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EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

reuters.com

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Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#31

Post by Kuinox »

chmod775 wrote: post #15

There's a lot of straw men being fought in the comments again. The main issue with nuclear power in Europe has always been the storage of nuclear waste, for which many countries still don't have a long-term solution. Proponents of nuclear power like to pretend the opposition exists merely on the basis of "but what if it goes boom!", so they don't need to face the reality that countries like Germany are sitting on a l…

This is not "temporarly": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#32

Post by brudgers »

dstick wrote: post #3
seanhandley wrote: post #2

This is a good move. Nuclear power is poorly understood and easily stigmatised but on balance is far less harmful than burning fossil fuels.

After having read Gates’ latest book on climate change, one metaphor that stuck with me was the one on nuclear energy. It’s as if the Wright brothers invented the first airplane, flew off, crashed, lost every passenger, and then we collectively dropped the entire technology and every promise it held. Never to be visited again. Humans are weird. (and I know the accidents were worse, but we iterated on car and plane sa…

An interesting analogy considering the evidence of the airplane’s role in regard to observed changes in atmospheric chemistry.

But all analogies are like that...they need people to squint so details go fuzzy and merge.

The Zeppelin is an equally plausible aircraft analogy. Theoretically it is possible for nothing to go wrong when taking dependencies on a quarter million hand sewn cow intestines.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#33

Post by [deleted] »

sushisource wrote: post #22
chmod775 wrote: post #15

There's a lot of straw men being fought in the comments again. The main issue with nuclear power in Europe has always been the storage of nuclear waste, for which many countries still don't have a long-term solution. Proponents of nuclear power like to pretend the opposition exists merely on the basis of "but what if it goes boom!", so they don't need to face the reality that countries like Germany are sitting on a l…

I just don't really see how this is true. Isn't the basic idea to just dig a really deep hole somewhere geologically stable and dump it in? My impression isn't that the problem isn't solvable, but simply that no one has actually made the appropriate investment yet. That sounds like the same catch-22 as the rest of this. We've thrown up our hands and gone "Not worth it" and then our lack of investment in proper storag…

[deleted]

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#34

Post by chmod775 »

sushisource wrote: post #22
chmod775 wrote: post #15

There's a lot of straw men being fought in the comments again. The main issue with nuclear power in Europe has always been the storage of nuclear waste, for which many countries still don't have a long-term solution. Proponents of nuclear power like to pretend the opposition exists merely on the basis of "but what if it goes boom!", so they don't need to face the reality that countries like Germany are sitting on a l…

I just don't really see how this is true. Isn't the basic idea to just dig a really deep hole somewhere geologically stable and dump it in? My impression isn't that the problem isn't solvable, but simply that no one has actually made the appropriate investment yet. That sounds like the same catch-22 as the rest of this. We've thrown up our hands and gone "Not worth it" and then our lack of investment in proper storag…

Your assumption is that every country is guaranteed to have access to underground places that are "geologically stable" over the required time-period, aren't aquifers, or at risk letting water in by some other means.

The assumption is simply wrong.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#36

Post by oblio »

j-pb wrote: post #29
tpmx wrote: post #5

Germany's populistic policy decisions following Fukushima set us back so much.

Fukushima is what caused the setback, because it proved that, again, "risk of a fault is neglegible" turns out to be not neglegible enough. I don't care if nuclear can be made safe on paper, as long as it's build by humans it's going to be messed up somehow. I once took a school trip to a nuclear power station in northern germany, turns out they had a direct link to their local coal plant to manage demand. That link…

> The cleanup costs of ONE uranium mine alone could buy Germany enough solar to replace 3 nuclear reactors.

Germany needs nuclear for base load. The current alternatives for base load are natural gas (meh, but maybe not horrible) and coal (horribly dirty, and Germany transitioned from nuclear to coal [!!!], making their energy mix dirtier than the French one, as France still uses a ton of nuclear power plants).

Solar can't be used for base load at the moment.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#37

Post by Lammy »

sushisource wrote: post #22
chmod775 wrote: post #15

There's a lot of straw men being fought in the comments again. The main issue with nuclear power in Europe has always been the storage of nuclear waste, for which many countries still don't have a long-term solution. Proponents of nuclear power like to pretend the opposition exists merely on the basis of "but what if it goes boom!", so they don't need to face the reality that countries like Germany are sitting on a l…

I just don't really see how this is true. Isn't the basic idea to just dig a really deep hole somewhere geologically stable and dump it in? My impression isn't that the problem isn't solvable, but simply that no one has actually made the appropriate investment yet. That sounds like the same catch-22 as the rest of this. We've thrown up our hands and gone "Not worth it" and then our lack of investment in proper storag…

I think the standard response is “but what about a hypothetical future civilization somehow disconnected enough from ours to not know what nuclear waste is who find it and dig it up thinking it’s holy or whatever” and a link to the spiky ground and “this is not a place of honor”. Assuming a future civilization gets to exist considering we keep burning petroleum products and calling them clean while we waste time arguing about tech that’s been proven for fifty years because the right groups of people can’t own it.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#38

Post by pydry »

tpmx wrote: post #5

Germany's populistic policy decisions following Fukushima set us back so much.

Fukushima cleanup costs will be between $470 and $660 billion.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi...

US nuclear power gets a liability cap of $0.2 billion. The nuclear industry will keep telling us it is safe but it will refuse to shoulder the insurance costs beyond a minimal level. That's the taxpayer's job and the taxpayer's job alone.

And, EVEN INCLUDING that, nuclear is about 3x more expensive than solar and wind.

You could get the price down in a number of ways, but the most obvious one is going to be to skimp on safety.

This isn't Germany's fault. Nuclear is only competitive with lavish subsidies beyond those it already has. The only countries that will really want it are those with nuclear weapons and a desire to keep a nuclear industry running to maintain skills and technology.

It's about nuclear arsenal maintenance at this point, with decarbonization as an excuse.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#39

Post by Hani1337 »

lrem wrote: post #30
j-pb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima is what caused the setback, because it proved that, again, "risk of a fault is neglegible" turns out to be not neglegible enough. I don't care if nuclear can be made safe on paper, as long as it's build by humans it's going to be messed up somehow. I once took a school trip to a nuclear power station in northern germany, turns out they had a direct link to their local coal plant to manage demand. That link…

We don't have all that many tsunamis in Germany...

No but we have a lot of terrorists

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#40

Post by arrosenberg »

j-pb wrote: post #29
tpmx wrote: post #5

Germany's populistic policy decisions following Fukushima set us back so much.

Fukushima is what caused the setback, because it proved that, again, "risk of a fault is neglegible" turns out to be not neglegible enough. I don't care if nuclear can be made safe on paper, as long as it's build by humans it's going to be messed up somehow. I once took a school trip to a nuclear power station in northern germany, turns out they had a direct link to their local coal plant to manage demand. That link…

You could say the same thing about any power source though - humans have created way bigger disasters with fossil fuels than nuclear power.

> The cleanup costs of ONE uranium mine alone could buy germany enough solar to replace 3 nuclear reactors.

How much do those solar panels cost once you factor in environmental remediation, EOL recycling, land use, etc.? Since that's the standard nuclear is held to, it would be good to know.

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