Suppose we took the money being invested into nuclear research and put it into power storage research instead.
Wouldn't that be better all round?
Wouldn't that be better all round?
There is no long term storage option for nuclear power in the US. The ability to recycle it is questionable at best. If you want to build nuclear, I wholly endorse it, as long as you provide both functional waste recycling facilities and storage repositories before you load one pebble or rod into a reactor core. As of today, recycling wind turbines and solar panels is feasible, and failure scenarios for both are benign. Recycling of batteries from utility scale storage systems is also readily available through existing supply chains.
"The United States has over 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that requires disposal. The U.S. commercial power industry alone has generated more waste (nuclear fuel that is "spent" and is no longer efficient at generating power) than any other country—nearly 80,000 metric tons. This spent nuclear fuel, which can pose serious risks to humans and the environment, is enough to fill a football field about 20 meters deep. The U.S. government’s nuclear weapons program has generated spent nuclear fuel as well as high-level radioactive waste and accounts for most of the rest of the total at about 14,000 metric tons, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). For the most part, this waste is stored where it was generated—at 80 sites in 35 states. The amount of waste is expected to increase to about 140,000 metric tons over the next several decades. However, there is still no disposal site in the United States. After spending decades and billions of dollars to research potential sites for a permanent disposal site, including at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that has a license application pending to authorize construction of a nuclear waste repository, the future prospects for permanent disposal remain unclear."
https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...
Everyone can clamor on for nuclear while wind and solar continue to rapidly decline in cost, and manufacturing capacity for both continually increases. The hill for nuclear to climb gets higher every day.
Lazard just released their 2018 Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 12.0); check out how wind and solar cut the legs out from under every other generation source.
https://www.lazard.com/media/450769/unsubsidized-analysis-ce...
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
The Yucca Mountain project is the long term storage option. It's isn't really that hard, relatively speaking, to dispose of nuclear waste. Just put it in a hole and mark it so no one goes there. But no one wants to be the host - not because it's inherently dangerous, but because it's scary.
Yucca Mountain would already store all the waste if it weren't for one Senator from Nevada.
"It doesn't matter why it's a problem, all that matters is that it's a problem..."
Intermittency of wind and solar is a problem by any stretch of any imagination. Year-averaged wind capacity factor in USA is 35%. Solar is 25%. There are massive seasonal variations that batteries don't solve. It's a legit concern. Nukes help alleviate that because they're the only known dispatchable 24/7 carbon-free energy that we can scale to the necessary scale. Just gotta figure out how to make the more cheaply. Curing fears spawning from the linear no-threshold dose response model will help with that.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/02/09/americas-...
As battery costs come down, they will push combined cycle natural gas out [3] (batteries are already cheaper than peakers in some markets, and several utilities are replacing their single cycle, inefficient gas turbines with stationary storage). Hat tip to Tesla: They're putting an enormous amount of controllable load to sink renewable power into on the road and in garages [4]. Great foresight.
[1] https://www.elp.com/articles/2016/12/illinois-pass-subsidy-b... (Illinois passes subsidy bill to save state's nuclear power plants)
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-20/texas-is-... (Texas Is Too Windy and Sunny for Old Energy Companies to Make Money)
"In the cut-throat Texas energy market, the construction of these coastal wind turbines—some 900 in all—has had a profound impact. It’s been terrific for consumers, helping further drive down electricity bills, but horrible for natural gas-fired generators. They had ramped up capacity in recent years anticipating that midday price surge would mostly be theirs, not something to share with renewable energy companies. Without that steady cash influx, the business model doesn’t really work, the profits aren’t there and companies including Calpine Corp., NRG Energy Inc. and Exelon Corp. are now either postponing new gas-fired plants or ditching them all together."
[3] https://electrek.co/2017/12/13/solar-batteries-to-take-10gw-... (Solar + batteries prepping to take over 10GW of US natural gas peaker power plant market)
[4] https://i.imgur.com/oLBNeW4.png
Disclaimer: I support the continued operation of existing nuclear generators (and extensions of their license to operate) if stringent safety requirements are met until renewables and battery storage can meet the base load demand nuclear is currently providing.
Everything I've read about the duck curve in California and how ISO manages it has indicated that CCGTs are ramping "fast" (~13GW in 3 hours [1]), but I suppose it's all relative.
[1] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/on-the-ducks-10th-birthday-... (On the duck's 10th birthday, here's how to keep it from eating the power system)
In particular, since there is a link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, I wonder if, just due to the politics involving this alone, if nuclear can ever be adopted as a global solution for every nation.
Or -- let's start building these colocations today, and let the market determine which piece is more worth R&D dollars to improve.