• xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    2 years ago

    Why is profitability a large concern for building power plants? Nuclear power is extremely sensible if you account for societal impact.

    • Kalash@feddit.ch
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      2 years ago

      I really hate that argument so much. Fighting climate change means we need to invest massive amounts of money in all kinds of infrastructure. Just replacing gas stations with EV charging ports will cost billions. No problem with that.

      But bring up nuclear power and suddenly it’s about the cost and how it’s not profitable? Who cares? It’s reliable, flexible, safe and has a brilliant energy to emission ratio. It’s what we need right now. And no, it doesn’t matter it takes 15 to 20 years to build them … we’ll miss all the targets anyway.

      • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 years ago

        The point is that there is no way to finance new nuclear power plants in the current financial framework.

        I’m not a fan of the current financial framework, mind you, and as a person who took a number of nuclear engineering courses I have personal and professional reasons to want to see them built above the obvious practical considerations. But we literally can’t build any until we change the way we pay for stuff.

    • jimmydoreisalefty@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I kind of summarized the video below, please add on if I missed or if y’all have more information!

      • Economies of Scale, Cost per Megawatt, most important metric in electricity market.
      • Looking at Levelized Cost of Energy graphs, Nuclear not as cheap as the rest.
      • Will a capitalist system fix a problem that was caused by capitalism.
      • investing in Nuclear by gov’t is requried vs. companies
      • expensive but Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Project may help compete in electricity market

      The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Power [20:03 | Jul 22 2023 | Real Engineering]

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INl3pCXm6Tw

    • Shake747@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      If energy becomes cheap, they lose money. If the stock market doesn’t see their profits rise every quarter, they will trade for less.

      These major corps think of societal impact only in the monetary/cash flow sense and lobby heavily to support their position.

      We’d need to adjust some rules, and educate more people on nuclear power

    • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social
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      2 years ago

      Massive upfront investment, NIMBY fuckheads, changing (bribed) regulatory framework constricting potentials, and if we crack fusion then the profitability never comes. Has been the issue for 70 years.