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All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

world-nuclear-news.org

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Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#31

Post by adrianN »

programmarchy wrote: post #13
whatever1 wrote: post #5

Neither the technology nor the fuel for nuclear plants are abundant or renewable. For example, can Iran build its own reactors? No. Can Somalia run its hypothetical reactors? No. Can Syria import enriched uranium? No. Can we have reactors without them blowing up every 50 years? No. Do we have a solution for containing nuclear waste without leaks and without ruining the local communities? No. Enough with this joke of…

Rare earth metals are currently required inputs for wind to produce magnets and solar to produce photovoltaics. It’s not exactly abundant or renewable.

Solar panels are almost exclusively sand and a little bit of copper for the wiring.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#32

Post by pdonis »

arrrg wrote: post #6
chuckee wrote: post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

> baseline is not at all needed with renewables.

Why not? Unless you're ok with not having reliable baseline power at all.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#33

Post by arrrg »

japanuspus wrote: post #10
arrrg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

This argument does not make a lot of sense without detailing which power sources that can turn on and off quickly you are talking about. The only ones I can think of are hydro and gas-powered thermal? So you want natural gas over nuclear? On the other hand, your comment presumes that there is such a thing as too much power. Once hydrolyzers mature, we could use all of the current renewable power in Europe just for pr…

Gas and nuclear can’t replace each other. So that instead I’m your sentence is completely misplaced.

We certainly need gas in the short term. Sure. But you can’t let nuclear take over the role of gas (and other potential on demand power sources, pumped hydro and maybe batteries in the future). That just doesn’t work.

Also, I‘m all for producing an overabundance of power and using that in a meaningful way. But that’s not the issue we are talking about here. Baseline framing of the current problem we are facing makes no sense and that is my point.

Nuclear and renewables don’t work well together.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#34

Post by m0zg »

Of course. Think of it in terms of cui bono. You're on the precipice of convincing a bunch of folks they should shut down their economies and give you trillions of dollars to send to your donors as you please. Then a guy comes along and says that your shit won't work (which will be amply demonstrated in Europe this coming winter) and offers something that actually does work. It's like that meme - the guy will fly straight through the window for suggesting such foolishness. They never were interested in solving the problem, they're interested in trillions of dollars that they'll get control over because the problem exists.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#35

Post by programmarchy »

whatever1 wrote: post #15
programmarchy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare earth metals are currently required inputs for wind to produce magnets and solar to produce photovoltaics. It’s not exactly abundant or renewable.

Rare earths are not rare, you can even order online. Try that with enriched uranium.

Sure but wouldn’t we need to mine exponentially less uranium? How many tons of neodymium need to be mined for wind turbines to produce the equivalent output of a nuclear reactor, for example.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#36

Post by DisjointedHunt »

arrrg wrote: post #6
chuckee wrote: post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

Nuclear changes the game completely. Think of the most audacious, energy intensive expense of effort that’s deemed infeasible today?

Let’s consider something like desalinating water from the pacific and continuously pumping it inland to the Australian Outback or the middle of the Sahara.

With an investment in Nuclear, hypothetically, it’s cheaper. Present nuclear reactors have a high cost of operation simply because they’re aligned to energy consumption and regulatory patterns not suited to them.

Also, Small Modular Reactors are a thing. They’re available today for use and that’s what France is going all in on, but in the US, the first entity to try will be sued to the ground.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#38

Post by pickledolives »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

Neither the technology nor the fuel for nuclear plants are abundant or renewable. For example, can Iran build its own reactors? No. Can Somalia run its hypothetical reactors? No. Can Syria import enriched uranium? No. Can we have reactors without them blowing up every 50 years? No. Do we have a solution for containing nuclear waste without leaks and without ruining the local communities? No. Enough with this joke of…

Don‘t forget all the CO2 emitted a) at mining and enriching uranium and b) in storing nuclear waste for 100000 years and c) in tearing down highly radioactive retired nuclear power plants. In Germany we started tearing down the GDRs only nuclear power plant in the early 90s and we‘re still not done. 30+ years of daily ops of a highly specialised destruction company operating heavy machinery requiring insulation from radiation. And 1000s of tons more radioactive waste that needs to be shipped around the country. Well, only 20 plants more to go, now that we exited. Somehow people who claim nuclear to be green only look at the CO2 emissions when ready made enriched uranium goes in and burnt fuel comes out. We need to look at the full life cycle of both the plants and the nuclear fuel though, and then nuclear energy‘s CO2 emissions are far far away frm being green.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#39

Post by mlindner »

whatever1 wrote: post #5

Neither the technology nor the fuel for nuclear plants are abundant or renewable. For example, can Iran build its own reactors? No. Can Somalia run its hypothetical reactors? No. Can Syria import enriched uranium? No. Can we have reactors without them blowing up every 50 years? No. Do we have a solution for containing nuclear waste without leaks and without ruining the local communities? No. Enough with this joke of…

Nuclear fuel is incredibly abundant. People talk about the small amounts of nuclear fuel available but completely ignore how energy dense it is. You need very little of it. There's vastly more energy in nuclear ore in the ground than there is even coal and oil combined in the ground.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#40

Post by dane-pgp »

adrianN wrote: post #31
programmarchy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare earth metals are currently required inputs for wind to produce magnets and solar to produce photovoltaics. It’s not exactly abundant or renewable.

Solar panels are almost exclusively sand and a little bit of copper for the wiring.

To expand on that a little:

"Unlike the wind power and EV sectors, the solar PV industry isn’t reliant on rare earth materials. Instead, solar cells use a range of minor metals including silicon, indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, and tellurium."

https://ratedpower.com/blog/rare-metals-photovoltaic/

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