DISQUS

Next Big Future: China's cheap $1.565 per Kilowatt Nuclear power and new Cleaner Coal Plants

  • honzik · 11 months ago
    I think the Chinese effort in coal gasification and nuclear energy is one we should probably emulate. In fact, is seems to me that wider acceptance of nuclear requires, in part, an understanding in the coal industry that nuclear won't drive it out of business. We've already seen in Australia lobbying on the part of the coal industry to restrict the growth in nuclear energy production because it sees nuclear as its direct competitor. One alternative route for coal in which nuclear can't compete is gasification and/or coal to liquid fuels. There have been many attempts in the latter, but one that comes to mind is Coskata's process for turning syngas into methanol fuel. So, at least conceivably, such a route is possible.
  • DocScience · 11 months ago
    I suspect that if we exported a few Sierra Club and other NIMBY lawyers to China we could drive up their costs substantially, if not completely destroy their economy.
    Of course, the Chinese government would either kill or imprison the lawyers instead of letting them bring work to a halt as we allow them to do here.
  • nextbigfuture · 11 months ago
    A two for one solution
  • newpapyrus · 11 months ago
    The Chinese are clearly on the right track on nuclear energy but are hurting the environment by continuing to use coal. Urban and rural biowaste combined with hydrogen from the nuclear electrolysis of water would be the cleaner route to carbon neutral synfuel production.

    Marcel Williams
    http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
  • honzik · 11 months ago
    Marcel, I agree with you in principle. There is no way, in the near term, that the coal industry will just go away. That's politically impossible. The idea is to provide coal a lifeline while nuclear is ramped up. Over time, the hope is to reduce coal production to a minimal level.
  • newpapyrus · 11 months ago
    Since its probably going to take several decades for the Chinese to reach the nuclear capacity to totally replace coal electricity with nuclear electricity-- if they ever decide to do so.

    But in the US, I would be absolutely against any-- expansion-- of the CO2 polluting coal industry. If we want more electricity in the US then we'd better start building a lot more nuclear, urban biowaste plasma electric power plant, wind, and small hydroelectric facilities. The coal industry in the US needs to die a slow and natural death by gradually replacing those jobs with a steadily growing nuclear and renewable energy economy.