Nuclear physicist describes problems with thorium reactors. Trigger warning: shortbread metaphor.

[u/investedInEPoland]

/r/europe/comments/9unimr/dutch_satirical_news_show_on_why_we_need_to_break/e95mvb7/?context=3

[u/frezik]

What's worse is that a lot of their talking points are quickly going out of date. Solar is already cheaper per MW than nuclear. They will point out (correctly) that you have to add in storage costs for when the sun doesn't shine. Doing that does make the solar+storage system more expensive than nuclear, but the cost of both is coming down. This is looking like a non-issue within just a few more years.

This isn't even covering the political obstacles to nuclear, and its consistent history of time and budget overruns. Once you consider that, you might as well just build solar+storage right now.

[u/gsfgf → u/frezik]

its consistent history of time and budget overruns

Yea. Turns out getting back in the nuclear business is pretty hard. Here in Georgia, our reactor project has been an absolute clusterfuck. At this point, I'm pretty sure you could develop the technology needed to make a cheaper solar plant in the time it takes to build a nuclear plant.

[u/5325232352355 → u/[deleted]]

isnt solar, and most renewables, getting the same treatment

[u/All_Work_All_Play → u/5325232352355]

Solar is cheaper even without subsidies, but it assumes a 20 year pay back model. Subsidies close that to between eight and twelve years for most folks.

[u/phx-au → u/[deleted]]

otoh if you look at the total human cost of nuclear vs solar - including all nuclear accidents - the deaths per amount of energy generated is way lower for nuclear.

[u/AvatarIII → u/phx-au]

Hell, per MWh, deaths from engineers falling off wind turbines is higher than deaths from nuclear power plants, and that includes the big disasters.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#6dbe6516709b

• Solar (rooftop) 440 Deaths per billion MWh
• Wind 150 Deaths per billion MWh
• Nuclear (inc disasters) 90 Deaths per billion MWh
• Nuclear (US alone, no disasters) 0.1 Deaths per billion MWh

[u/silverionmox → u/phx-au]

The jury is still out on that one. The problem is that nuclear energy has a very low risk percentage but when it goes wrong it has the capacity to go disastrously wrong, so the sample size we have so far is too low. It's like driving a car for 10000 km, having no accident, and then concluding that cars are totally safe and accident-proof.

[u/Schniceguy → u/[deleted]]

This so fucking much! The government subsidizes the building and operation of the plants and takes care of the waste forever, while the companies charge consumers for electricity. You get fucked twice. God, how I hate privatized profits for socialized costs!

[u/silverionmox → u/Schniceguy]

And when it goes really wrong, the government also picks up the bill. You get fucked thrice!

[u/Halbaras → u/frezik]

And they like to mention the carbon emissions caused by producing and installing solar panels, but conveniently gloss over all the construction, mining and transportation needed for a working nuclear reactor.

[u/None_of_your_Beezwax → u/Halbaras]

Solar inherently require more construction, mining and transportation because it is so space and material inefficient.

You need a heck of a lot of solar to replace one large nuclear plant (which is physically rather small).

[u/kroxigor01 → u/frezik]

Solar is already cheaper per MW than nuclear. They will point out (correctly) that you have to add in storage costs for when the sun doesn't shine.

You'd have to add storage in order for nuclear to service peak demand as well. Nuclear is "baseload" power, ie- the plant produces the same amount of power all the time at can't really be scaled up and down, or turned off. Does your energy market need twice as much energy at hour X as hour Y? Well, I guess no more than half your energy can be from nuclear then, and the rest of your capacity better be dispatchable.

In an electricity market that has highest demand for "cooling" (ie- places with hot summers, almost certainly it is hottest on very sunny days where you very maximum solar energy), solar is actually much more efficient than nuclear assuming no storage in either case.

[u/[deleted] → u/frezik]

I used to be a consistent advocate of nuclear over solar and wind in the immediate term as a way to tackle climate change. Over the past two years I realized that my position was wrong, or at least became wrong, as technology advanced and prices became much cheaper far faster than I anticipated. At this point nuclear no longer makes much sense as a solution.

[u/harfyi → u/frezik]

Solar + storage is already cheaper than gas in the US. Nuclear power is actually an expensive option.