this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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$60k per MW or $210M for a nuclear reactors worth (3.5GW). Sure... the reactor will go 24/7 (between maintenance and refuelling down times, and will use less land (1.75km² Vs ~40km²) but at 1% of the cost, why are we still talking about nuclear.
(I'm using the UKs Hinckley Point C power station as reference)
Because there are nights there are winters there are cloudy and rainy days, and there are no batteries capable of balancing all of these issues. Also when you account for those batteries the cost is going to shift a bit. So we need to invest in nuclear and renewables and batteries. So we can start getting rid of coal and gas plants.
You better be bringing units if you're going to be claiming this.
Still less than half of the LCOE of nuclear when storage is added: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1475611/global-levelized-cost-of-energy-components-by-technology/
Given that both solar and storage costs are trending downwards while nuclear is not, this basically kills any argument for nuclear in the future. It's not viable on its face - renewables + storage is the definitive future.
And cheaper solar and batteries permits cheaper Hydrogen which provides unlimited and 100% resilient renewable power, and still cheaper than nuclear.
I have a generally negative impression of hydrogen because many of the intended use-cases seem to be a cover story for the gas industry to keep existing, which it very much should not be any more.
Do you know any use-cases where hydrogen is truly warranted, outside for example steel production, which I think might be legit?
The case for an H2 economy is one entirely based on Green H2 made from surplus renewables which are needed most days to have enough renewable energy every day.
That gas companies know how to build pipelines, distribution, and make metered gas sales to customers is a path for them/employees to remain useful without destroying the planet.
Commercial vehicles has legitimate benefits of lower cost from H2 FCs than batteries. Quicker refuel times. Aviation especially benefits from redesigning planes for H2 for the weight savings. Trains/ships need the power/range. Trucks/cars can use the range extension, and could use H2 as removable auxiliary power for extended range.
Those vehicles can also charge the grid, and as hybrids, EVs or grid can be charged from static H2 FCs. For building energy, a FC can provide the usual fraction of domestic hot water from its waste heat. The electric monopoly problem is an opportunity for both producers and consumers to bypass their high rates and fees. Ammonia and fertilizer is traditional use for H2. There needs to be a carbon tax to move away from giant fosil H2 plants powering next door giant ammonia/fertilizer plants.
Hydrogen electrolysis is just one form of electro chemistry. Other fertilizers can be made from simpler versions of the process. It's not so much that H2 is essential in unlimited quantities, it is that electro chemistry is possible ultra cheaply when there is an abundance of renewables that provides enough energy every day to power their locality. H2 is special as a chemical for being transportable/convertable as mobile or other elecricity/heat.
Wouldn't it be more compelling to store it in other types of batteries instead of H2 primarily?
I honestly don't think H2 is a good idea for these use-cases. H2 distribution is a different beast than natural gas distribution, on top of gas combustion just generally not being particularly good compared to common household electrical counterparts (induction for stoves, electric for ovens, heat pumps for heating buildings and water).
I imagine refueling times is not necessarily going to be critical for all types of commercial use-cases.
Aviation struggles with the relatively low energy density in H2.
Trains should essentially always be running on catenaries.
Boats might be able to make use of H2, I'm not super familiar with the issues affecting them.
Long-hail trucking should broadly be replaced by the much more efficient rail shipping.
Cars run pretty much fine on electric as is, I'm not sure the case for making H2 cars is compelling enough to be warranted.
This might be a good niche for H2 to fill.
All in all, I'm still not convinced that large-scale H2 buildouts is a good use of our resources, but there are definitely a few compelling niches that it can fill. We need to be wary of them being co-opted by blue hydrogen fossil fuel companies though, which often seems to be the case today.
The economics of batteries are that they must be fully charged and discharged daily to pay off. A 2 day average cycle is double the cost of energy in using them.
In spring and fall we get positive happy headlines that "all electricity was provided by solar/renewables" during 1 hour or so during a day, or that electricity prices went negative. These seasons are low demand with good enough sun. Batteries get let those days/seasons get to 24 hour power from renewables, but then summer heatwaves won't fill demand even with more sun, winter will not charge up the batteries enough. H2 electrolysis is needed to have enough solar and batteries to cover all those needs, and then use H2 to cover winter supplemental needs. H2 supports not just more solar, but also more batteries. Makes sure batteries can always discharge before the sun comes up.
Commercial vehicles, need to pay operators for downtime, and downtime is time not earning revenue. it is a bid deal to them.
At $4/gallon diesel/kerosene, a plane will cost 100x in fuel as its purchase costs. We can already produce green H2 at $2/kg compressed. Which is equivalent to $1/gallon gasoline fuel when used in a FC. Redesigning planes, and delta wing for long range specifically, for H2 is worth liquifying the H2 for the weight savings and range over compressed. It's also that price that can compete well with commercial EV charging.
But Germany has no space for nuclear waste. They haven't been able to bury the last batch for over 30 years. And the one that they buried most recently began to leak radioactivity into ground water.
And.. why give Russia more military target opportunities?
I'm not a rabid anti-nuclear, but there are somethings that are often left out of the pricing. One is the exorbitant price of storage of spent fuel although I seem to remember that there is some nuclear tech that can use nuclear waste as at least part of it's fuel (Molten salt? Pebble? maybe an expert can chime in). There is also the human greed factor. Fukushima happened because they built the walls to the highest recorded tsunami in the area, to save on concrete. A lot of civil engineering projects have a 150% overprovision over the worst case calculations. Fukushima? just for the worst case recorded, moronic corporate greed. The human factor tends to be the biggest danger here.
Another example that gets skimmed over or ignored is the massive cost of decommissioning a nuclear power plant. It typically ranges from $280 million to $2 billion, depending on the technology used. More complex plants can be up to $4 billion. And the process can take 15 to 30 years to complete.
Those are less competitive, and salt reactor attempts have historically caused terminating corrosion problems. The SMR "promise" relies on switching extremely expensive/rare/dangerous plutonium level enriched fuel, that rely on traditional reactors for enrichment, for slightly lower capital costs.
You're using factors of less than 10 to argue against a factor of 100.
The batteries needed are a lot less than you might think. Solar doesn't work at night and the wind doesn't always blow, but we have tons of regional weather data about how they overlap. From that, it's possible to calculate the maximum historical lull where neither are providing enough. You then add enough storage to handle double that time period, and you're good.
Getting 95% coverage with this is a very achievable goal. That last 5% takes a lot more effort, but getting to 95% would be a massive reduction in CO2 output.
I think there's a contingent of people who think nuclear is really, really cool. And it is cool. Splitting atoms to make power is undeniably awesome. That doesn't make it sensible, though, and they don't separate those two thoughts in their mind. Their solution is to double down on talking points designed for use against Greenpeace in the 90s rather than absorbing new information that changes the landscape.
And then there's a second group that isn't even trying to argue in good faith. They "support" nuclear knowing it won't go anywhere because it keeps fossil fuels in place.