The transition

[stompandgo]

Yeah. I'd also argue that the war in Ukraine and the war with Iran are both resource wars and our inability to get off of fossil fuels makes wars like those inevitable.

The US does not need any foreign oil. Period. We have plenty. We are not at war for oil. We import foreign oil because the green lobby prevents the building of new refineries that could process American oil more efficiently. Conversions are expensive and would disrupt the market.

 

[PedalUma]

I maybe need some fossil fuel for the supply chain, but personally I consume less than a quarter pounders' patty weight per year. After it is fried, 30% less. I stopped flying fifteen years ago, and driving cars. I ride bikes for everything, everyday, all year.

 

[Chargeride]

Its related to the transition, but as usual the big events are hidden from the public by old boys club media.

America is exporting LNG in those giant ships that you never see a picture of.

Heres a US ship docking in Greece.

Europe is now importing 60% of its LNG from America, its still imports a lot of the rest from Russia on ships or pipelines.
They claim to be stopping this next year, but Spain are the first to squeal.

Spain stirs fresh doubts over EU Russian LNG ban

With six months to go, Spain warns the EU ban could deepen reliance on US LNG and test Europe’s energy security.

en.highnorthnews.com

Were expanding the one in Milford Haven its Europes largest terminal taking ships from Qatar.

The US is the largest exporter of LNG
And increased its output by 93% in 2025.
The Nord pipeline destruction was never solved, it was some guy in a yacht maybe..who knows.

Europes net zero rhetoric is beyond farcical, its a pantomime laid over a farce, just endless nonsense sold by the state for political leverage.

Europe’s LNG import infrastructure glut set to more than double, jeopardizing green goals

globalenergymonitor.org

 

[Mr. Coffee]

The US does not need any foreign oil. Period. We have plenty. We are not at war for oil. We import foreign oil because the green lobby prevents the building of new refineries that could process American oil more efficiently. Conversions are expensive and would disrupt the market.

That may all be true (or more or less true) but it is irrelevant. Oil is a globally traded commodity and oil companies are not charities like the United Way. If people are willing to pay 300 per barrel in Japan and only 100 per barrel in the states, we will sell oil in Japan and people here can walk. That's how capitalism and free markets work.

Gasoline consumption has been declining in the USA since 2018. Under those circumstances nobody is going to put up $10 billion to build something that will take forty years to pay off without any hard numbers showing anyone will want those products in 2060.

 

[stompandgo]

Consumption has dropped, but only by 5%, and you had COVID in there, and the aftereffects of remote work exploding. Vacation travel continues to break records. If Chevron could build a refinery in America in 5 years they would start tomorrow. It's the same with nuclear reactors. Too much political headwind.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

"Only by 5%" is still a drop and makes it harder to justify spending $10 billion to build something that will take decades to pay back. I consider the fact that we aren't building refineries (the last one built in the Untied States went online in 1977) to be the very best confirming evidence that the oil companies for sure know their time is limited.

As for nuclear, at this point in time the average time between approval and selling electrons is about ten years for a nuclear plant. For a solar or wind farm it is less than one year. That alone makes solar and wind easier to finance -- because shorter-term loans are less risky and will thus pay lower interest.

That's why there is all the sturm und drang about small modular reactors. Which may or may not be a thing.

Another risk factor that is poorly considered is that if something comes up and you build only half the wind turbines or half the solar panels, you still can sell electricity. It is much, much harder to build half of a nuclear power plant and not just have an abandoned construction site.

All of these things are independent of regulation and opposition to nuclear power and are in fact inherent to what you are building.

 

[Art Deco]

A lot of people thought fighter aircraft and bombers were obsolete in 1960 because of guided missiles.
A lot of people thought tanks were obsolete in 1975 because of anti-tank guided missiles.

Yet here we are in 2026 with both of those things still existing.

And boots on the ground were supposed be obsolete after Vietnam IIRC ...

 

[stompandgo]

"Only by 5%" is still a drop and makes it harder to justify spending $10 billion to build something that will take decades to pay back. I consider the fact that we aren't building refineries (the last one built in the Untied States went online in 1977) to be the very best confirming evidence that the oil companies for sure know their time is limited.

There are over 200 years worth of recoverable oil under US territory alone. That's more than enough time to recoup the investment in refineries.

As for nuclear, at this point in time the average time between approval and selling electrons is about ten years for a nuclear plant. For a solar or wind farm it is less than one year. That alone makes solar and wind easier to finance -- because shorter-term loans are less risky and will thus pay lower interest.

Nuclear power plants could be built much faster if politics didn't get in the way. Solar can be built quickly, but wind may or may not. Offshore wind takes much longer. Financing may be available, but plenty of solar and wind companies have gone bust. Out here on the Cape, the Vineyard Sound offshore wind farm built cabling infrastructure through several local beaches, tearing up the landscape, with the promise that we would get more power for the peninsula. They lied and ended up selling the power to CT. Now that company is out of business.

That's why there is all the sturm und drang about small modular reactors. Which may or may not be a thing.

They will be.

Another risk factor that is poorly considered is that if something comes up and you build only half the wind turbines or half the solar panels, you still can sell electricity. It is much, much harder to build half of a nuclear power plant and not just have an abandoned construction site.

All of these things are independent of regulation and opposition to nuclear power and are in fact inherent to what you are building.

Yeah, they're all immune to lobbyists, elections, NGO's, protests, debanking and the like. Sure.

 

[Chargeride]

Our new prime minister Andy Burnham
today signalled he's ready to ditch Ed Miliband's Net Zero stance as he admitted Britain 'can't ignore' North Sea oil and gas.

 

[stompandgo]

I've flown over the North Sea several times in my life, every time was at night. You always knew that you were over it, because you could clearly see the gas flumes above the derricks. This month though, it was almost completely dark. Very few rigs were operating.

 

[Chargeride]

Its all very bizarre, we share the north sea with Norway, they drill the livin pooks out of it and sell it to everyone, we have paid Norway 100bn since 2021 for it.
Not drilling isnt a net zero policy its just more expensive to do because of past sell offs and market forces.
This gets sold by state propaganda as various 'policies' to the clueless masses.
We get told how rich Norwegians are with their sovereign wealth fund, but theres about 5 million of them to support with a gigantic windfall of oil and gas on their doorstep.

Its politics, everything is smoke, mirrors and pantomime.

Climate hero or villain? Fossil fuel frenzy challenges Norway’s green image

As it rapidly adopts clean technologies while drilling furiously for oil and gas, the Nordic nation is a paradox

www.theguardian.com

And as if by magic, BP pulls out today.

BP puts North Sea oil and gas business up for sale

Move will end six decades of production in area, as new CEO tries to simplify firm and cut debt

www.theguardian.com

 

[stompandgo]

BP is a subject all to itself.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

They will be.

Right now the best estimate for the electricity costs from an SMR are around $120/MWh.
Right now you can buy and build solar plus battery systems for around $100/MWh.

There is zero practical difference between solar-generated electrons and nuclear-generated electrons. Which means everyone is going to go for the lowest price. So outside of places where solar just plain can't work (mostly in high latitudes and really awful climates where few people live) SMRs won't be competitive. Which means they won't sell very many so their economies of scale will be poor for a long time.

General availability at scale for SMRs isn't yet a thing. And probably won't be for five years. I'd definitely bet that solar plus battery will be cheaper (and probably a lot cheaper) in 2031 than SMRs when they finally come out of the factory.

I'll keep saying it: no currently imaginable technology will be cheaper than solar plus battery are today. And solar + battery will just get cheaper over time. So a hypothetical fusion plant coming online in 2060 has to compete with solar + battery at about ten percent of today's costs (so about $10/MWh). I think it is a safe bet that you won't be able to even pour the concrete for the foundation for what an equivalent mount of solar would cost.

 

[PedalUma]

solar plus battery

Battery here can mean many forms. It could be any type of storage. For example chilling saline water for cooling at another time. Maybe pumping water up into a tower or smelting aluminum, embedding the energy in a solid form.

 

[RunForTheHills]

The reality is that both SMR and solar/battery facilities are being funded and built. It is not an either/or choice. Solar needs 100 times more land than SMRs. Large scale storage/batteries offer only 2-8 hours of storage and will not compensate during the long winter months in northern climates and also high altitude locations. SMRs offer reliable power 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

 

[PedalUma]

Around here there are plenty of parking lots. Solar is going above them. Storage can be in the form of an EV that is not being used. Germany is cold and northern and has plenty of solar.

I am reading a totally cool new dystopian novel.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

The reality is that both SMR and solar/battery facilities are being funded and built. It is not an either/or choice. Solar needs 100 times more land than SMRs. Large scale storage/batteries offer only 2-8 hours of storage and will not compensate during the long winter months in northern climates and also high altitude locations. SMRs offer reliable power 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

What you miss when you say "Solar needs 100 times more land than SMRs" is that you can do other stuff with the land you use for solar. No reason you can't convert a parking lot to a solar farm and still park cars in the shade there. In fact, if you do that everywhere you can generate between 20 and 25 percent of the Untied States electricity needs. That ain't nothing. You get even more if you make all roofs solar roofs. And it is always going to be cheaper to deploy that stuff on an existing site than it is on a greenfield.

And if you make all of our farms into wind farms as well (which you can do just fine) you could generate about 11.4 trillion KWh per year. That's about three times current US electricity consumption. And we could still grow all the food that makes us fat.

How much storage you get depends on how many batteries you have. I agree that for high latitudes solar plus battery will work poorly, but I do not understand why you think high altitudes would be a problem. Solar works fine at high altitudes, arguably better because the sunlight is more intense. The fact is that if you look at the distribution of human population relatively few people live in high latitudes so I am doubtful that it really would be a problem.

The intermittency of solar and wind is a problem, but it is a fantasy if you think any nuclear plant is 24/7/365. You'd at a minimum need to shut down the steam turbine for maintenance and servicing for approximately two weeks a year.

We can also work with intermittency much more than you'd think. As one example, with EV charging we already have grid-tied EV chargers that can schedule charging for when power rates are lowest. If we ever have EVs at large scales we can use the exact same technology to load balance and only charge your EV when there is lots of electricity available. Most people who have an L2 charger at home or at work already have all the hardware they'd need to make that happen. And right now a lot of utilities will sell you the charger so they can load balance that 10Kw you are drawing when you charge your EV.

Geographical distribution also works for you. Yes, at any given location it might be cloudy or the wind might not be blowing. But if you have solar and wind at lots of locations the odds of it being cloudy or calm everywhere rapidly go to zero.

You can do similar trickery with refrigerators and freezers, hot water heaters, and dryers. Which are usually the highest power draws in any home. Same thing with HVAC systems in commercial buildings.

 

[RunForTheHills]

What you miss when you say "Solar needs 100 times more land than SMRs" is that you can do other stuff with the land you use for solar. No reason you can't convert a parking lot to a solar farm and still park cars in the shade there. In fact, if you do that everywhere you can generate between 20 and 25 percent of the Untied States electricity needs. That ain't nothing. You get even more if you make all roofs solar roofs. And it is always going to be cheaper to deploy that stuff on an existing site than it is on a greenfield.

And if you make all of our farms into wind farms as well (which you can do just fine) you could generate about 11.4 trillion KWh per year. That's about three times current US electricity consumption. And we could still grow all the food that makes us fat.

That is all pie in the sky. Commercial solar farms look like this. Sure, you can convince schools to put solar panels in their parking lots if the federal government gives them the money to pay for it and maybe even some businesses will go along if they get a tax break for doing so. But many businesses won't want to ugly up their flagship campus that way. Not every home owner is going to go solar even with government giveaways to fund it. And nobody wants a wind farm in their backyard. I live at high altitude and solar isn't a thing there. Lots of snow, trees, and mountain peaks block the sun. Steeply pitched roofs so the snow falls off also make solar panels impractical.

 

[RunForTheHills]

This is my house during the 2023 winter:

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Oh, so solar parking lots are "pie in the sky" and SMRs are somehow not?

I can buy this on alibaba, I can't buy an SMR online anywhere. Just saying:

Popular HQ MOUNT HQ-ASC01 Galvanized Steel Solar Carport PV System Silver Black Finish 25YRS Service Life 12-Year Warranty 60m/s in Alibaba.com

Discover Popular HQ MOUNT HQ-ASC01 Galvanized Steel Solar Carport PV System Silver Black Finish 25YRS Service Life 12-Year Warranty 60m/s. Browse trusted products in Alibaba.com. Fast shipping & quality guaranteed.

www.alibaba.com

Solar Carports & Canopies: A Practical Solution

Solar carports and canopies turn parking areas into power generators. Independent Power designs and installs commercial solar structures.

solarips.com

Oh, and I live in a snowy environment and snow falls off of a properly angled solar panel just peachy. It works even better if you angle it steeper for the winter months (as you should because the sun is lower in the sky in the winter).