatever is most viable, which increasingly is not nuclear.
I’m hopeful for fusion, but as always that’s at least a decade away from commercial viability.
There’s a great distinction that Norwegian philosopher and deep ecologist Anre Naess makes between long-range and short-range movements which I think helps explain the disagreement a little.
In the short term, we need to reduce CO2 for our own survival. Nuclear helps this, so from this angle it seems counterproductive for anyone who claims concern over the environment to object to its development.
In the long term, humans need to transition away from a society based on resource extraction, and long term damage. It’s a lot harder to see how nuclear helps with this- mining and enriching uranium are destructive processes, and nuclear waste needs containment for thousands of years.
Our current situation is pretty critical, so I think it’s pretty legitimate to think that we might need to make some compromises between the long and short term. But I think the distinction makes it a lot clearer about why people seem to be shouting passed each other sometimes.
The electrical grid, from production, distribution, and delivery, to the outlets in your home/business, is a very complex and distinctly unique system filled with challenges at all points.
I know just enough about all of it to get myself into trouble, or, more frequently, keep myself out of trouble. IMO, nuclear, whether in the form of SMR or something else, should be built to handle the base loads, aka, the power that is always needed, and not necessarily any more than that.
The volatile loads that fluctuate throughout the day, that’s what I’m not sure the best method to address. Is it wind/hydro, which are fairly consistent (the latter more than the former, in terms of consistency), or solar + energy storage, which may be batteries, or some other method of storing the power?
I dunno, I’m no expert. But given the reliability of nuclear, building more or less static systems with it that will supply base loads, seems like a no brainer. We will always need at least that much power, let’s get it from somewhere that can push it out 24/7/365 for years with little to no maintenance. Obviously, all nuclear production needs to be monitored, regardless of the reactor type… For safety. But if the system is basically always doing the same thing, with the same output, constantly, it shouldn’t require a lot of variance.
I think those are pros of nuclear. The alternative to a static system like that would be a very diverse flexible one with lots of different energy types and markets to encourage users to flex usage up or down.
I’m not trying to make a case either way though, just explaining what perspectives might lead people to be concerned about climate change and still anti-nuclear.
