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

euronews.com

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

#121

Post by r00fus »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #110
cletus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The cost issue: Storing spent fuel is pretty cheap because it is not very voluminous. The USA has produced about 85k tons of spent fuel, which would fit into a single football stadium. This means the cheapest thing to do is just kick the can down the road. The proliferation issue: Waste burners require processing of spent fuel, which some states believe is a weapons proliferation risk. The sodium issue: Liquid sodium…

French also reprocess. In fact, other countries pay them to reprocess their fuel.

The US doesn't do this ostensibly due to proliferation risk [1] however, I am of the opinion that was due purely due to pressure from the coal lobby.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#History

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

#122

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

forty wrote: post #77
derlvative wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is the country wih the world's largest uranium reserves. They seem to be a more agreeable trading partner than Russia.

From a French point of view, this might have become debatable lately ;)

From a French point of view it doesn't matter because:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOMAIR

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMINAK

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining_in_Namibia#Trek...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orano_Cycle

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

#123

Post by Iwan-Zotow »

RobRivera wrote: post #32
wumpus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using words like "ignorant" and "hypocritical" shows an attitude problem.

we should aggregate all problematic words into a controlled list to identify problematic people with problematic attitudes to solve certain problems - end sarcasm

put them against the wall and shoot 'em!

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

#124

Post by a0-prw »

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.

No, Germany did not fund Nordstream 2.

"Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall will each provide loans covering 10 per cent of the €9.5bn cost of the pipeline, with Gazprom providing the remaining 50 per cent."

Source: Financial Times, https://archive.vn/pirwk

Also, clean energy is a long way off and Europeans are still going to have to heat their houses. Personally, I'm happy that we're doing business with Russia, rather than being locked into more expensive, US gas imports.

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

#125

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

a0-prw wrote: post #124
q1w2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, Germany did not fund Nordstream 2. "Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall will each provide loans covering 10 per cent of the €9.5bn cost of the pipeline, with Gazprom providing the remaining 50 per cent." Source: Financial Times, https://archive.vn/pirwk Also, clean energy is a long way off and Europeans are still going to have to heat their house…

> US gas imports

The US has huge natural gas reserves. Are they really importing natural gas?

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

#126

Post by a0-prw »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #125
a0-prw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Germany did not fund Nordstream 2. "Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall will each provide loans covering 10 per cent of the €9.5bn cost of the pipeline, with Gazprom providing the remaining 50 per cent." Source: Financial Times, https://archive.vn/pirwk Also, clean energy is a long way off and Europeans are still going to have to heat their house…

> US gas imports The US has huge natural gas reserves. Are they really importing natural gas?

I mean imports from the US to Europe.

It's a good idea to have multiple suppliers.

IMO, Trump's sanctioning of Nordstream 2 was mostly economic warfare against an ally (Europe), disguised as geoplitical concerns about Russia.

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

#127

Post by petre »

moralestapia wrote: post #119
buran77 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is public opinion weight a matter of GDP? Should it?

Germany is also the most populated country in the EU.

That's 26% of EU population. Still less than 50%.

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

#128

Post by petre »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #45
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…

Hasn’t Bill Gates done a lot with nuclear reactor design?

Yes. But it's not ready for production yet, they don't have a demonstrator.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

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

#129

Post by petre »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #106
Ekaros wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or buy the power plants and then sell the power for cheap...

They will simply buy electricity from Poland (coal) or France (nuclear) it they need more cheaper.

If Poland or France have cheap electricity to dispose of, which isn't the case as of this winter.

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

#130

Post by johnchristopher »

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…

*build nuclear plants in eastern Europe
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