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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

#121

Post by oblio »

Gwypaas wrote: post #112
tpmx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but I honestly think most don't really even understand the difference between power and energy. If you don't understand that, trying to explain base load is an uphill battle.

Either way, in almost every online discussion I see the term base load is used in the wrong context. Base load exists on the consumer side, as the minimum power the grid needs to operate during a cycle of X hours/days/weeks/years/whatever. It used to exist on the producer side since the cheapest power plants were also inflexible regarding ramping their power up and down coupled with high fixed costs and low marginal…

Base load exists on the consumer side and unless energy storage ramps up 1000-10000x across the world, I don't see how solar and wind could ever cover it until then. Human power usage patterns don't change that much because we don't change much. You need to be able to provide X energy at all times, no ifs and buts.

Actually, there is one thing, we need super capable and reliable super long distance power grid connections, maybe there's some progress on this front?

Because solar and wind absolutely are unreliable on a local front.

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

#122

Post by seoaeu »

fermienrico wrote: post #54
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.

This is basically what we already do, and it works fine. But opponents will still pester you about where to put the sealed boxes :P

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

#123

Post by j-pb »

cbmuser wrote: post #84
j-pb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The issue is not finding a place that's geologically stable now. But finding one that's geologically stable in 850.000 years. Something that takes several hundred thousand years for decay isn't actually dangerous. Short half-life: High radioactivity. Long half-life: Low radioactivity. Furthermore, spent nuclear fuel can be recycled up to 95%: > https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-... > https…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsleben_radioactive_waste_... Yeah because only fuel is highly radioactive...

Texas failed to secure their electrical grid, that has nothing to do with renewables. We got renewables running in far worse weather conditions.

Capitalism and greed killed those texans.

You're making my case that people can't be trusted with nuclear, even though the tech in and of itself could be safe.

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

#124

Post by ed25519FUUU »

croes wrote: post #107
rando57 wrote: post #69

I hope that in the future we will seriously consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power Compared to current methods of producing nuclear energy, thorium: - produces significantly more energy per ton - produces significantly less waste - the waste is significantly less dangerous (cools down in x00 years, instead of x0000 years)

We can't even handle a pandemic and you think we can handle nuclear energy?

Have Florida build it.

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

#125

Post by godelski »

cbmuser wrote: post #51
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-.…

A bigger factor to note is that 95% of radiation is contained within 1% of the waste. I think the problem here is that people don't realize how small this number is. Because 11ktons sounds like a lot. But if you compare it to any other waste in the world it is tiny. Perspective is lost.

I also don't understand why not having a geological repository is an issue. Many researchers propose just storing it in place after decommissioning. You have a lot of shielding material (i.e. the other 99% of reactor waste that is mostly concrete) to protect a very small amount of radiation and keep the material distributed, which has some security benefits. Not having a centralized location doesn't seem like an issue. It isn't like humans are going anywhere anytime soon and we're going to lose information about where waste is stored. We have plenty of time to figure out a long term storage system that is still safe if the entirety of human information is lost. It's a great goal, but if that's our concern we should talk about deep geological repositories for a lot of other waste that we have that doesn't degrade overtime.

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

#126

Post by anoncake »

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.

It's also unsuitable as a long-term solution and too slow to build for a a short-term solution. So all it is is a distraction.

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

#127

Post by whatever1 »

cbmuser wrote: post #51
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-.…

All plastics can be recycled. Does not mean they do.

In fact, we have unmitigated leaking dumps here in the US, but since it is not in your backyard you don't care. Not your problem, someone elses problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site#:~:text=The%20Han....

I can play the environmentalist on the backs of other people as well. Super easy.

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

#128

Post by vidarh »

loeg wrote: post #90
chmod775 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could throw it in the fucking ocean and it would be better than coal plants, and arguably better than natural gas.

You could grind it up and intentionally pump it into the air, and it still would likely kill a tiny portion of the number of people killed by coal plants.

I mean a whole lot of coal plants do pump uranium dust into the air. If you did it with the nuclear waste you'd pump worse isotopes into the air, but the volume would be tiny.

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

#129

Post by Rarebox »

hedora wrote: post #94
fermienrico wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if we made a giant four sided pyramid out of stone, and used the inner 1% of its volume to store your box? We could put it in the middle of the desert, and hope it gets covered in sand.

To discourage people from finding the box inside, we could insert traps to hinder explorers.

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

#130

Post by logifail »

exar0815 wrote: post #71
chmod775 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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” It is not. Why is it one straw man after another in this discussion? The response is that countries like Germany have already spent a lot of time looking for a suitable place, and haven't found one. At th…

This is not true. The most sensible place was intentionally overlooked because one of germanys larges political parties (CSU) has all her voters there, and the next best place (Gorleben) was politically and ideologically fought over for decades until we gave up and said fuck you and everyone, lets just store it where it stands.

> most sensible place

Can you define who gets to decide whether a place is "most sensible"?

Subject-matter experts? National politicians? Regional politicians?

Or maybe it's more like: voters (nationally)? voters (regionally)? voters (locally)?

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