I never said renewable+battery was bad. You said nuclear was. The fact of the matter is that well rounded energy infrastructure is the priority in China. Solar doesn’t just not generate power at night. It also doesn’t during storms, and other times. It’s sporadic. Yes, batteries can help with this, but so can nuclear. If you rely solely on solar, the infrastructure needed to support it is significantly higher.
Nuclear allows you to have a reliable baseline. It let’s you have a reliable load so you don’t need as substantial infrastructure to be able to capture 100% peak solar, and be able to discharge it quickly too.
Do you think regulations are holding back nuclear in China too? Or do you think, maybe, it’s just an inferior power source?
Again, you’re the one making claims about superiority. I don’t think either are superior. They both provide different kinds of utility, and clearly nations like China and Japan see this. Both can be invested in. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing like you claim. They have different roles to play and they both play them very well.
I said that nuclear is inferior, and it is. It will play a minor role in the transition, the hype generated by techbros around nuclear is vastly overblown. The main advantages that nuclear has is that enriching uranium is also important for producing medical isotopes, for nuclear submarines and nuclear-powered satellites/spacecraft, and the process is similar for making bombs. Solar can’t do any of that.
But there’s a reason that nuclear will always lag behind, at least enriched uranium reactors. It’s extremely expensive and it’s comparatively not as good at the primary task of generating power for the cost it has.
Now if thorium reactors could ever get off the ground that would be interesting.
One thing of interest is that costs have increased as we build more, which makes no fucking sense unless the cost is being raised by external factors. Prices should always go down as we get more practice, knowledge, and technology. You really can’t compare the prices as they currently exist to make an argument for what we should do. What we should do is remove unnecessary regulations, for nuclear, solar, wind, etc., and stop subsidizing dirty sources, the build more of anything that makes sense at whatever location.
Neither are inferior. They’re very different technologies with different uses. They’re all sources of clean energy that all have a purpose. A nuclear baseline (or whatever base load you have, including coal or natural gas) makes infrastructure costs cheaper for solar. Without the solar is more expensive than current estimates would appear. We need both.
I’m not even necessarily comparing costs, I’m demonstrating that that solar is surpassing nuclear in the real world and it’s only going to accelerate. Dirty energy doesn’t benefit from being lapped by solar, there is no advantage for dirty energy if we just invest in solar+grid-scale battery storage instead of nuclear energy. You can’t just say “every power source is the same, nothing is different” and expect that to be a coherent idea. Some clean energy sources are better than others.
Nuclear has its place, but it’s small and it always will be.
I never said renewable+battery was bad. You said nuclear was. The fact of the matter is that well rounded energy infrastructure is the priority in China. Solar doesn’t just not generate power at night. It also doesn’t during storms, and other times. It’s sporadic. Yes, batteries can help with this, but so can nuclear. If you rely solely on solar, the infrastructure needed to support it is significantly higher.
Nuclear allows you to have a reliable baseline. It let’s you have a reliable load so you don’t need as substantial infrastructure to be able to capture 100% peak solar, and be able to discharge it quickly too.
Again, you’re the one making claims about superiority. I don’t think either are superior. They both provide different kinds of utility, and clearly nations like China and Japan see this. Both can be invested in. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing like you claim. They have different roles to play and they both play them very well.
Did I say nuclear was bad?
I said that nuclear is inferior, and it is. It will play a minor role in the transition, the hype generated by techbros around nuclear is vastly overblown. The main advantages that nuclear has is that enriching uranium is also important for producing medical isotopes, for nuclear submarines and nuclear-powered satellites/spacecraft, and the process is similar for making bombs. Solar can’t do any of that.
But there’s a reason that nuclear will always lag behind, at least enriched uranium reactors. It’s extremely expensive and it’s comparatively not as good at the primary task of generating power for the cost it has.
Now if thorium reactors could ever get off the ground that would be interesting.
Again, if your argument is cost, you’re just doing the dirty work of dirty energy. It is not inherently expensive. It’s been made to be expensive. Even in the US, which is one of the worst in the world for nuclear power cost it’s reasonably competitve
One thing of interest is that costs have increased as we build more, which makes no fucking sense unless the cost is being raised by external factors. Prices should always go down as we get more practice, knowledge, and technology. You really can’t compare the prices as they currently exist to make an argument for what we should do. What we should do is remove unnecessary regulations, for nuclear, solar, wind, etc., and stop subsidizing dirty sources, the build more of anything that makes sense at whatever location.
Neither are inferior. They’re very different technologies with different uses. They’re all sources of clean energy that all have a purpose. A nuclear baseline (or whatever base load you have, including coal or natural gas) makes infrastructure costs cheaper for solar. Without the solar is more expensive than current estimates would appear. We need both.
I’m not even necessarily comparing costs, I’m demonstrating that that solar is surpassing nuclear in the real world and it’s only going to accelerate. Dirty energy doesn’t benefit from being lapped by solar, there is no advantage for dirty energy if we just invest in solar+grid-scale battery storage instead of nuclear energy. You can’t just say “every power source is the same, nothing is different” and expect that to be a coherent idea. Some clean energy sources are better than others.
Nuclear has its place, but it’s small and it always will be.