[HN Gopher] Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to l...
___________________________________________________________________
Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear
energy as green
Author : nixass
Score : 233 points
Date : 2021-10-11 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.euronews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.euronews.com)
| vfclists wrote:
| According to this page, the problem of nuclear waste disposal was
| solved over 20 years ago. It is based on a design where the
| "waste fuel" is used again by the reactor until it is depleted.
|
| The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project -
| http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifr.htm
| tofflos wrote:
| France, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary,
| Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania.
| jstsch wrote:
| Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. To deny
| using an energy source that is nearly carbon neutral, whilst half
| the population of this planet is still living in energy poverty,
| is far from being the prudent choice...
| q1w2 wrote:
| Democracy's are will of the _average_ intelligence and sub-
| average emotional state. They seldom act with prudence.
|
| This is why nearly all nuclear plants under construction today
| are occurring in non-democratic nations.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And one that can supply carbon neutral energy also during
| winters. Which considering amount of global population that
| requires heating to survive is quite critical.
| beezischillin wrote:
| Cheap energy is the way to go green. I'd love electric heating
| and looked into it but the lowest monthly cost estimate I could
| come up with costs roughly the same for a month in electricity
| costs as a winter's worth of firewood. (Well, maybe a bit less
| now with prices of everything skyrocketing, but the demand is
| there.) Still, it needs to go almost 6x to be worth it.
| egberts1 wrote:
| A good start, given that nth generation nuclear power plant is
| nearly meltdown proof.
| emj wrote:
| There is a Swedish sketch about probability and Nuclear power,
| it's written by a master of the form so the translation will
| not live up to the original. Still I do believe it reflects
| what experience tells us about "nearly bulletproof" in regards
| to fission.
|
| http://wootest.net/likelihood.html
| 08-15 wrote:
| I didn't completely get it, but it sure sounds scary.
| Probably because I don't know what happened at Harrisburg.
| Did people die there?
| emj wrote:
| It seems like "Three Mile Island accident" is the name that
| is used in the US. Do not think anyone died.
|
| > Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in
| December 1993, with a total cleanup cost of about $1
| billion
| rusk wrote:
| It really would solve a lot of problems, in a relatively
| straightforward and abundant manner ...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| As long as those countries are happy to cover the cost of waste
| disposal or cleanup...
| q1w2 wrote:
| Waste disposal is a solved problem. One barrel per reactor per
| year is not a meaningful amount of waste.
| [deleted]
| xvilka wrote:
| Given the Germany stupid move to get rid of nuclear (in favor of
| coal[1], as it turned out), not sure if it will support this
| decision. And nowadays they are dependent from one country's
| gas...
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-
| power-a...
| foepys wrote:
| France imports _a lot_ of gas generated power from Germany over
| the course of the year. Without Germany 's readily available
| gas turbines, France wouldn't be able to stabilize their net.
| Same the other way around where Germany relies on France's
| almost always available nuclear power.
| vntok wrote:
| > Without Germany's readily available gas turbines, France
| wouldn't be able to stabilize their net
|
| Nonsense. Nuclear energy could power much more in France,
| it's only for political reasons that the grid managers do not
| ramp up nuclear production to meet demand, thus having to
| import electricity at times. The nuclear-powered baseline
| could be much higher without issues others than political (%
| of renewable energy in the mix)
| pjerem wrote:
| Also, we (the French) made a stupid move by closing the
| Fessenheim power plant although it have passed all the
| security checks and could have continue to work for one or
| more decades.
| onli wrote:
| That's not even remotely true. Fessenheim was a huge
| security risk and would not have passed any security checks
| in a country not as fanatically pro-nuclear as France.
|
| See https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Pannen-AKW-Fessenheim-geht-
| vom-N...:
|
| > _Fessenheim liegt in einem Erdbebengebiet, das Kraftwerk
| ist gegen einen Flugzeugabsturz oder Anschlag unzureichend
| geschutzt. Zudem kam es immer wieder zu Pannen._
|
| That says: It was in an seismic active zone, unprotected
| against plane crashes or terror attacks. There also were a
| bunch of accidents.
|
| Those old reactor designs weren't safe.
| orwin wrote:
| > That's not even remotely true.
|
| It is though. For CEA experts at least. And considering
| what those experts did to the EPR, i'm pretty sure they
| are not as "pro-edf" or "pro-nuclear" as the Green tell
| they are.
|
| > Fessenheim was a huge security risk and would not have
| passed any security checks in a country not as
| fanatically pro-nuclear as France.
|
| You're dissing CEA engineers and physicists here.
|
| > That says: It was in an seismic active zone
|
| This reason is bullshit. Fessenhein is a PWR reactor,
| unless you have something like 7 on the Richter scale,
| the reactor will likely just hold. On a 7, you have
| leakage risks, and maybe on a nine you'll get a meltdown?
|
| Do you think its likely to get a 7 or more there?
|
| > unprotected against plane crashes or terror attacks.
|
| True, plane crashes are not an issue though, unless you
| know exactly where the core or the pool is (one is a much
| much bigger issue than the other obviously). And to
| engage security mesures you need to either: push a big
| button, or cut electricity. Once the grid is down, there
| is no way to make the core explode, and if you take more
| than 30 minutes to put a bomb on it, it probably won't
| even meltdown. To reengage the reactor you need
| knowledge, so a sabotage is still possible.
|
| > There also were a bunch of accidents.
|
| True, and bad ones. Hiring contractors is good for us,
| earning that much doing pretty much nothing, but
| ultimately bad for the company, especially when you need
| to keep competency at a high level. Not the only nuclear
| plant in France where incompetency reigns from what i
| heard.
|
| > Those old reactor designs weren't safe.
|
| Untrue, but true for fessenheim. No commercial French
| reactor active right now are as unsafe as let's say
| Fukushima, because our Gen2 were that much better (as
| were the US's). Not as well designed as CANDUC type, but
| PWR are stable and do have passive protection against a
| chain reaction or a leak. Also, you can just move the
| core out and voila, no more nuclear reaction. Anyway. The
| second wave was improved upon "thanks" to the TMI
| incident, and even older reactors got better passive risk
| reduction upgrades and better detection.
|
| But, Fessenheim did had a lot of troubles (and by
| troubles, i mean incidents from human origin), and while
| the cuve could probably last another 30 to 40 years, the
| PWR tech also have big wear and tear effect on
| surrounding equipements. The CEA accounted for this in
| their rapport, and precognized a long downtime to put
| thing in order.
| stkdump wrote:
| The numbers are public record.
| https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag...
|
| There is no huge spike. And since the decision to shut down the
| nuclear plants, also coal has decreased massively, even more
| dramatically than nuclear.
| rusk wrote:
| Well Germany has access to lots of cheap coal so not so much
| stupid as teutonically pragmatic. Who knows might have been the
| coal lobbyists in this campaign as much as environmentalists
| llampx wrote:
| I still see "Atomkraft? Nein, danke!" stickers here and there
| and am sad at the ignorance displayed by the people who sport
| them.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Let's see if they still sport these stickers after the coming
| winter...
| llampx wrote:
| You underestimate the masochism of the average German, or
| at least the type to have such a sticker.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I live in Germany, I have seen a lot...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Well maybe Germans could just vote to freeze their energy
| prices, like Berliners voted to freeze their rents.
|
| /s
| Ekaros wrote:
| Or buy the power plants and then sell the power for
| cheap...
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| They will simply buy electricity from Poland (coal) or
| France (nuclear) it they need more cheaper.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Ha, that's a good one. Considering the plans of the new
| gov, this is the new normal in Germany and it will get
| even more expensive.
|
| I'm looking forward to diesel at EUR2.10/l, e5 at
| EUR2.50/l, heating oil at EUR110/100l and electricity
| prices x3. What a time to be alive.
| lamp987 wrote:
| Ironically its the Greens. One would think theyre false flag
| paid by coal and petrol corporations.
| blibble wrote:
| with their anti-nuclear stance the Greens have likely done
| more damage to the climate than the conservative parties...
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| > I still see "Atomkraft? Nein, danke!" stickers here and
| there and am sad at the ignorance displayed by the people who
| sport them.
|
| https://www.thelocal.de/20160520/german-nuclear-plant-
| pumped... :
|
| <<the plant used the cover of the Chernobyl - which had
| released a cloud of radioactive waste over western Europe -
| to pump their own waste into the atmosphere, believing no one
| would notice
|
| "It was done intentionally," Schollmeyer said. "We had
| problems at the plant and I was present at a few of the
| meetings."
|
| The problems related to balls of radioactive fuel getting
| stuck in the plant's pipework.
|
| "Some clever dick suggested we clean out the pipework by
| pumping helium through it. He thought that no one would
| notice because of the Chernobyl cloud.">>
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300#Emissio.
| .. :
|
| <<The emissions from the THTR were initially not noticed.
| However, an anonymous informant from the workforce of the
| THTR-300 informed supervisory authorities and environmental
| associations about a hidden radioactive emission on May 4,
| 1986.>>
|
| <<Only when an unusually high concentration of 233Pa was
| detected in the exhaust air of the THTR-300 from the chimney,
| which could not come from Chernobyl but only from the thorium
| of broken fuel elements of the THTR-300, it gradually became
| clear that there must have been significant radioactive
| emissions from the THTR-300 into the environment.>>
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| I hope in long term it reduces our dependency on fossil fuel for
| electricity production.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Uranium is a fossil fuel.
| anotherboffin wrote:
| Despite the many shared traits with some fossil fuels:
| extraction by mining, finite amounts, subject to
| geopolitics... uranium is a chemical element and not a fossil
| fuel, especially the "fossil" part.
| q1w2 wrote:
| This is obviously not correct.
| pjerem wrote:
| From Wikipedia > A fossil fuel is a fuel formed by natural
| processes, such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead
| organisms, containing organic molecules originating in
| ancient photosynthesis[1] A fossil fuel is a fuel formed by
| natural processes, such as anaerobic decomposition of buried
| dead organisms, containing organic molecules originating in
| ancient photosynthesis that release energy in combustion.[2]
| that release energy in combustion.
|
| So, by this definition, Uranium is not a fossil fuel.
| thoughtstheseus wrote:
| Green but potentially dangerous. Nuclear risks can be more easily
| managed anyway. Normalize nuclear power!
| tomp wrote:
| It should be labelled _both_ as "green" and as "renewable" as
| well - it's just as renewable as e.g. solar (a.k.a. "sky
| nuclear").
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| If we are nit picking, we can look at entropy and conclude no
| fuel is renewable :)
| Factorium wrote:
| We also need to ban politicians from accepting donations, bribes
| and post-career board positions from fossil fuel companies;
|
| ie. Gerhard Shroder, former Chancellor of Germany who oversaw the
| beginning of their nuke shutdown, and now works for Rosneft! (A
| giant Russian fossil fuel company controlled by the Russian
| Government)
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| Having grown up in the Cold War with the threat of MAD and the
| waste products from reactors, I do understand the hesitation of
| nuclear power.
|
| But, in a more practical world, there's not much of a choice if
| we want an energy source that's not killing us by air pollution.
| In the other hand, we seem to be yet again passing the problem
| onto future generations. Perhaps they'll have the science to
| resolve nuclear waste but there's no guarantee.
|
| At the end of the day, we're currently consuming too much for the
| technology we have versus the population of the planet wrt to our
| biosphere.
|
| There are a few obvious fixes but none are palatable.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Bill Gates new nuclear power plant design being built in
| Wyoming
|
| These things are small and cheap.
|
| " The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast
| reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost
| the system's power output to 500 MW during peak power demand.
| TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1
| billion."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/utility-small-nuclea...
| pl-94 wrote:
| By the way, with or without nuclear power, the FitFor55 proposal
| sounds completely unreasonable to me. 1. It projects a 35%
| increase of energy efficiency in 10 years. You might achieve it
| in virtual lifes, but not in the real world (ask a cow to burp
| less!?) 2. It concerns domestic net emissions. Meaning that the
| policy is incentiving to de-localisation of industry in China
| (which already explains most of the progress achieved so far).
| wumpus wrote:
| > (ask a cow to burp less!?)
|
| Are you aware of research about reducing methane by feeding
| cows a small amount of seaweed? I'm guessing no.
| hannob wrote:
| > It concerns domestic net emissions. Meaning that the policy
| is incentiving to de-localisation of industry in China
|
| This is simply not true.
|
| The EU is trying to adress this with a mechanism called CBAM
| (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). It's complicated and not
| sure how well it'll work out, but claiming that this is not
| adressed is wrong.
| Zenst wrote:
| Understandable given France has invested heavily into such power
| generation due to policy many decades ago to be energy self
| sufficient. That has seen France build up a nice collection of
| skilled workers across the board from building such power
| stations thru to management.
|
| You can read up some background here: https://www.world-
| nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr... I'd imagine having
| the green label will make export sales better as companies can
| bulk up their `green` quota of energy supplies much easier and
| that stigma hasn't helped.
|
| [EDIT ADD] If you look at the commissioning dates of the bulk of
| Frances reactors and the life-cycle of those reactors. You will
| notice that within the next ten years - many reactors will need
| decommissioning. So a push to get them labelled as green is very
| much in Frances interest to justify replacing end of life
| reactors. Otherwise they may well fall foul of energy production
| quota targets down the line by the EU.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| 5 or 10 years ago I watched a documentary about France's
| nuclear workers (I live in Belgium).
|
| One guy said they had lost a lot of their know how when
| building nuclear plants abroad and were spread too thin now to
| manage all the plants.
|
| He also said that privatization of small contractors to conduct
| routine maintenance had led to tighter schedules and an
| increase in small accidents. He wasn't confident the nuclear
| park was safe enough.
|
| Most signatures are from Eastern Europe. It'd be great for
| France's finances to build nuclear plants in western Europe,
| the west has a strong anti nuclear stance at the moment.
| orwin wrote:
| > He also said that privatization of small contractors to
| conduct routine maintenance had led to tighter schedules and
| an increase in small accidents. He wasn't confident the
| nuclear park was safe enough.
|
| Yes, this is probably the biggest issue for nuclear, and the
| biggest safety risk.
|
| Some contractors are good. If you work in software, you know
| what percentage of them are good, and from those, what
| percentage actually get shit done.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Nuclear power has net CO2 emissions at least as good as, and by
| some estimates better than, renewables like wind and solar:
| https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5...
| tonoto wrote:
| Very good and hopefully that will make the collective opinion
| strong enough to force the politicians in Sweden to scale up
| instead of scaling down the nuclear plants. Instead of lots of
| stable energy we now have more of wind mills turning big areas of
| nature into industrial zones which in turn have made the
| electricity price to become even more expensive.
| cletus wrote:
| This seems to be an unpopular opinion on HN but I just don't
| trust humans to manage fission power in the long term at scale.
|
| First, there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment
| byproducts, specifically depleted Uranium Hexaflouride ("DUJF" or
| UF6).
|
| Second, there's what to do with old fuel rods. Proponents argue
| this is a solved problem and it can be stored for the long term
| in geologically stable storage facilities. This is just one
| political change away from becoming a huge problem.
|
| Neither really scales up to 100x or even 10x current fission
| energy production.
|
| Third, there's long-term maintenance of a plant. Arguments about
| the relative safety of fission point to deaths caused by coal.
| Coal is really the worst fossil fuel. LNG is better. But
| regardless of the numbers, the failure modes are just much, much
| worse for nuclear. 35 years later, the Chernobyl Absolute
| Exclusion Zone still stands at 1000 square miles. Parts of this
| zone will likely remain uninhabitable for centuries.
|
| I just don't trust governments or corporations for the long term
| inspection, maintenance and management of fission power plants in
| the long term.
|
| Lastly, the politics are against fission. This seems unlikely to
| change anytime soon.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Used fuel from thermal reactors can be processed into fuel for
| fast reactors. The fast reactor burns up all the transuranium
| elements so that the waste ends up with only the short lived
| fission products. These short lived products decay to
| background in 300 years or so, so the amount of time it needs
| to be stored is much more manageable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor#Advantag...
| cletus wrote:
| So if we can process nuclear waste in fast reactors like
| this, why haven't we done so with existing nuclear waste?
| Scale? Cost? Something else?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Probably because all (usable) waste (the fuel rods) needs
| to be disassembled (reprocessed) to enable usage somewhere
| else. With new casings. Which then needs to be disassembled
| too, after the contents are 'sucked empty'.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| The cost issue: Storing spent fuel is pretty cheap because
| it is not very voluminous. The USA has produced about 85k
| tons of spent fuel, which would fit into a single football
| stadium. This means the cheapest thing to do is just kick
| the can down the road.
|
| The proliferation issue: Waste burners require processing
| of spent fuel, which some states believe is a weapons
| proliferation risk.
|
| The sodium issue: Liquid sodium requires very careful
| construction of the steam generators and piping to keep it
| from contacting air or water. This is a sort-of solved
| problem in that all the sodium cooled reactors have
| experienced sodium leaks from time to time, but those leaks
| have been fixed without significant radioactive release.
| This is an issue that improves with operator experience.
|
| The russians do have one waste burning fast reactor
| running, the BN-800. If they can do it, so can we.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Doesn't thorium address some of these issues?
| cletus wrote:
| Thorium is complicated. I'd suggest [1] [2] as a good primer
| on this issue.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IqcRl849R0
|
| [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baQelfQAH54
| moonfern wrote:
| The Gobi Molten salt reactor is finished and testing has
| begun. China thinks that in 2030 commercial thorium reactors
| will be available.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| "Second, there's what to do with old fuel rods. Proponents
| argue this is a solved problem and it can be stored for the
| long term in geologically stable storage facilities." With
| space travel becoming cheaper and cheaper, cant we deposit that
| on the moon for example?
| adt2bt wrote:
| The general concern there is a rocket malfunction spewing
| spent fuel rods over a large terrestrial area before it gets
| the chance to reach the moon.
| blaze33 wrote:
| Yes. Also, given the huge volume of radioactive waste (eg.
| like 10s of thousands cubic meters just in France) it would
| require thousands of rocket launches for such an endeavour.
|
| Launch failure rates at best nearing 1%, space don't look
| like our best option here.
| orwin wrote:
| From edf:
|
| "Ces dechets sont constitues, principalement, des
| matieres non valorisables recuperees apres le traitement
| du combustible use. Les matieres sont incorporees dans du
| verre en fusion, lui-meme coule dans un conteneur en
| acier. Les conteneurs contiennent 400 kg de verre pour 11
| kg de dechets. Les conteneurs, en raison de la chaleur
| qu'ils degagent, doivent etre entreposes pour etre
| refroidis pendant au moins une cinquantaine d'annees
| avant d'etre definitivement stockes. Le volume total de
| ces dechets equivaudra a 6 700 m3 a l'issue de 40 annees
| d'exploitation du parc nucleaire francais. Les dechets a
| vie longue representent 10 % du volume total des dechets
| et concentrent 99,9 % de la radioactivite."[0]
|
| So 6300 cubic meter over 40 years of operations. [edit]
| counting the glass to make them manipulable.
|
| [0]
| https://www.edf.fr/sites/default/files/contrib/groupe-
| edf/pr...
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| The stuff could be usable in a
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaseous_fission_reactor#Energy...
| a.k.a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Bill Gates new nuclear power plant design is being built in
| Wyoming.
|
| These things are small and cheap.
|
| " The project features a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast
| reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost
| the system's power output to 500 MW during peak power demand.
| TerraPower said last year that the plants would cost about $1
| billion."
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/utility-small-nuclea...
| cletus wrote:
| I, for one, welcome newer and better reactor designs.
|
| This doesn't solve the significant issues of fuel enrichment
| and waste storage and disposal however and we need a much
| better story for those before fission power has any kind of
| future (IMHO).
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Fair points. (I hope nobody downvoted you)
|
| I somewhat disagree on your general point, though. Pellet
| reactor (mostly?) solve the spent fuel issue. Also, I believe
| that due to unreasonable negative opinion we're behind a few
| decades where we could be in terms of research.
|
| And as I said in my earlier comment, it is exactly this lack of
| public support that had (and has) us running old timer nuclear
| plants (like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and most of the currently
| operated plants in the US, the EU, and elsewhere).
|
| But I agree 100% that the problems you cite need to solved, and
| these solutions have to be communicated.
| q1w2 wrote:
| I don't think any of the GP's arguments hold up.
|
| > there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment
| byproducts
|
| Omega Tau did an in depth analysis of all the storage issues,
| including the byproducts and how they are managed.
|
| https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/omegataupodcast/omegatau-3.
| ..
|
| These are solved problems.
|
| > what to do with old fuel rods
|
| ...same as above. The quantity here is far far smaller than
| most people imagine and it's a very manageable amount - even
| if scaled 100x. We're talking about 1 barrel per reactor per
| year.
|
| > there's long-term maintenance of a plant
|
| Modern Gen III plants are build such that any failure in the
| control systems, causes the reactor to turn off via a,
| usually, gravity system - so no power needed to turn off the
| reaction. They are essentially constantly being told to stay
| on.
|
| Accidents as we've seen in the past are not possible with Gen
| III reactors. ...the failure modes are just much, much worse
| for nuclear
|
| More relevant though is that the success condition for
| LNG/Coal/Oil/etc plants is Global Climate Change. THAT is the
| critical issue.
|
| Also, the notion that nuclear storage facilities are somehow
| massive liabilities when the nations of the world currently
| already have literally tens of thousands of nuclear
| bombs/missiles, seems odd. There is a far far greater
| likelihood of Climate Change triggered nuclear war than
| nuclear waste misuse.
|
| The real problem with nuclear is public ignorance. What I
| find a remarkable contradiction is how anti-nuclear advocates
| claim we need to convince the public that Climate Change is
| real, but then throw up their hands as hopeless when there's
| a suggestion that nuclear misinformation should be combated.
| [deleted]
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It may not be popular, because it is just not very logical or
| pragmatic. Setting aside the vagaries of politics, as those
| will eventually change the same way pendulum swings, the simple
| reality is that we simply won't be able to dig around for coal,
| gas and oil for that much longer. Something has got to give.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| The op gives clear and sound reasons which you dismiss as
| illogical without any actual argument. Your answer also
| misses the obvious point of renewables.
|
| I fully agree with the op, no way nuclear is long-term safe
| and if we poured the trillions that have been poured into
| nuclear into renewables the world already would be a lot
| nicer. But renewables are much harder to monopolize so the
| big players never really wanted to support them.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| "But renewables are much harder to monopolize so the big
| players never really wanted to support them."
|
| Compared to nuclear power? Yeah. Almost by default getting
| nuclear power up and running requires government
| intervention and this is where it hurts. There is no
| privatization money to skim ( unlike renewables ). It is
| monopolized, but it is monopolized the way government
| monopolizes things (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly ).
|
| "if we poured the trillions that have been poured into
| nuclear into renewables the world already would be a lot
| nicer. "
|
| It is possible ( I was wrong before ), but I would like you
| to consider the following:
|
| Solar panels require rare earths. They are called rare not
| for shits and giggles. What do you think will happen when
| entire Earth starts looking for them. Consider scalability
| issues and all of a sudden, digging for oil looks better.
| We have an interesting view of the coming attractions with
| Tesla (
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-25/musk-
| says... ) and some of the tall tales of him supporting a
| coup to get the resources he needed.
|
| Similar list of issues run for other renewables with
| possible exception of geothermal, so I think 'a lot nicer'
| may be a bit of exaggeration. It is going to sound really
| cynical, but to me it sounds like pockets where the money
| reside will change.
|
| That is it. With nuclear -- some of that money will dry up.
| Hence, partially, the cry out against it.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Rare earths aren't rare. Nor are they earths. It's just
| an old name
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I suppose we can play a semantic game, but it does not
| change the actual result does it? They could be called
| Albino Chickens for all I care.
|
| Rare earths are rare on the market right now, because
| China managed to monopolize the market. To make it more
| amusing, extraction of those materials is not exactly
| easy on the environment, which makes it less likely that
| Western countries will allow it in their backyard.
|
| With that out of the way what about my argument is wrong?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| > solar panels require rare earths.
|
| They don't require them, and most common ones don't even
| use them.
|
| We already covered Rare Earths not being rare, but since
| they're not really a big limiter on renewable energy
| anyway, it doesn't really matter.
|
| So, to a rough approximation, everything is wrong with
| your argument.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I read that letter in the newspaper this morning and I had a few
| questions about the claims being made:
|
| - They claim nuclear could create a million of jobs in Europe.
| What kind of jobs ? Is that job creation or job swapping ?
|
| - Switching to nuclear power guarantees energy independence. But
| where is the uranium we need ? How can we guarantee delivery ?
|
| The argument I hear against building new nuclear plants is that
| it's basically too late:
|
| - it takes 30 years or more to build one
|
| - it usually costs twice as planned
|
| - it's way more expensive than renewables
|
| - renewables can be deployed now
|
| I do believe we should have built more nuclear plants 20 or 30
| years ago but we were drunk on cheap oil and gas.
| derlvative wrote:
| Australia is the country wih the world's largest uranium
| reserves. They seem to be a more agreeable trading partner than
| Russia.
| forty wrote:
| From a French point of view, this might have become debatable
| lately ;)
| oblak wrote:
| In what way is Australia more agreeable uranium selling
| partner? I really don't know
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think construction timeframes all due to complex political
| process and lack of proper experience.
|
| With enough political will and accepting more reactors in
| numbers I believe in 10 years, we could get plants up and
| running in 5 year timeframe.
| Krasnol wrote:
| > I think construction timeframes all due to complex
| political process and lack of proper experience.
|
| Are you aware that Hinkley Point is build by the EDF a French
| company...they sure don't lack proper experience but the
| project is still all OP listed.
|
| Fission is no solution for the crisis.
| Ekaros wrote:
| How many of those type of reactors have they build in past
| 10 years? Unless they are building at least 1 a year I
| don't consider it overall proper experience. And
| realistically we should aim to much higher numbers, as at
| that point most problems would already have solutions and
| quality would be substantially higher with skilled workers.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I'm sorry but this is ridiculous.
|
| Those fantasies would cost immense amounts of money in
| the decades it would take to build up your "super
| experience". The cost and speed of improvement of
| renewable sources do not justify anything like that.
| 08-15 wrote:
| > I do believe we should have built more nuclear plants 20 or
| 30 years ago
|
| Would you like to know why we didn't?
|
| Because climate activists told us 20 years ago that
|
| - [a nuclear power plant] takes 30 years or more to build one
|
| - [a nuclear power plant] usually costs twice as planned
|
| - [nuclear power is] way more expensive than renewables
|
| - renewables can be deployed now
|
| Then we (Germany) wasted 20 years building renewables, and now
| we are nowhere close to fulfilling our Kyoto commitment, and
| got the most expensive electricity anywhere in the world. Well
| done, climate activists!
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I do wonder why and how green parties were able to get
| everyone else to retire nuclear plants but then nobody
| (green, blue, red, etc.) set plans in motion to replace it.
| djbebs wrote:
| There are plenty of old abandoned uranium mines in portugal.
|
| They were abandoned because the price of uranium is so cheap
| it's not economical to mine it, but that can change if the
| economics of the situation change (ie, it suddenly becomes
| impossible to Import)
|
| Regardless the point is moot. The amount of uranium required
| isn't that huge.
| pensatoio wrote:
| Great news. Let's make it happen. Discussions about "green"
| energy that don't involve nuclear are hypocritical at best and
| ignorant at worst.
| account4mypc wrote:
| I think this is the right attitude. Even if you don't want to
| use nuclear power, it obviously warrants serious attention.
| wumpus wrote:
| Using words like "ignorant" and "hypocritical" shows an
| attitude problem.
| RobRivera wrote:
| we should aggregate all problematic words into a controlled
| list to identify problematic people with problematic
| attitudes to solve certain problems
|
| - end sarcasm
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I saw a photo of an entire hillside covered with solar panels
| and it was being touted as some green energy achievement. But
| then I realized that those solar panels have smothered the
| habitat and that the actual energy output of that solar panel
| array is very low compared to its footprint - not to mention
| all the resources that went into producing all those panels.
| It seems obvious to me that the best possible solution is
| Nuclear Energy.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Then I consider that I live in cold climate with long and
| dark winters. I wonder where is the truly grid scale energy
| storage to go over winter...
|
| Okay, currently it is Norway and it kinda works, but that
| really doesn't look too good just now...
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Well Norway should probably not do solar (except
| marginal, e.g. instead of traditional roof tiles solar
| roofs instead). But Norway had plenty of hydro and
| thermal options, even wind should work well in the more
| southern areas.
| coldpie wrote:
| You're a bit off the mark with your perception of solar,
| although you do come to the right conclusion. Solar panels
| can interact well with the local environment[1] and their
| production resources are sufficiently low as to still be a
| genuinely clean source of energy[2]. Also, when comparing
| production costs, consider that nuclear plants don't build
| themselves and use a _lot_ of concrete, which has a major
| carbon cost.
|
| But your conclusion is right: nuclear is by far the best
| power option we have right now.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/bees-and-solar-
| panel...
|
| [2] "Researchers found that it takes just 1 to 4 years for
| solar panels to "even out" or "pay back" their energy debt.
| When you consider the fact that panels are designed to last
| 20 to 25 years, on average, you can see why that's an
| impressive rating." Includes link to source study,
| https://www.solarmelon.com/faqs/solar-panels-use-energy-
| manu...
| eithed wrote:
| I think we shouldn't be forgetting about the disposal of
| solar panels as well -
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-
| was...
| orwin wrote:
| I'm pro-nuclear, but solar panel disposal in rich country
| is almost solved. 94,7% recyclable, the recycling is
| taken into account when you buy them (in Europe at
| least), so its free to get them to the recycling plant
| for the owner.
| a9h74j wrote:
| And then energy and transportation prices increase by a
| factor of four, and it turns out not enough money was set
| aside for solar-farm decomissioning??
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Solar seems like a best fit for existing buildings, like
| Musk's solar roofs/windows. For wide spaces there can be
| other options, like wind, which has a much lower footprint.
| But even a well placed solar farm does not need to smother
| wildlife, e.g. you leave space in between, plant lower
| bushes, etc.
|
| As regards efficiency, solar is nowadays not bad, there's a
| reason it is the cheapest energy in many countries,
| especially during the summer months.
| JJzD wrote:
| The issue is that even if we take care of the waste, nuclear
| power can't scale in output in less than three days because of
| safety procedures.
|
| So it will push the real renewable energies off the net, and
| we'll need gas turbines to handle day to day fluctuations.
| delroth wrote:
| That's entirely untrue. Nuclear power plant designs used in
| France (and I think Germany?) participate in load following
| and can do so between 30-100% capacity at around 5%/min.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Operat.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Pre.
| ..
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Good. Due do skewed and unreasonable public opinion it is
| currently almost impossible to start new nuclear power projects.
| As a result instead of modern, safe (passive cooling, etc)
| nuclear plants we're running 30-40 year old, unsafe old timers!
|
| Thorium pellet reactors, et al, are promising technologies for
| safe and local power generation.
|
| I believe the right answer is a mix of (safe) nuclear,
| renewables, together with energy storage such as pump hydro
| storage, can solve our energy needs. Then again, I'm a lay person
| in this area.
| mszyndel wrote:
| Worth adding that in EU this is largely German public opinion.
| And somehow the tail wags the dog.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Angela Merkel was a disaster in this regard. The nation went
| collectively insane after Fukushima and she cowed to the
| public to win the next election rather than try to calm the
| public ignorance.
|
| Instead, Germany funded Russia's NordGas II pipeline to
| replace the nuclear power they turned off with gas. Insane
| stupidity.
| nazka wrote:
| And continue with their coal mines and turbines too...
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| While I concur with the 'disaster', the pipeline thing
| seems to be more rooted in our former chancellor, a.k.a
| Gazprom Gerd. Revolving door, and such, you know? :-)
| joecool1029 wrote:
| As stupid as this policy was, it wasn't started by Merkel.
| She just sped it up.
|
| The previous chancellor Schroder, now a foreign Russian
| energy minister, set the schedule into motion for nuclear
| shutdown.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Rel
| ation...
| lrem wrote:
| Is it so? Constituting a quarter of the gdp, Germany doesn't
| seem to qualify as "the tail".
| buran77 wrote:
| Is public opinion weight a matter of GDP? Should it?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Hasn't Bill Gates done a lot with nuclear reactor design?
| callistus wrote:
| Yes: https://www.terrapower.com/
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