Hacker News Reader

Comment by manp2 | Hacker News Reader

question, why aren't we building more nuclear power plant like china? isn't gen 4 reactor safer?

Because even in china they can't build nuclear as quickly (and likely as cheaply) as wind and solar. It's hugely different [0][1]. Over the last 10 years, they used 3.5x more energy (so not nameplate capacity, but actually generated energy) from solar and wind than they did from nuclear.

Further, if you download the data [1] an look at the derivative you get an even more grim picture. Not only is wind and solar increasing rapidly, but the derivative is positive (and possibly increasing itself). But when you look at nuclear, you find that not only is it not increasing as rapidly, but it's derivative is going down and heading for zero fast.

[0] https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre...

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/china#what-sources...

“The best time to build a nuclear generating station is 10 years ago, the second best time is now”

-ancient proverb

They can however, build nuclear plants wherever they want, which is why China is building them at all right now. They have plenty of renewable potential in the west, but it’s limited in the more populated east, and their transmission lines meant to carry power west to east over long distance are still limited in capacity.

How is solar and wind energy rapidly increasing “grim”?

I believe they mean grim if you are a nuclear cheerleader.

But it is pretty damning that a country that is motivated and willing to put its money where its mouth is, is also having troubles making it happen quickly.

Exactly yes, should have phrased that differently.

Not just motivated, but one with a track record of getting red tape (and sometime people) out of the way in order to reach a goal.

If it isn’t competitive under those conditions, what chance does it have elsewhere?

California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries.

> California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries.

I like all non-CO2 producing energy sources: nuclear, solar, wind, etc.

For any given energy source, only a subset of territories can use it: solar needs sun (hello Alaska and Wyoming), nuclear needs strong governmental, engineering and public oversight, wind, like sun, is also not universally available.

Specifically California can do all of them, which puts it in a unique position to be choosy. I believe that by going with sun+batteries, California will pave the way for less rich but sunny territories for energy independence / less CO2 pollution.

It's okay in my mind to leave betting on nuclear to the states which don't have that much sun. I am looking forward to the TerraPower plant in Wyoming being built and hopefully more to come after it.

Solar works really well in the Alaskan summer. Winters you have to figure something else out. Alaska has lots of hydro, which is really common in that region.

How many GWh of battery storage have California grid operators built recently?

Moss Landing can deliver 750MW with 3.0 GWh of total capacity. State has a total of 5GW. 90% of it rolled out in the last 3 years.

The problem with building a nuke plant starting today is it'll be a stranded asset before it goes online in 10-15 years.

So 5GWh of storage capacity would be about 0.6% of average daily usage. We're going to need a lot more than that to make renewables viable for base load. How much will that cost, how long will it take to build, and where will we mine the raw materials?

Well ten years ago you would have said the idea that solar and wind would be 25% of the states power generation in ten years was total nonsense.

But here we are.

Three years ago, well yesterday, you would have said the idea that the state would have 5 GW of utility batteries was nonsense.

But here we are.

Once there was a remote mountaintop monastery, nestled high in the clouds above a deep gorge. To reach the monastery, visitors were required to ride in a basket pulled up from the top. One day, halfway up the cliff, a tourist frowned at the condition of the rope. He asked his guide, "How often do they replace this rope, anyway?" The monk answered "Why, as soon as the old one breaks, of course."

Once there was a remote mountaintop monastery, nestled high in the clouds above a deep gorge. To reach the monastery, visitors were required to ride in a basket pulled up from the top, after paying the ticket fee for the ride. One day, halfway up the cliff, a tourist noticed the sparkling condition of the titanium cable upon which they were suspended. He asked his guide, why did it cost me ten years salary to take this ride? The monk answered "If we didn't charge that much, we couldn't replace the cable after every trip". The tourist asked "is that really necessary"? The monk replied "Well, we used to use a hand woven hemp rope, and it broke once during a trip. We wouldn't want that to happen again, now would we?"

Ah yes hence all those nuclear meltdowns in France

Point being, it's stupid to refrain from building new nuclear plants because they're "dangerous", because that forces the old plants to be operated far past their intended service life. Better to replace the rope before it breaks, so to speak.

In a rational world, those who believe atomic energy is inherently scary would be the first ones demanding that the old plants be replaced.

> Once there was a remote mountaintop monastery, nestled high in the clouds above a deep gorge. To reach the monastery, visitors were required to ride in a basket pulled up from the top. One day, halfway up the cliff, a tourist frowned at the condition of the rope. He asked his guide, "How often do they replace this rope, anyway?" The monk answered "We have a large team of monks who continuously monitor the rope using advanced technology. We actually invented the field of reliability analysis to help us keep this rope safe. If we notice anything wrong with the rope, we immediately repair it. The rope is guarded by heavily armed guards to make sure no one sabotages it."

FTFY

Reply on news.ycombinator.com