Re: EV Owners: Will you buy an EV again? Quote:
Originally Posted by SKC-auto I do not like to live in a 75km radius of a nuclear plant, people don't have such issues with RE. |
I wish this were true but you'd be surprised how you get opposition to wind (especially onshore but offshore too) and geothermal projects. I say this having worked in offshore wind and now working in geothermal. It's amazing how universal the power of NIMBYism is. Quote:
I believe by switching to more energy effecient appliances like BLDC Fans, Heat pumps, induction cooking we can entirely avoid adding new energy capacity.
|
Absolutely, I think increasing efficiencies wherever we can is mandatory. We shouldn't drop the ball on it but I think despite making those efficiencies, we'll still be fighting against a raising ceiling for overall demand, so these efforts have to go in tandem with bringing new sources on stream (this includes not just the replacement of existing non RE sources but new capacity too). So in that regard I don't think we can outright reject nuclear from the mix. Quote:
Originally Posted by SKC-auto Germany faced some issues when they closed nuclear plants after Fukushima, it is also pointed out recently in leaked documents where someone deliberately closed nuclear plants without a proper scientific study. |
The anti nuclear stance in Germany is a particularly distinct one because for numerous reasons, this one issue has become somewhat detached from facts and become enormously emotive for large sections of the populace. Make no mistake though, the decision to suddenly dump nuclear has straightjacketed Germany in more ways than one in the aftermath. Without access to stable long term contract prices for industrial users you now have Germany facing the alarming situation where their vaunted industries could move their units outside Germany. Quote:
Originally Posted by SKC-auto I think Nuclear plants cannot beat coal fired plants in price per kwh, one reason is to build Nuclear plants the cost escalation is huge, the time to build sometimes takes multiple decades. There are huge govt subsidies involved, tax payers need to keep paying 100s of years to store and protect the waste |
There's no denying nuclear has all these drawbacks but I don't think it's as cut and dry. France did show that if you settled on a single design and essentially scaled it, eventually you could bring costs down drastically through the establishment of a large scale industry behind the sector. Obviously having canned large parts of that industry in the aftermath of Chernobyl and the injection of German style anti nuclear rhetoric in the French political discourse, they're staring at the long end of a bill in terms of needing to replace those aging reactors. I think the best way of understanding the cost of nuclear reactors is if we think of them as big capital ships, like an aircraft carrier. They're never made in the sort of huge numbers where you can iron out niggles over the course of a deep production run, therefore essentially they're prototypes that are pressed into operational use and thus have all the accompanying issues one'd expect. Similar for these large reactors like Hinkley Point C. They're massive projects, with huge output, but equally enormous costs. Perhaps then there's merit to the arguments made by those developing Small Modular Reactors. The modular nature tackles both the set up costs due to the ability to 'mass produce', whilst also allowing for quicker set up. This in turn helps reduce the long lead time for nuclear projects to break even (a Huge huge factor in why I don't think private nuclear projects work. No way the private sector would willingly sink money in with such a large time to ROI when traditional thermal plants and RE offer relatively quicker ROI. Hence nuclear projects are often national projects). Finally SMRs obviate the need for the absolutely gobsmacking scale of remediation and shielding you require for the behemoth reactors, so that too brings down cost and time. Personally I've always been a bit surprised none of the big defence contractors haven't spun off a division offering their nuclear submarine reactors in some containerised form for civilian use (I know there's a sprinkling of proposals to this effect out there now).
Again, I should emphasise, I absolutely believe we need more RE in wind and solar. But I don't entirely agree with batteries being the means to circumvent the glaring Achilles heel of RE, their intermittency. But there's a myriad interesting proposals being pursued to store that excess supply for re-release at peak grid load times, so it's evident a solution will manifest. As the German eg shows, ultimately stable supply on long term contract prices are crucial to a nations industrial base and I'm not quite sure RE has that figured yet. All that being said I absolutely encourage folks to get behind the sector, there's so much going on now. It's a super exciting time. |