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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

#131

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #44
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…

"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 storage facilities." With space travel becoming cheaper and cheaper, cant we deposit that on the moon for example?

Ignoring rocket reliability, projects that try to protect the environment by wasting more energy are just counterproductive.

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

OnlyMortal wrote: post #24

Having grown up in the Cold War with the threat of MAD and the waste products from reactors, I do understand the hesitation of nuclear power. But, in a more practical world, there’s not much of a choice if we want an energy source that’s not killing us by air pollution. In the other hand, we seem to be yet again passing the problem onto future generations. Perhaps they’ll have the science to resolve nuclear waste but…

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by forty »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #122
forty wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was only joking on the topic of Australia vs Russia :)

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

#134

Post by petre »

tofflos wrote: post #14

France, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania.

Great to see Poland is part of the effort. They have zero reactors having sold their VVER reactor vessels to Hungary but realise they need to replace coal with something and the only ligical choice is nuclear.

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

#135

Post by lrem »

buran77 wrote: post #47
lrem wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so? Constituting a quarter of the gdp, Germany doesn't seem to qualify as "the tail".

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

I'm afraid it usually is - just think of ways to sway it. Now, I would love to agree it shouldn't be, but there is no concrete system I can think of that could decouple it well. Ownership of media by the state oftentimes makes it a propaganda arm of whichever party is ruling. Private ownership, even in case of heavy subsidies, implies ownership by capital...

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

#136

Post by rsj_hn »

orwin wrote: post #84
eithed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we shouldn't be forgetting about the disposal of solar panels as well - https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/solar-panel-was...

I'm pro-nuclear, but solar panel disposal in rich country is almost solved. 94,7% recyclable, the recycling is taken into account when you buy them (in Europe at least), so its free to get them to the recycling plant for the owner.

I don't think the issue is that we don't know how to dispose of or recycle the panels. But the US uses 93 quadrillion BTU per year (https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/), so to supply 10% of the US' daily power needs would require 5 billion panels.

Moreover these panels will degrade over time, so they require maintenance, recycling, disposal, etc. So one hill half covered with solar panels is one thing, but when you have 5 billion solar panels, then yes, it stops looking so green to me. And then you need to get the other 90% from somewhere.

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

#137

Post by itzprime »

stkdump wrote: post #42
xvilka wrote: post #6

Given the Germany stupid move to get rid of nuclear (in favor of coal[1], as it turned out), not sure if it will support this decision. And nowadays they are dependent from one country's gas... [1] https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-power-a...

The numbers are public record. https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag... There is no huge spike. And since the decision to shut down the nuclear plants, also coal has decreased massively, even more dramatically than nuclear.

Wind wasn't blowing the last few months, coal is back on top. https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec...

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

#138

Post by himinlomax »

cletus wrote: post #99
opwieurposiu wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because the plants to do so were not built or were dismantled (SuperPhénix) due to anti-nuclear activists.

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

#139

Post by dispat0r »

kelsolaar wrote: post #120
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.

And they put back up many coal power plants which creates an insane amount of air pollution.

That's not true. There is an exit strategy for coal in germany and at least for now it's still going. Next year they will shutdown the remaining nuclear plants. That will be the moment of truth.

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

#140

Post by 08-15 »

johnchristopher wrote: post #80
08-15 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do believe we should have built more nuclear plants 20 or 30 years ago Would you like to know why we didn't? Because climate activists told us 20 years ago that - [a nuclear power plant] takes 30 years or more to build one - [a nuclear power plant] usually costs twice as planned - [nuclear power is] way more expensive than renewables - renewables can be deployed now Then we (Germany) wasted 20 years building rene…

I do wonder why and how green parties were able to get everyone else to retire nuclear plants but then nobody (green, blue, red, etc.) set plans in motion to replace it.

Your first question has a simple answer: by law. New nuclear plants haven't been licensed in Germany in, like, forever. Currently, the law explicitly states that no new nuclear power plants will be licensed.

How they got the operators to agree to the early shutdown is less clear. By offering a good deal, I guess. It's only taxpayer money, after all.

Why nobody set plans in motion to replace it? I don't know. My best guess is, because politicians are unbelievably stupid. They really don't know anything about electricity. They really don't get that excess electricity in Juli doesn't help you in cold, dark January. Annalena Baerbock stated publically: "The grid is all the battery we need." At that level of incompetence, who knows why anything happened.

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