Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#21

Post by roylez » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

Creationer wrote: post #7

The problem isn't cost of power generated, its the ability to respond to rapid volatility - when clouds obscure solar panels, and when the wind stops blowing. Nuclear cannot do this so it is useless. Batteries and gas power plants can which is why they are being rolled out. Wind, Solar, Gas, Batteries and Electric Vehicles are existing solutions to the climate problem. The market will implement them slowly, since the…

Interesting this gets quickly downvoted. I totally agree with what he/she says. Screwing up once, then the site is fucked for total human eternity, and you have a no-go zone on the map forever. Afterall, "Anything That Can Possibly Go Wrong, Does".

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#22

Post by istjohn » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #15

Nuclear power can save the world.... If the US can build reactors at 1/10th the cost they do right now. That’s the solution. Not the much cheaper clean energy sources that already exist and are being built out in record numbers... Nuclear is great. It just loses out because it’s too expensive and worse, it gets more expensive with time. If the reasoning behind that is based on irrational human fears then first propos…

FTA:

New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition.

...

Currently, as M.I.T.’s Richard Lester, a nuclear engineer, has written, a company proposing a new reactor design faces “the prospect of having to spend a billion dollars or more on an open- ended, all‑or‑nothing licensing process without any certainty of outcomes.” We need government on the side of this clean-energy transformation, with supportive regulation, streamlined approval, investment in research and incentives that tilt producers and consumers away from carbon.

...

[I]n 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in 1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same number killed by coal emissions every day.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#23

Post by onetimemanytime » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

seems like air travel, a crash in Siberia with 57 victims makes world news. 1200 car crashes and deaths at the same period don't. (made the numbers up but air travel is much safer)

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#24

Post by hugi » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #10

fakwandi_priv wrote: post #5

>Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early. Why doesn't the article explain why the Germans are retiring their plants? I think these articles should go more in-depth regarding the pro's and con's. From what I read and hear Nuclear power is a great source of energy b…

Pretty much because Merkel decided so in the days following Fukushima. Not exactly the result of long term strategy.

Fukushima was an excellent demonstration of what can happen. You devastate huge areas of land and make them unlivable for generations. This is especially applicable to the United States that has proven entirely unable to handle it's own nuclear waste and just accumulates it at the sites where it's generated, waiting for disaster to happen.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#25

Post by OisinMoran » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

If this interests you, I would highly recommend reading this article on molten salt reactors [0].

TL;DR: Molten salt reactors are safer (can't have a meltdown if it's already melted), smaller (could fit on the back of a truck), able to run on more abundant materials like Thorium (which in turn come from more politically stable regions), and to top it all off: not only do they leave much less nuclear waste, they can actually use up current nuclear waste, turning it into much less harmful and shorter lived stuff in the process!

Also, Mike Shellenberger [1] is a great proponent of nuclear power and has some great points on why the current focus on renewables is damaging. Well worth the follow on Twitter.

[0] https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2019/nuc...

[1] https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#26

Post by Ericson2314 » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:05 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #15

Nuclear power can save the world.... If the US can build reactors at 1/10th the cost they do right now. That’s the solution. Not the much cheaper clean energy sources that already exist and are being built out in record numbers... Nuclear is great. It just loses out because it’s too expensive and worse, it gets more expensive with time. If the reasoning behind that is based on irrational human fears then first propos…

The US cannot do infrastructure, or really any serious investment, period. Our laughable incompetance would seriously hinder any strategy. With other strategies, that is one of many impedements. With nuclear that is the only impedement.

Hopefully US figures that our rampent cost diesese on sll the things is just embarrassing, and we need a "time out", a throwing away of the actuarial pessimism, and a command economy "probation" in these important matters. Get the costs under control, and then we earn the right to do capitalism for essential goods again.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#27

Post by aurelwu » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #16

cm2187 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much because Merkel decided so in the days following Fukushima. Not exactly the result of long term strategy.

Pretty much just going by feels. Not exactly good governance.

nuclear was being phased out before fukushima anyways in germany, it was just accelerated a few years. New nuclear power plants are just way too expensive - take a look at Flamanville, Hinkley point C, Olkiluoto 3, Wylfa Newydd and Hanhikivi and you'll see that they are just too expensive. You can argue for having the old ones run a bit longer but the older the plants become the more maintenance issues arise.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#28

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #22

addicted wrote: post #15

Nuclear power can save the world.... If the US can build reactors at 1/10th the cost they do right now. That’s the solution. Not the much cheaper clean energy sources that already exist and are being built out in record numbers... Nuclear is great. It just loses out because it’s too expensive and worse, it gets more expensive with time. If the reasoning behind that is based on irrational human fears then first propos…

FTA: New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition. ... Currently, as M.I.T.’s Richard Lester, a nuclear engineer, has written, a company proposing a new reactor design faces “the prospect of having to…

The US never had the ability to build affordable nuclear plants. That's a major reason the first nuclear construction boom fizzled out here.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#29

Post by radicalbyte » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #18

loeg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries and things like batteries serve shifting demand relative to slower-moving supply for nuclear even better than they fit unpredictable/irregular supply renewables. Unlike sunny or windy days, nuclear power is consistent 24/7 and output can be modulated (albeit, with delay) by raising and lowering control rods. Batteries (electrical or mechanical) can store extra nuclear-produced energy and use it to power the…

No. If renewables are cheap, then batteries and other storage will just serve to reduce the fraction of time renewables are not covering demand (why charge the batteries with nuclear if cheaper renewable power is available?) The smaller this fraction is, the worse nuclear does economically.

What if you need twice as much electricity in the winter as in the summer? You're either going to need double the renewable capacity (4 x if you're solar-based) or some kind of super battery. Which doesn't exist yet.

The point for nuclear isn't just to cover demand curves; it's that to decarbonize the entire economy you need to both switch current electricity production to low-carbon sources and increase the capacity by 3-6x to cover all other energy requirements (including sucking carbon from the air to counter chemical processes we can't decarbonize).

Nuclear has to be part of the solution.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#30

Post by cm2187 » Sat, Apr 06, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

hugi wrote: post #24

cm2187 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much because Merkel decided so in the days following Fukushima. Not exactly the result of long term strategy.

Fukushima was an excellent demonstration of what can happen. You devastate huge areas of land and make them unlivable for generations. This is especially applicable to the United States that has proven entirely unable to handle it's own nuclear waste and just accumulates it at the sites where it's generated, waiting for disaster to happen.

I always thought that nuclear waste was a non problem. It is a minuscule amount of confined hazardous material. Even if you don't recycle it, the impact on the environment is negligible.

But I agree that the devastation of huge areas of land is a problem, but let's also keep in mind that the reactors that blew up where early generations reactors. More modern design do not present those risks [1]. Judging nuclear energy based on 1960s design is like judging aviation based on the safety records of 1930s planes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor