The Great Stranding: How Inaccurate Mainstream LCOE Estimates are Creating a Trillion-Dollar Bubble
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in nuclear-versus-renewables debates to support the argument that cheap renewables undercut new nuclear.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2022 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec natmaka · 2023-11 · on “Portugal just ran on 100% renewables for six days in a row”
> 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]
Recommends enslavedrobot · 2023-03 · on “Nuclear power plant leaked 1.5M litres of radioactive water in Minnesota”
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
Cites natmaka · 2022-03 · on “Finland starts much-delayed nuclear plant, brings respite to power market”
With such a (realistic) approach nuclear is condemned because its production costs (LCOE: [LINK] ) are higher than renewables' (and the gap is enlarging). Therefore renewables will be preferably used. Nuclear gets more expensive as it is more sparsely used: this feedback loop will widen the gap. [this video] With time renewables production will get less an less intermittent thanks to a more and more adequate spreading, to a mix (wind, solar...), to storage (hydrogen...) and an overly-expensive nuclear will become useless. [LINK]
Cites enslavedrobot · 2024-02 · on “Solar and battery to make up 81% of new US electric-generating capacity in 2024”
The LCOE of nuclear is very sensitive to its capacity factor. Nuclear costs are set to skyrocket because for a larger and larger part of the day they will not be profitable as renewables undercut the price of power. With a lower and lower capacity factor, new nuclear plants will never pay for themselves. [this video]
Cites natmaka · 2024-08 · on “Nuclear reactors a mile underground promise safe, cheap power”
The production cost of 'renewable' electricity (RE) is increasingly lower than that of nuclear. So when they produce, they are and will be preferred. This will reduce the effective load factor of nuclear power and therefore increase its production cost (it is only profitable with a high load factor), with a strong feedback. It gets worse because, on the technical level and despite some progress, nuclear power cannot (due to technical limitation and for safety-related reasons) adjust its production ("load following") to always exactly match demand. This will promote the deployment of an RE system based on a continental a mix (wind, solar, etc.), smart grid, clean backup (green hydrogen), stor
Cites natmaka · 2024-10 · on “Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel”
'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 consid
Cites Moldoteck · 2024-10 · on “Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel”
you sure it neglects vogtle? > AFAIK because they consider that electric vehicles' batteries will be useful (through V2G). - lol, kinda interesting assumptions, especially considering that it'll still imply additional costs > AFAIK the idea is to interconnect at continental scale - lol, at such scales that sounds as a bigger pipedream than cheap h2 emission free generation > if it'll be used less and less, youll need subsidies > This will kill nuclear (see [this video] ). This will kill basically any peaker plant be that fossil, hydro or nuclear. That's kinda the point. With a renewable grid you'll need huge overcapacity of both production, peaker and storage that'll be rarely used. No matter the
Cites natmaka · 2025-01 · on “Nuclear fusion: it's time for a reality check”
> Renewables are outpacing nuclear at such a pace that you could legitimately wonder why to bother with such projects at all. Indeed, especially as renewable will more and more eat into nuclear 'baseload', lowering its load factor and therefore raising its total production cost. [this video]