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

#111

Post by tonmoy » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #89

tonmoy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I agree, but if you read the original article EU is thinking about marking new gas powered plants as green

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

#112

Post by Veedrac » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:27 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.…

All of these problems are due to bad regulation, not the technology. Nuclear fission was well on its way to cost-effective production back in the day.

https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop

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

#113

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

atomicusit wrote: post #107

keewee7 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Why is China building as we speak 184 coal plants than? https://www.canadianenergycentre.ca/commentary-china-is-buil...

Interpreting Chinese policy can be difficult foe an outsider, but the most likely reason seems to be the politics dominance of coal interests combined with inertia from plans made a long time ago.

The coal capital expenditures into coal will likely be underutilized over the next 30 years, but that happens when there are massive plans that are set in motion over the course of many years without adjustment.

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

#114

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:32 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #104

epistasis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the mining problem, the scalability problem, the toxicity problem, etc These are all trivial compared to nuclear's construction problem. But I've never heard that batteries are not "scalable," when they are actually one of the most incredibly scalable technologies out there. Want a few watt hours? No problem. Want 10GWh? No problem. Want to distribute a MWh at every distribution station across a country? No problem…

Even more weird: most people think rare earth is rare as in: "there isn’t a lot in the ground and it is easily depleted". Whereas in reality, rare earth means that it is less common per cubic meter of earth than other minerals. But there is plenty.

Yes, this is all important information to know. The best I can understand is that "rare earths" became associated with dependence on China (not true), which led to people being against rare earths in general. But it's tough to figure out what's going on with people's opinion on the matter, I still don't know what I said in my comment above yours that was so disagreeable.

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

#115

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #92

Ekaros wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think large part of it is increased scrutiny and standards. Which is entirely justified. And most of issues could be solved as said with knowledge and proper pipeline of keeping people who already gained experience from past projects on new ones.

As an amateur, I read everything I can about why the US's current nuclear construction attempts have failed, and my conclusion is exactly the reverse. The problem is a lack of scrutiny and attention to detail, poor planning, bad logistics, and general incompetence. The NRC reviews only the safety of reactors, not if it's a constructible design. If somebody had held Westinghouse to the standard of having constructible…

At least in the US, we can’t seem to build any large projects of any kind. I just don’t see nuclear happening here.

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

#116

Post by pyrale » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #81

pyrale wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 7 years is way too long.

What's a good timeline then, and what technology not emitting co2 supports it?

The countries that have started wind&solar policies a decade ago are nowhere close to a clean electricity mix. In fact, fossil plants and infrastructures are still being built in these countries.

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

#117

Post by pyrale » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

juahan wrote: post #79

pyrale wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Well, currently the French are buildin a new nuclear power plant in Finland. Construction started 2005 and it was supposed to be ready in 2009… they are still building it and _maybe_ next year it finally will be connected to the grid. So 17 years give or take.

France lost lots of construction/industrial knowledge wrt nuclear plants. It's not very surprising that new models built by inexperienced companies end up being over budget and schedule.

I wouldn't surprised for Hinkley point C to also have such issues. What I would like to know is whether the amount of issues is significantly reduced compared to Flamanville and Olkiluoto. That would be a good indication about whether the design is faulty, or whether it's the industry having teething issues.

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

#118

Post by epistasis » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #116

epistasis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 7 years is way too long. What's a good timeline then, and what technology not emitting co2 supports it? The countries that have started wind&solar policies a decade ago are nowhere close to a clean electricity mix. In fact, fossil plants and infrastructures are still being built in these countries.

There's a big contradiction in your two assessments here. You seem to think that nuclear can scale from almost nothing to the hundreds of reactor per year that we need in a suitable amount of time. However, even with renewable's exponential growth to hundreds of GW deployed every year today, with exponential growth continuing from today, you seem to think it's not enough.

If you plot out the growth of wind and solar deployments rate, we are just baaaarely on track to replace all of our energy services with renewable energy in the next 15-20 years.

Storage is also growing at an acceptable rate for our needs, we are producing 200GWh/ year right now, will get to 2000GWh/year by 2026, and be at 20-30 TWh/ year by 2031-2036.

In contrast, if we figure out how to build a first-of-a-kind in 7 years, then start scaling up, most of the energy transition will have already happened.

The only reason to pursue nuclear is if it seems to be cheaper than the alternatives. It doesn't look like it will be. But even if it's more expensive, getting 10% or so of our power from nuclear might lead to a cost optimal solution, so I hope the industry can pull itself together. I'm doubtful, but hopeful.

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

#119

Post by Maarten88 » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #84

vadfa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big "if"

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

The people of Madagascar would probably contend both "when" and "if", but they don't have time to discuss climate change, they are busy trying to find food.

Closer home, in California, there are 3000+ families who don't need affordable heating anymore, their home burned down due to climate-change related wildfires just this year.

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

#120

Post by drran » Sat, Sep 25, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #60

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think nuclear was the way forward, and I kind of still do, but it's understandable why it isn't prevalent. It's all about magnitude of loss/failure. Traditional power plants are much safer and failure isn't nearly as catastrophic as with nuclear. If a nuclear plant fails, look at what can happen - you can lose an entire city indefinitely - Chernobyl. The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power.

Hydroelectricity has inflicted orders of magnitude more damage. Yet nobody seriously proposes removing hydroelectric plants, they are by far the most effective form of renewables. Nuclear contamination can be cleaned. The majority of the Fukushima exclusion zone has been cleaned and reopened. There's no motivation to do this in Chernobyl because the town of Chernobyl only existed to support the nuclear power plant.

Not electricity, but water. We should ban water for raining from the sky to save lives.