Clean Technica | "Why Are So Many Redditors Obsessed With Uncompetitive Nuclear Energy?"
cleantechnica.com/2013/12/27/many-redditors-o...
cleantechnica.comPosted Dec 28, 2013, 1:11 AM UTC
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cleantechnica.comMaybe because there are a few scientists and engineers who can do the math here.
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Hmm, it was pretty frustrating to read that article. Here are my thoughts, take them as you will. . .
First a little background on me: I work in the energy industry. I work with all types of generation. We have nuclear, coal, gas, wind and hydro. I've been involved with portfolio resource management, transmission, trading and planning.
Anyways,
I think he is greatly confused as to why his renewable posts are so popular, and then why all these "nuclear defenders" show up en mass to "ruin" his great threads. It's as simple as the regular uniformed average Joe just not knowing the details and intricacy of the real world energy situation. Those of us who do it, know it. Hence the top comment here being about how people here "can do math."
I'll be the first to admit that before I got into the industry I would have been quick to show up in threads like this with my pitchfork against nukes and the Fukushima disaster and on and on. I would have seen no reason why "we can't just power the grid with renewable and nothing else" and on and on. I would have read articles like the ones he posts and said, "Yeah, why not! What do these Nuke guys have to hide?!"
It takes a very short time working in the business before you realize why this isn't possible, and that it's not because we are collecting shill paychecks from the big energy companies. It just comes down to common sense and basic math and physics. This is what the author of the article seems to not grasp. All those fancy links he posts look awfully good and reasonable on their own, but you can't put all that crap together and have energy for everyone, when they need it, reliably, at a reasonable price.
So to the author if you actually read this: go get a job for an energy company, try an entry level trading job or support job. Check out how our transmission grid really works, how the load balancing/peaks/valleys work, and how it's all paid for and who pays for it.
Those of us who defend nuclear don't do it out of loyalty to big companies or some fear of renewable - hell I think renewables are fine and they have an important place in our power portfolio - but they simply can not provide us with the power, price and reliability we need on their own.
Nuclear is the most reliable, the cleanest and safest large base load generation we have at our disposable at this time. It's VITAL to - again - an affordable, reliable, safe energy/transmission portfolio that everyone can enjoy.
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I basically could have written all of this, except I'm not that awesome in real life.
load balancing/peaks/valleys
The piece I feel people are ignoring is base load. Solar correlates great with daytime load, and nuclear (and coal and combined cycle gas) correlates great with base load. It's basically load following for the GW that are always there, 8760 hours a year.
The job I think everyone should have is planning (distribution, transmission or generation), though operations is a close second.
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Baseload is an economic term.
Baseload generation may be an economic term, as you describe. Baseload consumption is not, and that's what I described as well correlated to the output of nuclear (and coal and combined cycle gas).
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Actually, it’s rare to even see a solar or wind story do well [on r/energy/]...
As someone who almost always posts about solar, wind or distributed energy issues, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on this claim.
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What single day did the author come into r/energy and make this assumption. It boggles me.
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I wouldn't normally post crap like this, but it's directed at the people of this subreddit so it would seem like a good idea for the accused to be aware of their trial...
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I think it's a good idea.
I am a nuclear engineer, so naturally I'm for nuclear technologies. But my decision to go into nuclear was because of the extensive science and engineering behind the technology which makes it fascinating to work with. If I was born 50, 60, 70 years earlier I'd like to think id be involved with the space program. Today nuclear is one of the best fields to work in if you are interested in complex engineering challenges. I find it fascinating and incredible, which is why I work in the field. For the record for everyone who doesn't know me well on reddit, I'm a nuclear engineer who has been a digital reactor control system designer for 5 years, and am now pursuing a senior reactor operator license. My introduction to nuclear technology was my dad watching China syndrome on TBS one day when I was a child. He explained as best he could about Chernobyl, radiation, nuclear reactors, control rods, self sustaining chain reactions. I was about 10, and was so scared of what I didn't know that I pursued whatever knowledge on the topic that I could. I grew to respect it and later chose it as my profession, and have not regretted it for even a minute.
From an energy perspective, nuclear technology is reliable, dependable, sustainable, clean, and can be cost effective when part of an integrated energy plan. It allows us to wean off of fossil emissions and can be used alongside wind and solar as part of an integrated no fossil emissions solution. There are medical benefits as well, as several radioisotopes can only be made in nuclear reactors such as cobalt 60 and moly-99/tc99m which are used in medical imaging and diagnostics worldwide.
Just my thoughts. Hope other redditors post their feelings and their stories.
Edit: second update.
If we are talking about the cost of nuclear versus renewables. Renewables cannot fully supply the grid all the time. If we are truly going to phase out fossils, wind and solar on their own cannot do it without massive cost increases for grid infrastructure changes AND storage. These things are not cheap. If we are going to change our focus from a merchant grid to an energy policy that involves ending fossil emissions, then obviously cost concerns go out of the window at that point. The only way to truly phase out fossils is to use renewables and nuclear. Unless fusion comes along.
It is dishonest in my opinion to talk about renewable costs vs nuclear without considering the problem of unreliable grid. But that's eh technical side of the grid, which most people don't really discuss when they compare renewables to nuclear.
And another question, why is everything always a singular solution? Why is it just nuclear or just renewables? We are engineers on reddit, and we prefer to solve problems using integrated approaches which meet all the design constraints while also minimizing costs. It's far different than the political and idealistic battles that many people have with regards to solar versus wind versus nuclear versus fossil etc.
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Thanks for the thought-out and informative post--we need more like you on this subreddit--I'm tired of seeing so many anti-renewables anti-nuclear etc. articles that have incomplete and oversimplified information that give people a sort of quasi understanding of the industry. I agree the singular solution is not the best way to go--but it's not hard to figure out why at least some people see things that way--nuclear and fossil fuels to many people are just negative dirty poisonous things. (I'm sure they want to keep their lights on though)
I notice many people see nuclear energy as an even less safe way to produce electricity than fossil fuels--which of course isn't true.
I think it's extremely important to tone down this renewables vs fossil vs nuclear, etc. because in reality while sometimes they rub elbows and butt heads in many situations the industries work well together--like you pointed out--and it surprises me how many people find that as a new concept. Perhaps it is ignored for the reason you mentioned--because the technical side of the grid is not as romantic as a renewable v nuclear showdown for the future of the energy industry.
Would you be willing to elaborate how nuclear energy is sustainable and clean? I have heard speeches addressing this by people in the nuclear industry, but I have not been entirely convinced it is really a clean technology--cleaner than coal and natural gas, absolutely--but not clean compared to wind and solar. Some of the technologies I've come across seem comparable.
In my dream fairy world I'd rather see energy storage technology make the nuclear industry irrelevant--as cold as that sounds especially considering I'm talking about your job--neigh--career! But I am not one to say "f$#@ you nuclear" without considering practicalities---which we need more of on this subreddit!! Of course energy storage technology is not particularly economical, and there is not saying it would actually phase out nuclear if it was and to be honest I am not particularly knowledgeable on that subject. Your thoughts on the future of energy storage?
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With regards to 'clean' and 'sustainable', and even with regards to the comments about the UK's recent nuclear rollout, one good place to look is the book by David MacKay, Sustinable Energy - without hot the hot air. David MacKay is on the UK board of energy and climate change, and was likely involved with the direction to utilize nuclear energy in the UK. His TED talk and his book both break down energy into a pure, by the numbers, approach, and may explain some of the reasons that the UK is making the nuclear decisions they are.
That aside, with regards to clean. Nuclear energy is clean in the sense that its waste products are contained and controlled. Obviously we have seen exceptions to this, primarily in Fukushima and Chernobyl, however differences in technology and improvements made limit this uncontrolled release. Do not get me wrong, nuclear accidents are awful things that wreck the local environment and cost a lot to clean up, and should never be acceptable, but that shouldnt rule out future nuclear designs which incorporate passive safety for days or indefinitely.
Anyways, nuclear results in no fossil emissions. I feel that fossil emissions as a whole are problematic, not just CO2. Obviously there is the waste aspect. Spent nuclear fuel consists of around 92% U-238, essentially inert and not hazardous as a radioisotope (it can cause heavy metal poisoning though), about 1.5% fissile fuel (equal amounts U-235 and Pu-239), and the remainder is a mixture of fission products and transactinides. The fission products are the waste created when we split the atom. They tend to be short lived, highly radioactive (some lethally so), and are the primary cause of decay heat. Transactinides are the long lived, low radiation elements that are generally created when uranium absorbs a neutron and does not undergo fission. The long fission products and short transactinides are the main concerns when talking about long term storage of spent nuclear fuel. There are many ways to address the volume of waste and the waste storage period. In general, we should be focusing on reprocessing (taking usable fuel from spent fuel and making new fuel with it), breeding (taking U-238 and putting it in a reactor designed to breed Pu-239 for use in MOX fuels or a travelling wave type reactor such as those Bill Gates is funding), transmutation (taking the long lived fission products and short termed actinites, putting them into a reactor designed for neutron production, and changing these isotopes into short lived products). Some of these technologies exist, some need work, but for the most part we are halted on these and our current spent fuel management plan in most of the world is to simply throw it in a hole in the ground. If we chose to, we could utilize techniques like those above to get drastically more energy out of the existing waste volume, or to separate those things which are truly dangerous waste from those which are not (or both). Regardless, the waste will need to be dealt with in ALL circumstances, the difference is whether we need 10000+ year storage facilities, or 100s of year storage facilities.
As for sustainable, David MacKay's book has a good breakdown of that. Between thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel source, breeding, and reprocessing, it is possible to have economical nuclear fuel for hundreds of years if not more. If cost is not an issue, uranium extraction from seawater is a possibility, although I hope by that time we have fusion or LENR figured out, (or some reliable grid storage). Really the long long term is something we shouldn't be arguing about now, the key point is if we fail to develop widely deployable grid storage, renewable expansion as necessary, or fusion/LENR, we still have nuclear options.
With regards to the future of energy storage, I think that the main three methods I'm familiar with all have their limitations. Pumped hydro requires geography, and if that geography does not exist it takes a large amount of resources to develop. Hot solar salts (a form of solar storage) is fairly expensive to deploy and will be limited in power density, but has potential. Batteries are likely not going to reach a point where they can be deployed at a scale necessary to deal with powering the grid for a day or more if necessary. The alternative to this of course, is to reduce grid reliability such that people will need to live with the grid not always available (but if we decide that the grid being 99.99% reliable is no longer a requirement, we wouldn't be having this whole discussion about energy storage in the first place....or in other words, the reason this discussion is even being had is because of first world problems...)
If my job goes away it would suck, there are things I can do though which are interesting. It would be fun to work on aircraft, or try to get into rockets etc...sorry for the super long post!
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No need to apologize for the long post--I'm glad you went into such detail, and I love learning about electricity production in all forms--especially from professionals.
I agree that there are more issues to fossil fuels than cO2--in fact cO2 is not what I'm mainly concerned with (but perhaps it should be?) but moreso contamination of water tables, mass death of agricultural land, incentive for war, etc.
With the reprocessing methods you listed, which one(s) is/are currently the most available and economical and/or most likely to become so?
I understand fatalities in the nuclear industry are considerably low when compared fatalities in the fossil fuel industry. Besides the Fukuyshima/Chernobyl accidents which are devastating but considerably rare (and probably and hopefully rarer in the future), what other causes of death/illness are a concern for the modern-day nuclear industry? I know this is a newbie question.
Excellent point about grid reliability and first world problems--never heard it put that way.
Just a quick thought on some of the pros of pumped hydro storage--people find lakes aesthetically pleasing and not an extremely uncommon thing for wealthy people to fund, also, in States/Counties/Regions with poorer economies, there may be incentive to install lakes to attract watersports, recreation, etc. to bring money in.
Of course not every place is going to have the space, money, or resource, and it would be quite a hat trick to use pumped hydro to supply the whole grid with energy during wind/solar production gaps. Not even considering controversy to displacement of people and disrupting ecosystems.
EDIT: Will definitely be reading MacKay's book. In case you're interested in the people investigating your unemployment, I don't know if you've come across Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi's popular "WWS (wind water solar) world" paper.
Come to think of it this is actually an important paper for anyone interested in the many problems that may arise when trying to create an energy grid solely on renewables which is of course directly applicable to the discussion:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/WindWaterSun1009.pdf
EDIT AGAIN: After just a few pages I can see what you're saying about David MacKay's book. Here is the chapter on Nuclear (html link) for anyone inerested:
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Just a little nitpick, all energy sources result in GHG emissions over their lifecycles but happily nuclear is as low as renewable sources.
Also, I would definitely recommend MacKay's book; especially as the pdf is free!
Not sure about putting LENR on the same footing as conventional fusion, though given LENR's potential implications just for new physics I think limited research would be valuable.
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Ever look into SMES? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage
Likely not an economical choice, but the tech is brilliant. My bet for the short term is using electrolysis to produce hydrogen gas from H2O. Hopefully in the future we can deploy this: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl201357n?journalCode=nalefd
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Yeah, there seem to be few people who "support more than one solution".
My (early) background was nuclear physics (not engineering). I never really had much of an interest in power systems but have worked extensively with energy distribution networks and studied solar in college and now live in one of the sunniest places on Earth where I do think solar makes sense, but obviously cannot work like people are accustomed.
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And another question, why is everything always a singular solution? Why is it just nuclear or just renewables?
It is about which technology is dominant and which merely supplements it if/when fossil fuel gets phased out. Some are of the belief that a purely renewable grid is possible. Others, like yourself, think a mix of nuclear and renewables is ideal. I think that nuclear, once it overcomes the waste management and regulatory hurdles, would dominate as the generation, storage, and distribution issues of renewables make them prohibitively expensive. Why build nuclear power to operate intermittently to merely supplement other generation sources? The big expense with nuclear is construction costs, not operation.
Perhaps there could be a compromise where we use renewables to split water for a liquid fossil fuel replacement. Make diethyl ether and ammonia while the sun shines. Yeah, that might work. But the big grid scale power projects on renewables alone or with nuclear as a side-show don't add up.
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Why ammonia and DME? Wouldn't it be better just to keep the hydrogen for grid level storage, or produce methane for additional stability, and make methanol for eventual transportation use in fuel cells?
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The biggie is we need transportation fuels to replace fossil-sourced fuel oil. Diesel, kerosene, Jet A, bunker fuel, etc. I don't really give a damn about commuters, they can take the electric bus, but we need to find a way to power ships and planes and trucks and tugboats and tractors and... well you get the idea. With this design constraint only two possible synthetic fuels stood out. Ammonia and DME.
Ammonia is pretty easy to make and store. You just burn hydrogen with air. But it's energy density is not that good and it's burn properties are far less than ideal for combustion engines. It would require re-engining everything and in the case of aircraft rebuilding fleets. But, hey, it is cheap and easy so maybe it might be worth it.
DME is far tougher to make but is pretty much the perfect diesel fuel replacement as far as burn characteristics and storage. The problem is finding a "live" source of carbon. Extracting it out of atmospheric CO2 or from seawater is tricky. Biomass perhaps? If you could make it in quantity cheap enough most infrastructure could use it with only minor modifications. IF.
I know they aren't perfect but are definitely the best options out of a bad lot.
As to your suggestions: Hydrogen has embrittlement issues and cannot use the pipeline infrastructure we currently have. You have to build all new if you want to use it as a NG replacement. Probably easier and cheaper to turn it into something else, especially if that something else can be a fuel oil replacement.
Methane has storage issues as compressing it into liquids is very expensive and not practical for air travel or anything small scale (like farmer bob's tractor). CNG doesn't store enough in a small space but would be good for, say, garbage trucks who can swing in and refuel halfway through the day. Sourcing the carbon is also an issue like DME.
Methanol has a better octane rating than ammonia so that is a good thing for gasoline burners. Unfortunately, we need a fuel with a good CETANE rating as a diesel replacement. Then there is the "pulling carbon out of thin air" issue piling on. Might as well make it into DME if you got it.
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For me, it's because I'm skeptical.
I was a full supporter of renewables (I still support them, just skeptically) until I starting thinking about the hard numbers of electricity use now and in the future. We're building renewables around the idea that our electrical use will remain the same or drop. I don't buy it. I seek out answers to questions I have like: Our current grid demand is a peak at the middle of day and low energy use at night. Solar does fit this well, but what about when people start to use a lot of electric cars, like we want them too. Won't this curve flatten out and solar won't follow it anymore?
At this point they say "Put some wind in." But the wind doesn't always blow at night. "Then transmit it in from where it does." That would need a lot of new lines and if there's one thing that cost a lot of money, it's building new lines. "Use batteries." Those cost a lot, too, and will for a long time.
I've seen a few good answers, but most systematic questioning leads to "We'll figure it out with future technologies." At this point aren't we at the same level as the nuke guys saying "We'll get it right with the next generation stuff?"
(A flatter demand curve is a match made in heaven for a nuclear grid!)
I think the perceived progress of renewables has to do with human perception. You can put solar panels on roofs and build wind farms and call it great progress even if it's a small part of power supply. For a next generation reactor to be called successful though a entire system has to be engineered. I think that in terms of the end goal, carbon free energy, renewables and nuclear still aren't even close. Both haven't even had their morning toast.
With that said:
Success for advance nuclear is: The completion and commercialization of a reactor. That's hard. Then you do the buildout. That's easy.
Success for renewables is: The completion and commercialization of renewable systems. That's easy. Then you do the buildout. That's hard.
So to me, it's fantastic but not significant that renewables are having a successful buildout at the moment when the advance reactors are still stuck in R&D, because once the nuclear guys figure something slick and affordable out the buildout will happen quickly because it's "plop and play" within our current grid. We need to completely rebuild our power system to do renewable energy and I worry if we can do that in time to counter global warming.
The sheer energy densities of nuclear fuel itself is also very enticing. We know nuclear energy has the potential to be dirt cheap and clean, we just don't know which reactor will ultimately get us there. We don't even know if it will be a fusion or fission reactor yet. The potential alone, I think, warrants the entire technology a much more closer look than it's being given.
In the long run, I don't care how I get my power in the future. I'm just, personally, a big nuclear person because the nuclear side needs it's story told, too. That's sadly how activism works today, all the sides shout their ideologic dogma to the wind and you hope that the general public can piece together the reality from the firestorm, so that's the game I play, though I try to be polite as possible where others don't.
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From TFA: speaking of r/energy he says, "Actually, it’s rare to even see a solar or wind story do well there despite the massive growth of these industries around the world."
The butthurt is strong with this one. Renewables stories regularly reap tons of karma here. Talk about selective attention...
Actually, now that I've read more of the comments Shahan made on his article, I'm beginning to wonder if he's u/CitizenPlusPlus. Very similar writing style and ideas.
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He's put his neck out there lets see what happens...
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I've concluded that solar religious nuts like Shanan are the new equivalent of the used car salesman - no lie is too extreme to push the plonk. Given the enormous amount of money Big Oil puts into pushing renewables to sell gas backup I'd suggest most fringe renewable advocates are either paid shills or useful idiots in service of the Big Oil Lobby.
Shanan lies: "The bottom line for nuclear is that it’s far too expensive, hugely unpopular amongst the masses,"
Actually its extremely popular in the US South where 5 plants are under construction. 50% complete the plants cost 4 cents a kwh when built by public power less than half the cost of gas, with gas now priced at half the cost of production. Cheapest form of energy there is
More Shanan lies: "and poses large financial.... risks "
"All 5 US plants are financed by Wall Street.
More Shanan lies: "and environmental risks."
FUKU, an accident in a ancient 50's designed unit crippled by corruption and impossible in a modern reactor, caused no injuries or damage outside the plant site. Compare that to the tens of thousands of folks murdered annually by the filthy air pollution from all the fossil fuel plants so necessary as backup to wind and solar.
And other lie: " It is only really pushed through by corrupt or very confused governments."
Actually it was private companies pushing the nukes under construction in the US.
And another whopper" projects have no chance where legislation doesn’t ensure profit and put the financial risk of the projects on taxpayers or ratepayers."
All regulated utilities, the situation in most of the world, have rates legislated and guaranteed by ratepayers. Usually those rates are set by elected officials in the people's interest.
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Everybody on this sub is interested in renewable energy news; but thats not what gets posted here. It's just endless regurgitation of press releases from green tech companies, filled with nonsensical speculation and wide eyed idiocy. This is the kind of article that goes up on cleantechnica and then ends up here, lets see if it passes the bullshit test from our "pro-nuclear" redditors:
There is going to be a new nuclear power plant built in the UK. This will have two reactors, and produce lots of electricity. Last year no new reactors were approved, and this year two were. If this trend continues soon there will be hundreds of new reactors being built. This will produce huge amounts of electricity. Huge is ten times as much as Lots.
A nuclear reactor works by turning heat into steam, which turns a turbine in a generator. This is about forty percent efficient - so it can only get more efficient! This will happen soon.
A scientist called dave said: "Nuclear power is the solution to all our problems, people who are against it are greedy and misguided and are trying to trick you. I am honest and good."
The price of nuclear energy is expected by many experts to drop to nothing, before becoming negative.
Think I should get my own blog?
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Because the Reddit hive mind is actually very conservative and unimaginative and cannot see the writing on the wall. This is visible in other areas too. Suggest a new idea around here and everyone piles on to explain why it won't work and you're an idiot.
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Let's be honest, most "new" ideas WON'T work and you probably ARE an idiot for suggesting them. I know damn near every one of my new ideas isn't new and won't work. . . but I only need one or two that will.
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FFS why on Earth do Renewable advocates always go for the Nuclear counter argument that it is all or nothing?
There is a very very small minority that want a 100% Nuclear electricity sector, and these people are as misguided as the 100% solar or 100% wind crowds.
Nuclear AND Renewables is the answer to decarbonising the energy grid while maintaining a high capacity and capability to transition other fossil fuelled sectors to switch to electricity, say transportation, as their primary fuel.
Nuclear AND Renewables.
Every country and jurisdiction that has taken this strategy has the lowest carbon intensive grids in the world. That is a result. Whereas every country that has taken an all or nothing strategy has either had their intensity stagnate or worse increase with increased low carbon generation, or had grid issues requiring other nations to supplement their management woes.
FFS stop the all or nothing meme. It's:
Nuclear AND Renewables.
I agree whole heartedly, but Nuclear OR Renewables sells more tickets ;)
It really takes even just a small introduction into nuclear for Renewable freaks to start reconsidering their opinion on nuclear--since of course it is often shaped by misconceptions or worst-case scenarios. People may feel it is a compromise, but you can only push away sound reasoning for so long.
Many people see nuclear as worse than fossil fuels from an environmental perspective, which of course usually aren't peoples opinions after a bit of sound research.
Which is why there is such a push back against films like Pandora's Promise. Education cures the ignorance and destroys the opposition to nuclear, so renewables absolutists can't stand it. In this way they share philosophical DNA with the hard right. Education always destroys ideology and orthodoxy.
I attend energy events on all sides of the camp and it is like wandering between revivalists, mormons and the taliban. It is full of nerds who do not like to be disagreed with.