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1041 points mpweiher | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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yellowapple ◴[] No.45225313[source]
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V__ ◴[] No.45225582[source]
I agree that the fears are overblown, but at the same time the hype for nuclear is just weird. It's more complex, more expensive, less adjustable and more risky. Even the new hip small modular reactors are many years away.

The LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) for solar with battery is already better than current solutions, and dropping. Wind and battery closely following. There is no way that nuclear technology will be able to compete on price in the foreseeable future.

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StopDisinfo910 ◴[] No.45225749[source]
If you consider the complexity of running a whole grid out of intermittent sources of energy and the long term vulnerability of the logistic chain required to produce PVs, the long term costs and risks are not so clear cut.

For China which has the mineral it probably doesn’t make sense but for Europe, nuclear is a solid alternative especially when you consider that you can probably significantly extend the life time of the already existing power plants. Even if we ultimately transition to something else, it’s better than coal and gas in the meantime.

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V__ ◴[] No.45225931[source]
I am totally in agreement, that nuclear plants shouldn't be shut down before fossil ones.

A decentralized grid sound way more resilient, then one with a few nuclear plants, which often have long unexpected downtimes (see France). I agree with you on the potential logistical dependencies, however that sadly applies to nearly everything right now.

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mulmen ◴[] No.45225986{3}[source]
By definition the grid is decentralized. That’s what makes it a grid. Resiliency of the grid is a function of excess capacity but not the number of nodes.
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V__ ◴[] No.45226205{4}[source]
I am no expert but remembering the grid outage in Spain this year, which was caused by a substation or node failure and not by a capacity problem. Wouldn't it be fair to describe resiliency as a combination of both capacity and nodes?
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1. mpweiher ◴[] No.45226483{5}[source]
The Spainout was caused by having too little rotating mass in the grid that stabilizes the frequency.

There was a trigger in some of the PV systems, but that wasn't the underlying cause.