[HN Gopher] 27 out of 31 reactors being built since 2017 are Rus...
___________________________________________________________________
27 out of 31 reactors being built since 2017 are Russian or Chinese
designs
Author : aleyan
Score : 27 points
Date : 2022-07-02 17:08 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.iea.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.iea.org)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The fundamental problems with nuclear can't be solved by
| redesigning them. They are waste management (a political
| problem), cost, risk (a societal problem). You cant design any of
| those away. We tried. We failed.
| 6yyyyyy wrote:
| >waste management
|
| Not a real problem.
|
| >cost
|
| Self-inflicted problem.
|
| >risk
|
| Not a real problem.
| pydry wrote:
| >>risk >Not a real problem.
|
| Good. Lets kill the $200 million liability cap then.
|
| If it's not a real problem they should have no issue paying
| for their own insurance.
|
| Once the tech has plunged in price to solar/wind/pumped
| storage levels and the industry feels confident enough in its
| own safety that it doesnt need taxpayers to shoulder
| potential catastrophe costs we should absolutely build tons
| of nuclear power.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| 200 million liability cap? Nuclear plants are required to
| have a _minimum_ of $375 million dollars of insurance per
| reactor [1]. So I 'm not sure where that figure of $200
| million comes from.
|
| Nuclear is cheaper than solar, wind and pumped storage.
| There's a limited number of economically viable pumped
| storage sites. You essential need an alpine lake close to a
| freeway to build one economically. Otherwise you're talking
| about pouring massive amounts of concrete to build a big
| tub, which is an expensive project. The reality is that
| dams are the only effective means of energy storage. Lake
| Meade is one the biggest batteries in the world.
| Intermittent sources are viable for regions close to
| hydroelectric plants, but for everywhere else nuclear power
| is the only feasible route to decarbonization.
|
| 1. https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-
| accid...
| bioemerl wrote:
| Redesigning reduces, or can reduce, waste, cost, and risk.
| qeternity wrote:
| Yeah I'm very confused. Every single thing mentioned can be
| improved through better designs.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Not noticeably. All those things, were they amenable to
| improvement, could have been done decades past. They were
| not done, or not enough. Spending more on nukes now is
| throwing good money after bad, the classic sunk-cost
| delusion.
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| Nuclear energy bad. No fix. Trust me. Must not try again.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Yep, worked terribly for France. They emit way more carbon
| dioxide than Germany \s.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It would suffice not to build any more of them. Then it would be
| 100%, with somebody else still wasting money on those ramshackle
| overpriced contraptions.
|
| What we desperately need to fend off looming climate catastrophe
| is for every dollar spent on energy to displace the largest
| possible amount of carbon emissions. We get several times as much
| such displacement by spending that dollar on renewables. And, we
| get that displacement immediately, not ten or more years on,
| after spending as much more on coal in that time as would pay the
| entire capital cost of the renewables.
|
| And, we do not then spend a great deal more on servicing that
| equipment every year, but can instead use that to build out more
| carbon emissions displacing equipment.
|
| Starting a new nuke brings climate catastrophe nearer.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| "Nuclear power can play a major role in enabling secure
| transitions to low emissions energy systems"
|
| No it can't, it has fundamentally lost the LCOE war with Solar
| and Wind, and those are still improving in cost.
|
| The steady drumbeat of "please save the fundamentally
| uncompetitive nuclear industry" is getting annoying.
|
| This is an industry that, probably due to its regulation, is used
| to lobbying and astroturfing to try to sustain political
| relevance.
|
| But it has no economic relevance.
|
| China is getting an MSR/LFTR power planet up soon. That will be
| fascinating to watch, but just doesn't work in free markets. And
| you can't even legally research them in the US. I would recommend
| research and development around next gen nuclear, but all the
| regulations in the US are so poisoned we'd never accomplish
| anything radical that would be needed to make nuclear
| competitive.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Comparing levelized cost of energy between intermittent and non
| intermittent sources is comparing apples to oranges. The
| reality is that until some fantastic storage system comes along
| that makes storage effectively free, intermittent sources
| cannot provide a path to decarbonization.
| zen_1 wrote:
| > just doesn't work in free markets
|
| > You can't even legally research them in the US
|
| I think I see a contradiction here.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Article headline is
|
| "Nuclear power can play a major role in enabling secure
| transitions to low emissions energy systems"
|
| Title is contained in the article under the following paragraph
|
| > "However, a new era for nuclear power is by no means
| guaranteed. It will depend on governments putting in place robust
| policies to ensure safe and sustainable operation of nuclear
| plants for years to come - and to mobilise the necessary
| investments including in new technologies. And the nuclear
| industry must quickly address the issues of cost overruns and
| project delays that have bedevilled the construction of new
| plants in advanced economies. _As a result, advanced economies
| have lost market leadership, as 27 out of 31 reactors that
| started construction since 2017 are Russian or Chinese designs_."
| pydry wrote:
| >will depend on governments putting in place robust policies to
| ensure safe and sustainable operation of nuclear plants for
| years to come - and to mobilise the necessary investments
| including in new technologies
|
| So, basically it's fine and it works but it's only economically
| sustainable if you unload the a dumptruck full of taxpayer cash
| on the industry.
|
| These would be subsidies that solar, wind and pumped storage
| could definitely _use_ to boost capacity /production but not
| cash that they need just to exist.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-02 23:02 UTC)