[Ericson2314]

Good stuff. But I would blame the Trump admin more then data centers for coal power plants staying on line. Gas would substitute for the coal ata minimum otherwise.

> Nine coal power plants that were set for retirement last year have had their operating lives extended, including five in response to emergency orders from the Department of Energy.

Maybe the other 4 still stay open without the bullshit DoE order keeping the 5 open, but who knows.

[wat10000]

It’s worth noting that at least one of those is being kept open against the operator’s wishes, as it’s no longer profitable to operate. That’s how ridiculous these people are about coal.

[cucumber3732842]

"you're not allowed to shut this down until after congressman so and so wins reelection."

[tialaramex]

If an incumbent US Senator's electability depends upon a single coal power plant they're already in deep shit.

On the other hand for House reps the elections are every two years like clockwork, "after they win election" is in effect never because they will already be thinking about re-election, so if that's what they're asking for they mean never.

[pstuart]

A promise of Nuclear SMRs (Small Modular Reactors) is that they could be dropped into existing coal fired power plants and leverage the existing power generation equipment.

Apparently they are failing to attain traction because despite the promise of lower cost reactors due to them no longer being bespoke, their LCOE cannot compete with renewables.

I'd argue that we should subsidize those and help make them happen NOW even if the cost is not as low as it should be, as we need all the energy we can get and we need to get off of fossil fuels NOW to try to mitigate global warming.

[nradov]

The problem with small nuclear reactors is that costs don't scale down linearly with size or power output. Like you still need about the same number of armed security guards to protect the site.

They might be a good option for remote sites off the grid where physical security isn't a concern.

[credit_guy]

Some costs scale down more than linearly, some less. For example, because of the square-cube law, you lose more neutrons through the walls of the reactor, so you often times need a higher level of uranium enrichment, and you produce less energy per ton of fuel, all other things being equal. That’s bad news for SMRs. But many reactor components, being significantly smaller, become much cheaper to manufacture, at least that’s the theory. We don’t know yet. But China is planning to start operating its ACP100 SMR in the next few months, and we will probably hear soon how happy they are with it.

[lithos]

They are scaled for politics.

Tell someone over 60 or 70 that Poland has better modular reactors than us, and they'll suddenly care.

[dummydummy1234]

How much is industrial scale batteries for solar?

[lukeschlather]

The LCOE is better than nuclear and nuclear is not getting cheaper while industrial scale batteries continue to get cheaper.