Nuclear power can help the democratic world achieve energy independence | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear power can help the democratic world achieve energy independence

nature.com

61 pointsrntn30 comments

And what about the non-democratic world?

Do we want every country to run nuclear power plants?

Would you want foreign governments and countries running nuclear plants in your country?

One way to help with that would be to have nuclear plants in trusted countries, but will they stay trusted and will other countries accept being dependent on a one sided dependence on power?

Those questions are (in addition to cost concerns) why nuclear is not a tech i see helping the world moving forward.

Solar/renewable could foster entirely energy independent countries with a ton of storage or my preferred option, a global grid having sun 24/7 and robust to seasons due to production on both hemispheres. That way we are all interconnected and keep trading even if long distance trade becomes verboten.

>Solar/renewable could foster entirely energy independent countries with a ton of storage or my preferred option, a global grid having sun 24/7 and robust to seasons due to production on both hemispheres.

That's pretty cool but I'd rather we achieved energy independence this millennia.

Anything but renewables brings global catastrophe and civilization collapse nearer.

Collapse of civilization would deliver a kind of energy independence, but maybe not the kind you want.

Power from renewables is so radically cheaper than anything else ever known that not building it out as fast as possible costs strictly more. That building out renewables fast enough might fend off global catastrophe is an extra benefit.

Building nukes would steal capital from building out renewables.

Why is a nuclear reactor in the sky "renewable", but a nuclear reactor in France isn't?

I will direct your question to a uranium miner.

In any case, NG aside the important distinction nowadays is between technologies with and without substantial opex: NG, nukes and geo are on one side, wind and solar on the other. And capex, same division except NG generation infrastructure is readily retrofitted for synthetic fuel.

Wind and solar are so radically much cheaper all around that it makes no sense to talk about building anything else.

Because for one we literally pull some resource we have a finite amount of out of the ground, while for other one, we do not.

Building under sea cables between asia and europe already exist, an undersea cable between NA and Europe would be profitable, so would be a cross Mediterranean power connection.

The major polluters, (India, China, USA, Russia) already have nuclear weapons. If we could just switch those powers to nuclear energy, I'd think it would offset most of the world's carbon emissions.

The 'rich will take care of the poor' plan hasn't panned out so well. Then there's the price, the long build-times ... We're building a workable solution that will spill over into energy-independence wherever the (no-cost-fuel) Sun shines. No carbon, less that has to be captured.

There's no cheaper electricity source then renewables, by a long shot. Why bother with nuclear?

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...

https://rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/solars-future-is-insanely-c...

Renewables offer less scope for fully-legal corruption. Nukes still lead, there. SMRs might leave less scope for it, and if so can be counted on to gain little traction.

Why bother with nuclear:

1. fields belong to trees, grass, animals, not to some ugly panels that were produced with millions of tons of toxic waste that was then dumped into the ocean.

2. windmills are ugly, kill birds, ruin microclimate.

3. Additional expertise in fission will lead to more capital, talent, and mindshare available to develop fusion further.

How would a spacefaring civilization get off from this rock and survive without nukes?

Colonization of planets cannot happen without them. Renewables is just the Sun, rebadged, nothing "renewable" about it.

The impact of windmills is not as bad as you imply, and the pollutant threat is still far lower than alternatives.

We should not destroy this planet JUST so that we can colonise other planets. That is risky at best, self-sabotaging at worst.

(The climate disaster is not an excuse to say 'we have to colonise other planets or we're toast!' BTW)

My comment was specifically about "Why bother with nuclear". I'm not getting into discussions about climate.

You may not like it, but the Earth is kept warm enough for life to exist by nuclear reactions deep inside its molten core.

Nuclear fission is literally what sustains your life.

Otherwise, the planet would be too cold, and it would lack tectonic movements, both are crucial for the emergence of complex life.

Please review The Science(tm): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nuclear-fi...

FYI: plate tectonics affect the carbon cycle, help regulate the atmosphere, and thus ultimately contribute to keeping our planet's surface at a comfortable not-too-hot and not-too-cold temperature.

Nuclear is good. Windmills are dumb.

Not sure what you're suggesting with that article - I have no issues with residual strong force effects as a concept nor that it happens in nature. That wasn't the point I made.

The broader argument against nuclear is the fact we have superior options available with FAR less set up time (solar, wind, hydro, etc). Battery tech is also starting to improve, meaning transport is becoming more possible. You have to be at least subconsciously aware of that, or you wouldn't have had so much to sling at alternative forms of energy.

The waste caused by wind and solar are far exceeded by nuclear waste (even with better options like thorium cycle plants).

This is relevant because if we are to use nuclear power, it should offer a good alternative to these options. I would love nuclear power to be viable because it would mean more research into nuclear physics, but the reality is that it confers a geopolitical risk, takes 10 years to set up a traditional reactor, and mini reactors are inefficient at best.

There is also the issue of cost per Watt - which is highly dependant on location and regulation. The majority of what I have seen in this category is unfavorable though (but, that could change).

Nuclear physics is good. Nuclear power is sub-optimal. No one is trying to stop the earths core, or the Sun's fusion, or bananas from radiating. The argument is against building reactors.

If you are going renewables there are two rules that must be followed.

1: You can not use fossil fuels when the weather or demand changes.

2: Any renewable storage combination must be cheaper than nuclear.

The first step is the easy step. Make a law that outlaws energy generated by fossil fuel to be connected to the main grid. We can start forming that law today. Fossil fuels are several order more expensive than renewables, kills an untold number of people every day, shorten lifespans, and destroys the planet. No one should bother using it for energy.

How do you measure "cheaper than nuclear"? How much is a life of a dead 10 year old cobalt miner worth in accounting terms? Whatever the price of a coffin is in Africa? What about the ecosystem destruction such mining causes, who is going to put the dollar figure on that?

I don't think we even have enough proven mineral reserves to supply sufficient battery storage to supplement the renewable aka unreliable grid, and hydro dams aren't always right nearby to pump the storage. Long haul transmission eats up huge chunks of generated energy too.

I don't get this weird fetish with fields upon fields of solar panels and windmills, vs a relatively very tiny building that produces gigawatts constantly for several decades.

Why is it better to destroy ecosystems, to destroy fields and kill birds? Just to assuage some irrational phobia around the same thing that's literally heating the Earth's crust?

Nuclear fission power is a good base power supplier for electrical grids, if properly managed and operated. It emits far fewer toxic and radioactive substances than coal fired power plants (leaving aside the CO2).

It does NOT, however, solve the problem of liquid fuels necessary for most of our global transportation infrastructure. It does take the strain off of those uses where they are consumed for electricity generation, so that's a plus.

We've got an energy crisis rapidly approaching as the energy required to get a barrel of oil out of the ground begins to reach break-even. If we fail to make the adjustments in time, we're in for a great simplification of society, with all the collapse and death that implies. Nuclear is a bridge we should use to reach that post-oil future.

I feel like the liquid fuel problem is much more manageable with a proper heirarchical transport model.

Railways are easily electrifiable (century-plus proven technology). Rip out the Interstates and run networks of higher speed and local rail systems. Electrify existing freight corridors.

Then you're just using liquid fuels for the relatively short last-mile journeys to or from a rail station. That's far less of a range anxiety problem, so even an old Leaf with 75km range will suffice for many.

The problem isn't the technology, it's the political will to be able to say "No, you shouldn't/can't drive anymore" to hundreds of millions of people.

How are airlines or ships supposed to work? How are tug boats going to navigate the Mississippi?

Is there any progress on those Small Nuclear Reactors (SMR)? The promise was 3-5 year builds for one unit and allowing builds in parallel to deploy multiple units and hooking them up to form practical larger plants. But it seems it cooled a bit now? It would appear to be perfect for the EU situation and there would be a lot of money and interest I guess. It is just hard to find concrete and up to data information.

China has built a couple HTR SMR[1] and is also currently building a PWR SMR[2]. And in the United States, Nuscale is looking to have the UAMPS project starting to supply energy in 2029[3].

[1]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Demonstration-HT...

[2]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-SMR-cont...

[3]: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Fieldwork-comple...

It is all fluff. SMR means many more moving parts for the same aggregate output.

No nuke can begin to approach the opex, never mind capex, of renewables + storage. So, each dollar put toward nukes produces proportionally less energy, and brings climate disaster nearer.

During the ten years from breaking ground to turning on, the money spent on coal in the meantime would pay for as much solar as needed to match the nuke's output, but the solar would begin producing and displacing carbon immediately.

Soon, even new nukes will be mothballed except where government coercion and taxes force people to pay extra for their output.

> It is all fluff. SMR means many more moving parts for the same aggregate output.

You say that, but NuScale spent half a billion dollars of only private money to get the NRC approval for their SMR [1]. If they thought the SMR was uneconomical, would they have done that?

[1] https://www.nuscalepower.com/newsletter/nucleus-fall-2020/pr...

They think that government will guarantee income of their customers. As is customary, for nukes.

And, you and I foot the bill for their indemnification insurance.

Anyway, Energy Vault got bid up to $2B market cap for tech that is transparently fraudulent. Pigeon investors' money doesn't really count.

> They think that government will guarantee income of their customers. As is customary, for nukes.

Actually, you think they think. Do you have any evidence though?

Because I have evidence of the contrary.

They are a publicly traded company. They need to disclose their business rationale in their SEC filings, which are posted online [1]. If they lie in their statements, they are liable to go to prison (like the CEO and CFO of Enron). And they clearly are at risk of a class action lawsuit. It is very unlikely you'll find intentional outright lies, or intentional material omissions in SEC filings, not just in the case of NuScale, but of all publicly traded companies in general.

So, I took a look at their more important filings, e.g. [2]. The statement about Government funds is on page 209:

  UAMPS, our first customer, has received a $1.4 billion DOE cost-share award to support deployment of a NuScale LLC VOYGR-6 power plant.

Such a plant has a capacity of 0.5 GW. $1.4 billion is not unreasonable at all for 0.5 GW, it is even competitive with solar (the utility-scale cost of solar is about $1 BN/GW, but the capacity factor is only about 30%, so you end up with a cost of about the same capital cost for 1 GWh, but nuclear is steady, while solar is not). You will not find any mention that NuScale thinks they can extract more than that from the Government. Instead you'll find the opposite:

  We may be unable to charge UAMPS, our first customer, for some costs we have incurred and we may be required to reimburse UAMPS if we fail to achieve specified performance measures.

[1] https://ir.nuscalepower.com/financials/sec-filings/default.a...

[2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001822966/21dbdfd...

NuScale obviously does not expect to coerce money from ratepayers. Their customers, as I said, do: UAMPS, here.

But you demonstrate my point: you and I are being made to kick in a $1.4B subsidy to UAMPS, thence to NuScale. NuScale didn't risk anything: that $0.5B was tripled via their first "sale", without a single kWh delivered to anybody. They have been on the public teat all along.

I'll confess I am not nearly informed enough on international relations nor nuclear security to make a judgement call here, so let me know if I'm looking at this wrong, but:

Wasn't there a big worry about the Russian siege of that one Ukrainian nuclear plant?

So, if the world at large is worried about Russia being hostile to them, doesn't nuclear energy represent a weakened security posture?

"democratic world"

Yes indeed, because there are genuinely more democratic countries than others. China for example is very different from the United States or Canada in terms of governance, and so too is this the case if you compare say, Cuba and the Netherlands or any other number of western European states.

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