If it was easy to solve, it’d be solved already. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, and for those reasons it’s likely it won’t be done.
It’s already cheaper to build new solar plants and wind farms than continue to run an existing coal plant (which itself is cheaper to run than nuclear).
No it wouldnt be solved already since the political environment is completely against nuclear, so simply false. Solar is a fraction of energysupply and will not even be close to being signifficant whare it really matters which is in transportation.
How is nuclear being expensive political? It is fundementally untenable as a commercial enterprise when compared to natural gas, solar, and wind.
90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment.
“Nearly all nuclear plants now in use began operation between 1970 and 1990. These plants would require a subsequent license renewal before 2050 to operate beyond the 60-year period covered by their original 40-year operating license and the 20-year license extension that nearly 90% of plants currently operating have either already received or have applied for. The AEO2017 Reference case projections do not envision a large amount of new nuclear capacity additions. By 2050, only four reactors currently under construction and some uprates at existing plants are projected to come online.”
Super-expensive safety regulations are often based on the linear no-threshold model of biological dose response. There is more and more data showing that this is illogical at very low doses. Changing that is highly political.
The large 3-shift security staff at nuclear power plants is based on political concerns.
The contractor and financing models in play in the US to build nukes causes lots of misalignment, and contracts end up suing each other over trivialities rather than building the plant like the Koreans do or French did (in the 1970s). That's nearly political.
Anti-nuclear intervenors watch over plant plans and try to delay at all costs. Totally political.
If flyash disposal, mining, carbon emission, and fracking were equally regulated then these regulations create incentive to R+D nuclear technology, making it more affordable. The results of a rigged race don't prove anything.
That doesn’t address solar and wind being drastically cheaper than nuclear fission. It would be wasteful to continue to poor dollars into fission at this point, versus scaling up renewables and battery manufacturing further.
Whether the race is rigged is irrelevant; the race is over.
Solar and wind are environmentally dependent sources that aren't possible in all locations or times and are unlikely to work on their own. Even when they are generally available, they don't have the same utility for industry as a constant source like nuclear because of the uncertainty. Since coal and gas will certainly run out, nuclear still may have a future in small scale modular nuclear reactors produced offsite, at scale.
Again, they aren't cheaper when you compare to output.
Just to put things in perspective. Solar can do roughly 50W per m2 at best and I am being generous.
Nuclear does 1000W per m2.
Solar is not even close to being able to deliver stable energy so you would have to factor either coal, nuclear or oil into the mix too to provide stable delivery.
Renewable can't deliver the needed energy not even close. Less than 1% right now and not even close with anything like fuel cell technologies or distributed grid systems which would be very very very expensive.
Nuclear whether you like it or not is cleaner, more stable, cheaper and more scaleable.
Just to put things in perspective. Solar can do roughly 50W per m2 at best and I am being generous. Nuclear does 1000W per m2.
Apples and oranges. We have plenty of desert land and /or roof space for solar. Granted solar is not with its enviro issues but nuclear stands apart. Also costs. A Nuclear power plants costs $20+billion to be built. But then solar by definition is only during the day
But we have no fuelcell technology and no grid and no signs of anything even closely resembling a solution thats possible to pay for, nuclear provides energy for a very long time and doesent need to be fixed all the time like dolar and wind.
Solar and wind are currently very cheap on an LCOE basis, but LCOE is a poor proxy for the entire system cost. Due to their variable nature, the value of these resources shrink rapidly as their grid penetration increases. That being said, in most grids there's still plenty of space for wind and/or solar before these effects become a problem.
The end goal is a lowest cost deep decarbonized grid. We should design policies to give us that ASAP. In many cases, nuclear has a robust role to play in such grids.
You use it as baseload to replace coal. The problem with renewables is the variability, which would lead to overcapacity or other issues as it scales up.
When we say a source is "baseload", we're not saying something good about it. What that means is that source's business case depends on being able to sell its output most of the time. It's a word describing economic inflexibility.
There is no reason why a grid needs any baseload sources whatsoever.
It’s not good or bad, it’s just the nature of the beast.
The nature of a nuclear plant is that it is incredibly capital intensive, and needs to operate at capacity to work financially.
Solar is interesting because it’s peak output aligns with peak demand. Your solar farm isn’t going to do much for you st night, but that’s ok because you don’t need the power!
PV is also interesting because the levelized cost of power from it has become very good, especially in areas of high insolation, and because its costs continue to rapidly decline. Low cost gives all sorts of headroom for such things as overbuilding and low efficiency storage.
It’s already cheaper to build new solar plants and wind farms than continue to run an existing coal plant (which itself is cheaper to run than nuclear).