Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#41

Post by coldtea »

eru wrote: post #29
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear has high capital costs and many plants are aging out as they reach 40+ years old. Natural gas is a very strong possibility when replacing these plants unless the government steps in somehow to alleviate multiple financial risks (beyond continue to provide cheap accident indemnification).

Yes. Though the high capital costs for nuclear are mostly down to policy, less so to technology.

Yeah. If we could just skimp on policy, and allowed much cheaper construction, less safeguards, and just dumping of byproducts wherever, we'd have much cheaper nuclear power!

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#42

Post by eru »

coldtea wrote: post #41
eru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Though the high capital costs for nuclear are mostly down to policy, less so to technology.

Yeah. If we could just skimp on policy, and allowed much cheaper construction, less safeguards, and just dumping of byproducts wherever, we'd have much cheaper nuclear power!

Oh, I was just suggesting to make nuclear power as safe as other options for power generation. Or at most an order of magnitude safer.

I wasn't suggesting we need to skimp.

(Similar to how my suggestion for air travel would be to make planes as safe as eg trains.)

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#43

Post by 37r6r6u3u3u »

taneq wrote: post #21
37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gas doesn't suffer from though is expensiveness (environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable) and scalability. EU countries might be able to run their industrial sectors on renewables but call me when Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil or even the US are able to do it without costs going up.

> environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Global warming is going to 'disproportionately impact the most vulnerable' even more. (Is there anything at all that won't? People with fewer resources have fewer options in dealing with new challenges, this seems like a fundamental fact.)

The most vulnerable (Africa) live in water starved regions that will be seeing increased rainfall.

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#45

Post by 37r6r6u3u3u »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #25
37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gas doesn't suffer from though is expensiveness (environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable) and scalability. EU countries might be able to run their industrial sectors on renewables but call me when Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Brazil or even the US are able to do it without costs going up.

As of 2018, renewable energy accounted for 79% of the domestically produced electricity used in Brazil. Brazil relies on hydroelectricity for 65% of its electricity, and the Brazilian government plans to expand the share of biomass and wind energy (currently 6%) as alternatives. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Brazil

A good point, I was lazy and mainly did a population survey, I was wrong in assuming Brazil was significantly industrialized. I'm not sure that helps your point much though since eventually they're going to want their economy to grow unless your position is that Brazilians don't want their economy to grow.

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#46

Post by eru »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40
eru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Though the high capital costs for nuclear are mostly down to policy, less so to technology.

I’m not sure. Even the Chinese haven’t been able to bring costs down, and that’s saying something. Are French reactors much more affordable?

Oh, interesting question! Let me check out what data I can find on the Chinese.

Do keep in mind that public opinion demands nuclear to be ridiculously safe. And even the Chinese government cares about domestic popular opinion, even if they don't run a democracy.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/12/138271/chinas-lo... supports that public opinion interpretation to some extent.

I did a bit of Googling, and eg https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... suggests that nuclear is orders of magnitude safer in terms of fatalities per Joule than most other energy sources.

See https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy for an alternative source or https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...

If we scaled down the safety of nuclear to eg the safety of natural gas generation (still miles ahead of oil and coal), we could surely safe a lot of money. And we could probably replace lots of oil and coal generation, thus saving lives as well.

TL;DR: policy forces nuclear power to be ridiculously safer than other power sources. But governments are at most indirectly to blame: they are just following public opinion. Democracy at work.

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#47

Post by jakehop »

coldtea wrote: post #41
eru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Though the high capital costs for nuclear are mostly down to policy, less so to technology.

Yeah. If we could just skimp on policy, and allowed much cheaper construction, less safeguards, and just dumping of byproducts wherever, we'd have much cheaper nuclear power!

No, it’s about the economies of scale of building 50 power plants per year vs 1 per 50 years. Knowledge and know-how is lost and that increases costs.

Wind has become cheaper (but not more reliable) because thousands of turbines are being installed each year. If they were built at the same rate as nuclear, they would be even more expensive (and still not able to provide base load power).

Nuclear fuel can be stored safely (look up Sweden and Finland’s joint project) until it can be burned in next generation reactors, which are being designed and tested as we speak.

Please don’t straw man on HN. It’s destructive to the community and really bad mannered.

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#48

Post by taneq »

37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #43
taneq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Global warming is going to 'disproportionately impact the most vulnerable' even more. (Is there anything at all that won't? People with fewer resources have fewer options in dealing with new challenges, this seems like a fundamental fact.)

The most vulnerable (Africa) live in water starved regions that will be seeing increased rainfall.

Also swarms of locusts. :S

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#49

Post by pinkfoot »

37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #43
taneq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> environmentalism sounds great until you realize you're largely advocating economically regressive policies that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Global warming is going to 'disproportionately impact the most vulnerable' even more. (Is there anything at all that won't? People with fewer resources have fewer options in dealing with new challenges, this seems like a fundamental fact.)

The most vulnerable (Africa) live in water starved regions that will be seeing increased rainfall.

Nope - sub Sarahan Africa is getting drier.

Re: The World Can’t Take Much More Shale Gas

#50

Post by ljf »

eru wrote: post #32
cycomanic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With nuclear you still have to cove rthe landscape with nuclear powerplants, uranium mining pits (people like to forget these because they are not in their backyard) and nuclear storage (which is still an unsolved solution). Then there is the problem that nuclear is terrible at anything but baseload, so you still need gas turbines for reacting to load. Everytime this is brought up nuclear proponents say research in n…

You are not exactly 'covering the landscape'. See https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_161.shtml for some of the math for the example of Britain. See the calculation starting on this page https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_166.shtml > Land use > Let’s imagine that Britain decides it is serious about getting off fossil fuels, and creates a lot of new nuclear reactors, even though this may not be “sustainable.” I…

Isn't the economics of clean up that the government pays?

Is there anywhere in the world where the private operator of a nuclear power plant if covering all their own costs for clean up and decommissioning? Genuine question - I am well aware I could be wrong.

My understanding is that nuclear is always about energy independence - not cheap energy. (Don't get me wrong, the sooner we remove coal, biomass, wood and gas from our energy mix the better.)

Post reply on HN