I appreciate your time but I feel like I’m possibly thinking and talking about a completely different optimization problem than you (and please correct me if that’s an incorrect reading). I’m trying to solve for: “What’s the quickest path to reducing total carbon emissions to near 0?”
I see it as a given that it’s reasonable to max out every bit of production capacity into increasing battery storage and into carpeting every last residential roof and former rapeseed-field with solar panels. So the only question left to me is: How can the time until the last combustion-based power plant is shut down be minimized?
No, this is not the case. The alternative for on-demand is batteries, not nuclear. Building sufficient battery capacity is often already cheaper than nuclear and by the time a nuclear reactor is finished building it’s guaranteed to be much cheaper. Nuclear is also terrible at being on-demand: it’s extremely expensive to shut off and restart, and pretty slow at it too. That means that it has to compete with cheap renewable energy at peak hours, which it easily loses. So you’d either have to subsidize it to keep it open, or force people to buy nuclear power which makes power more expensive (see France which has to subsidize the reactors, requires people to buy that power and as a result is constantly having to subsidize the people’s electricity bills too, covering a part of it. It costs the French government billions every year).
Nuclear also doesn’t help to get you off coal and gas quickly. It’s extremely slow to adopt.
For the environment, it’s likely best (eg lowest total emissions) to invest in renewables and storage, and to fill up the gaps during this adoption with gas. Gas is not great but it’s much better than coal, it’s great at on-demand scaling and it’s pretty cheap. This frees up enough money to keep investing in renewables which accelerates adoption.
What are the time scales for the calculation here? How long does it take to manufacture enough battery capacity? How long does it take to reactivate Germany’s existing nuclear power infrastructure? I mean if the former takes 40 years and the latter 4, then I assume we’d still get to kick fossil fuels to the curb earlier at the low low cost of… some money.
Economic considerations are important. If you get can 1MW of clean power for X money, or 2MW instead, which is best to use? Less money spent per green MW means more green MWs in total.
I don’t see how it is quite that simple. Isn’t it rather something in the realms of either
A) 1MW of clean power and 1MW of combustion-based power for X money.
B) 2MW of clean power and 1MW of combustion-based power for 2X money.
C) 2MW of clean power, 0.5MW of combustion-based power, 0.5MW of nuclear power for 4X money
We’re solving for the same problem. There is no path where nuclear is the most cost-effective solution.
If money is no concern, the fastest, most certain-to-succeed solution is mass-mining for battery materials, massive investment in things like sodium-based batteries and a huge investment in battery production capabilities. Scaling up solar provides the power, the batteries provide the storage. That results in net zero.
Nuclear takes decades to build. “Reactivating” Germany’s old and derelict reactors beyond their shelf life is dangerous and doing it safely is probably about as fast as building a new, higher capacity reactor. Which is to say, it’s very, very slow. And even then, you’d need dozens if not hundreds of reactors to meet the total power demand (France alone has 50+). There’s geopolitical concerns too, as reactors run on fuel that is not available in most of the world, some of the highest producing countries are either Russia or firmly in their backyard. IIRC Canada and Australia also produce a bit but not enough.
And then there’s the fact that we do not have nearly enough qualified people to build and run all these nuclear reactors. Meanwhile installing solar panels and battery packs is comparatively dead simple, and we have plenty of people who can do it.
Nuclear simply produces less MW per penny invested than renewables do. It’s slower to build. The “option C” as you present doesn’t work, because it implies an option D: 4MW of clean power, with no dirty MW after X years, for 4X money. The total carbon emitted is simply lower if nuclear is skipped and renewables are prioritised instead.
Remember as well, that nuclear only starts producing once it’s fully done. Renewables we can add to the mix today. Every MW of dirty energy saved now has a cumulative effect on the total emitted carbon.
I appreciate your time but I feel like I’m possibly thinking and talking about a completely different optimization problem than you (and please correct me if that’s an incorrect reading). I’m trying to solve for: “What’s the quickest path to reducing total carbon emissions to near 0?”
I see it as a given that it’s reasonable to max out every bit of production capacity into increasing battery storage and into carpeting every last residential roof and former rapeseed-field with solar panels. So the only question left to me is: How can the time until the last combustion-based power plant is shut down be minimized?
What are the time scales for the calculation here? How long does it take to manufacture enough battery capacity? How long does it take to reactivate Germany’s existing nuclear power infrastructure? I mean if the former takes 40 years and the latter 4, then I assume we’d still get to kick fossil fuels to the curb earlier at the low low cost of… some money.
I don’t see how it is quite that simple. Isn’t it rather something in the realms of either A) 1MW of clean power and 1MW of combustion-based power for X money. B) 2MW of clean power and 1MW of combustion-based power for 2X money. C) 2MW of clean power, 0.5MW of combustion-based power, 0.5MW of nuclear power for 4X money
I’d strongly prefer something like option C.
We’re solving for the same problem. There is no path where nuclear is the most cost-effective solution.
If money is no concern, the fastest, most certain-to-succeed solution is mass-mining for battery materials, massive investment in things like sodium-based batteries and a huge investment in battery production capabilities. Scaling up solar provides the power, the batteries provide the storage. That results in net zero.
Nuclear takes decades to build. “Reactivating” Germany’s old and derelict reactors beyond their shelf life is dangerous and doing it safely is probably about as fast as building a new, higher capacity reactor. Which is to say, it’s very, very slow. And even then, you’d need dozens if not hundreds of reactors to meet the total power demand (France alone has 50+). There’s geopolitical concerns too, as reactors run on fuel that is not available in most of the world, some of the highest producing countries are either Russia or firmly in their backyard. IIRC Canada and Australia also produce a bit but not enough.
And then there’s the fact that we do not have nearly enough qualified people to build and run all these nuclear reactors. Meanwhile installing solar panels and battery packs is comparatively dead simple, and we have plenty of people who can do it.
Nuclear simply produces less MW per penny invested than renewables do. It’s slower to build. The “option C” as you present doesn’t work, because it implies an option D: 4MW of clean power, with no dirty MW after X years, for 4X money. The total carbon emitted is simply lower if nuclear is skipped and renewables are prioritised instead.
Remember as well, that nuclear only starts producing once it’s fully done. Renewables we can add to the mix today. Every MW of dirty energy saved now has a cumulative effect on the total emitted carbon.