[epistasis]

I thought this in the mid-2000s, but the landscape has changed drastically since then in two ways: 1) solar wind and storage are decreasing in cost exponentially, and have crossed the inflection point where solar+storage is a firm energy source cheaper than building new fossil fuel infrastructure, and definitely cheaper than nuclear. 2) Attempts at building nuclear in the West over the past decade have revealed that our economic strengths no longer mean that nuclear construction is efficient or even reliably able to be completed. Since the 1970s, economic productivity overall has soared, but our construction productivity has barely improved. So, large construction projects that might have made sense in the 1970s are no longer economically efficient.

Nuclear has proven to be very unreliable to build due to massive complexity compounded by the need for extreme accuracy in construction, since we don't want to need to go in to fix core components after they've been turned on. This is precisely what advanced economies are not good at.

[belorn]

For places that can rely on exclusively solar, solar and battery start to make more sense than nuclear. Currently it is profitable to have around 3-4 hours of 80% of capacity, which is economical if you get a daily charge cycle it where in the day you charge them and during the night you get paid by discharging almost 100%.

Wind is a very different beast in term of charge cycles and capacity requirements. We are nowhere near having it economical to install batteries with multiple weeks long capacity that get a charge cycle of a few times a year. For that you need stored energy technology like reverse hydro or hydrogen production, and they are are quire bit away from being economical sustainable. Reverse hydro has many issues and has resulted in a declining optimism in the last decade, and using wind to produce hydrogen cost about 6 times as much as any other hydrogen production method. And we don't currently burn hydrogen for power as it is already prohibitively expensive. Still it seems as our best bet for storage, which should give a hint how the economics are between nuclear and storage.

[throwawaysea]

I agree America has lost its ability to build big complex things but maybe that’s just a challenge we need to overcome. Certainly other nations like China aren’t having trouble building new generation nuclear plants. There is mounting political will across the spectrum to invest in nuclear (https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/finally-they-adm...), and maybe we can use that as a route to reinvigorate American construction and manufacturing industries.

[epistasis]

China is also having difficulty building nuclear reactors. Though they still complete in seemingly reasonable timelines to Western ears, it's still up to two times as the schedule completion.

Michael Shellenberger is not a reliable source in my experience, he's far more invested in ideology and pushing cultural wedge issues than the technology and providing real solutions.

[throwawayboise]

Yes the boiling water nuclear plants designed in the 1950s are massive, complicated, and expensive to build. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we start building more of those.

[epistasis]

Got any evidence that nobody wants to build the same style of big reactors we currently have in our fleet? Because more than half of the people that I talk to that support nuclear want exactly that. There are two reasons that I hear in support of this: 1) we did it before, so people think it's a good idea still, and 2) that's the only type of reactor that we have designed and could start deploying today. It's the type of reactor that Rosatom will build, it's the type of reactor that China is building.

Other reactor types are far far far out on the design schedule, and more speculative in terms of technological success than any of the many new types of battery chemistries that have been announced this year.

[imtringued]

Well, that's your problem. If you can't figure out how to design viable nuclear power plants then why should we build more of the old crap?

[R0b0t1]

We could still just build those designs and get a ROI orders of magnitude better than other expenses. Don't be silly.

[epistasis]

Got any evidence of this claim? As counter evidence, I would point to any of the reactor builds in the US or Europe (including UK) this century.

[finikytou]

do you know why solar cost are decreasing? https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-rise-of-u-s-solar-po...

[epistasis]

Solar panels are getting cheaper because of continuous technological innovation that reduces the usage of input materials.

Why did you paste a link to that editorial? It does not seem particularly relevant to your question.

[imtringued]

I can't read the full article but I don't see the problem.

Just think about it. China is burning so much coal for the sake of getting rid of coal. There is no better way to use that electricity.