[Retric]

Though still missing the mark. Nuclear’s biggest issue is cost.

If it was cheap enough companies would have built more and scaled them up and down to meet demand, instead France only got mostly Nuclear by exporting its excess and nobody else really got very close to full nuclear.

The problem today is wind costs less. But, when you add a lot of wind during times of high wind your nuclear becomes useless. This ends up driving up the effective cost of nuclear even higher.

Storage makes this worse as you would then just want ever more wind due to cost.

[SCHiM]

The cost is a political problem. It's easier for the opponents of nuclear to find support for stricter and stricter safety laws for new reactors. Driving up the cost, making them economically nonviable. Meanwhile the older and far more dangerous reactors are rotting away and cannot be replaced (or are replaced with fossil fuels).

It's been pointed out again, again and again. Coal plants pump out more radioactive waste than is ever released by all the accidents to date, catching a plane will irradiate you more than living next to one, etc. etc.

[Retric]

If that where true China would happily jump on the nuclear bandwagon. Instead, they use minimal Nuclear because the basic cost of running a nuclear power plant reasonably safely can’t become really cheap.

Nuclear in China is 40.6 GW vs 290GW or so total power production. They are adding 14 GW but these things take time so the ratio will stay about the same. Meanwhile they are ramping up wind and solar extremely quickly with a stated goal of 1,300 GW of peak solar capacity by 2050 which they are on pace to reach. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

[opo]

Your comparisons between power production of nuclear and solar is somewhat misleading since you are forgetting the low capacity factor of solar.

In terms of power production of solar in China:

>...The contribution to the total electric energy production remains modest[8] as the average capacity factor of solar power plants is relatively low at 17% on average. Of the 6,412 TWh electricity produced in China in 2017,[9] 118.2 TWh was generated by solar power, equivalent to 1.84% of total electricity production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_China

In comparison:

>...Nuclear power contributed 3% of the total electricity production in 2015, with 170 TWh,[1] and was the fastest-growing electricity source, with 29% growth over 2014.[4

As far as long range plans in China:

>...By mid-century fast neutron reactors are seen as the main technology, with a planned 1400 GW capacity by 2100

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

In short, it looks like China is doing what any smart country is trying to do: develop all non-carbon based energy sources that they can.

[Retric]

First, however you want to slice it Nuclear is a low percentage of China’s production. Even nuclear + wind + solar is not that huge, still the trends are very promising.

But, I want to say that growth figure is misleading as it’s comparing as specific year when a power plant came online. In terms of total TWh and rate of increase wind beats nuclear. In terms of relative percentage increase Solar is insane.

  Solar 2013 9 TWh
  Solar 2017 118.2 TWh

  Nuclear 2013 124 TWh
  Nuclear 2017 246 TWh

  Wind 2013 134.9 TWh
  Wind 2017 305.7 TWh

Looking at 2018 Solar’s insane year over year growth is starting to have a huge impact and does not seem to be slowing down. In some ways even 2017 numbers are misleading.

  Solar, *capacity* added per year.
  2014	10,560
  2015	15,130
  2016	34,540
  2017	52,830

[WhompingWindows]

I disagree; politics are a small factor, but up-front capital costs are by far the bigger issue. The most salient example is South Carolina, where it was up-front construction costs that axed the project. They poured billions into the plant multiple times and it never was completed.

I'm all for advanced nuclear but it's never going to happen with such high start-up costs, especially outside of an authoritarian economy like China, which is basically the only country making major expansions to nuclear today. Maybe traveling wave or molten salt or modular reactors could be cheaper and better on fundamentals, but if the cost to start-up is still very high, the LCOE isn't going to beat renewables/storage in the medium/long term.

On top of this, look at energy widely. Demand is flat, old coal is shutting down, new renewables/storage and new-ish gas turbines are going to be online for a couple decades. Where is the payback potential for an expensive nuclear plant in a flat-demand environment? Renewables kill the wholesale cost to boot, so nuclear would be running a deficit in windy or sunny times. It's just hard to make the numbers work.

[selimthegrim]

I always wondered how they came up with that north of 30% interest rate for the financing for the rest of the project that caused them to abandon it. Probably the banks just saying FYAD politely.

[wmil]

The big problem with nuclear is that it's only economical to run the reactors at full blast 24/7. However demand goes up through the day and down over night.

You need to pair it with some sort of grid energy storage. That's not quite a solved problem.

Personally I'm a fan of offshore compressed air... https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/toronto-hydro-p...

[koheripbal]

This is like punching someone in the face, and then accusing them of having a nose-bleeding problem.

Nuclear is expensive because the rampant fear-mongering generates massive amounts of litigation, construction delays, and outdated/unreasonable regulations.

If you look at the cost of reactors in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, they are one-tenth the US cost for the exact same reactor design.

[Retric]

None of the counties you mentioned use a higher percentage of nuclear power than the US. Russia plans to eventually hit 35% but unlike most of the rest of the world they can’t rely on cheap solar.

We already use nuclear power around the world, but to displace fossil fuels it needs to become cheaper without subsides.

[tyu1000]

Large parts of the U.S., Japan and Canada all have good nuclear. Gates' has always been about pushing research in the area to get better nuclear, which he outlines clearly in this note.

[Retric]

It’s also subsidized in those areas. As I said in another post, counties like China don’t use a lot of Nuclear power even with minimal political issues because of core economic issues.

Saudi Arabia for example is aiming for 15% nuclear by 2040. They have plenty of money etc, it’s just not a great solution to scale. Further, any advances you make today take a long time to put into production meaning we can’t wait for ‘better tech’.

[irq-1]

Nationalize any nuclear plant that has an "accident". Investors would have a financial justification to spend on safety.

[Retric]

It’s not a US or western problem. China, Saudi Arabia, Russia etc also use minimal nuclear power because of basic economic issues. It’s fine under 10%, but as you scale up the problems get worse.

PS: Rosenergoatom which runs Russia’s nuclear power plants has seemingly made progress in lowering operating costs, but it’s not clear how much of that progress is real. Though Russia is planning to ramp up to ~35% nuclear and is pushing a lot of R&D which is promising. Then again they have issues with solar.

[irq-1]

Bill Gates thinks he can run nuclear power-plants at a profit, and safely. Nationalizing plants that aren't safe would let investors try. Governments could reduce up-front regulations by punishing reckless investors.

[Retric]

Considering the ~US$187 billion dollar cleanup effort after the most recent failure, just let them try can be an extremely expensive proposition. Operate for 50 years then say, sorry cleanup is your problem now suckers is similarly an issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup

That’s the catch 22, you need to not just be extremely safe but able to convince others outside your organization that it’s going to work. Having been burned twice by failure modes outside the original context it becomes even more difficult to innovate. Novel designs have novel problems and unknown unkowns can be a huge deal.

Can you get away with fewer guards? Well probably, but the minimum is not clear. How about thinner walls, again probably but can you convince others it’s a good tradeoff? Now extend that to everything.

[handelaar]

They'd have a much larger financial incentive to reduce safety protection at older facilities.