Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#41

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #26

Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being t…

In fairness, nuclear is also just incredibly expensive. Witness Vogtie. Take away all taxes and regulations, then compare the price of, say, Iowa, building a nuclear plant instead of just slapping up windmills wherever they want. (Remember, we're assuming zero regulations. So while slapping up windmills would normally be incredibly illegal, we're able to do that under the conditions that our thought experiment postulates.) There's just no way to make nuclear compete. Which is why when you drive through Iowa, all you see are windmills everywhere. It's cheap. Much cheaper than nuclear.

If people want nuclear, the government has to provide the lion's share of the assistance to make it happen. Even then, there are no guarantees you'll be in love with what that looks like. At Vogtie for instance, the government has taken the unprecedented step of prohibiting future users of Vogtie power from ever switching to cheaper wind or coal alternatives. And that's on top of the government agreeing to pay over half of the initial construction costs. So you basically have government paying the lion's share of the tab, and mandating that everyone use it, and it's still over budget, late, and more expensive than wind and coal alternatives.

Too many analyses of nuclear power ignore the financial realities. Iowans choose wind, because it's cheaper than nuclear, solar, and coal. So they slap up windmills, and they have the old coal plants to fill in the gaps. Now Iowa was not trying to put its nuclear plants out of business, but as a consumer if you can choose an electricity bill at 2 cents per kWh, wouldn't you? Or would you continue to pay the minimum 8x 2 cents per kWh for nuclear? That's why nuclear is on the ropes in the US, if you give people a choice, they tend to vote with their wallets.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#42

Post by rayiner » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #40

cglace wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It there any sources of energy that doesnt depend on mining at some point?

No, not if we look at the entire supply chain and the construction of the power plant (whatever the source of power may be). But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal…

> But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal and gas) require ongoing resource extraction.

But you need massive amounts of battery storage to actually power a grid with windmills and solar plants (unless you have a bunch of coal and nuclear providing baseload power anyway). And batteries are consumables which require intensive mining.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#43

Post by rayiner » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:41 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #41

clarkmoody wrote: post #26

Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being t…

In fairness, nuclear is also just incredibly expensive. Witness Vogtie. Take away all taxes and regulations, then compare the price of, say, Iowa, building a nuclear plant instead of just slapping up windmills wherever they want. (Remember, we're assuming zero regulations. So while slapping up windmills would normally be incredibly illegal, we're able to do that under the conditions that our thought experiment postul…

Your first paragraph misses the mark, because, unlike a nuclear plant, a windmill or solar plant isn't a standalone power source. To have reliable baseload power with renewables, you need massive battery storage. Right now, you don't factor in the (very high) cost of building battery storage into the cost of wind power because you still have all those coal, gas, and nuclear plants providing baseload power. But the cost of all that baseload capacity that's increasingly sitting around not being used (but has to be there to ensure grid stability) can't be ignored.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#44

Post by nickelcitymario » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #41

clarkmoody wrote: post #26

Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being t…

In fairness, nuclear is also just incredibly expensive. Witness Vogtie. Take away all taxes and regulations, then compare the price of, say, Iowa, building a nuclear plant instead of just slapping up windmills wherever they want. (Remember, we're assuming zero regulations. So while slapping up windmills would normally be incredibly illegal, we're able to do that under the conditions that our thought experiment postul…

Don't disagree with anything you said here, however:

> and they have the old coal plants to fill in the gaps

...this is the problem with solar and most renewables. They have gaps.

The question, it seems to me, is are we in a fight for the survival of our species, or not? If we are, then we should pull all the stops. I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to have a liveable planet. I'll pay the bloody premium to make that happen.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#45

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #39

mschuster91 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the land is really that valuable it can be cleaned. Not really. Even in Japan, regulators basically screwed over regulations to declare the land as "inhabitable" again ( https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2017-03/fukushima-japan-... ). > If by "have to" you mean "in order to make people feel safe" then sure. Keeping people safe is the primary objective for a state, not allowing private entities to extract the m…

>Keeping people safe is the primary objective for a state You seem to be confusing "keeping people safe" with "keeping people safe theater". Monitoring the radioactivity of European crops and livestock in 2019 is solidly in the latter category. >not allowing private entities to extract the most possible profits while offloading the risks to the state. This it as tangential to a discussion of nuclear safety compared t…

> This it as tangential to a discussion of nuclear safety compared to the safety of any other power source.

No, it is not. No other power source comes even close in the amount of time that has to be covered by insurances.

A dam breaks, a gas plant explodes, that's a couple billions of dollars of damage plus a couple billions in payments for the relatives of the dead. For corporations making billions of years in profits, that's pocket change. (Which coincidentally explains why disasters regarding open "seas" of toxic mining slurry occur so regularly)

For Fukushima? That land is inhabitable for decades. Assume the Isar 1 AKW blows up? This is only 100km away from Munich. Can you imagine how much it costs to move an area with over 3M people?

And that doesn't even touch the question: where to put the nuclear trash? Germany doesn't have a permanent waste facility and many other countries don't have one either.

Note that I'm not against nuclear in general: Inherently safe designs such as MSRs? Perfectly fine. But not the often shoddily maintained stuff that is in use today!

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#46

Post by nickelcitymario » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #42

nickelcitymario wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not if we look at the entire supply chain and the construction of the power plant (whatever the source of power may be). But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal…

> But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal and gas) require ongoing resource extraction. But you need massive amounts of battery storage to actually power a grid with…

I agree completely.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#47

Post by pgeorgi » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #32

clarkmoody wrote: post #26

Nuclear power presents the perfect storm for negative public image: - Environmental movement went anti-nuclear in the '70s for no particular reason. - Fear Sells in the media. Nothing strikes fear like the invisible killer of radiation. Nuclear disasters get media attention like nothing else. - Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Being t…

> for no particular reason I don't think that's quite accurate. It may be more accurate to say they were misinformed or miscalculated. The reasons were that they believed, and many people still do, that nuclear was bad for the environment because: 1) It required mining to extract the resources necessary, and mining isn't exactly a green activity. 2) Nuclear disasters are unquestionably bad for the environment, and ba…

Part of the peace movement is also opposed to nuclear power because the waste products are suitable for building nukes, with claims that certain aspects of the nuclear power industry mainly exist for that reason.

Incidentally the US raises the same objection over Iran's nuclear power program.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#48

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #43

bilbo0s wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, nuclear is also just incredibly expensive. Witness Vogtie. Take away all taxes and regulations, then compare the price of, say, Iowa, building a nuclear plant instead of just slapping up windmills wherever they want. (Remember, we're assuming zero regulations. So while slapping up windmills would normally be incredibly illegal, we're able to do that under the conditions that our thought experiment postul…

Your first paragraph misses the mark, because, unlike a nuclear plant, a windmill or solar plant isn't a standalone power source. To have reliable baseload power with renewables, you need massive battery storage. Right now, you don't factor in the (very high) cost of building battery storage into the cost of wind power because you still have all those coal, gas, and nuclear plants providing baseload power. But the co…

>because you still have all those coal, gas, and nuclear plants providing baseload power...

That's right. So why would you not decommission all of that incredibly expensive nuclear, and draw down your use of the coal plants to fill in the gaps? That's how most dispatch stacks work. It's just common sense. Consumers want to save money. Utilities want to make enough money.

There's just no way you use nuclear in any scenario you can come up with, unless the government is paying for it. Then you don't care, because you're not paying the costs.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#49

Post by wbl » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #19

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we like nuclear. This is a board full of people who want to see hard facts, numbers and metrics. By the numbers, nuclear kills a hell of a lot less people than fossil fuels, or anything else (even when using an age adjusted metric that more accurately represents the impact of fossil fuels than the "bazillion deaths" that headlines tout). In terms of disaster potential it's on the order of hydroelectric unle…

> In terms of disaster potential it's on the order of hydroelectric. Water disappears. Yes, a failed dam may kill thousands to tens of thousands, but the land is generally immediately reusable without major problems as long as there is no chemical industry in the floodpath. A nuclear reactor blowing up, though? The immediate death potential is mostly limited to the on-site staff and the "liquidators" (as evidenced in…

We permit people to live in Denver or some towns with elevated radium in their water. Heck you can have basements in New Jersey. Are you sure we're drawing a consistent line on radiation exposure?

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#50

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

nickelcitymario wrote: post #44

bilbo0s wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, nuclear is also just incredibly expensive. Witness Vogtie. Take away all taxes and regulations, then compare the price of, say, Iowa, building a nuclear plant instead of just slapping up windmills wherever they want. (Remember, we're assuming zero regulations. So while slapping up windmills would normally be incredibly illegal, we're able to do that under the conditions that our thought experiment postul…

Don't disagree with anything you said here, however: > and they have the old coal plants to fill in the gaps ...this is the problem with solar and most renewables. They have gaps. The question, it seems to me, is are we in a fight for the survival of our species, or not? If we are, then we should pull all the stops. I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to have a liveable planet. I'll pay the bloody premium…

>If we are, then we should pull all the stops...

But is coal not one of the stops?

I guess you should help me understand. Why should we use nuclear instead of coal to fill the gaps? They both pollute. With wind providing the lion's share of the energy, the use of coal is drawn down considerably in any case. And coal is far less expensive than nuclear, even with the onerous regulations that have been slapped on it recently. So how are you going to sell nuclear to your consumers when your competitor may be selling a wind/coal package?

And as to the question of the long term, clearly that is using pumped hydro storage and other such technologies along with more efficient wind turbines. Both lowering the duration of gaps, and providing more power during gaps. So your nuclear or coal plant is, even in the optimistic case, transitional. Who's gonna put up money like that for a transitional technology without some kind of draconian government guarantees?