[T]he report’s executive summary certainly gets to the heart of their findings.
“The rhetoric from small modular reactor (SMR) advocates is loud and persistent: This time will be different because the cost overruns and schedule delays that have plagued large reactor construction projects will not be repeated with the new designs,” says the report. “But the few SMRs that have been built (or have been started) paint a different picture – one that looks startlingly similar to the past. Significant construction delays are still the norm and costs have continued to climb.”
I wouldn’t call it worse than renewables. It’s a sidegrade from coal burning. Where I’m from, solar is non-viable 6 months of the year. Wind is theoretically viable year-round but in reality it’s less than that due to cold snaps and the intermittent nature of wind. And there’s no way that wind power alone could provide enough power even when running at 100%. There are no viable rivers here for hydro either. Geothermal is nigh impossible here as well. So without a reliable back-up power source, everyone here would be experiencing brown outs on a fully renewable system. Many wouldn’t receive power at all due to a significant rural population and the challenges inherent to it (and forcing people into cities is not a viable option). So the only options are fossil fuels and nuclear. Given that we’re killing everything with the former, I would much prefer we give the latter a go.
Well, they are worse in the sense that, if renewables were a viable option, you would choose those instead of nuclear. And nuclear does produce more waste than renewables. However nuclear is still miles better than fossil fuels and in cases like yours definitely the best choice to fill the gaps.
I don’t know where you’re from, but I doubt it’s as bleak as you make it sound for renewables. They key to renewables is threefold IMHO:
-
You have to overbuild. You need to be able to sustain things on 50-60% of maximum output.
-
You must have multiple grades of storage to cover different time scales. Hours, days, weeks, months. Different capacities of storage that can respond on different timescales.
-
You need to exploit the diversity of different geographic areas. Take the US for example. Wind in the northern coastal regions. Solar across the south. Hydro in the mountains. These different areas can’t do it alone. They need to supply each other in times of plenty, and depend on each each other in times of “famine”.
So there’s lots of investment needed; In capacity, storage and transmission, and the choice is always where you spend your money. I would rather spend it on renewables and the infrastructure to support it. It’ll be quicker to bring online, cheaper, and a better long term solution.
