We are overloading the planet: Now What?

[Merle]

If you were permitted to build and run a nuclear plant to an identical quality standard as is routine for coal power plants (or equally, if coal
plants were required to meet the routine quality standard of the nuclear industry), you should expect to get electricity for around a tenth of the price from the nuke than from the coal plant.

That you don't see that difference in the real world is almost entirely a consequence of the difference in regulatory environments between the two technologies.

I haven't counted, but I think you have made similar claims more than a dozen times on this thread. I repeatedly ask you for evidence for this claim. You don't respond. Are you simply going to repeat this claim endlessly without ever trying to document it?

Here, this is the basis of my claim; Do you dispute its use, or its validity, or both? What alternative do you recommend?

Arithmetic is only as good as the data from which you get your numbers. Again, what is your evidence that, with reasonable changes in regulations, nuclear will cost an order of magnitude less?

 

[bilby]

If you were permitted to build and run a nuclear plant to an identical quality standard as is routine for coal power plants (or equally, if coal
plants were required to meet the routine quality standard of the nuclear industry), you should expect to get electricity for around a tenth of the price from the nuke than from the coal plant.

That you don't see that difference in the real world is almost entirely a consequence of the difference in regulatory environments between the two technologies.

I haven't counted, but I think you have made similar claims more than a dozen times on this thread. I repeatedly ask you for evidence for this claim. You don't respond. Are you simply going to repeat this claim endlessly without ever trying to document it?

Here, this is the basis of my claim; Do you dispute its use, or its validity, or both? What alternative do you recommend?

Arithmetic is only as good as the data from which you get your numbers. Again, what is your evidence that, with reasonable changes in regulations, nuclear will cost an order of magnitude less?

Again:

The Balance of Plant (turbines, gensets, switchgear, etc.) is identical between coal and nuclear plants; The only differences are in the steam generation area.

Both kinds of plant have a reactor (in a coal plant, it's usually called a "furnace", but potato, tomato) made of steel and concrete.

The coal plant has more moving parts, and is more labour intensive to operate (because you fuel it up and remove waste products constantly, while in a nuke plant it's a once-a-year task).

The technologies are not significantly different from an engineering perspective.

The only differences that have a big impact on final cost are fuel price, where nuclear has a tenfold advantage; And the regulatory environment.

If the regulatory environment were such that compliance costs became about the same for both technologies (which as the engineering is similar, being only slightly less complex in the case of nuclear fission, they ought to be*), the only remaining point of difference becomes the fuel cost.








*This is being rather charitable to coal, but I doubt you will object on that basis. Of course, there are nuclear plant designs out there that are far less complex than either coal plants or existing PWRs, but lets be even more generous to coal, and ignore these.

 

[Merle]

The technologies are not significantly different from an engineering perspective.

The only differences that have a big impact on final cost are fuel price, where nuclear has a tenfold advantage; And the regulatory environment.

I disagree. The reactor itself that makes the steam is much different in a nuclear plant.

Once you have steam, yes, the technologies are similar.

The expense comes in safely getting that nuclear material to make steam.

 

[bigfield]

The expense comes in safely getting that nuclear material to make steam.

Not just safely, but extremely safely.

On the other hand, we allow coal and gas power plants to pollute the environment, releasing greenhouse gases and radioactive fly ash.

The operational costs of a nuclear power plant include the cost of ensuring that the plant does minimal damage to the environment. But for coal and gas these costs are simply externalised and ignored.

If we imposed regulations on coal and gas plants to maintain the same safety standards as nuclear plant, they would need to stop releasing those pollutants entirely, and that would drive up the operational costs of those plants, making them unprofitable.

Unless you put a price on environmental damage, you aren't making fair comparison of cost.

Several countries have committed to a future energy mix of renewables and fossil fuels. They actually say it will be renewables plus storage, but the storage hasn't been invented yet, so renewables will have to be shored up by fossil fuels instead. This course of action is vastly more expensive than building nuclear power, either because the environmental damage will be extraordinarily costly or the storage technology costs will make nuclear look like a bargain.

 

[Merle]

The expense comes in safely getting that nuclear material to make steam.

Not just safely, but extremely safely.

On the other hand, we allow coal and gas power plants to pollute the environment, releasing greenhouse gases and radioactive fly ash.

The operational costs of a nuclear power plant include the cost of ensuring that the plant does minimal damage to the environment. But for coal and gas these costs are simply externalised and ignored.

If we imposed regulations on coal and gas plants to maintain the same safety standards as nuclear plant, they would need to stop releasing those pollutants entirely, and that would drive up the operational costs of those plants, making them unprofitable.

Unless you put a price on environmental damage, you aren't making fair comparison of cost.

Several countries have committed to a future energy mix of renewables and fossil fuels. They actually say it will be renewables plus storage, but the storage hasn't been invented yet, so renewables will have to be shored up by fossil fuels instead. This course of action is vastly more expensive than building nuclear power, either because the environmental damage will be extraordinarily costly or the storage technology costs will make nuclear look like a bargain.

Ah, nuclear power is expensive if we assure minimal damage to the environment. But so are other forms of energy.

Which is exactly the problem: We have the option of getting energy unsustainably, in which we destroy the planet in the process. And we have the option of doing it sustainably*, in which we protect the planet, but unfortunately people might not be able to afford it. See https://iidb.org/threads/the-best-future-sustainable-energy-source.28057/.

So what do we do about it? Do we continue to destroy the planet? Or do we wait for science to catch up and give us technology that does not destroy the planet? Or do we reduce affluence or population? Or some of all of the above? Hence, this thread.

* We cannot really have sustainability, because all processes increase the entropy of the universe. I use "sustainably" in the popular sense that the sustainable process has limited negative effect on the planet, and thus can continue long-term until non-renewable supplies run out, leaving the planet essentially with the same capacity as we found it.

 

[Elixir]

Ah, nuclear power is expensive if we assure minimal damage to the environment. But so are other forms of energy.

Assurance of safety (to humans regarding people, the environment or anything else) is far far more expensive than ensuring a safety level comparable to that of other energy sources.

Your entire “dilemma” is founded on that discrepancy.

 

[Swammerdami]

However, those countries that implemented this would have a disadvantage, because they would be forced to use less economical energy sources compared with cheap coal. Those countries which cared more about today's power needs rather than the future climate could have an enormous advantage. And when it comes down to it, all countries seem to be more interested in today's power compared to tomorrow's climate.

Radical change requires coercion. Countries that fail to comply with rules mandated by the League of Rational and Humanitarian Countries would have tariffs imposed on their exports. Other sanctions are possible.

 

[bilby]

I disagree. The reactor itself that makes the steam is much different in a nuclear plant.

You can disagree all you like; But they remain similar from an engineering perspective. There are a limited number of ways to build a container full of hot stuff; A steel and concrete box is pretty much the best choice, whether the heat comes from oxidising carbon or fissioning uranium.

There are, of course, lot of differences in detail; There are complex assemblies and moving parts to consider. But there are more moving parts, and more complexities, in a coal furnace than in a nuclear reactor; By treating them as "roughly similar" I am being very charitable towards the coal plants. In a level playing field, coal burning would probably be rather more expensive, due to that complexity.

Do you know how a nuclear reactor works?

The first one ever built was called a "pile", because it was literally a pile of graphite blocks interspersed with uranium pellets.

Nuclear reactors are so simple that they have occured naturally.

 

[bilby]

Ah, nuclear power is expensive if we assure minimal damage to the environment.

NO!

Nuclear power already assures minimal damage to the environment, and costs about the same as other current ways of making electricity.

If it was "expensive", it wouldn't be questionably profitable, it would be unquestionably unprofitable.

 

[bilby]

do we wait for science to catch up and give us technology that does not destroy the planet?

Science did that in the 1940s, and the technology was developed and deployed at scale by the 1950s.

We are waiting for politics to catch up and stop the rich people who got rich by destroying the planet from continuing to do so; And to stop the "environmentalists" from blocking the path to protection of the environment by their insistence on the appeal to nature fallacy and their opposition to anything that looks too much like "Big Technology".

Don't hold your breath; Stupidity backed by wealth is a pretty much unstoppable political force.

 

[Merle]

If you were permitted to build and run a nuclear plant to an identical quality standard as is routine for coal power plants (or equally, if coal
plants were required to meet the routine quality standard of the nuclear industry), you should expect to get electricity for around a tenth of the price from the nuke than from the coal plant.

If you can design a nuclear power plant that can safely make electricity for 10% of the price of an existing coal plant, you would be a very rich man.

I dare you to do it.

I disagree. The reactor itself that makes the steam is much different in a nuclear plant.

You can disagree all you like; But they remain similar from an engineering perspective. There are a limited number of ways to build a container full of hot stuff; A steel and concrete box is pretty much the best choice, whether the heat comes from oxidising carbon or fissioning uranium.

Fine. please write up your design for a cheap nuclear facility that includes a steel and concrete box full of hot nuclear material that makes steam to generate power. Remember that the total budget you give yourself per kWh is 10% of the budget of a coal power plant per kWh.

Then please let me know how many investors, governments, insurance companies, and neighborhood grassroots organizations buy into your plan.

We are waiting for politics to catch up and stop the rich people who got rich by destroying the planet from continuing to do so; And to stop the "environmentalists" from blocking the path to protection of the environment by their insistence on the appeal to nature fallacy and their opposition to anything that looks too much like "Big Technology".

Don't hold your breath; Stupidity backed by wealth is a pretty much unstoppable political force.

Just as I thought, people aren't rushing to accept your plan. Are you surprised?

Oh, and if you do find an investor willing to invest in this scheme for nuclear power on a poor man's budget, please let me know. I have this bridge in Brooklyn I would like to try to sell him.

In closing, I asked ChatGPT DALL-E to draw the basic concept. How did it do?

 

[DBT]

Australia should have began planning and building neuclear power stations decades ago. Given the nature of our politicians it'll be lucky if it gets under way before the end of the century.

Too little, too late.

 

[bilby]

If you can design a nuclear power plant that can safely make electricity for 10% of the price of an existing coal plant, you would be a very rich man.

I dare you to do it.

You would think so; But when exactly that was designed in the 1950s, people freaked the fuck out about it and refused to believe that they were, or ever could be, safe.

So here we are.

 

[bilby]

In closing, I asked ChatGPT DALL-E to draw the basic concept. How did it do?

Very impressively. I didn't think that even a shithouse computer program trained on the sum of all human fears could do much worse than the earlier manure with which it stank up the thread; But it turns out that I was wrong.

What the fuck makes you imagine that woeful artwork depicting your wildly wrong and nonsensical notions makes those notions any less wrong, or is somehow a suitable alternative to actually learning something about nuclear power?

 

[Merle]

In closing, I asked ChatGPT DALL-E to draw the basic concept. How did it do?

I didn't think that even a shithouse computer program trained on the sum of all human fears could do much worse than the earlier manure with which it stank up the thread; But it turns out that I was wrong.

With that, I think we can wrap this up. Sorry you didn't think my attempt at humor was funny. (There was a laughing smile face at the end of the portion you quoted above.)

I hope your future is filled with many economical, safe, environmentally-friendly nuclear reactors. Sadly, I think that will be harder to do as time goes on, for the reasons I mentioned in this thread.

Its been a long thread. Thank you to everybody who participated. I will be moving on.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But none of that proves that nuclear reactors around the world, which are consistent money losers, would suddenly become very profitable if only we changed the regulations in the countries that have them.

We wouldn't even need to change a single nuclear power regulation to make them profitable; We could do that by just imposing the full costs of environmental protection onto ALL electricity generation, rather than ONLY on nuclear, as at present.

When your competitors can dump their harmful wastes into the environment free of charge, it becomes fairly easy for them to undercut your prices (though despite this, nuclear power remains competitive with other generation technologies, and are certainly not "consistent money losers").

Ah, so if we had to pay all the costs of getting power sustainably from a nuclear plant, including the cost of cleaning up our mess, it would be expensive.

All options are expensive. Nuke with sane regulation is the best deal we currently have.

Which brings us to the essence of The Problem: Can we afford to power the current human enterprise "sustainably", even if all we are trying to do is keep it running until non-renewables run out? And if we decide to continue to power our civilization unsustainably, and we keep on deteriorating the planet at an accelerating rate, how many people will this trashed planet be able to support a century from now?

Hence, this thread.

Except you keep trotting out the same answer without showing that it's either achievable or is actually a solution.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Death by Overshoot. That doesn't strike terror in your heart?

The problem is that you come along preaching the gospel of population reduction with about as much evidence of it's effectiveness as any other preacher.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

how many Kgs of fuel do we need? That is more helpful

But the chart would look just as funny. The nuclear fuel bar would be invisible while the others run off the top of the page.

In what way is a bar chart that shows there is a variation in kg-of-fuel per KwH when using different fuel sources for power generation be funny? Sure, nuclear power would have a bar of virtually zero height. I would find such a chart to be informative, not funny.

But the point is, most of us are more concerned about dollars per KwH compared to kg of fuel per KwH.

And most of us on this thread would probably also care about ecological-impact per KwH, but that factor is very hard to quantify.

For almost all power sources the death per TwH is quite closely related to the ecological impact. The odd case is hydro--because of messing with fish going upstream and because while the flooding was bad for people it was good for the ecology.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you don't breed it you are in effect throwing away more than 99% of your fuel.

...and you have committed the Sin of Onan?

That's a new one! I agree, the Bible requires breeder reactors.
(Not that that's actually his sin. Onan wasn't punished for spilling his seed, but for failing to do his duty and impregnate her.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My comment had to do with countries that have nuclear power. People claim that nuclear power would operate much more efficiently if certain regulations were changed. How do they know that? The claim is repeated endlessly, but nobody offers evidence.

We are comparing the places where nuclear power works vs the places it is uneconomic.

Seen any catastrophes out of France?

Economically? Yes. France has had a lot of economic trouble with their nuclear reactors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Crisis_since_late_2021

That's not evidence it's uneconomic.