[algebraically]

Nuclear solves all these problems and potentially buys enough time to figure out how to mitigate the worst effects of 2C+ degrees of warming which at this point is basically inevitable. France seems to be the only sane nation in the world right now while everyone else is doubling down on what brought us to this point. [1]

> France has 56 nuclear power reactors in operation, with two units closing in 2020 at Fessenheim (61 370 MW(e)) and one EPR reactor under construction at the Flamanville site. Nuclear power plants accounted for 70.6% of total French electricity generation in 2019, and about 90% of France’s electricity comes from low carbon sources (nuclear and renewable).

1: https://cnpp.iaea.org/countryprofiles/France/France.htm

[Comevius]

The global power consumption is around 25000 terawatt hours, so you would need to operate around 5000 nuclear power stations to cover that.

You would need 5000 locations, but then you would run out of uranium and exotic metals in a few years. They are non-renewable resources.

Nuclear is not going to happen in time. Every dollar put into it is a waste at this point. The focus should be on decommissioning existing reactors so that the harm is limited when society eventually falls apart, to give a chance for future generations.

[giarc]

I suspect that building and operating a nuclear plant is more complex than coal, however this table indicates there are currently 2445 operating coal plants currently, and approx 500 in pre-construction or construction. So is it really that hard to fathom operating 5000 nuclear plants? Especially if our existence might depend on it? I also don't think people are recommending replacing EVERY source of energy with nuclear... just the dirty ones.

1 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kXtAw6QvhE14_KRn5lnG...

[sofixa]

Nuclear power stations usually contain multiple reactorsand afaik there's no limit on how any of them you can have. So a lot less than 5000 locations.

> The focus should be on decommissioning existing reactors so that the harm is limited when society eventually falls apart, to give a chance for future generations.

And replace them with what? Energy instability sure as hell won't help current or future generations.

[i_am_proteus]

Smaller reactors (which may be, but are not necessarily, "modular") should help with both the build time and cost overrun issue.

The USA has been successfully building small reactors on time, on budget, more or less continuously since the 1950s - they've just been going into warships and submarines and not commercial generating stations.

[teachrdan]

One problem is that military nuclear reactors use more highly refined uranium in order to reduce reactor size. This makes them more valuable targets for terrorists and thus require greater security. Not hard to accomplish on an aircraft carrier, but this would increase cost for a civilian reactor.

[spaetzleesser]

From my experience military equipment is not designed to be efficient in terms of cost. I am pretty sure their designs can’t be used for commercially viable power.

They are also operated in super secure environments like submarines and aircraft carriers. Harder to secure a large number of commercial plants all over the country. Even accidents are much more forgiving out on the ocean vs on land.

[giarc]

So could we not just operate them on water? Many large cities are on water and already have ugly ports. Just build nuclear reactors in ships, park in port and connect to grid. Have coast guard/navy secure them.

[glogla]

They have one in Russia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov

[spaetzleesser]

Again, look at the economics. I bet it won’t work.

[i_am_proteus]

That's the general thrust of the modular bit - it's easier to build ten 100 MWe plants (mostly) in a factory and ship them to the site of a power station than build a 1GWe monolith on the same site.

[it_citizen]

To give an order of magnitude: Germany is producing 11 times more CO2 to produce the same amount of energy than France.

But nothing is sure about what is going to happen in France. While Macron has announced some investments to develop small modular reactors, the path to get to carbon neutrality is still being discussed.

RTE, the electricity transmission system operator released a massive report last week with 6 possible pathways to get to Carbon Neutrality (1). 3 of them explore doubling down on nuclear while 3 others consist in divesting from nuclear and relying even more on renewables.

All scenarios are considered "realistic" despite each having some uncertainties. The projected costs of all scenarios is in the same order of magnitude (~10B euros). While the scenarios with nuclear seem slightly cheaper given median assumptions, it is a rounding error compared to the uncertainties regarding the cost of capital, the evolution of solar and wind prices, and the capability to deliver new nuclear plants).

Maintaining the existing 60GW of nuclear power would certainly make things easier, but the report makes it clear that it is more of a political decision than a technical constraint.

The report is clear about one thing though, renewables are not optional. There is no scenario where France gets to carbon neutrality in 2050 without massively scaling its production of renewable energy starting now.

1: https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-10/Futurs-Ene... (see page 17 for the 6 scenarios)

[jhgb]

> To give an order of magnitude: Germany is producing 11 times more CO2 to produce the same amount of energy than France.

That sounds rather unbelievable. As per Statista, France produced 8.7 exajoules of energy in 2020; Germany produced 12.1 exajoules. Meanwhile France emitted 277 Mt of CO2 in 2020; Germany emitted 644 Mt in 2020. Unless I'm calculating something wrong, Germany's 53.2 Mt/EJ is worse than France's 31.8 Mt/EJ, but not by a factor of 11. More like by a factor of 1.7.

[glogla]

Thanks for sharing that!

It is really interesting to see strategies from "shutting down all nuclear and building ~ 350 GW of solar and wind and 26 GW of storage" to "still build a lot of renewables but also 27 GW of new nuclear and no storage".

This seems one of the very few times I've seen the storage taken into account.

[Brometheus]

Takes to long to construct, overruns its coasts. Pushing it is just a stalling strategy from big coal, gas and oil.

[algebraically]

Sure thing chief, cost is very important when facing a global existential crisis. That's why global CO2 output is now on the rise because people asking for more nuclear power plants (the only reliable low carbon source at this point in time) are stooges for big coal, gas, and oil.

[Brometheus]

That does not follow.

[ClumsyPilot]

Exactly

[ClumsyPilot]

"The fossil fuel industry starting from the 1950s was engaging in campaigns against the nuclear industry which it perceived as a threat to their commercial interests. Organizations such as American Petroleum Institute, the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association and Marcellus"

[mayama]

If you construct reactors in fleet mode, a few will come online every year, first reactor comes online. Like China and India are doing. Bigger problem is nuclear fear in west and unavailability of finance in the rest. India could not avail loans from any banks for their new nuclear plants and had to fork out entire capex from govt budget.

[splistud]

There is very little interest in any large capex projects of any type, in any location, on the part of banks. They're buying US paper instead. To be expected, given the high inflation rate.

[mayama]

In an ideal world, one would expect nuclear tech or financing be addressed in global forums, like say cop26. But, from leaked reports, India was complaining that the cop report is demonizing nuclear and wants nuclear included in the solutions to climate change. Highly doubt India would get any traction on that.

[99_00]

Claims that it takes to long to construct and overruns costs are just FUD from the solar industry which relies heavily on coal and concentration camp labour to produce cheap panels that provide unreliable energy without some sort of storage system which doesn't exist at scale.

Solar Power May Be the Next Victim of China’s Coal Shortage

>Prices of silicon metal, used to make the material that comprises solar panels, have surged about 300% since the start of August after a top-producing province ordered production be slashed amid a power crunch. China dominates global solar production, with its coal generators powering many of the factories that make clean energy equipment.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/china-slashes-silico...

[glogla]

It's the other way around. Renewables without storage (which we don't have) need fossil fuels around, in the forms of gas peakers and whatnot. Pushing against nuclear is just strategy from big oil and coal and gas to stay relevant.

[nradov]

China is also constructing many new nuclear power plants. However they're also constructing new fossil fuel plants at the same time. It's tough to keep up with the increasing demand for electricity.