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Comment by em3rgent0rdr | Hacker News Reader

Your article includes nuclear:

"Wind, solar, and battery storage can provide the bulk of the 90 percent clean electricity. The report finds that new fossil fuel generators are not needed. Existing gas plants, used infrequently and combined with storage, hydropower, and nuclear power, are sufficient to meet demand during periods of extraordinarily low renewable energy generation or exceptionally high electricity demand."

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Existing nuclear, not new. Those facilities will eventually be decommissioned, as they’re nearing end of life, but it of course makes sense to extend their operating licenses if safe to do so (to be replaced last after fossil generators).

If you break ground on a new reactor this moment, it won’t generate its first kw for years. Historically, over a decade, but folks handwave that cutting regulation and red tape would speed up the process, so I say years to be generous.

If only we could replace these old, baseload reactors quicker, and cheaper, and maybe with an identical, smaller design, with better tech so one control room could monitor multiple reactors. And if refuelling could be done without turning off all power generation at a site. Maybe if we had something modular......oh, wait

Wow its so easy, can't believe all those idiots trying to build nuclear plants the past few decades have never though to simply apply "better tech". Thanks hacker news/silicon valley!

The barriers, time, and cost for nuclear seem to be primarily of political origin, not technical. It's held to an unreasonable higher standard than anything else.

So certainly all the non US/EU countries with less strict regulations should have electricity "too cheap to meter" through nuclear, right? since there's no technical challenges here apparently.

There are technical challenges, but arguably the primary challenges are a) capital costs, and b) nonproliferation treaties.

Nuclear is an inherently centralized technology, in contrast to solar and wind which can be controlled at a more local level, even down to the individual home owner and land owner. Even with small plants purported to be in the works, the cost scale is not in reach of an individual family like solar panels can be. That centralization of nuclear brings with it things like corruption, taxation, cost overruns, and cleanup costs that are not accounted for in the lifetime of the politicians whose buddies are benefitting from the contracts. So I wouldn't say the higher bar is unreasonable.

Why is Rolls Royce trying to build small modular reactors then? If you look at what Rolls Royce is doing for example then everything that came before it appears to be a joke in terms of economics. You can't build bespoke power plants like you're an artisan and expect them to be cheap.

The real challenges in nuclear power plant construction are the total lack of economies of scale. Nobody wants a bloody $30 billion plant. People want 10 plants for that price.

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