Thank you for updating the latest thinking on the cost of future nuclear electricity. One important area that is frequently misunderstood is the importance of firm power in providing seasonal needs such as winter heating loads. DOE's 2023 liftoff report on Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230320-Liftoff-LDES-vPUB.pdf acknowledges that traditional battery, pumped hydro and mechanical storage technologies are not suitable for providing such "seasonal shifting". For a renewable-based energy system, such storage would be very expensive, relying primarily on cleanly produced hydrogen.
Firm nuclear power dramatically reduces the cost of LDES needs and directly addresses renewable shortfalls for both "seasonable shifting" and for the well-established multi-day and multi-week" periods of reduced wind and solar output. Such renewable generation shortfalls occur in nearly all parts of the U.S.
How can it be that nuclear industry quality control standards are not "world class" while nuclear power remains the safest thing the world has ever done at industrial scale? In the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy's Oldsmobile.
Advocates for alternatives sweep most of their expenses under the rug, quoting only prices at the generator, when it feels like working. No storage. No transmission. No grid stability. No environment destruction. No adverse effects on human and other neighbors. No mining, milling, transportation, construction, decommissioning, destruction, recycling, landfill….
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?" A comprehensive end-to-end life-cycle system-engineering analysis of the entire energy landscape. Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations so you can verify that I didn't just make up stuff.
Thank you for this analysis, Adam. I would not be surprised to learn that Noah Smith receives some financial benefit for disparaging nuclear power - and using very old nuclear cost data. Furthermore, Noah Smith fails to recognize the economic benefits of extending nuclear plant life, such as at Diablo Canyon Power Plant. (See GreenNUKE at https://greennuke.substack.com/ for details.) Upton Sinclair noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
I see no reason to character assassinate Noah Smith and suggest that he has been corrupted unless you can bring forward some credible evidence. Otherwise it is just toxic in an otherwise open respectful discussion and open competition of the best arguments.
It’s totally ok to be of different opinion and highly likely that the majority of participants in this discussion are neither in the pocket of the anti-nuclear nor the pro-nuclear lobby. If you allege otherwise, it tells more about yourself and your likely motivations than the one you attacked without any evidence.
Dr. Nelson's comments are no more disparaging than those who accuse me of being a flunky for fossil fuels, or call me a denier because I don't think climate change is existential, or, what I regard as the worst and most offensive insult, call me a liar because I believe civilization is in a much better place now than it was 100 years ago.
Dr. Nelson's statements are accurate - Smith uses old cost data, and fails to recognize that other countries are successfully developing nuclear on-time and on-budget. Do you disagree with that?
I too, would not be surprised if Mr. Smith were on the payroll of some anti-nuclear shill or NGO. But hey, everybody's got to make a living somehow, right? I don't care who pays them, I care that they publish relevant information without spin, influence, or bias.
You want to make the conversation better, less toxic? Start by learning to disagree constructively. You didn't have to accuse Dr. Nelson that his remarks are toxic or dismiss him as being disrespectful.
I would not be surprised *insert personal accusation without evidence* is certainly not a factual contribution but seeding of rumours and attacks on character instead of substance.
Just imagine if sbdy would claim „I would not be surprised if Barry were bankrolled by Putin for his standpoints…“ This basically claims that views different from your own are necessarily corrupted which would make any constructive discussion impossible.
It’s certainly bad and toxic style and needs to be called out for it - bring forward good arguments and let’s grow our understanding of the subject at hand together in a respectful way while acknowledging that we might come from different points of view and Know-how backgrounds. We both could (and likely are) wrong in some aspects - and most likely without bad faith.
As you will observe, I spend much of my time focused on technical issues in my comments. I would have highlighted Noah Smith's funding stream but I could not find the information. My question to you is do you want to keep focusing on one sentence in my writing? I agree I could have phrased it better.
Hello, Johannes. I believe my comments are respectful, expressing my *opinion* regarding Noah Smith and his selective presentation of nuclear cost data.. Your profile identifies you as a "Serial entrepreneur (Solar..." Seems like the pot calling the kettle black. By your own profile, you show you are an economically interested party on the solar side of this controversy. I'm almost 73 years old. I donate my services to the nonprofit https://CGNP,org advocating for the environmental and ratepayer benefits of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) extended operations. In 2022, the American Nuclear Society recognized my pro-DCPP advocacy with a presidential citation.
It’s suggesting bad faiths and being possibly corrupted just because sbdy sees a topic from a slightly different perspective. That’s not discussing on substance which suggests either a lack of good real arguments or the arrogance to assume that other perspectives than the own can only be explained by bad faith. Even for a declared advocate like you that’s not good style as it is only preaching to the already converted (like Barry) but drives away everybody else (like me) who wants to be convinced with real arguments.
While I worked on Solar energy in the past, I also worked on energy technology roadmaps later and came to believe that there are many perspectives and solutions that can contribute and coexist, including nuclear - especially when it comes to extending their operation times I certainly see the benefits. I just want to compare the options in a more sober and less personally attached way. Insulting people with differing opinions is neither helping this conversation nor your advocacy cause.
I endorse your willingness to... " I just want to compare the options in a more sober and less personally attached way." I also appreciate shift in tone of your reply immediately above.
Noah Smith is one of my favorite writers, but he just does not understand how the energy system works. He is very optimistic about solar being able to replace fossil fuels, nuclear and other energy sources. I just don’t buy it.
Excellent case study for sustained investment in nuclear energy. I am grateful to see that Dr. Stein’s research on the essential role nuclear baseload can play in a decarbonized energy system has been reinforced by the Department of Energy’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report published today. Renewables + Nuclear provide better outcomes for ratepayers than renewables alone, reducing pressure on wind, solar, storage, and transmission, and allowing us to navigate seasonal renewable shortfalls with confidence. New DOE Report available here: https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/LIFTOFF_DOE_AdvNuclear-vX6.pdf
I 100% agree with your principles but believe a different outcome might emerge
If b) includes truly final waste disposal (e.g. shoot it into space or earth lava mantle) and full risk coverage insurances (without damage amount ceiling and backed by the largest reinsurers globally), do you see a chance for nuclear power to be competitive?
If c) takes into account what the price per MWh could become with a given amount of R&D funding, do you think that nuclear R&D would be a good investment despite its much less steep technology learning curve (as payed out in another comment of mine further down)?
Extending existing nuclear power plants time however, might well make economic sense - depending on how much of the hidden waste disposal and insurance subsidies are charged to the plant operators.
France reprocesses their spent nuclear fuel to reduce the waste volume and close the nuclear fuel cycle. Your fanciful "solution" is at odds with some of your other comments you have posted in response to this article.
Microsoft and Constellation Energy just unveiled a power purchase deal that would enable a restart of a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
What is the basis for this apparent quotation of Noah Smith? "Smith's point that 'France's nuclear energy is greener than America's, but it's not more abundant'"... I do not find it in Smith's post, nor does it appear to be a paraphrase of anything he wrote.
One thing to keep in mind: William Happer has shown that further increases in CO2 will soon not cause increases in global temperature, due to saturation and absorption of all the radiation CO2 can absorb.
It’s not true that the UAE reactors were built on time, and the budget is too opaque to say anything about it. What we do know is that the UAE hasn’t commissioned any more reactors since 2009 and is going hard for solar
Well they did build 4 reactors in a total of 12yrs which works out to 3yrs/reactor, which shows the big advantage of building NPPs in parallel. That's in a small, barely industrialized nation, that has ZERO nuclear expertise. And largely has to import foreign skilled workers at a high price. That gives them as much electricity twh/yr as Australia (solar paradise) has achieved in all of its long history of solar power. A much larger nation which has long been industrialized. With the nuclear lasting 80-100yrs vs Australia's solar lasting 10-30yrs. That's in an apples(nuclear) to rotten oranges(solar) comparison.
So if UAE is going solar, they are already 4X behind their one nuclear build, if you were so stupid to compare intermittent, seasonable, unreliable, vulnerable solar to nuclear. I would say the only reason they would continue with solar, is the same old, as usual, corruption.
And talking about opaque on UAE reactors is ridiculous, there is nothing so opaque as solar/wind cost. Most of the costs are hidden and buried, or kept deliberately secret with confidentially clauses.
That's how the US was completing 1 NPP/month by 1974 with 2 NPP/month on order, before the blockade was instituted. At that rate the US would have been 100% clean, green Nuclear electricity supply by the early 1990's.
I disagree and this has nothing to do with climate or other preferences - the reason why „the ship has sailed“ statement is very likely true from a purely market based standpoint, is that technology learning rates are proportional to the technologies complexity.
A simple technology like solar or batteries, which basically are simple laminates or stacks of the same cells, can reduce its price every time by a factor of 2 or 3 whenever it’s installed capacity is increased by a factor of 10. This is because all the earned R&D-surplus can be focused on these very few elements.
A technology that is 100x more complex can’t halve its cost with the earnings of 10x more installed capacity. Small modular reactors are still at least 100x more complex than a solar + batteries or a geothermal power plant.
That’s why it would be far more wise to invest all the R&D funds that currently go into nuclear in geothermal instead. There are >10 radically new ways known of how to drill holes down to depth that allow to supply literally every point on earth with firm power. Long term geothermal steam has greater cost reduction potential than nuclear - simply because it’s way simpler.
Our decisions on where to spend public R&D funds should be guided not by current price levels but by anticipated technology learning rates - hence foreseeable technological complexity and performance data. Nuclear power has no plausible path to victory anymore under this perspective.
Anyway, in the end the markets will decide - there might be new opportunities for nuclear on freight ships and for compact AI-data Centers in densely populated areas unless geothermal gets enough funding. But I wouldn’t bet my money on it.
The article, "Why is Grid Inertial Important" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important describes a requirement for grid stability. Nuclear power provides the largest amount of synchronous grid inertia per plant. OTOH, solar power does not supply any. synchronous grid inertia.
Geothermal does not scale, producing only small amounts of power for California. (Iceland is the only nation with significant geothermal resources because it is on the mid-Atlantic rift.) The Geysers geothermal field in California shows a decreasing annual capacity factor (and capacity) because the subsurface rock conducts a limited amount of heat energy from the Earth's mantle. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1048267 See: Table 1. Geothermal Power Plants Operating at The Geysers (August 2010)
1. the need for it mostly comes from traditional power plants that also provide it.
2. power electronics can provide sth very similar to inertia in inverters designed for it.
3. if it really would be required, there is no reason why flywheels couldn’t provide this inertia. Like in most disruptions, the value chain is disassembled and reassembled in new ways. AirBnB doesn’t own property but still works. Thermal power plants delivered 24/7 and inertia while renewable based grids consist of
1) infrequent power producers
2) storage facilities
3) smart grids and consumers that can adjust their consumption according to power prices which in turn correspond to availability. A fridge with a small water ice compartment can easily store energy for 24+h without consuming power. Same for electric vehicles.
Arguing for the benefits of new nuclear technologies like SMRs while only allowing for readily available technologies on the other side would be like comparing apples to bananas, right?
I will only address your initial point. by quoting my comment to Kenneth Kaminsky. "Thank you for the new reference. Per https://www.kiuc.coop/generation-portfolio, their Tesla BESS system is rated at 13 MW for 4 hours. It is a tiny start, but a far cry from DCPP, which is rated at 2,256 MW and runs for about 13,500 hours between refueling outages." Nuclear power provides a cost-effective and zero-emission solution to the problem of grids needing large amounts of synchronous grid inertia, One of the other comments to my synchronous grid inertia article is to an important 2018 ERCOT article which underscores the importance of nuclear power in their grid. The above link also shows that Kauai's power grid is almost totally powered by fossil energy.
Where do you get nuclear is complex? I don't know where people get that notion. Take a tank of heavy water, drop in sufficient rods of natural uranium to achieve criticality, and you have a functioning nuclear reactor. Move a few of the rods to maintain criticality. If the water gets too hot and boils that will reduce reactivity and cause a stable output.
Natural reactors occurred on Earth 1.7B yrs ago when uranium had a higher enrichment level of ~3% U-235. The reactors operated on ~a 3hr cycle, 30min of criticality, followed by 2h30m subcritical, putting out ~100kw avg for several hundred thousand years. Water flowed over the uranium, moderated the neutrons causing fission events to rapidly rise, then the resultant heat boiled the water, causing fission events to rapidly decline, until more water flow restarted the cycle.
There isn't a commercial nuclear power plant that has anywhere near the complexity of a modern Tesla BEV. Not in # or parts. Not in information processing. Not in control points. Not in control loops. Not in data flow. Not in sensors. Not even safety protection points. At least in a per ton of metal metric, many if not most in an absolute comparison.
I guess the question is - Would you like to live next to such a „low complexity“ natural reactor?
And if we increase security and reliability for a reactor to the point that you would feel comfy to live next to it with your family - would it still have a distinct-types-of-parts count that is lower than a solar power plant plus a battery?
I'd love to live next to a nuclear power plant. Outside the plant fencing all you would see is a beautiful wildlife paradise. Next door to a solar industrial site would be ugly and irritating as hell. With 300X the land area of the equivalent NPP.
And maybe you're careless with your leaf pile or grass & it catches fire, spreading to the solar panels which are very vulnerable to wildfire destruction. Well no homeowners insurance will cover that damage, which could be many $millions. You're liable. Try getting special insurance for that, might cost you as much as your mortgage payments.
And anywhere in the North, or rainy areas, your solar might be good for sunny days in the spring & summer. That's all. So the best it can do is replace a bit of gas fuel worth about 2 cents/kwh. All that massive expensive infrastructure for that?!? Craziness. A total scam.
And anyone afraid to live next to a NPP is an idiot. I can't be kind about it. You are vastly more likely be walking on your sundeck, when you get briefly blinded by the Sun reflecting off of the solar panels causing you to have a fatal fall down your stairwell, than any risk from the NPP.
My wife and I live about 10 air miles from Diablo Canyon Power Plant. We're glad we do. On a deaths per terawatt-hour of generation basis, solar and nuclear are almost indistinguishable. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-safest-and-deadliest-energy-sources/ 0.03 for nuclear and 0.02 for solar. However, nuclear power does not require burning large amounts of fossil fuel to compensate for its substantial (75%) intermittency like solar does. The article also shows the death toll from the fossil energy.
Investing in geothermal would be throwing good money after bad. It is true that geothermal is a technically feasible source of heat for steam-electric turbines. But it is even more geographically constrained than wind or even solar. How deep would a company have to drill to find sufficient heat to power Chicago, or New York? Or even Omaha? The Yellowstone caldera is the closest to us, but would require hundreds of miles of high voltage transmission. Is New York City to tap the geothermal fields of Iceland or the Atlantic Ridge? How about Miami Beach, or London.
You seem to base your opinion on the complexity of the technology. It is true, nuclear is complex, and requires above-average intelligence to design and operate. But you ignore two salient facts: nuclear is among the most energy dense of all energy sources, and nuclear is far and away more reliable. The current policy infatuation with renewables is blinded by the myth that its "fuel is free." Nothing could be further from the truth. Fuel is energy storage; wind and sun are not fuels but rather a resource for deriving energy in small batches. For thousands of years, humans existed solely on the wind and the sun. The industrial revolution brought methods of obtaining large amounts of energy at a very low cost, and civilization grew rapidly. Do you deny we are in a better place today than we were when Jefferson bought Louisiana?
I recently did an analysis of federal subsidies for nuclear, wind and solar, and discovered that the federal government invests about a nickel for every terawatt-hour of energy produced by nuclear power. On the other hand, government programs provide $2.30 and $6.84 per terawatt-hour of renewable. Despite this enormous advantage, renewables did not produce nearly the same amount of energy as did nuclear in FY 2022.
I agree with you that R&D should be guided by technology learning rates. Given nuclear's obvious advantages (power density, reliability, very low carbon emissions, and much, much less land), it would seem prudent for government to redirect those subsidies to nuclear utilities for innovation in cost reduction.
Your statement that nuclear "power has no plausible path to victory anymore under this perspective" is fundamentally incorrect, I think. No energy source is without risk. That statement is incontrovertible. There is always a plausible path once risks are identified. What we have to decide is how to evaluate, reduce, and mitigate those risks in a manner that allows for maximum human flourishment.
Subsidy calculations for nuclear are contentious because advocates usually forget to account for waste disposal and full risk insurance while opponents use astronomical assumptions for both.
Also a considerable part has and will be funded by the military for its understanding and access to weapon grade materials and reactions. Difficult to account for the spillovers from that.
And nuclear opponents are quick to hide behind the waste curtain. Advocates "forget" to account for disposal because it is such a trivial problem! Finland solved it. So did France and Sweden, and China has surpassed the US in waste management. Bury it, and isolate it. Problem solved. The US has not because it does not wish to; by perpetuating the myth of radioactive waste, politicians can continue to scare the illiterate public into thinking wind and solar are free.
Waste disposal strategies cannot succeed if they are subject to change on a four-year political cycle. Too often, political responses have been characterized by postponement and deferment. Regulatory responsibilities have been divided among many different agencies at local, state, and federal levels; such divisions of responsibility inevitably create conflict between agencies.
I repeat my point: subsidies to nuclear can lead to innovation in all aspects of nuclear power, including extracting new fuel from spent fuels. Solar power waste is toxic, and must be completely contained (rather than isolated) from the environment to ensure public safety in 1,000,000 years (the same standard you hold for radioactive waste). In fact, in 1,000,000 years most of the radioactive waste will have decayed, but the waste remaining from solar panels will be as toxic in 1,000,000 years as it is the day it is buried.
If you insist that waste is a problem for nuclear, and that we shouldn't proceed until we've "solved" the problem, why wouldn't you equally advocate for a moratorium on all solar panel installation until safe, economic disposal methods and locations are identified?
Waste disposal and risk are easily covered with a 1/2 cent/kwh fee. Equivalent fees not paid by solar/wind/fossil/hydro are able to do with reckless abandon, thousands of times the amount, thousands of times the risk.
And commercial nuclear power has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, they don't get weapons material from commercial NPPs. Nobody does. That's like saying filling your car up with gasoline makes you responsible for the immense death & destruction of our fossil powered war machine.
I object to you conflating atomic weapons with nuclear power as a fearmongering technique. Weapons reactors are very different from nuclear power reactors. That is the basis for international proliferation controls. BTW, the "Megatons to Megawatts" program rendered the equivalent of 20,000 Soviet atomic weapons impractical for weapons use. The Soviet special weapons material was used as U.S. nuclear power plant fuel instead. I'm glad that the U.S. has that material that will eventually be fuel for the next generation of nuclear power plants. Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge demonstrated such a reactor.
Thank you for updating the latest thinking on the cost of future nuclear electricity. One important area that is frequently misunderstood is the importance of firm power in providing seasonal needs such as winter heating loads. DOE's 2023 liftoff report on Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230320-Liftoff-LDES-vPUB.pdf acknowledges that traditional battery, pumped hydro and mechanical storage technologies are not suitable for providing such "seasonal shifting". For a renewable-based energy system, such storage would be very expensive, relying primarily on cleanly produced hydrogen.
Firm nuclear power dramatically reduces the cost of LDES needs and directly addresses renewable shortfalls for both "seasonable shifting" and for the well-established multi-day and multi-week" periods of reduced wind and solar output. Such renewable generation shortfalls occur in nearly all parts of the U.S.
How can it be that nuclear industry quality control standards are not "world class" while nuclear power remains the safest thing the world has ever done at industrial scale? In the entire civilized world, nuclear power is safer than Teddy Kennedy's Oldsmobile.
Advocates for alternatives sweep most of their expenses under the rug, quoting only prices at the generator, when it feels like working. No storage. No transmission. No grid stability. No environment destruction. No adverse effects on human and other neighbors. No mining, milling, transportation, construction, decommissioning, destruction, recycling, landfill….
Details in my book "Where Will We Get Our Energy?" A comprehensive end-to-end life-cycle system-engineering analysis of the entire energy landscape. Everything quantified. No vague handwaving. 350 bibliographic citations so you can verify that I didn't just make up stuff.
Thank you for this analysis, Adam. I would not be surprised to learn that Noah Smith receives some financial benefit for disparaging nuclear power - and using very old nuclear cost data. Furthermore, Noah Smith fails to recognize the economic benefits of extending nuclear plant life, such as at Diablo Canyon Power Plant. (See GreenNUKE at https://greennuke.substack.com/ for details.) Upton Sinclair noted, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
I see no reason to character assassinate Noah Smith and suggest that he has been corrupted unless you can bring forward some credible evidence. Otherwise it is just toxic in an otherwise open respectful discussion and open competition of the best arguments.
It’s totally ok to be of different opinion and highly likely that the majority of participants in this discussion are neither in the pocket of the anti-nuclear nor the pro-nuclear lobby. If you allege otherwise, it tells more about yourself and your likely motivations than the one you attacked without any evidence.
Dr. Nelson's comments are no more disparaging than those who accuse me of being a flunky for fossil fuels, or call me a denier because I don't think climate change is existential, or, what I regard as the worst and most offensive insult, call me a liar because I believe civilization is in a much better place now than it was 100 years ago.
Dr. Nelson's statements are accurate - Smith uses old cost data, and fails to recognize that other countries are successfully developing nuclear on-time and on-budget. Do you disagree with that?
I too, would not be surprised if Mr. Smith were on the payroll of some anti-nuclear shill or NGO. But hey, everybody's got to make a living somehow, right? I don't care who pays them, I care that they publish relevant information without spin, influence, or bias.
You want to make the conversation better, less toxic? Start by learning to disagree constructively. You didn't have to accuse Dr. Nelson that his remarks are toxic or dismiss him as being disrespectful.
My two cents, adjusted for inflation.
I would not be surprised *insert personal accusation without evidence* is certainly not a factual contribution but seeding of rumours and attacks on character instead of substance.
Just imagine if sbdy would claim „I would not be surprised if Barry were bankrolled by Putin for his standpoints…“ This basically claims that views different from your own are necessarily corrupted which would make any constructive discussion impossible.
It’s certainly bad and toxic style and needs to be called out for it - bring forward good arguments and let’s grow our understanding of the subject at hand together in a respectful way while acknowledging that we might come from different points of view and Know-how backgrounds. We both could (and likely are) wrong in some aspects - and most likely without bad faith.
As you will observe, I spend much of my time focused on technical issues in my comments. I would have highlighted Noah Smith's funding stream but I could not find the information. My question to you is do you want to keep focusing on one sentence in my writing? I agree I could have phrased it better.
Hello, Johannes. I believe my comments are respectful, expressing my *opinion* regarding Noah Smith and his selective presentation of nuclear cost data.. Your profile identifies you as a "Serial entrepreneur (Solar..." Seems like the pot calling the kettle black. By your own profile, you show you are an economically interested party on the solar side of this controversy. I'm almost 73 years old. I donate my services to the nonprofit https://CGNP,org advocating for the environmental and ratepayer benefits of Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) extended operations. In 2022, the American Nuclear Society recognized my pro-DCPP advocacy with a presidential citation.
It’s suggesting bad faiths and being possibly corrupted just because sbdy sees a topic from a slightly different perspective. That’s not discussing on substance which suggests either a lack of good real arguments or the arrogance to assume that other perspectives than the own can only be explained by bad faith. Even for a declared advocate like you that’s not good style as it is only preaching to the already converted (like Barry) but drives away everybody else (like me) who wants to be convinced with real arguments.
While I worked on Solar energy in the past, I also worked on energy technology roadmaps later and came to believe that there are many perspectives and solutions that can contribute and coexist, including nuclear - especially when it comes to extending their operation times I certainly see the benefits. I just want to compare the options in a more sober and less personally attached way. Insulting people with differing opinions is neither helping this conversation nor your advocacy cause.
I endorse your willingness to... " I just want to compare the options in a more sober and less personally attached way." I also appreciate shift in tone of your reply immediately above.
Noah Smith is one of my favorite writers, but he just does not understand how the energy system works. He is very optimistic about solar being able to replace fossil fuels, nuclear and other energy sources. I just don’t buy it.
This is an excellent, important rebuttal of short-sighted thinking that is far too common. Also needed are demonstrations that enewables will fail to meet their supporters' expectations. Ryan Pickering has written such a critique (https://capitolweekly.net/sb-100-the-clean-energy-plan-that-keeps-california-hooked-on-gas) based on my study of California's decarbonization plan (https://bit.ly/3zhXG2e). Check them out.
Excellent case study for sustained investment in nuclear energy. I am grateful to see that Dr. Stein’s research on the essential role nuclear baseload can play in a decarbonized energy system has been reinforced by the Department of Energy’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff report published today. Renewables + Nuclear provide better outcomes for ratepayers than renewables alone, reducing pressure on wind, solar, storage, and transmission, and allowing us to navigate seasonal renewable shortfalls with confidence. New DOE Report available here: https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/LIFTOFF_DOE_AdvNuclear-vX6.pdf
However optimistic or pessimistic one is about nuclear or any other technology, the _policy implication_ is the same:
a) give the same incentive for avoiding net CO2 emissions regardless of technology (i.e., tax net emissions)
b) regulate safety and other environmental faces of all technologies according to the same cost-benefit principles.
c) subsidize R&D according to the output expected, not the investment required.
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/nuclear-now
I 100% agree with your principles but believe a different outcome might emerge
If b) includes truly final waste disposal (e.g. shoot it into space or earth lava mantle) and full risk coverage insurances (without damage amount ceiling and backed by the largest reinsurers globally), do you see a chance for nuclear power to be competitive?
If c) takes into account what the price per MWh could become with a given amount of R&D funding, do you think that nuclear R&D would be a good investment despite its much less steep technology learning curve (as payed out in another comment of mine further down)?
Extending existing nuclear power plants time however, might well make economic sense - depending on how much of the hidden waste disposal and insurance subsidies are charged to the plant operators.
France reprocesses their spent nuclear fuel to reduce the waste volume and close the nuclear fuel cycle. Your fanciful "solution" is at odds with some of your other comments you have posted in response to this article.
"subsidize R&D according to the output expected, not the investment required."
YES, ABSOLUTELY. Governments should referee, not be an active player.
Looks like someone needs nuclear power!
Microsoft and Constellation Energy just unveiled a power purchase deal that would enable a restart of a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
What is the basis for this apparent quotation of Noah Smith? "Smith's point that 'France's nuclear energy is greener than America's, but it's not more abundant'"... I do not find it in Smith's post, nor does it appear to be a paraphrase of anything he wrote.
One thing to keep in mind: William Happer has shown that further increases in CO2 will soon not cause increases in global temperature, due to saturation and absorption of all the radiation CO2 can absorb.
It’s not true that the UAE reactors were built on time, and the budget is too opaque to say anything about it. What we do know is that the UAE hasn’t commissioned any more reactors since 2009 and is going hard for solar
The UAE have been shopping around behind closed doors with the vendors for a second nuclear plant for months
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/gulf-state-uae-considers-second-nuclear-power-plant-2024-07-17/
Well they did build 4 reactors in a total of 12yrs which works out to 3yrs/reactor, which shows the big advantage of building NPPs in parallel. That's in a small, barely industrialized nation, that has ZERO nuclear expertise. And largely has to import foreign skilled workers at a high price. That gives them as much electricity twh/yr as Australia (solar paradise) has achieved in all of its long history of solar power. A much larger nation which has long been industrialized. With the nuclear lasting 80-100yrs vs Australia's solar lasting 10-30yrs. That's in an apples(nuclear) to rotten oranges(solar) comparison.
So if UAE is going solar, they are already 4X behind their one nuclear build, if you were so stupid to compare intermittent, seasonable, unreliable, vulnerable solar to nuclear. I would say the only reason they would continue with solar, is the same old, as usual, corruption.
And talking about opaque on UAE reactors is ridiculous, there is nothing so opaque as solar/wind cost. Most of the costs are hidden and buried, or kept deliberately secret with confidentially clauses.
"hey did build 4 reactors in a total of 12yrs which works out to 3yrs/reactor"
That's an interesting way of looking at things.
That's how the US was completing 1 NPP/month by 1974 with 2 NPP/month on order, before the blockade was instituted. At that rate the US would have been 100% clean, green Nuclear electricity supply by the early 1990's.
I disagree and this has nothing to do with climate or other preferences - the reason why „the ship has sailed“ statement is very likely true from a purely market based standpoint, is that technology learning rates are proportional to the technologies complexity.
A simple technology like solar or batteries, which basically are simple laminates or stacks of the same cells, can reduce its price every time by a factor of 2 or 3 whenever it’s installed capacity is increased by a factor of 10. This is because all the earned R&D-surplus can be focused on these very few elements.
A technology that is 100x more complex can’t halve its cost with the earnings of 10x more installed capacity. Small modular reactors are still at least 100x more complex than a solar + batteries or a geothermal power plant.
That’s why it would be far more wise to invest all the R&D funds that currently go into nuclear in geothermal instead. There are >10 radically new ways known of how to drill holes down to depth that allow to supply literally every point on earth with firm power. Long term geothermal steam has greater cost reduction potential than nuclear - simply because it’s way simpler.
Our decisions on where to spend public R&D funds should be guided not by current price levels but by anticipated technology learning rates - hence foreseeable technological complexity and performance data. Nuclear power has no plausible path to victory anymore under this perspective.
Anyway, in the end the markets will decide - there might be new opportunities for nuclear on freight ships and for compact AI-data Centers in densely populated areas unless geothermal gets enough funding. But I wouldn’t bet my money on it.
The article, "Why is Grid Inertial Important" https://greennuke.substack.com/p/why-is-grid-inertia-important describes a requirement for grid stability. Nuclear power provides the largest amount of synchronous grid inertia per plant. OTOH, solar power does not supply any. synchronous grid inertia.
Geothermal does not scale, producing only small amounts of power for California. (Iceland is the only nation with significant geothermal resources because it is on the mid-Atlantic rift.) The Geysers geothermal field in California shows a decreasing annual capacity factor (and capacity) because the subsurface rock conducts a limited amount of heat energy from the Earth's mantle. https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1048267 See: Table 1. Geothermal Power Plants Operating at The Geysers (August 2010)
The inertia argument seems not to hold for a number of reasons: https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2020/inertia-and-the-power-grid-a-guide-without-the-spin.html
1. the need for it mostly comes from traditional power plants that also provide it.
2. power electronics can provide sth very similar to inertia in inverters designed for it.
3. if it really would be required, there is no reason why flywheels couldn’t provide this inertia. Like in most disruptions, the value chain is disassembled and reassembled in new ways. AirBnB doesn’t own property but still works. Thermal power plants delivered 24/7 and inertia while renewable based grids consist of
1) infrequent power producers
2) storage facilities
3) smart grids and consumers that can adjust their consumption according to power prices which in turn correspond to availability. A fridge with a small water ice compartment can easily store energy for 24+h without consuming power. Same for electric vehicles.
Arguing for the benefits of new nuclear technologies like SMRs while only allowing for readily available technologies on the other side would be like comparing apples to bananas, right?
Geothermal plants possible today (based on hot ground water) are not to be compared with what would be possible with advanced drilling technologies and hot dry rock technologies after investing comparable R&D-amounts of what was invested into nuclear R&D: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/01/08/1085112/enhanced-geothermal-systems-renewable-energy-drilling-breakthrough-technologies/amp/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_drilling_technologies
I will only address your initial point. by quoting my comment to Kenneth Kaminsky. "Thank you for the new reference. Per https://www.kiuc.coop/generation-portfolio, their Tesla BESS system is rated at 13 MW for 4 hours. It is a tiny start, but a far cry from DCPP, which is rated at 2,256 MW and runs for about 13,500 hours between refueling outages." Nuclear power provides a cost-effective and zero-emission solution to the problem of grids needing large amounts of synchronous grid inertia, One of the other comments to my synchronous grid inertia article is to an important 2018 ERCOT article which underscores the importance of nuclear power in their grid. The above link also shows that Kauai's power grid is almost totally powered by fossil energy.
Where do you get nuclear is complex? I don't know where people get that notion. Take a tank of heavy water, drop in sufficient rods of natural uranium to achieve criticality, and you have a functioning nuclear reactor. Move a few of the rods to maintain criticality. If the water gets too hot and boils that will reduce reactivity and cause a stable output.
Natural reactors occurred on Earth 1.7B yrs ago when uranium had a higher enrichment level of ~3% U-235. The reactors operated on ~a 3hr cycle, 30min of criticality, followed by 2h30m subcritical, putting out ~100kw avg for several hundred thousand years. Water flowed over the uranium, moderated the neutrons causing fission events to rapidly rise, then the resultant heat boiled the water, causing fission events to rapidly decline, until more water flow restarted the cycle.
There isn't a commercial nuclear power plant that has anywhere near the complexity of a modern Tesla BEV. Not in # or parts. Not in information processing. Not in control points. Not in control loops. Not in data flow. Not in sensors. Not even safety protection points. At least in a per ton of metal metric, many if not most in an absolute comparison.
Very interesting argument.
I guess the question is - Would you like to live next to such a „low complexity“ natural reactor?
And if we increase security and reliability for a reactor to the point that you would feel comfy to live next to it with your family - would it still have a distinct-types-of-parts count that is lower than a solar power plant plus a battery?
I'd love to live next to a nuclear power plant. Outside the plant fencing all you would see is a beautiful wildlife paradise. Next door to a solar industrial site would be ugly and irritating as hell. With 300X the land area of the equivalent NPP.
And maybe you're careless with your leaf pile or grass & it catches fire, spreading to the solar panels which are very vulnerable to wildfire destruction. Well no homeowners insurance will cover that damage, which could be many $millions. You're liable. Try getting special insurance for that, might cost you as much as your mortgage payments.
And anywhere in the North, or rainy areas, your solar might be good for sunny days in the spring & summer. That's all. So the best it can do is replace a bit of gas fuel worth about 2 cents/kwh. All that massive expensive infrastructure for that?!? Craziness. A total scam.
And anyone afraid to live next to a NPP is an idiot. I can't be kind about it. You are vastly more likely be walking on your sundeck, when you get briefly blinded by the Sun reflecting off of the solar panels causing you to have a fatal fall down your stairwell, than any risk from the NPP.
My wife and I live about 10 air miles from Diablo Canyon Power Plant. We're glad we do. On a deaths per terawatt-hour of generation basis, solar and nuclear are almost indistinguishable. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-safest-and-deadliest-energy-sources/ 0.03 for nuclear and 0.02 for solar. However, nuclear power does not require burning large amounts of fossil fuel to compensate for its substantial (75%) intermittency like solar does. The article also shows the death toll from the fossil energy.
Investing in geothermal would be throwing good money after bad. It is true that geothermal is a technically feasible source of heat for steam-electric turbines. But it is even more geographically constrained than wind or even solar. How deep would a company have to drill to find sufficient heat to power Chicago, or New York? Or even Omaha? The Yellowstone caldera is the closest to us, but would require hundreds of miles of high voltage transmission. Is New York City to tap the geothermal fields of Iceland or the Atlantic Ridge? How about Miami Beach, or London.
You seem to base your opinion on the complexity of the technology. It is true, nuclear is complex, and requires above-average intelligence to design and operate. But you ignore two salient facts: nuclear is among the most energy dense of all energy sources, and nuclear is far and away more reliable. The current policy infatuation with renewables is blinded by the myth that its "fuel is free." Nothing could be further from the truth. Fuel is energy storage; wind and sun are not fuels but rather a resource for deriving energy in small batches. For thousands of years, humans existed solely on the wind and the sun. The industrial revolution brought methods of obtaining large amounts of energy at a very low cost, and civilization grew rapidly. Do you deny we are in a better place today than we were when Jefferson bought Louisiana?
I recently did an analysis of federal subsidies for nuclear, wind and solar, and discovered that the federal government invests about a nickel for every terawatt-hour of energy produced by nuclear power. On the other hand, government programs provide $2.30 and $6.84 per terawatt-hour of renewable. Despite this enormous advantage, renewables did not produce nearly the same amount of energy as did nuclear in FY 2022.
I agree with you that R&D should be guided by technology learning rates. Given nuclear's obvious advantages (power density, reliability, very low carbon emissions, and much, much less land), it would seem prudent for government to redirect those subsidies to nuclear utilities for innovation in cost reduction.
Your statement that nuclear "power has no plausible path to victory anymore under this perspective" is fundamentally incorrect, I think. No energy source is without risk. That statement is incontrovertible. There is always a plausible path once risks are identified. What we have to decide is how to evaluate, reduce, and mitigate those risks in a manner that allows for maximum human flourishment.
Subsidy calculations for nuclear are contentious because advocates usually forget to account for waste disposal and full risk insurance while opponents use astronomical assumptions for both.
Also a considerable part has and will be funded by the military for its understanding and access to weapon grade materials and reactions. Difficult to account for the spillovers from that.
And nuclear opponents are quick to hide behind the waste curtain. Advocates "forget" to account for disposal because it is such a trivial problem! Finland solved it. So did France and Sweden, and China has surpassed the US in waste management. Bury it, and isolate it. Problem solved. The US has not because it does not wish to; by perpetuating the myth of radioactive waste, politicians can continue to scare the illiterate public into thinking wind and solar are free.
Waste disposal strategies cannot succeed if they are subject to change on a four-year political cycle. Too often, political responses have been characterized by postponement and deferment. Regulatory responsibilities have been divided among many different agencies at local, state, and federal levels; such divisions of responsibility inevitably create conflict between agencies.
I repeat my point: subsidies to nuclear can lead to innovation in all aspects of nuclear power, including extracting new fuel from spent fuels. Solar power waste is toxic, and must be completely contained (rather than isolated) from the environment to ensure public safety in 1,000,000 years (the same standard you hold for radioactive waste). In fact, in 1,000,000 years most of the radioactive waste will have decayed, but the waste remaining from solar panels will be as toxic in 1,000,000 years as it is the day it is buried.
If you insist that waste is a problem for nuclear, and that we shouldn't proceed until we've "solved" the problem, why wouldn't you equally advocate for a moratorium on all solar panel installation until safe, economic disposal methods and locations are identified?
Waste disposal and risk are easily covered with a 1/2 cent/kwh fee. Equivalent fees not paid by solar/wind/fossil/hydro are able to do with reckless abandon, thousands of times the amount, thousands of times the risk.
And commercial nuclear power has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, they don't get weapons material from commercial NPPs. Nobody does. That's like saying filling your car up with gasoline makes you responsible for the immense death & destruction of our fossil powered war machine.
I object to you conflating atomic weapons with nuclear power as a fearmongering technique. Weapons reactors are very different from nuclear power reactors. That is the basis for international proliferation controls. BTW, the "Megatons to Megawatts" program rendered the equivalent of 20,000 Soviet atomic weapons impractical for weapons use. The Soviet special weapons material was used as U.S. nuclear power plant fuel instead. I'm glad that the U.S. has that material that will eventually be fuel for the next generation of nuclear power plants. Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge demonstrated such a reactor.
Why? The more complexity, the more margin for simplification and the more likely there is some way of doing it that is undiscovered yet.
Just more yada yada yada - trying to prop up something that isn't needed.