Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online • Hacker News Board

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#331

Post by criley2 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #215

criley2 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about wind and solar isn't working to meet the increasing demands in Germany https://www.dw.com/en/germany-coal-tops-wind-as-primary-elec... From 2020 to 2021, Coal is up 8%, Wind is down 7%, Solar is down 1%. Non-renewable in total is up 8% and renewable is down 8%. If they can find a battery solution that actually works, then that would be amazing, but existing solutions clearly aren't cutting it. While i…

You should look at longer time periods instead of just looking at one year. Year to year variability could be big due to a variety of reasons.

When it comes to consistent power generation, Germans can't just wait until next year. Wind power has it's ups and downs, which is why you need a lot more of it than coal or nuclear to meet the same demand.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by tim333 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #281

WhompingWindows wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables paired with batteries can improve grid resilience, actually. Distribution of generators means less loss in the wires travelling, batteries paired with renewables to provide overnight power and load-smoothing, these are good things. Renewables also are very predictable, so you can use a little natural gas to supplement at night while you build out batteries and more wind. Solar will take care of our day-tim…

I'm not sure there are (can be?) enough batteries in the world, to support the grid for any length of time.

There are not now but there may be a solution in the future eg "Seasonal energy storage in aluminium for 100 percent solar heat and electricity supply" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259017451...

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#333

Post by DoingIsLearning » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

aagd wrote: post #140

izacus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Germans have switched from nuclear to coal. Can you cut this "future generations are going to have to carry the cost" when the alternative is literally helping destroy the whole planet's ecosystems? Not to mention they spew up significantly more radioactivity in the air than nuclear powerplants. A 30x30m pool of radioactive fuel is nothing compared to what their powerplants are doing to the future of young genera…

In Germany renewables are at over 42% in 2021, despite a 'conservative' government that for decades has blocked the development of windfarms and solar for the benefit of the coal and nuclear lobby. That kind of lobby-work is the actual problem here. The way forward is renewable energy. The huge difference is that the source of renewable energy is free and basically limitless.

Those 42% percent in Germany include Bio-mass. A Bio-mass 'plant' is a wood chip furnace, it is only renewable based on the weak principle that the burned mass and C02 emissions can be captured 'because we can just plant trees'.

The energy needs we have and the land avaialable in Europe for forest makes this impossible without importing 'bio-mass' wood pellets at which point the ecological argument goes out the wind. [0]

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302972714_Tracking_...

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by tim333 » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:50 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #146

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…

The he cat is out the bag I’m afraid, the only way nuclear weapons disappear is if they become obsolete, like mustard gas. It’s an interesting though actually, that coming up with new, presumably more deadly weapons, can lead to a less horrendous world.

The trend has been to more specific weapons that can pick off the bad guys while missing the civilians. Drones and the like. Hopefully not Slaughterbots.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by CyanBird » Wed, Oct 13, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

2ion wrote: post #145

CyanBird wrote: post #15

Biggest issue with older nuclear plants is the material degradation as a consequence of radiation, after a some decades of constant irradiation steel can become as brittle as glass, which is not only not reversible, but it also means that the actual rebar and concrete surrounding the core becomes damaged and the only way to replace that is to rebuild the whole core I am rather against setting up new reactors, given t…

The money cost of 10 all-new nuclear reactors is minor when compared to the economic cost of electricity prices doubling and tripling again, gas and oil prices doubling again until EOY 2022. Rolling blackouts are not unreasonable to expect. Industries have moved east and west from Germany because energy is just too expensive (besides too expensive labour due to high state quota as well). In Brandenburg, Chemical plan…

Oh yeah, it might very well be the case for 10 "all new" nuclear plants

The issue is that because as I mentioned above, you have a cursed trifecta, you can't have reactors be "safe", "reasonably priced" and "without schedule overruns" at the same time because all of these are inherently conflicting interests such as the Westinghouse/Toshiba collapse has shown, just yesterday there was a thread here in HackerNews of all the corruption inherent to the project, how even when they knew that it was impossible to meet deadlines they still kept saying that they would do it, because of highly profitable tax rebates linked to the run-up to the accorded milestones

Only "happy" cases where several reactors have been built on schedule might be France, or right now in China, but both of these where done from a government "national defense" perspective, not from anywhere near to be free-market schemes, the UK I believe also recently canceled a sets of Nuclear reactors again, for safety concerns after Fukushima which led to slight re-designs and therefore schedule and cost overruns

It would be neat if this werent the case, but here we are, and closing ones ears and eyes wont make these structural problems go away either

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by tim333 » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

andbberger wrote: post #261

All the nuclear threads here are the same, and they're all deeply frustrating. HN isn't exactly a bastion of liberal speech (here fucked up conservative hot takes reign supreme) - but ostensibly the populace is more technically literate than average. Yet it's the same stupid bullshit every time. It's dangerous!!11!! fukushima! chernobyl!1!! > nope look at some statistics it's very safe ok, the waste!11! scary spicy r…

We've had nuclear power for 70 years and it hasn't exactly stopped CO2 emissions or made electricity too cheap to meter, and is much the same deal as it was 20 years ago.

Solar etc. on the other hand is growing rapidly and exponentially.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by fomine3 » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

aagd wrote: post #200

Ericson2314 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, Fukushima did not cause any harm. I view the plant iself as a success story, given ancient reactor design etc. etc. I think a lot of half-paying-attention people confused the reactor and the tsunami. Of course the news coverage and in-hindsight-unnecessary evacuation didn't help either.

'Not any harm' is quite a cynic formulation. Maybe a couple of hundred deaths seems relatively few, for such an enormous event. But the impact the event had on Japan, their economy and their mental state, was obviosly the worst since WW2. And Fukushima is still not under control. https://apnews.com/article/world-news-japan-tsunamis-5a5a70d... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-idUSKCN11D0...

> But the impact the event had on Japan, their economy and their mental state, was obviously the worst since WW2.

I don't know. For who lived near the plant and escaped, it's definitely true. But for others, Lost decades are serious than the accident.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by rsj_hn » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #324

rsj_hn wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on both points of full employment and abundant energy. And IMO the same political forces are behind both -- it's a nasty mix of elites and high income professionals who genuinely believe people need to suffer. They love austerity, and micromanagement of the population. It's the same reason we have ugly architecture, because the architects think we deserve to be surrounded by ugly, inhuman buildings.…

> ugly architecture An interesting one to bring up. There is a cultural dimension, but also the fact the modern architecture is much less labor intensive even though it will break down. Generally I like such a response to labor shortages, but clearly we've gone wrong. Perhaps we just need to value key buildings more, based on a long lifespan, and just admit they will be crawling with craftsman to a large degree? Or,…

This isn't just an issue about things not being handmade. The ornate victorians with lots of flourishes were actually assembled from mass produced pieces. This is about architects intentionally turning away from beauty, because they believe the world is ugly, and their architecture needs to show this 'truth'.

Check out the famous debate between Christopher Alexander (traditionalist) and Peter Eisenman (modernist) in 1982. They were discussing a modernist arcade by Moneo, pictured here:

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?228787-quot-A-Pat...

Moneo's arcade is intentionally designed to be uncomfortable. It does not provide any shade. It does not protect well from the rain. It is not human scale. It draws attention to itself. It is intentionally jarring and unpleasant.

In short, it does not fulfill the traditional role of an arcade, which is as a shaded, quiet place from which to enjoy a garden or public place.

You can read the debate here: http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eisenman_Debate.htm

Eisenman basically points out that we no longer believe the "old cosmology" and it's time for a "new" cosmology, one which tries to "invert" or find the "negative" values of the old cosmology. That the world is filled with anxiety and disharmony and so architecture, to be "truthful", should reflect that ugliness. These are intentional design elements to make things unpleasant. It has nothing to do with labor costs or expense. Modernist buildings are not cheap, and when you take into account that most of them are disposable and have huge maintenance costs (due to being made of concrete rather than brick, and not taking into account those old fashioned things like putting eaves on windows to limit water damage). In other words, there is real sadism here. Intentional unpleasantness. A desire to inflict punishment on the masses.

There is a nice write up here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contempo...

Now compare this to the medieval cathedral. Only a fool would think that modern life is more unpleasant than medieval life. But they built aspirational buildings to capture the beauty of the divine. We make buildings to capture our longing for self-annihilation. We are surrounded by life and long for death. They were surrounded by death and celebrated life.

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

#339

Post by Turing_Machine » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

mistrial9 wrote: post #260

Turing_Machine wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Longer half-life = less radioactive. By definition. A half-life of infinity would mean that the isotope is not radioactive at all.

a pinhead emits less light than the sun, too

I'm not really sure what you're driving at here.

While there are certainly other nuances involved such as what kind of radiation is emitted (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron), and what the immediate fission products are, if all other factors are equal, the longer the half life, the less radioactive the material is. That's literally the definition.

The really nasty isotopes are ones like Iodine-131 (half-life 8 days, has an affinity for the human thyroid gland) and Strontium-90 (half-life 28.79 years, has an affinity for human bones). While saying that something has a "half-life of forty million billion trillion years" may sound scary-impressive, what it actually means is "this stuff is only very mildly radioactive).

Re: Intellectuals urge Germany to keep nuclear plants online

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Post by freemint » Thu, Oct 14, 2021, 12:15 AM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #325

freemint wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Too cheap to meter" electricity How about electricity that doesn't flow through a meter because it goes from the roof into the socket?

I do like solar on roofs more than huge solar farms. Might as well take better advantage of the land we already annihilated. But taking out a bunch more is iffy.

With rising temperature it might be a good idea to put solar on metal trusses over fields and annihilate almost no land. Helps with soil erosion, hail and saves irrigation.