EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by cbmuser » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Nuclear waste isn't a problem. It's actually the best type of waste that exists. It's extremely dense, is solid and any leakage can easily detected.

And the best part of it, 95% of it can be recycled:

> https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...

> 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 lot of nuclear waste right now that is just "temporarily" stashed away in various places - some of which already had issues with flooding, like Asse II.

Asse isn't a storage for high-level waste. It contain low-level waste that can also come from hospitals and such. Germany has no storage for high-level waste yet.

Oh, but Germany has a storage for highly toxic chemicals in Herfa-Neurode with already over 3 million tons of waste:

> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode

Compared to that, Germany has only 11,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. An amount that fits into a single hall.

Just look at this photograph, it shows all of the French nuclear waste accumulated in decades:

> https://twitter.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968

Nuclear waste isn't a problem. It never was.

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

#52

Post by freeone3000 » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

pdog wrote: post #47

If you're worried about nuclear waste, why not build small nuclear reactors way out in the desert and encase them in concrete for a couple hundred years once you're done with them?

Germany is notably lacking in both deserts and anything reasonably considered "way out".

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

#53

Post by j-pb » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #36

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…

> 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…

Yeah but wind and solar on a european power grid can.

A nuclear power plant that's finished in 10 years is not gonna provide you with the baseload to stop climate change.

That's only possible with expanding the existing tech we have.

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

#54

Post by fermienrico » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

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…

Ridiculous Arm-chair Concept:

- What if we make a 1 meter wall thick lead / steel container and seal the waste in and leave it? Surely nothing can break it, not even an earthquake. Just make a giant tennis court sized containers and dump stuff in there. We know how to build bridges, surely we can build large containers.

Just want to learn, I am sure this is proposed and would love to know why its a stupid idea.

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

#55

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #25

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…

It would be interesting to see some examples of EU countries that have solved the long-term storage problem? All I know of are countries that have been researching underground tunnels since the 70s and they're still not in production use.

Sweden is nearly done with the environmental review of final storage of spent nuclear fuel. There is still scientific discussion regarding if the containers will last and remain intact for the 10 000 year goal. They hope to have a facility ready by 2030.

https://www.skb.com/future-projects/the-spent-fuel-repositor...

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

#56

Post by sobellian » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #44

sushisource wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The issue is not finding a place that's geologically stable now. But finding one that's geologically stable in 850.000 years. And to find a place where no post worldwar 5 civilization accidentally diggs is up. And to have a tracking chain where no fuel gets into the wrong hands. Do you know how germany decided on the position of its long term nuclest storage facilities? East germany choose the salt mine closest to th…

If World Wars 3, 4, and 5 all occur then I think we can safely say the global population has already been thoroughly irradiated.

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

#57

Post by oblio » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

kcmastrpc wrote: post #16

pitaj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't sign up for pollution from fossil fuels either.

Yes, they do. If you drive a car, heat your home via gas/electricity, use the internet (to post this) -- you signed up for it.

That's not how it works :-)

I don't smoke but until they started banning smoking everywhere, plenty of people would sign me up for passive smoking without asking me anything.

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

#58

Post by didibus » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #10

didibus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, but the challenge, and I say that as a supporter of Nuclear in general, is that you don't sign up for the experiment. If you're in the radius of the plant if it were to fail, you might be wary of it.

People don't sign up for pollution from fossil fuels either.

It's an emotional response though, like how there are still more people with a parallizing fear of flight that don't have a problem hopping into a car.

Like I said, I'm not justifying being against Nuclear, but explaining the challenge with Nuclear's general acceptance, there is a fear response from people, and it'll need to be curbed and addressed. That fear response is due to the grandiose nature of a Nuclear failure which fossil fuel don't have, even if they kill you slowly and might lead to world ending catastrophies.

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

#59

Post by tpmx » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #36

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…

> 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…

I was writing a comment on how hard/impossible it is to get politicians to understand the fundamentals of what makes an electric grid work - then I saw the other comments here and despaired.

It's like all the people who didn't understand grade 7-9 physics conspired to make us all miserable.

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

#60

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #48

sushisource wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where is somewhere actually geologically stable long term? Here is a map of seismic areas worldwide https://www.thoughtco.com/seismic-hazard-maps-of-the-world-1... Are there other instabilities to take into account? Finally there is also a question as to the political viability of burying waste at a particular location.

> Where is somewhere actually geologically stable long term?

Well, I mean, a lot of the planetary and moon surfaces in thr solar system, compared to Earth. But shipping costs are high.