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Nuclear Power in France

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Re: Nuclear Power in France

#141

Post by sudosysgen »

bipson wrote: post #114
sudosysgen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the reactor cores would have to be replaced every 12-15 years. But if the reactors are mass produced and designed to swap out the cores, it doesn't have to be too expensive.

Still not "sustainable". And not really cheap either.

It is actually quite sustainable. The reactor core is not a large cost for a GW over 15 years.

The US navy swaps out reactor cores for 100-200 million dollars, and those are in submarines and ships. There is basically no maintenance outside of those.

For comparison, a GW of wind capacity is 1.6 billion every 20 years. For solar panels for 1GW of average generation you'll be paying 10 billion dollars or so every 25-30 years.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#142

Post by iforgotpassword »

shakow wrote: post #34
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is always touted as such a good idea on this site, but I want to take the opposite stance. - Nuclear power has inherit risks that are not present in other forms of modern energy generation. You can claim that todays designs are 99.9999999% safe, but there is no such thing as 100%. If humans build it, it will fail, and a single catastrophic nuclear plant failure isn’t acceptable. - Nuclear waste is difficult t…

> If humans build it, it will fail, and a single catastrophic nuclear plant failure isn’t acceptable. We do people focus so much on the danger aspect of nuclear energy only? Why not the thousands of people who died of dam break, the millions who die of lung failure due to exposure to polluants, or, the elephant in the room, the dozens of millions whoe die and will die of climate change? Sure, it's very sad that a han…

The risk is different. For coal, more or less everybody gets a few years off of their life expectancy, some a bit more who live closer to a plant, but roughly speaking, it's something everybody suffers from. With nuclear, those who live closer to a plant risk much more devastating damage in case something goes wrong. If you normalize both then nuclear comes out much safer, but that's not how humans work. I live 60km from a very old reactor that is 20 years past its designed runtime, has several shutdowns a year, had a few leaks "that didn't pose any danger to people". We just gonna keep it running because nothing bad happened yet, until something bad happens. Capitalism at work.

But indeed the waste storage is by far the greatest problem. Not for us luckily, we get some cheap electricity and coming generations can deal with the waste we shoved in some hole. Expecting that the way we store the waste is safe for thousands of years is naive. Germany hasn't found a final destination and is just shipping that stuff around. Someone thought it was a good idea to store it near east Germany, until east Germany was no more and suddenly it was in the middle of the country in an unsuited location. Someone thought it was a good idea to store it in a salt mine, until the containers started corroding from salt water. But that was back when humans were still stupid and didn't know salt water corrodes things. Luckily we reached end of history now and do everything right. I'm positive the next location will not be picked by political motives.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#143

Post by forty »

woko wrote: post #57
forty wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where have you seen nuclear is the cheapest solution for electrity production? Nuclear has some benefits, but price does seem to be one of them (and actually one of the reasons for preferring renewable)

For instance, it is discussed in this press article [1] published in 2016 and available in French. It is mentioned that nuclear power costs 60€/MWh, compared to 80€/MWh for wind power. It is also mentioned quite often in the French press: I have seen it mentioned a few days ago. The source mentioned in the 2016 press article is an official report [2] published in 2014. However, it is true that the maintenance cost in…

Yeah I feel the end of life has not yet been factored in the price (ie the cost of dismantling the reactor or maintaining it alive forever). It would be very aligned with the general philosophy of nuclear ^^ (ie "the next generations will either figure it out or pay the price")

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#144

Post by throwaway894345 »

corban1 wrote: post #69

Nuclear is clean, it is safe but it is not cheap. It's safe and clean because of it's moderately priced. I stand by nuclear because it's cleanness and safeness which can't be compared to anything else. What will we generate electricity with in non-windy cloudy days? Coal? LNG? ESS? Note that all of those options are more dangerous, more expensive and more dirty than nuclear.

I wonder how the cost of nuclear stacks up against the cost of fossil fuels when you don't cook the books (externalize the costs of pollution)?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#145

Post by pydry »

lm28469 wrote: post #63
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is always touted as such a good idea on this site, but I want to take the opposite stance. - Nuclear power has inherit risks that are not present in other forms of modern energy generation. You can claim that todays designs are 99.9999999% safe, but there is no such thing as 100%. If humans build it, it will fail, and a single catastrophic nuclear plant failure isn’t acceptable. - Nuclear waste is difficult t…

> Nuclear power has inherit risks that are not present in other forms of modern energy generation. You can claim that todays designs are 99.9999999% safe, but there is no such thing as 100% You're breathing coal and gas byproducts every single day, byproducts which are taking years of life expectancy, and it doesn't seem to bother anyone, but oh god "Chernobyl bad, let's close perfectly safe and working nuclear react…

>Germany is firing up coal plants

They've been steadily reducing the % of coal in their electricity usage:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/p...

The last coal fired plant has already been built and the last one will be switched off in 2038.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#146

Post by throwaway894345 »

corban1 wrote: post #105
misiti3780 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about Europe, but nuclear seems to be expensive in the US because construction costs are high because of overcautious regulation[1]. It was considerably cheaper in the 50/60s here, and it seems like mostly a policy issue [1] https://rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flop

That's the point. Nuclear is getting over-regulated to be safe, not to make any mistakes. I don't disagree with the regulators. I disagree with overly cheap nuclear. Overall, no power generation method can replace nuclear's steady output with its level of cleanness and safeness.

On the other hand, nuclear is far, far safer than almost every other kind of energy source. If we allowed nuclear to be as unsafe as coal, how much cheaper might it be?

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#147

Post by sudosysgen »

lazide wrote: post #103
sudosysgen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thin wire will melt appart before the power lines do.

It doesn’t melt, it vaporizes, causing a live plasma channel to form and a giant arc between the lines that is self sustaining. If they have a arc interrupter, it might stop it before it destroys the lines, but not often, and at the power levels we’re talking about here, it is a very difficult problem. The technique the US Military uses to destroy enemy power grids is to detonate a ball of long stringy aluminum confe…

Arcing powerlines generally doesn't cause irreparable damage. Sometimes a swarm of birds will trigger a swarm. The protection circuit normally trips and it's fine.

Over a substation I could see it causing a lot more damage though.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#148

Post by systemvoltage »

01100011 wrote: post #97
logicalmonster wrote: post #25

> However, 58% thought that nuclear power caused climate change while only 46% thought that coal burning did so This raises some interesting thoughts about the nature and importance of democracy.

I remain a supporter of democracy but do have serious doubts regarding the ability of the majority of humankind to maintain a sufficient understanding of the increasingly complex world they control. Large portions of the US population seem to have problems with basic reasoning skills. I'm not sure the school system or western culture is capable of rectifying that anytime soon.

Representative democracy helps in this regard.

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#149

Post by Zigurd »

"Fungible" is a word not appearing on this page yet. But the most important thing for future power generation is how much you can buy for the money. Energy capex is fungible.

Here are the numbers. Buy the ones at the bottom of the graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Re: Nuclear Power in France

#150

Post by throwaway894345 »

olivermarks wrote: post #61

i think advanced modular small nuclear reactors are the only viable way forward if we are to have a predominantly electrically powered future society. 'The term “modular” in the context of SMRs refers to the ability to fabricate major components of the nuclear steam supply system in a factory environment and ship to the point of use. Even though current large nuclear power plants incorporate factory-fabricated compon…

I share the same viewpoint. I wonder if anyone has any information about what ordinary Americans can do to support SMRs? What should I ask my representatives to do? Is there proposed legislation I could petition them to support? Are there organizations I could donate to?
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