Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#171

Post by natmaka » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:03 AM UTC

erentz wrote: post #67

natmaka wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China: * 50GW nuclear already in place, producing 5% of the gridpower. Previsions: up to 200GW in 2030. * 790GW renewables already in place, producing 26% of the gridpower. Previsions: 1200GW in 2030. In 2020 alone China added 71.6GW of windpower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China

Interesting, that's a pretty good illustration of the low capacity factors of wind and solar given that renewables figure includes 356GW of hydro power. And it shows them increasing nuclear power 4x but renewables only 50% by 2030.

4x of not-so-much is easy and doesn't change the big picture while 50% of a huge amount is... huge and maintains the big picture.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#172

Post by tjr225 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:03 AM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #124

mrjangles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an excellent article written in Physics Today by a nuclear physicist once. For the life of me I have never been able to find it again. But he describes this in detail. Basically, in his description this is entirely due to the environmental movement. Any time a nuclear plant gets planned the green groups move in a mountain of lawyers and lock down the process for years and years. The costs this adds to the proj…

I'm pretty sure I know why you can't find it anymore...this is ridiculous.

Don’t worry, they did their own research.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#173

Post by halikular » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:03 AM UTC

halfjoking wrote: post #166

No it isn’t. 500 million years ago when Earth’s CO2 level was 5000 ppm, did they have nuclear power? Is that what saved the planet to make it habitable for humans? No - the levels changed because of exposed olivine rocks that absorbed the CO2. That’s how nature fixes high CO2 levels. Why does the solution have to be anything other than that? If humanity spent $1 trillion per year on extracting olivine, and putting th…

They didn't burn fossil fuels at that time. The only sane way to approach this problem is at the root, hence we need to stop emitting additional fossil CO2. What's here already is hard to put back in the ground.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#174

Post by 0xy » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

pxi wrote: post #170

It's possible to run a large region (almost) entirely from renewable's, here's the proof: https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m But Nuclear could still an excellent option depending on various metrics. I rather see some 'risky' nuclear options being considered before any of the geo-engineering ideas take hold (as they will if we don't get a move on).

South Australia is building brand new gas peaking plants, and the state says further investment in gas is necessary. So it seems this isn't correct. [1]

Gas is not renewable, and it's nearly as bad as coal.

It's also worth noting their batteries to store renewable energy are not renewable either, not to mention the huge societal impacts on relying on child slavery to prop up your grid (lithium and cobalt mining have a big child labor issue).

Especially worth noting South Australia's battery manufacturer Tesla has an extremely poor record when it comes to supply chain environmental management. Some of Tesla's suppliers have dumped toxic wastewater into water systems, as well as utilised child slaves in the Congo to source rare earth materials. [2]

Green energy indeed!

[1] https://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/story/6607101/650m-g...

[2] https://fortune.com/2021/09/30/tesla-ipe-environmental-viola...

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#175

Post by rob_c » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

Good article nice reading.

Once built nuclear plants are basically giant nuclear batteries which we can run up or down on demand which is easier and probably more efficient than storing a huge excess of renewable surplus at creation.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#176

Post by halikular » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:09 AM UTC

pxi wrote: post #170

It's possible to run a large region (almost) entirely from renewable's, here's the proof: https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m But Nuclear could still an excellent option depending on various metrics. I rather see some 'risky' nuclear options being considered before any of the geo-engineering ideas take hold (as they will if we don't get a move on).

Nuclear power is one of the safest means of electricity generation, but it's very costly due to over regulation. Contrast this to commercial aviation which is tightly regulated and in turn very safe, but it's not over regulated that it becomes too expensive or regulations with diminishing returns that only put unnecessary road blocks.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#177

Post by rob_c » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

zeptonix wrote: post #31

Yep, let's do that. Then on the other end we can write opinion pieces like this: https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-p... The great thing about opinion pieces is everyone's always right in their own opinion piece.

Fukoshima in many ways was an odd victory for design and planning given it survived more than it was officially built to withstand

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#178

Post by natmaka » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

rsj_hn wrote: post #162

naasking wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is now so much cheaper than everything else that I find your claim hard to believe.

Solar could be free, and still the battery costs would be prohibitive. In terms of "hard to believe", ask yourself why countries have not managed to roll out storage capacity to match the solar capacity? It's because solar is relying on fossil fuels or nuclear or hydro to be there when it's dark.

Indeed, because building wind/solar/biomass/... production units took most of the investment capacity, while coping for variability was cheap because we already had thermal (fossil fueled) powerplants. Those are aging up and more and more expensive to use due to carbon taxes, therefore storage-related projects get boosted. H2 (and fuel cells), thermal and kinetic storage... are getting traction.

The sheer amount of electricity produced by intermittent renewables (solar & wind) while nobody wants it grows. Many markets have more and more negative prices timeframes, where the producer is ready to pay in order to get rid of it (gridpower network stability implies "production == consumption", any over/under-load is dangerous for it). However electricity prices are way, way up during under-production periods. This creates an already huge and growing incentive for storage.

Also add electric vehicles batteries (and, maybe one day, home batteries) which will more and more be usable to store overproduction thanks to smartgrid and various tricks ( such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid).

The landscape is quickly (relatively to its huge inertia) changing.

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#179

Post by cinntaile » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:13 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #153

zarzavat wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody who is a fan of nuclear power should be against operating them in earthquake zones. Just look at how much Fukushima set back nuclear power.

That was careless lack of protection against flooding. The quake itself didn't threaten containment.

Why take the risk if you have plenty of land area available that isn't on a fault line?

Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution

#180

Post by 0xy » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 3:13 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #21

TheDudeMan wrote: post #9

California is prematurely closing its perfectly good nuclear reactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#Clos...

What I don't understand from these groups is why they don't go after nuclear _after_ coal, natural gas, and oil are gone from the grid. There are arguments against nuclear, but they aren't that great when there are still fossil fuel plants operating. Also, a pet peeve of mine is when people say "replacing nuclear with zero-carbon sources" (as per the wiki article). That doesn't exist. There's energy sources that have…

There are no arguments against nuclear that stand up to scrutiny beyond emotional knee-jerk reactions.

Nuclear is safe, cheap and most importantly reliable.

Renewables are not reliable. Baseload renewables is a pipe dream that has been disproven repeatedly. Hence why jurisdictions that have dived into a heavy renewables energy mix are building gas peaking plants, utilising diesel generators in emergencies or adding batteries to the grid powered by child slaves in the Congo.

Even some of the more reliable renewable solutions like hydro occasionally have lulls that wipe out literally years of the benefit of running them.

As an example, the state of Tasmania in Australia runs on close to 100% hydro power year round, except when rare drought hits. When hydro didn't produce enough power one year, the Tasmania government flew in diesel generators to power the state and ran them for months, wiping out years of progress (diesel is worse than coal).