RethinkX
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2022–2025
18:58 · 38K views · Mar 11, 2021
RethinkX summarizes its report arguing that mainstream LCOE estimates are inflating a bubble in coal, gas, nuclear and hydro assets. It claims solar, wind and batteries will strand conventional energy investments.
Cited in nuclear-versus-renewables debates to support the argument that cheap renewables undercut new nuclear.
10 comments from Hacker News
> Nuclear AND Renewable energy It cannot be done because it financially condemns new nuclear plants. "The rates at which conventional power plants are utilized will continue to decrease as competitive pressure from near-zero marginal cost solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power, and battery energy storage continue to grow exponentially worldwide." Eye-opening video: this video
I don't think there is much point is continuing this discussion, though, as a PhD materials chemist with an MBA, I could literally write dissertations on the future costs of solar and storage. Instead, I'll leave you with two YouTube videos that outline the future of distributed energy and the fate of centralized generation. [LINK] this video Peace
Indeed! Experts (International Energy Agency, McKinsey, etc.) are clear: renewables will produce the majority of electricity by 2050. [LINK] [LINK] This is inevitable (no other possibility is realistic), and this applies to France, where RTE (EDF's subsidiary that manages the electricity grid) has emphasized that 100% nuclear power is out of the question, and that more than 60% nuclear power would be utopian. This trend is already clearly visible and welcomed by investors. [LINK] The cost of producing renewable electricity is increasingly lower than that of nuclear power. [LINK] During their operation, they do not consume fuel, produce waste, or expose people to a major accident, and are therefore and will be preferred. [LINK] The surplus electricity sometimes produced by renewables will be leveraged by increasing storage capacity (electric vehicles, hydro pumped storage, etc.) as well as green hydrogen. It will gradually replace nuclear electricity, which is supposed to compensate for their variability, especially since the latter cannot adjust its production quickly and frequently enough ( [LINK] ). All of this will reduce the nuclear load factor and therefore increase its production cost (it is only profitable with a high load factor), with strong feedback (the higher the load factor, the more likely it will be). This will increasingly favor the deployment of a system based primarily on renewables, meaning that nuclear electricity will become less and less useful and more
> China currently builds more renewables than nuclear. I said it is irrelevant. Those are different things No: nuclear and renewables are electricity-generating equipment types, and all the debate is about the proportion of renewables and nuclear in the final system. Seeing them as disconnected (in different universes) is not even funny. this video > unless you don't understand the irrelevance of nameplate capacity with intermittent renewables. This perspective dates back a time when transporting electricity was expensive (lines, losses...), storing it also was expensive ( ), fossil fuels and nuclear were the only way to obtain gridpower... all this is obsolete. Explanations: [LINK] > China is also currently seeing the bottom drop out of their renewables industry Source? (I lived in China from mid-2017 to mid-2025) The renewables industry there is, as in nearly every nation, in much better state than nearly any other one. > The EPR2 projects could not even have started in 2022, because he law that prohibits increasing nuclear capacity beyond the currently installed 63.2GW was only repealed in March 2023 Nope. This law stated about active production capacity, and never forbade any reactor-building project. The very first EPR (Flamanville-3) project was running while this law was instated (2015) and did not stop. It simply forbade it to start without other reactor with at least a total equivalent powerplate value to be shutdown. Recent news: [LINK] > they still have to deal with a
'Advanced nuclear' neglects the last developments (the Vogtle nuclear plant project hugely over-budget and late [LINK] , cancelled plans (Montagorda, V. C. Summer, River Band, Callaway...). Even the newest pipe dream in town (SMR) already had its first rebuff ( [LINK] ). Last but not least... there is no running project. Therefore writing "US nuclear capacity has the potential to triple from ~100 GW in 2024 to ~300 GW by 2050." in a title is for sure easy, however there is now sign of such potential to become anything else. As long as the source is not consuming any fuel nor producing much waste any EROI greater than one seems OK to me. > why they assume 4h storage? AFAIK because they consider that electric vehicles' batteries will be useful (through V2G). > What you'll do in case both solar&wind will be low? AFAIK the idea is to interconnect at continental scale, as this is useful whatever the type of sources (even if it is mainly nuclear), then to benefit from diverses wind (or even solar) regimes. > overcapacity will need to be subsidized heavily because excess solar capacity will be unused a lot of the time Not with an electric fleet of vehicles, to begin with. Green hydrogen will also absorb part of it (for industrial applications, electric backup...). > if it'll be used less and less, youll need subsidies This will kill nuclear (see this video ).