worrisome news

[james_davis_nicoll]

Misinformation about fusion may impede deployment of a technology unlikely to be delivered in a practical, commercial form during our lifetimes.

Comments

[neowolf2]

I don't think it's worth putting anything more into nuclear fission, save perhaps continuing to operate some existing power plants for a time. New ones are so far out of the running economically that building them would be CO2-inferior to focusing entirely on renewables.

This might not have been so obvious even ten years ago, but renewable and storage costs have crashed and continue to decline.

[roseembolism]

Honestly, given the economics of nuclear power, the only reason to build more plants is if you want them to supply plutonium for nuclear weapons.

[scott_sanford]

Renewable energy prices, particularly solar, are falling through the floor right now. That's nice. Energy storage isn't there yet, certainly not for the amounts of power it takes to run an electrical grid - but we can hope.

[neowolf2]

The relevant figure is not how much storage costs now, but how much storage would cost N years in the future, where N = number of years to build a nuclear power plant starting the planning now - number of years to do the same to a battery installation.

BTW, LFP batteries in China are just crashing in price recently (cell price).

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/01/ev-lfp-battery-price-war-w-55-in-six-months.html

Global battery production approached 1.1 TWh of capacity in 2023, most of that in China.