The Real Costs of Advanced Nuclear 

On the flip side, there are a lot of places in the world that would really like even an incandecent lightbulb just to stop burning charcoal indoors, so any PWR is a thousand times better than coal, but we must recognize the fundamental limitations of that tech, looking into the future.

Do me a favour and ask how much the extra grid capacity will cost to the millions and millions of customers. I seem to be ghosted. Hahaha. As they say, solving the wrong technology or economic problem is not the answer. 😮

No multi $billion license required for blue LEDs. In the US, where reactor design, construction, operation have to licensed, not clear how high burn up has to do w anything. LW reactors are the only creatures the NRC will allow for commercial. It’s made that clear again and again. The AP1000 light water is the only design the NRC has ever approved, and licensed to build and operate, since it’s creation in the 1970s.

Because, Russia! 😢

@@richardscathouse just use their design.

​@@waywardgeologist2520Chyrnoble?

So sadly true 😂

Let's be honest, realistic, and pragmatic. The energy transition will take well over 100 years so there is no reason to make stupid energy decisions. Let's convert as much coal-based energy to natural gas while we commercialize advanced nuclear fission, the only technology that can actually replace fossil fuels.

@@chapter4travels I reckon the effects of climate change will be hastening our transition faster that we think it should otherwise sensibly take. And we know for certain that we can decarbonise our electricity grids almost completely, with only nuclear power... So it's not stupid to just decide to just go and build nuclear straight away. It's going to cost a huge pile of money, so it's not stupid to want to spend just one huge pile of money, rather than 2 of them, if we faffed around with the tempting but intermittent stuff, or a bigger roll out of gas. And gas isn't looking so great, so clean as we're noticing how much methane is leaking out of the whole system, and it's monstrous potency as a greenhouse gas. So i do think that we'll be starting building multi-unit NPPs at multiple sites... and every country will be doing varying scales of this. Either way, just because nuclear is the only tech that can decarbonise us properly, we are going to see the nuclear industry explode worldwide, and the things the guys talked about in the video will come to fruition... It's gonna have enough business, money, confidence that we can try all these new tech, new methods, new everything. And out of that, we'll get the reactors to decarbonise most of industry, industrial heat, process heat, and all the other weird and wonderful stuff that will make use of reactors... But todays reactors can decarbonise all of our electricity grids, everywhere... That alone is a mammoth task, and one we can just get on with. And again, climate change is gonna be persuading us to go even faster than we are.

@@cheeseandjamsandwich I think the opposite is true, so far the slight warming and enriched atmosphere has had net positive effects on our climate. The globe is greening at an astonishing rate, and global crop yields are breaking records with no increase in extreme weather. (regardless of the propaganda) 2023 was a new record for coal and natural gas consumption and this trend will continue until those fuels become more expensive than nuclear. By then low-pressure/high-temperature nukes will have matured and the transition will begin. The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades.

@@chapter4travels "so far the slight warming and enriched atmosphere has had net positive effects on our climate." ... Sorry, what?!? Perhaps the people you're listening to are telling you reassuring things, but the reality is a bit different. There's a huge number of boring researchers, scientist, analysts, etc. that just don't have charisma as some people do have... They're tending to say the opposite, and are mostly holding back a bit, as they don't want to scare people... But its when we take the observations from more and more and more of them, and consider them all together, then we can safely say that we're proper fucked. Things are gonna get messy. Our systems will not be able to support 8.1 billion of us (they can't currently, let alone tomorrow). We simply will not be able to adapt fast enough... And it the speed of change, of the warming, that's the real fucker here. Have you considered the permafrost melting? The ocean acidification? The 7% per deg C increase in moisture carrying capacity of air, leading to heavier clouds, heavier rains, flash floods? Etc. etc. etc. etc. Anyhoo, neither you, nor I, are going to be making the decisions... And the effects of climate change is likely to kick some countries into jumping into nuclear with 2 feet... This movement is likely to influence other countries... And lets also think of others, not just countries... Corporations are likely to be jumping in... ovbs the data centres... but when a significant oil company jumps onboard, then that might trigger others to follow in a race. There's going to be a decent amount of FOMO happening... People realising that those with mountains of solid, constant nuclear electricity and heat are gonna be hoovering up all of industry, everyone seeing their benefits, not just its cleanliness. Other's suffering with flaky grids, and failed intermittent investments. I do think we're gonna be seeing lots of 4-pack, 6-pack sites being announced sooner rather than later... And yes, all the advanced nuclear will then get its dev funding from the healthy, expanding, accelerating nuke industry.

@@cheeseandjamsandwich There is no climate crisis, that is propaganda, if you choose to believe it, that's on you. The energy transition will happen but it will take over 100 years regardless of the popular propaganda.

Glowbull warning is mostly El Toro merde. The proof I use is the very fact that the same people who whine the loudest WRT glowbull climate change due to using hydrocarbon based fuels also are opposed to nuclear!

What? They love Education when it's properly packaged in their partners. But I know what you mean, compared with the info in this interview, nearly anything else is practically irrelevant. An excellent opportunity to learn exactly what the world needs to learn right Now.

Do me a favour and ask how much the extra grid capacity will cost to the millions and millions of customers. I seem to be ghosted. Hahaha. As you say, solving the wrong economic problem is not the answer. 😮

@@stephenbrickwood1602 I don't understand your comment.. Solar and wind have the greatest disruption and/impact on the existing Grids. Also, process heat is not well managed by either solar or wind. Please explain your concern.

@@bobdeverell My concern is that 3 things make up the national electrical grid. Customer, Grid, Generation. ROI, return on investment is critical. The grid is × 10 times the cost of Generation. Electrical energy is only 15% of all energy used. Australia has 25gW of generation capacity. Fossil fueled. Nuclear promoters such as Robert Parker says Australia will need 286gW of electricity. Robert Parker says that because the grid is so expensive that replacing existing fossil fueled generation with nuclear AT the existing plant locations is the only economic way possible. Robert goes on to talk about 286gW of nuclear electricity. Robert is silent about the 26gW limitations on the existing grid and expects 286gW to be transmitted with out taking into account the $TRILLIONS per 286gW limit facts. What I am saying is the full grid generation and its expanded grid distribution needs customers staying connected and maintaining cashflow to the owners of the nuclear generation plants and the owners of the expanded grid. BVs, battery vehicles with big oversized battery and Rooftop PV will be able to be independent of the grid. Grid cashflow will crash. Do you understand what I said. You may not agree but you should consider the engineering and economics limitations of grid investments.

@@bobdeverell at the moment 74% of all grid electricity goes to buildings. If rooftop PV and BVs combine when the sunshines 🌞 then grid electricity will not be needed for hours every sunny day. Nuclear must have constant demand and cashflow for the highest UTILIZATION of its investment. The Grid is 10times bigger investment and must have cash flows 24/7 or it must charge more $kWh. More $kWh is an incentive to be more independent of grid electricity. The nuclear promoters 'talk over' the economics and grid engineering with constant nuclear 'blinked perspective'. My concern is that 3 things make up the national electrical grid. Customer, Grid, Generation. ROI, return on investment is critical. The grid is × 10 times the cost of Generation. Electrical energy is only 15% of all energy used. Australia has 25gW of generation capacity. Fossil fueled. Nuclear promoters such as Robert Parker says Australia will need 286gW of electricity. Robert Parker says that because the grid is so expensive that replacing existing fossil fueled generation with nuclear AT the existing plant locations is the only economic way possible. Robert goes on to talk about 286gW of nuclear electricity. Robert is silent about the 26gW limitations on the existing grid and expects 286gW to be transmitted with out taking into account the $TRILLIONS per 26gW limit facts. What I am saying is the full grid generation and its expanded grid distribution needs customers staying connected and maintaining cashflow to the owners of the nuclear generation plants and the owners of the expanded grid. BVs, battery vehicles with big oversized battery and Rooftop PV will be able to be independent of the grid. Grid cashflow will crash. Do you understand what I said. You may not agree but you should consider the engineering and economics limitations of grid investments.

@@stephenbrickwood1602 I understand your point that if EVs with V2G can be widely deployed this may greatly simplify the logistics of solar and wind.. But I don't understand your points about grid economy. Many grids are used to share generating resources and minimise backup. Grid upgrades become essential as we expand wind and solar, at least until huge amounts of distributed storage come on-stream. The present grids would need only minimal upgrading if we abandoned wind and solar and replaced existing coal generating stations etc by similar sized nuclear plants. In your scenario, AI data centers and manufacturing processes that require high temperature heat may prove uneconomic for wind and solar, unless you assume these will be outsourced to Asia.

Good comment. As latitudes warm cold latitude solutions will be unnecessary. $100BILLION in generation and $TRILLIONS in grid capacity to millions and millions of customers with rooftop PV shading hot roofs. BVs oversized battery that make the home battery look pathetically small. BVs parked 23hrs every day and all night long with V2G feature. Millions and millions and millions not needing grid electricity. Grid owners with no ROI cashflow. 😮😮 Generation owners with little ROI cashflow. 😮😮 The Australian national electrical grid is 1million km and $1million per km as a minimum value is huge at $TRILLIONS. 10 decades to construct.

Do me a favour and ask how much the extra grid capacity will cost to the millions and millions of customers. I seem to be ghosted. Hahaha. As you say, solving the wrong economic problem is not the answer. 😮

@@stephenbrickwood1602 Grid expansion and upkeep will have to take place regardless of being nuclear or renewable. As to ROI, I live 15 miles from a closed twelve year closed nuclear plant and am still paying for the stored spent fuel. The solar panels on my roof are paid for and my electricity is free. Remember, sunshine and wind are free. Your ROI nuclear plant is a stranded asset.

@@chrisconklin2981 Nuclear needs constant steady demand and cashflow and decades of cashflow. Nuclear can fill the existing grid and new customers will need more grid construction and more generation construction. The grid needs a ROI, return on investment 10 times bigger than the cost of the generator plant's and electricity it is designed to transmit. Just a fun fact. Customer's need electricity. Millions and millions of customers. Customers rooftops PV and BV oversized battery can easily handle customers needs. Customers bigger systems and grid connection can easily become the grids generator. The grid can now supply more new heavy industrial customers, with little new grid construction costs. Basically maintaining ROI cashflow in the existing grid, but now more connections Nuclear will not be needed in the warming electric future with BVs and their oversized battery. 20million buildings rooftop PV can easily out perform fossil fueled generation or all the proposed Nuclear generation. Just let fossil fuels generation survive as the rooftop PV renewable electricity increases. Rooftop PV only needs the existing national grid. Nuclear can not compete with customers rooftop PV and BVs oversized battery. The grid can loose rooftop customer's cashflow, and gain rooftop PV generation supply and BVs steady daily supply and also take on more industrial customers to maintain total cashflow. Nuclear is a waste and uneconomic distraction. All distant renewables have a grid cost problem.

I love it. Progress, progress we don't need no stinkin' progress. Balloons fly perfectly well and there is no reason for Orville and Wilbur to waste time on this heavier than air thing. Besides, there's a good chance they won't get it right the first time out of the gate. Then there's transportation. Stick with the tried and true. The horse has proved reliable for thousands of years. These Tin Lizzies that Mr. Ford and others are working on is just a foolhardy effort. Do they think we are going to build thousands of miles of smooth roads for them? Stick with the tried and true and forget the rest.

@@daniellarson3068 Well, because of the climate "CRISIS" there is no time to develop new technology. We must act NOW, NOW, NOW. The energy transition is realistically 100+ years, but politically we have to act like it will be less than 30 years. So let's do stupid stuff, it's the new norm in the climate science consensus.

@@chapter4travels You know - There's this idea that you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. There's a lot of waste in the economic system. Just think of all the barely worn clothes sent to Africa. There's enough resources out there to build windmills, tide machines, geothermal generation, biomass generation and new nuclear plants. There is more than one form of energy in use now and I fully expect there will be in the future. There's a phrase not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Taking a Luddite approach to new nuclear technologies may be an example of implementing that phrase.

Apparently, the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics says that it may have a design for a commercial version of a thorium molten salt reactor finalized by 2029. (maybe)

@@m.e.345 I'm not a fan of thorium at this stage, I much prefer uranium in a simple MSR as Terrestrial Energy is doing.

No, they hate them because nuclear will use all of the existing transmission infrastructure. But they do love "renewables" because of all the new transmission corridors that will be needed.

@@chapter4travels I am saying that as electricity energy expands from 15% of total energy used to 100% energy then more grid transmission and distribution capacity is needed if the old ways are expanded. Happy days for the construction contractors.

@@stephenbrickwood1602 Currently the world is at 20% electric and might go to 60%, the rest will be coal, oil, and gas for the foreseeable future. When those start to run out and get expensive we'll use nuclear for industrial process heat/electricity and synthetic liquid fuels for the rest. New electricity demand pays for grid expansion as it always has. Intermittent sources die on the vine for grid-level demand. BTW I get all of my electricity from solar panels, with battery storage and I know the limitations. Right at this moment I should be charging my batteries but it's foggy and will be cloudy all day so I have to conserve today. No electric coffee maker today, pour-over instead, using propane on the stove. No microwave or air fryer either. This is fine for me, I accept the limitations, but you can't do that in a modern industrial society.

@@chapter4travels thanks for your comment, it is relevant. My concern is the billions of people. Petroleum for road building and petrochemical industry and ice vehicles and emergency use will be with us for decades. Grid electricity is extremely expensive and not understood until the construction prices come for the expansion work. Transmission technology must become 10 times cheaper. Battery technologies are evolving rapidly and will be needed in daily transport by millions of people, grid customers. That is the way I see it. Nuclear economic failure in the big picture. In the warmer climate.

A new teakettle is still a teakettle 😢