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An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

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Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#11

Post by mattashii »

aksss wrote: post #4
nabla9 wrote: post #3

It's infatuating that all arguments pro- and against nuclear energy are so selective. It's very hard to get unbiased view. The article starts with proper framing. You must think in terms of lifetime capital costs and opportunity cost. Then it chooses numbers selectively to make the argument stronger than it is. Nuclear and renewable energy production can't be compared directly with price per kWh. Nuclear energy is 24…

Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now. Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely. Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably,…

> Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now.

There are quite some solar-thermal installations of >100MW, which store solar energy in a thermal buffer to later convert this to electrical power, creating an effective 24/7 stable supply of power, weather permitting.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#12

Post by wernercd »

I'm going to hesitate to say this article is very short sighted... it talks about "nuclear is expensive, renewables are cheap and we don't know how to store nuclear waste".

Nabla's comment is a good start on the conversation (good frame but no real apples to apples comparisons).

Personally, with the talk about "what about all that nuclear waste"...

where's the talk about the recyclable waste? Batteries, solar panels, wind mills are all very hard to recycle and add "after the fact" costs like nuclear does that's being unaccounted for - and is happening at a MUCH larger scale currently.

Where's the talk about all the "rare earth minerals" that's going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with "clean energy"?

I think this article has some valid points wrapped up in talking points to strengthen its argument while ignoring massive talking points that go unmentioned (True comparisons of costs, storage/recycling of materials and the massive increase in "plundering" Earth goes unmentioned... to name a few).

Edit: Not saying I'm "pro nuclear" or "anti renewable"... I'm more of a balanced approach person - I think the future will include Coal, Gas, Nuclear, Solar, hydro and various mixes there-of and we need to work on making all of them better because none of them are going anywhere any time soon - and they ALL have strengths and weaknesses.

https://fee.org/articles/the-environmental-costs-of-renewabl...

> Far from it. The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs.

https://www.futurity.org/nuclear-waste-recycling-2355402-2/

New, better ways of recycling Nuclear "waste" is being researched constantly

> A new simple, proliferation-resistant approach offers a way to reduce nuclear waste, researchers say.

https://fortune.com/2020/02/05/wind-turbine-fiberglass-landf...

> Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23...

> The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.”

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#13

Post by pedrocr »

aksss wrote: post #4
nabla9 wrote: post #3

It's infatuating that all arguments pro- and against nuclear energy are so selective. It's very hard to get unbiased view. The article starts with proper framing. You must think in terms of lifetime capital costs and opportunity cost. Then it chooses numbers selectively to make the argument stronger than it is. Nuclear and renewable energy production can't be compared directly with price per kWh. Nuclear energy is 24…

Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now. Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely. Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably,…

> Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely.

> Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably, so you end up with two sets of power generation infrastructure designed to meet peak capacity (so effectively double capacity of what’s needed), which is extraordinarily expensive.

I'm by no means an expert on this but I've been trying to learn more about it recently. From what I gather the end-state can be 100% renewables in different ways:

1) Have enough hydro that can be turned into pumped storage that a complete grid mix can be done with just hydro+solar+wind with very little overbuild. Portugal has very good conditions for this and back of the envelope calculations tell me it's possible with just 15% overbuild. All of the extra is solar which is very cheap[1]. With a better interconnected European grid it may be possible to do that across the whole continent.

2) Overbuild solar and wind by a large amount since they're so cheap, supplement that with some expensive batteries, and allow energy prices to go to zero and even negative at times to see if anyone has a use for the excess energy. We're talking something like 3-5x overbuild and then having so much excess energy that you start disrupting other fossil fuel usage[2].

If you have a seasonal storage breakthrough you're back at 1) with just another technology in place of hydro. Financing hydrogen generation seems to me like picking winners within 2). Both scenarios can be supplemented if shaping demand can be made at scale. Things like heating buildings and charging EVs can be shifted a few hours during the day without much inconvenience and possibly allow shaving off some important peaks.

Most of this discussion would be avoided if we just put a steadily increasing price on carbon, remove all other subsidies, and let the market shake things out.

[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UTUjhrBF04MP38b4WlQx...

[2] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bb...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#14

Post by wernercd »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #10
stadia42 wrote: post #2

Note: I do not know if this argument against nuclear energy is valid. I'm submitting it in the hope that HN comments will help evaluate it.

Unfortunately you're more likely to just find confirmation bias here. The HN community (and the tech community in general) is predominantly pro-nuclear. Personally, I think this article raises great points. If we could rewrite history and have built a thriving nuclear power industry 20 years ago, we'd probably be in much better shape now, at least with respect to climate change But that's not what happened. Given the…

> Truly viable

When you ignore the glaring problems with renewables? Sure... but why pay attention to rare earth minerals needed, massive problems creating massive amounts of PV panels, recycling issues, etc

We can't afford to let the burgeoning "savior" of our world continue on it's destructive path because the Religion of Renewables won't admit to the fact that it's Priests are doing bad things with children...

To many aspects and conversations turn into religious debates. PC? SJWs? Climate Change? Anti-Nuclear/Pro-Renewable? (or vice versa on all of them) all turn into religious debates with people who refuse to look at both sides of very complex issues.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#15

Post by bryanlarsen »

aksss wrote: post #4
nabla9 wrote: post #3

It's infatuating that all arguments pro- and against nuclear energy are so selective. It's very hard to get unbiased view. The article starts with proper framing. You must think in terms of lifetime capital costs and opportunity cost. Then it chooses numbers selectively to make the argument stronger than it is. Nuclear and renewable energy production can't be compared directly with price per kWh. Nuclear energy is 24…

Right, I think hydro is about as close to at-scale 24/7 always-on generation as you can get with renewables right now. Even with that, everywhere I’ve lived with hydro power had backup fossil fuel generation, which was periodically used, though rarely. Arguments for all other forms of renewables at scale right now seem to depend on having/maintaining fossil fuel power generation just to satisfy daily demand reliably,…

If the world was completely solar, we'd need 30TWh of batteries, which would cost about $3T. [0]

$3T would buy 200 GW of nuclear power plants, about 3% of what's needed.

0: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/06/21/is-nuclear-pow...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#16

Post by Shadonototro »

Haha sure..

What's your alternative? American Nuclear Fusion?

This kind of people aren't european, they worship america, and want us to depend more and more on their companies

I'm tired of hearing the same people saying we should exit nuclear energy, this is beyond crazy

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#17

Post by readflaggedcomm »

Shadonototro wrote: post #16

Haha sure.. What's your alternative? American Nuclear Fusion? This kind of people aren't european, they worship america, and want us to depend more and more on their companies I'm tired of hearing the same people saying we should exit nuclear energy, this is beyond crazy

He says renewables. Fusion isn't mentioned. America isn't mentioned. What are you talking about?

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#18

Post by tsimionescu »

mattnewton wrote: post #9
nabla9 wrote: post #3

It's infatuating that all arguments pro- and against nuclear energy are so selective. It's very hard to get unbiased view. The article starts with proper framing. You must think in terms of lifetime capital costs and opportunity cost. Then it chooses numbers selectively to make the argument stronger than it is. Nuclear and renewable energy production can't be compared directly with price per kWh. Nuclear energy is 24…

There is a mention of the costs needed for storage in renewables that would keep the electricity under the operating cost of nuclear, albeit in a somewhat indirect way- > It would often even be affordordable to pay 1 – 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity storage in addition to the generation costs for wind and solar power and still be below the operating costs of nuclear power plants. And here we have to ask…

My guess is that the article is thinking of other kinds of storage, such as water pumping. I very much doubt battery storage could be cost effective at this time.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#19

Post by CarelessExpert »

wernercd wrote: post #14
CarelessExpert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately you're more likely to just find confirmation bias here. The HN community (and the tech community in general) is predominantly pro-nuclear. Personally, I think this article raises great points. If we could rewrite history and have built a thriving nuclear power industry 20 years ago, we'd probably be in much better shape now, at least with respect to climate change But that's not what happened. Given the…

> Truly viable When you ignore the glaring problems with renewables? Sure... but why pay attention to rare earth minerals needed, massive problems creating massive amounts of PV panels, recycling issues, etc We can't afford to let the burgeoning "savior" of our world continue on it's destructive path because the Religion of Renewables won't admit to the fact that it's Priests are doing bad things with children... To…

You know, you have some valid points. Unfortunately, due to your demeaning and dismissive tone, I don't feel there's any point in engaging with you further.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#20

Post by bryanlarsen »

wernercd wrote: post #12

I'm going to hesitate to say this article is very short sighted... it talks about "nuclear is expensive, renewables are cheap and we don't know how to store nuclear waste". Nabla's comment is a good start on the conversation (good frame but no real apples to apples comparisons). Personally, with the talk about "what about all that nuclear waste"... where's the talk about the recyclable waste? Batteries, solar panels,…

> Batteries, solar panels, wind mills are all very hard to recycle

Everything the world creates is unprofitable to recycle except for aluminum soda cans. Compared to the average commercial waste, batteries, solar panels and wind blades are straightforward to recycle.

> Where's the talk about all the "rare earth minerals" that's going to have to be strip mined around the world to keep up with "clean energy"?

There's no talk because the commonly used batteries and solar panels don't contain any.

A lifepo4 battery consists of Lithium, Iron and Phosphate, all of which are abundant.

> about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years.

IOW, about 40,000 tonnes of waste. About the same amount of waste as a small town.

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