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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

(www.weplanet.org)
1041 points mpweiher | 14 comments | 12 Sep 25 18:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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m101 ◴[13 Sep 25 07:25 UTC] No.45230060[source]▶
I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.
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kolinko ◴[13 Sep 25 09:25 UTC] No.45230658[source]▶
So far it was either the cheapest or the safest.

Also, solar is now both cheaper and safer.

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pzo ◴[13 Sep 25 09:39 UTC] No.45230728[source]▶
but it's not 24/7 and europe even worse in winter and fall. Solar is unrealistic to replace most energy usage [1]. In EU it's just less than 5% usage. In germany less than 6% usage. And wind is not a replacement either (less than 11% energy usage in germany).

And just for comparison in france nuclear power plants provides 37% of energy

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

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1. zekrioca ◴[13 Sep 25 17:02 UTC] No.45233578[source]▶
Have you ever heard of batteries?
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2. ackfoobar ◴[13 Sep 25 20:21 UTC] No.45235015[source]▶
Have you done the math of how insufficient battery tech is, if we are to go 100% renewable? I'm so tired of renewable proponents just use the thought terminating cliche "BATTERIES!" when intermittency is brought up.
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3. latentsea ◴[14 Sep 25 03:45 UTC] No.45237267[source]▶
Even if you can't get to 100%, it would still make sense to strive for as large a % of renewables as you could achieve. So, that's going to involve batteries necessarily.

For context I work at a company in Japan working on this problem. The entire reason the company exists is Japan's energy policy in response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Batteries are severely underutilized in Japan at this point in time, so we can at least vastly improve on where we are.

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4. UltraSane ◴[14 Sep 25 04:31 UTC] No.45237453[source]▶
Nuclear at $6,000-12,000/kW installed capacity becomes cheaper than solar+battery somewhere between 1-3 days of required backup.
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5. ackfoobar ◴[14 Sep 25 11:22 UTC] No.45239012{3}[source]▶
My question is a few math operations away from "how much batteries capacity can we deploy to support how much % of renewables in the short-medium term, while still having a stable grid". My "100%" phrasing was sloppy, no need to index too much on it.

Since you're in the industry, maybe you can answer this question and change my mind.

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6. pfdietz ◴[14 Sep 25 14:34 UTC] No.45240037[source]▶
Which is why you don't use batteries (at least, Li-ion batteries) much beyond diurnal storage. Systems analysis for renewables that assumes batteries are the only storage mode requires massive overbuilding of solar/wind, and this strawman engineering makes the nuclear alternative appear more competitive than it actually would be.
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7. pfdietz ◴[14 Sep 25 14:38 UTC] No.45240079{4}[source]▶
Batteries alone cannot handle all storage use cases, but also including an alternative long term storage mode (syngas, thermal) can get to a 100% renewable grid. Use of hydrogen vs. just batteries cuts the cost of an all renewable grid in Europe in half.
8. UltraSane ◴[14 Sep 25 15:12 UTC] No.45240369{3}[source]▶
So what do you use instead for storage? This is a very important detail you didn't mention.
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9. pfdietz ◴[14 Sep 25 18:55 UTC] No.45242327{4}[source]▶
Hydrogen or heat. The former would be stored like natural gas currently is stored, underground. We store months of natural gas consumption.

Heat (at 600 C) is potentially even cheaper to store, with a cost of storage capacity as low as $0.10/kWh(th) of capacity. This could yield 365/24/7 heat for $3/GJ, competitive even with cheap natural gas.

https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/building-ultra-cheap-ene...

https://standardthermal.com/

Round trip efficiency if you go back to electricity is nothing great, but this is not important for very long term storage, where capex is king, not RTE.

10. zekrioca ◴[15 Sep 25 03:02 UTC] No.45245670[source]▶
https://www.tesla.com/megapack
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11. zekrioca ◴[15 Sep 25 03:02 UTC] No.45245672[source]▶
https://www.tesla.com/megapack
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12. latentsea ◴[15 Sep 25 07:17 UTC] No.45246995{4}[source]▶
I forget the exact numbers but from my recollection it relies on widespread adoption of EVs and being able to leverage their batteries as part of the grid.
13. UltraSane ◴[15 Sep 25 16:56 UTC] No.45252054{3}[source]▶
Total annual global electricity consumption in 2024 was 30,856 TWh so 36GWh of capacity is about one millionth of global electricity consumption.
14. ackfoobar ◴[15 Sep 25 20:09 UTC] No.45254345{3}[source]▶
Asked for numbers, got a link. Let's see.

They can manufacture 80 GWh a year. To get through dunkelflaute with moderate renewable percentage we need tens of TWh. Not to belittle Tesla, but that's 3 orders of magnitude difference.

Are you changing your mind or can you give me numbers to change mine?