Top all-time · #2073
Euan Mearns
Personal blog · euanmearns.comscienceeconomics
Euan Mearns's personal blog at euanmearns.com covers science and economics. Since 2014, 37 different Hacker News readers have linked it 47 times, most often “The BN-800 Fast Reactor – A Milestone on a Long Road”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 38 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite euanmearns.com as a source on nuclear construction times (about 7.5 years on average), renewables and battery storage costs, EROEI, and CO2 residence time. Most comments link it as support.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- One commenter calls a linked CO2 article a 'good article' that 'might shed more light' on the methane and CO2 question.1
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 38 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2018-01-13
- /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-07-11
- /solar-pv-capacity-factors-in-the-us-the-eia-data/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-08-18
- /the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosphere-part-1/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-03-30
- /eroei-for-beginners/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-12-20
- The BN-800 Fast Reactor – A Milestone on a Long Road2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-04-22
What Hacker News says?
Why do you think that can't be right? Solar and wind generation themselves are seasonal and don't match the seasonal patterns of demand. So you need to time shift across seasons if you don't have the instantaneous (base load) capacity available all the time. You might say, well, just build more windmills or solar farms. Doesn't help when it is dark and calm. Your "overbuild" is useless in that situation. So you need…
Comment linking /the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries-included/
on “A battery has replaced Hawaii's last coal plant”Submitted The Wind in Spain Blows as a story · 35 points
HN discussionHere is a study for two areas, Germany and California: http://euanmearns.com/the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries...
Comment linking /the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries-included/
on “A battery has replaced Hawaii's last coal plant”Submitted How much battery storage does a solar PV system need? as a story · 24 points
HN discussionThe fully-baked lifetime costs of nuclear power are quite vigorously debated; it's hard to get accurate numbers, since in general there are unpriced government insurance policies backing the plants (i.e. the government will step in to pay the $10B cleanup costs in the unlikely event that something goes wrong). One way of attempting to answer this question is to look at France, where 75% of their power is nuclear; th…
Comment linking /estimating-global-solar-pv-load-factors/
on “To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)”Submitted Comparison of Molten Salt Thorium Reactors to Other Gen IV Reactors as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttp://euanmearns.com/eroei-for-beginners/ The issue is not so much about the EROEI of an particular process in the small, as about the headline overall availability of energy from all sources to civilisation as a whole. That article discusses the "EROEI cliff" possibility, where as it declines more and more human effort must be put in to replace it, resulting in a civilisational collapse.
Comment linking /eroei-for-beginners/
on “Solar Now Produces a Better Energy Return on Investment Than Oil”Submitted The BN-800 Fast Reactor – A Milestone on a Long Road as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMight be more, but it's still a minority of their grid. Wikipedia has a graph for 2016: 18.1% nuclear, 47.9% natural gas, and 15.7% coal.[0] "Energy Matters" says that EU energy production was 26% nuclear in 2015, but only 12% for consumption[1], so I'm not sure how to look at that comparison. Either way, that's probably mostly France (~80%[2]). US around 8-9%[1]. TL;DR: Yes, most western countries probably have les…
Comment linking /primary-energy-in-the-european-union-and-usa-compared/
on “SEC charges Nvidia with inadequate disclosures about impact of cryptomining”Submitted Assembly Bill 100 and a 100% renewable California as a story · 1 points
HN discussioni think the change is too little, too late. Historically, nuclearprojects take in avg 7.5 years to come online. [1] Thats a long time, almost 2 full terms of a presidency (US). Plenty of time for political winds to change. Instead of relabeling a rotten apple as 'edible' to investors, the EU should put something fresh that can be quickly consumed. [1] https://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucl...
Comment linking /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
on “Germany to Rethink Nuclear Shutdown as Energy Crisis Deepens”Submitted The Paris Climate Agreement – Promises, Promises as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI don't know about all your arguments, but I just want to respond to the ones I do know about. Nuclear power is about as safe as wind and solar if looked at per TW. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy A nuclear reactor can be built in three years, though admittedly this hasn't happened in Europe. They are mostly (85%) built in under ten years. Figure 3 shows we should expect around 5 years. https://e…
Comment linking /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
on “The euro has tumbled near parity to the US dollar”Submitted Atmospheric carbon dioxide – a tale of two timescales as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIt's the difference between using and selling to another country. For example, let's say my energy demand for 1 year is 1 GW. I generate that 1 GW using solar. But I sell 50% of it to a neighbor. Inside my house, I use gas for that missing 50%. Overall, I've "generated 100%" of my needs from renewables. I (Scotland) sell clean energy to my neighbor (Europe). I skimmed this article for inspiration: http://euanmearns.…
Comment linking /scotlands-wind-exports-to-england-and-the-myth-of-a-100-renewable-scotland/
on “Scotland to use 100% renewables on time to host 2020 climate summit”Submitted How much battery storage does a solar PV system need? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMethane breaks down into CO2 and water in a few years, which is why half life of methane is relevant. My understanding is that for CO2, thinking in terms of half-life is less relevant, the CO2 goes to plants and to the ocean, and if those two sinks are at saturation, then CO2 levels in the atmosphere will keep increasing. But there's a good article I found now which might shed more light : https://euanmearns.com/the…
Comment linking /the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosphere-part-1/
on “Scientists raise alarm over ‘dangerously fast’ growth in atmospheric methane”Submitted Green Mythology and the High Price of European Electricity as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere's an island in Spain which uses this model to produce most/all of its electricity http://euanmearns.com/el-hierro-another-model-for-a-sustaina... (pump water up with cheap wind energy, use the hydro when needed)
Comment linking /el-hierro-another-model-for-a-sustainable-energy-future/
on “The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change”Why the 60x output reduction in normal vs. road solar? With say a probably still generous 6x derating, it would mean 2.94/6/11.45 = 4% of electricity production. If you manage to avoid road solar tax (say by putting it above the road), it gets to about 25% of electricity production. Assuming a less pessimistic capacity factor of say 16% [1] gives 32% of electric production. Build a 3x wide solar cover over the inter…
Comment linking /solar-pv-capacity-factors-in-the-us-the-eia-data/
on “The first solar road has turned out to be a disappointing failure”Embedded in a vast ocean of resources that are harder and harder to extract : http://euanmearns.com/eroei-for-beginners/
Comment linking /eroei-for-beginners/
on “Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth?”Far from being "a common misconception", it's definitely true that solar power plants closer to the equator have a higher capacity factor than solar power plants further from the equator. It's true that warm solar panels are less efficient than cooler solar panels, but there are two countervailing effects: solar panels (at a given temperature) become more efficient when more brightly illuminated, and the day is long…
Comment linking /solar-pv-capacity-factors-in-the-us-the-eia-data/
on “Nuclear power is the only green solution (2004)”Is it really safer than solar? "The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation." - this is an example of wishful thinking. We don't know how we would solve the problems, we are just assuming someone will figure out a way. That assumption is probably influenced by survivorship bias. There's a bunch of technologies where the problems weren't solved, but we don't hea…
Comment linking /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
on “How climate change is melting, drying and flooding Earth – in pictures”We also need to consider that even with the rapidly improving costs of renewbales, the dollars per GwH generated are still beyond nuclear, and require orders of magnitude more space, which not all countries have available. "Wildly expensive" nuclear is simply not true when put in to the perspective of a national grid vs wind+solar+storage. The space factor is also at play when you look at geographical dispersion. It…
Comment linking /flat-calm-across-the-uk/
on “Former Google VP Starts a Company Promising Clean and Safe Nuclear Energy”I would be interested in seeing a detailed analysis that came to the same conclusion as your assertion regarding solar+storage being cheaper than gas plant in California. Here is a pretty detailed analysis indicating that the storage costs make that combination infeasible at this point: http://euanmearns.com/the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries... The California scenario in that report suggests over $5 trillion ne…
Comment linking /the-cost-of-wind-solar-power-batteries-included/
on “Why battery costs have plunged since 2010”There's a similar approach that seems promising - dropping a huge weight down disused mine shafts, and winching it back up at times of low demand. It looks to be a lot simpler than the railway wagon approach. The UK has loads of potential sites, I imagine the US does too. A fairly detailed look: http://euanmearns.com/short-term-energy-storage-with-gravitr...
Comment linking /short-term-energy-storage-with-gravitricity-iron-versus-ion/
on “Duck Curve”1000 years is definately a figure I've seen bandied about by NASA, and the Bern model suggests that some percentage is effectively permanent, so millenia doesn't seem outlandish. Where are you citing your numbers from? A quick Google suggests it's a Climate Change Denial source: http://euanmearns.com/the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosph... And even they cite the climate scientists as saying hundreds of years (befo…
Comment linking /the-half-life-of-co2-in-earths-atmosphere-part-1/
on “Using satellites to uncover large methane emissions from landfills”>How long will it take to build all those nuclear plants? About 7.5 years if you start them all at the same time. http://euanmearns.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nucle... How long would it take to deploy that solar energy system, as well as figuring out a storage solution to overcome the problem of the duck curve? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
Comment linking /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
on “Climate Disruption Is Now Locked In. The Next Moves Will Be Crucial”Your comment is entirely misleading, based on outdated data, and whitewashes the hell out of nuclear power. The fact you're trying to claim the parent post is bad is not cool. 1. Please look at actual data for power plant construction times. [1] provides an overview. Estimates are useless - if we look at how long things actually take to build... "The mean construction time of 441 reactors in use today was 7.5 years.…
Comment linking /how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/
on “The Necessity of Nuclear”The source seems to be here: http://euanmearns.com/co2-intensity-of-electric-cars/ It's unclear on a first skim whether the (constantly rising) energy costs of fossil fuel extraction are included.
Comment linking /co2-intensity-of-electric-cars/
on “Where in Europe is electric car a good idea?”
