The Dawn of Nuclear Energy Abundance

https://quillette.com/2023/02/09/the-dawn-of-nuclear-energy-abundance/

by warrenm • 3 years ago

25 9 3 years ago

arghandugh2• 3 years ago

This is a preposterous, obnoxious hit piece on behalf of a struggling industry from a reactionary website. Why was it posted?

fundad• 3 years ago

Because this is actually Boomer News

cubefox• 3 years ago

As far as I can tell, the piece makes excellent arguments. What are your counterarguuments?

AtlasBarfed2• 3 years ago

It's easy to see this is largely bullshit.

The LCOE of nuclear is fundamentally higher than solar/wind.

https://www.lazard.com/media/451905/lazards-levelized-cost-o...

Page 3, unsubsidized analysis.

I scanned the article and there are some bizarre accounting things like "drop in value after XX years or YY % of generation reached". I didn't bother reading the arguments because any article on nuclear economics has ONE JOB:

- explain how it will fix the LCOE gap with wind/solar - barring that, justify its existence as a grid leveling service versus other generation schemes and grid storage

Everything else is fluff.

Note there isn't a single mention of LCOE in this article.

Now, that's just the cost for today. Wind/Solar is still dropping by 10-20% per year like it has the last decade, that will likely slow, but compounded 5-10% cost reductions is still a hell of a curve to compete with.

Consider that large scale nuclear buildout, AS THEY HIGHLIGHT in the article, is politically fraught, has long unreliable time frames, and is prone to vast budgetary overruns.

So the article wants you to start with nuclear, already not price competitive, start a whole bunch of nuclear plant builds, and in ten years (an optimistic timeframe!!!) they go into service where solar/wind is probably 1/2 the cost it was when you started the buildout, so the plants are even MORE uncompetitive.

Finally, I am unconvinced that nuclear generation costs also include the fuel rod reprocessing, waste transport, and waste storage costs fully. That comes down to accounting, but it's not like the gas or coal calculations include the carbon emissions costs (which no economics wizardry can accurately estimate, showing the fundamental issues with economicists as the voodoo witch doctors of the era of capitalism).

So, there are the counterarguments for the top commenter.

666lumberjack• 3 years ago

I suggest you reread the HN Guidelines[1]. This kind of dogmatic dismissal-without-argument is not the kind of engagement that people expect here.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

arghandugh2• 3 years ago

I suggest you not patronize me when I point out that this a bad-faith piece intended to invite ”argument” by way of FUD-laden industry talking points. It doesn’t meet the bar for consideration and the only reason it gets posted and survives is because HN has turned into a clearing house for rightwing tripe. The material has found its intended audience.

The Dawn of Nuclear Energy Abundance

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