Great question, initially I doubt it. There are the same issues are being seen in the US as they try to move microchip processing back stateside versus Asia. There’s a shortage of skilled labour being reported as a stumbling block to making this move happen quickly. Some might argue “cheap” skilled labour but a shortage there still is at present. I don’t think the US government is going to stop this move for security reasons.

It’s amazing in some ways the Chinese were even able to surpass the US in producing these products as they were pretty far behind the western world production technologies in the late 70s when US manufacturers went in to help setup modern at the time factories. Despite the US being the leader at the time, in some ways they abandoned these skills for economic reasons.

The processing chain of microchips will take years to move over, much like a reinvestment into nuclear.

Places like Alberta are already seeing US oil companies withdrawing from long term projects due to federal government regulations that won’t take effect until the middle of the next decade. Think of the shift of those dedicated to these industries and the shortage of those in renewables. Not to worry the latest Alberta government has put the brakes on their current renewables and are tripling down on traditional oil fields even with 1000s of abandoned oil rigs throughout the province the government needs to clean up. They are even threatening to leave Canada yet again. Existing skilled jobs will be saved no matter the cost!

If there ever is an appetite for Nuclear, I’m hoping we are better equipped in the future to assist with training and providing the schooling to those that are needed than we are in the present and in the past. If it is deemed needed for security reasons I’m sure they will figure out the skills issue.

I’m only left wondering how far of a window should we consider this economic window? A quarter, a year, a decade, a lifetime? How does one factor in all the costs of using a particular style of energy?

Often I see people say look at the cost of making a car battery while ignoring the elimination of many parts of ICE vehicles like the tranny, cooling systems, over the various chemicals like oils and fluids that require constant change for ICE servicing. But hey other types of energy are required to make make car batteries including ICE vehicles in the mines . I say fair, tell me what are the WHOLE costs of using other energy sources, on society, on the environment, and the length of time frame.

Most of our forefathers thought faster horses were the only way to go despite the piles of horse shit and dead horse carcasses they were waiting to dry out so they could be removed, filled many city streets. Some city houses had entrances high up to separate the entrance from these things that filed their streets much like a generations earlier had building designs that sheltered the inhabitants of the city below from those emptying their chamber pots into the streets each morning.

Now I love my ICE vehicles and don’t see myself owning a electric vehicle anytime soon so I do understand the want of keeping my horses around, and my overhangs on buildings to protect me from piss and shit being thrown into the street below, but I also can acknowledge in the long term the world I have figured out for myself is not something that is going to last as the world continues to evolve/devolve around us.

Despite these foreign things to us today, they cried think of the economics and the job losses as Ford was providing new technology and freedom to the masses. Think of the economics of whole horse related industries that were mothballed and in many ways replaced as road infrastructure was required for these new fangled ICE vehicles.

How does one measure the economics of this change? By the quarter its terrible, especially to the individual that needs to shell out for a car, and all the new things it requires over the established upkeep of horses. Think of people unemployed by the lack of horses. Hey we really don’t need to leave our farms that often do we?

By the year it’s not looking great initially either unless you are Ford or a oil outfit. Then by the decades things look a lot different on the whole. Perhaps these cars were a good thing for everyone overall?

At this stage the environment is paying a cost we don’t even understand yet. Even if we do, who cares as it is plentiful in the new world and it seemed like it would never end much like the wood supplies to build the great wooden ships that previous empires use to run the world with. So who cares if yet another Valley or field is ruined? There’s plenty more where that came from! And for many years that was the case.

What are the economic costs to deal with clearcut valleys, tailing ponds, manufacturing waste, abandoned mines, and various other wastes? Often the problem of governments and the taxpayers to deal with long after the initial profits have been taken in those quarters, years and decades. After a lifetime overall is not wonderful but fuck them, I got mine!

So which the economic scale are we thinking?

Less land required as well which is also cheaper.

But ya, being and to produce them in a factory was going to be a big savings. They’d get cheaper as things improved.

Can we let them lose at the oil and win at the nuclear, please?

If you use lithium batteries, sure, but grid-scale solutions are definitely moving away from that, the only reason Lithium ever really showed up in the grid is because car manufacturers built up lithium capacity, it wouldn’t have happened without that. Lithium itself I think won’t be an issue for long, plenty of abundant repositories have been found and we haven’t even really started recycling, cobalt now that’s a completely different topic.

Main difference is that you really don’t need energy density if you don’t lob the batteries around all the time so flow batteries, sodium-ion, molten salt, whatnot, are very enticing options. For spikes and frequency regulation there’s good ole flywheels (which came for free with all those glorified steam engines burning fossil fuels and uranium). Also around here we’re using Scandinavian hydrodams as storage for our wind, granted not everyone has them as neighbours.

A bit further down the line power-to-X will also be an important factor in backup and seasonal storage: We’ll need various hydrogen/hydrocarbon compounds anyway as feed stock, for steel smelting etc. so production capacity to soak up renewable overproduction will be available. Which side note is also the reason people should stop with the “hydrogen is dirty” argument: What the fuck else are you going to smelt steel with. Right now hydrogen smelters are going to use fossil hydrogen, yes, but that’s pretty much the only way to build up enough demand so that green hydrogen production gets investment.

Solar plus batteries are already cheaper than nuclear, and only going down. Nuclear has always gotten more expensive over time. For the cost of the most recently completed nuclear plant in the US they could have built 12 times the nameplate capacity worth of solar with 24 hours of battery backup. (A totally unnecessary amount of dispatchability.)

Solar and batteries easily “pay” for their manufacturing carbon emissions within 1-2 years max (as does nuclear). This payback period only goes down as the grid gets greener.

thermal power plant

But why? Nobody has tried to promote these, or even claimed that they would save emissions…