
Vietnam Going Solar After Nuclear Power Plants Shelved - doener
http://investvine.com/vietnam-going-solar-nuclear-power-plants-shelved/
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adrianN
So they want to be ~20% carbon free in thirty years? That is not a very
ambitious goal. Especially if you consider that they want to _increase_ the
amount of energy produced from coal from ~30% in 2015 to ~50% until 2030. [1]

[1] [https://news.mongabay.com/2017/05/vietnam-makes-a-big-
push-f...](https://news.mongabay.com/2017/05/vietnam-makes-a-big-push-for-
coal-while-pledging-to-curb-emissions/)

~~~
realusername
Yeah that's what I got from the article.

> Currently solar power only accounts for 0.01 per cent of total power
> generation capacity in Vietnam, but the government plans to increase the
> ratio to 3.3 per cent by 2030 and 20 per cent by 2050.

This is not very impressive, they plan to add 3.3% solar in the next 12 years,
I don't find that revolutionary at the moment.

~~~
MyticMoon
having them moved away from that nuclear power plant is a big relief for
Vietnamese people already. This is still a huge leap, I would say. Basically,
they are just following what China is doing (slowly) so if renewable energy
could make a huge impact in China, they might accelerate the program.

~~~
realusername
> having them moved away from that nuclear power plant is a big relief for
> Vietnamese people already.

Why so exactly? It would have massively reduced emissions to have that nuclear
power plant, now instead you have a vague promise they put on 2050, purposely
far enough that it does not bind the government to anything.

~~~
cageface
Vietnam doesn't have a good track record on public infrastructure projects.
Due to corruption and cronyism they have a hard time even building roads to
spec. The prospect of running a nuclear reactor in that environment is
horrifying.

~~~
dxxvi
I'm a Vietnamese and your 2 words "corruption" and "cronyism" are 100% correct
for Viet Nam.

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pjc50
The incremental roll-out possible with solar, and the simpler project
management, give it a huge advantage.

The coal roll-out is alarming but as soon as it was pointed out that Vietnam
has large coal reserves it was unsurprising. This is where the richer nations
need to step up and find a way to pay to leave resources in the ground rather
than extracting them. It's the cheapest form of "carbon capture".

~~~
melling
Do you mean like the United States or Germany which are increasing or fighting
a reduction in coal?

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-is-set-to-roll-back-
restric...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/epa-is-set-to-roll-back-restrictions-
on-coal-burning-power-plants-1534622001?mod=hp_major_pos7)

~~~
WhompingWindows
Coal jobs are this bizarre holy grail of right-wing politics in the USA and
Germany. It really makes very little sense in a macro view, because renewables
are cleaner for the local populace's air and water, and renewables add some
5X-10X more jobs than coal. Coal extraction and processing is increasingly
automated, the ole' miner with his pick is a thing of the past - these jobs
are stagnant or decreasing in numbers over time. It's an industry in a steady
decline, and yet the electoral college, and the coalitions built for Angela
Merkel's party in Germany, prop up coal.

~~~
adrianN
Coal jobs are usually available in areas with few alternatives. Whole regions
depend on mining. It's hard to tell people that their whole city needs to
change jobs when there are none available.

~~~
greglindahl
West Virginia has more renewable energy jobs than coal jobs.

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pastullo
i'm sad to see a decline of nuclear energy everywhere in the world. While
renewables are the end goal, nuclear was gonna be the perfect transition
source for the next decades, providing emission-free and continuous energy to
the grid.

I have the bad feeling that cancelling a nuclear power plant, means building
coal/gas plants in its place. This article actually mention the renewaleble
goal of Vietnam which are really unimpressive. 3.3% solar inputs by
2030...WOW, in the mean time how are they gonna keep up with the energy
requirements of a developing country? Probably coal.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Nuclear is good as long as it has _very stable_ , secure and responsible local
governance. You can't have political instability, people cutting corners, lack
of oversight, lack of security or lack of resources ... or you have problems.

To me that's the problem with Nuclear. Following specific rules and
conventions, some nations will be fine, but so many ... it's iffy. If Vietnam
gets a couple plants, Burma, Laos, Cambodia etc. will want one too and then
the risk of something bad happening just starts to crawl up.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
> Nuclear is good as long as it has very stable, secure and responsible local
> governance.

...and no terrorist attacks. And no war.

And the governance remains stable and responsible for the next 100 years.

~~~
ben_w
They’ve managed to not break even though they’ve been in counties which have
been at war (Israel), experienced a military coup (Pakistan), disintegrated
(USSR), and experienced terrorism (UK, USA), so none of that is strictly
necessary.

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pg_bot
I think the greatest irony of our age is the progression of climate change due
to environmentalists protesting against the development of nuclear power.
While nuclear power admittedly has risks, the tradeoffs are clearly worth
making if you look at emissions and deaths per megawatt hour. We didn't
curtail energy demand, and future generations will pay the price for using
fossil fuels instead of nuclear.

~~~
addicted
Nuclear hasn’t suffered because of environmentalists protesting.

Nuclear has suffered because it is expensive and uneconomical. The only way it
is even feasible is by having laws that protect the owners from liabilities
caused due to catastrophic failure.

Blaming environmentalists gives them way more power than they possess.
Environmentalists have struggled to even stop pipelines running through the US
whose sole purpose is to make Canada richer. Far more than environmentalists
it’s NIMBY folks who have affected nuclear (but still not as much as basic
economics).

~~~
phobosdeimos
Western countries are desperately trying to keep 1960s and 1970s reactors open
for as long as they can because the prospect of building new ones is a
financial and political nightmare.

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baybal2
The biggest advantage of PV energy is that it is almost scale agnostic - a
single panel on top of somebody's rooftop is as efficient as one installed in
a gigawatt scale plant. This is something no other commercial power source
has.

Rather than giving lump sum subsidies, a nation can make much much more by
just ironing out feed in rules, and making sure the grid can accommodate that.
It takes around 6-8k usd (5kw setup) to make an average Asian single family
house energy neutral during summer using Chinese panels (basically we talk
about 1 aircon and a fridge).

Now just compare payout periods of such setups.

Now, the last moment that can't be overstated, but almost always forgotten:
the economic effects of feed-in tariff gets greatly negated when there is no
real time pricing. See, in Asia aircon usage peaks proportionally to
insolation, and so is the PV electricity production.

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phobosdeimos
I never understood how a country like Vietnam could afford nuclear powerplants
when in Europe costs of building new ones skyrocket to 10 billion euro.

~~~
syntaxing
Standards. Not to say that Vietnam is unable to maintain the same quality, but
doing something "right" is tough and expensive. Every little thing needs to be
thoroughly planned and inspected which costs money.

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wjnc
The EU and US massively restricting / taxing Chinese solar has its upsides.
This might be quite the leapfrog and actually getting solar into countries
with lots of sun is quite a meta-efficieny effect. I wonder though how a
country like Vietnam can get it's grid in order to cope with a lot more
natural energy.

~~~
radicalbyte
We (the west) should be strongly encouraging this in developing countries. We
have the money, we have the instruments, all we need is the will.

The US put men on the moon using 1960's technology and brought them back
alive. Switching the world to 100% carbon neutral energy production should be
more than achievable.

~~~
ForHackernews
There's no political or economic will. It won't happen.

~~~
Brakenshire
It all depends on economics, people will switch if the new technologies are
cheaper, or if they face tariffs for not doing their part.

~~~
sgift
If the west tariffs developing countries there will be an outcry over
neocolonialism and forcing the poor countries to our will and whatever.

The only thing the west is allowed to do is putting money into developing
countries without any guarantees and hope they do something useful with it.
It's frustrating.

~~~
radicalbyte
We pump plenty of money in now for specific infrastructure projects; which is
exactly what we should be doing here.

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tjpnz
The article briefly mentions security fears (alongside cost) as one of the
reasons for not going ahead with nuclear. Is this code for a certain foreign
power throwing their weight around?

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rjmunro
How are they going to balance supply from solar (which peaks at midday, and
goes away entirely at night) with demand (which usually peaks in the evening)?

~~~
jerven
Same way anyone else will. Displacing demand to easier times. If most demand
is aircon based then moving it to pre-cooling (make ice during day/defrost
during evening) etc... and economics will do that for the largest consumers.

A bit of storage, and peaker plants. Storage kinds do not really mater as it
is all about what is locally price efficient.

Otherwise, it is the same as the nuclear case. Production does not match
demand curve so fix it with storage, pricing and other tools. (i.e. if nuclear
is baseload something else needs to produce when demand peeks, which in other
words makes it rather similar in practice (see also why all the pumped storage
in the UK was build in the 60-80's))

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jerven
Well this will give some place for the output of FirstSolar Inc. two
Vietnamese manufacturing plants to go. (2.4 GW DC capacity a year, all online
from Q2 2019)

To be honest, nuclear industry hasn't done itself any favors by not building
the plants they sold on anything close to time and budget. 15 to 20 years from
idea to operation is just not nimble enough.

I don't even think that the all of the proposed coal power will all be build
to completion and in operation for long just due to the infrastructure costs.

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Hoasi
Sounds like a sound decision, plenty of sun in Viet Nam, all year long.

~~~
catawbasam
Coal is what is actually being built.

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gwbas1c
I'm really curious if there will be massive storage systems?

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baybal2
Nuclear is too expensive, and small nuclear is even more so, but one has to
remember that nothing can replace atomic energy as the closest one to ideal,
flawless power source.

~~~
merpnderp
We built profitable nuclear plants in the past. One might wonder how with mind
bogglingly better designs and a much richer world, we can't afford to build
them today. My money is that the blame lies between political reasons and that
Nat-Gas is cheap, relatively clean, and wildly abundant energy source in N.
America.

Right now in N. America you'd be a fool to build anything but a mid-sized Nat-
Gas generator which can be spun up/down quickly and costs less to run than
anything else, while gaining major political points for outputting far less
pollution than coal.

~~~
selimthegrim
Well that’s interesting, because University of Minnesota ran simulations with
MISO that stated batteries and solar would outperform a gas peaker on that
grid financially in the next few years.

[http://energytransition.umn.edu/modernizing-minnesotas-
grid-...](http://energytransition.umn.edu/modernizing-minnesotas-grid-an-
economic-analysis-of-energy-storage-opportunities/)

~~~
merpnderp
My state's power companies all run solar and wind installations, and are
incredibly heavily regulated, and all charge extra if you want power from
them. Without a doubt wind and solar cost more in my southern state than Nat-
Gas. Solar is a complete waste as other providers require contracts to stay
available to pick up the slack on cloudy days, and that price is directly
accountable against the solar energy making it far less competitive.

~~~
selimthegrim
The Department of Justice took Entergy to court for this sort of behavior;
that’s why they were forced to join MISO.

[https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/...](https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/03/10/jim-
hood-entergy-tricked-psc-approving-rates-misleading-info/411305002/)

