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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

#191

Post by jay_kyburz »

biren34 wrote: post #158
jay_kyburz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying Nuclear waste is not a problem is like saying taking a shit in your neighbors yard is not a problem. Shit can be packed into plastic bags, composted, and eventually stops smelling. Some of us believe that if we can't generate power without creating waste for future generations, we should go without the power. Seriously, we don't need it.

I'm sorry to say, but the idea that "we don't need energy" is both false and dangerous. The earth's carrying capacity before fossil fuels was far, far lower than the 7 billion current population, especially with current living standards. The only reason we can support that many is because of a complex web of economics that causes the earth to produce far more food than it otherwise could, and then enables distributio…

I would like to do some more reading about this, do you have any links? The wikipedia page is a little light on detail.

I agree that we should have food security for everybody, and I agree that if we don't provide everyday people with power for heating and cooking they will just start burning things again which would create a bigger disaster.

But when I look around me I see massive amounts of waste in every sector because electricity is so cheap.

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

#193

Post by corty »

dathinab wrote: post #98
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…

> geologically stable Isn't really a think when we thing about the time scale of nuclear wast... Additionally Politicians mess in seriously bad ways with anything related to nuclear. Like pushing for nuclear power but if it's found that the objective best place to store the wast underground is around where they live they will try all kind of things to exclude the best suited place from the list of potential candidate…

The IPCC report on climate change mitigation puts nuclear median cost on par with wind power (cheaper than offshore, slightly more expensive than onshore), cheaper than solar, more expensive than hydro. In total, squarely on par with the usual suspects for green energy. And they include fuel and decommissioning in that cost. See page 71 of https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... (caution, huge pdf).

An objective discussion would be nice, but it can only be objective if it is based on available facts.

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

#194

Post by arrosenberg »

hanniabu wrote: post #78
arrosenberg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Sites of nuclear accidents can't be remediated. They're essentially lost "forever".

I don't think the evidence supports that, and even if it did, we create the same dead-zone conditions using chemical energy and fertilizers, so I'm not sure why it counts against nuclear any more than it would against petrochemicals.

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

#195

Post by xupybd »

j-pb wrote: post #123
cbmuser wrote: post #84

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. 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.

If Capitalism and greed failed here wait 'till you see what centralised control of an economy can do. Free actor based economies need some regulation and fail pretty spectacularly at times. Centralised economies however, they cause death and destruction at a level only war and plague can rival. The problem is, greed drives people in both systems.

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

#196

Post by jhgb »

Kuinox wrote: post #187
jhgb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windmills didn't use cement. I assume they used lime mortar like most medieval structures.

Yes my bad, not cement, it's not mortar but concrete, 150-300m^3 of concrete per 2MW windmill.

Windmills didn't have 2MW power output either.

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

#197

Post by sushisource »

chmod775 wrote: post #34
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…

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.

How is that the assumption? There only needs to be one such place on the whole planet (or, shit, shoot it into space). I'm not saying it's easy (in fact, that was kinda my point), but it's absolutely possible and I didn't assume anything about individual groups needing their own storage.

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

#198

Post by nickik »

makomk wrote: post #79
cbmuser wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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-.…

The big problem with recycling spent nuclear fuel is that the required reprocessing is much worse in terms of safety than the nuclear power plants themselves. Lots of lovely, toxic, highly radioactive solutions which are practically iching to go prompt critical and ruin everyone's day. I think the only reprocessing program which managed not to be a safety train wreck is France's, and I half-suspect they might have ju…

There are many ways to do recycling and we have 100s of years to figure it out. What we do now is doable, but its the worst possible thing.

Other forms of recycling are very viable and have much less problems and much less side streams.

The problem is of course that anti-nuclear crowed have stopped practically all technology development so they can claim all problems are solvable and nuclear should be abolished.

As everything with nuclear, we as a society barley got to first generation technology and then halted all development.

Canada is doing some create work with recycling of CANDU fuel, Moltex Energy is in development of a reactor to use that fuel and its a much better process then what the french use.

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

#199

Post by dtech »

whatever1 wrote: post #127
cbmuser wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most plastics are very hard if not impossible to recycle. Especially when different plastics are mixed or a product is made of multiple materials, i.e. nearly all products.

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

#200

Post by godelski »

whatever1 wrote: post #127
cbmuser wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Most plastics aren't actually recyclable, which is why they aren't recycled. But we say that we can because it shifts the burden. Companies like Coke have been saying that they'll have 50% recycled material in the next 20 years for the last 60. ~~Fusion~~Full recycled product chain is only 20 years away!

Also, 17% of France's energy comes from recycled nuclear (70% from nuclear)[0]

[0] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

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