In absolute terms, China installs about as much nuclear as the US does solar. So I can only assume you agree with the statement "the US is bringing on an insane amount of solar energy"? Because, once again in absolute terms, the US's solar buildout is trounced by China's. The US is losing the energy race, and nuclear isn't going to save it. The US will run out of fissile material before China runs out of sunlight.
China is building a tiny amount of nuclear in comparison to their wind, solar, storage, and HVDC builds. Only something like 50-100GW over thw coming decades. The quantity being built only makes sense as a strategic hedge, not as a primary strategy.
Renewables crash the money making potential of nuclear power. Why should someone buy ~18-24 cents/kWh new built nuclear power excluding backup, transmission costs, taxes, final waste deposit etc. when cheap renewables deliver?
China is barely building nuclear power, in terms of their grid size. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity.
nuclear provides for about 4-5ct/kwh if built cheap, everything included, looking at swiss data. Chinese units are built for 2.5bn/unit, so probably even cheaper than that.
But yes, china is far from what france or sweden did with nuclear per capita
Again they aren't the same product. Everyone always thinks power is only about $/kwh especially in hackernews. That is a strong proponent of the product but most definitely not all of it. Solar just does not work for large scale industrial uses cases (99.99% uptime). Even with massive energy storage to try and cover the edges. Its a great combo but not comparable.
In absolute terms, China installs about as much nuclear as the US does solar. So I can only assume you agree with the statement "the US is bringing on an insane amount of solar energy"? Because, once again in absolute terms, the US's solar buildout is trounced by China's. The US is losing the energy race, and nuclear isn't going to save it. The US will run out of fissile material before China runs out of sunlight.
Depends if they start seeding clouds and doing geo engineering.
Nuclear and solar are different energy products that are complementary. This solar vs nuclear narrative is basic and anti progress.
For example china invested in solar so they can transition their energy system and get it paid by selling globally via subsidized cell manufacturing.
I don't think they will be able to sell export their nuclear tech globally since it is essentially repackaged US tech.
But yeah Im all for solar - more solar the better but it cant do firm power well.
There's really no risk of running out of fissile material. We can create it.
China is building a tiny amount of nuclear in comparison to their wind, solar, storage, and HVDC builds. Only something like 50-100GW over thw coming decades. The quantity being built only makes sense as a strategic hedge, not as a primary strategy.
Renewables crash the money making potential of nuclear power. Why should someone buy ~18-24 cents/kWh new built nuclear power excluding backup, transmission costs, taxes, final waste deposit etc. when cheap renewables deliver?
https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Wha...
China is barely building nuclear power, in terms of their grid size. It peaked at 4.6% in 2021, now down to 4.3%.
Compared to their renewable buildout the nuclear scheme is a token gesture to keep a nuclear industry alive if it would somehow end up delivering cheap electricity.
nuclear provides for about 4-5ct/kwh if built cheap, everything included, looking at swiss data. Chinese units are built for 2.5bn/unit, so probably even cheaper than that. But yes, china is far from what france or sweden did with nuclear per capita
Again they aren't the same product. Everyone always thinks power is only about $/kwh especially in hackernews. That is a strong proponent of the product but most definitely not all of it. Solar just does not work for large scale industrial uses cases (99.99% uptime). Even with massive energy storage to try and cover the edges. Its a great combo but not comparable.
How does your "large scale industrial use case" deal with 50% of the French nuclear fleet being offline?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...
Or 50% of the Swedish fleet two times this year being offline?
At the same time it happened, the french solar was 92% offline and the french wind generation was 81% offline.
Maybe we should get the opposite conclusion from this incident.
Based on yearly average capacity factor?
Since that incident storage has been scaling massively. How does a nuclear plant compete with zero marginal cost renewables?
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Quiet-Unravel...
by providing firm power.
Based on if it would run at full capacity like a plant would yes.
And no, storage hasn't scale at all yet, it would need a 100x increase before being useful for such events.
The proof is in the pudding anyways, if that works so well, why nobody does it?
Nobody does what? Solar installs are way way up.
Nobody does a storage based solar grid at a country scale.