Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals • Hacker News Board

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#81

Post by maxerickson » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #41

jessaustin wrote: post #31

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated…

Err, they say production grew by 580 GW in the past 20 years and that it must grow by another 5x580=2,900 GW in the next 5 years. Nothing misleading and indeed an unprecedented production increase. It's not the ratio that is hard, it's the raw amount.

You've picked the wrong number of years, the article says But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added.

The current linear growth trajectory is 2,000 GW over 20 years, and that is likely to be a hilarious underestimate.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#82

Post by beat » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #18

bilbo0s wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, no one needs to be convinced that nuclear plants are better than coal plants. The problem is the renewables. In Iowa, they are in the process of shuttering their nuclear plants. Now no one in Iowa was out protesting the plants or anything, but here's the issue. Windmills have reached a level of practicality and low cost that encouraged Iowans to slap them up almost everywhere. (Seriously, drive through I…

People do need to be convinced that nuclear is better than natural gas. In calm winter nights, nuclear is competing with natural gas, not wind. And because of fracking and horizontal drilling, the electricity prices have fallen in deregulated markets like the midwest, and electricity revenues have dropped precipitously. When you have a plant that's all capital and O&M with very low fuel cost (like a nuke), this unexp…

And considering the usual ways giant industries choose to "reduce costs", it's a bit unnerving for the rest of us.

Blaming the costs on regulatory compliance bureaucracy is one of those things that pro-nuclear people really need to stop saying, even to the extent that it's true (which is less than they think). Distrust of big corporations is as high as distrust of government, and for good reason. No one wants to live downwind from a nuclear plant constructed by the lowest bidder. Blaming the cost and construction issues on those stupid anti-science treehuggers and their liberal regulations is just alienating the very people you need to win over.

That said, nuclear will never, ever be able to achieve either the real or the apparent risk levels of a wind farm or a bunch of rooftop solar panels. And there's probably not a less attractive look for nuclear enthusiasts than some dude mansplaining about how solar is more dangerous than nuclear based on the number of people who smash their thumbs with a hammer while installing panels.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#83

Post by Meandering » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

jhallenworld wrote: post #65

Solar is growing so fast that it is creating its own waste problem: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23... What happens when we add the necessary batteries (to replace the nuclear base) to this problem?

This is one of the issues with solar power that gets overlooked. The physical 'stuff' needed to build a large solar farm is far more than a base nuclear plant.

After a quick search: Solar Panels Lifespan - ~25 years - Good

Grid Battery Lifespan - 5-10 years - ehh..

If we switched to 100% solar, with a majority of the equipment probably manufactured in China, there would be an orders of magnitude more physical product in the manufacturing and logistics pipeline.

...At least our top notch recycling programs will be able to handle all the waste product properly...

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#84

Post by air7 » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #70

umvi wrote: post #4

Haven't nuclear waste recycling and safety features gotten really good in the past few decades? I feel like not many people know just how little waste is created with modern recycling and just how safe nuclear is with modern safety features. Seems like we need a positive PR campaign to help convince folks that nuclear is way better than fossil fuels. This could easily be bipartisan.

also modern airplanes with modern software never crash.

I know its only a metaphor but arguably modern planes crash much less. No crashes in the US in the last decade.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/02/13/colgan-air-crash-10-year...

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#85

Post by jimrandomh » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #80

mbell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, a nuclear waste dome is leaking in to the Pacific That has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power. This is the type of fear mongering that caused the current situation.

> That has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power. Why not?

Because the site in question is the crater left by a nuclear bomb test in the 50s. There was never a power plant nearby, and the type of site, and the type of waste, is very different from what a power plant would produce.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#86

Post by sprash » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

Looking at mid term solutions: Nuclear fission is just not cost effective if you factor in all total cost of a building a secure nuclear power plant and safely dismantling it after its lifetime. Also uranium ore is a limited non renewable resource. Nuclear fusion looks similarly bad but at least deuterium and tritium is rather abundant.

Looking at ultra long term solutions: Wind power is nothing else than reducing the speed of rotation of the earth. This is similarly true for tidal power plants. Geothermal power plants will eventually destroy earths unique magnetic field.

Solar is the only true sustainable "renewable" way to produce energy in all scenarios for literally the next million years. So lets concentrate on that and not waste time on the other stuff.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#87

Post by Retric » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #49

jessaustin wrote: post #31

If other low-carbon sources, namely wind and solar PV, are to fill the shortfall in nuclear, their deployment would have to accelerate to an unprecedented level. In the past 20 years, wind and solar PV capacity has increased by about 580 gigawatts in advanced economies. But over the next 20 years, nearly five times that amount would need to be added. This is misleading enough to make one question every "fact" stated…

You can't overtake oil without spending a comparable amount on developing renewables. While it isn't quite there yet, soon renewables will be a bigger business than oil. That's impressive, and it makes the kind of growth needed to replace nuclear power plausible. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/renewables-investment-overtak...

As renewables are currently vastly cheaper than oil or nuclear, it’s going to take far less investment to reach the same place.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#88

Post by sprash » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

Meandering wrote: post #83

jhallenworld wrote: post #65

Solar is growing so fast that it is creating its own waste problem: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23... What happens when we add the necessary batteries (to replace the nuclear base) to this problem?

This is one of the issues with solar power that gets overlooked. The physical 'stuff' needed to build a large solar farm is far more than a base nuclear plant. After a quick search: Solar Panels Lifespan - ~25 years - Good Grid Battery Lifespan - 5-10 years - ehh.. If we switched to 100% solar, with a majority of the equipment probably manufactured in China, there would be an orders of magnitude more physical product…

> Solar Panels Lifespan - ~25 years - Good

I don't know where these numbers come from but the solar panels on my house were installed about 20 years ago and have so far not shown any degradation assuming a 5% margin of error in measurement.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#89

Post by mncolinlee » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

Cederfjard wrote: post #42

Tharkun wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Haven't nuclear waste recycling and safety features gotten really good in the past few decades? I thought you were being snarky at first, but the rest of the comment appears to indicate you're being serious. In Belgium we've been stuck in endless discussions regarding what to do with our nuclear waste. We used to dump it in the sea, which was probably a bad idea. Now it's stored in barrels which are apparently leak…

The grandparent comment mentioned modern recycling. Perhaps Belgium is operating old types of reactors that aren't amenable to modern ways of dealing with waste? A quick search yielded that all of Belgium's reactors were built in the 70's and 80's.

A lot of news pieces about nuclear are unrealistically rosy. Waste reprocessing isn't really all that new and it doesn't really get rid of waste. It replaces much of the solid waste with even more liquid waste.

The problem with having any discussion of nuclear is agreeing upon the facts. It's crazy hard to find an unbiased source. If you asked a random bystander why we haven't built nuclear reactors in recent years, you might hear "environmentalists." However, the truth is dramatically different. No one will insure a nuclear power plant except the US government. Investors won't invest in nuclear, as there's no appetite for the risks to open a plant and spend over a decade building it when cost overruns are common and it may never actually open.

The reason wind and solar are growing much, much faster than nuclear today isn't because of "environmentalists." It's because nuclear involves far more subsidies and risk.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#90

Post by benj111 » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #72

Valgrim wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term, large scale containment of radioactive waste is an unsolved problem. Nuclear advocates have two answers to this problem: A) We'll solve it later (we should research fuel reprocessing, we have an urgency to act, etc.) B) It's not really a problem (people don't actually die from radioactive waste, most nuclear plants have proven themselves safely managed, etc.) Both answer sound like sweeping the dust under…

A modern thorium/uranium recycling pipeline should only produce small amounts of "final" waste (and only after waste has been iteratively recycled many times). That final waste takes a few hundred years to decay, but if contained, it is harmless to the environment. So, create a warehouse large enough to handle 200 years worth of waste, and create a pipeline. At the end of the pipeline, the containers are empty and ca…

"create a warehouse large enough to handle 200 years worth of waste"

200 years ago the world was a very different place. I'm struggling to think of any building not including houses still used for their original purpose, from that long ago.

So while I don't doubt that we could build a structure that lasts 200 years, I doubt we could build some kind of continuously used industrial building without it becoming some kind of ship of Theseus. Now that in itself isn't necessarily a problem, except what about a war or something. Unlikely? Yes, but how many countries havent had any war on their soil in the past 200 years?

And I cant imagine a 2219 health and safety person green lighting the reuse of a 200 year old containment vessel for storing nuclear waste either.