California Joins Bid to Save Nuclear Power
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The big booster of nukes today is Big Fossil, because each nuke project started represents at least ten years of solid sales of NG, or worse, while construction is delayed again and again. With any luck, it will be cancelled before completion, and none of those dollars will have gone to panels that would immediately displace their product. Certainly none will be refunded.
No nuke has ever been built with money not coerced from somebody.
I'll also add that renewables were made possible by massive government subsidies while they developed enough economies of scale to compete with other power sources. High carbon tax with subsidies for ALL zero carbon energy, including nuclear, are the way forward.
Why has this been explained repeatedly for decades, yet still not understood?
We’ve basically squandered half a century trying to stop climate change because people don’t like nuclear power
Here’s Carl Sagan from 1985:
He said China would use all that coal and they did.
We lost decades of time. Now we need a few additional miracles.
"Renewables are not a viable solution to energy needs on their own”
You should check out graphs of renewables deployment (minus hydro which has been steady for a while) it makes reaching 10% wind/solar a lot more hopeful than you state it. The growth is staggering.
> There are now 50 countries that have crossed that 10% wind and solar generation mark, and seven countries hit that milestone in 2021: China, Japan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Argentina, Hungary, and El Salvador, according to the report. Three countries in particular have shown a particularly fast transition, with Vietnam, Australia, and the Netherlands having moved 8% of their total electricity demand over to wind and solar from fossil fuels in only the last two years. These countries set a precedent, Jones says, to show other policy makers “there are ways to do this and not worry about keeping the lights on.”
Think we’d all like to see much more wind and solar. And wouldn’t it be nice if we reached 10% EV usage in 5 years?
> Growth has been particularly impressive over the last three years, even as the global pandemic shrank the market for conventional cars and as manufacturers started grappling with supply chain bottlenecks. In 2019, 2.2 million electric cars were sold, representing just 2.5% of global car sales. In 2020, the overall car market contracted but electric car sales bucked the trend, rising to 3 million and representing 4.1% of total car sales. In 2021, electric car sales more than doubled to 6.6 million, representing close to 9% of the global car market and more than tripling their market share from two years earlier. All the net growth in global car sales in 2021 came from electric cars.
You'd think EVs and Nuclear would be a great pairing but it's unusual to see someone praising both. A somewhat weird place to be in preferring nuclear to gas (and renewables) but not EV to ICE.
What brings climate disaster closer is that we have lost the ability to effectively build large complex projects such as nuclear plants.
I'm not sure if power got more unstable in recent years, but as long as North America sticks to above-ground power delivery, I'm sure the effective stability here is way better.
Imagine if we had initiated building out 100% solar decades ago, triggering the PV cost collapse in 1990 instead of 2010.
> Opposition to nuclear power increased when President Richard Nixon called for the construction of 1000 nuclear plants by the year 2000.
Gee...only if we did.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement_in_Calif...
40 years of trying to avert climate change and we are still waiting for the windmills and solar, with no way to store enough electricity so we can stop using fossil fuels.
40% of global electricity is still from coal
For whatever reason, we haven’t gotten to that point. Still not cheap enough?
I was hoping Musk’s solar roof would be the start of something big.
At any rate, in 2060 maybe we’ll have incredible batteries, solar energy everywhere, but we’re already way behind schedule.
All this waiting for renewables has cost us years. It’s unlikely that we are going to avert significant climate issues.
But I guess that only applies to the US or the industry.
Here in Europe for an average size roof, it’s 20k € like it’s been for the last ten years.
But really your regional utility should be buying them.
Quotes for nukes never include the cost of 10 years of coal while they are being poured.
But discharging that heat directly into seawater adversely affects sea life. This is what causes bleaching death of corals in warmer waters.
The environmental impact studies alone would likely take years, especially because Mothers For Peace, the Surfrider Foundation, the local Chumash band, and every other group under the sun would tarpit the project. They hate nuclear like Everytown hates guns, and no amount of logic will change their minds.
FWIW, I think the damage is done and DCPP shouldn't need to put in cooling towers — the output cove has different sea life than the ocean just a bit beyond it and has for decades. However, I don't make the rules.
Renewing a plant's license is like building a rate case (which takes years), but harder. It takes time and money and we don't have enough of either to succeed, no matter what Biden or Newsom claim. NRC could waive certain things to speed it up but they won't (nor should they).
FWIW, I live just a few miles from DCPP, have been onsite there a number of times when I worked for PG&E, and I sleep very well at night. PG&E may have screwed up in a lot of ways over the years, but DCPP is a well-run facility and it's a shame it has to close prematurely (lots of life left in that plant).