Where is the Elon Musk of Nuclear Reactors? Where are the robotic assembly lines that crank out highly modular, efficient, miniature "assemble-yourself" nuclear power plants that any construction team could snap together and seat into a preformed foundation in 48 hours? Why doesn't this exist yet? I'm talking on the scale of 1 reactor to 1 neighborhood or 1 large business. Perhaps geothermal cooling.
How many Falcon 9s did SpaceX blow up before they got a successful launch? Are you willing to have that many meltdowns in order to get your "highly modular, efficient, miniature 'assemble-yourself' nuclear power plants"? Even if you are, how are you going to convince people that it's worth it? What are you going to say when the press tars your project with the headline, "A Fukushima In Your Backyard?"
Yes. Build the first ones in a desert. Do chaos testing, stress testing and over-engineer each component and the whole system so that any teenager can install and operate it. I'm not kidding. Make it "teen certified".
Leaving aside the fact the deserts are essential biomes on their own and shouldn't be treated as garbage dumps, didn't Fukishima and Chernobyl teach us that putting nuclear power plants "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident?
> "way over there away from anything" doesn't really matter in the case of a serious accident?
The current level of burning coal equates to roughly 50 nuclear meltdowns a year because coal contains thorium. So in terms of "putting it anywhere," an in-place switch from coal to fission in a populated area is actually safer.
In addition, the article identifies outdated designs as the primary reason for the cost of nuclear plant rollout. Guess what? Modern plant designs are passively safe, particle physics (not electronics, nor mechanics, nor humans) prevents criticality events.
I'm afraid that the "coal is more radioactive" argument isn't going to get the traction that it did in 20 years ago. There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides.
As measured by GHG emissions, nuclear power is certainly better for the climate. Whether or not that equates to "safer for human activity"? The devil is in the details.
> There are too many caveats and assumptions made in what the level of radioactivity in coal ash means to meaningfully compare it to fissionable radionuclides.
If the reactor is passively safe, the amortized level of radioactivity is zero, especially if the waste is "burned" in secondary reactors (such as TWR).
"if" and "amortized" are just different forms for caveats and assumptions. The level of radioactivity amortized over how long? Long enough time scales and the level of radioactivity is 0 for everything in the entire universe.
Amortized over the duration where we are typically seeing meltdowns in gen1 reactors. 10-50 years?
> "if"
The article talks about modern designs. It is an aspiration, not an assumption. The central argument is that adopting modern reactor designs eliminates meltdown concerns (in addition to reducing costs as the article suggests). That isn't an assumption, that is a suggestion.
We've also got an ocean full of plastic and has hotspots where nuclear waste was dumped[1]. That's no reason to go around saying, "well, we've already trashed it, might as well let it continue to be trashed"
Falcon 9 had been an amazing success, which kind of defeats your point. Of course you need to perfect the technology (or close to it) before you deploy it. People are easily defeated by repetition. To paraphrase, if you have one reactor and it fails, it's a news story. If you have one million reactors and one fails, it's a statistic.
And presumably they would melt down a few plants in the Nevada desert nuclear sites before launching... there’s an obvious difference between testing and deployment
It does exist. But it uses nuclear fusion instead of fission. There's a big nuclear fusion plant at the center of our universe. It's called the "sun". It spreads out its energy for free. There are highly modular energy collectors you can buy that make use of that energy and they're getting cheaper at amazing rates.
This is an irrelevant distraction. There's no reason we can't do both. And, since life on Earth is powered by the sun, everything is fusion power if you zoom out far enough.
Sure there is -- one option is a terrifically expensive and dangerous dead end.
We need to focus on figuring out the logistics for the capturing, storage, and distribution of our friendly neighborhood fusion reactor. If you look at the increasing energy density of battery technology over time[1], there is no practical application for fossil fuels or nuclear in the long run. There are startups[2][3] that are far closer to the "holy grail" of battery technology than any similar plan for nuclear based power.
The economics are already so clear that every major energy provider is moving to renewables. There is (correctly) no appetite for massive nuclear power plants in anyone's backyard. However, there is already a huge market for putting solar on top of your roof and a battery in the garage.
Tesla has proven the massive savings available to any sizeable government with the use of a truly smart grid.[4] Once the logistics are in place to recycle high performance electric vehicle batteries into infrastructure storage where charging times are less important, it's game over for non-renewables for everything but industrial applications. And there are already solutions for that.[5][6]
> Sure there is -- one option is a terrifically expensive and dangerous dead end.
You say this with such certainty... but all of your citations are about renewable and solar. What is your background that gives you the confidence to make such a statement when billions are being spent on nuclear power research by, what I presume you would consider to be, idiots?
I'll stop there because ad hominem arguments are insufficient anyway. The only argument that really matters here is, capitalism will decide the path forward, and not you (fortunately, imo). And the way it does that is that people, none of whom can predict the future with perfect clarity, make intelligent bets about what technologies will produce the most value. As the research and development pans out, the winners become evident, and either way, consumers win.
There's no need to try to strangle the nuclear baby in the crib. If it doesn't work, let it die in development. But, really, how can you make such a confident assertion about the prospects of nuclear? It boggles the mind.
Hopefully HN is still a place where people who are interested in technology can make predictions. I make an effort never to call anyone names, but to focus on the data. I don't think people who are excited about new nuclear technology are idiots. Obviously, nuclear physicists are smart people. But no one, no matter how intelligent, is immune to hubris.
> capitalism will decide the path forward, and not you (fortunately, imo)
Capitalism is the poster child of hubris, and ultimately a fallible set of human ideas -- but that's a different discussion. However, if that is your metric, then the argument is already over.[1]
> how can you make such a confident assertion about the prospects of nuclear? It boggles the mind.
"But even some proponents of nuclear power doubt the program will spur construction of new commercial reactors as long as natural gas and renewable energy remain relatively cheap. 'New builds can’t compete with renewables,' says Robert Rosner, a physicist at the University of Chicago. 'Certainly not now.'
...
"Ramana [U. of B.C. physicist] questions whether the U.S. nuclear industry can be saved. Although issues of dealing with waste and the public’s apprehension about radioactivity remain, the biggest issue confronting the nuclear industry is the high capital cost of new reactors, which can be $7 billion or more. In deregulated markets, utility companies cannot afford such capital expenses, which is why cheaper renewables may ultimately replace nuclear energy, he says. 'This is a sunset industry,' he says, 'and the sooner you recognize that the better.'[2]
There are competing arguments in the same article, but the argument is between nuclear designs that only exist on paper and wind/solar technology that has already been built and is already providing electricity. If you want to put a shovel in the ground today and have renewable energy in a few months, it's possible with existing solar and wind at prices cheaper than any proposed idea for nuclear.
Of course nuclear physicists want billions of dollars for R&D. Of course they believe they can create the one true design that doesn't have any of the fundamental problems of nuclear technology. But according to those people, even their best efforts won't produce any results for years and years.
To put it into startup language, do you want to build a service using an architecture, language, and set of libraries that have been tested and used for years, or do you want to wait a decade and then start building on the latest holy grail platform that no one has successfully used in production?
Small scale reactors, built in an agile fashion, seems like a significant departure from the types of projects you describe. I agree with making predictions, but I think they should be limited and testable predictions. If you say nuclear is a dying industry, I'm going to say you're painting with too broad a brush.
I don't disagree that nuclear appears to be on the wrong track, but I've learned that people often conflate doing something wrong with that thing being impossible to do right.
Wish in one hand, * in the other and see which fills up faster.
I've been hearing similar stories for the last 30 years.
In that time the energy mix feeding my house has gone roughtly from 50% coal:40% nuke:10% NG, to 30% nuke:30% NG:30% coal: 10% wind. For an increase in total CO2 production, despite a slightly better CO2/MW rating due to moving from coal to NG.
No one AFAIK, has managed to get their "green" energy solutions down to the levels france was in the 1980's, despite the increases in cost that come with not only having to build energy production, but 2-3x the production in storage.
The day its actually cheaper to put solar on your average house with a tesla power wall will be the day there is a shitton of home equity loans being taken out to do so. Or for that matter people knocking on everyones door offering to do it for "free" to sell the power back to the grid.
Right now most of the green energy solutions are "inexpensive" because they are being supported by natural gas generators. Meaning they are cleaner than standalone gas, but still a carbon source.
Residential solar is expensive because you don't have the same economy of scale you see in utility-scale deployments. Also something like 1/3 of the cost is "soft costs" such as marketing and the crazy red tape associated with permitting.
The latest academic modelling shows that we can meet 70-80% of energy demand from renewable energy alone, even without storage. All it requires is building a modest excess of capacity and a 50/50 wind/solar mix. When it comes time to add storage, battery storage costs have been plummeting and already dropped 75% over the last 6 years: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-levelize...
But if its truly cheaper than all the worlds CO2 production problems are solved!!
Energy is sufficiently deregulated in enough of the US that they will sell to the areas that aren't, just like France was doing with all its "old dirty" nukes, to the countries around it building "green".
I can't tell from your graph, but I saw an actual cost estimate a couple months ago that points out what has been true for the past 10 years of "wind is cheaper" metrics.
Which is that its not, because its not continuous (or controllable) power delivery. Nor does it account for the fact that it also needs to be overbuilt if its going to supply an energy storage system either. Nor does it account for the energy storage costs.
So, yes in absolute KW produced its cheaper, but that does little but create an oversupply problem. Which is why in places like TX the power costs frequently go to zero when the wind is blowing and spike at other times. Making cheap power when you don't need it doesn't help. What TX needs is lots of power at 3PM (when in theory solar would be useful, but the existing smaller plants aren't making money either).
The net result in TX has been lots of wind install, but even more gas install. Because the gas plants are actually making money. If big battery plants are economically workable then we would also see a lot of companies arbitraging the free wind energy into $ when the price spikes but we don't see that either.
So its not a simple/sure bet like is being claimed.
It's not solved yet, because energy is not deregulated enough, and entrenched financial interests won't go down without a legislative fight.
For example, in Ohio several state legislators were purchased, and passed regulation claiming to "save" nuclear but what it really did was bail out coal and prevent the cheapest source of energy from competing in the market. The most surprising is that this corruption is actually resulting in prosecutions, and the top regulator has now resigned too:
Funny you should bring up Texas, it actually is installing massive batteries, with 17GW in the pipeline last time I heard. And natural gas is dwindling to nothing, getting replaced with solar. ERCOT is one of the very very very few places where cheapest cost can actually win, and it's where we are going to see natural gas die first because of that.
Right, but its the NG that enables the wind because of said load following. That combined with the fact that they are super cheap to build, and the US has a huge glut in NG due to fracking and regulation on how much we can sell internationally.
But, that isn't the point. The point is that even if we go to a ~70% wind model, we will _STILL_BE_WORSE_OFF_THAN_FRANCE_WAS_40_YEARS_AGO_.
The "Green energy" movement there is _INCREASING_ their CO2 production.
> The point is that even if we go to a ~70% wind model, we will _STILL_BE_WORSE_OFF_THAN_FRANCE_WAS_40_YEARS_AGO_.
No.[1]
Denmark has about 48% of their energy from wind, and their per capita carbon emissions are at the same level as in 1960.[2] Ireland with 33% is at the same level as in 1980.[3] Portugal with 27% now has the same emissions as 1990.[4]
There is a trend here.
> I don't get why this is so hard to understand for all those down voters.
You are ignoring data that doesn't agree with your hypothesis.
Click the link and look at the graph in my parent comment. Gas started rising in 2002, when wind and solar had an invisibly small presence in the US market.
It sure sounds like you were arguing that renewable energy had a time-travel effect causing the construction of gas before the renewables were added?
People are downvoting because what you're saying makes no sense.
You realize that the natural gas plants sit mostly idle when renewables are producing enough power, right? And the more renewable capacity we build, the more often that happens?
> Worse, at the current rates, we won't get there for decades.
So, about the same timespan it took to execute the Messmer plan in France, and at a fraction of the cost? (The Messmer plan was France's big nuclear buildout from the 70s through the 90s.)
On a side note, even if we started building reactors today they probably wouldn't be operational for a decade or more (including planning time).
Since 2019/early 2020, the data disagrees with your assessment. Gas plants are leaving the interconnection queue, and massive amounts of solar and wind are coming in:
> But if its truly cheaper than all the worlds CO2 production problems are solved!!
I mean, the International Panel on Climate Change certainly thinks renewable energy is a core part of solving carbon emissions. Their special Report on 1.5C AKA SR15 (https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/) says:
> In 1.5°C pathways with no or limited overshoot, renewables are projected to supply 70–85% (interquartile range) of electricity in 2050 (high confidence).
For the 3 scenarios where we achieve needed emissions reductions, renewables are 48-60% of electricity generation in 2030, and 63-77% in 2050.
> Energy is sufficiently deregulated in enough of the US that they will sell to the areas that aren't
In the US in 2020 the majority of new generating capacity being added is from solar or wind: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42495# -- and if you do the math for capacity factors (around 40% for wind, 25%ish for solar, 60% is for natural gas) then you'll find that solar and wind capacity generates more electricity than the gas.
If the US grid operators and utilities are building all this renewable energy capacity, perhaps they know something...??
> in places like TX the power costs frequently go to zero when the wind is blowing and spike at other times.
Isn't that what a free market is supposed to do -- respond to supply and demand? Last I checked, we don't say that the stock market is broken because it goes up and down.
> that does little but create an oversupply problem
Are you saying free excess power is a BAD thing? I can think of a TON of ways to take advantage of a temporary oversupply; capturing it in storage is only one of them.
> If big battery plants are economically workable then we would also see a lot of companies arbitraging the free wind energy into $ when the price spikes but we don't see that either
Now we're seeing a race to install batteries. Energy arbitrage is only one of the possible income streams -- grid services such as frequency regulation are an even bigger source of funds. The "Big Battery" in Australia has already paid for itself after just a couple year and they've already increased capacity by 50% and are installing a second one in Victoria.
> balancing with gas
In the US, gas capacity is mostly replacing dirtier, more expensive coal powerplants. I don't see a problem with using spare gas capacity to help balance the grid while storage gets ramped up -- the renewable generation is directly replacing fossil fuels except when they need an extra boost.
That's a pretty small data point. Check out the worldwide trend.[1]
> No one AFAIK, has managed to get their "green" energy solutions down to the levels france was in the 1980's
The share of nuclear power generation in France peaked around 2005.[2] They had to temporarily shut down four plants in 2018 to avoid meltdowns[3] due to heatwaves which will become more frequent and they are cancelling nuclear projects in favor of renewable projects.
Renewable energy surpassed nuclear for the EU as a whole around 2014[4]. And the first half of this year, renewables provided more energy than fossil fuels:
"It’s official: in the first half of 2020, and for the first time, Europe generated more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels. Not only that, but electricity is proving cheaper in countries that have more renewables.
From January to June, wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy generated 40% of the electricity across the EU’s 27 member states, while fossil fuels generated 34%. In the United States, by way of contrast, fossil fuels generated more than 62% of electricity last year, while renewables accounted for less than 18%."[5]
> The day its actually cheaper to put solar on your average house with a tesla power wall will be the day there is a shitton of home equity loans being taken out to do so.
"Per the US residential solar finance update: H2 2019, a bit over half of homeowners who upgrade their homes with solar panels get a loan, a sixth of the population pay cash, and the last third rent their roof out to a third party.
Within those numbers were $1.35 billion of residential solar loan ABS (asset backed security) 144A public issuances in 2019, doubling 2018’s $680 million."[6]
You can lie with press releases all day long. The pacific NW had more "renewable" energy production than carbon sources for decades, its carbon footprint per MW is about 3x that of France.
Shifing to a pacific NW model is economically something that is happening on its own, and has been for the 30 years I linked above. But not because we are building "Green" because all those intermittent sources are 30%+ backed by NG generators which can be spun up/down on demand and over the past 15 are super cheap to install. And NG has been super cheap due to fracking and the fact that the US can't sell it internationally.
But its not about percentages, its about how much CO2 is being produced.
Today I learned that Wikipedia and OurWorldInData are "press releases"...
Yes, we get it that you have a wholly irrational dislike of renewable energy and are willing to grasp at straws to argue against it.
> because all those intermittent sources are 30%+ backed by NG generators which can be spun up/down on demand and over the past 15 are super cheap to install
I'm trying to follow what you're arguing here and it makes no sense. You're arguing that the Northwest is simultaneously using almost all renewables and using tons of fossil fuels...? It can't be both.
We'll ignore the fact that according to your link, wind+solar is less than 10% of the electricity generation there, and there's no real evidence of a big investment in either, just the pre-existing hydro power.
No, I just don't like people who pretend that wind/solar are actually going to solve the CO2 problem by pointing at some future technology or pricing model that is going to save us while stubbornly refusing to accept a 70 year old technology that is actually carbon free.
That is what got us were we are today. Because back in the 1970/80's people argued the exact same thing (no nukes, solar will save us). And what happened? We got more coal plants because they were way cheaper except in the few places that actually built nukes. The same argument happened in the 1990s/2000s and what did we get? A few percent of wind/solar, and a shift to NG due to fracking.
_TODAY_ if you want a competitive solution you build somewhere in the ballpark of 20-70% wind/solar and back it with NG.
Where will that put us in over the next 40 years?
Its going to create even more C02 because power utilization is going up. All that is going to do is slow the rate of increase, which is exactly what the current charts are showing. The rate of wind/solar rollout is barely exceeding the demand curve and in a lot of places its regressing, particularly in places where ancient nuke plants are being replaced by "green" technologies.
Yes, sure wind+NG is better than NG or coal, but its a shit solution. If batteries actually get cheap then we can do 2x wind+battery, but that isn't here today. What we have today are nuke plants, just like we did 40 years ago. If back then instead of waiting for the future to save us we were more pragmatic the ice caps wouldn't be melting.
My personal opinion is that in 40 years what is going to solve this problem is a giant war, because wishing for the future to save us hasn't worked yet.
You're trying to argue that the solar market in 2020 looks the same as it did in the 1970s? Seriously? When the cost of solar PV has dropped 70% just in the last decade alone...?
I can't even find LCOE figures that far back, but the cost of solar modules in 1975 was just over $100 a watt. Today, a solar panel can cost as little as $0.50/W
That's literally a TWO HUNDREDFOLD decrease in price, and modern panels last longer. This is like arguing that computers are useless in 2020 because in the 70s they were not very powerful.
> If batteries actually get cheap then we can do 2x wind+battery, but that isn't here today
In the field, people bidding on energy projects are doing mixed solar+storage and wind+storage at prices comparable to nuclear or lower. Today. With 2020 tech and 2020 pricing, not 2025, not 2030. Granted, these aren't including a lot of storage right now (1-4 hours generally) but as battery prices continue to drop that will increase.
Given how costs are dropping as the technologies scale up, in 2025 people won't even think twice before choosing renewables+storage over nuclear, because it'll be a no-brainer.
> What we have today are nuke plants, just like we did 40 years ago.
Yes, that's the problem. Nuke plants plants have advanced technologically in the last 40 years, but in terms of cost they're actually more expensive because we found more failure modes (and need to prevent them).
And this is disappointing because I worked in nuclear physics for a few years and really wanted to believe that nuclear energy was going to save us... and it catastrophically failed to deliver.
Sure, except the Earth rotates and we can only collect said energy for half the day. It's also fluctuates in the amount of energy collected seasonally (tilt of Earth's axis), and most energy demand happens to occur in northern latitudes where these fluctuations are more extreme. Our ability to store energy remains orders of magnitude smaller than what is required to actually use this as a primary source of energy.
This doesn't provide a path to a decarbonized energy sector. It's a good way of mitigating emissions while a real decarbonization solution is implemented. Right now nuclear is the only known way of doing that, save for geographically dependent sources like hydroelectricity and geothermal power.
Multiple countries generate the majority of their electricity from nuclear power. No country generates more than 15% of their energy from solar power, and only 3 countries (Malta, Yemen, Honduras) generate more than 10%.
The reason is more about capex, the financial necessity of aging out existing plants and the time it takes to shift from one dominant source of power generation to another.
It wouldn't have been possible to shift to nuclear power overnight either.
Since natgas is 100% dispatchable and is 35% of power generation in the US it's not like nuclear's 20% is really contributing that much stability to the grid right now and natgas can be gradually dialed down as solar/wind/variability tech is dialed up.
> the financial necessity of aging out existing plants and the time it takes to shift from one dominant source of power generation to another.
Yes... but we just undertook the capex to do this with coal -> natgas in the last decade or so. So the barrier is not just the financial cost of overhauling.
and in the last 5 years we went from about 5% to 18% renewables.
The renewables industry in the US wasn't given any special dispensation so it had to compete pretty much without subsidy with natgas and coal which it could only really start to do about 5 years ago (it's cost competitive with coal only this year).
In fact, arguably the US subsidies oil and gas more than renewables.
Nuclear would require massive subsidies to grow beyond 20%. Renewables won't.
Some. Dirt cheap solar panels from China also had tariffs slapped on them by Obama which offset much of that and killed the solar boom a few years ago.
The oil and gas industry is also subsidized at federal and state level, of course.
Solar hasn’t replaced natural gas, because they are entirely different things. It’s exceptionally easy to transport natural gas, it has a ridiculously good energy density and burns well, the logistics of natural gas require no technology in the lines that run between natural gas devices are a half pound of pressure meaning any idiot can hookup/install/modify.
There is a case to be made for hydrogen displacing natural gas, but in my opinion not until we have small local fusion reactors, and in that event you’re probably looking a battery anyway. Hydrogen has great potential for aviation, but home consumer use natural gas will be king for some time.
Uh, sure - but many of the reasons you're giving seem to be missing that I'm talking about for electricity generation, whereas you seem to be imagining in home usage?
Natural gas power plants can have 1000 psi or more in their lines.
> it has a ridiculously good energy density and burns well
Yes, good energy density - that does sound like something that might be important.
> announced that completion of the project would be delayed by 3 years to 2030. It also estimates the cost would climb from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion.
Unfortunately this is a very old story with the nuclear industry: they consistently over-promise and under-deliver. The closer projects get to completion, the more costs grow and the further the completion date gets pushed out. This has been true of most of the recent builds in the US and Europe.
The tech is fine, but there seems to be something wrong with the industry.
Their target price, of $55/MWh, would probably be acceptable if delivered today.
But when you look at hybrid solar/battery projects, we are already getting close to $55/MWh for fully dispatchable energy, that doesn't have to be run 24x7 like nuclear but actually matches the load curve of the grid.
Seriously, there are battery projects being deployed now, attached to solar, with a storage cost of $80/MWh, and energy cost of $20/MWh. Since overnight demand is small compared to daytime, only about half of the energy needs to be stored. That averages out to $60/MWh, today. In 5 years it will be something like $40-$50. In 10 years, when NuScale deploys, the cost of solar+storage will be $30-40/MWh. And it might even get cheaper.
NuScale may be useful for polar locations without much wind, but I don't foresee them having a huge addressable market.
Don't get me wrong, I have been pro-fission for a very long time (as it could get us out of this fossil fuel pit faster than any other option, even if we plan to replace it in the future). It has a very bad name because of bad green peace pseudo-science, fusion has better PR.
Sure there are reasons this is a bad idea, but there are certainly reasons it's a good one. It seems like building large plants the way we typically do backloads tons of risk. And it's not really working.
How does the risk of nuclear meltdown scale down with size? Both in terms of likelihood and how catastrophic?
We're already entering into runaway proliferation.
Pakistan and India are our allies, but I don't see them keeping a stranglehold on the tech. Iran will have them. The Saudis will probably have them soon.
If a dysfunctional nation like North Korea can have nukes, what's stopping the rest of the world?
We're not even preventing ICBM capability from spreading!
What gives? This is way more of a nightmare scenario than climate change and nobody is batting an eye.
> This is way more of a nightmare scenario than climate change and nobody is batting an eye.
there is a probability that an irrational leader orders a nuclear attack and somebody executes it instead of deserting.
climate change is a certainty at this point and the only question is how bad will it be. for people living by the sea and in the parts of the tropics displacement in a single lifetime is next to certain.
The tech is 75 years old. One suspects a sufficiently-funded team of recent PhDs could build the entire infrastructure from scratch in less than a decade. The methods we've attempted to stem proliferation haven't worked. Trying them again, except harder this time, won't work either. We all know this, but few of us have the imagination to consider other options.
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