I've no great problem with nuclear being part of zero-carbon energy system. It kills fewer people than coal mining. Entirely possible that it turns out to be cheaper than seasonal storage in some situations in the long term. But I'm not optimistic about its long term prospects. And by long term I mean the next 50-100 years. It's struggled to meet the cost challenges it has and despite half a dozen navies building nuclear powered submarines no one has yet started building small modular reactors cheaply.
So I'm fully expecting new nuclear plants to be built in China or by China in other countries over the coming decades and for them to stay in operation for 60 years but I think by 2050, in hindsight, we may think they were the wrong choice.
The nuclear industry has some constraints on the number of reactors that can be built over any given period. It's been a while since I looked but I'd be surprised if there were more than a dozen foundries in the world capable of making a nuclear containment vessel for a large nuke.
I also agree that economies that sell fossil fuels are not just going to stop. They have currently both economic and political power and they will use it to keep producing as long as they can. But at some point people will stop buying it. The processes by which the coal industry for example can make itself cheap enough to compete involve automation which reduces the political power of the industry.
I find it quite telling that Saudi Arabia is in the process of preparing its population for life after oil money.
On your first point, did you mean highly relevant in the developed world rather than the developing world? I definitely agree it will be relevant for decades to come but I think more so in developed countries.
(As I was walking to work today thinking about your comment I was doing a bit of Fermi estimation on solar PV production in a 100% solar PV world - expected life of a solar panel say 25 years, which implies a 4% attrition rate annually. Therefore, if you were making solar panel factories you'd be unwise to make more factories than are needed to produce about 4% of the total number of solar panels deployed in the world. Which implies something like a 25 year build out period for solar PV. The same logic applies to wind turbines. )
I think the energy systems of the developed world have quite a lot of inertia. Their grids are mostly built around national grids serviced by a small number of very large coal or nuclear power stations, replaced recently by CCGT's. I think developing nations have an opportunity to move straight to newer technologies. That said, quite a lot of developing nations are sitting on sizeable reserves of oil or gas or coal and might fancy electrifying by digging that up and burning it locally.
One of the things I find really useful to remind myself of when looking at energy systems is the long lifespan of the industry. Even a small power plant is developed with a 25 year life expectancy and if I were building a nuclear plant today I'd be looking for 60-100 years of operation. There are a lot of assets being built around the world that will be on the grid for a generation maybe two to come and the shape of the grid we build in the next 25 years will persist for centuries.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-09-08 08:57 am (UTC)I've no great problem with nuclear being part of zero-carbon energy system. It kills fewer people than coal mining. Entirely possible that it turns out to be cheaper than seasonal storage in some situations in the long term. But I'm not optimistic about its long term prospects. And by long term I mean the next 50-100 years. It's struggled to meet the cost challenges it has and despite half a dozen navies building nuclear powered submarines no one has yet started building small modular reactors cheaply.
So I'm fully expecting new nuclear plants to be built in China or by China in other countries over the coming decades and for them to stay in operation for 60 years but I think by 2050, in hindsight, we may think they were the wrong choice.
The nuclear industry has some constraints on the number of reactors that can be built over any given period. It's been a while since I looked but I'd be surprised if there were more than a dozen foundries in the world capable of making a nuclear containment vessel for a large nuke.
I also agree that economies that sell fossil fuels are not just going to stop. They have currently both economic and political power and they will use it to keep producing as long as they can. But at some point people will stop buying it. The processes by which the coal industry for example can make itself cheap enough to compete involve automation which reduces the political power of the industry.
I find it quite telling that Saudi Arabia is in the process of preparing its population for life after oil money.
On your first point, did you mean highly relevant in the developed world rather than the developing world? I definitely agree it will be relevant for decades to come but I think more so in developed countries.
(As I was walking to work today thinking about your comment I was doing a bit of Fermi estimation on solar PV production in a 100% solar PV world - expected life of a solar panel say 25 years, which implies a 4% attrition rate annually. Therefore, if you were making solar panel factories you'd be unwise to make more factories than are needed to produce about 4% of the total number of solar panels deployed in the world. Which implies something like a 25 year build out period for solar PV. The same logic applies to wind turbines. )
I think the energy systems of the developed world have quite a lot of inertia. Their grids are mostly built around national grids serviced by a small number of very large coal or nuclear power stations, replaced recently by CCGT's. I think developing nations have an opportunity to move straight to newer technologies. That said, quite a lot of developing nations are sitting on sizeable reserves of oil or gas or coal and might fancy electrifying by digging that up and burning it locally.
One of the things I find really useful to remind myself of when looking at energy systems is the long lifespan of the industry. Even a small power plant is developed with a 25 year life expectancy and if I were building a nuclear plant today I'd be looking for 60-100 years of operation. There are a lot of assets being built around the world that will be on the grid for a generation maybe two to come and the shape of the grid we build in the next 25 years will persist for centuries.