Ministers are backing a multibillion-pound plan to build another large-scale nuclear power plant in Britain to ease pressure on electricity supplies as the country moves towards net zero.
Like I said, when prices get high enough, people start changing their tune pretty quick. Japan is already starting to look back towards nuclear, and at some point so will Germany, Belgium and all the other ones planning phase-outs. Nuclear already powers 70% of France and 20% of the US (and provides half of its clean energy). There's no reason why it can't do the same for others.
And you're right, a Nuclear plant is expensive to build, and takes years to bring online because of regulations and safety checks...so the time to act is now. Once you do have it running though, it offers many decades of clean, safe, and perhaps most important, reliable baseload energy. They operate at full capacity 92% of the time....which is 2-3 more times than wind/solar.
If the main concern of governments is lowering emissions and environmental impact, than I have no idea why they wouldn't pivot to nuclear. It produces about a third of the GHG emissions of solar (and about the same as wind), but with a much tinier footprint. Wind takes something like 360(!) times more land area to generate the same amount of energy. So instead of taking up 1 square mile for a nuclear plant, a wind farm would use 360 square miles and potentially impact people, farmland, natural ecosystems, coastlines etc...all while being an energy source that is finicky and still needs gas/coal power plants to remain on standby. Solar itself takes about 70x of land area and you need 3 million solar panels to generate the same amount of energy as a nuclear plant. Never mind the need for natural resources and constant hydrocarbons and mining required to build and service all these panels and turbines (because all the steel, copper, cement etc. all have to be mined and processed).
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The only way out is energy independence with more renewables mixed with reasonable energy storage. Everything else will lead to what they're seeing today.
I agree energy independence is important, but as of now, I doubt ours will increase with going all in on renewables. Unfortunately for the west, China has effectively cornered the solar market, with 80% of solar panels being produced there (and as we've recently heard, often with forced labour), and also dominates the global rare earth supply chain as well that's needed for battery storage. Now this imbalance can change, but will most likely take decades to claw back if we're lucky. In the meantime, Covid has shown what happens when one country controls the supply chain for everyday goods. It's one thing to be reliant on them for our everyday goods, it's a completely different thing when they control the energy that literally everything we do is reliant on. It's quite the feat China has pulled off. They are supplying the west with renewables, all while half of energy generation in China is still from coal!
Also look at what's happening in Germany right now. They moved away from reliable energy to go all in renewables...and are now looking to pump in gas from Russia. Do you think giving Putin influence over your energy needs is good for Germany's sovereignty? I sure don't.
Will Nuclear give us energy independence? I'm no expert, but I do know that luckily for us, Canada has some of the world's biggest deposits of high-grade uranium in the Athabasca Basin (and we are home to one of the 2 big uranium companies in the world). I do think looking to source our energy needs from within our borders is a good thing for our long-term independence.
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Interesting sidebar...as of right now, there is more electricity being generated in Alberta by wind (902 mw) than coal (878 mw). I don't know if even 10 years ago that would have been envisioned as something that could happen in 2021.
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Iron air batteries look promising for medium duration, but seasonal still isn't solved. It's going to have to be gas for the dunkelflaute until that's solved, but I'm not sure there's any way out of this but to build more renewables. Nuclear would not be cheaper on average. The only nuclear plant in the UK under construction was going to be built in 6 years and cost £18B, it's now going to be 9 years and £23B and likely to go much higher. The initial ground surveys to asses suitability for the site were in 2006. That's 15 years ago and it's not expected to power anything until 2026. We need to lower the GHG emissions a lot by 2030, so it's just not going to cut it
If the world pivoted to nuclear and focused on smaller cookie cutter reactors instead of these huge one-off plants then we could achieve economies of scale and better reliability/safety.
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Pretty easy to see that the people making the cars are going to be right. The stock market is hopping mad for EV stocks, the car makers are trying to switch out of petroleum based vehicles like their pants are on fire.
So the real question becomes how long some portions of society will hang on to aging fossil fuel consuming vehicles while new vehicles are replaced nearly wholesale by electric.
Pretty easy to see that the people making the cars are going to be right. The stock market is hopping mad for EV stocks, the car makers are trying to switch out of petroleum based vehicles like their pants are on fire.
So the real question becomes how long some portions of society will hang on to aging fossil fuel consuming vehicles while new vehicles are replaced nearly wholesale by electric.
I wouldn't put money on that. It's a huge challenge for them, and nothing is holding them to that number. They announced it because it's the thing to do. Getting battery materials for that many vehicles is not trivial, and may not happen. I'm not suggesting it's going to be 5%, just that it sounds a lot more like an aspirational goal than an achievable one.
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Pretty easy to see that the people making the cars are going to be right. The stock market is hopping mad for EV stocks, the car makers are trying to switch out of petroleum based vehicles like their pants are on fire.
Both groups are responding to incentives. If Ford and GM announce big EV plans, they can try and pump their share prices. Which might let them raise the capital they will need for a wholesale electric transition.
Just because they want to do that doesn't mean they have the resources/ability to do so.
So the real question becomes how long some portions of society will hang on to aging fossil fuel consuming vehicles while new vehicles are replaced nearly wholesale by electric.
Aside from Tesla and Lucid I'm not aware of any EV stocks that are lights out. Maybe Magna? I hold LEV and VMC and they are not doing so hot. My best performing EV play is MP materials. I think they will be good investments long term, but hopping mad they are not.
There are ~300M vehicles in the US with an average age of 12 years. At current course and speed, will probably be 2035 before you see any significant demand destruction due to EVs. Government incentives could change that, in particular one around conversion of ICE vehicles to EVs. Supporting that has a huge impact on the local economy.
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Aside from Tesla and Lucid I'm not aware of any EV stocks that are lights out. Maybe Magna? I hold LEV and VMC and they are not doing so hot. My best performing EV play is MP materials. I think they will be good investments long term, but hopping mad they are not.
There are ~300M vehicles in the US with an average age of 12 years. At current course and speed, will probably be 2035 before you see any significant demand destruction due to EVs. Government incentives could change that, in particular one around conversion of ICE vehicles to EVs. Supporting that has a huge impact on the local economy.
I dunno. The fact that Tesla is worth 3 times what Exxon is worth should tell us what the market thinks. I'm not going to defend the valuations, but the speculation is priced in. Rivian has sent in a confiential application to the SEC for an IPO and their valuation last year was higher than GM's current market cap. That's insane considering until a week ago they've never sold a single vehicle
I dunno. The fact that Tesla is worth 3 times what Exxon is worth should tell us what the market thinks. I'm not going to defend the valuations, but the speculation is priced in. Rivian has sent in a confiential application to the SEC for an IPO and their valuation last year was higher than GM's current market cap. That's insane considering until a week ago they've never sold a single vehicle
Key words.
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I don't disagree it's a large bet, but the post I was responding to was referencing lack of the market being insane on EVs.
IMO China is going to own the EV market anyways so these bets are foolish. China owns 80%+ of almost all mineral extraction, mineral refinement, battery production, and that makes manufacturing way cheaper for them compared to new EV be and OEMs. It's almost too late now
China will create epic numbers of disposable EV's using up scarce resources, but they will never make it here due to them having no reason to ship them out, and safety standards.
European brands(mostly German) are going to gradually replacing much of Tesla's market share. Brands like Fiat may provide some compact cheap EV's, but they will mostly be the domain of Europe. American and Japanese brands will occupy the middle ground. Most of these EV startups like Rivian aren't going to stay around. They'll either go bankrupt, or get bought by Ford and GM and get value engineered into boring-mobiles.
China will create epic numbers of disposable EV's using up scarce resources, but they will never make it here due to them having no reason to ship them out, and safety standards.
European brands(mostly German) are going to gradually replacing much of Tesla's market share. Brands like Fiat may provide some compact cheap EV's, but they will mostly be the domain of Europe. American and Japanese brands will occupy the middle ground. Most of these EV startups like Rivian aren't going to stay around. They'll either go bankrupt, or get bought by Ford and GM and get value engineered into boring-mobiles.
That's the Fuzz 15 year EV outlook.
I really disagree.
Tesla and VW will be and already are manufacturing tons of cars in China for distribution worldwide. The trope of cheap and substandard manufacturing falls apart with EVs. Volvo's EVs are already produced in China and BYD and Geely are debuting soon in Europe. Some of the current Chinese EV offerings are quite advanced and well built. We're ignoring Chinese EV domination to our peril.
I dunno. The fact that Tesla is worth 3 times what Exxon is worth should tell us what the market thinks. I'm not going to defend the valuations, but the speculation is priced in. Rivian has sent in a confiential application to the SEC for an IPO and their valuation last year was higher than GM's current market cap. That's insane considering until a week ago they've never sold a single vehicle
But have you seen the kitchen that slides out the side of the truck?
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