I think an argument by Johannes is very likely overstated, and perhaps also quite wrong:
That seems more true to me based on what I read about political culture and looking at those things, and also looking at the fact that solar and wind are cheap now, marginal-cost-wise, but they’re very far from an optimal energy technology.
The alternative that seems most promising today is Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). However, I would be quite surprised if these managed to beat solar and wind on cost as SMRs are nothing like solar cells, and also quite far away from even the largest wind turbines—wind and solar are extremely modular and easy to fabricate and assemble! One point that illustrates this is that current SMR (I do not mean to strawman by using SMRs as an example, I honestly think these are the strongest contender to solar and wind) construction projects take on the order of years to assemble on site. In contrast, I would be surprised if the first wind turbine or solar panel to be erected took more than a couple of months (it might actually just have taken days!). Nuclear waste projects are also part of the nuclear story and often ignored by proponents of SMRs. These projects are the worst projects of all megaprojects in terms of cost overruns and scheduling delays (or a close contender to Olympic Games). This part of the nuclear industry seems less likely to be modularized.
There is also references in the podcast to intermittency but this argument is misleading (I realize that perhaps there was not enough time to expand on it in the podcast). One can do a few things to make renewables much less intermittent from a consumer perspective, and this is being done currently at scale:
Overbuild and curtail
Batteries for solar, transmission for wind
[addition 27APR] Demand response, especially industrial demand response
This will in most places get one to ~90% wind and solar. The rest is really not that important in terms of emissions or cost as one has already cleaned up 90% of the power supply with surprisingly cheap generation. Ideally one could close the gap with hydro, bio, SMRs and the like, or just run some fossil plants and do carbon capture.
That said, there might be something more optimal than solar and hydro, but after decades of research it does not really seem to be any strong contenders, even in early stages of R&D. To say that solar and wind are “very far” from being optimal seems wrong. If the statement instead had been “there might be something more optimal than solar or wind, but this is speculation” I think this would have been a more true statement. That said, I definitely buy the argument that politically favorable conditions have helped wind and solar get to the prices they have today, it might not have been possible without. But I very much doubt that we would have as cheap, carbon free electricity today if we had used that political capital on a different technology.
Disclaimer: I have worked in wind energy for over a decade and am biased. But I have also followed cost trends across a range of technologies quite closely.
Also, I really enjoyed the rest of the podcast and changed my views on some aspects on marginal effectiveness in the climate space. So I do not mean my criticism to detract from the overall argument put forward—a lot of the content seemed very sensible.
I find this an interesting discussion, and hope that it will continue.
My own knowledge of this domain is very limited. I’ll just mention some points from World Without End (WWE)… not because I endorse them, but to keep the discussion going:
Because of low energy density, wind and solar require 1-2 orders of magnitude more land use, metal, and concrete per kWh than nuclear power. EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested) is worse.
If batteries are used, the numbers become even worse; also greenhouse has emissions go up. WWE claims nuclear electricity emits about 6g CO2/kWh; wind 10g, battery storage +50g
Intermittency is important. According to WWE, it is harder to mitigate than you suggest, since mitigations increase cost.
Because of intermittency, wind and solar are typically complemented by power that is highly flexible (gas, coal, not nuclear). This means their impact on the climate isn’t all good, since they prevent phasing out gas and coal.
I would be keen to hear specific arguments from the recent downpour of disagreement votes. I have a suspicion there might be some people who think nuclear is a more promising alternative to solar and wind and if so I would be keen to hear some concrete arguments. And if not, I am even more curious to hear what the disagreements are.
Update 28APR: The reason I used the word downpour was that at one time, the agreement vote was down to −8. Now it is up to −6 again. I guess this means there is a chance there might in total be >10 votes on disagreement (I would love a feature on the EAF where one can see the total number of votes either way so one can highlight comments/posts that receive a ton of votes both ways—now these are hidden as they show up as “unimportant” as only net votes are counted).
Addition 02MAY: I now see one can see number of votes by hovering over the karma or agreement net vote count—I guess the engineers of this forum is one step ahead of me. Great job! This shows there is actually no downpour. I think I had 2 people strongly disagreeing, and then only 1 more person strongly agreeing (3 agreement votes to get from −9 to −6).
just quickly to say that (1) I did not downvote your comment and that (2) I am still planning to respond to the substance of your comment (just had surgery last week and working at much reduced capacity).
Hi Johannes, no worry about downvoting, I just hope someone can explain why I am wrong (maybe I am!). And I wish you a speedy recovery and no rush on responding—I am not losing sleep over it.
I think an argument by Johannes is very likely overstated, and perhaps also quite wrong:
The alternative that seems most promising today is Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). However, I would be quite surprised if these managed to beat solar and wind on cost as SMRs are nothing like solar cells, and also quite far away from even the largest wind turbines—wind and solar are extremely modular and easy to fabricate and assemble! One point that illustrates this is that current SMR (I do not mean to strawman by using SMRs as an example, I honestly think these are the strongest contender to solar and wind) construction projects take on the order of years to assemble on site. In contrast, I would be surprised if the first wind turbine or solar panel to be erected took more than a couple of months (it might actually just have taken days!). Nuclear waste projects are also part of the nuclear story and often ignored by proponents of SMRs. These projects are the worst projects of all megaprojects in terms of cost overruns and scheduling delays (or a close contender to Olympic Games). This part of the nuclear industry seems less likely to be modularized.
There is also references in the podcast to intermittency but this argument is misleading (I realize that perhaps there was not enough time to expand on it in the podcast). One can do a few things to make renewables much less intermittent from a consumer perspective, and this is being done currently at scale:
Overbuild and curtail
Batteries for solar, transmission for wind
[addition 27APR] Demand response, especially industrial demand response
This will in most places get one to ~90% wind and solar. The rest is really not that important in terms of emissions or cost as one has already cleaned up 90% of the power supply with surprisingly cheap generation. Ideally one could close the gap with hydro, bio, SMRs and the like, or just run some fossil plants and do carbon capture.
That said, there might be something more optimal than solar and hydro, but after decades of research it does not really seem to be any strong contenders, even in early stages of R&D. To say that solar and wind are “very far” from being optimal seems wrong. If the statement instead had been “there might be something more optimal than solar or wind, but this is speculation” I think this would have been a more true statement. That said, I definitely buy the argument that politically favorable conditions have helped wind and solar get to the prices they have today, it might not have been possible without. But I very much doubt that we would have as cheap, carbon free electricity today if we had used that political capital on a different technology.
Disclaimer: I have worked in wind energy for over a decade and am biased. But I have also followed cost trends across a range of technologies quite closely.
Also, I really enjoyed the rest of the podcast and changed my views on some aspects on marginal effectiveness in the climate space. So I do not mean my criticism to detract from the overall argument put forward—a lot of the content seemed very sensible.
I find this an interesting discussion, and hope that it will continue.
My own knowledge of this domain is very limited. I’ll just mention some points from World Without End (WWE)… not because I endorse them, but to keep the discussion going:
Because of low energy density, wind and solar require 1-2 orders of magnitude more land use, metal, and concrete per kWh than nuclear power. EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested) is worse.
If batteries are used, the numbers become even worse; also greenhouse has emissions go up. WWE claims nuclear electricity emits about 6g CO2/kWh; wind 10g, battery storage +50g
Intermittency is important. According to WWE, it is harder to mitigate than you suggest, since mitigations increase cost.
Because of intermittency, wind and solar are typically complemented by power that is highly flexible (gas, coal, not nuclear). This means their impact on the climate isn’t all good, since they prevent phasing out gas and coal.
I would be keen to hear specific arguments from the recent downpour of disagreement votes. I have a suspicion there might be some people who think nuclear is a more promising alternative to solar and wind and if so I would be keen to hear some concrete arguments. And if not, I am even more curious to hear what the disagreements are.
Update 28APR: The reason I used the word downpour was that at one time, the agreement vote was down to −8. Now it is up to −6 again. I guess this means there is a chance there might in total be >10 votes on disagreement (I would love a feature on the EAF where one can see the total number of votes either way so one can highlight comments/posts that receive a ton of votes both ways—now these are hidden as they show up as “unimportant” as only net votes are counted).
Addition 02MAY: I now see one can see number of votes by hovering over the karma or agreement net vote count—I guess the engineers of this forum is one step ahead of me. Great job! This shows there is actually no downpour. I think I had 2 people strongly disagreeing, and then only 1 more person strongly agreeing (3 agreement votes to get from −9 to −6).
Hi Ulrik,
just quickly to say that (1) I did not downvote your comment and that (2) I am still planning to respond to the substance of your comment (just had surgery last week and working at much reduced capacity).
Hi Johannes, no worry about downvoting, I just hope someone can explain why I am wrong (maybe I am!). And I wish you a speedy recovery and no rush on responding—I am not losing sleep over it.