[troupo]

> Nuclear takes like 15 years to build

6-7 years. France built 40 its nuclear reactors in a decade, at 6-7 years per reactor.

Right now China is building reactors at 6-7 years per reactor.

--- start quote ---

Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years or less.

Every single conventional commercial-scale reactor project in Chinese history has achieved completion in under a decade

Since the start of 2022, China has completed an additional five domestic reactor builds, with their completion times ranging from just under five years to just over 7 years. This continues the consistent completion record of Chinese projects even despite potential disruptions from the intervening COVID-19 pandemic.

China successfully constructed six nuclear reactors in Pakistan in around 5.5-6 years each

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-impressive-...

--- end quote ---

[_aavaa_]

At the start of 2025 China didn’t manage to reach their 2020 nuclear target, much less their 2025. Meanwhile they met their 2030 target.

Look at their total extra energy generation (including capacity factor) comparing renewables and nuclear: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre...

The actual lesson here is that beyond a small reserve, the case for nuclear is non existent (unless proponents are willing to stop pretending it isn’t about nuclear weapons).

[troupo]

> The actual lesson here is that beyond a small reserve, the case for nuclear is non existent

Except you know, minor things like base load, energy spikes etc.

[_aavaa_]

How does nuclear, an energy source known for needing to run at a very high capacity factor (i.e at max capacity) help with energy spikes?

Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid.

[defrost]

The same Chinese who in addition to wind and solar are also building many nuclear energy plants of several differing designs, have nuclear already as 20% (?? or so, IIRC) of their supply capacity and intend by plan to keep it that way?

For whatever reason, the Chinese are all for hybrid nuclear / renewables - and keeping modern more efficient coal plants in the picture until they no longer needed.

The "trending flat" is by design, they want coal and nuclear as still available fallback, nuclear also has national security benefits for deterrence, the expansion plans for nuclear (not major amounts more, just steady low growth) are still on their table, just throttled back somewhat for now and ready to ramp up as they choose.

[_aavaa_]

> have nuclear already as 20% (?? or so, IIRC) of their supply capacity and intend by plan to keep it that way?

Off by about an order of magnitude. It’s only 4% of generation: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix

Meanwhile wind, hydro, and solar are each on their own at least 2x that.

[defrost]

In China, in 2023, Electricity was only 29% of the total final energy consumption.

~ https://www.iea.org/countries/china/energy-mix

Of that Electricity,

  61.3% - Coal
  13.5% - Hydropower
   9.3% - Wind
   6.1% - Solar PV
   4.6% - Nuclear
   0.1% - Oil

So, Wind on it's own ~ 2x Nuclear, and Solar on it's own about 1.3 x Nuclear.

Clearly I was thinking of some other pivot on energy charting in China taht had it at 20% - perhaps current growth rates .. apologies.

That aside, in the greater picture of energy consumption, Wind, solar, and nuclear in China are all close enough to be ballpark ( a little more seperated just in the context of electricity generation )

[troupo]

> How does nuclear, an energy source known for needing to run at a very high capacity factor (i.e at max capacity) help with energy spikes?

It's one of the fastest load-following power sources we have. I think only gas power stations are faster. And no, they don't run at full capacity at all times.

All modern nuclear plants are capable of changing power output at 3-5% of nameplate capacity per minute: https://www.oecd-nea.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-12...

You can't ramp up or ramp down any of the renewable sources as quickly. Or you have to insanely overbuild them.

Batteries help to a point, and there are downsides and problems to batteries, too. You want to be as diverse in your power sources and power source backups as possible.

> Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid.

Non-sequitur.

China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. They build both renewables and nuclear. They literally approve 10 new reactors a year on top of all the renewables they also build.

And while they canceled inland plans after Fukushima, they may still reverse the decision. China is nothing if not pragmatic.

[_aavaa_]

> China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. They build both renewables and nuclear. They literally approve 10 new reactors a year on top of all the renewables they also build.

Not a non-sequitor. They are building out wind solar and hydro at orders of magnitude more than nuclear.

“Look China is building so much nuclear, we should too.” Is disingenuous and self-serving by the nuclear industry since they don’t acknowledge that their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables. If we want to point to China and say we should do what they do, the obvious take away is that renewables are the way to go.

[troupo]

> Not a non-sequitor.

Ah yes.

Me: China is building a lot of nuclear.

You: "Well you better go tell the Chinese that they should slow down on wind and solar, clearly they are misinformed about how to run their grid."

What do you call this? "An argument"? I was polite calling it a non sequitur.

> Is disingenuous and self-serving by the nuclear industry since they don’t acknowledge that their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables.

China: Approves 10 new nuclear reactors a year. Builds up an extremely diversified power source for their country.

You: You're disingenuous. They are not building that much nuclear.

> their nuclear build out is a rounding error (and a decade behind behind schedule) compared to renewables.

Please don't use words and term whose meaning you don't understand. By source of power nuclear is 4.47% of total electricity production. Solar 8%, wind 10%, hydro 13.4%.

China is extremely lucky with their rivers and landscape. Hydro is huge in China.

> If we want to point to China and say we should do what they do

They do literally what I said: China is building out all power sources at tremendous pace. It's diversifying its energy production.

You, on the other hand:

- Claim that I should go and tell China to stop building solar and wind. Something I never said or implied

- That nuclear build up in China is a rounding error compared to renewables. It's not

- That "doing what China is doing" means to somehow only focus on renewables. Whereas China focuses on all sources, and nuclear is literally one of the country's priorities, building and approving more reactors a year than the rest of the world combined (going from 9 constructions in 2000 to 36 in 2025, 42 new ones proposed, and over 140 on the roadmap, 6-7 years construction time per reactor). And they are busy building nuclear reactors around the world (so, gaining more and more expertise and technologies).

At this point I've said all I needed to say to you.

Adieu.

[mschild]

> Right now China is building reactors at 6-7 years per reactor.

Thats China. In Europe, this building speed isnt going to happen anytime soon. The knowledge to build nuclear at that scale isn't in the coutry/continent anymore. You'd have to reteach an entire generation of engineers.

Besides that, part of the point of switching away from oil and gas is at least some independence. Europe isnt known for its nuclear fuel supply so now you're reliant on another country again.

Yes, most solar is produced in China but its about as low maintence as it gets and there is still enough knowledge to produce in Europe.

[mcphage]

> The knowledge to build nuclear at that scale isn't in the coutry/continent anymore. You'd have to reteach an entire generation of engineers.

Well you better get on that, then. It’s going to a lot worse in 5 years.

[troupo]

> Thats China. In Europe, this building speed isnt going to happen anytime soon.

It wasn't going to happen in China either. China also disn't have the knowledge. And yet...

[roysting]

You are right to point out the astonishing developments in Chinese nuclear reactors technology most people are totally oblivious of. It has been standardized, is seemingly safe and far more efficient due to Chinese technological advancements; however you may be overlooking that the ability, the capacity to do that, to do what France did by installing 56 nuclear reactors due to the last oil shock, takes an industrial capacity that does not seem to really exist anymore in Europe to the same degree. I won’t even get into why that is, because it would simply turn into a book, but suffice to say, it’s a euphemistic, polite “challenge”, so to say.

But people also forget that it still takes nuclear fuel to do any of that, which France/Europe has now also largely lost access to, due to the Niger situation along with cutting itself off from Russia/BRICS. That will at some point become an issue for France/Europe, which the “remilitarizing” EU may even make one of its first contrived America-style military adventures to “protect democracy” or some other manipulative, emotive, contrived lie by the lying Epstein, Mandelson, Brunel Class.

It sure does look like Niger really could use some democracy, don’t you? Their women can’t even show off their orifices for money on Onlyfans! Oh, they happen to have rich uranium ore, well isn’t that just an odd coincidence of doing good by sharing Our Democracy©, as decreed by the unelected EU Commission.

Fun fact: Germany blew up its nuclear energy capacity with voted approval by the current EU Commission President von der Leyen, while she was in the German government ruling coalition … she has described that her own action as a “strategic mistake”. That is who is basically the dictator of Europe, someone who makes self-described “strategic mistakes” of the highest order, multi-generational, rippling, echoing, de facto permanently consequential mistakes.

[troupo]

> That is who is basically the dictator of Europe

Tell me how your opinion can be dismissed in its entirety without telling me