Nuclear too slow to replace coal, and baseload “simply can’t compete” with wind and solar, AEMO boss says

Even if we started to build nuclear plants like crazy right now, it would be decades for them to make a real impact. Building a single nuclear plant is very expensive and time consuming. Building up the necessary supply chain to build a lot of them would take much longer. In the meantime, you can build huge amounts of renewables in just a few years for a fraction of the cost, even if you factor in storage.
- Not only that but the cost of renewables and storage is still coming down rapidly. You'd better hope that you're not priced out of the energy market before your construction time plus payback period is up if you start building nuclear.
  
  Lemmy most of the time: Makes fun of people always bringin up "the economy" as if that's what's really important
  Also Lemmy when it comes to nuclear: "But the economy!"
  What happens in case of a sudden abnormal weather event that blocks out most of the sunlight? Picture a super volcano eruption covering the sky in ashes for thousands of miles. Or think back to the extinction of dinosaurs, where after a meteorite crashed into earth the sun was blocked by dust for several years. Or just think about northern European countries that barely get any light in winter; Portugal is a very sunny country, we have invested a lot into solar, and sometimes we still get energy from Spain (who use nuclear btw).
  Also, I've been hearing this whole "it takes too long to build nuclear plants" since at least early 2010s; imagine where we'd be if we'd just started building plants then. I can picture the same thing being said in 2035-2040, while fossil fuels still have not been completely dropped.
- Exactly. Sure, shutting down existing plants is dumb af (looking at you, Germany). But building new plants now with the aim of having an impact on climate change just isn't the most effective decision.
  
  Most of those were very old. I'm glad we're not the ones who will find out how long you can really run one if those things before it fails.
- That's not precise. A nuclear plant can be built in like 5 years. And the supply chain is not the issue when you have lots of orders. But there are not many. It's also not precise to say you can build huge amounts of renewables instead. Probably Spain doesn't need nuclear, since it's got plenty of sun. On the other hand many countries don't have areas that have enough sun and consistent wind.
  Id also say that the part you said that cost of renewables combined with storage would be a fraction of the cost, that is completely false.
  
  A nuclear plant can be built in like 5 years.
  Can you point to any nuclear plant in a Western country that was built in five years in the past thirty years or so?
  And the supply chain is not the issue when you have lots of orders.
  Seriously? Building reactor vessels is a very specialized task that only few suppliers are even capable of. Add to that uranium mining, fuel rod production, fuel logistics and a host of other components - and all that will just fall from the sky once enough orders are signed?
  On the other hand many countries don’t have areas that have enough sun and consistent wind.
  Germany is already at over 50%, many other countries are far ahead of that. Your point has no factual basis.
  Id also say that the part you said that cost of renewables combined with storage would be a fraction of the cost, that is completely false.
  Here's a source
- yup, and no waste issues that have to be held on site in cooling pools for decades (assuming a final storage point is ever resolved in your country).
  we already know that we must improve transmission infrastructure across the board, if we're going to have to do that either way, might as well embrace grid storage and go with as much renewable generation. AU, your Great Australian desert could power most of the southern pacific if you want to get wild :D
- This boggle my mind. We turn out about one or two nuclear subs a year. It really shouldn't take that long.

Also, let’s not forget Uranium has a finite supply. A few years ago the IAEA estimated that at high usage scenarios (which might actually be happening now), by 2040 28% of remaining supplies would be used. Depending on different factors, that could either accelerate and run out not too long after, which is even for us a pretty short time. Other estimates were thinking up to about 200 years left, at current rates, 10 years ago so indeed not taking AI etc into account.
- In the nineties they said there is only 30 years worth of oil at that times consumption.
  If the need arises, we will find the uranium.
  
  Source? I was a kid in the seventies and the OPEC shit show brought a lot of fresh of discussion and investigation into peak oil, and that was expected to be around now , but nobody I heard from said it would run out. Have some wikipedia with that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
  May I quote that the predictions were decent, however “It has been recognized that conventional oil production has peaked around 2005–2006. What has prevented peak oil from then on is US tight oil which rapidly increased since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. Additionally, but to a lesser extent, Canadian oil-sands production has helped increase oil supply since 2008.”
  So yes, more sources were found, however they were mostly obtainable by tight oil, AKA fracking, and as we all know, fracking is economically viable only when all environmental and other damage is externalised.
- Too bad we closed the door on thorium reactors, I bet whoever made that decision is really ~~upset~~ rich right now
- There are 4 billion tons of uranium in the ocean
  
  There's also a fuckton of gold in the ocean, just waiting for someone to figure out how to filter the entire ocean and pull out the individual atoms. All at a profitable price point.
  Same with uranium. Which means it'll never happen.
  We will have cracked fusion, mined the far side of the moon for helium3 and brought it back to terra before we crack that nut
  For context; we've only mined ~200k tonnes of gold historically with an estimate ~50k tonnes left. The ocean holds 20milion tonnes, worth over $770Trillion and it's not cost effective to get it out.
  
  The environmental damage you will cause by digging shit up from the oceans, if that’s even possible, will be insane. Absolutely insane, completely bonkers, but it does prove once again that nuclear fanbois don’t give a rat’s arse about the environment.

The alternative for base load is batteries, not wind and solar renewables, since they are intermittent. We don't have a good idea yet of just how expensive massive grid storage is yet, but the lead time would definitely be shorter.
- We do though. The cost is really land and rust. Iron oxide batteries are cheap and long lasting but low power density. Perfect for grid storage in a lot of places.
- The alternative to base load is load shifting, just move most loads to when enough power is available. Or in other words, base load is a thing because big power plants like nuclear and coal are slow and someone's gotta use that power at all times.
  
  Load shifting is the destruction of economic value, because it means people are making choices that aren’t optimal for their own lives.
  Time is often written off in economic considerations, but that’s unwise because time is the most limited resource people have.
- Drill a hole and a deper hole and pump/turbine water between them.
  
  That's really really expensive unless you already have natural upper and lower reservoirs.
  
  No way. Far too expensive.

Can Nuclear plant electricity production be run in a decentralised way? No?! Not yet!?
Do we have alternatives to nuclear? Yes!?
We should avoid nuclear then.

The time for nuclear was decades ago.
Now it's being pushed by fossil fuel shills, who'd love nothing more than a gratuitously expensive 20 year boondoggle to let them have free reign over power generation for all that time, and to simultaneously nix any green plans with "but the nuclear is on its way!"

For a country with a huge amount of land and shore, that makes sense for them. But some form of nuclear (uranium fission, thorium fission, fusion?!) continues to be an important part of the world's weaning off of fossil fuels

Who would have thought a political appointment is political.

The political context here is that the Australian conservatives (the liberal coalition I suppose), who have been vividly against climate policies and renewables, are now trying to propose nuke projects on coal power plant sites. Many of these coal power plants are soon to be phased out with renewables plus storage in the queue for the freed transmission capacity, so there isn't really any advantages these sites can offer for nuke projects decades from now.
Of course, any realistic realization of nukes in Australia would be no earlier than 2040 (some even suggest 2050), by then they could already get 100% renewable in energy system easily.

- Exactly. Building nuclear power plants in the 80s should've been the way humanity went. Now, advancements in batteries (Sodium ion for example) and established supply chains means that solar/wind + batteries is the way to go.
  I don't agree with ur safety take on nuclear energy though. All nuclear energy accidents were the result of shitty operational management who were warned waaaay before. It's like airlines in the 60s, where safety standards were hilariously bad. Now, with extremely stringent regulations, we can solve the safety issues.
  
  Shitty operational management is systemic in organisations that operate huge centralized systems though. see: normal accidents accidents
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Accidents
  
  Just wanna add that storing energy can also be done in other forms than electricity. For example, pump water up a hill with solar energy during daytime, and use turbines and gravity during the night
  
  Japan has high safety standards
- harness it,
  Getting more efficient and cost effective at a rapid pace. Still some environmental concerns over manufacturing, raw materials acquisition, and disposal of old equipment.
  store it,
  Getting more efficient and cost effective at a less rapid pace. Still significant environmental concerns over manufacturing, raw materials acquisition, and disposal of old equipment.
  then distribute it.
  Lots of effort and resources needed for this part. Need to subsidize consumer appliance conversion better.
- Nuclear waste is incredibly safe and disasters simply don't happen anymore because of how strict safety protocols are
  
  It's all very well claiming that nuclear waste storage is safe but you can't guarantee anything can be kept safe for 10000 years. Humans haven't managed that for anything, ever.
  
  I certainly agree that we've gotten much better at safely producing and storing. However, with climate change worsening, we continue to have unprecedented natural disasters in unexpected areas which concerns me the most.
  
  This getting heavily downvoted with no replies shows just how much of anti-nuclear is simply based on propaganda and fearmongering, not science. Nuclear is the second safest energy source in the world, nearly tied with solar for first, and actually was the first until not too long ago. And that is despite the heavy investment into renewables and disinvestment into nuclear. If anyone is that worried about the dangers of nuclear to people and the environment, they should turn their attention to hydro-energy (not to speak of fossil fuels, obviously).
  What are even the major disasters regarding nuclear? One, Chernobyl, was in the USSR in the 80s; does anyone remember what phones looked like in the 80s? The other was in Fukushima, which is located in a country known for earthquakes and tsunamis, and it was not build to handle such events; and it still was nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl. I think I've also heard about one in the UK, but that was in the fucking 50s, and even smaller than Fukushima.
- Some countries have sun, some don't. They might need nuclear. That is the reality.
  
  Which countries? The UK is famous for its cloudy weather, yet solar is feasible there. Finland and Sweden are building more and more solar. Not sure where you're talking about.