this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
513 points (97.8% liked)

World News

39000 readers
2359 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] frezik@midwest.social 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The people with money to invest in the energy sector don't seem interested in nuclear. They're looking at the history of cost and schedule overruns, and then putting their money in solar and wind. Regulators do seem willing to greenlight new nuclear projects, but nobody is buying.

If the public were to finance a nuclear power, we have to ask why there's a good reason to do so when private investment is already rejecting it. There has to be some reason outside of cost effectiveness. One answer to that is recycling all the nuclear waste we already have.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's because private companies are incapable of large scale engineering. They want fast profits, not stable infrastructure.

[–] frezik@midwest.social -5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nuclear is not going to help that. It doesn't synergize well with wind and solar. You want something that can scale up when wind and solar drop off. Nuclear only makes sense if you can run it at the same level all the time.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There's no reason you can't run it at the same level all the time?

[–] frezik@midwest.social -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There is. Clouds come in, and all that cheap solar goes away. You want something else to ramp up. Clouds go away, solar is dumpling dirt cheap power to the grid, and those other things ramp down.

Nuclear is not the solution to that.

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Batteries and other power storage exist though.. just run nuclear to x% percentage and y exists in battery form to cover potential solar/wind/geothermal/tidal outages.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

When you have batteries, you don't need nuclear. You just need solar and wind.

Edit: I'll also point out that there are other arguments from nuclear advocates (bad ones that don't realize where we are in the tech development) saying storage solutions aren't ready. Estoppel much?

[–] guacupado@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Clouds come in, and all that cheap solar goes away

I can't believe we're about to hit 2024 and people are still saying this.

[–] Eyelessoozeguy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

What do you mean it doesnt scale up? It sure does. What do you think the control room operators are doing? Nukes turn water to steam and run that steam through turbines much like any other steam driven plant. Using control rods you can adjust the energy output of the plant. Could a single nuke cover a whole state covered in solar? Not likely. But neither can a single battery.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Need some smaller, shipping crate sized nuclear generators that can be rented. If smaller set ups end up helping with knowledge and new tech then awesome. If not, it's still pretty fucking cool.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The good reason is cost externalities. Nuclear is the only power source that deals with its own waste. No one demands the solar industry recycle their stuff for free or that they pay a carbon tax for the trees that don't exist because of the panels in the space. Same for wind but add on the birds killed. Same for hydro but the fish killed. Same for coal but add all of us killed.

We all subsidize the waste disposal of the other power sources. Coal gets to dump all that stuff in the air and our collective resource is that much lowered in quality.

Change the market conditions to reflect the true cost and nuclear comes out on top. Even the CO2 used to make the plants is laughably small when you consider that the plants can last over 50 years while solar has to be almost completely replaced in 15.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago

It deals with its own waste by leaving it sitting in a big pit. That's not a viable long term strategy. It needs to go to a central facility to be buried for 100k years, or (my preference) recycled in other reactors designed to do that. Neither is being done right now in the US, and both would almost certainly require public subsidies.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Who do you think is paying for the Yucca Mountain facility?

[–] elephantium@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

What facility?

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

Who do you think paid the banks all that money to keep housing artificially high? Who do you think have GM all that money to make oversized trucks?

Noticed you didn't mention all the costs inside of the plant to deal with the waste nor the transportation costs to Yucca.