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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear is, unfortunately, way too expensive to operate. It's hard enough to keep some existing plants running, let alone build new ones, just based on the economics of it alone.

Solar and wind, meanwhile, are cheap enough that they're being built in massive numbers even without subsidies.

We just need to solve the energy storage gap.

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"just" might not be the right word here. Electric cars existed in the 1890s but their range was too short. Which is exactly the same problem they have today. The problem of non-existent cheap energy storage has been around for more than a century.

Battery backup seems to mostly be there in terms of daily storage. “1.997 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for the solar power and 1.3 cents per kWh for the battery.“ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/giant-batteries-and-...

Seasonal issues are more complex and likely involve other sources like Wind/Hydro/etc.

Do you really think there has been no progress making electric cars better? I don't think you've been paying attention.

A tremendous amount of progress has been made in battery technology since the 1890s. We're the vast majority of the way there in terms of total progress and development that needs to be made on the technology.

And you can get EVs today that have the same range as petroleum-powered vehicles, which is much, more longer than the average trip. EVs have well over 20X the range they did a century ago, so no, they don't have "exactly the same problem today".

Why is too expensive to operate? China is still building them. Can’t we develop a standard design to reduce the red tape?

Nuclear had a good run until the Three Mile Island accident.

What China is or isn’t building is not a good guideline for infrastructure investment.

This isn't responsive to the parent comment in any way.

It absolutely is. The PRC tends to invest in infrastructure projects for the future, and not for today. That's something western politicians do an awful job of with their 4 year election cycles.

Nuclear had some horrendous accidents before TMI. It’s just that they were military facilities, so it got hushed up. TMI was far from the first, it was just the first that didn’t get the cover of “national security” thrown over it. Look up Windscale, Kyshtym, and SL-1 for some prominent examples.

We can certainly do much better today, though.

It needs lots of people, and many of the people must be highly trained. This makes it more suitable for low labor cost markets.

Nuclear was having serious cost escalation problems in the US even before the TMI accident.

Nuclear costs squat to run. It's all the construction costs you need to amortize over the life of the plant that screw you.

This is not true. Many nuclear plants in the US have been shut down because they cannot cover their operating costs. The plant in this thread is one of them. TMI hadn't been cash flow positive for six years.

The one near me (Seabrook Station) gets taken offline every 18 months for major maintenance. This is actually good for the local economy - because it costs so much money. They bring in workers from all across the country, who spend a lot of their wages at nearby motels etc.

Chinese nuclear engineering sounds like foreshadowing to the next Chernobyl.

"Nuclear had a good run" until you realize that we never solved the long-term radioactive waste problem.

I believe the inability of North America to complete the construction of new nuclear plants that have been approved or maintain the existing ones is a symptom of a shortage of competent labor and know how. We can’t organize ourselves to complete a large project. The people with the ability to build or maintain a nuclear plant are pursuing more lucrative careers at FAANG.

Nuclear makes a great "base load" handler actually. It's complementary to solar/wind.

Except it doesn't, because it's too expensive to operate and not only are new nuclear plants not being built (for economic reasons), but existing ones are being shut down (for economic reasons; see the article).

No, nuclear is a poor complement to solar/wind. To complement solar/wind you want a source that has low capital cost and that can be ramped up and down quickly, to fill in gaps. This is pretty much the opposite of what nuclear is.

There is no energy storage gap. The same storage systems that coal and gas fired plants utilize (pumped hydro dams, flywheels, molten salt batteries, etc.) are right there and available for use.

Anyone saying the storage of energy is a problem has not looked at what traditional power generation plants use for power storage after generation.

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