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Comment by bob29 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that you can understand this concept when its applied to development of grid-scale storage.

But you think its easier and risk free to develop from where we are to R&D plus supply chain, operating procedures, and workforce for safe and cost effective nuclear power?

Grid storage has no cost history. Nuclear power has a known cost history of being too expensive, and its had trillions of dollars of investment so theres no low hanging fruit.

Grid storage has existing components used in other industries and applications, nuclear power doesn't.

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The grid storage that has actually been deployed like hydroelectric and battery storage does have cost history. But it's too expensive, and are geographically limited in the case of the former. The grid storage systems like hydrogen electric storage, or ammonia have not been deployed at scale and has no cost history. I'm not inclined to gamble the future of civilization on technologies that we have zero experience building and operating.

By comparison, we have 70 years of experience building and operating nuclear plants. We only need to build 4 nuclear plants for each one we currently have to achieve a 100% decarbonized grid. The cost history of nuclear power shows a clear trend that serial production is cheaper than one off builds.

And you are incorrect about nuclear power not sharing components with existing applications. Nuclear power plants use steam generators, turbines, dynamos, and cooling towers. These are used in other heat engine based power plants.

And, all more expensive to operate than alternative methods.

Which is why nukes are today uncompetitive, and get less so every day. The cost to build all those nukes would build far more renewable generating capacity and storage, far more than we will need. So, we will instead spend far less and get all the power we need. Existing nukes will shortly be too expensive to continue operating, and will be mothballed. Their eventual dismantling will consume a not insubstantial fraction of our much reduced energy budget.

>build 4 nuclear plants for each one we currently have to achieve a 100% decarbonized grid

Uhh, mining and uranium enrichment and transportation all require fossil fuels, and more fossil fuel energy than a fueled nuclear produces in electrical energy. Increasing 4x nuclear plants would increase fossil fuel consumption in the nuclear supply chain.

Nuclear isn't some secret technology you've just discovered thats being suppressed by environmentalists. It literally ended the biggest war ever and was pursued for decades afterwards. Unless you know a secret, if its feasible it would have been done.

> Uhh, mining and uranium enrichment and transportation all require fossil fuels, and more fossil fuel energy than a fueled nuclear produces in electrical energy.

Incorrect. Nuclear power actually has the second lowest net CO2 emissions per energy source, second only to hydroelectricity. Less than solar and wind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis...

So wrong its funny. Maybe if you assume the pre-existance of the nuclear supply chain due to a weapons program. I challenge you to actually follow the sources on any of estimates like that, or the hilarious "12g c02/kwhr" quote. It's all ESTIMATES (not measurements) FROM The nuclear industry. But keep on believing.

The estimates are from the IPCC, not from the nuclear industry. This is stated in the article.

The IPCC did not do primary research. They cite a source. That source did not do primary research, either. The actual data comes from an estimate from the industry itself. The estimates came from costs. Estimating embodied fossil fuel energy based on cost is a not a bad estimation technique except when a huge amount of your supply chain is subsidized.

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