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David Gerard

even if you’re ardently pro-nuclear, SMRs are just a failure purely on the economics and always have been. And that’s before wind/solar/battery made them just obsolete. So SMRs are the perfect tech when you want an excuse not to do anything useful.

pivot-to-ai.com/2024/10/17/goo

17 October at 17:51 | Open on circumstances.run
6 comments
mau 🏳️‍🌈#EndFossilFuels

@davidgerard Yep. Headline grabbers that will never go anywhere to distract from the fact that they're missing their sustainability targets chasing the AI bubble for no return whatsoever.

17 October at 18:03 | Open on mas.to
Dan Sugalski

@davidgerard Huh. I knew the economics weren't great for SMRs but I didn't realize *how* not great, not even counting all the other reasons that make them really not worth bothering with.

Kind of a pity, but I haven't found reality really paying much attention to what I wanted no matter *how* hard I wished for something.

17 October at 18:34 | Open on weatherishappening.network
David Gerard

@wordshaper we didn't realise how bad until we looked either

17 October at 19:52 | Open on circumstances.run
Kudra :maybe_verified:

@davidgerard @wordshaper it's all a distraction, as the numbers have not worked for nuclear, ever:

"A study in 2019 by the economic think tank DIW Berlin, found that nuclear power has not been profitable anywhere in the world.[22][unreliable source?] The study of the economics of nuclear power has found it has never been financially viable, that most plants have been built while heavily subsidised by governments, often motivated by military purposes, and that nuclear power is not a good approach to tackling climate change. It found, after reviewing trends in nuclear power plant construction since 1951, that the average 1,000MW nuclear power plant would incur an average economic loss of 4.8 billion euros ($7.7 billion AUD)."

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econom

@davidgerard @wordshaper it's all a distraction, as the numbers have not worked for nuclear, ever:

"A study in 2019 by the economic think tank DIW Berlin, found that nuclear power has not been profitable anywhere in the world.[22][unreliable source?] The study of the economics of nuclear power has found it has never been financially viable, that most plants have been built while heavily subsidised by governments, often motivated by military purposes, and that nuclear power is not a good approach...

17 October at 21:09 | Open on aus.social
Kudra :maybe_verified:

@davidgerard @wordshaper also, this image tells the story most clearly of the trends.

A graph showing trends in cost of energy, showing nuclear becoming more expensive over time, coal staying the same, and solar and wind becoming massively cheaper over time.
17 October at 21:23 | Open on aus.social
faraiwe

@davidgerard SMRs and "portable" nuclear reactors are NOT the way forward. Absolutely not.

- ardent nuclear energy enthusiast

17 October at 21:22 | Open on beige.party
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