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Look i hate the man. But nuclear power is the best possible energy solution we have. Nuclear energy can fix all elecyricity related global warming issues we have in a reasonable acheivable world saving timeframe.
But here we are associating what could be earths only hope of stopping the climate fuckup with the molerat man.
New nuclear power is now significantly more expensive than renewables, and almost any other form of grid-scale electricity.
It's also far, far, far too slow to build. If you started the consents process now, you might see it operational in 15 years.
Gigawatt-class units really don't scale well in smaller power grids. It's a pretty common rule in power engineering that you need enough spinning/fast reserves to cover the unexpected, instant loss of your largest generator or transmission line. That's fine if you have a 100MW grid; not so great when there's 10MW of load.
Small modular/meme reactors have thus far been rather disappointing.
Throw more solar, storage, and demand response at it with a side of synchronous condensers.
15 years
why is Australian construction this fucking slow?
the largest nuclear plant (built in Japan in the 1980s) was commissioned 5 years after the start of construction. I can't imagine safety improvements since the 1980s would triple the time alone.
It's not Australian construction, it would seem to to be a Western country issue, or one potentially affecting any nuclear construction.
See Flamanville 3 ( https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx Under "new nuclear capacity"). It was started in 2007, and was estimated to be completed in 2012, but it's still not completed. It's currently scheduled to begin operating in 2024.
Oma powerplant in Japan was started in 2010, and is currently scheduled to be completed in 2026. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cma_Nuclear_Power_Plant
South Korea's new Hanul reactors look like they've taken about 10 years each. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanul_Nuclear_Power_Plant (The table in section "Reactors" might be interesting, as it shows the pre-2000 reactors taking only about 5 years to complete)
That is for construction of a single reactor, not the whole plant. It's also construction time, and does not include consents and consultation.
And yes, things are now that slow.
Do those cost calculations account for energy storage as well?
Yep. The latest CSIRO/AEMO report published this week addresses exactly this, with various levels of renewables penetration modelled, including associated firming costs (additional transmission & storage) Here’s an overview (spoiler: renewables are still cheaper by far.) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-21/nuclear-energy-most-expensive-csiro-gencost-report-draft/103253678?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
If u go look at the spurce document and not a report on the document i found a couple interesting things.
Are you able to link the source document?
However, as an example of why nuclear is seen as risky, time-consuming and subject to massive cost blowout and time delays, see Flamanville 3 ( https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx Under "new nuclear capacity")
It's gone from being a project started in 2004 to build a 1650MWe plant costing 4.2 billion euros (in 2020 euros), to an estimated completion date of 2024, at 13.2 billion euros.
And this is France, a country that is very familiar and well-versed with building nuclear reactors.
Without the source document, this may well be the example you use from your 2nd bullet point. But I wouldn't have called this a startup.
Here's a link to the report from CSIRO: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Energy-data-modelling/GenCost
THEY FUCKING MISSED AN ENTIRE CLASS OF NUCLEAR REACTOR. They had one fucking job compare all the power options and they ignored any reactor that was not a small scallable bullshit silicon valley hyptrain piece of shit. This "unbiassed" report funded with million of dollars just happened to accidentally forget the cheapest and most economically efficient reactor design this is heigly sus and very much looks like it is purposefully misleading. I thought the CSIRO was unbiassed but this is an aggressiouse error that canot be overlooked.
Their rationale for why larger Nuclear Reactors were not and could not be included in the report seem to make sense.
GenCost has been advised by stakeholders that small modular reactors are the appropriate size nuclear technology for Australia. Australia’s state electricity grids are relatively small compared to the rest of the world and planned maintenance or unplanned outages of large-scale nuclear generation would create a large contingent event of a gigawatt or more that other plants would find challenging to address.
In the present system, it would take two or more generation units to provide that role. As such, large-scale nuclear plants which are currently lower cost than nuclear SMR, may not be an option for Australia, unless rolled out as a fleet that supports each other - which represents a much larger investment proposition.
The second issue is that observations of low cost nuclear overseas may in some cases be referring to projects which were either originally funded by governments or whose capital costs have already been recovered. Such prices will not be available to countries that do not have existing nuclear generation such as Australia.
For more detail go to GenCost section 2.4.4 Perceived inconsistency between high nuclear SMR capital costs and low-cost nuclear electricity overseas from page 17.
Have you actually read the report or do you just get your opinions from Sky News?
I read the report then went and spoke to my engineering proffessor for nuclear engineering and confirmed that csiro where being dickheads. Why not include it anyways and still give that disclaimer and let the people judge still seems misleading to totally leave it out.
How would people be able to accurately judge the cost factors of a solution which cannot be priced properly as there are no projects to compare with? It would be completely useless in the report. That's without considering the time it would take for the supposedly "cheaper" Nuclear option to be operational. It would've been a good idea maybe 30-40 years ago, but it would not be suitable today considering the urgency of climate change
First there ars more large scale nuclear plants globaly bullshit we dont have a comparison. Second we dont know that they didnt run the numbers so we cant make the comparison.
This is a 3 month old thread I'd rather not continue it as you have proven incapable of engaging with my arguments and the article
Does this not only look at 2023 to 2024 would that not skew it towards options that have a low upfront cost? Nuclear is strongest in the longterm not over the period of 1 year.
It's just too expensive and too slow. Renewables with the additional Transmission and storage needed to make it reliable is much much cheaper, and quicker to build. The new csiro gencost report thats coming out basically says they nuclear is just not economically viable.
CSIRO says no
Nuclear made sense a few decades ago. But now, renewables are better by every metric that matters.
You need a baseload source