• rook@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    23 hours ago

    Given the state of renewables and energy storage, this feels a lot like the final opportunity for nuclear power in its current state to actually do anything at all, and the “move fast and break things” crowd have no idea about building physical things more complex than a datacentre which honestly, isn’t that challenging in comparison.

    openai will be a smoking crater well before site for the first plant will get selected

    Other things that might not last that long include the government of the country in which you’re trying to build massive piece of infrastructure that represents a significant ongoing maintenance burden and risk.

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      11 hours ago

      renewable generation, i’m with you, but i’m not sold on storage. i’m not even sure if there’s enough lithium for grid batteries to seriously matter, so it might need to use something else. the boring, working option (geographically limited) is of course pumped storage hydro, but other than that, i think that the right way to do things is to use energy when it’s made, not when it’s needed. in particular, water heaters have tiny duty cycle and hot water just sits there, which means you could, in principle, make it so that water heaters soak up all, or at least as much as practical, of excess power, wherever it is available

      some countries do fund nuclear power as a kind of strategic energy independence hedge* no matter costs, most prominently france and russia, and to some degree india and a couple of others

      *also for military use

      • swlabr@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        5 hours ago

        i hear sodium batteries are emerging as an alternative to lithium, but note that I also don’t know shit about this domain