I guess this is justified by the fact nuclear has a high initial cost, but a very low cost if and when demand increases, whereas most renewables are the opposite?
If we're doing a grid that has a base load, then I'd much rather have that base load supplied by nuclear than by coal, oil or gas. It's a straight swap. Nuclear is clean and safe. And it'll be these same big nuclear companies that pivot to fusion if and when it happens.
Ideal scenario is 100% renewable. I'll take a shift to nuclear from fossil fuel as a positive step even if it's not perfect.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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I guess this is justified by the fact nuclear has a high initial cost, but a very low cost if and when demand increases, whereas most renewables are the opposite?
I don't understand that thinking.
Nuclear has a very high incremental cost when demand increases. You need to build another nuclear power station. You're then set for a while.
Wind has a very small incremental cost. You need to build another wind turbine, but that won't last you very long. Maybe you build a wind farm rather than individual turbines. Still a lot cheaper / quicker.
As I understand it, reactors are built with a lot of spare overhead, so for a long time, we just need to keep adding uranium to increase the output, until it reaches its absolute maximum.
We need a new wind turbine each time to increase capacity.
Your understanding is incorrect.
Reactors always operate at maximum capacity. It's the only way they are economic to run. Fuel isn't the primary cost for running a reactor. It's staffing and maintenance. These don't become cheaper when you run lower outputs. They are constant. If your costs are constant, generating half the power makes that power cost twice as much per kWh.
Just look at any of the grid dashboards out there. Look at how little nuclear output changes. We only change the output when we power down whole reactors for refuelling or other maintenance.
This is also why partnering nuclear with highly variable source of power like wind doesn't make any sense. Nuclear can't realistically vary it's output in response to what the weather is. Even if it could, it wouldn't make economic sense to do so.
Well your comment is too, reactors do not always run at maximum capacity, that's silly.
But they do have a lower SMRC than renewables.
I don't think you're an expert in the economics of nuclear reactors, and I know I'm not. I clearly made a mistake in the understanding of scaling them up. But, as ever on the internet, you have picked a side and therefore you're not a reliable interlocutor. If and when I want to know more about this subject, I will get my information from a neutral source.
Maybe the terms I used were too absolute, but they always aim to run at their highest sustainable output for the reasons I gave.
I'm not an expert in nuclear economics, but this is knowledge accumulated from reading articles over the years by people who are. Apart from the economics, I'm pretty pro-nuclear, but the economic (and the related time-scale) arguments kill it for me.
I think with the situation we're in, we're much better going all in on technologies that replace fossil fuels today, but in smaller chunks that add up to big numbers over time. Nuclear will take bigger bites out of fossil fuels, but those step changes will take 10-15 years and we're stuck on fossil fuels for all that time.
Fair play to you. I guess that this decision is the result of the nuclear lobby having a bigger say than they should. It's an old story, where the facts are obfuscated by energy companies, for profit. I think the argument that nuclear has an important place in a robust energy grid is hard to debunk. But we should have started building decades ago.
Nuclear is better for the environment than renewables tbh
It absolutely is. Nuclear waste is bad, but it's not nearly as bad as millions of tonnes of carbon.
The main issues people have that I've seen are:
- What do you do with nuclear waste?
- What if it explodes?
(And the ever present 3rd option: I don't want it near my house, and I don't want pylons on my land)
You recycle nuclear waste. The bits you cannot recycle are so small, you can keep it in an underground bunker.
Nuclear explosions only happen if you extremely mismanage a power plant.
I'd say we don't understand enough about secondary and tertiary effects of supply chains to know which is better environmentally. Certainly both are far better than fossil fuels, but our supply and construction worlds are so dependent on fossil fuels we can't really tell the impact of constructing them.
What you can absolutely say is that the time scale of nuclear is too slow. Wind power in the UK has basically gone from ~0 to 80TWh annually in 15 years. 32 megatonnes of CO2 didn't get emitted because of wind generation last year (Vs combined cycle gas generation). When Dogger Bank comes on line this year that will be closer to 100TWh and 40 MT of CO2. I haven't even considered the 5 MT saved from solar.
(Loose annual numbers based off grid.iamkate.com)
Hinckley point C is looking at a construction time of 13 years (2017-2030). That'll generate 28TWh annually. It'll save 11 MT of CO2 annually Vs gas, but up until 2030 it's saving a big fat zero. All whist our other nuclear plants age out and we have to resort to gas for the shortfall.
People can say we should of / would of / could of done things better with nuclear in the past, but we didn't. Renewables are saving CO2 emissions today because they can be brought on-line bit by bit. Nuclear is all or nothing and a long way in the future.
The rest of the world are about to go all in on geothermal and we're just about to start going in on the stop-gap solution. I wish Starmer had more imagination, we could be world leaders in geothermal and that would generate revenue for decades.
If we are talking mononuclear renewables, I understand that the UK is in an enviable position regarding wind, being one of, if not, the windiest nations in Europe. If I haven't misremembered maybe we should prioritise wind generation. Leave geothermal to places like Iceland, or maybe the nations around the Pacific Rim.
Wind is intermittent. Why can't we go all in on wind AND geothermal?
Why is it stop-gap?
Because nuclear isn't a long-term solution. It shifts problems down the line. Geothermal on the other hand is a clean and neverending resource.
Right, but you haven't really answered the question. Why isn't it a long term solution? Sure geothermal is great, but there's space for both, amongst others.
Uranium supplies aren't particularly abundant, and make you reliant on the same old superpowers.
Nuclear creates waste that we can't dispose of
Sure nuclear waste is a problem, but there are ways to dispose of it. I can't see why it can't be a long term solution.
There's problems and solutions for every type of energy production.
Are we just hearing / seeing the emotional headline of “nuclear”, but actually it just creates busy work for everyone for the next ~19 years.
By that time the other solutions (wind, geothermal, solar, sea, etc) have proven themselves and the gov just take the credit and show themselves as saving our planet by another 10 years of busy work decommissioning the power stations before the nuclear fuel is actually brought in...?
Southwold in Suffolk twinned with Fukushima, Japan. l look forward to holidaying there and enjoying the irradiated winds and acid beaches. Look forward to reading nuclear-polluted veg from the area, too.
Yeah the risk of earthquakes is really high in Suffolk, I'm glad I don't live there