China starts up world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor
China starts up world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor
China has started commercial operations at a new generation nuclear reactor that is the first of its kind in the world, state media said on Wednesday.
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Notify me if they can keep it running economically and without hidden costs.
Have others been uneconomical?
It was usually old-style (insecure) and expensive, covered with hidden funding, or new tech (somewhat secure) and even more expensive.
Depends. Right now it isnt really that impressive. Bit questionable to build new nuclear power imho.
Just given that other power sources are so much cheaper.
Then there is also the controversy of explicit and implicit subsidies. For instance here: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/nuclear_subsidies_summary.pdf
a report that shows historically the subsidies were enormous. Right now it seems a bit tricky to estimate - but I haven't read the report in detail.
Edit: sorry wanted to answer @qooqie
Cheaper because it’s being subsidised and supported by gas peaker plants. If renewables had to deliver guaranteed capacity (and not just “yeah, I might deliver some power and some point and when I do, you better be able to receive it”) the real price would show. As it happens, grid operators can accept it because we’ve still got a grid full of steerable generation (mainly gas and nuclear) that they can turn off. Once it’s renewables all the way down, what are we going to do on the many periods where we don’t have wind for days? Storage?! Puhlese, the scale of the requirement is a magnitude higher than we could ever hope to store.
In the end, renewables will be shitloads cheaper if we maintain some steerable demand. I’d rather that be nuclear.
It’s best if we don’t think like a fanboy - but instead have a realistic debate about the price of integration nuclear at high penetration. The total mix price will be a lot cheaper if we maintain 20% steerable.
The science is pretty clear on this.
I think that is a relevant point. But if solar capacity is that much cheaper you can just build much more of it and still offset thenprice.
Germany had >80% renewables for many days this year
Are you suggesting nuclear is steerable? Because afaik it is not.
I don't see an alternative to 100% renewable + higher capacity to offset storage inefficiency. France is trying it, but it is super costly and unreliable.
Off shore wind hehe
Why is it hydro always left out of these comparisons?
Have you got a nice big valley with an existing water flow to donate or sell to a new hydro plant?
Hydro is absolutely great (if you ignore local ecosystem ecological damage) but it has very significant land use requirements. These can make it difficult to build practically once you have most of the good spots filled in, so it's incredibly difficult to price new builds of it. Some areas may be infinite cost because the land topology simply doesn't exist. Others may have the perfect site and be relatively cheap.
All power sources have requirements. It's no reason to remove this or that one from the comparison.
Nuclear was never "really" that cheap.