Nebakenezzer posted:

this is why we were discussing nuclear, you clod

quote:

Speaking of, it seems the Canadian government is showing interest in nuclear again, specifically small modular nuclear: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nuclear-power-small-modular-reactor-1.5188048

quote:

Terrestrial Energy is designing a small modular reactor that it hopes will be operational in 2029.

silence_kit posted:

It doesn't make sense to me how posters in this thread can vaguely blame government regulations for all of the failures of nuclear electricity in recent years, and then in the same breath call for and think that a giant government program to build a lot of nuclear power plants is the way to go.


The majority opinion posters in this thread have consistently been wrong about the progress and prospects of renewable electricity generation. They've definitely changed their tune on renewable energy once it became apparent that it would really catch on. I don't know what the future of electricity generation will be but given the track record of the majority opinion posters of this thread, I suspect that the future might be the opposite of whatever they think.

Platystemon posted:

The problem I have with the candidates that say they’re pro‐nuclear is that I don’t believe they will follow through on that in any significant way.

StabbinHobo posted:

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

There's no reason not to include them in the overall plan to decarbonize. It would make Bernie's plan even better than it currently is.

quote:

Separately, one thing I haven't heard any discussion of with regards to renewables is the issue of overcapacity and diminishing returns.

SInce you have to build more renewables to cover for the intermittent nature of the power, each new unit installed yields less of a return due to it being used less overall. At a certain market penetration the rate of return essentially drops to zero. How do you overcome that economic barrier to reach 100% renewable?

quote:

Now if we are talking 60% renewable 40 % nuclear it makes sense to me. otherwise it just seems to ignore some fundamental economics of the situation.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Is there a dark enlightenment movement equivalent for liberalism cause god drat.

silence_kit posted:

It doesn't make sense to me how posters in this thread can vaguely blame government regulations for all of the failures of nuclear electricity in recent years, and then in the same breath call for and think that a giant government program to build a lot of nuclear power plants is the way to go.


The majority opinion posters in this thread have consistently been wrong about the progress and prospects of renewable electricity generation. They've definitely changed their tune on renewable energy once it became apparent that it would really catch on. I don't know what the future of electricity generation will be but given the track record of the majority opinion posters of this thread, I suspect that the future might be the opposite of whatever they think.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Separately, one thing I haven't heard any discussion of with regards to renewables is the issue of overcapacity and diminishing returns.

SInce you have to build more renewables to cover for the intermittent nature of the power, each new unit installed yields less of a return due to it being used less overall. At a certain market penetration the rate of return essentially drops to zero. How do you overcome that economic barrier to reach 100% renewable? Now if we are talking 60% renewable 40 % nuclear it makes sense to me. otherwise it just seems to ignore some fundamental economics of the situation.

Morbus posted:

Given:

1. The current cost and cost trajectories of wind & solar

2. The spectacular failure over the last 15 years of anyone to build nuclear reactors even remotely on time or on budget--due almost entirely to unforced fuckups and not ~*~regulation~*~

3. The extreme time pressures we are under to decarbonize

quote:

What is the logical basis for being so gung-ho about nuclear these days? Are these people who just formed their opinions around 2008 and haven't kept up, or is there something more to it? Unless you have some realistic plan to build thousands of reactors in 5-10 years (noting that most Gen IV designs are taking 10+ years to construct even one at a time), and an existing design with which to do it, isn't it more sensible to just throw trillions of dollars at solar/wind + storage?

quote:

Honestly, the time to be all in on nuclear was 20, 30 years ago. That ship has sailed. Time's up. The technology development that needed to happen didn't happen in time. The industrial expertise to build reactors isn't there. The promises of the Gen IV designs never materialized. What loving plausible trajectory is there to go from where we are now, to carbon free energy in 10, even 15 years, based mostly (or even significantly) on nuclear expansion? Versus just making GBS threads out photovoltaics like our lives depend on it?

In any case, it should be absolutely, 100% clear that the most critical priority is to commit to decarbonization.

suck my woke dick posted:

China is building regular reactors in numbers that aren't a complete joke. Rumours of the demise of the Chinese nuclear expansion have been greatly exaggerated, they just waited until at least one unit of all the GenIII reactor types in build got finished before deciding on which ones to expand further.

StabbinHobo posted:

That's how you and I feel, but that's not what the primary voting electorate thinks. As Nocturtle very clearly pointed out with very simple graphs last page.

StabbinHobo posted:

no you're not. you're sandbagging the one viable option with concern trolling and making perfect the enemy of good.

StabbinHobo posted:

no you're not. you're sandbagging the one viable option with concern trolling and making perfect the enemy of good.

Dante80 posted:

WRT China, you can view this process as the same approach they had with high-speed rail. Start by shopping around, then move to ToT deals, improve the design while removing intellectual property right-limited components at the same time, test it thoroughly, bring it to market and THEN use it to furiously expand.

Right now, they are at the phase of completing their GenIII merged design, and are waiting for this.





If the design proves successful, they are going into overdrive with them (both in China and as exports).

Dante80 posted:

I think that you are misunderstanding something. Critisizing Sanders for some of his policy ideas does not mean that he is magically cancelled because of them.

StabbinHobo posted:

It is impossible to converse on forums when people continually forget the context every 5+ posts and act like these comments are stand alone full statement policy positions.

The climate change thread, and several *pages* of this thread were being shitted up by people saying that Bernie's plan was poo poo, it'll never work, people who aren't pro nuke are stupid/evil, etc. My argument has only ever been against them, not against anyone trying to constructively criticize and/or work with the campaign to improve (can you point to one example of that though?)

The only two posters who managed to read, comprehend, and *then* post are Morbus and Nocturtle.

Pander posted:

You are presenting your opinions as facts

StabbinHobo posted:

which of these facts do you think are my opinion

- if we exceed 2C there will likely be a 10M - 100M bodycount from drought/famine/war (IPCC if you read through the obvious dry language)
- in order to not exceed 2C we need to decarbonize by 2050 (IPCC, very conservative, assumes very large scale NET)
- the grid will be one of the easier things to decarbonize and as such should be front-loaded in the timetable (bernies plan is "by 2030")
- in order to decarbonize we need to start by 2020 (outdated and very conservative IPCC estimate)
- the free market has thus far totally failed to address this transition in the time and scale necessary (do you disagree?)

therefore the only way to achieve the goal of minimizing the body count is for large scale public policy and govt works (do you disagree?)

- the only state or global actors capable of such scale are the U.N., the US, China, and possibly things like the EU, World Bank, WTO, etc.
- none of them are in a position to tell the U.S. what to do by 2020 (or for long thereafter)
- china is already doing its thing, we have no say in it anyway
- for a variety of reasons both pragmatic (wealth) and in the vague category of 'justice' the U.S. needs to lead decarbonization and "go first"

therefore the only way to achieve the necessary change in the necessary time frame is via the upcoming 2020 american presidential election

- the republican options will not achieve these goals (decarbonize by 2050, save 10 - 100m) or anything even remotely close to them

therefore to solve this problem we must "go through" the 2020 democratic presidential primary electorate

- support for nuclear is very low in this demographic, it has been for a very long time, we cannot educate and change these opinions in time for the upcoming election(s)
- even though other candidates pay lip service to nuclear its in the form of r&d or wishful thinking, not command-economy plans. their "support" of nuclear is nominal and inconsequential.

therefore nuclear is off the table in the short term (this election)

- warrens plan comes in around 2T and is totally inadequate to the scope of the challenge at hand
- joe biden's plan is even less
- at 16T bernie's plan is not just the largest by an order of magnitude, it is a fundamental transformation of the relationship between the state and the private energy sector
- such a transformed relationship is a necessary pre-requisite of any hope for a future large scale nuclear build out that overcomes the failures of the private nuke industry

therefore, if your goal is the lowest possible bodycount, you have to support the bernie plan (for now).

that does not mean it can't be criticized, that does not mean it cant be improved. all of my angry replies have been to people who have dismissed or rejected it outright with no plausible alternative.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Here's a plausible alternative.

Do what bernie is proposing, but add nuclear. It's not like people that support bernie are going to stay home because there are nuclear reactors in his climate plan.

Tell me why i'm wrong.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Here's a plausible alternative.

Do what bernie is proposing, but add nuclear. It's not like people that support bernie are going to stay home because there are nuclear reactors in his climate plan.

Tell me why i'm wrong.

StabbinHobo posted:

I think its absurd to think that bernie in particular, a candidate who's entire appeal is how he's been holding all his opinions as an outlier for two full generations in the wilderness just hasn't had the right chat with "scientists".

StabbinHobo posted:

I think its absurd to think that bernie in particular, a candidate who's entire appeal is how he's been holding all his opinions as an outlier for two full generations in the wilderness just hasn't had the right chat with "scientists".

fishmech posted:

Agreed, he's entirely ineffective as a climate advocate because he doesn't listen to evidence.

quote:

Longi revealed its plan to reach a mono wafer production capacity of 65 GW by the end of 2021 will now be achieved next year. Longi had previously stated it would be able to churn out ‘only’ 50 GW of wafers by that stage, after notching 36 GW this year.

StabbinHobo posted:

speaking of construction:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/09/04/longi-brings-forward-manufacturing-capacity-plans-by-a-year/


if you dig back to just to 2017 and 2018 they were in the 4 - 8 GW range. thats straight up 10x growth in <4 years. and they're only the fifth largest manufacturer of solar-pv. that means we're already in the 100's of GW/year, and in probably 5ish years we'll be producing terrawatts of solar panels a year.

the question is rapidly going to flip from "can we build enough solar" to "what do we do with all this solar".

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Let it go to waste as we don't have any way to store it .

Overcapacity only helps to a certain extent. The more overcapacity you have the less economic it is to install another panel.

Until we have grid storage that is worth a drat it doesn't help much.

VideoGameVet posted:

Or a grid that's worth a drat.

StabbinHobo posted:

argh that is so loving dumb i'm gonna get banned if i engage

why does d&d even exist if freshman year poo poo takes are the bar, why not just move this thread to gbs


edit: vvv lol as if to prove the point, yes, "lets start over", good plan

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Please, engage.

Do you find our current grid to be sufficient? It's not like I was making a serious prescription on how to fix the issue. It's hard to imagine fixing the current shitshow of a grid without something drastic.

Is grid unification even on anyone's radar?

quote:

As for the crops, there were some significant differences. As the chiltepin peppers are shade-adapted, they were considerably happier with some solar panels overhead. Growth was calculated in terms of CO2 uptake, and this was 33% higher in the combined plot. The water-use efficiency of the plants didn’t change, so they also used more soil moisture as they grew. The mass of peppers they produced, however, tripled under the solar panels.

The jalapeños, on the other hand, took up 11% less CO2 under the panels, showing that they missed the extra sunlight. Even so, their water efficiency increased in a big way, and they used 65% less water. The amount of peppers produced dropped slightly, but not beyond the error bars.

Finally, the cherry tomatoes saw a 65% increase in CO2 uptake and a 65% increase in water-use efficiency. They produced twice as much fruit while using the same amount of water.

Based on the temperature-efficiency curves of these solar panels, the researchers calculated that the cooler temperatures should increase electricity generation by about 3% over the summer months, averaging out to a 1% gain for the whole year.