i don't believe it. where are all the nuclear power plants then? they are unpopular almost everywhere...

PaulHoule 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The trouble w/ nuclear power plants isn't that the public hates them, it's that the bond market hates them. Even the sticker price is a little bit too expensive but it usually seems to take several times more money and time to build one than anticipated.

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Vasbarlog 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Now that renewables are so cheap, nuclear plants are not cost effective and require massive subsidies by the state.

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encom 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

We just had a period of no wind and overcast days in Denmark. And this time of year daylight only lasts for about 8½ hours.

As a result, electricity prices set a new record. At peak my price per kw/h was 22 times higher than it was in the summer. Twenty two times.

	▲	Vasbarlog 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yep. But a nuclear power plant can make its money back on several days of now wind and overcast. I am all in for state controlled power plants and for the nationalisation of energy companies. What I an against is for the government to give money away to privately held energy companies.

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PaulHoule 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Cheap when the sun is shining during the day.

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wk_end 2 days ago | parent [-]

Wind is a thing, batteries are a thing, hydro is a thing...

Maybe all that's still not going to cover you in all cases, but...I'm not anti-nuclear by any means, but my understanding is that the upfront costs are very high and take a long time to recoup even in the best of cases. If it's only used as a backup for when cheaper renewable energy can't be generated or bought I'm not sure if the economics will ever work out anymore.

	▲	PaulHoule 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		There's a different between "a thing" and a complete system. They're still expanding hydro in China because they can tell 2 million people to take a hike and there is nothing they can do about it. I remember reading about how the Glen Canyon dam was going to silt up in 40 years or so back in 1990 and... it did! A real price for solar energy when you consider batteries for overnight/Dunkelflaut and overbuilding for winter could be 2-3x what people are quoting now... Right about in AP1000 territory. And yeah, what will really happen is that energy markets will be built around the need of gas turbine peakers who will wind up making almost all the profit in electricity generation even if they are only making 1% of it. By 2050 renewables might be seen as a failed technology the way nuclear was circa 1990, but it might not matter much because India will have a heat event that causes a few million mass causalities and they might decide to use their nuclear weapons to put an end to the fossil fuel age.

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georgemcbay 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The claim being made wasn't that nuclear power is universally popular, just that it is way more popular than datacenters.

People (in the US anyway, ymmv elsewhere) really, really hate datacenters and just vaguely distrust nuclear power (without a lot of conviction).

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dsr_ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

... People don't pay directly for either nuclear power plants or datacenters. The closest they come to affecting this is by passing and enforcing zoning regulations.

In any case, most of us would rather have one beating than six, but that doesn't mean we want one beating.