Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#111

Post by melling » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #102

jjoonathan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we (US) hadn't stopped building nuclear in the 80s, and had simply kept building at the same rate, our grid would be (near) zero carbon today . Not several decades from now if we hustle our asses off, today . But that's not what happened. The anti-nuclear team won and we collectively made the responsible decision to fill our atmosphere with CO2 instead. Yay?

Yes, that's the a common talking point that is false, "Nuclear energy does not produce CO2, or almost none". But you only see that it is false if you look at complete lifecycle analysis of building the plants, running the plants, mining and transporting the uranium, transportintg the waste, dismantling the plant etc. You can try to argue that the US would have less carbon emissions than today - something I'm inclined…

Yes but we would have decades of extra time to deal with global warming.

Instead, now we’re trying to shame people into flying less, which amounts to 2.5% of emissions a year..

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#112

Post by makomk » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #91

onli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a very focused elite building system in which the big universities creating the future members of the elite are heavily financed and influenced by pro-nuclear organizations. That goes especially for politicans, but includes engineers. The pro-nuclear propaganda repeated by the people that go through this is frightening, many of them are completely brainwashed. In no way can the ASN be really independent, as…

So the people you want to oversee the safety of nuclear installations are people who do not know reactor physics or civil engineering? Also, universities are quite far from the political elite in France, none of which actually know about anything related to nuclear power plants. Engineer at the ASN are just that: engineers. They don't take decisions.

It's just like every other example of regulatory capture, really - the people who're qualified to assess the safety of nuclear power plants are those who have training in reactor physics and engineering, which is of course the same pool of people that plant operators draw from when building and operating their plants, so you end up with a revolving door effect where the nominally independent regulator is incredibly close to the industry it's regulating and has few ties with other stakeholders like, say, everyone living in the surrounding region.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#113

Post by philipkglass » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

bananabreakfast wrote: post #72

onli wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is not safer than renewables. These statistics are false, they do not include everything involved with running the plants and gathering the ressources. They get repeated every time in these threads here and are refuted every time. Your first article is provided by a pro nuclear propaganda association. It's almost certainly also false. And ignores conveniently how much more unrecycable nuclear waste France was…

There is no such thing as un-recyclable nuclear waste that cannot be stored safely. All unsafe waste is by definition recyclable because its viability as fuel is what makes it unsafe. If it is unviable as recycled fuel then it is quite safely storable and is no more dangerous than the tons of toxic chemicals we store regularly from manufacturing and mining byproducts.

That is incorrect. There are two major groups of elements in spent nuclear fuel:

- Actinides (neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, leftover uranium). Most of these materials are fissile or can be bred into fissile materials. Fuel recycling processes reclaim and reuse these elements.

- Fission products. These are the lighter elements formed when fuel atoms split apart. Some of the components that are most important from a waste management perspective are strontium 90 and cesium 137.

Fission products cannot be used as nuclear fuel. The fission products of greatest concern are also much more toxic than ordinary chemical wastes.

The LD50 for arsenic in rats is 15 milligrams per kilogram: https://whs.rocklinusd.org/documents/Science/Lethal_Dose_Tab...

The LD50 for strontium 90 in hamsters (90 day survival) is 2 millicuries per kilogram: http://www.rrjournal.org/doi/abs/10.2307/3573895

Given strontium 90's specific activity of 142 curies/gram (https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/196800...), in mass terms that's 14 micrograms per kilogram for the LD50. Gram for gram, strontium 90 is about 1000 times as acutely deadly as arsenic, or three times as acutely deadly as the nerve gas sarin. There are few industrial chemicals that have toxicity comparable to or greater than nerve gas, and they (like spent nuclear fuel) have special regulations and require special handling.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#114

Post by qayxc » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

Kuinox wrote: post #95

hamilyon2 wrote: post #64

Please don't forget increased reliance on natural gas from Russia. Uranium is so abundant, it does not give anyone any power in negotiations. But fossil fuel has to be imported. Natural gas, for example, flows only through pipes.

Sadly there is no uranium in France.

That's a false statement.

There's enough uranium in France - it's just not cheap uranium and open pit mines in Africa are more economical.

Additionally, France never had to even prospect for uranium ore, as incidentally many of their former colonies had plenty of potential for cheap open pit mining using cheap local workers....

For reference, just a few hundred kilometres east of their border, East Germany was the third largest uranium producer in the world and there's no geological reason why France should be devoid of it.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#115

Post by AnimalMuppet » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

seszett wrote: post #68

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because you can't choose when the sun shines and when the wind blows. This is a terrible argument. There is always some place on the grid where the wind is blowing and (during the day) the sun is shining.

That's far from guaranteed. It's very possible to have little wind over a large area, larger than France even, during the night.

And the same for solar. There are several hours every day when the sun is shining nowhere on (Metropolitan) France.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#116

Post by foepys » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

_ph_ wrote: post #40

scohesc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in other words, Germany (with some the most serious "green tech" laws) is basically forcing France to shut down their plant, even though it's been operating mostly fine and has been actually helping fight climate change for a long time already.

Germany would be the main country affected, if there were a major "mishap" at Fessenheim. Basically the whole south of Germany would be impacted with large cities like Stuttgart, Augsburg and of course München.

People tend to forget that despite the Chernobyl disaster happening in Ukraine, Bavaria advised their citizens to not eat any mushrooms collected in the woods because wind blew radioactive particles across Europe.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#117

Post by bohadi » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

Kuinox wrote: post #92

vladletter wrote: post #57

They don't talk about nuclear waste highly toxic that is buried in the north east of France and that they don't know what to do with. Nuclear is good for environment temporarily, but on the long term, if we don't know how to reuse nuclear waste, it will be worse.

Would be cool if you sourced your statements like the article did. Like "we don't know what to do with it" which is a lie.

As someone in another field, well what do we do with nuclear waste?

My guess is bury it somewhere else.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#118

Post by cygx » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

revax wrote: post #61

_ph_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German grid does not rely on nuclear power from France. Germany is a net exporter. Of course, with an European electricity network, there is a lot of electricity moved around every day, often reversing directions in a few hours, depending on local needs and production.

It is overall a net exporter but in winter when there is no wind, Germany rely more on its neighborhood. Average are misleading.

You're aware that it's France that nearly crashes the European grid every other winter?

Some German articles on the topic:

2012: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Warten-auf-den-Blackout-in-...

2017: https://www.heise.de/tp/news/Atom-Frankreich-versucht-Blacko...

2019: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Alle-Jahre-wieder-Frankreic...

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#119

Post by orwin » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #102

jjoonathan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we (US) hadn't stopped building nuclear in the 80s, and had simply kept building at the same rate, our grid would be (near) zero carbon today . Not several decades from now if we hustle our asses off, today . But that's not what happened. The anti-nuclear team won and we collectively made the responsible decision to fill our atmosphere with CO2 instead. Yay?

Yes, that's the a common talking point that is false, "Nuclear energy does not produce CO2, or almost none". But you only see that it is false if you look at complete lifecycle analysis of building the plants, running the plants, mining and transporting the uranium, transportintg the waste, dismantling the plant etc. You can try to argue that the US would have less carbon emissions than today - something I'm inclined…

This was done, the whole calculation, again and again, again and again, like this was done for solar pannels and wind turbine.

All the data is there, the IPCC even took the time to vulgarize this part because people don't seems to understand, took the highest evaluation wiht post-70s tech (12gCO2/MWh) and there is STILL people that talk about climate and don't even READ the IPCC document. I don't understand why you would talk about something this important and dont read the BASICS.

Like those climate denialist who "prove" that low atmosphere CO2 will make everything greener. WE KNOW! At least climate denialist have the excuse that this information is not easily accessible [0][1]. Everything else is written in the vulgarized papers, it a two hour-long read top, just take some time to inform yourself!

This is why nothing will never be done and we are hoping for a technological silver bullet, because people rather act like they care about climate than care about climate.

I'm angry.

[0] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/TAR-04.pdf

[edit] spacing, swear words.

Re: Why is the Fessenheim 2 nuclear power plant closing in France?

#120

Post by mlyle » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

temac wrote: post #93

mlyle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables and nuclear -both- have the problem that you can't control when you get the generation. Nuclear wants to be constant-- both because ramping isn't super fast and because you want to recover large capital costs. Renewables ... produce varying amounts pseudo-periodically and unpredictably, which is even worse. Neither matches conventionally to demand. The only way around this is technologies that store (hydro…

If I'm not mistaken nuclear in France is actually pilotable quite fast, it is not instantaneous but it is really fast. You cover the risk of shortest term high variance with other means, but they basically already exist (hydro, gaz) and you don't need much. This is not necessarily the case for all nuclear power plant, it has to be designed for that.

It depends what you call fast. It's my understanding that PWR's like this ramp from 50% to 90% in about an hour.

But nuclear power plants have a huge capital cost, so you really don't want them to operate for half of the day at 40% or they're even more expensive for the power generated.

And going below a minimum output power means a long time to get power back, which is why in North America power prices sometimes go negative (don't want to shut down).