this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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Profit is not really the way to ascribe value to a method of power production. Otherwise continuing the use of fossil fuels would be the "best" course of action.
"Sure we destroyed the planet as we knew it, but for a brief moment in time, we increased value for shareholders!"
"Research shows slavery is more profitable than paid labour in the cotton industry"
Uhhh...... So?
It's not even how denialist politicians value it. Who is getting those profits is just as important to them as the size of those profits.
Given that most countries have a capitalistic, private energy sector, profit may not be the best metric but it's the only one that matters.
The nuclear bros never seem to understand this though. If nuclear energy made any sense from a financial standpoint, we'd be building a ton of reactors but it doesn't. With renewables and storage getting cheaper and new nuclear getting even more expensive, we're not going to see much more new nuclear.
New nuclear is banned in a lot of places due to people protesting it for decades. Which is crazy, because it is our best bet to get off fossil fuels in the short term.
New nuclear doesn't really do short term though. They take years and years to plan and build and nearly always go over budget while the completion data slips and slips.
No matter how you spin it, banning new nuclear is a win for fossil fuels because it takes away a major option.
I'm not spinning anything, just stating the facts. I've noticed that facts and the rabidly pro-nuclear doesn't seem to get along very well though.
What do is your solution to baseline power generation?
It's base load, not baseline and it's arguable that it's not necessary: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/28/we-dont-need-base-load-power/
Large scale energy storage isn't there yet (afaik, please link otherwise), and adjusting demand with scalable hydrogen production isn't there either. Meanwhile, France's nuclear plants can adjust their output by 900MW in 30 minutes to mitigate increased demand or reduced supply due to weather.
Did you read the article?
Yes, it keeps talking about how near-firm wind/solar are significantly cheaper, quicker to adjust output and produce higher quality electricity (because you wouldn't need to change AC frequency) but only credits "4 hour batteries" never specifying which would be used and how you would build enough for the entire grid.
Nuclear powerplants are not being built due to smear campaign by nimbys and oil groups. Storage is thr achillies heel of solar and wind power because batteries are expensive and wear out. No one solution can solve our needs and nuclear power should be part of the equation.
In this case the price is a reflection of the resources required to generate power, it also represents how much of something we can do - establishing solar panel factories and putting up solar farms is something we can do with less resources in a shorter amount of time.