Best time to build a nuclear reactor was 20 years ago.
Second best time is now.
Isn’t nuclear one, if not the most, expensive form of energy production once you factor in stuff like maintenance and disposal?
Not trying to do the whole hot take thing here, I genuinely don’t get why investing in nuclear is still pursued versus investing in renewable sources when mobility and land isn’t an issue.
EDIT:
“Tackling the climate crisis means we must modernize our approach to all clean energy sources, including nuclear,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado. “Nuclear energy is not a silver bullet, but if we’re going to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, it must be part of the mix.”
kind of provides at least a partial answer: Time. Though this quote gave me graphite control rod vibes:
Some Democrats and Republicans in Congress have criticized the N.R.C. for being too slow in approving new designs. Many of the regulations that the commission uses, they say, were designed for an older era of reactors and are no longer appropriate for advanced reactors that may be inherently safer.
There’s a lot to unpack in nuclear being the most expensive form of energy production, like:
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While nuclear absolutely must be held to extremely rigorous safety standards, I seem to remember that the fossil industry leveraged the nuclear panic in the 80s to lobby all manner of bullshit red tape on top of good regulations, and that has dramatically increased time and financial cost to building new reactors.
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Does that also factor in all externalities, like radiological waste from coal fire plants, and the damage from carbon emissions contributing to climate change? Or are we only counting the externalities of nuclear?
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Are we also including new generations of reactors, which are supposedly safer, produce less waste, and less able to be used for nuclear weapons production? Or are we just looking at the reactor designs from 70 years ago that represent all of what’s in operation in the US today? Can you imagine trying to argue for solar or wind with designs from 70 years ago? It’d be a pretty hard sell.
Thank you for taking the time.
I’m pretty sure that nuclear power is vastly more expensive to produce and maintain. Especially when comparing to solar/wind, since fossil power isn’t desirable at all due to emissions.
Solar and wind generation is so much more efficient than even two decades ago, newer designs of nuclear plants aren’t really any more efficient, but safer and more expensive. So I’m still not getting the push for more nuclear.
Best time to build a reactor is never. Better to use the fuckton of money for cheaper and better renewables…
But then you would need another excuse in ~2 decades but having build not enough expensive nuclear power, still struggling to get the ones in production finished and still burning fossil fuels…
And we all know that destroying the planet for profits is the actual goal here.
The exact same people spending huge sums on deying climate change for decades are now paying for “it’s all too late and we are doomed anyway, so why try to do anything” and “nuclear power, especially future designs far from actually being production ready, will safe us” messaging.
Hydro and wind kill more people per terawatt hour. That leaves solar (and possibly tidal as that development ramps up). Putting all your eggs in just one form of renewables (solar) would be an insane risk. Base loads need to be addressed in order to phase out the fossil fuels.
There are more options with modern reactor designs. Small modular reactors can be built and brought online cheaper and faster than previous designs. That would allow a faster ROI (reducing fossil fuel usage faster).
Solar, wind, tidal and nuclear should be scaled simultaneously to reach our goals and not think it’s just one or the other.
Wind kills 0.04 per TWH, nuclear 0.03 and solar 0.02. Why is nuclear acceptable for you and wind not?
France just brought an older reactor back online using recycled fuel https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/French-reactor-using-full-core-of-recycled-uranium