EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#81

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #49

danhor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issues of nuclear remain the high costs, hairy security situation in many countries and very limited ability to adapt to demand. This is both in the night-and-day cycle meaning but also in the "we need more power in 10-years" meaning, since nuclear power plants take forever to build. Saying that all our problems could have been solved by nuclear is not close to the truth, especially regarding climate chan…

> nuclear power plants take forever to build. In France, the first nuclear plants of the current production group were contracted in 1970, and connected to the network in 1977, so that's 7 years for a pilot industrial project. Later plants were built in 5-6 years. The kicker is that this work is highly scalable: France built over 6 reactors per year over its program. The current issue with new generation reactors see…

7 years is way too long.

And it was a different time, in an economy with different skills, and entirely different technologies.

What was cheap and fast 50 years ago may not be the best thing to build today. For example, the wealthy no longer build many mansions with intricate stonework and wood molding, all crafted by hand. The workforce is no longer there.

We should pay close attention to the productive capacity of today, what sort of industrial machines we have at our actual disposal.

Nobody who is talking about nuclear pays attention to what it would actually take to build nuclear like France did in the 1970s, it's just an assumption that it could be done, without paying attention to any of the details.

Further, those proposing lots of new nuclear never deal with the massive failures of current attempts, whether it's France's EPR designs at Flamanville, Olkiluoto, or Hinkley. All have been failures. What would change to get a first-of-a-kind build down to 7 years?

Nobody has answers to these questions, least of all the nuclear industry. And until somebody has a clear and detailed and knowledgeable path forward on construction, we will waste billions and billions more on ineffective nuclear when those resources could instead be out to use right away with storage and renewables.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#82

Post by criley2 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #76

panick21 wrote: post #22

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

We are really really close to a solution, and for the one thing that nuclear is hyped to provide--clean electricity--we have cheaper and easier and more scalable solutions than nuclear. The challenges we have now with decarbonization are not solved by cheap electricity. The challenges I'm talking about are industrial and chemical processes, transitioning transport quickly enough, freight, aviation, agriculture, etc.…

There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount of batteries required to make wind/solar/etc viable as a baseload technology. People point at solar panel progress and always conveniently stay silent on the big battery problem (the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc)

Nuclear did and does work out. It was not overhyped and it has delivered as expected. I would argue that solar is overhyped and has continually underdelivered. Anyone who has installed a solar system on their house has seen the significant issues with it.

Nuclear remains the best way to replace coal/gas electricity generation for baseload power, to generate enough energy to power industries and cities, and is cleaner than filling a city with atrocious rare earth batteries that are required to paper over the problems with other inconsistently generating technologies.

It is what it is, but if nuclear isn't the future, then coal isn't going anywhere.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#83

Post by drran » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

nivenkos wrote: post #36

chapium wrote: post #13

We can’t just ignore the fact that a carbon problem will not be solved by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. We have half a dozen sources of carbon free energy. The EU is right here. Including gas power in the green book is laughable.

> he EU is right here. Including gas power in the green book is laughable. The EU is the one considering including it...

IMHO, Russia wants to make their Nord Stream 2 gas pipe "green" to circumvent sanctions. Gazprom must be worth €1 trillion at any cost.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#84

Post by adrianN » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

vadfa wrote: post #20

Maarten88 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's disastrous is that millions of people can't afford artificially expensive energy to heat their homes and commute to work. Do you think it would be more affordable to relocate some populations and rebuild a few cities after floodings, droughts, famines and wildfires caused by that cheaper fossil energy? 'Artificial' depends on your definition of who is paying, and when.

That's a big "if"

That's a big "when" at this point.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#85

Post by keewee7 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #82

epistasis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are really really close to a solution, and for the one thing that nuclear is hyped to provide--clean electricity--we have cheaper and easier and more scalable solutions than nuclear. The challenges we have now with decarbonization are not solved by cheap electricity. The challenges I'm talking about are industrial and chemical processes, transitioning transport quickly enough, freight, aviation, agriculture, etc.…

There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount of batteries required to make wind/solar/etc viable as a baseload technology. People point at solar panel progress and always conveniently stay silent on the big battery problem (the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc) Nuclear d…

>baseload gigawatt generation

This is very important for the heavy industries yet opponents of Nuclear still pretend that solar and wind can cover it.

They are fine with Nuclear as long as it is in China.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#86

Post by jopsen » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #82

epistasis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are really really close to a solution, and for the one thing that nuclear is hyped to provide--clean electricity--we have cheaper and easier and more scalable solutions than nuclear. The challenges we have now with decarbonization are not solved by cheap electricity. The challenges I'm talking about are industrial and chemical processes, transitioning transport quickly enough, freight, aviation, agriculture, etc.…

There is nothing cheaper and easier and more scalable than nuclear for baseload gigawatt generation, especially when you actually account for the insane amount of batteries required to make wind/solar/etc viable as a baseload technology. People point at solar panel progress and always conveniently stay silent on the big battery problem (the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc) Nuclear d…

Cost at scale is hard to predict.

I think a bigger question is, do we have enough "political capital" to pay for nuclear energy?

Even if our politicians all agreed to it, across counties even, what are the odds that they would get ousted before the reactors are built and delivering cost efficiency energy.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#87

Post by rndgermandude » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

ChrisKnott wrote: post #33

thriftwy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can never understand why attacks by "activists" do not result in dozens of arrests and convictions for multiple years of prison every time they happen. Isn't it basically what any sovereign law says?

In most Western countries you won't go to prison at all, let alone for several years, for common assault. Maybe if you caused serious injury.

Yeah. In Germany it starts with regular assault/battery ("Körperverletzung"). This is a fine up to 5 years imprisonment. But if you do the assault in a group or with a weapon or really any tool or it's a "sneaky" attack or the way you do it life-threatening it them becomes a "dangerous" assault ("gefährliche Körperverletzung") which has a prison sentence of 6 months to 10 years (3 months to 5 years for "less severe" cases) but it never ends in a fine.

If you slap somebody, you'll likely get a fine, which is issued as "so and so many day's rates" (Tagessätze), which means e.g. you can get a fine of "20 day's rates" i.e. you'll have to pay the equivalent of 20 days worth of income, calculated based on your monthly net income divided by 30 days and capped at 1 EUR to 30000 EUR per day.

A prison sentence can be issued as a suspended sentence if it is 24 months or less, which is up to the discretion of the judge(s). You only have to go to prison if you receive another prison sentence for another crime in a time frame specified by the judge, or if you violate any of the additional requirements a judge may issue. If I remember correctly about 70-80% of all prison sentences below 24 months are issued as suspended sentences, and only a tiny fraction of people end up going to prison because the suspension is lifted later for some reason.

However realistically even the "dangerous" variant quite often ends in a light sentence of a couple of months which is then usually issued as a suspended sentence. This depends on what happened, the level of involvement and previous criminal history if any and whether you confess and show remorse. However, the suspension of a sentence is usually contiguous on you paying everything you owe, from damages for pain and suffering to the court fees.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#88

Post by keewee7 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

danhor wrote: post #35

panick21 wrote: post #22

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

Part of the issues of nuclear remain the high costs, hairy security situation in many countries and very limited ability to adapt to demand. This is both in the night-and-day cycle meaning but also in the "we need more power in 10-years" meaning, since nuclear power plants take forever to build. Saying that all our problems could have been solved by nuclear is not close to the truth, especially regarding climate chan…

>Part of the issues of nuclear remain the high costs

>nuclear power plants take forever to build

That is because of overregulation in North American and Western Europe. The overregulation is because of hysteria and coal lobbyists. Nuclear is working fine in the rest of the world with more plants under construction:

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu...

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#89

Post by driverdan » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

tonmoy wrote: post #61

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #19

This is the collision between imperfect (but working) versus perfect (but not working). It's more important to get emissions down now than to aim for a perfect standard that no one has yet reached, and doesn't appear reachable any time soon. The emissions matter, not the goals of activist NGOs. This cuts emissions, that's why it qualified. Results > ideology.

Even if gas leaks were not a thing, this pulls away resources from greener technologies. If we start building gas power plants it’ll take almost 50 years before they can be retired, and emitting even reduced CO2 for 50 years is not an option we have. Counterintuitively it may be better to keep burning coal for 20 more years in old plants and then switch to fully renewable (or nuclear)

Coal plants can be retrofitted to use natural gas. This is a good short term improvement while lower emissions alternatives are built.

Re: EU Is Warned Green Label for Gas Would Be ‘Disastrous’ Mistake

#90

Post by keewee7 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #26

panick21 wrote: post #22

Its sadder everyday that somehow humanity has failed to become a nuclear society. All our problems could have been solved decades ago but we are still nowhere near a solution.

Green Parties the world over are anti-nuclear and have been since the 80s. Considering how much harm to the environment has come by the hand of green parties, I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

>I'm beginning to wonder if they aren't lobbied by fossil fuel companies.

They are. The mass hysteria about Fukushima was fueled by "environmentalists" who were being funded by the Australian coal lobby.