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Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

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Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#91

Post by orwin »

johnchristopher wrote: post #40
Zenst wrote: post #28

Understandable given France has invested heavily into such power generation due to policy many decades ago to be energy self sufficient. That has seen France build up a nice collection of skilled workers across the board from building such power stations thru to management. You can read up some background here: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr... I'd imagine having the green label will mak…

5 or 10 years ago I watched a documentary about France's nuclear workers (I live in Belgium). One guy said they had lost a lot of their know how when building nuclear plants abroad and were spread too thin now to manage all the plants. He also said that privatization of small contractors to conduct routine maintenance had led to tighter schedules and an increase in small accidents. He wasn't confident the nuclear par…

> He also said that privatization of small contractors to conduct routine maintenance had led to tighter schedules and an increase in small accidents. He wasn't confident the nuclear park was safe enough.

Yes, this is probably the biggest issue for nuclear, and the biggest safety risk.

Some contractors are good. If you work in software, you know what percentage of them are good, and from those, what percentage actually get shit done.

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#92

Post by q1w2 »

linuxhansl wrote: post #87
cletus wrote: post #34

This seems to be an unpopular opinion on HN but I just don't trust humans to manage fission power in the long term at scale. First, there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment byproducts, specifically depleted Uranium Hexaflouride ("DUJF" or UF6). Second, there's what to do with old fuel rods. Proponents argue this is a solved problem and it can be stored for the long term in geologically stable storag…

Fair points. (I hope nobody downvoted you) I somewhat disagree on your general point, though. Pellet reactor (mostly?) solve the spent fuel issue. Also, I believe that due to unreasonable negative opinion we're behind a few decades where we could be in terms of research. And as I said in my earlier comment, it is exactly this lack of public support that had (and has) us running old timer nuclear plants (like Chernoby…

I don't think any of the GP's arguments hold up.

> there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment byproducts

Omega Tau did an in depth analysis of all the storage issues, including the byproducts and how they are managed.

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/omegataupodcast/omegatau-3...

These are solved problems.

> what to do with old fuel rods

...same as above. The quantity here is far far smaller than most people imagine and it's a very manageable amount - even if scaled 100x. We're talking about 1 barrel per reactor per year.

> there's long-term maintenance of a plant

Modern Gen III plants are build such that any failure in the control systems, causes the reactor to turn off via a, usually, gravity system - so no power needed to turn off the reaction. They are essentially constantly being told to stay on.

Accidents as we've seen in the past are not possible with Gen III reactors. ...the failure modes are just much, much worse for nuclear

More relevant though is that the success condition for LNG/Coal/Oil/etc plants is Global Climate Change. THAT is the critical issue.

Also, the notion that nuclear storage facilities are somehow massive liabilities when the nations of the world currently already have literally tens of thousands of nuclear bombs/missiles, seems odd. There is a far far greater likelihood of Climate Change triggered nuclear war than nuclear waste misuse.

The real problem with nuclear is public ignorance. What I find a remarkable contradiction is how anti-nuclear advocates claim we need to convince the public that Climate Change is real, but then throw up their hands as hopeless when there's a suggestion that nuclear misinformation should be combated.

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#93

Post by q1w2 »

mszyndel wrote: post #16
linuxhansl wrote: post #11

Good. Due do skewed and unreasonable public opinion it is currently almost impossible to start new nuclear power projects. As a result instead of modern, safe (passive cooling, etc) nuclear plants we're running 30-40 year old, unsafe old timers! Thorium pellet reactors, et al, are promising technologies for safe and local power generation. I believe the right answer is a mix of (safe) nuclear, renewables, together wi…

Worth adding that in EU this is largely German public opinion. And somehow the tail wags the dog.

Angela Merkel was a disaster in this regard. The nation went collectively insane after Fukushima and she cowed to the public to win the next election rather than try to calm the public ignorance.

Instead, Germany funded Russia's NordGas II pipeline to replace the nuclear power they turned off with gas. Insane stupidity.

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#94

Post by q1w2 »

jstsch wrote: post #3

Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. To deny using an energy source that is nearly carbon neutral, whilst half the population of this planet is still living in energy poverty, is far from being the prudent choice...

Democracy's are will of the average intelligence and sub-average emotional state. They seldom act with prudence.

This is why nearly all nuclear plants under construction today are occurring in non-democratic nations.

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#95

Post by opwieurposiu »

cletus wrote: post #34

This seems to be an unpopular opinion on HN but I just don't trust humans to manage fission power in the long term at scale. First, there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment byproducts, specifically depleted Uranium Hexaflouride ("DUJF" or UF6). Second, there's what to do with old fuel rods. Proponents argue this is a solved problem and it can be stored for the long term in geologically stable storag…

Used fuel from thermal reactors can be processed into fuel for fast reactors. The fast reactor burns up all the transuranium elements so that the waste ends up with only the short lived fission products. These short lived products decay to background in 300 years or so, so the amount of time it needs to be stored is much more manageable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor#Advantag...

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#98

Post by ZeroGravitas »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #90
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare earths aren't rare. Nor are they earths. It's just an old name

I suppose we can play a semantic game, but it does not change the actual result does it? They could be called Albino Chickens for all I care. Rare earths are rare on the market right now, because China managed to monopolize the market. To make it more amusing, extraction of those materials is not exactly easy on the environment, which makes it less likely that Western countries will allow it in their backyard. With t…

> solar panels require rare earths.

They don't require them, and most common ones don't even use them.

We already covered Rare Earths not being rare, but since they're not really a big limiter on renewable energy anyway, it doesn't really matter.

So, to a rough approximation, everything is wrong with your argument.

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#99

Post by cletus »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #95
cletus wrote: post #34

This seems to be an unpopular opinion on HN but I just don't trust humans to manage fission power in the long term at scale. First, there are the issues of storage and disposal of enrichment byproducts, specifically depleted Uranium Hexaflouride ("DUJF" or UF6). Second, there's what to do with old fuel rods. Proponents argue this is a solved problem and it can be stored for the long term in geologically stable storag…

Used fuel from thermal reactors can be processed into fuel for fast reactors. The fast reactor burns up all the transuranium elements so that the waste ends up with only the short lived fission products. These short lived products decay to background in 300 years or so, so the amount of time it needs to be stored is much more manageable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor#Advantag...

So if we can process nuclear waste in fast reactors like this, why haven't we done so with existing nuclear waste? Scale? Cost? Something else?

Re: Led by France, 10 EU countries call on Brussels to label nuclear energy as green

#100

Post by nazka »

q1w2 wrote: post #93
mszyndel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth adding that in EU this is largely German public opinion. And somehow the tail wags the dog.

Angela Merkel was a disaster in this regard. The nation went collectively insane after Fukushima and she cowed to the public to win the next election rather than try to calm the public ignorance. Instead, Germany funded Russia's NordGas II pipeline to replace the nuclear power they turned off with gas. Insane stupidity.

And continue with their coal mines and turbines too…
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