[progfix]

And I am flabbergasted (again) because of the pro nuclear power comments. Why should we create energy from something so complicated and hard to control when we have something simple and easy to grasp like water, solar and windpower? I understand statistically speaking a nuclear power plant is save, but the risk is calculated by multiplying propability of occurance and potential loss. The potential loss in a maximum credible accident of a power plant is much much higher than in any other form of energy generation.

Sure, we can build nuclear power plants, but let's make sure that we have used our potential for wind-, water- and solar power generation first (besides other stuff, like having good insulation on buildings, LEDs, etc).

I also feel like people are pro- or contra nuclear power to show their alliance to their political parties more than for rational reasons. We should stop that.

[theshrike79]

Because you can't run steel mills and other big energy consumers with solar or wind. These require power in the scale of Terawatts each year. 24/7.

Renewables like solar and wind are decent for offsetting peaks and maybe generate some household electricity, but you're delusional if you think they can be used to replace coal or nuclear in the next decade. Or even quarter century.

Until we make giant leaps in energy storage technology, we NEED something that can provide a steady base flow of electricity 24/7/365.

And currently nuclear power is our best option for that. Burning fossil fuels (coal, wood, etc) is shit, we have only a limited number of places for water power.

[the_why_of_y]

What is needed as a complement to renewable energy is dispatchable generation, i.e., plants that can be quickly turned on and off as the supply from renewables changes. Nuclear (and also coal) is a really bad option for this because the time to turn these plants on an off is measured in days.

[theshrike79]

There really aren't any of these in the scale we need, they're used even today to offset peak loads. And all of them still burn fossil fuels.

The US has a fancy water pumping station in the scale we'd need (3000MW)[0], but it relies heavily on the local geography and wouldn't be economically feasible in the Netherlands for example.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_Sta...

[pfdietz]

The reason peaking turbines use fossil fuels is the lack of a carbon tax sufficient to drive them to other inputs. In particular, they'd migrate to renewable hydrogen in a CO2-constrained situation.

[imtringued]

Intermittency is completely irrelevant because reductions in CO2 can still happen if you switch from coal baseload to load following gas which produces half as much Co2 and is only used when renewables don't produce energy.

[Amygaz]

Except than China and Australia are doing exactly what you said cannot be done.

Also Canada is complaining that they have a massive surplus of hydroelectricity, that they would like to sell us, but it’s apparently very complicated to get anyone to agree on anything, even if the total infrastructure cost and the energy would be cheaper than a nuclear plant.

[Gravityloss]

Modern electric arc steel mills can be stopped and started easily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_mill#Minimill

[pfdietz]

| Because you can't run steel mills and other big energy consumers with solar or wind.

Ah, the Argument from Bad Engineering. If you stop and think real hard I'm sure you could imagine many ways to do this. And they'd be cheaper than trying to run steel mills off nuclear reactors.

[wtallis]

Ok, then: What's you're preferred form of industrial-scale energy storage?

[pfdietz]

For this application? Pumped hydro, high temperature thermal in firebrick (a technology used by the steel industry in the 1920s), and hydrogen.

Also, adapt iron/steel production to use direct electrolytic methods, although that's going to require more R&D. The potential for dispatchability of demand is enormous.

[vlehto]

If you are interested in some numbers about the subject, there is very good resource for the case of British isles. The situation is of course different for USA the people per area is different. But you anyhow can get a grasp why renewables are problematic.

http://withouthotair.com/

[Gondolin]

Renewable are a way better source of energy than nuclear power and we should definitively invest on them. But currently they does not suffice (because we don't have enough energy storage capacity). So we need nuclear both - now, to complete renewable, instead of using gas/coal - in the future, as a back up plan, if good storage technology is not found and renewable are not enough.

Remember that we will need a lot more electric energy if we want electric cars and use energy for decarbonisation; so we should use nuclear until renewable completely fill the gap.

[MertsA]

If you're just talking about potential loss hydropower is not the argument you want to make here. Just the Banqiao dam failure alone has caused far more fatalities than nuclear power ever has including Chernobyl.

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

Even just recently in the United States the Oroville dam came pretty close to catastrophe and required the evacuation of 188,000 people. Repairing the Oroville dam cost $1.1 billion, even back in the 70s the Teton Dam collapse cost over $300 million.

I'm all in favor of using hydroelectric power in places where we need to build a dam to control flooding but building a dam for power alone is ecologically damaging, floods tons of land, and even if you wanted to try to build more, there's not a lot of suitable locations.

As for the complexity of keeping a nuclear reactor under control, this isn't the 50s, we have reactor designs that are dramatically safer than older reactors, we aren't building them. I think you're wrong about trying to conserve energy as well. I'm not saying that we should waste it, but real conservation of energy isn't going to happen without significantly changing our current lifestyles. We don't need to do that if we just invest in sustainable clean energy in the form of nuclear power in the first place.

[mk89]

>Why should we create energy from something so complicated and hard to control when we have something simple and easy to grasp like water, solar and windpower?

I think because it's way more expensive than having a mixed source of energy. The issue is what are we able to give up for having energy? Air pollution? Security that I don't get blown in a nuclear plant explosion (the fear is always there it seems...) ? Money? I think that nuclear energy is not bad, it's just a transition, as the parent comment said. And it's a better transition than coal.