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After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

forbes.com

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Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#411

Post by imtringued »

cbmuser wrote: post #107
beders wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a failure rate of 1% for commercial reactors, calling something 'safe' is - frankly - ridiculous. You wouldn't fly planes if they had that failure rate. It's not just the death count for which, btw, we still don't even have reliable numbers! What we do have is: Uninhabitable regions, radioactive boars decades after Chernobyl roaming Bavaria (google it), countless cases of cancer, highly radioactive waste we don'…

I assume you're from Germany when I'm reading your arguments. > Nuclear power plants rank first in the amount of economic damage done. No, that's not what science says: > https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-study-presents-tr... > https://haas.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/WP304.pdf > And you are seriously calling for mass adoption? Yes, and that's actually happening: > https://in.reuters.com/article/china-nu…

Ok, tell me. What are we going to with all the methane and hydrogen that we generated with our power to gas plants if we don't build more gas plants? How are we going to shut down coal plants if we don't have a flexible grid? For reference, an operating coal plant displaces renewable energy because its output cannot be regulated fast enough. Gas plants allow greater grid flexibility.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#412

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

Akronymus wrote: post #406
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Footprint of mining? Lots of Uranium produced in the the developing countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine) which have poor safety standards. The problem with peaks is not a defect of renewables, it is a temporary problem, whi…

> Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? Same can be said about renewables and such, which produce MORE pollution per amount of capacity, along with having a even worse footprint. > And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Are you talking about waste from setting it up or waste from operation? > Footprint of…

Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this?

Of course I am talking about operational waste storage.

Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however.

I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours.

We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renevable energy.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#413

Post by p_l »

ip26 wrote: post #192
p_l wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that solar or wind power plant will require significant backing from other power sources (hydroelectric outside of microscale is dead due to environmental concerns and costs), usually gas and coal. Energy storage is still very expensive in large scale except for pumped hydro storage, which again, is very problematic to arrange.

Wind blows around the clock and solar runs most of the time we are awake. If renewables are super cheap but storage is not viable, can't we simply overbuild?

Wind is not as predictable as it seems, and most importantly, you don't get to control the production except for clamping down when you overproduce (this results in negative prices on the market and such).

Then you have to add transfer issues, and you have situations where North Germany is exporting, while south Germany is importing, and there's a lot of fossil fuels burned just so you have capacity to keep the grid in shape.

There are of course alternatives, like controlling demand via methods such as informing people they have to reduce power usage ASAP or get cut off (hope you didn't just start washing machine or put food into electric cooker)

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#414

Post by imtringued »

paulintrognon wrote: post #396
zik wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crazy part is that all over the world nuclear is being phased out as it's uneconomic compared with renewable energy. I wonder why they chose now as the time to endorse it, just when it's no longer relevant. So strange.

It's not one or the other. Renewables on their own can't work. They need to be paired with another energy source. This is where Nuclear (or coal or else) comes useful.

Coal displaces renewables. Nuclear power displaces renewables. Gas plants don't displace renewables. I seriously wonder why people don't understand something this simple.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#415

Post by imtringued »

sizzle wrote: post #347
8bitsrule wrote: post #339

Renewable energy sources have zero fuel costs. Their potential for life-threatening disasters - on the scale of Fukushima, Chernobyl, coal ash floods, etc. - is zero. Just as with coal mines, uranium mines and oilfields, there's a large upfront cost ... but a much lower cost to the environment. Furthermore, anyone can create solar-powered electricity, anywhere. There will be no wars over access to sunlight. Sunlight…

Why can't we create a nuclear power plant in the middle of the desert like area 51 type of setup so if there is a meltdown it can be contained. Could we safely store the energy somehow and transport it or make some sort of long-distance hookup to our grids? Also anyone know why the nuclear site in San Onofre by San Diego failed?

Because nuclear power is still just thermal power. You need access to coolant. Ever wondered why a tsunami prone island like Japan decided to place a nuclear plant near the ocean? Doesn't that sound like a very stupid decision? Well, the reality is that this a necessary requirement for monolithic nuclear power plants. Rivers vary in their flow rates depending on the season. If the flow rate is too low there is less cooling capacity and subsequently you will have to turn the nuclear plant off, which will seriously hurt the economics of the plant. The only reliable cooling source is the ocean. Of course, if you have smaller plants you can live with less cooling.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#416

Post by nl »

sudosysgen wrote: post #340
nl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? It's the exact opposite of your claim. In it he points out how the regulator actively worked to enable the nuclear industry in the US. It's also worth nothing that this didn't appear to be corruption by any conventional definition. It seems more like the regulators believed that nuclear power was beneficial and acted based on that belief rather than a particular commercial motive.

Right, so you get regulators that are rational and won't enable the nuclear industry beyond reason.

Which is either the situation we are in now, or even tighter controls (which he proposed).

Either way, it doesn't lead to more nuclear power (which is what the OP was arguing for).

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#417

Post by Akronymus »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #412
Akronymus wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you account for the footprint of building the plant (all that concrete manufacturing produces lots of CO2)? Same can be said about renewables and such, which produce MORE pollution per amount of capacity, along with having a even worse footprint. > And the footprint of the waste storage (again concrete, potential for leaks)? Are you talking about waste from setting it up or waste from operation? > Footprint of…

Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this? Of course I am talking about operational waste storage. Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however. I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, re…

> Really? Footprint of manufacturing a renewables based plant worse than building huge concrete buidling? Do you have data to support this?

As I currently do not have access to my list of sources, I'll have to get back to you on that later.

> Of course I am talking about operational waste storage.

Then nuclear wins, due to how compact the spent fuel/irradiated material is. Along with the HLW decaying rather quickly, while MLW and LLW not being hard to contain for a relatively long time (Enough to have it fall close to, or below background radiation levels)

> Rare earth mining has so much smaller scale than Uranium mining however.

I currently lack access to my bookmarks on that either.

> I honestly do not understand why are molten salt power plants not more popular. They have essentially zero pollution, they do not use anything exotic, relatively low tech, can run even during dark hours.

My guess is because you need to have either a lot of sunlight or use up quite a bit of land area to get a decent amount of energy out of it. Also frying birds that fly through it.

> We do not have energy grid which would cover whole or most of the world. Once it covers USA, Russian and China there will be no need to store renwable energy.

I don't think that is feasible in a timespan where we don't get power satellites before. And that would change the whole discussion on a fundamental level anyways. So, in my eyes it is a moot point. Along with some areas just being unable to produce enough energy to support the rest when needed. Eg.: During the northern hemisphere winter, solar output would be quite a bit lower.

And that is before even getting into the losses of transportation.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#418

Post by ergl »

ant6n wrote: post #369
briandear wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about climate change, it’s about controlling behavior via energy prices. The non-nuclear climate change advocates don’t care about “carbon,” they care about wealth redistribution. That’s why I oppose most “climate” policy. Because it isn’t about climate. Carbon and wealth redistribution should be separate issues, but activists have made them the same and since I oppose wealth redistribution via government ec…

That’s the next next next level of climate change denial. After denying it’s happening, after denying it’s human-made, after denying it’s solvable, we deny it’s solvable without ideological tarnishments.

The linked document has nothing to do with climate change denial, but with climate justice, which was one of the main talking points of the school strikes last year, and also concerns the UN: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/clima.... See also https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-climate/

> We deny it’s solvable without ideological tarnishments.

No matter how you put it, climate change is completely unsolvable without politcs, because solving climate change requires, most of all, cooperation between countries.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#419

Post by joejohnson »

The debate around safety in nuclear power is kind tangential to the larger issue: what do you do with all this radioactive material when you’re done with it?

This is a much trickier issue and is largely why countries like Germany have started to phase out nuclear power plants. But the US treats the whole world as their dumping ground and as long as they are the global imperial power, they can probably just dump radioactive waste in some poor part of the world.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#420

Post by imtringued »

p_l wrote: post #408
legulere wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually look at the link that I posted? Those are the numbers for all of 2020. Germany doesn’t depend on French nuclear power. Germany was a net exporter to France in many of the last years. Many neighboring countries have even higher percentage of renewables (Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway which is connected via nord.link). Even though I would have shit down fossil fuel power plants before nuclear, G…

Those are average values with shortest timespan being full 24hour days. Which don't show daily slumps in production, nor issues with overproduction at times. Germany is net exporter in general, but that's again - net. If you look, right now as I am writing this Germany is importing ~294 MW of power from France.

> Which don't show daily slumps in production, nor issues with overproduction at times.

The atmosphere doesn't care. Less CO2 is less CO2.

>If you look, right now as I am writing this Germany is importing ~294 MW of power from France.

I think you're missing the entire point of a continental grid. The 294MW are a sign of cooperation, not of failure. If no country imports or exports energy then we could just get rid of the European grid.

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