What we need is battery arrays
I absolutely agree. My support for nuclear is not instead of renewables, but in addition to it. Nuclear is a proven technology, and at least in the US, we have a lot of space where we can store waste relatively inexpensively (nobody’s going to care about a massive landfill in Nevada).
The problem with going for 100% renewables is that I don’t think we can really keep up with battery production, and if we push for dramatically increasing our energy storage capacity (whether that’s chemical batteries, pumped hydro, etc), it’s going to cost a ton to transition. Solar is cheaper than nuclear, but solar + battery backup currently is not, especially if it needs to run over the winter when solar generation is much lower.
I’m not saying we should stop installing battery-backed solar projects, but that we should add nuclear to the list. Our electricity demand will only continue to increase, so we need multiple solutions to replace coal and eventually natural gas. One of the major cost and time limitations for nuclear is construction, and that’s because we don’t build many of them. If we line up multiple plant projects at the same time, we can make better use of our engineering resources (it’s a lot easier to build 10 of something back to back than 10 of something months or years apart), which will make nuclear more attractive compared to other options.
gas can not stay the main way to heat homes
Agreed, and I’ve actually been looking into heat pumps for my own home. I already have an external AC unit, so theoretically the transition shouldn’t be that hard (air ducts already exist).
The problem is that, in my area, winters get pretty cold, and heat pumps are a lot less efficient at heating when it’s cold. The solution is to dig a deep hole to bury the heat exchangers so they get a more consistent temperature to maintain efficiency, and that’s a really expensive project for existing structures (not bad for new construction). The transition to heat pumps is going to be very slow because of that large upfront cost/poor efficiency in winter.
Even if this wasn’t an issue, there’s still the massive problem of existing electricity production (in my area) being fueled by coal and natural gas. If I switch to a heat pump, I may be polluting more than if I stuck with gas (it’s pretty close last I checked). My state (ignoring transportation) gets something like 1/3 of its energy from coal, about half from natural gas, and most of the rest comes from solar (and a little from wind). We need something to handle that base load supply, and installing batteries is going to be expensive (esp. since hydro isn’t really an option in our desert) and probably take many years regardless. Nuclear can be built today, and in my area, it can be built on the other side of a mountain range from the bulk of the population.
Warm water is an amazing energy storage medium
I doubt we have enough water here in the desert to handle that. We already have problems with our existing inconsistent water supply for regular users, locking up even more water is going to be a really tough sell.
I agree it’s going to be a challenge. But I’m sceptical nuclear is going to help there; from historical experience, it takes upwards of 20 years to build a reactor. Even if that gets expedited through modern technologies, we’re still talking something like 15 years until they come online, and you’re still paying all the upfront costs throughout that time. Whereas solar can go from concept to grid in 2 years, and batteries aren’t much worse.
The desert indeed makes large-scale warm water storage infeasible, but the kind of home setups I mentioned first should still be good to go, it’s basically only your preexisting heating loop times 2 or 3, that’s negligible compared to farming demands, and it stays in the loop forever (except for leakage). Storing warm water that you’d use anyways also doesn’t increase demand.
The desert has the benefit that solar can be really well calculated, since you (mostly) need to consider seasonal changes in sunlight, not cloud cover. That can be planned around
You got a point about the heat pump efficiency though. For new communities there should be a trend towards centralized heating that provides for a whole city block, to make use of economy of scale and raise efficiency beyond what is reasonable for a single home. But that’s dreaming to far, probably
it takes upwards of 20 years to build a reactor. Even if that gets expedited through modern technologies, we’re still talking something like 15 years until they come online, and you’re still paying all the upfront costs throughout that time
From some reading, it seems a lot of that is bureaucracy (non-safety related), construction delays, and lawsuits. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could get that down to 10 years average with a concerted effort, assuming we can build multiple in parallel.
Whereas solar can go from concept to grid in 2 years, and batteries aren’t much worse.
Sure, on a small-ish scale. A nuclear plant will put out way more electricity than a typical solar project will. So while the time to getting value from it will be a lot shorter w/ solar, they tend to chip away at existing infrastructure instead of completely replacing plants.
The desert has the benefit that solar can be really well calculated
Oh yeah, solar is incredibly effective here, the main problem is storage. Hydro isn’t really a thing since our dams are intended to keep water for summer use, and they refill when we’d want to be generating power. Warm water also isn’t feasible at scale, and promising technologies still aren’t proven. I’m especially interested in hydrogen storage, since it could be really useful for long-haul trucking (we’re a pretty big hub for that) in addition to storage for winter generation.
I was interested in EVs being used for overnight power storage (basically recharge during the day while at work), but it seems like that hasn’t materialized.
centralized heating that provides for a whole city block
I don’t think we’d need to go that far, putting in buried heat exchangers on new construction isn’t that expensive, and I’d expect coordinating billing and whatnot would be more annoying than it’s worth (need an HOA, and HOAs can really suck).
The better option, IMO, is to create mixed-use zoning near transit hubs, which would encourage use of mass transit and allow for those economies of scale you’re talking about without annoying planned communities w/ HOAs (i.e. business below you could pay your heating/cooling bill). Maybe that’s what you were getting at, my point is that it doesn’t make as much sense for residential areas IMO, but it could make sense for mixed zoning areas.
I do want to point out that I’m not obsessed w/ nuclear or anything, I just think it’s a good option to replace existing base-load plants running on coal and natural gas.
