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Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

bbc.com

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Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#311

Post by manfredo »

Ma8ee wrote: post #286
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mining and transport of uranium ore, processed fuel and nuclear waste. I don’t know how significant those are. Completely and utterly insignificant, to the point where it is downright insulting when they are brought into a discussion about how 10000 people die of coal-related air quality problems every year in Europe. > My main concern with nuclear power is that they still haven’t managed to create any active long…

> Completely and utterly insignificant Do you have any sources for that? And no sensible person is advocating that we should continue burning coal as we have. So it is not nuclear vs coal, but nuclear vs renewables. The Onkalo repository is still not active. It is projected to begin storing this year, I can't find any more exact status. And that is one site for the whole world. You have to agree that that is a rather…

Yes. You bury waste underground in an area with no groundwater. No geological event is going to bring a cask from 500 meters below ground to the surface, short of a meteor strike (which would make nuclear waste one of your smaller worries).

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#312

Post by manfredo »

winrid wrote: post #284
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically we just bury it and hope for the best, it will be someone else's problem anyway. It's rather more involved than that. The short version is that we find a place where the rock has remained undisturbed for more than a billion years, and bury them deep enough that they should remain undisturbed for the next billion years. Then it's no-one's problem.

The idea that we can build something that will last a billion years is mind boggling, and I'll admit I have my doubts. https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Internationa... They don't seem to define "specific conditions" in this article. Also, tried to get a non-amp link and failed...

It doesn't need to last a billion years. Within 10-50 thousand years the uranium is no more radioactive that uranium that was never used in fuel. Sure, uranium is still a toxic heavy metal. But you do understand where this uranium came from before it was used as fuel?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#313

Post by manfredo »

Ma8ee wrote: post #308
pfdietz wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a straightforward, economical, and practical approach to dealing with spent fuel: sealing it in dry storage casks. This is cheap, good for at least some centuries, and forecloses no future options for its disposition. Why do anything else now?

No, it’s not good for some centuries. Corrosion and other processes that aren’t fully understood how they are affected by radiation make it hard to make any leakproof containers that will last even one century. Also, above ground storage is vulnerable both to changing climate as well as changing political circumstances. Finally, even if all of the above was overcome, it’s just a way to push the problem to future gene…

Even a leaking container is not a concern with a cask buried 500 meters underground in a place with no aquifer.

Where did this uranium come from before it was used as fuel?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#314

Post by renaudg »

skrause wrote: post #264
yongjik wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these anti-nuclear activists live in coal-burning countries, and they protest nuclear power until it shuts down, and they do not protest coal power until it shuts down, then for all practical purposes, they are supporting coal.

In Germany they do protest coal power. 100% renewables is the goal.

All renewables except hydro (which Germany doesn't have the geography for) are intermittent.

It's impossible to go 100% renewables unless there's a breakthrough in battery storage.

By the time that happens, it will be too late for climate change. That's why phasing out nuclear without having any other solid low carbon plan was irresponsible.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#315

Post by Ma8ee »

manfredo wrote: post #311
Ma8ee wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Completely and utterly insignificant Do you have any sources for that? And no sensible person is advocating that we should continue burning coal as we have. So it is not nuclear vs coal, but nuclear vs renewables. The Onkalo repository is still not active. It is projected to begin storing this year, I can't find any more exact status. And that is one site for the whole world. You have to agree that that is a rather…

Yes. You bury waste underground in an area with no groundwater. No geological event is going to bring a cask from 500 meters below ground to the surface, short of a meteor strike (which would make nuclear waste one of your smaller worries).

Where do you get the idea there’s no ground water at Onkalo? And no, no one is worried that the tubes one day by accident will float up to the surface one way or another.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#316

Post by renaudg »

mrpopo wrote: post #256
ip26 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anti-nuclear activists intend to support coal. They just don't consider what should replace the nuclear plants they wish to shutter.

Most do, they want to replace them with nothing, e.g. reduce electricity usage. And that may be a hard thing to swallow, but reducing energy usage is the only realistic pathway towards a <2deg world goal.

Expecting industrialized countries to reduce energy usage immediately by double digits to reach the climate change goal is everything but a realistic pathway.

In practical terms that means years of Covid19-style lockdown.

We don't have time to wait for a breakthrough in battery storage or carbon recapture. We have a solution now and it's nuclear power. It's a bit late for starting a nuclear programme now, but countries with current a nuclear power capacity (including Germany) should absolutely delay or cancel phasing it out until climate change is solved.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#317

Post by renaudg »

mrpopo wrote: post #280
hatboat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you didn't mean it in a literal sense, however you and I have a very different opinion on the term realistic. I believe a deus ex machina type carbon capture solution is a far more likely scenario than getting industrialised nations, let alone emerging ones, to actually reduce their energy usage.

Good point, I meant "realistic" as the only technologically plausible scenario. Is it realistic from a human point of view, I don't know. I see what you mean, but even if a magical carbon capture solution was invented, it would take several decades for it to be implemented on a sufficient scale - given that the current emissions don't increase even faster!! I can't consider it as part of any "likely" scenario. Also,…

That's not the only technologically plausible scenario, we can use nuclear now. It's also way more realistic from a human point of view to have populations accept this rather than a drastic and sudden lifestyle change.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#318

Post by manfredo »

Ma8ee wrote: post #315
manfredo wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You bury waste underground in an area with no groundwater. No geological event is going to bring a cask from 500 meters below ground to the surface, short of a meteor strike (which would make nuclear waste one of your smaller worries).

Where do you get the idea there’s no ground water at Onkalo? And no, no one is worried that the tubes one day by accident will float up to the surface one way or another.

I don't know about Onkalo, but the US's proposed disposal site is in a solid rock mountain in a desert.

And yes, commenters in this post are saying that the casks will leak and the uranium will float up to the surface: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477854

Re: "underground isn't dry" (HN is rate limiting this thread)

Yes, it is. These story facilities are built in bedrock. You seem to be under the impression that these digs are in some random back yard. They're not. They're built in places with no groundwater and no geological activity. The only way this waste is getting out into the environment is through human intervention. I have indeed read through the waste storage plans. I suggest you do the same.

Yucca Mountain's cancellation is entirely due to political posturing, not feasibility.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#319

Post by renaudg »

pvaldes wrote: post #281
renaudg wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When they start repeating again that radiation didn't killed anybody, or only one people, or whatever... they lose any credibility. I guess Wikipedia doesn't have any credibility left then. Most of the casualties were from the tsunami : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... > "but estimated 10.000 deaths" part is also false. Actually you are right on this one, my mistake. It's 23.300 prema…

There are serious estimates, by several international organisms, that calculated between 1600 and 2000 deaths by the nuclear plant accident, just for the first two years. Many by the evacuation, other because the hospitals in the area closed, other by stress of losing its home... and all of this happened because there was a damaged nuclear plant in the area. Not more, not less. Most of them had a slow death instead b…

> compare indirect deaths by coal with direct deaths by nuclear

"stress of losing its home" = direct deaths by nuclear ? That may be the actual insult to intelligence :)

Both are indirect deaths of course. The only difference is perception : this is similar to the discrepancy between the much better air travel safety record compared to driving, and people being irrationally scared of flying.

Even assuming your indirect deaths figure is true, we'd still be talking about 2000 deaths in a single incident triggered by a natural catastrophe (most nuclear plants aren't in highly seismic zones), of which there have been two in ~50 years of nuclear power.

That's in contrast to 23.000 yearly deaths in Europe alone, from air pollution from coal alone.

We could stop the math there, but what about the death toll from displacement and migrations caused by climate change ? Or actually, the existential threat it poses to the human race ?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#320

Post by simmanian »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

Is there a source to learn more about how wind/solar are "intermittent" solutions? I personally think fission's worst case disaster scenario is much worse than coal's. Imagine living in a tiny country like S. Korea and getting their nuclear plants blown up by N. Korea agents. The whole country might become uninhabitable. That's not even considering the waste.
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