- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
First planned small nuclear reactor plant in the US has been canceled::NuScale and its primary partner give up on its first installation.
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I remember so many nuclear stans on lemmy a bit ago refusing to acknowledge that renewables are getting so good and cheap that they are more important to solving climate change than nuclear. I wonder how they feel seeing investors pull out in favor of renewables?
Like crap? Renewables are good in places where they work. Nuclear works everywhere and is more reliable.
Investors pulling out of a nuclear project like this just looks like a, really dumb kneejerk reaction. “Oh! New shiny thing!”
This. Green energy works best when complimented with nuclear energy. Then, we can ween away from big oil.
It’s the opposite. Nuclear outputs as close to 24/7 as possible, you can’t ramp it up and down to accommodate variable output from renewables for practical and economic reasons.
I mean you can vary it pretty significantly depending on the reactor type, but even if you couldn’t you can still put the energy to work in alternative ways, such as pumping water up into reservoirs/damns to generate energy at other points, or using the excess energy to split water. There are many ways to use excess energy.
You can do the same with excess power from renewables though. My point was that you need something to fill in the gaps when renewable output is low, whether that be from batteries, pumped storage, peaker plants, etc.
Nuclear doesn’t fit in here, there are no nuclear peaker plants.
The problem with solar is that the sun doesn’t shine overnight. The good thing with that is that we use much less power overnight than we do during the day.
If you’re relying a lot on solar, you need to build a big-ass battery that you charge during the day and use at night.
Alternatively, you build a nuclear or gas plant sized to overnight usage and run them 24/7. Then, you build way smaller batteries to handle dispatchability and smoothing demand over the course of a day. Nuclear is good for baseline power, and doesn’t come with the environmental costs of a gas plant. It has a niche.
The problem with solar is that the sun doesn’t shine overnight.
Big if true. Winds tend to be stronger at night though.
if you’re relying a lot on solar, you need to build a big-ass battery that you charge during the day and use at night.
Or pumped hydro, compressed gas, molten salt, green hydrogen, etc.
Nuclear is good for baseline power
Base load. See here: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/28/we-dont-need-base-load-power/
Might save you a click:
Too many investors pulled out of the project, at least in part due to rapidly falling prices of renewables.
Interest rates too, I’d imagine. Investing in new nuclear and expecting a decent ROI would be a dumb move now.
I am surprised they got any investors. From what I see the only way to get investment money is to say you are making a new social media app or building a condo.
Hear me out … nuclear powered AI NFTs.
Does it support blockchain?
You know it does.
Damn
We’ve wasted so much money in r&d simply because it’s a tech that allows the rich to maintain their power monopoly, if we’d spent all that on more sensible options we’d be far closer to an ecologically sustainable future.
