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

#391

Post by creato » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

pizzapill wrote: post #211

Turing_Machine wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are talking about time frames that are many times longer than the existence of modern humans as a species. No, we absolutely are not. "Long half-life" = "less radioactive". By definition. Do you know what the half life of CO2 is? Infinity.

The half life of Plutonium is ~24k years. That's way beyond a time frame we have any grip on. Then its still very, very dangerous. Uranium (nuclear fuel) has a half life of 200k - 4.4 million years. Then its half as dangerous. CO2 has a half life of ~ 10 years in our atmosphere btw.

Elements with very long half-lives aren't very radioactive. Something with a half life of millions of years is essentially not radioactive at all.

Nuclear fuel itself isn't radioactively dangerous, it's dangerous because it's a heavy metal (like lead).

After nuclear fuel is reacted, it produces a bunch of nuclear decay products. Some of these decay products have a half-life of 10s of years, which are the problems: they're short enough to be dangerously radioactive, but long enough that they need to be handled carefully for a long time. But not for 10s of thousands of years.

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

#392

Post by ducleonctor » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #331

ducleonctor wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a word, yes. These are some of the most unstable countries in modern history. Then you also need to secure the cables going north from Africa. They are indeed unstable - for reasons that may not be discussed - but buying the required sites and securing them should be possible anyways. If local jobs are created in the process, even better. So much effort has been wasted on partially securing much more dangerous c…

I think the you should spend your efforts on responding to other comments you got, at least two were quite strong, much stronger than mine. I'll just reply to the China thing: > Aren't the Chinese endavours mostly directed at farming and some mining for now? No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the…

> No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the governments of Africa.

Good to know. I wasn't aware of that. What does that mean for our supply of blood diamonds, copper and similar? Maybe they are more needed in China, now that manufacturing has and is still being outsourced to that piece of two countries?

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

#393

Post by jhgb » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

effie wrote: post #362

Krasnol wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What else do you propose as replacement for coal and gas power plants? Renewables > Who expects nuclear energy to fix our CO2 problems? It's the main claim of the Nuclear AstroTurf campaign. > In the following decades, it is supposed to slow down CO2 buildup, not "fix our CO2 problems". As I've shown: it is not the appropriate tool to do that in an efficient way.

It is not realistic to power current developed societies using only solar and wind power. For simple reason - we can't store energy well. Stop throwing up and shooting down strawmen. Nuclear energy was never going to replace all energy sources. Only the worst ones, like coal and gas power plants.

Storing energy is a straw man as well. The most realistic scenarios of renewable grids rely on overgeneration and opportunistic consumption. This will continue to be the case as long as storage costs significantly continue to exceed extra generation capacity costs.

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

#394

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

ducleonctor wrote: post #333

relax88 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inherent radiation danger seems largely overblown to me. Chernobyl is the only accident that has caused any real human impact beyond psychological terror, and it was an unsafe design with zero safety features. It's design flaws were kept secret from the operators, and they were experimenting beyond operational parameters in a "hold my beer" fashion. It's like looking at Bhopal and saying that pesticide manufactur…

I grew up in Hanau and was born in that city one year before that happened (you may also refer to the sources if you don't trust the org publishing the English summary): https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/493-494/ex... Children found funny metal pill or drop-like objects in the forests around the plant and played with it. While there were reports of inspectors and interested civilians being blocked fro…

> Are there breeder designs that do not involve molten, highly reactive metals?

There are vehicles that use highly reactive fluid called gasoline. Many people drive them safely because we are smart and designed them to be safe enough to be worth the benefit of travel. There are homes heated by explosive fuel (natural gas). People even cook with it. Sometimes people bring water to a hazardous boiling condition in order to cook or make tea.

The utilization of hazardous material in safe ways to benefit humanity is old hat, and wholly appropriate in many cases.

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

#395

Post by dijit » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

Gwypaas wrote: post #384

dijit wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden imports energy from countries which use coal plants. The Swedish ethos is “we are green. It was the other guys!”

Can you show me a source for your claim that it has increased? Here's another graph for the energy mix over time, with coal not changing at all. This time from the government energy agency. See page 5. http://energimyndigheten.a-w2m.se/FolderContents.mvc/Downloa...

Unfortunately the Swedish authority wants to look good so their promotional materials show domestic and only pay lip service to imports.

If you follow the flow from: https://www.svk.se/en/national-grid/the-control-room/ you see that most of those countries primarily generate electricity using Oil, Gas and especially coal. (Latvia, Lithuania and to a lesser extent: Estonia)

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

#396

Post by Kuinox » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

jhgb wrote: post #385

Kuinox wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you obviously didnt watched the video. Yes my bad, in my native language windmill and wind turbine are the same word. I was talking about wind turbines, as you can see in the video.

In that case, 200 cubic meters amount to around 80 tonnes of CO2 emissions. That's around 80 MWh worth of coal electricity, which a 2 MW wind turbine running at a 30% CF offsets in around a week. So a complete non-issue.

GP tried to make a point about CO2 emitted by cement which is invalid because wind turbine need a lot more of concrete per MW.

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

#397

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

pizzapill wrote: post #211

Turing_Machine wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are talking about time frames that are many times longer than the existence of modern humans as a species. No, we absolutely are not. "Long half-life" = "less radioactive". By definition. Do you know what the half life of CO2 is? Infinity.

The half life of Plutonium is ~24k years. That's way beyond a time frame we have any grip on. Then its still very, very dangerous. Uranium (nuclear fuel) has a half life of 200k - 4.4 million years. Then its half as dangerous. CO2 has a half life of ~ 10 years in our atmosphere btw.

And those things aren't very radioactive. Just as I said.

Most of what you've read about plutonium is patent nonsense. For one, it isn't even close to being the "most toxic substance known". You can pick up a lump of it and hold in in your hand. You'll be fine. Really. It is an alpha emitter, and alpha radiation can be stopped by your skin or even a piece of paper. You'd have to eat it before you saw any ill effects.

Not to mention that plutonium is a useful nuclear fuel. It's not going to be left lying around.

You do know that the ocean has megatons of uranium in it? Why aren't you concerned about that?

For that matter, we could grind up all the nuclear waste ever produced and disperse it in the ocean. It wouldn't change the radioactivity of sea water by any significant degree.

The Soviets used to dump their scrap sub reactors in the Arctic Ocean whole. There are a bunch of them up there.

> CO2 has a half life of ~ 10 years in our atmosphere btw.

Oh? So we can just wait until things start to get uncomfortably warm, then stop cranking out CO2 for a decade or two and everything will be better?

Good to know.

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

#398

Post by tpmx » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

ducleonctor wrote: post #392

tpmx wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the you should spend your efforts on responding to other comments you got, at least two were quite strong, much stronger than mine. I'll just reply to the China thing: > Aren't the Chinese endavours mostly directed at farming and some mining for now? No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the…

> No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the governments of Africa. Good to know. I wasn't aware of that. What does that mean for our supply of blood diamonds, copper and similar? Maybe they are more needed in China, now that manufacturing has and is still being outsourced to that piece of two countri…

It's weird that you'd take a random internet stranger on their word. I'd kind of expect someone partaking in this debate to know about this stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_economic_...

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

#399

Post by andbberger » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

Haemm0r wrote: post #20

dijit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that. It's like they succeeded and then many decades later flight MH17 happened and the world collectively lost its mind and declared air travel as inherently unsafe and condemned all research into it as dangerous. The issue though, is that energy production is mostly quiet unless there's a problem, but people do see personal benefit in air travel. Add to that: Coal is a silent killer, it's not obviou…

The comparison of a happening with basically no longterm consequences to future generations like MH17 to nuclear fallout / necessary waste treatment is quite lame imho. Nuclear energy without subsidies is not sustainable at all. Just do the math if you need decades to dismantle and decontaminate an old nuclear power plant alone.

[citation needed]

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

#400

Post by cletus » Sat, Mar 27, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #300

cletus wrote: post #229

Here we go again: 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. The Cybernobyl Exclusion Zone is quite literally 1,000 square miles [1]; 2. Advocate like to talk about reprocessing as a solution to the waste problem. It seems to be missed that this is limited to spent fuel reprocessing. This appears to have significant cost and safety issues; 3. Separately to spent fuel, you also have to store enrichment byproducts (eg UF…

> 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. Do you have a source? There's plenty of larger fossil fuel catastrophes that just aren't well known because they are in third world countries, so who gives a fuck, right? [0] (note that this is 1700 square miles) I'm not sure this point if about environmental damage or human not being able to live there damage. If the former, I think climate change is a pretty apparent count…

> Do you have a source?

Yes, Chernobyl. Unless you can point me to a _single_ non-nuclear power plant accident that has rendered 1,000 square miles uninhabitable for 35 years (and counting) then my point stands.

Pro-nuclear advocates always bring up the health effects of coal. Yes, it’s terrible. But you’ve also picked the worst offender (what about natural gas?) and those health effects are spread across the entire industry, not localized to a single plant failure.

> This is a restatement of 2 unless you're talking about weapons

No it is not. Many in this thread and elsewhere will selectively talk about nuclear waste in terms of spent fuel processing and storage. This completely ignores the byproducts of enrichment.

And yes uranium for power plants is still enriched, even if it’s not to the degree that weapons-grade uranium is enriched.

> Energy production plants of any kind are a security issue.

False equivalency strikes again. You’re trying to deflect to the issue of securing the plant. Compare what can be done with a ton of nuclear fuel or nuclear waste vs a ton of whatever goes into or comes out of a coal plant.

You also call the waste footprints of nuclear fission power “small”. Well it’s partly small because nuclear power is small. To scale it up to the level where could actually displace fossil fuel use would multiply those numbers and problems by 10-100x.

And I’ll not to completely skipped over the biggest problem of all: it requires humans tasked with building, maintaining, operations and monitoring plants in a way that just doesn’t seem realistic or scalable.