And in “tell Us Something we Didn’t Already Know” news.

  • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    Nuclear energy is the most expensive type of energy, you could have way more wind and solar energy (stored in batteries or hydrogen) for the same investment. And without waste that keeps radiating for the next millenia.

      • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Additional comment against nuclear: water cooling, which is a real problem in a warming climate. Rivers will dry up or flood. And near the coast with rising sea levels is also difficult, using salt water. Besides, there are plenty of sustainable alternatives with a cheaper price tag, so why bother?

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      17 days ago

      Nuclear is expensive because we’ve made it expensive. The most expensive part is bureaucracy. Running nuclear plants is cheap. Even still, the price of nuclear around the world is competitive. If you scroll down to the regional studies, nuclear looks even better. In every place except the US that has nuclear, nuclear is the second cheapest, with large-scale PV the only one higher (which doesn’t price in solutions to provide baseline power, which nuclear has built in). The US has (purposefully) made nuclear appear expensive because laws have been paid for by dirty oil companies.

      Nuclear is also one of the safest and cleanest energy sources. If you include negative externalities into the cost (which is never done but should be) nuclear is amazing.

      • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Nah, even the wikipage shows double the price compared to solar or wind. Which isn’t surprising when you look at the basic technology of each energy type. And they all have to deal with a lot of bureaucracy.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          16 days ago

          Stop lying. No it doesn’t. Unless you can’t read the graph, it’s very similarly priced to the rest. Solar is significantly more expensive at low capacity but cheaper at high capacity. It’s approximately equal to coal and wind, depending on capacity. Nuclear can be cheaper than even the cheapest offshore wind.

          The graph showing nuclear getting more expensive at higher capacity does show something interesting though. I can’t say what causes that, but I assume larger plants have more bureaucracy to deal with, which artificially increases their cost. (Edit: I even read it wrong I think. It shows as more are installed they got more expensive, which implies a temporal relation. More laws restricting nuclear make it more expensive, which is not surprising. Nuclear would be very cheap if it stayed at the same cost as the minimum was.) It may be something else. It’s hard to say. Nuclear is basically right on the middle of the cost axis though.