[matthewdgreen]

Sure. I have questions:

1. We need to be at net-zero by 2050 (and realistically based on the fast-moving temperature increases happening around us) maybe decades before that. SMRs haven’t been practically deployed yet, and don’t seem likely to be even minimally deployed until at least the 2030s if ever. How are we going to displace all forms of fossil fuel on the miniscule runway we’ll have left?

2. We have to deploy vast numbers of SMRs to the entire planet, including places with much worse security guarantees than first world nations. How do we propose to secure the huge amounts of fissile material and waste these reactors will use/produce. I’m not worried about fission bombs necessarily, but I am worried about pollution and dirty bombs.

3. “Without major improvements in storage” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. We’re seeing massive declines in storage prices and huge increases in production. If storage follows a curve similar to Solar PV, a huge fraction of the profitable applications for nuclear will be gone to cheap renewables and storage. Even if it doesn’t, renewables and today’s batteries are already driving fossil sources off the grid. How do we pay for a technology that will only have a few use-cases left after all the low hanging fruit has been eaten?

PS The last question is not a troll. It’s very obvious that renewables are going to generate something like 80-90% of our power. I’m open to the possibility that nuclear could make up the remaining 10-20%. But the economics of that chunk will be messy, since SMRs will have to compete with dirt cheap electricity when the sun/wind are available (even if storage stays expensive.) I highly doubt that SMRs are going to outcompete Solar PV when the sun is shining. What do the economics of the mostly-renewables-and-storage-with-SMRs-as-backstop world look like?

[h0l0cube]

> We’re seeing massive declines in storage prices and huge increases in production.

Just in the last 9 months I’ve seen LFP prismatic cells from China drop 50% in price (and about 10% in pack volume). Add to that the variety of grid scale storage tech emerging out of R&D into the real world, by the time a nuclear reactor built today is coming online, it will be obsolete. More importantly, as renewables reach overcapacity, we need fast dispatch ‘peaker’ plants, not baseload, which makes gas a better transitional power source than nuclear, and batteries the end game

[JumpCrisscross]

> I’ve seen LFP prismatic cells from China drop 50% in price

The comp would be the Nth-run cost of an SMR. It’s not something being produced anywhere close to utility scale to be topical over the next 20 years.

The world is bifurcating along renewables + gas (peaker), mostly the West, and renewables + coal (peaker-ish) and nukes (base), more Asia. Batteries may eventually replace some of that. But there are higher-value uses for them than grid storage for the foreseeable future (most obviously transport).

Globally, we are investing $1.5tn into new gas pipelines and terminals [1]. Anyone thinking those are transitional investments that will be written off in the next 20 years is deluding themselves.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/climate/greece-europe-nat...

[h0l0cube]

> Anyone thinking those are transitional investments that will be written off in the next 20 years is deluding themselves.

I absolutely do not. Whether it’s nuclear or gas, transitional plants will either need to be subsidized or guaranteed by governments. As batteries come online, gas and nuclear will be dead.

> It’s not something being produced anywhere close to utility scale to be topical over the next 20 years.

I’m not sure that’s true, even for LFP. But flow batteries, pumped hydro, sodium ion are already there in terms of scale and economics, and don’t remove from storage where volumetric/gravimetric density matters, as with mobility.

Multitudes of other solutions like hydrogen production and more experimental energy storage are being actively researched, and I’d wager we’ll see more technologies in the mix in the next 1-2 decades that makes the nuclear discussion moot

[JumpCrisscross]

> transitional plants will either need to be subsidized or guaranteed by governments

This isn’t some hypothetical, this is current investment being made under known terms.

Europe (nor America) can’t afford a trillion-dollar bail-out of its brand new gas terminals and pipelines. When demand starts being saturated, the existing infrastructure will take priority: every gas turbine, terminal and pipeline being built today will crowd out renewables down the line.

> As batteries come online, gas and nuclear will be dead

Possibly. Everyone seems to like a monoculture. The pro-nukes want only nukes. The pro-batteries want only renewables + batteries. Given that divide, it makes sense we’re betting on gas for the long term.

> I’d wager we’ll see more technologies in the mix in the next 1-2 decades that makes the nuclear discussion moot

Barring antimatter weapons, no.

[matthewdgreen]

There is a certain price for renewables and storage where, yes, gas infrastructure will absolutely be dead. I don’t know what that price is: but it exists. And it won’t be the first time entire generations of capital investment have been torn up and thrown in the trash. Go out and take a look at what remains of the industrial Midwest.

But 20 years, where gas gradually becomes a backup seasonal fuel source and is increasingly displaced by renewables and storage? That is absolutely consistent with a net-zero-by-2050 world. And probably a shorter timeline than the one that gives us ubiquitous SMRs, unfortunately.

[JumpCrisscross]

> is a certain price for renewables and storage where, yes, gas infrastructure will absolutely be dead

My point is the infrastructure is endogenous. Trillions in gas infrastructure investment creates real pushback against the price being allowed to get that low.

For Exhibit A as to how this will progress, see PG&E in California.

[h0l0cube]

> This isn’t some hypothetical, this is current investment being made under known terms.

Not sure what you mean here. Is it that private sector investments into gas? If so, it can't be said that it's a good investment. Plenty of bad investments happen, even in so called 'efficient' markets. At the end of the day, making a gas plant is a bet that we'll need more power than renewables can provide 1 - 2 decades from now.

> terminal and pipeline being built today will crowd out renewables down the line

If the energy can be had for cheaper, it will taken from renewables, though the losses may or may not be underwritten by the government.

If the argument is that renewable capacity will be insufficient 2 decades from now, well it would seem we'd need to vast increase in demand for that to be the case. That's not implausible, but certainly energy demand has been shrinking in western nations due to efficiency gains. Even AI, which seems set to increase energy usage, will be subject to efficiency gains as custom silicon, more efficient nodes, photonics, and other technological advances come into play

> Everyone seems to like a monoculture.

I'm not talking about a monoculture. As evidenced in this thread, I've talked about a mix of energy with gas in the equation. All I'm talking about is economics. Solar panels keep on giving (well past their previously expected lifetime of 15 years), wind farms keep on giving, with very little extraction or transport required, though transmission and, for now, backup, seem to be the pain points.

Personally I prefer nuclear from a conservation viewpoint – the waste and water usage problems not withstanding — as there's less land usage, and not a huge amount of extraction required.

> Barring antimatter weapons, no.

If we were to entertain this hypothetical, seems like there would be military budget enough to build whatever nuclear generators they need for their weapon (as they do for subs). I'm not sure on what timeline antimatter weapons enter the equation, but we could add the other hypotheticals of fusion or Dyson Spheres in the mix too

[kieranmaine]

I want to add to your second question by asking why nuclear + renewables + storage isn't a feasible solution?

The CAISO grid makes use of all 3, with solar and storage being used more and more, as shown here (I just picked todays date, but I think the trend applies to most days): * https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2020-05-30 * https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso?date=2024-05-30

In addition the UK grid has seen a large expansion in renewables underpinned by it's own nuclear fleet and imports of French nuclear power (https://www.mygridgb.co.uk/historicaldata/, https://grid.iamkate.com/).

[ants_everywhere]

> I’m not worried about fission bombs necessarily, but I am worried about pollution and dirty bombs.

Realistically, the nuclear industry will just decide in a few years that it's too hard to properly dispose of waste and they'll dump it unsafely somewhere that it harms humans. This will be easier to do in countries that already have large hazardous waste problems. In the US it will require a great deal of lobbying, but at least 1/3 of the population will support it if they think it makes the economy stronger and sticks it to their enemies.