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

All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

world-nuclear-news.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 437 posts

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#401

Post by 08-15 »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #87
ianai wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when the incumbent, fossil fuel energy, has been propped up by subsidies and unpaid externalities for centuries.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda. Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around. We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sou…

> Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities

What? The energy density of primordial fuels is six orders of magnitude higher!

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#402

Post by Goety »

nitrogen wrote: post #356
Goety wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Energy is needed for basic modern services. Humans have survived a long time without electricity. It could be simpler to 'go without' or 'find a workaround' for a lot of conveniences if we were serious at combating climate change.

Not for eight billion people. Just look at what happens when we stop loading trucks for a little while. Now imagine if you expanded all that "going without" to everything that uses energy. You'd have days at most before mass chaos.

Can we engineer a human backbone behind these services to be resistant to corruption and complacency for security sake?

We did an ok job with nuclear weapons but only just.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#403

Post by pelasaco »

Oddskar wrote: post #258
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say it’s wrong. I said it villianizes those fuels. We needed fuels as a society for those 3000 mile flights over the pacific that ships your iPhone here. Energy “subsidies” are a strategic investment in securing your lifestyle. Just look at Europe right now as they head into winter with sky high natural gas prices. They’d go ahead an strike any deal that secures their supplies so they do t freeze half to dea…

I think you've somehow missed the vital part: our lifestyle is not sustainable. We shouldn't aim to sustain something that simply cannot continue.

Our lifestyle is sustainable. It just doesn't scale for 10 billion people. The only problem what we have is the amount of people. We can do something against it, but we won't.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#404

Post by hackernudes »

HPsquared wrote: post #369
sva_ wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you will then get is an unsustainable set of shortcuts that threaten your energy supplies at crucial times. I like the idea of solar energy, but I also wonder about how safe it is to use. I'm thinking of events such as the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora[0] which reportedly caused a "year without summer[1]". Presumably, something like this would have a major impact on solar cell energy output, and if w…

You "just" need to maintain a redundant backup fossil-based energy supply system that is not used 99% of the time, simple!

What about nuclear instead of fossil fuel and Bitcoin mining for the redundant time?

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#405

Post by _3u10 »

adrianN wrote: post #153
_3u10 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s very little storage cost as the fuel can be burned til there is nothing radioactive left. Nuclear doesn’t produce radioactive materials it reduces radioactivity. If you mix the spent fuel from a heavy water reactor back into the ore, it’s radioactivity will have been reduced.

While you can burn the fuel until very few long-lived isotopes are left we don't do that currently. Nuclear reactors also turn relatively harmless Uranium into much more active elements. Just mixing the waste back into the rocks you got the Uranium from is not a safe storage method.

We do in Canada, just export your spent fuel to us

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#406

Post by [deleted] »

Goety wrote: post #288
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda. Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around. We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sou…

>Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Energy is needed for basic modern services. Humans have survived a long time without electricity. It could be simpler to 'go without' or 'find a workaround' for a lot of conveniences if we were serious at combating climate change.

[deleted]

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#407

Post by enaaem »

Goety wrote: post #288
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda. Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around. We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sou…

>Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Energy is needed for basic modern services. Humans have survived a long time without electricity. It could be simpler to 'go without' or 'find a workaround' for a lot of conveniences if we were serious at combating climate change.

Before electricity we would burn wood to not die in winter. We don’t have any forests left to do that.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#408

Post by Dma54rhs »

phicoh wrote: post #361
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you will then get is an unsustainable set of shortcuts that threaten your energy supplies at crucial times. ie, what's happening in Europe now[1] Germany went on a spree, dismantling their nuclear plants after being scared by Fukushima. Fossil fuel plants tool their place. Subsidies to unsustainable alternatives and penalties on polluters made it so it was not profitable to increase energy supply on sources such…

It strikes me as weird to blame a lack of natural gas all over Europe on Germany.

Germany is the biggest natural gas consumer in EU by far and the main driver of anti nuclear sentiment in EU

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#409

Post by phicoh »

Dma54rhs wrote: post #408
phicoh wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It strikes me as weird to blame a lack of natural gas all over Europe on Germany.

Germany is the biggest natural gas consumer in EU by far and the main driver of anti nuclear sentiment in EU

While it is techically true that Germany is the biggest natural gas consumer. The difference between Germany, UK and Italy is very small. (https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-consumption-by-country...)

And for example, The Netherlands, which is a lot smaller than Germany, consumes half the amount of Germany.

Coming back to nuclear energy, France, a country that is certainly in favor of nuclear energy, has failed to build one since 2002. UK and Finland are trying to build one, with similar lack of success.

So the only option for nuclear energy in Europe seems to be to keep aging power plants running and hope that they don't fail. Not a very attractive future.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#410

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Kon5ole wrote: post #385
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If we could capture only 1% of that, we'd have 80 times more than we need" Should people abandon Norway, Greenland and Iceland? Hypotheticals which ignore all trade-offs and drawbacks are not very usefull.

I agree about hypotheticals, and sadly I find that is usually the problem with this topic. Some people "know" why some thing will definitely work because they ignore problems, and others "know" why something will not work because they don't realize the problems are solvable or even non-existent. Such as in your example - the three countries you mention are already (at least combined) self-sufficient in renewable ener…

"Norway is a net exporter"

Norway is powered 95% by hydro and Iceland by geothermal, so it says nothing about feasibility of wind / solar.

Also being a 'Net Exporter' is not enough - Scotland is a net exporter of wind energy, but was actually only able to cover ~30% of it's own needs, because sometimes there is too much wind, and sometimes not enough.

"Not only that, but solar is totally feasible in all those countries."

Research station in Antarctica is not a suitable benchmark: if their setup produces electricity at £2/kWh, that's a great deal because their only alternative is shipping diesel thousands of kilometres at 50x the price.

But charging even £1 for electricity in UK would have major repercussions.

In the UK, during the summer there is 10x more solar irradiance than in Winter, Norway will be even more extreme. Anything is feasible if you invest enough, but you probably have to overbuild your renewables, and have cross-continent power transmission to even it out.

Post reply on HN