why we don’t rely on nuclear power plants more, especially these days
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All (most) my power is by nuclear I have 2 plants within a 15 minutes drive of me, they are both, and others further away that have plans to be refurbished.
But basically money and time. I’m no expert, but know a little. If we all said say we should build a nuke plant here today it will probably take 20 years and be crazy expensive to build a new one. There are so many studies required and regulations, which I’m not saying are all bad, just that they exist.
If we continue to move towards EV’s, and just in general I think things may have to be streamlined to meet demand
because in the 70s the oil companies spent a lot of money pushing solar and nuclear fear mongering to people that really don’t understand nuclear.
All (most) my power is by nuclear I have 2 plants within a 15 minutes drive of me, they are both, and others further away that have plans to be refurbished.
But basically money and time. I’m no expert, but know a little. If we all said say we should build a nuke plant here today it will probably take 20 years and be crazy expensive to build a new one. There are so many studies required and regulations, which I’m not saying are all bad, just that they exist.
If we continue to move towards EV’s, and just in general I think things may have to be streamlined to meet demand
because in the 70s the oil companies spent a lot of money pushing solar and nuclear fear mongering to people that really don’t understand nuclear.
All (most) my power is by nuclear I have 2 plants within a 15 minutes drive of me, they are both, and others further away that have plans to be refurbished.
But basically money and time. I’m no expert, but know a little. If we all said say we should build a nuke plant here today it will probably take 20 years and be crazy expensive to build a new one. There are so many studies required and regulations, which I’m not saying are all bad, just that they exist.
If we continue to move towards EV’s, and just in general I think things may have to be streamlined to meet demand
Nuclear power plants are _relatively_ safe to build and operate **if you do not screw up** at any step. This means they are very difficult to plan, construct and maintain. It takes western countries an average of 5-15 years to build one of these things and they always turn out more expensive than they appear during planning. Once they are built they are very good at always producing a stable amount of power. However, we don’t always use a stable amount of power, instead there are daily peaks. Nuclear has kind of the same issue as renewables in this regard if they run, they run cheaply and efficiently, however their production doesn’t match well with our consumption. That means nuclear alone is not suitable to supply power alone without storage or buffers. Switching them on and off constantly increases risks and maintenance costs and it takes a while for them to power up and down. So essentially what you get is a technology that has significant upfront costs, is too slow to build to meaningfully contribute to decarbonization in the time frame we are looking at to combat climate change, runs into similar supply and demand issues as renewables and, you know, there is still the thread of a meltdown, which will just increase the more of these things we run. Additionally, for many countries without decent uranium supplies, nuclear solves none of the supply chain and oligopoly issues that come with fossile fuels, making them a geopolitically contentious proposition. There is an argument to make that having some amount of nuclear, at least in the short term, to support renewables can be useful for grid stability. But renewables are less high maintenance and cheaper and faster to scale up. Nuclear is, however, very lucrative once its built, so there is a huge incentive for energy companies to lobby for subsidies to shoulder the upfront costs and then pocket the profit over potentially many decades.
Basically there’s no will. China is building 150 reactors in the next 15 years. Not saying they are going to be the epitome of perfection. But if they can build 150 moderately safe ones, why can’t the US build 20 pristine ones? Basically because there isn’t a willpower to do so.
Americans are obsessed with intermittent power generation such as solar and wind which inherently can’t operate at all times of the day.
So the ELI answer is: there’s no willpower.
Nuclear power plants are _relatively_ safe to build and operate **if you do not screw up** at any step. This means they are very difficult to plan, construct and maintain. It takes western countries an average of 5-15 years to build one of these things and they always turn out more expensive than they appear during planning. Once they are built they are very good at always producing a stable amount of power. However, we don’t always use a stable amount of power, instead there are daily peaks. Nuclear has kind of the same issue as renewables in this regard if they run, they run cheaply and efficiently, however their production doesn’t match well with our consumption. That means nuclear alone is not suitable to supply power alone without storage or buffers. Switching them on and off constantly increases risks and maintenance costs and it takes a while for them to power up and down. So essentially what you get is a technology that has significant upfront costs, is too slow to build to meaningfully contribute to decarbonization in the time frame we are looking at to combat climate change, runs into similar supply and demand issues as renewables and, you know, there is still the thread of a meltdown, which will just increase the more of these things we run. Additionally, for many countries without decent uranium supplies, nuclear solves none of the supply chain and oligopoly issues that come with fossile fuels, making them a geopolitically contentious proposition. There is an argument to make that having some amount of nuclear, at least in the short term, to support renewables can be useful for grid stability. But renewables are less high maintenance and cheaper and faster to scale up. Nuclear is, however, very lucrative once its built, so there is a huge incentive for energy companies to lobby for subsidies to shoulder the upfront costs and then pocket the profit over potentially many decades.
Basically there’s no will. China is building 150 reactors in the next 15 years. Not saying they are going to be the epitome of perfection. But if they can build 150 moderately safe ones, why can’t the US build 20 pristine ones? Basically because there isn’t a willpower to do so.
Americans are obsessed with intermittent power generation such as solar and wind which inherently can’t operate at all times of the day.
So the ELI answer is: there’s no willpower.
Nuclear power plants are _relatively_ safe to build and operate **if you do not screw up** at any step. This means they are very difficult to plan, construct and maintain. It takes western countries an average of 5-15 years to build one of these things and they always turn out more expensive than they appear during planning. Once they are built they are very good at always producing a stable amount of power. However, we don’t always use a stable amount of power, instead there are daily peaks. Nuclear has kind of the same issue as renewables in this regard if they run, they run cheaply and efficiently, however their production doesn’t match well with our consumption. That means nuclear alone is not suitable to supply power alone without storage or buffers. Switching them on and off constantly increases risks and maintenance costs and it takes a while for them to power up and down. So essentially what you get is a technology that has significant upfront costs, is too slow to build to meaningfully contribute to decarbonization in the time frame we are looking at to combat climate change, runs into similar supply and demand issues as renewables and, you know, there is still the thread of a meltdown, which will just increase the more of these things we run. Additionally, for many countries without decent uranium supplies, nuclear solves none of the supply chain and oligopoly issues that come with fossile fuels, making them a geopolitically contentious proposition. There is an argument to make that having some amount of nuclear, at least in the short term, to support renewables can be useful for grid stability. But renewables are less high maintenance and cheaper and faster to scale up. Nuclear is, however, very lucrative once its built, so there is a huge incentive for energy companies to lobby for subsidies to shoulder the upfront costs and then pocket the profit over potentially many decades.
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