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

51–60 of 76 posts

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

#51

Post by ljf »

fyfy18 wrote: post #38
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.

I'm unsure about industry, but at least for residential use gas won't be going away any time soon in Europe. In the UK 86% of houses use gas as the fuel for their central heating system, and even more use it for cooking and heating hot water. From 2025 in the UK new houses will not be allowed to use gas for heating, but it's still going to be a long time until all the old properties are retrofitted. For new builds a…

Pretty sure even small domestic increases in gas prices will help speed that along. Already my energy bills have increased considerably across the last 10 years - if they carry on like that, and electricity becomes the cheaper way to run my house, I'll change in a shot. If the costs (£2k ish for a new gas boiler and fitting) are similar, then I'm sure when will. If adding solar and/or heat pump will bring my costs down then awesome.

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

#52

Post by 37r6r6u3u3u »

taneq wrote: post #48
37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Also swarms of locusts. :S

Is there a reason you feel this isn't an issue that could be attacked more efficiently either way by engaging it in the same manner that many institutions are currently engaging research research into reducing mosquito populations? Surely the west owes them that much after systematically sabotaging an entire continent. Or is it alright when it's part of the natural status quo?

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

#53

Post by redis_mlc »

ljf wrote: post #50
eru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> 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?

You have to be kidding me.

No, in the US utilities are generally privately-owned, and are "responsible" for the cleanup.

Their playbook is:

1) Extend the operating license for an additional 20 years, safe or not.

2) After that, declare bankruptcy.

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

#54

Post by eru »

ljf wrote: post #50
eru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

What's bad about biomass and wood? A country like eg Finland could probably run on wood burning, couldn't they?

> 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.

It's surprisingly hard to (quickly) find who is paying for those decommissioning funds. I imagine there's a levy on active nuclear power plant operations that goes into these funds.

You can find a lot of discussion online about whether those funds are big enough, and worries that they might not be.

Perhaps the most quantitative treatment I found is from https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_167.shtml

> Economics of cleanup

> What’s the cost of cleaning up nuclear power sites? The nuclear decommissioning authority has an annual budget of £2 billion for the next 25 years. The nuclear industry sold everyone in the UK 4 kWh/d for about 25 years, so the nuclear decommissioning authority’s cost is 2.3 p/kWh. That’s a hefty subsidy – though not, it must be said, as hefty as the subsidy currently given to offshore wind (7 p/kWh).

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

#55

Post by worik »

petre wrote: post #20
packetlost wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but you can't argue that the (relatively) small amount of waste isn't super nasty. Last I heard we still don't have a good way of dealing with it.

Dealing with waste is a policy challenge that's tied to non proliferation, not so much a technical one.

There is no known way to store anything safely for ~100,000 years like what the most problematic nuclear waste (and some parts of reactors, IIRC) have to be stored. It is a small amount, but a insoluble problem

Selling out the future generations for cyrrent greed. Nice one

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

#56

Post by cycomanic »

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…

Land use is not the main issue, but it's worth noting that nuclear power plants can not be build in nearly as many places as wind farms or solar power (as implicitly acknowledged in your coastline example), you need sufficient cooling capability.

But the main point still remains, nuclear power is bad at everything but baseload. And pointing at breeder or thorium reactors is exactly the thing I mentioned earlier. Technology that is completely uneconomical or unproven on commercial scale. Even France stopped doing breeders.

You are still ignoring the land use of open pit mining as well.

At the end nuclear is an uneconomic technology with significant unresolved issues even after decades of heavy subsidising, while renewable are cheaper proven and continously getting cheaper. The only reason to keep nuclear on the table is to keep power generation highly centralised and monopolized thus favouring few large corporations. It's ironic that nuclear is often proposed by self-confessed libertarians even though its the epitome of centralised corporatism.

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

#57

Post by cycomanic »

eru wrote: post #54
ljf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

What's bad about biomass and wood? A country like eg Finland could probably run on wood burning, couldn't they? > 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. It's surprisingly hard to (quickly) find who is paying for those decommissioning funds. I imagine there'…

IIRC in Germany the nuclear power operators were essentially allowed to put aside large amount of money taxfree to be used for decommissioning. They used those funds to expand into many other areas (so they could use the funds for high risk investment). I will try to find a source.

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

#58

Post by cycomanic »

cycomanic wrote: post #57
eru wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's bad about biomass and wood? A country like eg Finland could probably run on wood burning, couldn't they? > 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. It's surprisingly hard to (quickly) find who is paying for those decommissioning funds. I imagine there'…

IIRC in Germany the nuclear power operators were essentially allowed to put aside large amount of money taxfree to be used for decommissioning. They used those funds to expand into many other areas (so they could use the funds for high risk investment). I will try to find a source.

Ok adding as another comment.

The situation is actually more complicated than that see [1]. Essentially it comes to book keeping, however after 2017 the operators had to pay into a government fund to ensure sufficient funds to decommissioning (currently this holds 24 billion euro). Estimated decommissioning cost for a nuclear power plant are 1.2 billion euro (there is some dispute about the numbers though). This number does not include wast storage.

[1] https://www.iwr-institut.de/de/presse/presseinfos-kernenergi... (sorry only in German)

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

#59

Post by e84urjfu »

pinkfoot wrote: post #49
37r6r6u3u3u wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nope - sub Sarahan Africa is getting drier.

Is there a reason you feel this will hold true over time despite the region's relative proximity to Antarctica and its broad exposure to the intertropical convergence zone?

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

#60

Post by baud147258 »

cycomanic wrote: post #56
eru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Land use is not the main issue, but it's worth noting that nuclear power plants can not be build in nearly as many places as wind farms or solar power (as implicitly acknowledged in your coastline example), you need sufficient cooling capability. But the main point still remains, nuclear power is bad at everything but baseload. And pointing at breeder or thorium reactors is exactly the thing I mentioned earlier. Tech…

I don't know which countries you're talking about, but in France 'renewable' energies are heavily subsided,
Post reply on HN