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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.

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[–] 30 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Renewables and nuclear play different sports.

Renewables are better for most of our needs but there is a backbone need of base power. Nuclear is an expensive but clean way to provide that.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    By my very very very rough calculations, you could build a large scale solar farm with 3x power output and have enough money left over to build a 33GWh battery. That would more than cover a continuous supply of 1GW.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Absolutely, and we should. We should have both. Nuclear has a very long lifespan and very consistent power. Ideal battery setups do to buy long term lithium battery storage is less of a thing, but it's growing. There are some other battery techs that use other chemistries which are also attractive.

    Multiple eggs in multiple baskets.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Not the guy you responded to but I totally agree. Plus I think countries like Canada, with lots of snow and less direct sunlight, would appreciate an energy source they can rely on in the winter

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Remember that blanketing the world with solar panels isn't exactly great for the environment. Rooftops makes a lot of sense, but the cost goes way up, an maintenance becomes a nightmare. The footprint of nuclear is much smaller

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    The footprint of solar is significant, but still nothing compared to agriculture. E.g. The area used to grow corn to make ethanol in the US is ~ 3x what you'd need to fully power the US on solar.

    ~96000000 acres used for corn, ~40% of that is used for ethanol. That makes 38.3e6 acres. First estimate I found for area of solar panels to fully power the US on solar alone was 14.08e6. That makes corn for ethanol 2.7 times the area of solar panels if all that was used was solar.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah agriculture isn't great for the environment either, but that doesn't actually make solar any better

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    But what I'm saying is that the land used by solar isn't all that significant, and it's also costed into the price of solar farms. To power the US purely off solar would require significantly less land than is currently used for ethanol production alone. I'd say the environmental good of solar (cheap, renewable power) significantly outweighs the cost of it.

    For the transition off fossil fuels to happen quickly it needs to be economic, and solar is a big part of making it economic. Nuclear is just too expensive

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    I guess it depends on perspective. On one hand, it's an enormous amount of land - on the other hand, the USA is extremely big. I personally think the footprint is significant. It's not like we'd tear down suberbs to make solar farms, we'd tear down nature (undeveloped land).

    The cost being the motivator that makes solar better than nuclear I don't believe to be accurate. Short term, solar is cheaper, but also we're making panels as fast as we can. It takes a lot of materials and is hard to scale quickly, so we can't just decide we want to switch the USA to solar and think we'll have enough panels in a decade even.

    Additionally, nuclear isn't expensive in the long run. It's quite profitable and low maintenance. Nuclear waste is blown up by people who don't understand it. And our grid is ready to be powered by nuclear. Our grid can't yet handle the quick variablility of solar. If that weren't a problem, we still need additional power from events where there isn't a lot of sun for a while. Batteries may get us through the night someday (also another enormous manufacturing feat) but they won't get us through the week.

    If both can be profitable, it's really a question of what we want to build. I argue that we can't even run off solar yet without some new technologies being made. Nuclear is the quick fix we need. The only reason we don't have it already is because of attitude towards it ("not in my backyard"), which I think would be different if people understood it.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    The lifetime cost of of nuclear (build, running + clean-up) divided by the amount of electricity created is incredibly high. This report from csiro doesn't include large scale nuclear but does include projected costs for small modular reactors +solar and wind. Generally large reactors come out behind smr especially in future projections.

    https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/energy-data-modelling/gencost

    Note the "wind and solar pv combined" "variable with integration costs" which is the cost accounting for storage, transmission etc. It's not that high (at least up to the 90% of the grid modelled for 2030). The best end of the nuclear estimate is double the cost of that. The reasons that the storage costs etc. Are not as high as you may intuitively expect are explained in that report.

    Maybe there is a place for nuclear in that last 10%, but not in less than that. Also as far as rolling it out quickly, look at how long this last nuclear plant took to build from planning to construction being complete.

    I think that it is possible to manage the cleanup of nuclear and to make it safe, but it's all just very expensive. To make everyone happy with the transition off fossil fuels it needs to be cost competitive and renewables are, nuclear isn't.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Maybe Australia's grid is 90% ready for solar, I've heard they're pushing for full renewable in 2 States. But the USA's isn't ready.

    Again, I understand that new installations of solar power plants are cheaper than nuclear. My points against solar are:

    • its footprint (solar farms outside every town/city)
    • its lack of power generation during night (batteries aren't cheap and don't last long, new tech will help but doesn't exist yet)
    • how quickly output changes due to weather. This is extremely hard for the grid to adjust to. The best solution is filling gaps with natural gas (methane) because it starts up fast. Methane is a potent greenhosue gas and it's supply chain is extremely leaky so that stinks.

    Meanwhile points agaisnt nuclear are

    • cost
    • waste

    Both of which seem like much simpler problems to solve:

    • subsidize (like renewables)
    • store on site, reprocess, or build a storage facility (last point being expensive, but solving the problem completely). Reprocessing is my favorite choice.
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