Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, the "it's useless unless it's perfect" argument. Nuclear has the huge problem of not being available for another decade (because that's how long it takes to build plants). Until that is solved with some form of pocket reactor it can't solve the problem of greenhouse emissions.
> Nuclear has the huge problem of not being available for another decade (because that's how long it takes to build plants). At the very least we can stop shutting down the plants we currently have. There is a finite amount of infrastructure that can be built at any one time: instead of shutting down nukes and building renewables to take their place, we should be shutting down fossil fuel plants and having renewable…
Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
331–340 of 354 posts
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#332I'd be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper, that's what's going to get built. Also, renewables don't require a high degree of trust in the human operators to manage risks appropriately. I think that's really the main sticking point with nuclear; reliable reactors can be made, but how do you manage the humans who maintain the plants in a way that's not susceptible to corru…
> d be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper Cost is not just a single factor. Energy density is very important too. Solar farms take huge amounts of space to produce very little energy compared to a nuclear plant.
Nuclear requires water. Humans societies need water also. So nuclear normally competes for the same areas that humans inhabit. All big cities were built near water sources.
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> d be fine with more nuclear power plants, but if wind/solar plus batteries are cheaper Cost is not just a single factor. Energy density is very important too. Solar farms take huge amounts of space to produce very little energy compared to a nuclear plant.
A solar farm that produces the same power as a nuclear power station (1GW) requires 1000 3MW turbines (33% efficiency) at 700 meters apart. That's 500 square kilometers of turbines (something like 200 square miles). I once did the calculation and it came out to something like 10 times as much concrete and steel to build the turbines as it would have taken to build the nuclear power plant.
But all those materials are 100% recyclable as raw matters the next week after the wind turbines close.
With nuclear, you can't touch those iron an concrete in generations. And we need to include in our calculus the two concrete sarcophagous that were required in Chernobyl also. We will be pouring tons of concrete for a lot of time in that place.
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those batteries only have a few hours of storage at max power, they're for solving the duck curve not a week-long supply shortage (let alone seasonal fluctuations). If we got the Midwest on heat pumps, how you planning to keep places heated when there's a week of blizzard? Right now we have no plan for addressing the occasional bad week besides overbuilding natural gas. That's worse than keeping our nuclear running a…
>how you planning to keep places heated when there's a week of blizzard? When the wind is blowing really hard? Wind turbines? The texas winter was a bit of an anomaly. It got so cold that every power source ending up failing because none were set up to deal with it even though all of them in theory could have (& would have if they were in, say, alaska).
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
> this missing capacity is less the usual slowdown of reactors because of the hot rivers (which by the way is done for environmental and not technical concern) and maintenances process, than a consequence of a previous nuclear plant closing (for political/electoral reasons). another consequence of this missing plant was to reopen two charcoal power plant _this_winter_. The report was from 2019 because it was the firs…
> The report was from 2019 because it was the first search result yes and all your sources are post 2019 (the fessenheim reactor has been slowed since 2017, the project/idea to close it started in 2012, and the effective (not reversible) closing has happened on feb 2020 while it was stopped since more than 2 years) dont really see what's your point here... > This is why you diversify your energy. no, our electric mix…
How can that be? The whole discussion is not that long and you picked up this specific argument I was supporting with sources. Yes other sources were after 2019 and I can give you even more from before. This supports my argument but you don't even know what that was??
> no, our electric mix was
Says "no" continues to agree with what I said...man...
> however there is not much more places to have new hydros
Why did you chose hydro? I mean...what? I didn't even mention it and the most obvious things are solar AND wind. Hydro is our battery in the Nordics and alps.
> and has already cost us more than 50billions€ (governement subvention) which is nearly two time our current non running EPR cost
That is half of what EPR needs to invest to keep your ageing fleet from falling apart...
> nuclear cost is mostly capitalistic (start investment for 60years in the case of an EPR) while wind turbine cost must be evaluated over their full lifetime including market fluctuations
Yeah but only because you just accepted to ignore all the costs generations will have to come up with just to cover nuclear waste processing and storage. You just hide it while you complain about transparent costs on renewables. This is hilarious.
> what's your point here again ?
It's not my point. It's your point. You said that safety costs too much and we should look to China...a country known for terrible safety.
> actually this is your statement, your making a straw man here.
It's not my point. It's your point. You said that safety costs too much and we should look to China...a country known for terrible safety.
> what let you think that an old study with probably outdated constrains and knowledges would be more serious than actual studies from recognized sources
The fact that while nuclear only gets more expensive, renewables not only got cheaper but also better and there are now other studies which look much better than what you suggest.
Why don't you link your study? You've obviously found it now.
> actually i'm french and in france
That makes it even worse. You must know about the energy shortages caused by either broken or not running nuclear reactors. It's known all over Europe and you still chose to lie about it? Why?
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
>how you planning to keep places heated when there's a week of blizzard? When the wind is blowing really hard? Wind turbines? The texas winter was a bit of an anomaly. It got so cold that every power source ending up failing because none were set up to deal with it even though all of them in theory could have (& would have if they were in, say, alaska).
I think their point still stands - even if every town/city has both solar panels and wind turbines, there are times when you won't get enough power from them to meet demand (remember demand can vary too), just due to natural fluctuations in weather. You either need an absurd amount of battery storage, or some sort of backup power source.
It'll take time to shift to using green energy and there will be problems but the same would be true for any other kind of shift to any new sources of power.
Probably not 16 years like the new UK nuclear plant will take though :/
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The report was from 2019 because it was the first search result yes and all your sources are post 2019 (the fessenheim reactor has been slowed since 2017, the project/idea to close it started in 2012, and the effective (not reversible) closing has happened on feb 2020 while it was stopped since more than 2 years) dont really see what's your point here... > This is why you diversify your energy. no, our electric mix…
> dont really see what's your point here... How can that be? The whole discussion is not that long and you picked up this specific argument I was supporting with sources. Yes other sources were after 2019 and I can give you even more from before. This supports my argument but you don't even know what that was?? > no, our electric mix was Says "no" continues to agree with what I said...man... > however there is not mu…
none of thoses sources is contradictory of what i explained on the history of our shortages.
> Why did you chose hydro?
because you talk about mix, today its fr secondary electricity production, and hydro plants are older than fr nuclear plants/projects.
>That is half of what EPR needs to invest to keep your ageing fleet from falling apart...
i'm not sure of what your talking about again, that's probably half or even less of what we must invest to keep our ageing (not EPR) nuclear fleet yes, which provide 75% of our production, in other words: 8% production for 50billions imported external products + exploitation cost on 20years vs 75% for 50billions local supply one shot to add 20 years to the current fleet, the choice is easy technicaly speaking (not politicaly). our ageing fleet is not linked to EPR at all which may be considered as a prototype for an eventual next fleet, we will see, and as already explained, the cost of our first EPR is not the cost of an EPR in a future fleet. side note: most of our ageing fleet have been build in only 10 years after 20 years of research and "prototypes".
> you just accepted to ignore all the costs generations will have to come up with just to cover nuclear waste
we started a project in 2000 for longterm deep storage which will provide waste stockage for more than 100years of our current dangerous waste production ( https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratoire_de_Bure ), for less dangerous product we are already treating not only our waste but most of the EU nuclear waste.
> You said that safety costs too much and we should look to China...
no i said our safety changes extended cost and delay, while china without changes respected cost and delay. which imply that our acquired expertise _with_ safety changes will probably respect and reduce cost like delay if we produce more EPR. this does'nt mean and i never said that we must do like china, that's your straw man.
> The fact that while nuclear only gets more expensive
source ? for the same type of product nuclear does'nt get more expensive, what get more expensive is more efficient, more secured, better and new/first try nuclear plants
> renewables not only got cheaper
renewable cost is a market cost not a local/production cost, like lithium for batteries, china got a mostly exclusive (quantitavely speaking) market on solar and parts of wind turbines (and for a time lithium) not by lowering cost but to acquire the market. we will talk about renewables production cost when they will be produced with renewables energy sources and not charcoal, gaz, gas and nuclear sources. yes nuclear actually rely on the same energy sources with one big diffence: it does'nt rely on it all it's lifetime.
> Why don't you link your study
because you have'nt link your "contradictory old study" and like i already said, to compare them they must apply to the same subject. but if you really want sources on this topic and a lot more about the same subject, there is the 20 hours videos of courses of the "ecole des mines", one of the two or three most recognized schools in fr (largely better than any master or ph.d) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgy0rW0oaFI&list=PLMDQXkItOZ...
you may find the site of the professor in the link which will provide a lot more ressources on nuclear and climate data and expertise, and probably some sources in english.
> You must know about the energy shortages
yes and you seem to not realize that those energy shortages are only on our own production, most of them where usually compensated by introducing/buying energy from others EU country with some minor exceptions like lowering the max available power on smalls customer populations and in rare case short cuts; no critical supply was ever stoped, no home get total shot down for more than a few hours, if those happens that was for small sets, nothing comparable to (for example, even if not linked to production i think) what happened in texas last winter, even occasional energy cut for technical problems which happen to all electry energy supply in all countries are worse than those "production shortages".
> you still chose to lie about it ? why ?
i'm not lying, you just seem to simply not knowing what you'r talking about, building some sort of fantasy disaster looking everywhere on google to confirm your bias (which will always be a success whatever may be the topic of your fantasy).
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nuclear has the huge problem of not being available for another decade (because that's how long it takes to build plants). At the very least we can stop shutting down the plants we currently have. There is a finite amount of infrastructure that can be built at any one time: instead of shutting down nukes and building renewables to take their place, we should be shutting down fossil fuel plants and having renewable…
Running old 70's plants until they crumble and fail with "the mother of all messes" does not seem like an economic or sensible option.
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think their point still stands - even if every town/city has both solar panels and wind turbines, there are times when you won't get enough power from them to meet demand (remember demand can vary too), just due to natural fluctuations in weather. You either need an absurd amount of battery storage, or some sort of backup power source.
I think if you combine demand shaping, overbuilding, grid scale LIon batteries, better grid interconnects (another thing texas failed miserably at) & pumped hydro you'll find that demand can be met for most people. It'll take time to shift to using green energy and there will be problems but the same would be true for any other kind of shift to any new sources of power. Probably not 16 years like the new UK nuclear p…
Re: Nuclear power is the best climate-change solution
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
1GW is roughly the output of one nuclear reactor (most plants have 2 or more) for one hour . We'll need at least half a day's worth of storage, likely much more if we want to use wind for a significant portion of power generation.
I remember people saying something similar about the amount of deployed solar and wind shortly after it became cost competitive. There used to be a tiny amount deployed but it was the cheapest form of power. Then over the course of a few years there was a lot. All that really matters is A) is it cost effective B) will there be scaling problems C) will there be political impediments.