Svante

@Emil Funny thing, the onboard reactor probably produces more power than the gas it carries could.

But anyway, yes, again, nuclear propulsion for ships is quite obviously a very good match.

@Emil The reactor wouldn’t be filled, right? And not under pressure? It would just be a big lump of metal?

@KnitWit @Emil Oh wait, you mean transporting reactor parts per ship? If they are new, they’re not even hazardous.

And nuclear fuel gets shipped all the time. If it’s new, it’s not a problem—very low activity, and water is a good shield—and spent fuel is just kept on site for decades.

@Emil Great, but the AP1000 isn’t the only Generation III+ reactor currently in operation, there is also at least the EPR.

@KnitWit @Emil I guess you’re not alone, sadly.

However…

A nuclear powered ship probably wouldn’t be under ship regulation and supervision, but under nuclear regulation and supervision. Nuclear supervision is much easier to do and harder to circumvent than that of oil. Compliance would be enforced at ports. A ship that cannot dock is useless.

Also, the worst case with a nuclear powered ship is less bad than normal operation of an oil powered ship, and sufficiently improbable.

@tomtrottel @Emil @Tylerdurdon

Well, there we are at the divide between facts and opinion, and that between a civil discussion and ad hominem attacks.

Fact: nobody was ever harmed by spent nuclear fuel. Really. Look it up wherever you like.

Fact: that is not by chance, but by engineering.

Fact: the total amount of all the world’s spent nuclear fuel ever, in the shape of a cube, would have a side length of about 35 m (before recycling).

Fact: I have no money invested in nuclear energy.

@tomtrottel @Emil @Tylerdurdon No, it is a classification.

It’s like saying »human feces is a huge problem« — well, yes, but that’s why we have toilets and sewage plants and so on — it’s solved.

As is nuclear waste.

@Brownboy13 @Emil Not perfect, but definitely better in every way than oil.

@Emil You know, in a sane world, moving a handful of effectively harmless concrete blocks around wouldn’t be newsworthy.

But even in our world, I think that the message should focus more on how little that actually is, how it is all there is, and how obviously it can be successfully done.

Leave some burns on fear-mongers while you’re at it.

@Emil OK, it’s a start. Once regulatory and economic processes are in place, there will be an option to become much more ambitious here, depending on how other plans turn out. Good.

@Lats @ajsadauskas @australianpolitics

Well, right now there is much more derailing of nuclear in the hope of solving storage than derailing solar+wind in the hope of re-enacting a nuclear buildup (like in France, Japan, Germany (1970s-80s), Ontario, China, India…) going on.

Get both on the road, they do not much compete for resources. It will be faster than only one.

@Lats @ajsadauskas @australianpolitics The problem as I see it is that solar+wind+storage alone will not get you there ever. It will go up to 40% solar+wind, then maybe 10—30% with storage+solar+wind (depending on your technooptimism). And then you start replacing everything built every 20 to 30 years. Buys time, but not sustainable.

What you say is true: you need to build up the entire nuclear industry. International cooperation for bootstrapping will be important. Better get started.

@ajsadauskas @australianpolitics

What would »grid scale solar & storage« cost, and how long would it take?

This is the competition:

1. Nuclear power plants
2. Storage of the same scale, filled by solar of the same scale

No one in the whole world has ever built (2). There is no mature industry, and no technology even matching the only grid scale storage we have so far (pumped hydro).

For (1), there are several international players with established designs.

I wouldn’t stop either one.

@kuna I like the irony of it being a webp.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

I think you do not realize how much of our population only exists because of Haber and Bosch.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Sorry, but the term »degrowth« is a red flag for me.

Sure, we are getting more efficient over time. That’s why even Germany’s emissions fell over the last two decades.

But cutting power that is actually needed means poverty, and that will immediately end support for long-term thinking as well as severely limit our technical options.

There are too many people for romantic visions of rural self-sufficiency.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Yes, but I’d like to add that we need to think about lifetimes.

Let’s imagine having built all we need in 30 years, through sometimes extreme efforts.

Current solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries have a lifetime of (a bit generously) 30 years. So we’d have to immediately start again with the entire effort just to keep it up. I’m worrying that this might not be … sustainable.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant#Nuclear_power_plants

For a grid of 100 GW peak demand, you either need

- 100 GW nuclear plants, or

- 100 GW storage output, plus (100 GW × storage loss factor) storage input (volatiles or whatever), plus additional transmission capabilities, or

- a combination of 60% nuclear plus, say 10% hydro, plus 30% volatiles

I’d say some variation on the last looks most plausible to me.

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

You seem to argue that our /current/ fossil grid would also need more storage, but it works just fine as is. Nuclear is better at load following than fossils, so what gives?

@matthewtoad43 @MattMastodon @BrianSmith950 @Pampa @AlexisFR @Wirrvogel @Sodis

Again, £50 per MWh is at current penetration levels of volatiles. This doesn’t scale linearly.

See that you get to more-of-the-same-kind nuclear reactors. This does.