[2trill2spill]

Wow, what a simplistic look at nuclear vs renewables. They don't even begin to look into the "hidden" costs of renewable energy. They fail to mention or include the costs of new transmissions lines, bringing new mines onboard, building grid storage, etc.

If we forgo nuclear power the only other currently viable carbon free, stable, energy source is hydro power, which has huge environmental costs and immense public resentment/push back. For example look at the James bay hydro project[1]. 11,500 km2 of land flooded, intense protest from the Cree and other first nations as well as conservation groups, increases in mercury levels in fish populations, etc. Expanding hydro power enough to handle base load energy use is unlikely, due to the above costs and push back.

So if we can't expand hydro or nuclear then we have to go all in on wind and solar plus grid storage. We could use pumped hydro but that brings about many of the same costs/problems as hydro power. That leaves us with over building wind and solar, and adding huge amounts of transmission lines and batteries to account for the variability. Add in the switch from ICE cars to electric and the amount of new metals needed is going to be immense.

I've also noticed that every time a new transmission line or mine is purposed in the United States their is immense push back from environmental and conservation groups, and from the public as a whole. For examples of this look at the fight over adding new transmissions lines in southern Wisconsin[2] or the intense opposition to mining the Duluth complex[3] in northern Minnesota[4]. The Duluth complex is the largest untapped copper and nickel resource in the world and Polymet has been trying to get permits for well over a decade to mine. Copper and nickel are greatly needed for renewable energy and batteries, and it could still be another 4 or 5 years if it ever happens.

Not using nuclear energy is just going to massively exacerbate the transmission line and mining problems as well as increase the prices of renewable energy. Wind and solar is "cheap" because we don't factor in the added transmission lines, and natural gas peaker planets needed to currently make it happen. Also many of the groups pushing for wind and solar + batteries also happen to be against adding additional mines and transmission lines required to make it happen, and honestly you cant really blame them, mines can pollute local water supplies and transmission lines are ugly.

All and all a balanced approach is probably the cheapest and most viable path forward, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, grid storage all working together on the grid.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_Project

[2]: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/cardina...

[3]: http://www.miningminnesota.com/duluth-complex/

[4]: https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/06/polymet-copper-nickel-...

[jillesvangurp]

What about the hidden cost of nuclear? The waste storage. The security measures (can't have terrorists walking off with the nuclear waste). The constant need for inspections, audits, etc. And that's before you consider the corruption and the gravy train that is basically associated with funding existing plants using massive amounts of public funding.

Nuclear being too expensive is the main point of this article. That seems upsetting to a lot of nuclear proponents. But I don't see a lot of arguments to counter that core point.

Nuclear the most expensive option in the German market. This is a completely uncontroversial fact. You can verify it in countless publications. You can argue whether it is 3x more expensive (according to the article) or a maybe a bit more when you consider all the hidden cost. IMHO 3X actually a very friendly assessment considering bids for solar and wind are trending very much below the cited cost in the article by about 2-5x. The point is that it is expensive by a quite significant factor.

I don't get your argument about mining. Yes policy making in the US is a problem (hence the Texas situation a few weeks ago). Nuclear does not solve that political mess; it just adds to it. I don't think the US is actually capable at this point of building nuclear cheaply. There are just too many stakeholders drooling over the multi billion $ budgets for that ever to make sense economically. And in any case the glacial decision making ensures it will be too little too late even if they by some miracle stick to budgets, which I would argue is pure fantasy. Too little, too late, for way too much is not what the world needs.

[sofixa]

What do you mean hidden costs of nuclear? All of those you listed are a well defined part in the costs, and considered from the start of a nuclear power plant, with provisions required for decomissioning and storage.

As for Germany, nuclear is their only CO2-free base load power option, so comparing costs to solar that only works when sun shines isn't apt. A good winter storm and tidal, wind and solar are out for hours - what do you do then? Coal? Gas? Or just have nuclear for base to start with? And yes, one day there could be massive grid-scale storage, maybe.

[FooHentai]

"Decommissioning options for a retired nuclear plant may be chosen based on availability of decommissioning funds, operation of other reactors at the same site, or availability of waste disposal facilities."

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

Today, about half the EoL reactors in the USA are on the SAFSTOR track instead of the one where they are immediately decommissioned. There is a single waste disposal site available, WIPP, that will close in the next couple of years. Only a handful of reactors on the SAFSTOR track are there because they sit adjacent to operational reactors.

So plans are one thing, reality is quite another.

[mlyle]

Nuclear power plants in the US have been charged massive fees to establish funds for decommissioning. The cost is baked into the energy, even if the political will to spend the funds and store the waste isn't.

https://www.nrc.gov/waste/decommissioning/finan-assur.html

[bigfudge]

That isn't true in Europe, but even accepting your argument: this is a problem for the nuclear industry. Unless we can see evidence that the system as a whole (i.e. nuclear industry plus government of various levels of corruption) can function to process and store waste safely, this is a black mark against the nuclear industry. It doesn't matter if this is 'unfair' in some sense... at the end of the day the waste will exist and after 40+ years there is no evidence of a combined political-industrial system with the capacity to do the right thing.

[sofixa]

You're wrong, here's all the details for Hinkley Point C:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hinkley-point-c-f...

EDF have already planned spent fuel storage and decomissioning, and it's provided for in the prices.

That's just one example, but it's been the standard practice across nuclear projects for decades now in most of Europe.

> Unless we can see evidence that the system as a whole (i.e. nuclear industry plus government of various levels of corruption) can function to process and store waste safely, this is a black mark against the nuclear industry.

It is being done today, and there are multiple projects that intend to improve upon it ( by recycling or cold underground permanent storage). What kind of evidence do you need? For it to be done over a 100 years? It'd be far too late then.

[pydry]

Germany uses a combination of demand shifting, overproduction, imported power and dispatchable power.

>A good winter storm and tidal, wind and solar are out for hours - what do you do then?

Design for the storm. In Texas everything except solar could in theory have worked fine (wind often overproduces in storms) and yet every power source failed.

[2trill2spill]

> What about the hidden cost of nuclear? The waste storage. The security measures (can't have terrorists walking off with the nuclear waste). The constant need for inspections, audits, etc. And that's before you consider the corruption and the gravy train that is basically associated with funding existing plants using massive amounts of public funding.

Nothing wrong with pointing out issues/costs with nuclear, in fact it's good to point out the issues with nuclear so it can be properly weighed. I'm just trying to point out issues/costs of only using renewables, so we can weigh those as well.

> Nuclear being too expensive is the main point of this article. That seems upsetting to a lot of nuclear proponents. But I don't see a lot of arguments to counter that core point.

I think your missing the point. If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances.

> I don't get your argument about mining.

My point about mining is, our current course to fighting climate change relies entirely on mining, were making the switch from the Oil and Gas industry to the Mining industry for our energy and transportation markets. This change is going to have huge impacts on the world, mines are quite capable polluters of the local environment, setting up mines in developed countries can take a decade or more, which is the same problem nuclear plants face. Mining is also quite controversial for many good reasons, so there is significant push back from locals and environmental groups whenever and wherever a mine is proposed. All of this means a huge portion on mining takes places in countries with lax environmental and or human rights standards, which just exacerbates the problems.

[jillesvangurp]

> I think your missing the point. If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances.

That kind of is my point: countries are doing this and without blackouts and it's actually fine. You seem to be claiming nuclear is needed to provide an unspecified base load at an unspecified cost. Other people are pointing out that it is about 3x more expensive and just not generally worth investing in at that cost difference.

Your points about mining are a bit beside the point. I don't actually disagree that the mining sector needs to be cleaned up. But our economy generates demand for lots of things we dig up out of the ground. If anything, it seems that the likes of Tesla are vaguely being responsible here and are actually making efforts to clean up that part of their business by working to source what they need in a sustainable way.

You seem to imply that a scale change is needed on the mining front to bootstrap renewables. I doubt that that's as big of a deal that you seem to imply. Also, you could make the point that with clean energy, resources locked up in that become available for recycling at the end of their life. So, things like lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, etc. actually can be reused. And there are also some efforts to replace some of these minerals with more readily available alternatives. E.g. cobalt free batteries are a thing. Finally, we can offset that by no longer digging up coal, drilling oil, or fracking gas. The difference is that absolutely zero percent of that gets recycled because we burn it.

And lets not forget that uranium mining is probably one of the dirtiest forms of mining. That's just a really nasty business mostly happening under exactly the kind of circumstances you point out. Nothing clean about it. Lots of pollution, radioactive waste, and health issues. And you need to mine a lot of rock to extract very little uranium.

[rhodozelia]

>If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances. >That kind of is my point: countries are doing this and without blackouts and it's actually fine.

A system that can meet the demand with an increasingly higher percentage of non dispatchable wind and solar needs some plan B for when it is night time and there is no wind. Or it is cloudy and not windy for days. It can be batteries but there is a cost to that too. Any place with a high share of non dispatchable generation tends to either have good interconnections to their neighbors who have firm power supplies, or they have their own natural gas or diesel generation, but there is a cost to having that sitting around too.

I’m fine with cost for nuclear, for batteries, for over building wind and solar, and for nat gas used as a backup for that weather system that moves in once a year that would otherwise result In a blackout. cost is just a number in a ledger somewhere.

The energy supply should come from diverse sources and nuclear is a good part of that solution.

[2trill2spill]

> Your points about mining are a bit beside the point. I don't actually disagree that the mining sector needs to be cleaned up. But our economy generates demand for lots of things we dig up out of the ground. If anything, it seems that the likes of Tesla are vaguely being responsible here and are actually making efforts to clean up that part of their business by working to source what they need in a sustainable way.

Mining is not besides the point, mining is a potential major bottleneck for renewables and has huge environmental costs that should be discussed. Also Tesla is trying to reduce the ecological and human costs of producing battery metals by bringing production/mining to North America, and switching to battery chemistries that don't use cobalt. However those non cobalt battery chemistries use lots of nickel. Also it is becoming extremely difficult to start a mine in the United States. Polymet has been trying to get their copper/nickel mine permitted for over a decade, if you include exploration, which started in the 80's, this project has been going on for decades. Starting a new mine is a very slow process and as the whole world switches to clean energy, demand will surge and new mines will be needed.

> You seem to imply that a scale change is needed on the mining front to bootstrap renewables. I doubt that that's as big of a deal that you seem to imply.

There is plenty of research, articles and information about the incoming surge in demand for metals due to the switch to clean technologies. For example this report from the world bank says that production of some metals would need to increase by nearly 500%[1]

[1]: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/05/11/m...

[anoncake]

Re batteries: For grid storage, you don't need "battery metals". Lead-based batteries are perfectly sufficient when you don't care about energy density. And that's ignoring other methods of storing energy.