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Solar energy now overlaps in cost with nuclear fuel alone for "cheap" modular reactors
(energy-utilities.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Why is it always comparing solar vs nuclear. What we need to compare them against is fossil fuels. Nuclear and renewables should be used together if we want to phase out fossil fuel in a timely manner.
The two are compared because money is not infinite and there's an opportunity cost to picking either one
It's Dubai we're talking about here, money is infinite as far as they're concerned. The alternative to nuclear for a baseline will always be fossil fuels until we can store the surplus of renewables efficiently, which is arguably further away than SMRs.
There has been some cool innovation in renewable energy storage such as pairing it with hydro and pumping water back up using access electricity during peak production.
I love these fiction land scenarios that magically change the landscape.
Woah there I'm just saying it's cool not that I think it'll save the world or anything.
The innovation is there but it's not viable yet for a country, or even city wide grid. Hydro is okay but severely limited by geography, rocks up a mountain could work too but it's also limited by geography to some extent.
This comparison is whether you should build current gen solar in a good location instead of running proposed cheap nuclear plants during the day even after building it.
"let's do both" is just a delay tactic when only one works and both time and resources are limited.
If your resources aren't limited and you can afford to pay 20c to abate a kg of CO2 even after saturating the renewable pipeline, then buy solar for anyone in the sunny parts of the global south and abate 15kg of CO2 with the same cost (as well as making their country, health and economy more stable). If you've funded all of that, then it's worth comparing the nuclear reactor to other methods for filling the gaps.
Nobody has committed to step 1 yet, so it's moot.
Let's do both works when the alternative is fossil fuels and when we shouldn't invest a dime more into them as energy sources.
Cool. Sane people can keep building renewables with the tiny margins of funding on the edges, and you can wrest the $7tn/yr of unfunded externalities from the fossil fuel industry. Once you do that we can spend half on nuclear.
I'm very much pro renewables, but without nuclear, ditching fossil fuels for good is a pipe dream. (Look at Germany.) At least until we have proper storage solutions or fusion is viable.
This is more empty rhetoric. What are we even supposed to see when looking at germany? A country whose renewable rollout was sabotaged by a government literally working for gazprom, but is still reducing emissions every year?
If you look at Germany, you see a country which has one of the highest CO2 emission per capita in Europe. Completely agree on the Russian corruption that helped closing the nuclear power plants and slowed down deployment of renewable. In the meantime they're literally scraping the ground and razing towns to get more lignite to compensate for the closure of their plants. On a totally unrelated note, they're also buying large amount of nuclear sourced electricity from France. Their carbon intensity even increased two years in a row. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1290224/carbon-intensity-power-sector-germany/)
On a totally unrelated note, Germany is net exporting electricity to France every year for decades. This is including this year. The other commentor actually posted a link showing that.
Then I have to ask which towns have been destroyed in Germany for lignite in the last couple years. I know of some villages, but towns are much larger then that.
That's just playing on words mate, villages or towns it doesn't matter, they expropriated people to gnaw at the ground to power their shitty power grid. You can see the mines from space. They release three times as much co2 as France per GW/H (https://energycentral.com/c/um/two-unequal-energy-systems-france-and-germany-comparison). They also tried to block the recognition of nuclear as a green energy in Europe, all the while trying to push that label for natural gas. That's fucking bonkers given the state of the world right now. This debate highlights my point in my first comment. We're arguing about nuclear be renewables, instead of nuclear/renewables Vs fossil fuels.
Nope, that debate is necessary. If it is smarter to invest into nuclear then that has to happen, otherwise we need to invest into renewables. Obviously you have to make a systems comparison and well France does do a better job then Germany in that case right now. It is going to be intressting to see what will happen in the coming years as Germany actually starts to run into the storage problem renewbles pose and what ends up being actually cheaper.
The green energy label for gas power plants can only be given in the EU, if they are converted to an emissions free gas by 2035. Basicly the idea is to use hydrogen in the massive gas storage sites, to solve the problem of prolonged periods of no wind and sunshine in winter. It is not quite as bonkers, but lets see what actually happens in the coming years.
Greens and german people in 2000s: Let's build renewables and then shut down the nuclear fleet because it's cheaper than the maintenance we'd have to start now.
Literal Gazprom employee and "Close friend of Putin" together: Let's cancel that and buy gas instead, and also shut down the nuclear plants early.
Emissions: Go down almost monotonically.
Coal use: Goes down almost monotonically.
Russia shills, oil shills and nukebros: How could the greens make emissions go up with their renewables! Better cancel renewables like the Gazprom employee tried to do!
And here's your "large amount" of between 0.5 and 3%
You sound comically stupid.
Your chart shows that Germany has exported more electricity to France, then it imported from France and that for the last decade and icnluding this year. Obviously not large amounts just 0.5 - 3%.
Welp. That's what I get for assuming it wasn't the opposite of the truth.
Do you know of a way to get the week/month/yearly gross imports/exports by country?
This is interesting to play with: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Your reply highlights the point from my first comment. We're arguing over nuclear Vs renewables instead of trying to have them work hand in hand against fossil fuels. I never talked about cancelling and ripping out renewables for nuclear, juste building them side by side and using as much renewables as possible and falling back to nuclear when necessary.
You're presupposing the "necessary" part without evidence when there's not even a credible case for "helpful" or even "possible".
You're also pretending any reactor under construction or pre-construction doesn't get used to delay other projects. Just the grid capacity it takes up without using it is a massive emissions source becauseit delays prpjects that could go on this year rather tham 2040.
You're also repeatedly making false anti-renewable arguments which are part of a fossil fuel propaganda campaign. So it's very obvious you're lying about the side by side part.
I note also you have abandoned your lie completely rather than acknowledging it after it was dismantled and moved to a new piece of bullshit, weird how that keeps happening.
Juste for my culture, point me out which argument I've made that are anti renewables
The gish gallop about how terrible energywende was for one.
The tired lie about how geographically constrained pumped hydro is (but apparently fresh water for cooling is infinite).
The whole stationary storage is impossible schtick (along witb all the other options, battery grid storage is already at double the scale new nuclear achieved in the 80s).
There's also the bit where you pretend french uranium all comes from ranger and cigar lake (and milling and conversion are done by the UF6 fairy) rather than filthy coal and diesel powered low grade mines in niger and central asia to smugly quote inaccurate CO2 numbers as if that made a plan that was never followed invalid.
Basically just an unending hose of shellenberger bullshit.
Please keep it constructive (see instance rules). I agree that these are all tired and long dis-proven talking points of the nuclear lobby, but this lobby was very successful in gaslighting many French like @BestBouclettes@jlai.lu and your style of argumentation is just going to make them defensive.
You have a point I guess. I find it difficult to consider the possibility of good faith when they roll out the "the greens ruined energywende and committed to gas" dogwhistle, but there is a possibility.
The transition for Germany is catastrophic (expected end of coal by 2038) but that doesn't mean renewables are bad. Maybe I'm not aware of new ways to retain water high enough for it to generate energy falling down. By experience I know Luxembourg has one high on a hill, I don't think it would be doable in a country like the Netherlands let's say, it sounds pretty constrained to me.
I'm just done arguing with you, you're just being dishonest and extrapolating my views. Let's agree to disagree.
Cool story. Yet it’s coal plants and gas plants are going up everywhere in first world countries for baseline supply. That’s another 2 decades of fossil fuels.
Or we can just not pay them and let them go bankrupt by putting solar and batteries directly on loads instead..
Hahaha
How is it that only one works? Nuclear seems more expensive based on this but does it take into account the cost of land, the fact that solar is intermittent, or that electricity from huge solar farms will need to be brought to where the demand is (cities) while nuclear can be much closer to limit losses. Both nuclear and solar have their place and are vital tools in the fight against climate change. The comparison is for the local utilities to decide and trying to compare directly and saying one is always better than the other is ignorant at best.
I don't have a nuclear reactor on my roof so whatever weird situation with transmission you are imagining is definitely wrong. Nor can I grow fruit under a nuclear reactor with higher yield and less water. Same goes for land use when you look at the low energy density of new uranium mines (inkai produces about 10-60W/m^2 depending on whether you draw the borders at the region it poisons and makes useless, the whole fenced off strike or the actively mined region). "Hey we can push the harm to the imperial periphery and make our energy supply dependent on putin" isn't a selling point.
Solar doesn't randomly break with no warning for several weeks on average once a year on top of having to be offline for three months every two years. It's intermittent, but fairly predictable.
There's no indication anywhere that nuclear can achieve more than about a 75% grid penetration (which is what VRE alone with negligible storage does) nor that it synergises at all. Inflexible unreliable power limited supply doesn't help flexible intermittent supply, you need dispatch for both.
Nuclear is also completely unable to deliver more than about 10% of the needed total energy. There's not enough recoverable U235 anywhere.
It's an irrelevant rounding error by every metric except cost and the amount of oxygen the shills suck out of the room.
It's not that solar is better, it's that nuclear is not a useful addition by any metric. One of the frequently used arguments to delay decarbonisation is that the nuclear reactor which will arrive later will be so much better, so don't build renewables now. If it's still optimal to build solar over about 60% of the world even if the mythical SMR delivers on the same promise new designs always make (and never meet), then there's no reason to wait.
Did you use chat gpt or something because almost all of what you said made no sense in the context of this discussion. I, like most people, don't have a solar panel on my roof and nor is it practical to have one. If large cities are to have enough electricity for all of their energy needs, massive solar farms will be needed. I live in Ontario, Canada, a large area with a relatively small population. In a study looking at what is needed to meet future electricity demand, if we only used renewables, around 2-5% of the area would need to be covered by solar or wind. This sounds small but it is a huge amount of land and would be extremely resource intensive. Much of it would need to be far away from where the demand actually is leading to losses in transmission. Farming under solar panels is also laughable because it would render the farming itself impractical or the solar itself much more expensive because it would need to be on a massive raised platform. I am not sure what you are referring to with mines but Canada has one of the largest uranium reserves located in somewhat remote locations. This does not lead to transmission losses, only costs to transport the uranium ore.
Canadian CANDU reactor units can be online for more than a year thanks to their online refueling capabilities. Intermittent is still intermittent which is why solar needs a way to either store energy or it cannot be the only solution (it isn't).
I am not sure what you mean by grid penetration but CANDU reactors have an average capacity factor of more than 80% which is significantly higher than the less than 25% for solar.
Also, Ontario is currently generating more than 50% of its electricity from nuclear so it can certainly meet more than 10% of the demand if it is suitable for the region.
Where are they delaying decarbonization for the sake of waiting for nuclear? As far as I know, many places are building wind and solar and nothing is stopping them. I am not trying to argue that solar is bad or worse than nuclear. I just think it should be realistically considered alongside of nuclear and any other carbon neutral energy source.
Grid penetration isn't capacity factor. Learn to read.
Also look up one of the thousands of agrivoltaics projects where it improves yield and reduces water.
And Canada. Canada is precisely where "plans" for new nuclear are being used as an excuse to delay wind (even temporarily banning it).
Did you really tell me to learn to read when you clearly did not read that I am not sure what grid penetration is. Funny. The reason I do not know is because the term is used differently depending on the context so unless you explain what you mean, there is no way for me to know for sure, unlike capacity factor which is used more widely.
I'm sure there are agrivoltaic projects and I am sure they are great. My point is that they will have many challenges to be widely adopted because it will add significant costs to either the farming or the solar installation which is certainly a downside that shouldn't be overlooked.
Canada isn't delaying wind because of nuclear. The cancellation of wind projects in Ontario was long before there were any new-nuclear plans, many of which were announced very recently. It had more to do with the limited value and high cost of the wind projects at the time. I do believe that now it is much more suitable and Ontario should invest more into wind and solar projects because they offer tremendous value. However they are. Not the only solution to the ongoing energy crisis. Also, as an aside, other than decarbonization initiatives, Canada does control the energy market on a federal level but at a provincial level.
In a place like Saudi Arabia, solar is fantastic and should make up a sizable portion of installed capacity. However, it should still be backed by a mix to improve grid reliability and this is true for many other places also. The prospect of advanced nuclear reactors should not and as far as I know does not hold back the advancement of renewables.
That sure was a lot of words for "I haven't looked at Alberta lately".
Also the agrivoltaic cost pearl clutching is deranged. "What if it costs a third as much as what I'm proposing like already built projects at the same latitude with worse solar resource."
Alberta has no nuclear and no plans for nuclear. If they cancelled any wind projects it only speaks to how deep their oil sand dreams are. Your mention of Alberta is completely irrelevant.
What kind of word spaghetti is "agrivoltaic pearl clutching"? You also quoted something that I didn't even say. Are you ok my friend? As I have said, the idea of it is fine and can work at smaller scales. However, a typical farm requires the use tractors which need clearance. So if the plan is to build solar above, they must be raised high and spread apart to not interfere with the tractor. This can certainly be done but it requires engineering and has additional construction costs when compared to conventional solar farms. In this way it can certainly be debated if the benefit of using solar with farming is outweighed but the additional costs to the solar installation and operational costs of maneuvering the tractor around the supports.
https://smractionplan.ca/content/alberta
Are you being bad faith or are to too stupid to use a search engine?
This is not a plan for any nuclear builds, this is just them signing on that maybe they will build some SMRs. Would you also suggest PEI is seriously planing a nuclear build?
No. They are not.
They are using the suggestion that they might to delay decarbonization.
Glad you finally figured it out.
Again, this is missing the point. Alberta does not care at all to decarbonize and signing this could help them build off grid SMRs down the road in remote areas to power oil and gas machinery. PEI signed it because it may be a one and done solution for them to decarbonize. These are not concrete plans but they are also not signing it without some reason it could benefit them.
The premium you're placing on avoiding covering 1m^2 with a solar panel that produces a time-averaged 40W at $20/W is about $800
An overhead agrivoltaic system costs about $800k/ha at ~30% coverage (about double the price per watt of single axis or 3x fixed tilt) or $80/m^2 and increases yields by 10-300% if used on crops that benefit or in situations where water is scarce ir heatwaves are likely (hmm, wonder if that will be relevant). Cover 10m and you've saved 1m^2 ti 6m^2 of farmland for $800
So if it's worth spending public money to avoid the former, then it's worth doing the latter even without the electricity.
It also produces >2x as much electricity.
So which is it. Are you too stupid to comprehend basic arithmetic, or do you not actually care about land use, cost and enguneering challenges?
Your article states the "For agrivoltaic systems installed at a high distance from the ground, which is necessary to let the agricultural machinery operate under the solar panels, the costs are even higher compared to conventional solar plants."
This was my entire point regarding agrivoltaic systems. This additional cost needs to be compared to the benefit of installing the system. This could also depend on many other factors such as the price of land and water availability. I have not seen a cost comparison and I am doubtful it will actually benefit the systems widespread use at this time.
You say that for €800, 1m² - 6m² of may be saved. In Germany, where this is being done, the price of farmland in the most expensive region is €63/m² with other regions being much cheaper. If you are able to understand basic arithmetic, you can clearly see that even in the best case scenario, this is not a good value proposition for farmers at the moment. This could change and it could become more valuable if the cost of land and electricity increase, and if the agrivoltaic system costs decrease, but not now.
Oh. So bad faith and stupidity.
I do not understand what you mean.
Don’t like facts getting in the way of juicy greenwashing lies hey.
Renewables can’t be used without the same amount of storage full stop. 3 days is the standard minimum. Their isn’t enough lithium in the world let alone money to make it feasible.
So back on planet earth. Storage is an inescapable necessity for renewables conveniently left out.
Let's assume that wasn't at least two different lies (here is an example of an irder of magnitude less) and take it at face value that there isn't enough lithium.
The current scale of the battery industry is roughly 1TWh/yr of production (with 3TWh/yr where the contracts are already dry).
A 72 hour storage means feeding the load the batteries supply takes at least 14GW (much more if it's non-uniform).
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/reactors.html#tab=status;status=C;grid--prevStart=2023,2024
Looks like whatever the batteries are being used for, the current nuclear industry can neither replace them nor can it charge them.
Now onto the assertion that the current largest-growing technology is the only possible thing that can be used, and no new resource can be found.
~22 million tonnes of lithium each kg good for a ~10kWh battery, or enough for 220TWh of batteries or 0.8EJ
6-8 million tonnes of uranium 100-140GJ of electricity per kg of natural uranium.
All of the uranium can charge batteries made from all of the lithium roughly 1000 times! So a whole 8 years of doing whatever the batteries are for.
On a 6 year fuel cycle (normal for a Gen III reactor) each kg of uranium outputs rougjly 750W over its life so there's 4.5-6TW. That's enough for a 72 hour cycle, but not much shorter, and not if there's any variation from average load.
Current retail price of consumer ready batteries is $280/kWh for a plug and play unit or $20/W for 72 hour storage (same as vogtle or ol3). Commodity price is $110.
Oh look, the idea that storage is being ignored or is not up to some task that can be achieved with LWRs is another fatuous lie.