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Comment by pfdietz

3 months ago

> Nuclear is the most efficient and "cheap" way to lower greenhouse emissions

This is false. New nuclear is much more expensive than renewables in most cases. It's possible there are places in the world where renewables are particularly expensive and new nuclear could approach being competitive now, but even that will not last as renewables continue down their inexorable experience curves -- experience curves that nuclear has failed to exhibit.

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pfdietz

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bogtog  3 months ago

This comment is being grayed but is it wrong? I want to believe that nuclear is just a miracle solution, but my impression was likewise that it is now even more expensive than solar/wind, at least in the Western world

  • JumpCrisscross  3 months ago

    > it is now even more expensive than solar/wind, at least in the Western world

    Correct with that caveat.

    China is able to build it cheaply enough that it rivals solar/wind + gas, which is what the West is doing. (Solar/wind + battery is cute, but it's been crowded out by the quicker-deploying gas infrastructure, as well as the higher prices EV manufacturers are willing to pay for supply. The threat to gas was nuclear baseload, which could support a smaller battery footprint, but the gas lobbyists seem to have successfully dispatched it.)

    • pfdietz  3 months ago

      What knifed new nuclear in the US was not natural gas lobbyists, but natural gas prices. Quote from December 2018:

      https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/71/12/26/904707/US...

      > “The cost of new nuclear is prohibitive for us to be investing in,” says Crane. Exelon considered building two new reactors in Texas in 2005, he says, when gas prices were $8/MMBtu and were projected to rise to $13/MMBtu. At that price, the project would have been viable with a CO2 tax of $25 per ton. “We’re sitting here trading 2019 gas at $2.90 per MMBtu,” he says; for new nuclear power to be competitive at that price, a CO2 tax “would be $300–$400.” Exelon currently is placing its bets instead on advances in energy storage and carbon sequestration technologies.

      (The Henry Hub natural gas price on 6/11/2024 was $2.71/MMBtu, or $2.17/MMBtu in Dec. 2018 dollars.)

      Interest in the US "nuclear renaissance" evaporated once it became clear fracking would make natural gas cheap for the foreseeable future. What's interesting about renewables in the US is they are plowing ahead with large deployments even in the face of cheap natural gas.