[hvb2]

Absolutely, but besides rooftop solar we don't have a single power source currently that does that.

Traditional power generation was always centralized big plants. Most people wouldn't want to live next to them and from a health perspective you probably shouldn't.

So "close" has always been within air quotes.

[acdha]

Also small-scale fossil fuel, hydropower, wind, geothermal, etc. What solar does differently than those is be directly usable and not have significant negatives which made it undesirable to have near non-industrial users because it doesn’t make noise, air, or water pollution.

[bluefirebrand]

Batteries are significant amounts of "nearby risk" that is being handwaved away imo

They are fire/explosion hazards, heavy metals, etc.

[acdha]

They’re a fire risk but have you tried fossil fuels and power lines? The newer battery technologies have significantly minimized the heavy metal needs and especially the sodium-ion batteries really reduce the fire and explosion risk.

[bluefirebrand]

We aren't talking about installing coal power plants in people's houses the way we're talking about installing solar and batteries in people's houses

[acdha]

People use gas generators, though, and it’s not like you have to go back further than my grandfather’s lifetime to have factories or other industrial buildings with oil/coal plants on-premise or directly powering machinery. Pollution and logistics pushed away but we didn’t start with a pervasive power grid.

[BobaFloutist]

I have a gas line directly into my apartment building, as do the vast majority of buildings in my area.

[hvb2]

Genuine question, what do you mean by small-scale fossil fuel

What power output in megawatt are we talking about here? I'm struggling to think of a fossil power source efficient at small scale

[acdha]

Well, if you go back far enough there were a ton of factories and other buildings which had their own small plants but the main thing I was thinking of was stuff like that xAI data center in Memphis with the methane-powered turbines where they’re avoiding grid limits and transmission losses at the expense of pollution.

[bluefirebrand]

Well, nearby is relative.

My point is that a nuclear power station near a city is probably better than a wind farm offshore 1000km away even if the wind farm and the nuclear generate the same

[hvb2]

It's hard to define 'better'

Nuclear has significant downsides besides the waste and proliferation risks.

You wouldn't want to build a grid on just nuclear.

Let's assume that city takes 1.2MWh at its peak every day. That would mean you need to be able to supply that. So you build a nuclear plant producing 1.2MWh of energy.

Now you have the argument against renewables (the sun doesn't always shine) in reverse. The city doesn't always need that peak power. And nuclear is the slowest of all power sources to tune up and down in terms of output.

Nuclear for base load makes a lot of sense as it'll always be fully utilized. But nuclear to power a grid 100% doesn't exist anywhere for a reason either.

[acdha]

That wind farm needs to be like 4% bigger to cancel out transmission losses so the question has to involve the relative costs.

The EIA has it at $81 for advanced nuclear, which is competitive with offshore wind ($88) but not hydro ($58), PV+battery ($53), PV ($31), or onshore wind ($29). Now, both of those could see big improvements with scale but I think the uncertainty of the markets and our political climate are going to complicate that a lot. A big nuclear push needs a lot of upfront funding and while Trump has boosted it a bit and hates wind, I’m not sure how much that counts on a loan that big since right now that plant is guaranteed to lose money most of the time unless it’s near a big industrial user with high baseline demand.