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U.S. Pledge To Triple Global Nuclear Energy By 2050
(www.huffpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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I’m a renewable bro. I wanna see as much money pumped into as much infrastructure for renewables as possible. I wanna see solar on every building. I wanna see off-shore wind and tidal energy production. I’m keenly following development of clean, efficient, and cost-effective energy storage technologies, and much is being done in this space to support a future switch to full renewable reliance.
That won’t change the fact that we need on-demand energy now and we need to stop using coal and gas as soon as possible. We currently don’t have energy storage at scale. We will, but we don’t. So in the meantime, nuclear is probably the best option to pursue for use over the next couple of decades while we continue to invest in, and implement, renewables.
I will have to strongly disagree here. The timelines are actually the main reason why I would disqualify Nuclear power as a solution to energy, even as a temporary one.
The time from inception to going online for a new Nuclear reactor is in the range of 15-25 years. Of course we could attempt to shorten that, but that would probably mean compromising on safety. So indeed, if we want to stop using fossil fuels asap, building solar, wind, and hydro, which come online in a matter of months (maybe years for hydro), is much faster.
Aggravating this are two further issues: Current Nuclear energy production is non-renewable, and supply problems are already known to occur at current energy production levels. Second, the global construction capacity is limited, probably to around current levels. Even if we do not push for faster construction times, the number of companies and indeed people who have the necessary expertise are already at full capacity, and again, expanding that would probably imply safety problems.
That is to say, currently running Nuclear power plants are save and clean, so by all means keep doing it until renewables take over. But expanding Nuclear power to solve the energy problem is a non-starter for me, due to the timeline and it being non-renewable. And that is before we start talking about the very real dangers of Nuclear power, which are not operational of course, but due to proliferation, war, and governmental or general societal instability (due to say, climate change).
It also takes 20years for a tree to grow, so I guess we should stop planting trees too. Good logic.
The rest of what you are saying is ignorant at best. "Global construction capacity" is constrained to current levels. How convenient that we can only build exactly the number of nuclear reactors we are currently building. But we can build an unlimited amount of solar panels, wind turbines and "hyrdo."
How long do you think it takes to "build hydro?" If you ignore any and all environmental costs of flooding valleys, then sure I guess you could do it pretty quickly, you'd probably have to relocate hundreds of thousands of people, but sure that sounds more feasible then building a nuclear reactor.
Current Nuclear energy production is non-renewably because of cold-war era treaties against enrichment and breeder reactors. The timeline for nuclear fuel to run out if you allow breeders, is after the sun burns out. So that's a non-issue. Not to mention other theoretical sources of nuclear fuel that we don't bother even looking at because it's cheaper to burn more coal.
If you read my comment, I specifically add a caveat for hydro.
In terms of solar and wind, of course we cannot just build unlimited amounts, but we can ramp up capacity a lot more easily and quickly than with nuclear, because it's a lot simpler and faster to build (especially solar). Imagine if we increase construction capacity by 10x tomorrow; we would still need to wait for 15 to 25 years to see any impact with nuclear, while solar and wind would go online next year.
Of course, ramping up production brings an increased risk of manufacturing faults and construction errors in all cases. But I would argue that any nuclear accident is a lot more undesirable than some solar or wind power going offline.
In terms of nuclear fuel, these alternative technologies may exist. But again, the time to market, and the fact that we are introducing a new technology into our vastly expanding production capacity just brings even more risk and uncertainty, which is completely unnecessary when extremely save and reliable, well tested alternatives exist (solar and wind).
So what I am arguing is that we focus our limited resources and money (the latter being the key factor in our economy, unfortunately) on the things that have the largest impact in the shortest amount of time, and that is solar and wind (and to an extent hydro).
And again, all that analysis is graciously disregarding the very real risks of nuclear power (instability, war, proliferation).
I disagree. I think that people make fewer mistakes in each repetition, the more times they repeat an action.
Right now nobody has mastered the building of nuclear plants. As a civilization, we’re on the equivalent of our third day on the new job. If we committed to tripling world supply, that would lead to us mastering it. We’d be at the equivalent of having been at the job for a couple years.
What does "mastering it" really mean? Usually a big part is learning from mistakes. Which I do not think is something you want to do with nuclear power.
But here is the thing. There is no resource constraint between building nuclear power and building solar or wind, or even hydro. They use difference resources, they require different sectors of the economy to realize, and they require different engineering. They don't compete with each other except in the minds of people who favor one over the other for some reason.
Nuclear competes with fossil fuels, that's it. So do renewables, but on a much more limited basis. They do not compete iwth each other. No individual or government is ever looking at a choice between Wind power and Nuclear power and choosing one over the other.
Except for funding, obviously.
And as I said, the main point is we need clean, renewable energy as soon as possible, which only solar and wind (and to some extent hydro) can provide.