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0 pointsarcticbull4y ago0 comments

The pricing is quite difficult to measure consistently. For instance, the cost of coal generation is usually priced around $0.10/kWh, but it kills 25-33 people per TWh. At the rate the NRC uses, the statistical value of $9M per life, that would add $0.27/kWh, totaling almost $0.37/kWh.

At that price nuclear is already dramatically cheaper than coal - about half as expensive based on the analysis you linked.

The thing is, it's not clear which externalities are priced into renewables. For instance, is the cost of cleaning up this disaster where rare earth metals are mined/refined priced into wind power? [1] Burying the turbine blades forever? [2] How about the cost of the global scale e-waste problem yielded by covering the earth in solar panels which last 30 years? [3] How about power storage - all that lithium?

I'm fine with nuclear, I'm fine with wind, I'm fine with solar. There's no such thing as "green" just shades of black.

Whatever gets us off carbon fuels - yesterday. I strongly doubt the pricing is what's reflected in those charts - they tend to underprice the externalities of everything non-Nuclear. Even if they don't though, I don't really care, at this point decarbonizing is worth paying double for power. I'm not sure how good a deal we're getting is going to matter when we live on Waterworld.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb...

[3] https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...

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5 comments · 2 top-level

toomuchtodo4y ago· 3 in thread

Wind turbine blades and solar panels are almost entirely recyclable, current state. I don’t have a source as to current and target responsible rare earth mining practices. Lithium can be evaporated from brine ponds responsibly, and energy density insensitive chemistries can produce cells without cobalt (conflict minerals).

I’m not against nuclear for geographies that need district heat or don’t get enough sun or wind for reasonable renewable generation, but I do take issue that it gets put forth as a silver bullet that we’re going to scale up in a reasonable amount of time when all signs point to that being objectively false. I’m violently allergic to platitudes and snake oil.

arcticbullOP4y ago

> Wind turbine blades and solar panels are almost entirely recyclable, current state.

The article I linked (titled "Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills", haha) indicates that turbine blades are not recyclable. They are fiberglass, which is a mix of glass and plastic - it's long been known as one of the hardest things to recycle. They are currently buried - or burned. The latest scuttlebutt on that is Semens Gamesa has a recyclable prototype. [1] I suspect it will come, but is it priced in?

> "At the end of their working life, most blades are buried underground or burned." [1]

As for solar panels, I agree they could be recycled - up to some 90% based on some digging - but it's super expensive to do so, and I suspect it's also not priced in. 91% of the plastic you throw into the recycle bin makes its way to the landfill anyways. [2]

I don't think there is a silver bullet per se, which is why I want them all deployed ASAP.

My comment was more that I don't think the prices as reflected in your link represent the true cost of the electricity due to the varying degree to which externalities are priced in. Even if accurate, price (probably to your point) isn't really the be all and end all here. The switchover needs to happen, and in time, whatever that looks like. All this hand-wringing around nuclear taking forever to deploy a few decades ago is part of why we're here, now, without nuclear.

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90674645/this-giant-wind-turbine...

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/plastic-p...

merb4y ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=Wind+Turbine+Blades+Can’t+Be...

the first link is basically your second link [2]. the rest are mostly links about that the problem from non recyclable is mostly a problem that only exists, because these fiberglass blades are dirt cheap compared to alternatives and it's cheaper to dump them in landfills. in fact in 4 european countries it's forbidden to put them into landfills. in fact a spain company _can_ recycle fiber to fiber glass to 100% (reciclalia) and they do it even for differnt uses cases (formula 1 and aerospace). of course if landfills are accepted in a country it's cheaper than to recycle. dumping is always cheaper than recycling thats why we dump so much (not just wind turbines...) in fact in germany a lot of our "recycling process" is asically thermal recycling which is not "real" recycling. we basically cheat the stats. a shit ton of stuff can be recycled if somebody wants to, which is often not the case, not even on a governement level and sometimes it's just stupid to even create non recycable waste for no reason (which happens often in the food industry because the non recycable case is often cheaper)

toomuchtodo4y ago

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/end-wi...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-recycling-idUSKBN1J...

https://www.firstsolar.com/modules/recycling

2 more replies

driverdan4y ago

From the blade article:

> It pointed to an Electric Power Research Institute study that estimates all blade waste through 2050 would equal roughly .015% of all the municipal solid waste going to landfills in 2015 alone.

While it'd be better to do something useful with them it's not a problem to put them in a landfill.

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