Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

euractiv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 399 posts

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#121

Post by cbmuser »

schleck8 wrote: post #59

It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...

It’s worth noting that you are confusing system costs and levelized costs of electricity.

Cheap wind and solar electricity is absolutely useless if it cannot be produced on demand.

Nuclear produces electricity 24/7, independent of weather with no backup required.

The kWh costs 30 cents in Germany, but 15 cents in France.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#122

Post by loeg »

Gwypaas wrote: post #116
loeg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?

The wind also ceases to exist at night right?

Not every night, no. But electricity supply needs to be reliable, not "only on windy nights."

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#123

Post by Nasrudith »

asdff wrote: post #82
legulere wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be unwise though, considering that building nuclear power plants is slower and more expensive than wind and solar in Europe.

Wind and solar in europe aren't going to get them off of fossil fuels anytime soon, while nuclear has had that capability since its inception.

Soon isn't a thing that happens with power grids in any normal sense. The big capex in creation means that you need big differences in cost to justify an early shutdown. You also have to the new working before turning off the old, contrary to political preferences to destroy the old and then try to make the new work. Plant modifications are smaller in cost usually - so swapping a coal plant to burn natural gas because fracking made it cheaper (not without its own costs) is a small step.

If wind and solar remain cheapest per MW*hr they will grow to saturation.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#124

Post by UncleOxidant »

aagd wrote: post #104

The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a…

Aren't there newer nuclear technologies that use alternative fissionable materials that have much shorter half-lives?

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#125

Post by retrac »

One generally underappreciated aspect to nuclear energy opposition is the intrinsic link to nuclear weapons. Some of it is scientifically illiterate nonsense (a lot of people seem to think power reactors can have a nuclear explosion). And some of it is just historical association. But some of it is a lot harder to dismiss.

A world without nuclear reactors or enrichment facilities is a world without nuclear weapons. Any medium or large industrialized country with power reactors could build nukes very quickly. It's bad enough half a dozen already have. This notion keeps some people up at night, I think. If you consider nuclear weapons to be an existential threat to the species -- perhaps worse than climate change -- then building infrastructure that would allow their more easy construction might seem like madness.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#126

Post by eptcyka »

loeg wrote: post #111
Gwypaas wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar + 4 hours of storage clocking in at $40/MWh in ideal conditions. Substitute for windpower and some worse conditions and nuclear energy still look awful from a cost perspective. https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?

Gwypass, wind does die down during the night.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#127

Post by Ericson2314 »

retrac wrote: post #125

One generally underappreciated aspect to nuclear energy opposition is the intrinsic link to nuclear weapons. Some of it is scientifically illiterate nonsense (a lot of people seem to think power reactors can have a nuclear explosion). And some of it is just historical association. But some of it is a lot harder to dismiss. A world without nuclear reactors or enrichment facilities is a world without nuclear weapons. A…

Global warming is worse than proliferation --- it is certainly harder to undo.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#128

Post by ashtonkem »

Gwypaas wrote: post #116
loeg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but does night time in Germany sometimes exceed four hours?

The wind also ceases to exist at night right?

I think you’re being glib, but the issue is that you can’t guarantee the alignment of sun and wind to match demand. Sometimes the wind blows at night, yes, but sometimes it does not. On a pure renewable grid, no wind at night means rolling brownouts or blackouts. This is particularly problematic during the summer when people want to run AC in order to sleep, and will also be an issue when people move to electric heat in the winter.

Long term we’ll use a mix of big grids, over provisioned renewables, and grid level storage to smooth this out, but we’re not there yet. Right now the choice is between a nuclear power plant during these moments, or a natural gas one.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#129

Post by bananabreakfast »

proctrap wrote: post #81
junon wrote: post #3

I'm a US expat living in Germany, and boy is the anti-nuclear sentiment real here. There have even been fights - physical altercations - between Green Party members at rallies for having differing viewpoints about nuclear. Unfortunately, it seems those who are against are working with very outdated information and 'tropes' w.r.t. nuclear safety and whatnot. Quite unfortunate.

How about - Germany trying to find a nuclear waste deposit since ages (that doesn't have to be evacuated due to ground water later on)* - Failed nuclear plants we're deconstructing since ages and are paying millions every year to do so - Nuclear fuel expected to be depleted in the next 100 years - State and taxpayers always having to pay for the disasters of nuclear plants, while the gains are going to the companies…

First you say that corporations can't be trusted, then also the government can't be trusted when they say everything is fine?

Is sounds like you just have a problem with authority.

Even with all nuclear disasters included it is still a far safer energy source (in deaths per kWh) than any other we have ever developed.

And that figure about 100 years? Wildly misleading.

The same fact is true about oil. Except we keep discovering more, and we would with uranium as well if demand was increasing enough.

In addition, and most importantly, nuclear plants that reprocess fuel have enough supply to generate all of humanity's exponentially growing power needs for 10,000+ years.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#130

Post by asdff »

Nasrudith wrote: post #123
asdff wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar in europe aren't going to get them off of fossil fuels anytime soon, while nuclear has had that capability since its inception.

Soon isn't a thing that happens with power grids in any normal sense. The big capex in creation means that you need big differences in cost to justify an early shutdown. You also have to the new working before turning off the old, contrary to political preferences to destroy the old and then try to make the new work. Plant modifications are smaller in cost usually - so swapping a coal plant to burn natural gas becaus…

What happens when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? Where does the energy come from? Today, when that happens, the energy comes from natural gas and coal during these times when European renewables are unable to generate much power. All this expectation that we will be on renewables by X date hinges upon developments in battery storage capabilities by X date that have yet to materialize. On the other hand, we have nuclear energy which could have solved this problem 70 years ago.
Post reply on HN