[HN Gopher] Finland lobbied EU to declare nuclear power sustainable
___________________________________________________________________
Finland lobbied EU to declare nuclear power sustainable
Author : JaakkoP
Score : 211 points
Date : 2021-10-12 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yle.fi)
(TXT) w3m dump (yle.fi)
| zokier wrote:
| Here is official press release from Finnish Government, which
| also links to the statement from the ministers:
| https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/1410877/lintila-and-other-eu-...
|
| Also the relevant EC page has a section on nuclear energy that
| has some more information: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-
| economy-euro/banking-and-...
| sharmin123 wrote:
| Are There Top Signs of a Cheating Lover? What To do Then?:
| https://www.hackerslist.co/are-there-top-signs-of-a-cheating...
| unchocked wrote:
| Finland is a hero on nuclear energy development. After the US
| bailed on Yucca Mountain, Finland is the only country I know
| building a stable geological waste repository. Great to see the
| realist Greens coming along on nuclear as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
|
| * to be anti-nuclear is to be anti-climate, and pro-coal.
| ben_w wrote:
| > to be anti-nuclear is to be anti-climate, and pro-coal.
|
| While this was true even 10 years ago, not so much now. While
| nuclear is still cheaper than the batteries which would
| otherwise be the main[0] worldwide alternative to backing up
| PV/wind, it is close, and probable future development curves
| for renewables and batteries make it not completely insane to
| reject nuclear.
|
| Personally I would still support new reactors, firstly because
| I don't want to keep all my eggs in one basket if my
| expectations for future battery factories are falsified, and
| secondly because I think diverse solutions are likely to be
| cheaper and faster overall than monoculture solutions.
|
| [0] Scandinavia in general might be amazing for hydro, which is
| much cheaper than batteries, but IIRC most places aren't so
| fortunate.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > While nuclear is still cheaper than the batteries which
| would otherwise be...
|
| And here lies the problem, if we see everything through the
| lens of economics and affordability we'll never get out of it
| ivoras wrote:
| Get out of what... economics?
|
| And then what would be the driving force of progress which
| results in all that wondereful green technology?
|
| Technology as a human concept is about solving problems,
| and throughout history, it's sometimes been about solving
| problems caused by previous technology. Unless we suddenly
| get struck by a movement to get back to an agrarian
| civilisation _and stick there in perpetuity like an ultra
| strict Amish-like society_ , there's simply no way to
| escape the race with ourselves where we need more and more
| technology to fix the problems caused by the previous
| technologies.
|
| Yes, eventually we'll fail. Or escape to the stars and
| sacrifice other planets to our selfish genes. But that's
| ok, eventually the universe itself will fail, you can only
| slow down entropy for a tiny bit.
| ganzuul wrote:
| They most likely meant economics as in the numbers game
| rather than in the original sense.
| baq wrote:
| If there are better ways to invest effort in instead of the
| bottomless pit which nuclear power plants are, why bother?
| I'm not anti-nuclear in principle, but building new plants
| just doesn't make sense. Takes too long and ties up too
| much resources. Money is just a proxy for those two things.
| repomies69 wrote:
| > [0] Scandinavia in general might be amazing for hydro
|
| All the possible rivers are already used, and the plants have
| killed the fish from the rivers. The effect on wildlife is
| not that nice.
| tokai wrote:
| >Scandinavia in general might be amazing for hydro
|
| I don't know. Here in Scandinavia the price of electricity is
| forecasted to sky rocket, due to lower output of hydro
| power.[0] If macro weather pattern are to undergo rapid
| change hydro power might not be the most reliable.
|
| [0]
| ben_w wrote:
| If you're using it as a battery, which is what I'm
| suggesting here, you don't need to worry about rain.
| Filligree wrote:
| You can't use it as a battery without large reservoirs of
| water you can pump _into_ the input reservoir. Norway
| only has half the necessary infrastructure.
| jhgb wrote:
| Not necessarily -- you can modulate output. The input
| reservoir gets refilled naturally if your average outflow
| matches the average inflow.
| Arnt wrote:
| That is precisely what Norway does. Prices go up when
| average inflow is low. The biggest source of inflow is
| snow, which maps to outflow 0-18 months later.
| Ekaros wrote:
| They are still fresh water rivers. So you still need some
| supply and flow.
| [deleted]
| Zigurd wrote:
| Re "While this was true even 10 years ago..."
|
| A very remarkable thing is the decline in the cost of
| renewables _just in the last 10 years._
|
| The cost number have completely flipped in that time, not
| even counting the cost risk from delays, underestimated
| decommissioning costs for nuclear, the uninsurability of
| decommissioning costs, and the uninsurability of of nuclear
| accident risk. Solar and wind are cheapest now, by a
| multiple.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The parent is correctly factoring in storage costs. If you
| can't store solar or wind energy, then it can't be used for
| base load generation.
| jhgb wrote:
| Even that is not true, since you can always combine
| electricity from multiple sources to form your base load,
| and there's no law of nature saying that the base load
| must come from a single source.
|
| But even more importantly, the need for storage arises at
| much higher renewable penetration levels than you observe
| in the current world. It will take multiple decades to
| get to the point where you _need_ large amounts of
| storage in the first place.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Even that is not true, since you can always combine
| electricity from multiple sources to form your base load,
| and there's no law of nature saying that the base load
| must come from a single source.
|
| No one is saying it must come from a single source?
| Combining electricity from multiple _reliable_ sources is
| fine, but there will be times when the sun isn 't shining
| and the wind isn't blowing so you need to be able to meet
| energy demands in those cases. The only _clean_ solution
| is nuclear (and hydro where available).
| derriz wrote:
| Combining sources from multiple _unreliable_ sources is
| actually fine - as long as the failure/intermittency
| isn't correlated. Defining "fine" as reasonably low
| variance - i.e. guaranteeing X amount of capacity will be
| available for Y% of the time.
|
| Nuclear doesn't give you 100% for Y above - there are
| times when your nuclear reactor will also be unavailable
| - the average is about 32 days per year in the US. So
| nuclear has a similar problem - as has all generation
| types - albeit with different statistical properties.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Combining sources from multiple _unreliable_ sources is
| actually fine - as long as the failure/intermittency
| isn't correlated.
|
| This is true for a sufficiently large number of
| uncorrelated sources, but all solar plants in a region
| are correlated and all wind plants in a region are
| correlated so effectively you have only two renewable
| sources in a region that are decoupled, which is wholly
| inadequate considering the relatively low reliability of
| either source. Maybe over-provisioning would help, but I
| don't know how much you would have to over-provision to
| get power on a still night, and anyway the whole point is
| accounting for costs so if it's not storage then you have
| to account for the over-provisioning costs.
|
| > Nuclear doesn't give you 100% for Y above - there are
| times when your nuclear reactor will also be unavailable
| - the average is about 32 days per year in the US. So
| nuclear has a similar problem - as has all generation
| types - albeit with different statistical properties.
|
| These aren't similar problems. With wind and solar power,
| bad weather shuts down all "plants" in a region. With
| nuclear, you have maintenance windows on individual
| plants which can be coordinated with other plants in the
| region such that base load is maintained.
|
| > different statistical properties
|
| Technically true, but doing _a lot_ of rhetorical labor.
| derriz wrote:
| You but your claim was that it was only possible to
| provide reliable supply by combining _reliable_ sources.
| This is not the case.
|
| Wind and solar are largely anti-correlated in most
| regions. Depending on the geography, differences in wind
| output can vary significantly over distances in as little
| 100km and offshore and on-shore capacity factors also
| tend to show divergence. At distances above 1,500km wind
| is uncorrelated in Europe.
|
| The stochastic failures of nuclear reactors are largely
| independent but not always - a natural catastrophe like
| Fukushima can take out a bunch of reactors. Or extreme
| weather (heat), like last summer's drought took out a
| bunch of reactors in a few northern European countries.
|
| It's not rhetorical labor to point out that it's
| simplistic to present nuclear as completely reliable
| (it's not) and that unreliable sources can contribute to
| a reliable grid. It's pointing out that the problem is
| more subtle.
|
| Unlike 10 years ago, we have now concrete examples of
| grids which operate with very high shares of wind and
| solar without any decrease in reliability and have
| developed practical techniques for incorporating such
| sources into grids.
| jhgb wrote:
| > but there will be times when the sun isn't shining and
| the wind isn't blowing so you need to be able to meet
| energy demands in those cases. The only clean solution is
| nuclear (and hydro where available).
|
| That claim is highly debatable. Lots of people claim that
| the storage necessary to overcome these generation
| troughs make it infeasible but they seem to completely
| ignore holistic cost minimization approaches using
| overgeneration and then conclude that the amount of
| storage required makes it impossible. Meanwhile it's been
| calculated that modest overgeneration squashes storage
| amounts (and costs) in massive ways. People have actually
| studied these things, you know...
|
| See for example the 2018 article _On the economics of
| electrical storage for variable renewable energy sources_
| by Zerrahn et al.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| It's not like overgeneration is free either, and I'm very
| skeptical that overgeneration can squeeze blood from a
| stone on regionally cloudy, still weeks; however, I'll
| read your source when I have a free moment, thanks for
| sharing, etc.
| jhgb wrote:
| Nobody says that overgeneration is free. But for example
| if your wind power costs are $20/MWh and your nuclear
| power costs are $80/MWh, even 100% overgeneration
| capacity for wind is still cheaper compared to the
| nuclear alternative. And if it achieves the desired
| effect cheaper than storage, then it will be preferred
| over storage as well. The optimal ratio of storage and
| overgeneration needs to be modeled for every grid
| independently; I believe the article I mentioned models
| it for the German grid.
|
| In practice, though, I expect that you won't even get
| energy waste from overgeneration if flexible energy
| consumers like BEVs or flexible hydrogen electrolyzers
| are connected to the grid. These will account for a major
| portion of electricity consumption and it will be
| possible to move their consumption around very
| considerably.
| politician wrote:
| We can't assume overgeneration will be sustainable since
| there is profit to be made by idling or scrapping
| generators to reduce costs.
| jhgb wrote:
| We can safely assume that. First, if the deployed mixture
| of generators is the cheapest mixed solution devised,
| there's money to be _wasted_ "by idling or scrapping
| generators", since by definition that would _increase_
| costs, not reduce them, so it would be an irrational step
| to make. Second, opportunistic consumers not included in
| the base load can take advantage of these peaks, to the
| benefit of both sides (generators AND consumers --
| consumers get power for peanuts and generators get some
| extra money they otherwise wouldn 't get), for example
| for charging BEVs on demand -- and you'll need _lots_ of
| power for that.
| politician wrote:
| Are you assuming grid-scale storage exists and is
| deployed widely in your scenario?
| ben_w wrote:
| > Solar and wind are cheapest now, by a multiple.
|
| Absolutely! I'm only suggesting nuclear as a backup for low
| wind nighttime demand. It's completely pointless to use
| nuclear as the main power source precisely because of the
| cost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_
| source#...
|
| But to deal with the low-wind nighttime demand, you have
| the option of storage (hydro and batteries aren't the only
| options); you can do demand management (it helps people use
| less when they sleep); you can do intercontinental HVDC (in
| principle, but think in terms of a square metre of cross
| section for 100% of EU demand, so it will take a while to
| build); and you can do other power types -- nuclear
| (expensive), geothermal (geographically specific in ways I
| don't understand), tidal (surprisingly expensive), natural
| gas (sill better than coal).
|
| I'm in favour of all of the above except natural gas. I'm
| _expecting_ near 100% wind & PV supported by existing
| nuclear plants and existing and new storage (and a few 10s
| of GW intercontinental HVDC) by early 2030s... but my
| expectations are based on hoping grid storage battery
| prices get a lot cheaper with less evidence than I'd like
| to be comfortable, which means I want to support _all_ the
| solutions rather than just my favourite.
| Zigurd wrote:
| I was not disagreeing
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > While this was true even 10 years ago, not so much now.
| While nuclear is still cheaper than the batteries which would
| otherwise be the main[0] worldwide alternative to backing up
| PV/wind, it is close
|
| The cost of nuclear is artificially high because special
| interests have lobbied hard against nuclear, draining western
| countries of the experience to build nuclear facilities
| rapidly and also taking away any opportunities for
| efficiencies of scale.
|
| Moreover, I don't think you can look at the cost of batteries
| as-is. If we seriously invest in batteries as a solution for
| grid-scale power storage, the demand will go through the roof
| and I doubt supply will be able to keep up (at least not on
| the 10-50 year timeframes that the climate challenge
| requires) while we're also trying to electrify transport and
| other industries.
|
| > Personally I would still support new reactors, firstly
| because I don't want to keep all my eggs in one basket if my
| expectations for future battery factories are falsified, and
| secondly because I think diverse solutions are likely to be
| cheaper and faster overall than monoculture solutions.
|
| I strongly agree with this. If climate change is an
| existential threat, then it's supremely foolish to give up on
| our only proven clean base load supply in favor of
| unsubstantiated hope for a miracle breakthrough in renewable
| storage. We should absolutely pursue both, vigorously.
| cinntaile wrote:
| You should look at the amount of battery plants that are
| being built right now. This is just in Europe. Economies of
| scale at work. https://mobile.twitter.com/ZennRoland/status
| /135382169441102...
| foepys wrote:
| > The cost of nuclear is artificially high because special
| interests have lobbied hard against nuclear, draining
| western countries of the experience to build nuclear
| facilities rapidly and also taking away any opportunities
| for efficiencies of scale.
|
| Hinkley Point C is build in cooperation by China and
| France, the at the moment most active countries in building
| and maintaining nuclear power plants. It doesn't get more
| "economy of scale"-ly than this.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Smaller, safer, modular reactors should have been our
| focus decades ago. We are several generations behind
| where we ought to be, because we haven't prioritized it.
| The zero-nuclear agenda, combined with cheap natural gas
| and a (to me) strange fixation on renewables* has held us
| back.
|
| *I say strange, because renewables have only just now
| started to get to make sense at scale, despite the
| reliance on fossil fuels to provide a base load, when we
| could have had a clean grid by now without them had we
| tried.
| Retric wrote:
| Modular reactors don't actually reduce costs in any
| meaningful way. Construction costs are significant, but
| surprisingly low percentage of overall costs. For example
| nuclear needs a large highly trained workforce for
| decades. Every individual pulling 100k * 50 years is 5
| million dollars, and you need a large workforce. Arguably
| security guards and medical staff are unnecessary, but
| modular reactors don't lower those costs.
|
| Fuel is similarly expensive and no in practice
| reprocessing doesn't really help. Shutting down for
| refueling is again expensive when you consider it happens
| 30 times over the lifetime of a nuclear power plant.
| Decommissioning is extremely expensive even if it can but
| off. Even highly subsidized insurance is yet again
| expensive. Overall construction costs aren't limited to
| the reactor you still need radiation shielding, cooling
| towers or the equivalent, cooling ponds for waste, roads,
| offices etc.
|
| Don't get me wrong if someone had come up with a great
| modular reactor 20 years ago Nuclear might be much better
| off today, but we're simply past the point where more R&D
| is going to help. The only possibly for change is if
| nighttime electricity costs ended up much higher than
| current daytime costs. However a lot of demand is being
| shifted to nighttime because costs are currently cheaper,
| change that equation and nighttime demand will fall
| dramatically.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| It certainly could get a lot more "economy of scale"-y
| than a single bespoke reactor project. Indeed, look into
| small modular reactors--they're designed to be built at
| scale in factories (rather than individual bespoke
| plants). The levels ed cost of energy for these is
| projected to be well below $100/MWh which compares
| favorably with fossil fuel sources.
| foepys wrote:
| One unsolved problem with those small reactors is
| security. How do you prevent some terrorists from
| building dirty bombs with material stolen from a
| company's basement reactor? How do you trace the vast
| amount of radioactive material at so many sites?
| londons_explore wrote:
| > I doubt [battery] supply will be able to keep up.
|
| Any tech that exists today can be made in almost-limitless
| quantities given a few years and customers willing to pay.
|
| Eg. Say you want to make 100x the worlds current production
| of nuts and bolts. You just count up how many nut and bolt
| factories there are, how many steel works, how many mines,
| etc, and you multiply that by 99 and build them. Provided
| you have financing (which you will have if enough people
| are happy to buy nut and bolt futures ahead of time),
| they're all parallel projects so can be done independently,
| almost eliminating schedule risk.
|
| The only time it doesn't hold true is when the need for a
| product is short term, unpredictable, unexpected, or where
| someone desires to pay less than market price.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| We're talking about enough batteries for the entire
| world's total energy needs for weeks at a time. That
| means the battery industry needs to increase in size by
| many times it's current state, which implies many new
| factories built and so on, never mind contention over
| natural resources. Meeting such demand seems likely to
| take many decades and untold trillions in investment.
| zokier wrote:
| > Finland is a hero on nuclear energy development
|
| Finland is also a country that just spent almost 20 years
| building one new nuclear reactor, and its still not in
| commercial operation
| nabla9 wrote:
| It was the failure of the French who build the damn thing
| (Areva NP, now Framatome). The French tried to make a rush
| job and cut corners but Finnish radiation safety organization
| don't allow it like French does.
|
| They tried to cut corners in concrete casting, then they had
| to do it again. Then they tried to get away with bad welds
| and had to redo them, and inspection. Endless use of as cheap
| labor as possible.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Then they complained they could not make a profit.
|
| Should have thought of that when bidding.
| TravelPiglet wrote:
| And it's not looking pretty:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_build.
| ..
| arthurcolle wrote:
| How in the name of Allah is the nominal cost of mosque
| around the Kaaba $100 billion? That is bonkers
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| Worth 5 state of the art nuclear power plants
| apparently...
| dpedu wrote:
| I suspect this number is inflated for the purpose of
| showing off the kingdom's or the religion's wealth and
| power.
| ganzuul wrote:
| To me and I assume most Westerners it looks like an
| egregious excess while poverty is rampant. At least space
| projects produce trickle-down technology, but this is
| just busy-work.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The the cousin of the brother in law of some minor prince
| has to get his piece of the pie.
|
| If you're ever in New York, check out the Tweed
| courthouse, which was built in the 1880s. The total cost
| was $10.5B 2020 dollars.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Tammany Hall did corruption better than _anybody_. Robert
| Moses would blush.
|
| It's worth reading the line items from that construction.
| Carpenters getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
| - multiple millions now - for a couple days of work.
| Enough carpeting ordered to cover whole parks several
| times.
| jhgb wrote:
| Petrodollars, that's how.
| [deleted]
| open-source-ux wrote:
| Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, Flamanville 3 in France and Hinkley
| Point C in the UK are all using the same reactor design:
| European Pressurised Reactor (EBR). This was jointly
| developed by France (Framatome and EDF) and Germany
| (Siemens).
|
| All three projects are over-budget and have been dogged by
| delays.
|
| I'm not against nuclear, but the cost of new (large) nuclear
| plants always spiral out of control. For example, Hinkley
| Point C in the UK is due for completion in 2026. Estimated
| total cost: PS23 billion - making it one of the most
| expensive nuclear power plants in the world.
|
| This BBC report on Hinkley Point C has some interesting
| facts:
|
| _Hinkley nuclear power station on track for 2026 opening_ :
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-58724732
|
| From the article:
|
| > When Hinkley was approved in 2016, EDF estimated the cost
| at PS18bn. Today, the company puts the bill at nearer PS23bn.
|
| The deal to build Hinkley Point C includes a fixed-price or
| ceiling cost for electricity known as the Strike Price:
|
| > ...in 2016, the British government fixed that price at
| PS92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh). The price rises with
| inflation and has now reached PS106/MWh.
|
| > Back then, the equivalent price for electricity from
| offshore windfarms was well over PS120/MWh. But wind costs
| have fallen fast. Today new wind projects are fixed at about
| PS50/MWh, well under half the price of Hinkley power.
|
| > So, the big question for Hinkley watchers is this. By 2026,
| will the electricity it produces look very expensive?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| When the wind isn't blowing it will probably look rather
| cheap, especially if gas shortages remain prevalent.
|
| Regardless, I'm all for maintaining at least our current
| level of nuclear contribution to the grid until the
| renewable storage story is complete at GW scale. It's much
| harder to commission new nuclear plants if we allow all of
| ours to fall into disuse.
| fulafel wrote:
| The second EPR build in France started 2 years later is not
| faring much better, jury is still out whether it will take
| less time or budget: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuc
| lear_reactor)#Flaman...
| option wrote:
| to be anti-nuclear is like being anti-vaccine during the
| pandemic
| ihsw wrote:
| It's okay to be anti-bad-nuclear-management and pro-nuclear,
| just like how it's okay to be anti-mandate and pro-vaccine.
| option wrote:
| true. I am pro-vaccines but anti _gov_ mandate. But modern
| nuclear is so safe and, arguably, over regulated so it is
| pretty safe to just support "nuclear
| jhgb wrote:
| Countries, sadly, don't get to pick their geology.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yucca mountain is absolutely safe and geologically stable.
| That was why it was chosen. Don't spread FUD.
| jhgb wrote:
| Only the US has access to Yucca Mountain; my country
| doesn't. Not sure how Yucca Mountain is relevant for the
| all other non-US, non-Finnish countries talked about by
| GGP.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Not every country has every resource; that's why we have
| global trade. Yet that isn't even relevant since nuclear
| storage doesn't require special geography - US plants
| mostly just keep it onsite.
| jhgb wrote:
| So will your country allow my country to store our waste
| in Yucca Mountain, then?
| Alupis wrote:
| There's a lot more nuclear waste storage facilities than
| you might think. Europe has many, for example, and the US
| has 80+[1][2] in total including Yucca Mountain. Any
| nation that has operated a nuclear power plant is going
| to have some sort of storage site.
|
| Regardless, it's possible to negotiate this as some sort
| of trade agreement, sure. Your country could also build
| their own if they didn't have one already...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#/medi
| a/File:...
|
| [2]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-
| map-...
| jhgb wrote:
| Thank you; I'm fully aware of our intermediate storage
| sites (we have exactly two of them). But that's not what
| the top-level comment about the stable storage site was
| talking about.
|
| > Your country could also build their own if they didn't
| have one already
|
| It's like you didn't read at all what I wrote!
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28842914)
| Alupis wrote:
| Being near a populated area is not a factor for these
| sites, particularly if you are geologically stable.
|
| Look at the map from the US, many sites of varying level
| are extremely close to major metropolitan areas. They are
| often deep underground.
| jhgb wrote:
| It absolutely is a factor for the politics of site
| decision. I've checked Yucca Mountain; apparently the
| closest settlement is like 25 kilometers away or so, the
| next one like 40 kilometers or so. Finding a comparable
| site in a country 1% the size of US with quadruple the
| population density and with no sparsely inhabited areas
| is a Herculean task -- especially if you don't have huge
| areas appropriated by the military for such purposes.
|
| > Look at the map from the US, many sites of varying
| level are extremely close to major metropolitan areas.
| They are often deep underground.
|
| Wikipedia tells me that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
| in Carlsbad, NM is currently the only deep underground
| waste storage site in the US.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I'm quite confident you could sell your waste to Russia,
| to store in the vast empty tundra, for a couple rubles.
| jhgb wrote:
| That would be politically problematic because of our
| relations with Russia. Also, the tundra is going to thaw
| soon.
| Alupis wrote:
| Yes, but that is a political problem, not a nuclear
| problem.
|
| > Wikipedia tells me that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
| in Carlsbad, NM is currently the only deep underground
| waste storage site in the US.
|
| The US storage sites are old (the Carlsbad facility
| design is from the 70's for example), and the US has vast
| amounts of land. European sites are often much deeper,
| and new sites are deeper and deeper, up to 800 meters
| below the surface.
| jhgb wrote:
| They're "old", but the Carlsbad facility that went into
| operation in 1999 was only the third in the world after
| two German sites? That still doesn't seem to make sense
| for the claim that the US sites are "often deep
| underground" if only only of them is. One out of many is
| not "often" -- that's "rarely".
| Alupis wrote:
| Carlsbad stores waste from production of nuclear weapons,
| among other things, and is the only facility in the US
| tasked with storage of so-called "transuranic waste".
| There are different classifications for nuclear waste,
| and each warrants different handling as you might
| imagine.
|
| The Yucca Mountain site is 50 meters underground, which
| is about 164 feet. That's deep enough to not disturb
| things on the surface if in a geologically stable area.
|
| You can see Yucca in on the shallow-side of things for
| many countries[1].
|
| Perhaps I overspoke when I alleged many are deep in the
| US. The US is very spread out, and it seems going 200+
| meters below the surface wasn't warranted except for the
| highest classifications of waste.
|
| However, in a more densely populated nation, there is no
| hurdle to building deep repositories, except politics.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository
| Hamuko wrote:
| Money talks.
| ben_w wrote:
| Fortunately we don't need many storage places. Nuclear waste
| is _very_ compact.
| jhgb wrote:
| Yes, we also need "only one", except in my country it's
| basically impossible to go a few kilometers from any spot
| without hitting a settlement (and if you _can_ do that,
| your point of origin was probably inside a protected
| national park). That 's probably why we still don't have a
| storage place despite even having reasonable (even if not
| perfect) geology for it.
| ben_w wrote:
| We'd only need one place _worldwide_ if people didn't
| object to it crossing borders.
|
| Everything nasty from all of them put together is
| something like one large modern soccer stadium.
| exdsq wrote:
| But the logistics of transporting this is crazy even
| without objections
| ben_w wrote:
| Really? Why?
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Nuclear waste is a mostly artificial problem considering
| we've known how to recycle/reuse nuclear waste to the
| point where it is no longer dangerous. The actual hurdle
| to nuclear adoption is really more about concerns with
| nuclear proliferation since a lot of the recycle tech can
| also be adapted to create weapons grade nuclear fuel.
|
| Additionally, even with no nuclear reactors whatsoever,
| we'll still have to deal with nuclear waste as it is used
| in various other areas like medicine. The Goiania
| accident incident in Brazil killed many people
| _immediately_ (unlike Fukushima) and originated from a
| defunct hospital, not a nuclear power plant. We need to
| find ways to deal with this stuff regardless if you use
| nuclear power or not.
| jhgb wrote:
| > Nuclear waste is a mostly artificial problem
| considering we've known how to recycle/reuse nuclear
| waste to the point where it is no longer dangerous.
|
| These repositories are meant specifically for the
| separated waste from the recycling/reusing process. So
| the process you're suggesting is the one that _creates_
| this "artificial problem".
| Cloudef wrote:
| Not really. Most of youth in finland think nuclear energy
| produces lots of waste and are against it
| Kkoala wrote:
| Do you have some data to back that claim?
| ab336d109c1f wrote:
| Strange, I consider myself part of this "youth in Finland"
| and haven't met a person who would agree with this one
| cunidev wrote:
| Isn't traditional nuclear power, while sustainable, also
| immensely dangerous?
| trenchgun wrote:
| Where does the immense danger come from?
| baq wrote:
| Tail risks. Black swans if you wish. Unknown unknowns which
| leave the immediate area uninhabitable forever and a wide
| radius for generations.
| mike_d wrote:
| Nuclear is the safest form of energy generation we have today
| when measured in deaths per unit of energy produced.
|
| Nuclear kills 90 people per terawatt generated, rooftop solar
| kills 440 per terawatt. Hydro kills 1,400 and wind kills 150.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This isn't really predictive of the future though. So far we
| 've had very good luck that all the catastrophic failures of
| nuclear have resulted in minimal loss of life. A bad nuclear
| meltdown could kill thousands or worse. There is no path to
| solar or wind suddenly becoming exponentially more dangerous
| than it currently is.
| clusterfish wrote:
| You're right, it's not predictive of the future because
| modern reactors are much safer than 1970s designs and are
| even less likely to kill anyone.
| pflanze wrote:
| Watt is not a unit of energy, but of power. Did you mean TWh?
| What are your sources?
| m0zg wrote:
| Arguably the _only_ real, reliable, sustainable energy option we
| have right now. That is if you believe that we're actually are in
| a "crisis" rather than virtue signal on the issue as you jet
| around the world in a private plane, which "climate advocates"
| have the habit of doing.
| wvh wrote:
| Finland with its cold winters doesn't exactly have a lot of
| sunlight and it knows better than to depend on Russia for energy,
| so at this point geographical reality is that nuclear power
| really seems the best option.
| Hamuko wrote:
| It's not that there isn't sunlight, it's that the sunlight is
| massively skewed towards the summer when it's between +20degC
| and +30degC with low energy demand, and not during the winter
| when it's -10degC to -30degC with high energy demand. You could
| get 24/7 solar power in Lapland for like a month when the sun
| comes up in June and finally sets in July.
| more_corn wrote:
| What if we agreed that Nuclear energy could be considered green
| only if it isn't a design that provides dual use enriching fuel
| for nuclear weapons? Creating nuclear weapons seems incompatible
| with preserving the environment.
|
| It seems that the nuclear reactor choices have historically been
| geared towards the dual purposes of 1) Producing power AND 2)
| Enriching fuel for the most environmentally destructive weapons
| ever invented. If we were to decouple those two things we'd
| probably unlock some interesting designs that have fewer problems
| with long-lived waste and provide a part of our green energy
| future.
| sigg3 wrote:
| This sounds clever.
|
| Can anyone knowledgeable chime in, please? I'd love to see more
| nuclear power.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I think we should also include long term disposal and
| reprocessing requirements in there too.
| mdf wrote:
| The Green League party in Finland is kind of interesting when
| compared to other Greens worldwide. They used to be vehemently
| anti-nuclear, having for example previously left a government due
| to decisions related to investments in new nuclear power plants
| (as referred in TFA). However, since then they've:
|
| - Removed the opposition to nuclear power from their official
| party program
|
| - Just recently elected a known pro-nuclear vice-chairman
|
| - Now this, lobbying for inclusion of nuclear energy in the EU as
| sustainable
|
| Also, a sub-organization Finnish Greens for Science and
| Technology (Viite) (also pro-nuclear, pro-GMO, etc.) has taken a
| nice foothold in the party.
|
| Commendable to see people coming around and updating their
| beliefs.
| [deleted]
| isoprophlex wrote:
| "Finland lobbied EU to declare nuclear power sustainable"
|
| Well, isn't it? Am I missing something or is nuclear about as
| sustainable as it gets? The perfect baseload to cover us when
| solar or wind is out. Almost no CO2 produced, much lower
| deaths/GWh produced, plentiful fuel supplies?
| fsckboy wrote:
| you are focusing on pollution in terms of sustainability, but
| perhaps fission is unsustainable because it relies on "fuels"
| which can run out? there is only a finite supply of uranium.
| whiddershins wrote:
| How finite though? I mean, everything uses materials.
| 3np wrote:
| Right, but that time-horizon is orders of magnitudes compared
| to fossils, no?
| Ekaros wrote:
| And accepting something comparable to coal leaves a lot of
| time to sort things out. We are talking about hundreds of
| years. Not only tens.
| trenchgun wrote:
| At least thousands of years with breeders.
| smileysteve wrote:
| This seems a bit reaching; especially considering breeding
| reactors; and the amount of fuel contained in a small volume;
|
| Lithium is not in great supply comparatively; Photovoltaics
| depend on p/n junctions and silicon. Wind turbines depend on
| rare earth magnets.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| This is only if you define sustainable == infinite which is
| ridiculous. Sure solar power/wind power might be present long
| after humanity is gone, but that doesn't mean we can continue
| maintaining solar/wind power plants indefinitely, these
| things take resources to produce. On the other hand, if we
| define sustainable as being can we do this thing for a 1000
| years without modification, modern nuclear power starts to
| look a lot more sustainable.
| gfft wrote:
| In the EU, if Germany diktates that something is bad then so it
| stays. While Germany energy is coal based (so its not just that
| their low quality cars cheat on emissions to pollute the
| continent) everyone in europe must obey and not use nuclear.
| Hope the tide turn and we once again liberate this continent of
| their fascism.
| baq wrote:
| By the time all needed nuclear reactors are built, there won't be
| anything left to sustain. Time to first watt for nuclear is so
| atrocious it isn't even funny. You could install and end of life
| an equivalent amount of wind, solar and batteries for the same
| money and time (...hyperbole, but maybe not).
| germandiago wrote:
| My limited understanding is that (this is France and Spain
| FWIW) nuclear centrals way back were built to provide energy as
| a first source, non-stop.
|
| Wind and solar energies are _not_ stable and can grant all the
| supply. So, at least in France, there has been at least one
| nuclear central that was adapted as "backup energy". It could
| start/stop in one minute and increase every minute the amount
| of energy by a lot, but I do not remember the numbers right
| now, sorry.
|
| All in all, and, as I said, with my limited understanding,
| nuclear energy could be ok as a backup of energy if the
| centrals are adapted or built on purpose for it, favoring clean
| energy when possible.
|
| In Spain, a windy day a few years ago could give you around 40%
| of the supply for that day. There is also solar energy. But do
| not forget, these energies are not a panacea: some days are
| windy or sunny but others are not and the supply is much lower.
|
| It looks to me like there is a lot of politization around this
| and people keep repeating "wind, solar" as if that granted the
| supply. That is factually wrong, I am pretty sure since I
| consider my sources of information reliable (people close to me
| having worked around 16 years in the energy market
| exclusively).
| baq wrote:
| I completely agree, that's why I said "wind, solar and
| batteries" :)
| lutorm wrote:
| For the purpose of the climate crisis, we should talk about
| "carbon neutral" instead of "sustainable". It's both more clearly
| defined and more relevant to the current challenge.
| awillen wrote:
| The lack of support for nuclear power is truly astounding,
| especially as we watch the slow motion car crash of climate
| change happening around us.
|
| It's obviously unsurprising from anti-science Republicans, but
| the Democratic party as a whole should be deeply embarrassed that
| they're going toe to toe on irrationality with the other side on
| such an important issue.
| sebow wrote:
| What are you talking about? I've never seen republicans talk
| against nuclear, except maybe from those that are angry about
| the effects of previous environmental damage where exotic
| particles were found in food, soil, ended up in humans,etc. Not
| necessarily from nuclear sources though.
|
| In europe the vast majority of anti-nuclear rhetoric is coming
| from the left, especially in Germany.I would also bet this is
| the case in US, but never seen a good dataset made available on
| this topic.It's not really an anti-science position, because
| that would assume people are informed even in a non-scientific
| way,whereas the reality is that the vast majority of anti-
| nuclear folks are people who fear the "armageddon" from past
| tragic events, coinciding with the "end is near" climate
| doomsayers.You don't need a scientific understanding to assume
| those positions, sadly.
|
| Whatever the position one has,I think people should agree this
| is a shitshow and sadly it has turned into a political
| mess.Nuclear is the most green energy there is: it is efficient
| and the (unavoidable) waste is very localized,unlike solar/wind
| energy, where the downside effects are very hard to quantify,
| and only recently the scientific community was made aware that
| those are not without drawbacks.
| vlozko wrote:
| Whatever Republican's views are on climate change, they've been
| consistently pro nuclear power.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Until Democrats' start supporting it, at least :/
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Well we won't know until Democrats start supporting it...
| t-3 wrote:
| I recall nuclear being part of Hillary Clinton's
| presidential platform, and Biden has mentioned it as
| well, though I'm not sure it's a priority for him.
| Lobbyists are more an issue than political parties when
| it comes to energy. Nuclear energy doesn't have a
| powerful lobbying arm like Big Oil, unless you count the
| military.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Won't really matter which party supports it because <50% of
| the population supports is
| elzbardico wrote:
| Do they support it in their backyards? I do, but do they?
| [deleted]
| Alupis wrote:
| I have yet to hear an argument from a pro-nuclear power
| supporter that excluded building plants nearby.
|
| Conversely, we tend to see massive wind and solar farms
| built far away from the people most adamantly insisting
| they are the only green future...
| thehappypm wrote:
| New Hampshire (the most conservative state in New England,
| one of the most conservative states in the Northeast) has a
| nuclear reactor, placed near its extremely short coastline.
| dantheman wrote:
| You need to stop thinking these parties make sense, both are
| pro science, both are anti-science. They're a random set of
| beliefs/agendas/policies that are not coherent. For instance,
| before covid democrats were the party of the anti-vaxxers.
|
| They don't represent the majority - their membership and
| approval has been declining. They're about power and directing
| money to their constituents.
| kleer001 wrote:
| I think it goes beyond political party. It sounds like a basic
| human level misunderstanding and lack of foresight. Also the
| understandable choice during the heyday to pick the one kind of
| nuclear power that created weapons as a by product. Unless I'm
| missing something. Is there a world-wide acceptance of nuclear
| power and only the USA is outstanding in their phobia? I
| honestly don't know, my understanding of world politics is a
| bit thin.
| Tsarbomb wrote:
| Sometimes I feel crazy when people start arguing about nuclear.
| Up here in Ontario, 60% of our power comes from nuclear. If
| Canada can manage to have an indigenous nuclear industry with our
| culture of regulations and red-tape, what on earth is stopping an
| economic powerhouse like the EU.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Politics, especially the green movement. They want the "war" on
| CO2 to be about personal sacrifice and de-industrialization.
|
| Sometimes I wish the European governments would open "climate
| sanctuaries", where Green Party members and other individuals
| can go and live for a while taking only cold showers, not using
| any plastic, living with dim lightbulbs and low flush toilets,
| and perhaps even whipping themselves occasionally.
|
| As they leave, they will get a certificate that says they
| helped to "save the planet". The dedicated ones can live there
| while less dedicated visit just for a few hours on Sundays.
|
| Meanwhile the actual governments can build out nuclear power
| and do something that is effective. This would give both sides
| what they want.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Let's do it! Macron just announced the French are doing small
| nuclear reactors with a massive investment.
| Maakuth wrote:
| The next good nuclear news from Finland will hopefully be about
| the new reactor entering production, currently expected in the
| next June. The EPR construction has been impossibly overtime and
| over budget, but one would hope constructing more of the same
| type of unit should be faster. Right?
| Factorium wrote:
| The operating costs of Nuclear are minimal, the problem is
| planning, building, regulating, decommissioning them.
|
| On that basis, modular nuclear reactors seem to make the most
| sense. Rolls Royce in the UK looks to be onto a winner with
| their 470mw SMR:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_...
|
| 2 years site prep, 2 years building the unit. PS1.8 billion per
| unit. They could be mass produced with the right investment.
|
| Operate them for 60 years each, take out the remaining fuel,
| and just leave the rest of the power plant in the ground
| forever.
|
| We should be mass producing these units right now and
| installing them across the EU, UK, USA, Australia. We could be
| building 100 a year with the right investment.
| hannob wrote:
| Wrong:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
| liotier wrote:
| Flamanville and Olkiluoto are the lead ships in that class.
| They pay for the loss of institutional knowledge since
| building the previous generation in France. Now with that
| experience the new EPR design (EPR 2) improves for the coming
| series.
| Maakuth wrote:
| I know OL3 is not the only EPR under construction.
| Flamanville construction was started too early though, to
| augment much of the lessons learned from the other plant's
| construction. In fact I think both plants have had quite
| similar problems. It is these things that I would expect to
| be better understood in the possible future EPR projects.
| errantspark wrote:
| The whole nuclear power situation is a total clownshow. Here in
| California we've regulated nuclear out of existence and we're
| replacing it with natural gas in an effort to save the
| environment/children. Truly as fucking stupid as it sounds.
| sm0ss117 wrote:
| Look, in order to prevent scary radiation from entering the
| environment through nuclear we have to use clean and even more
| radioactive natural gas.
| Siecje wrote:
| Can you explain how natural gas is radioactive?
| sm0ss117 wrote:
| https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-oil-and-gas-
| production-... Basically there are radioactive rocks in the
| deposits that natural gas is stored in. Additionally there
| is some radioactive gas in the Gas deposits as a result of
| radioactive decay.
| ben_w wrote:
| Wikipedia says radon gets into it:
|
| """Radon is found in some petroleum. Because radon has a
| similar pressure and temperature curve to propane, and oil
| refineries separate petrochemicals based on their boiling
| points, the piping carrying freshly separated propane in
| oil refineries can become radioactive because of decaying
| radon and its products.[84]
|
| Residues from the petroleum and natural gas industry often
| contain radium and its daughters. The sulfate scale from an
| oil well can be radium rich, while the water, oil, and gas
| from a well often contains radon. Radon decays to form
| solid radioisotopes that form coatings on the inside of
| pipework.[84]""" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
|
| Unfortunately citation 84 is a dead link: "Potential for
| Elevated Radiation Levels In Propane" (PDF). National
| Energy Board. April 1994. Retrieved 2009-07-07" -
| http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-
| nsi/rsftyndthnvrnmnt/sfty/sftyd...
| jhgb wrote:
| Except natural gas does not get distilled propane added
| into it (or at least I'm not aware of anyone doing that;
| the varying composition of natural gas is due to its
| varying geological origins).
| jhgb wrote:
| > Here in California we've regulated nuclear out of existence
|
| That sounds weird to me in light of the regulatory capture of
| US nuclear industry. I remember the incident with the thinning
| piping being "fixed" by adjusting (downwards) the thickness
| required by the regulations, until the pipe burst. If anything
| the regulators seem to be bending over backwards for the
| utility operators.
| option wrote:
| that is wrong. We are replacing it with coal in Utah. LA county
| buys up to 20% of its electricity from Utah, triggering a coal
| and gas expansion there.
| sMarsIntruder wrote:
| They did that because they're both deep into it and because
| that's the right thing to do. Just for comparison let's have a
| look at the "green" Germany emissions.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-10-12 23:02 UTC)