[HN Gopher] Macron says France will build new nuclear energy rea...
___________________________________________________________________
Macron says France will build new nuclear energy reactors
Author : julosflb
Score : 100 points
Date : 2021-11-09 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| jedisct1 wrote:
| This new French energy supplier also advertises 100% nuclear-
| based energy: https://www.isotope.energy
| jabl wrote:
| EDIT: Huh, this was supposed to be a response to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29168027 but apparently it
| got attached to the wrong parent when the articles were merged.
|
| There was ASTRID, another sodium cooled fast reactor design,
| that was cancelled a couple of years ago before it got off the
| drawing board.
| [deleted]
| alboy wrote:
| Not mentioned there that
|
| >France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy,
| due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
| Government policy is to reduce this to 50% by 2035. [1]
|
| according to the target set in the "Energy transition for green
| growth" bill.
|
| [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-
| pr...
| p1mrx wrote:
| Am I reading correctly that the EPR only has enough water for 24
| hours of passive cooling?
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=epr+emergency+feedwater+syst...
|
| I guess they have to build with the tech they have, but it would
| be nice if they'd spent the last few decades researching better
| designs.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| The Chinese have committed to building over 150 new nuclear
| reactors. The British government will subsidize Rolls Royce.
| Japan will reactivate over 30 nuclear reactors.
|
| It seems this is the biggest energy story of the year. The
| comeback of nuclear energy.
|
| https://smallcaps.com.au/china-supercharge-uranium-race-150-...
|
| The HN discussion on the China story:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29151741
|
| Japan reactivating nuclear reactors:
|
| https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210501/p2a/00m/0op/00...
|
| UK. Rolls-Royce gets funding to develop mini nuclear reactors:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59212983
| Gwypaas wrote:
| That announcement of 150 reactors in China is no real change to
| the long term plans either. Still simply keeping the option
| barely open which is very sensible to do when you're such a
| huge economy, even if it comes from subsidies.
|
| _In 2019, China had a new target of 200 GWe of nuclear
| generating capacity by 2035, which is 7.7% out of predicted
| total electricity generating capacity of 2600 GWe._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China
|
| So with about 50 GWe from 50 reactors today adding another 150
| gives you the same goal of about 200 GWe. Unless we're talking
| SMRs because then the goal just got reduced to a fraction of
| the original.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's not a comeback until you push the first kwh to the grid
| for the price you said you'd build the new generator for. Japan
| turning back on mothballed reactors is a Big Deal (and a quick
| win for avoiding CO2 emissions), but getting new reactors built
| in less than a decade or for less than billons of dollars is
| where the proof lies. Talk and promises are cheap, action has a
| cost and can't be faked.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
| (Lazard's latest annual Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE
| 15.0) shows the continued cost-competitiveness of certain
| renewable energy technologies on a subsidized basis and the
| marginal cost of coal, nuclear and combined cycle gas
| generation.)
| bduerst wrote:
| I don't think anyone expects a 100% build rate on these
| commitments, but like all funnels, a certain percentage of
| these projects that are having awareness raised now will
| eventually be built. Any progress here is better than
| nothing.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Comparing the cost of a non-intermittent energy source with
| an intermittent energy source excluding the cost of storage
| is comparing apples to oranges. Solar and wind are cheap,
| until you saturate the energy market during peak production
| hours. Then it gets exorbitantly expensive. The only viable
| storage solution at the moment is hydroelectric, which is
| geographically limited. Global lithium ion battery output for
| a whole year doesn't even add up to 1 hour's worth of the
| USA's electricity consumption.
|
| When probed on how to address intermittency, many wind and
| solar advocates will propose things like hydrogen storage,
| giant flywheels, compressed air, or other solutions that are
| currently in the prototyping stage and have yet to actually
| be deployed to a grid.
|
| This is the chief advantage of nuclear power: it works and we
| have over half a century of production experience with it.
| Betting on one of those storage solutions panning out is
| betting on a big unknown.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Renewables and storage are already cheaper than nuclear.
| Base load is a dead concept.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| Greenpeace is shooting itself in the feed. No more coal. Okay..
| Then build more nuclear. Nohoooo
| woodpanel wrote:
| Well, somebody has to help Germany accomplish its "Energiewende"
| sva_ wrote:
| I interpret your sarcasm with amusement, but also depression.
| it's really sad to see how Germany turned away from nuclear
| evergy. It seems like the 3 main soures are now:
|
| 1. Coal,
|
| 2. Renewables (Solar, wind, perhaps ocean currents),
|
| 3. imported oil.
|
| Coal should be deprecated already. Renewables are dependent on
| environmental effects, in particular solar doesn't work in
| emergency situations such as volcano eruptions rendering the
| sky dark. For oil, we depend on third parties, of which we know
| that they do not have our best interests at heart.
|
| It is depressing to see the political situations on these
| metrics, especially the idea which gets pushed now, which
| claims that everything will be alright if we just optimize our
| energy consumption. It ain't gonna happen. People won't
| meaningfully reduce their energy-consumption, at least not in a
| way that would justify the use of fossil fuels.
|
| So what are we left with? Nuclear is the only good bet you
| could make right now, while waiting out on fusion.
|
| edit: I often think of this meme which goes around, talking
| about the fact that people are much more willing to donate to a
| single child in need, rather than a group of children who
| equally need help. People are prone to take action when they
| feel like their individual action makes an impact.
|
| I feel like this is similar to the fossil fuels - vs - nuclear
| debate. We know, that about 20mil ppl die every single year due
| to air pollution. We also know, that a very small, countable
| number of people died of nuclear accidents, in the complete
| history of humanity, ever, in total.
|
| Yet we seem to think that the few nuclear accident's fatalities
| are worse than the ones caused by air pollution. Why? Because
| we are in some way biased to give more meaning to individual
| events, rather than rates of change that are around us. And
| it'll break our backs if we don't carefully examine the problem
| at hand.
| woodpanel wrote:
| Well it may depress you even more that I didn't even expect
| constructive feedback like yours when I pulled in Germany
| into this discussion (it is the Elephant in the European
| Grid-Operators-Room anyways).
|
| > _1. Coal_ Yes, from Poland
|
| > _2. Renewables_ Yes, definetly
|
| > _Solar_ Already plans underway to force every new home to
| have solar panels on its roof, regardless of the direction of
| the gabel and regardless how non-significant solar energy is
| in Germany anyways. Existing home-owners love the idea of
| increasing construction costs for future home-owners...
|
| > _Wind_ Already plans underway to massively increase density
| of windmills per km, regardless that the existing mills
| already are turned off for most of the year (because it would
| melt the grid to keep them running), regardless that we 're
| chopping down huge amounts of trees to make room for them,
| regardless of the environmental impact of planting
| unremovable kilo-tons of concrete footing into the ground
|
| > _Ocean Currents_ No, for two reasons. One: Maintenance
| costs make this technology inefficient (rust). Two: Since we
| 're world champions in moral soundness our _whole_ tidal-
| range-gifted coastline is deemed a national park and as such
| is forever excluded from any such infrastructure work
|
| > _3. imported oil_ Already doing that.
|
| I fear, unless there is some crucial pain of whatever sorts
| on behalf of the average German, our nomenclatura will
| continue to proceed with the current polciy of "nearshoring
| responsibility". Because:
|
| > _It ain 't gonna happen. People won't meaningfully reduce
| their energy-consumption_
|
| German consumers still don't do that, despite paying the
| highest electricity bills of the developed world (almost
| twice as in France). Apparently we can still afford to cick
| down the can (or rather over the border).
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| > in particular solar doesn't work in emergency situations
| such as volcano eruptions rendering the sky dark.
|
| I'm not familiar with this. Is this a common problem in
| Germany? Are southern states like Baden-Wurttemberg more
| afflicted or less compared to more northern ones like
| Schleswig-Holstein?
| sva_ wrote:
| No, it is a hypothesis of mine, that a large volcano
| eruption may disrupt the function of solar within a large
| area that was affected and which depends on solar energy. A
| particular example may be
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambor
| a
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
|
| A single "year without summer" may be the fatal blow to a
| society basing their energy on solar energy, so I
| hypothesize.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| No, but winter is. Inclination of the earth means solar
| produces considerably less energy in winter and this is
| even more prevalent in far northern/southern latitudes.
| Also cloud coverage can drastically reduce solar output.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| We really need to locate the panels near the equator, and
| combine it with one day of storage. There is a project
| like this:
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/09/27/the-worlds-longest-subsea-
| cab...
|
| The problem for doing this large scale if the right of
| way for the HVDC lines. I'm watching this on a smaller
| scale in Massachusetts, where Maine voters are blocking a
| HVDC link to Hydro Quebec. But I think this is a game
| between established interests.. in this case NextEra
| funded the ballot question and advertising, I think
| because they lost out on their SeaLink project (HVDC to
| Seabrook nuclear power plant).
|
| https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/09/f79/EXHIB
| IT%...
|
| https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/politics/ref
| ere...
| dathinab wrote:
| You forgot imported gas, but has the same problems as Oi,
| maybe worse because the conflicting party is geographically
| "around the corner" instead of on the other side of the
| globe.
|
| Germanys relationship with Nuclear power had been one with
| Tons of absurdity from the get to go. To name a few examples
| (in no specific order):
|
| - When West Germany decided where they should (temporary)
| store nuclear waste they had a list of potential abandon
| mines. While this list wasn't quite up to modern standards it
| was well thought out. But in the end they choose a mine which
| not only wasn't on the list, but was known to not be well
| suited. Reason: Pettiness, east Germany had just done so too,
| so they choose a mine at the border to east Germany.
|
| - The Anti-Nuclear Power movement in West Germany was
| partially sponsored and instigated by East Germany (through
| so where most non-small movements).
|
| - after Fukushima plans to stop using Nuclear Power where
| moved up costing the State millions due to existing contracts
| and being questionable. I mean the danger of Atom power had
| been well understood at that point in question, Fukushima
| didn't change this, nor did it unearth any (not already well
| known) huge flaws. So this asks the question if it is so
| important why wasn't it started years earlier, if it isn't
| why move so abrupt?
|
| - Germany loves importing nuclear power, not only from France
| but also from other countries with lower safety standards of
| which the reactors aren't that far of Germany (geologically
| seen).
| VintageCool wrote:
| Germany's electricity, as of H1 2021, actually comes from:
| 1. Renewables: 41% 2. Coal: 26% 3. Natural gas:
| 17% 4. Nuclear: 12%
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-
| energy-c...
|
| New solar and wind have fallen drastically in price over the
| past decade and look like a very good bet right now.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48736
| sva_ wrote:
| You are proving my point. I left out nuclear, because it'll
| soon be phased out. The rest, exactly as I stated. An
| unhealthy dependency on coal, which will be phased out soon
| too, as well as oil, for which we depend on foreign
| dependencies (Russia).
|
| Additionally, I would like to ask you
|
| 1) are you being paid for these type of posts linking to
| that exact source, (because I've seen it on here many times
| before)
|
| 2) who exactly is paying you to post this?
| DavidKarlas wrote:
| I have been watching
| https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/DE?wind=true&solar=false
| for past 2 days... Winds weak, yet even when electricity was
| expensive yesterday around 6PM, Germany was pushing to France,
| mostly coal generated electricity... Someone cares to explain?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Nah it's cool they got Nord Stream 2, so they good.
|
| Russia will provide them all the energy they need, and the US
| will provide them defense against Russia. Perfect!
|
| - edit -
|
| Is it still morally sound if you outsource the immorality
| elsewhere?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Is there a German version of "cutting off your nose to spite
| your face" [0]?
|
| I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for
| historical reasons, but sheesh.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_off_one%27s_nose_
| to_...
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > I get German Greens have a very specific agenda for
| historical reasons, but sheesh.
|
| Germany has been ruled by the CDU for the last 16 years so
| I'm not sure what exactly the Greens have to do with the
| current energy policies of Germany?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My knowledge is as a foreigner, but I was under the
| impression that the Greens and FDP have both been
| prospective kingmakers in the last several federal
| elections, given the math and split between the CDU/CSU
| and SPD?
|
| And I'd assume that as the center, courting interests
| important to their voters is of outsized importance to
| the larger parties, in an attempt to peel off votes?
|
| But maybe I'm poorly informed?
| president wrote:
| I imagine adversaries of the West are having the biggest
| laugh at us voluntarily giving up key commodity production
| abilities in the name of combatting climate change.
| thriftwy wrote:
| The historical problem of Russia is inability of exporting
| any produce other than raw materials, on account of having
| Europe as neighbour which can produce anything easier and
| often cheaper.
|
| But now, with the carbon tax and gas prices in EU, I wonder
| if Russian mfg capacity will suddently become competitive.
|
| The funniest thing would be Europe pricing itself out of
| Russian oil due to carbon tax, and then buying now-cheap
| goods from Russia made based on affordable oil.
| makerofspoons wrote:
| Carbon tariffs would be a good way to even the playing
| field in that scenario.
| jabl wrote:
| There's been serious talks about carbon border
| adjustments, that is, levying an extra import tax on
| products from countries that don't have a sufficiently
| ambitious domestic climate change policy, so probably
| not.
| g_sch wrote:
| This strikes me as pretty optimistic given that exactly
| this kind of carbon dodge has been going on for years
| (e.g. Europe and the US importing goods from East Asia
| and other countries running on dirtier fuels)
| woodpanel wrote:
| Hehe, Russia's just for heating. France for everything else.
| Poland, Hungary and Greece do our border checks. America does
| our defense. China is our only customer left and all our
| "dirty jobs" are done by Eastern Europeans.
|
| If that's what it takes to be morally sound - then bring it
| on destiny, I say, bring it on!
|
| Edit: This a German's attempt at sarcasm, please indugle me!
| selectodude wrote:
| I laughed :)
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I'm sure we could beat Russia, and China.
| _ph_ wrote:
| In recent years, the collaboration between France and Germany
| in energy production was very beneficial. There are times, when
| Germany does import electricity from France, this is increasing
| the profitability of the nuclear reactors, as they can be run
| at a higher percentage of their capacity, which generally is
| larger than the French requirements. To be able to follow the
| varying requirements of the grid, they usually run at 75% load
| on average. Selling surplus capacity is very attractive then.
| On the other side, there are times when surplus renewable
| energy is very welcome in France, when the reactory are
| struggling to keep up with demand, e.g. when they are low on
| cooling capacity due to low waters. Germany is still a net
| electricity exporter.
| woodpanel wrote:
| Germany "exports" as much as in "dumping excess energy onto
| it's neighbouring countries grids to keep its own grid from
| melting" - which is why we run the worst electricity export
| business in the world, having to pay our neighbours money as
| they aren't taking it for free.
| masklinn wrote:
| It's cool for the neighbours though, especially france
| which is a historical exporter (owing to its stable and
| relatively efficient nukes). When germany pays you 5c to
| take a kWh off their grid and italy 30 to get one there's
| good money to be made if your grid can cope.
| kemenaran wrote:
| The construction of the only new nuclear reactor in France
| started fourteen years ago (2007), and is not due before two more
| years.
|
| It was expected to cost 3.3BEUR, but in the end will probably
| cost around 19BEUR.
| cipher_system wrote:
| The major drawback of nuclear seems to be their large power
| output and long durability. Once you built the few plants you
| need (France and Sweden for example) you don't have to build
| any more for 50 or so years and then the manufacturing
| capability dies.
|
| Hoping for companies like NuScale, maybe they can get a
| continuous operation going and churn out cheaper and cheaper
| plants.
| notJim wrote:
| The manufacturing/construction capability for nuclear needs
| to be global, rather than national. There is plenty of need
| for new nuclear to sustain and grow the expertise around the
| world. This goes for the governments as well, but
| unfortunately governments seem to be abysmal about learning
| from other countries.
| Kuinox wrote:
| Context needed. This is the cost to get the tools and
| craftsmenship to build it, thats we lost.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| If this is combined with a move away from fossiel fuel for
| heating and logistics - and a significant investment in renewable
| - then it is an excellent move for France.
|
| I would sign up today for nuclear power in 2025 if it replaced
| all natural gas and diesel/petrol vehicles on the roads.
| drBonkers wrote:
| If you create hydrocarbon fuels with sequestered CO_2, driven
| by nuclear electricity, you have a clean, energy-dense battery.
| Plus, you don't have to retrofit the entire automobile fleet.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Sort of - but it doesn't solve the issue with air quality.
| Electrification of transport isn't just about CO2. We'll see
| more instant benefits from having air we can breathe.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| But big auto bought into EVs and climate change once they
| realized it was a way to make everyone have to buy new cars.
| So your idea is a non-starter.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Except most manufacturers are losing money on every EV they
| sell.
| wyager wrote:
| I don't think it's about making everyone buy new cars as
| much as about realizing that there's a new category of
| ultra-palatable government subsidies for them to cash in
| on.
| kibwen wrote:
| People already cycle through cars quite frequently. Big
| Auto doesn't need to convince anybody to buy a new car.
| This would be a purposeless conspiracy.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Just make sure to do something about NOx emissions, the cause
| of the downfall of Diesel in many countries. As long as you
| burn just about any fuel - hydrocarbon or otherwise - using
| air you'll end up with NOx as a combustion by-product.
| Filtering out nitrogen from air is possible - zeolites are
| used for this purpose in oxygen concentrators - but hard to
| do at a high enough capacity to satisfy the needs of even
| modest-sized ICEs so a post-combustion NOx capture/conversion
| step will be needed regardless of the provenance of the fuel
| [1].
|
| [1] http://www.meca.org/technology/technology-
| details?id=5&name=...
| edot wrote:
| How long does it take for CO2 sequestered in the ground to
| form hydrocarbon chains?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Thousands? Probably millions of years. Far longer than
| human civilization/species will last or need to worry
| about.
| beambot wrote:
| 2025 is a pipedream -- they'd be lucky to break ground by 2025.
|
| > Median construction time required for nuclear reactors
| worldwide oscillated from around 84 months to 117 months, from
| 1981 to 2019 respectively.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-constructi...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| We need a law that for megaprojects, local governments and/or
| federal agencies must respond to requests within X days, or
| be fined an escalating per-day rate. And if their responses
| are incomplete, same.
|
| The timeline ballooning as all external parties take their
| time weighing in and covering their asses, and costs
| associated with idling construction waiting for same, are
| getting ridiculous.
|
| Either it's a priority (in which case everyone should treat
| it as such), or it's not (in which case we should accept we
| just can't build non-priority projects over a certain scale).
| bduerst wrote:
| You'd never get megaprojects built then, because no-one
| would reasonably commit to them given the risk that they
| undergo scope creep and the steepness of that punishment.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Yeah, that would simply put more obstacles in place. We
| need less ass covering and bureaucracy and more action.
| You don't solve that by creating more risk and the need
| for more ass covering.
| themitigating wrote:
| Sometimes a five year delay could be a community that sues
| over a new reactor, then appeals, appeals, etc. Then if
| that lawsuit was posted here the title might be "US
| government tries to rush reactor, threatens small town
| life".
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Maybe they and China will create a little power envy in the
| USA, and we can get back on track for some real change and
| improvements in CO2 pollution containment.
| BoumTAC wrote:
| With the sell of Alstom to the US, is France still able to build
| nuclear reactor ?
| espadrine wrote:
| Alstom hasn't been purchased by a US company AFAIK.
|
| Are you talking about the sale of its power sector to GE in
| 2014? It is mostly about turbines, not the nuclear aspect,
| which is more typically under the expertise of Areva NC / Orano
| Cycle <https://www.orano.group/en>.
| byroot wrote:
| > It is mostly about turbines
|
| Turbines used in nuclear power plants as well as nuclear
| ships. That sale was/is a major scandal in France.
| sebow wrote:
| Good, though i really have to wonder how much is this Macron's
| own idea and how much is France's elite (which is very
| influential towards the state compared to other european
| nations).
| slownews45 wrote:
| Will this be EPR 2 style design?
|
| Flamanville has been super disappointing however in France.
| datameta wrote:
| Are there any existing reactor types, blueprints or built, that
| are engineered toward utilizing spent fuel first and foremost?
|
| If not, I hope France seriously considers using breeder reactors
| to reduce leftover radioactive material.
|
| Otherwise, I think this is fantastic news. In fact even if they
| build light water reactors I think it is the ideal base load
| solution to bridge the gap from oil and coal.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| This may be the one:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8ApH-0YHkA
|
| After Superphenix I don't think they are in any hurry to
| develop the LMFBR.
| jabl wrote:
| There was ASTRID, another sodium cooled fast reactor design,
| that was cancelled a couple of years ago before it got off
| the drawing board.
|
| (Answering again as the previous answer was attached to the
| wrong parent when the articles were merged)
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| Aren't reactors like that typically a proliferation risk? That
| might not be an issue as long as France doesn't decide to start
| selling its nuclear power plants to questionable countries
| again.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| France has had atom bombs since 1960, so that train has
| sailed.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Both recycling fuel and breeder reactors have side effects
| that could be used for proliferation.
|
| France is one of the few countries that do recycle spent
| fuel. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-
| efficiency-in-t...
|
| France is a nuclear capable country, so the proliferation
| risk is fairly low from what I understand. They could even
| sell the plants abroad and bring the waste back to France to
| be recycled.
|
| Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not sure
| how they feel about France being their primary source of
| energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own plants).
| Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to Russian oil
| and gas.
| kazen44 wrote:
| > Germany is not a nuclear capable country, and I am not
| sure how they feel about France being their primary source
| of energy (or enriched uranium, if they have their own
| plants). Hopefully they prefer French nuclear energy to
| Russian oil and gas.
|
| Considering europe has a harmonized energy market[0][1],
| does that really matter?
|
| France, germany and the benelux are so tightly economically
| integrated anyways, that doing harm to one would result in
| massive chaos in the others.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Network_of_Trans
| missi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Market_i
| n_Electricity...
| webreac wrote:
| France recycle spent fuel for whole Europe. In order to
| reuse a part of plutonium, most of the plant consume a mix
| of uranium and plutonium: mox. AFAIK, France has huge piles
| of useless plutonium.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Yes, look at traveling wave reactors.
| boyadjian wrote:
| For me, what emerges from this story is the lack of anticipation
| on the part of the French government. For years, nuclear power
| was discredited because it was not environmentally friendly, so
| we shut down power plants, and now we have to refabricate them?
| All this makes no sense. Moreover, the production of a nuclear
| power plant is very long, how are we going to do it in the
| meantime?
| fidesomnes wrote:
| it was all a long con to get the price of uranium to bottom.
| Macron is long and doing well with it tyvm.
| audunw wrote:
| Wasn't many of the reactors shut down in Europe in need of
| being decommissioned anyway? You shouldn't run a nuclear
| reactor forever and ever, and most of the reactors in Europe
| are quite old.
|
| I know there are cases of decommissioning too early, or even a
| reactor that was fully built but not even started operation (I
| think Tom Scott had a video on that?), but I don't think that's
| the common case.
| kazen44 wrote:
| many nuclear reactors in a lot of countries also have very
| low yields compared to modern reactors. (for instance, most
| nuclear reactors in the netherlands have been disbanded
| because they provided little power)
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| They were in "need" of decommissioning because necessary
| repairs had been intentionally stalled to the point of making
| them politically untenable.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They oughta give up on the EPR and build AP1000s.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Why would France, which has specifically built its civilian
| nuclear fleet for independence from the US, want to rely on the
| American company Westinghouse?
| Shadonototra wrote:
| Because mr PaulHoule from hackernews owns shares from the
| company that makes them
|
| Same from people all over europe who for decades pushed down
| France for its Nuclear efforts
|
| Now that the US is working toward catching up, they all voice
| they pro-"US"-nuclear
|
| It's very sad, europe is full of cowards
|
| But yet again China ahead of everyone else because they are
| free from these little "marketshare" fights
| m0zg wrote:
| Smart man. I can't believe I'm saying this about _Macron_. We
| _have to_ figure out a way to build reactors cheaply and safely,
| and you can't do that without the political will, unfortunately.
| If you could, electricity would be "too cheap to meter" by now
| already.
| Vapormac wrote:
| Is the _underscores_ around words supposed to signify
| something? Or am I just using the wrong browser to view HN and
| it's not rendering or something. Sorry if this is an obtuse
| question I'm new here.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Probably habit on the part of the OP from other markup
| languages, to show emphasis. HN uses asterisks * _for italics
| /emphasis_: https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| It's a Reddit thing, it makes the text bold on there but
| people seem to use it on here by accident.
| epukaza wrote:
| It's older than that, gmail (also maybe MSN messenger?)
| used to have underscores italicize text, and asterisks
| would bold text.
| handrous wrote:
| Slack and WhatsApp do it, too. I bet also in most of the
| other major messengers around right now (Signal, Matrix,
| Telegram). It's a thing in MarkDown, as well. Now that I
| think about it, some of the only places I type prose
| where that's _not_ what surrounding underscores do, are
| HN and various Apple programs (mail, notes, et c.)
|
| [EDIT] For that matter, we all did the same stuff in
| ascii for years. Asterisks for emphasis (bold, now, in
| many places), underscores for underlining (which, in the
| case of, say, book titles, is better represented as
| italics if you can print italics instead, so I'd guess
| that's where the "underscore = italic" thing comes from)
| eecc wrote:
| I get the fascination with base load and the incredible amount of
| energy compared to chemical based alternatives. But: 1. What will
| the net online time be? (Lots of these plants go in maintenance
| for long stretches of time) 2. Spent fuel? 3. Proliferation risk?
| 4. Accident mitigation?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| 1. What will the net online time be? (Lots of these plants go
| in maintenance for long stretches of time)
|
| The term you're referring to is capacity factor. Nuclear power
| typically has the highest capacity factor of any energy source.
| [1] [2] For reference, nuclear is 92%, while wind is 35% and
| photovoltaic solar at 25%.
|
| > 2. Spent fuel?
|
| It can be reprocessed, reclaiming over 90% of fuel. Even
| without reprocessing, nuclear fuel's energy density is such
| that a tiny amount of waste is produced per unit of energy. For
| comparison, the sum total of all of the USA's nuclear
| electricity production occupies a volume the footprint of a
| football field, and 10 yards high. [3]
|
| > 3. Proliferation risk?
|
| Nuclear fuel is refined to about ~20% fissile material. Nuclear
| weapons typically need over 80% or 90%. Countries would need to
| build their own enrichment facilities to bring nuclear fuel to
| weapons grade uranium, and then further refine that to
| plutonium. If they had such facilities they'd be able to refine
| natural uranium to weapons grade anyway.
|
| > 4. Accident mitigation?
|
| First of all, even if you include Chernobyl nuclear power
| (which didn't even have secondary storage) has the lowest
| fatalities per unit of energy produced [4]. People often
| neglect the fact that fossil fuels kill millions each year due
| to air pollution. Renewables like hydroelectricity have had
| accidents far more devastating that nuclear power [5]. Nuclear
| plants are expensive because a lot of effort is made to make
| them safe, and to contain a potential failure. People often
| forget that the USA had a reactor meltdown analogous to
| Chernobyl during the Three Mile Island incident. Except nobody
| died and there was no widespread contamination because the
| reactor had a big concrete condom over it, unlike Chernobyl.
|
| 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183680/us-average-
| capaci...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Worldwide
|
| 3. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-
| spent-...
|
| 4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-
| worldw...
|
| 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| 1. if a real effort is put in, 10 years or so
|
| 2. Solved problem. Spent fuel is not really an issue, we have
| solutions and areas to put it in both Europe and the USA. Only
| green Luddites hold it back. Storage really does not take up a
| lot of space.
|
| 3. Next to none if the right type of fuel stock and reactor is
| chosen. Obviously security comes in, but that is also a solved
| issue
|
| 4. Lots of modern designs literally cannot go critical, I
| suggest we use those, instead of old designs just because
| they're "a known known".
|
| 5. don't build reactors that can go critical near known tsunami
| shorlines.
|
| 6. At worst we'll surely have fusion by the end of the century
| and can then retire the nuclear plants. Solar and wind without
| a 100x improvement in battery storage tech do not make sense
| right now as the sole producer of energy like a lot of
| unrealistic "environmental" groups claim.
| user_7832 wrote:
| I can try to answer your questions. (Disclaimer, I'm a masters
| student studying systems with a focus on energy systems.
| Obviously not an expert, and am somewhat biased pro-nuclear.)
|
| 1. Net online time for nuclear isn't particularly bad,
| especially when you consider that other alternatives too go
| down. [1] Of course you'll need some extra capacity/more
| plants, but that was anyway the case.
|
| 2. I feel this is probably the strongest point that can be held
| against nuclear. Short-term fuel management is not an
| issue/already figured out, and climate change is a much quicker
| risk in the next 50 years, so I'd argue it's still better to go
| 0-carbon instead of finding a perfect solution right now.
|
| 3. I'm not sure if you're referring to proliferation of the
| fuel or technologies, but both are reasonably well-developed
| fields that France should not have major problems.
|
| 4. Similar to point one - nuclear accidents vs risks/deaths
| from coal is like comparing flight safety with cars. Sure,
| airplanes _feel_ unsafe but are statistically MUCH safer than
| cars. Chernobyl and Fukushima were both avoidable (though that
| can admitably be said for a lot of accidents). Deaths from
| pollution itself are in the millions instead. [2]
|
| 1. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-
| reliab... 2. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-
| energy
| majou wrote:
| Proliferation in the context of nuclear is the risk of
| terrorists or states intercepting fuel that can be refined to
| weapon-grade.
|
| Some reactors don't have this risk, but I'm not read on it.
| axlee wrote:
| France has been running on 75%+ nuclear power mix for the past
| 50 years and is doing better energy/emissions-wise than almost
| every other country in the world. Your questions have already
| been answered, it seems. They seem to have bet on the right
| horse, and went full steam ahead with it (no pun intended). And
| now they are supplying all their neighbours with surplus clean
| energy.
| monocasa wrote:
| France has significantly less spent fuel to deal with since
| they allow civilian energy production to reprocess spent fuel
| back into usable fuel.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| 1 - During my study, I visited a nuclear plant. They explained
| to us the plant is designed around 4 quadrants, each one
| capable of turning on and off independently of each other. So
| when one needs maintenance, you just put this one offline, and
| the others keep running. This way the reactor is never totally
| shut off, as I understand that starting it from scratch is an
| expensive operation.
|
| 2 - For the spent fuel, France has plenty of strategically
| maintained relationships in what used to be West African
| colonies with uranium mines. Why do you think we sent the army
| during the Mali war ? We cultivate those alliances because they
| bring a lot on the table, from resources to routes and bases.
| Nuclear is doubly interesting for us, because we can source it
| even if Russia or China decide to tell us to go to hell. In
| case of a conflict, this is priceless.
|
| 3 - I don't know anything about proliferation, so can't answer
| this one.
|
| 4 - Accident mitigation is the big problem, IMO. I've seen how
| they operate inside, and let's just say I'm glad the people
| that designed the thing were very, very, _very_ good at their
| job. Because the ones maintaining it have a very relaxed
| attitude. And the plants are pushed to produce way past their
| initial expected life span. But I insist, I'm amazed at how
| good engineers of the 70' were. Those plants are old tech, but
| they are incredible. However, even if the probability of an
| accident is low (there are triple safety mechanisms
| everywhere), the severity of a potential accident is such that
| I consider nuclear disasters a huge risk that we don't take
| seriously enough. What's more, it nourishes the growing anti-
| nuclear sentiment, so we should really get our act together.
| godelski wrote:
| > 1. What will the net online time be?
|
| Hard to say tbh. But these reactors probably aren't offline as
| much as you think. They shut down for 1 month every 18-24
| months for refueling.
|
| > 2. Spent fuel?
|
| France is the world leader in this regard. Remember that 17% of
| France's entire power comes from _recycled_ nuclear. But if you
| want to see what their entire nuclear waste. This is _decades_
| worth, and I'm betting much smaller than you expected.[0] (coal
| is doing this on a a daily or weekly basis). Just for fun,
| let's look at Russia's too.[1] We're literally just talking a
| warehouse. People vastly overestimate the waste and what to do
| with it. It is fine where it is for hundreds of years. The only
| "problem" that we have with "long term storage" is how to store
| it somewhere where if somehow all knowledge was lost that
| future humans with no radiation detecting equipment could
| accidentally release waste (quite a high bar, and not one we're
| concerned with other long lasting waste like lead or heavy
| metals). We have a few hundred years to figure that out.
|
| > 3. Proliferation risk?
|
| None? It is France. They already have nuclear weapons. But
| while we're talking about it, Megatons to Megawatts[2] has been
| the best deproliferation project in history, reducing the
| number of nuclear warheads by over 20,000.
|
| > 4. Accident mitigation?
|
| Very low. This is also over estimated. We have a very early
| reactor which no other country besides Russia built because it
| had the ability to explode. And we have another event where we
| didn't know earthquakes could happen of that size until
| basically right before said earthquake happened. These are
| major disasters, but the two should not be conflated. Even
| including these, they are far less environmentally damaging
| than the fossil fuels we've been using. The major problem with
| nuclear is that disasters are both temporally and spatially
| localized. There's advantages and disadvantages to this in
| terms of dealing with the consequences. On one hand, it is a
| lot to clean up. On the other hand the country that created the
| disaster is the one that suffers the most (as opposed to what
| we're seeing with oil spills and the entire climate crisis,
| which is not temporally localized and thus the danger is not
| weighted properly).
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program
| funklute wrote:
| None of those questions are new, nor show stoppers for existing
| plants. Why do you think the existing procedures may not be
| satisfactory? (I'm assuming you think so based on the way you
| ask the question)
|
| EDIT: to be clear, I'm not asking this as a backhanded
| question. I'm genuinely curious why this is not seen as a
| "solved problem", at least in a country with relatively strong
| government institutions
| eecc wrote:
| Well, the way previous generations fizzled suggests these
| problems aren't that solved after all.
|
| Just 1 long term waste storage has ever been built in the
| world, plant productivity has always been relatively low
| (initial manufacturing delays, refueling, minor accidents,
| refurbishments), many anti-proliferation techniques just
| over-produce rad-waste.
|
| Oh, and if we were to buildout nuclear globally how long
| would the ore reserves last?
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It fizzled due to FUD. Existing plants work and are
| defensible. The waste can be stored safely.
|
| In emerging economies new designs can be used, but they'll
| probably have to be trialed in a developed economy. You
| could also pursue economic policy that has developing
| economies fund the research instead of letting them expect
| handouts.
| blendergeek wrote:
| > Oh, and if we were to buildout nuclear globally how long
| would the ore reserves last?
|
| If we fully burn all available nuclear fuel, it will last
| about 5 billion years. [0]
|
| [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20130114062518/http://susta
| inabl...
| jessriedel wrote:
| Was the full article title, "President Macron: France to build
| new nuclear energy reactors", too long? It's much more accurate.
| dang wrote:
| Perhaps the submitter thought it was clickbait. I can see the
| argument either way, but have restored the fuller title now.
| echelon wrote:
| Reddit has a few subreddits dedicated to uranium investing. I
| caught wind of this a few months ago, and my investments are
| doing well.
|
| Some in the community seem to think that the market will 10-20x
| due to the world waking up to the immediate, pressing need for
| nuclear. (Insufficient wind/solar capacity, storage,
| transmission, etc.)
|
| There are also some interesting behaviors going on in the uranium
| market, where certain players are buying up all of the supply.
| It's short-squeezeish in nature.
|
| China announcement, French announcement. US uranium exploration.
| Lots going on.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/UraniumSqueeze
| Thorncorona wrote:
| For those interested here's the thesis written out by someone
| at the start of this year.
|
| https://josephcollinsul.medium.com/the-uranium-bull-thesis-c...
| woah wrote:
| Any investment that you caught wind of a few months ago would
| be doing well
| dane-pgp wrote:
| A better (unintentional) pun would be:
|
| Any investment that you were gassed about a few months ago
| would be doing well.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-09 23:00 UTC)