New research shows renewables are more profitable than nuclear power::In a recent study, researchers from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) questioned the planned development of new nuclear capacities in the energy strategies of the United States and certain European countries.
Nuclear power is also very sensitive to the interest rate environment due to the very high upfront costs and financing. It’s probably an even bigger difference in favor of renewables now.
The thing that worries me about nuclear power is that it takes something like 7 years to build, and renewables are on a declining cost curve. If you finish building your reactor 7 years from now and you can’t compete with other forms of power generation, what do you do with that asset? Nobody will buy it, you can’t sell the product. That’s not even accounting for the payback period of it either.
I’m just a layman so I’m sure there are nuances I’m missing and I think we need all options on the table when it comes to moving away from fossil fuels. That said it seems like a very risky thing to be investing in to me.
Yep, that’s exactly why it’s not worth it to build reactors now. We need an alternative right now, not in 10 years.
We should use the current nuclear reactors as much as we can and deploy renewables while we can.
From what I understand, some degree of nuclear power is always going to be necessary. This is because while we tend to think of excess power in the energy grid as being stored away, this in fact is not the case and we only use power as it’s actively available. Excess power is wasted. The major downside of renewables is that they’re circumstancial. Solar energy is only available during clear days, wind power is only available on windy days, etc. Until we massively improve our energy storage capabilities we’re going to need some kind of constant supply of power backing the other ones when they aren’t available. Without adequate nuclear energy available, that’s going to be fossil fuels. And when compared to coal, oil, and natural gas, nuclear energy is unbelievably better for the environment. The only byproduct is the spent fuel which is dangerous, but we have control over where it ends up which is more than can be said for fossil fuels.
You should read this: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/06/28/we-dont-need-base-load-power/
Shhhhh, the oil/gas and nuclear lobbyists don’t like this. Of course it’s less expensive you don’t have to store the by products or spent fuel rods. It’s way better for Mother Earth too. I got to log off now I hear the investors coming.
If we required the recycling cost to be covered in the purchase of solar cells and wind mill blades would this still be true.
What’s cheaper to recycle, fiberglass windmills or radioactive waste?
You are right, solar panels in which lead is used in manufacturing are definitively easiest and cheapest to recycle.
But disposal/storage of waste is baked in to the cost of nuclear. The economics of solar and wind don’t include those which is why we have windmill trash heaps
Decades of surcharges for nuclear decommissioning show that’s not true.
I did not know the answer so I looked it up. Fiberglass is hard to recycle and it isn’t done much. A lot of nuclear “waste” is actually spent fuel which can be reprocessed and used again.
Obviously it would be better to improve recycling of fiberglass but as it stands today, nuclear waste might be recycled more often than fiberglass…
