Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#171

Post by Ekaros » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #134

wildmanxx wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe convince somebody then to have final storage for nuclear waste anywhere close to where they live. Once this crap is in your backyard, the armchair philosophers find excuses really fast. Similar with wind turbines, but at least those are so small scale that you can convince closeby towns fast by just letting them participate in the profits. Different story for leaking barrels stored underground. (And yes, that's…

Who likes the poisoning of areas around coal mines?

Or plants. Need to remember how many cities used to look... Not pretty with all the particulates...

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#172

Post by kortex » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #22

maxclark wrote: post #12

Nuclear power is an amazing energy source. It doesn’t look like we’ll ever get beyond the politics that would make small scale It’s really a shame.

It is amazing. But two major incidents within 30 years time range are not so amazing. When we continue in that rate we will have a serious problem. And with aging reactors and instability everywhere it does not look good.

We have never had a significant disaster of any gen >=3 reactor. TMI, Fukushima, Chernobyl were all gen 2, and gen 1 is all prototypes.

Anything built after 1972 has not had anywhere near this level of incidents.

Also Chernobyl had severe safety flaws due to its origin as an early model breeder reactor (and my head canon is that the test that caused the disaster was in some way related to surreptitious fuel changing to run breeding experiments. The RBMK reactors were designed for rapid fuel shuffling.... In other words, safety was compromised to keep the door open to the possibility of sneaky weapons grade material production).

Also also, Chernobyl had some other bone-headed flaws, such as a positive void coefficient and positive scram coefficient (read: trying to rapid shutdown during an emergency made the reaction increase). Humanity has learned a ton since then.

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#173

Post by gnabgib » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #137

luckylion wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a natural disaster, which might happen at higher frequencies nowadays. You don't build nuclear power plants in narrow valleys with known flood events though. I mean, you also don't build wind turbines in swamps and hope they don't fall over, or put solar panels on your roof and don't fasten them.

Building a castle in a swamp can work, though.

Certainly by the time you get to the fourth one, the strongest castle in these islands

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#174

Post by Melting_Harps » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

Ekaros wrote: post #110

dmead wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand how 2 major incidents (in living memory) that could have ruined the biosphere don't discredit nuclear power for everyone.

Apart from some localised hotspots, the actual worse case that is Chernobyl is doing amazingly from biosphere point of view. Not having humans around is actually great for biosphere. Fukushima on other hand is insignificant. Not really having much effect on anything.

> Fukushima on other hand is insignificant. Not really having much effect on anything.

WTF?! Are you not aware of the constant amount of waste water being poured into the Pacific? [0] Or the absurdly high amount of Cesium being found in migrating Tuna? The amount of cancers and heart related issues is still unfolding to this day, particularly in the children from the surrounding areas.

And the people who were forced to evacuate and then forced out of the shelters with nothing to go back to would have a huge issue with what you have said.

I cant believe anyone not from TEPCO or the Nuclear Village would say such a blatantly stupid and calloused thing!

0: https://globalvoices.org/2021/12/30/despite-widespread-oppos...

1: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47592012

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#175

Post by dijit » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #94

Ekaros wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is "bad" and scary... Plus you know nuclear weapons. And solar and wind produce plenty... Apart form times when they do not, like many times during winter.

Continent sized landmasses can survive on wind and solar assuming HVDC interconnects. Some storage would be nice to have, preferably more than a weeks' worth.

This is an extremely naive assumption.

Do you have any citations for such a theory?

Everything I’ve read on the subject (admittedly not much) tells me that wind power is not only a disaster ecologically (kills too many birds, though not as many as domestic cats) but also unable to produce enough power to govern everything even with interconnects.

Distribution of power is also difficult, but there was notably a “still” winter in Sweden which is driving up prices significantly due to hydro not being enough. (I live here, that’s how I know)

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#176

Post by k__ » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #130

k__ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically all energy could be covered by renewables, if people would stop complaining that they don't want them build near them.

Please provide a source to substantiate your claim, because it flies in the face of everything I’ve read.

A friend of mine sells wind turbines and said it's a nightmare to sell these things in Germany. All the land owners hate them.

It's like the anti-vax crowd.

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#177

Post by Zigurd » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

swampthing wrote: post #154

Ekaros wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe saddest part of the whole Fukushima was that it was entirely avoidable. If proper planning and implementation was actually done. I expect Germany and European nations being culturally better to get things fixed. My understanding was that root-cause was old design and not sufficiently secure back-up power and failure to get such on site. Which could have been done, but was not.

The Japanese aren’t exactly known for being sloppy or cutting corners. What is the cultural difference you’re referring to?

There have been accidents and scandals with fuel reprocessing in Japan that do not conform with Japan's image of competent management.

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#178

Post by Yoofie » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #27

I have skimmed these kinds of articles, and maybe I am missing another important reason for this happening, but I am not seeing it. Is it essentially: people are scared of nuclear?

Unfortunately fear is often the primary motivator for alot of irrational decisions & behaviour.

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#179

Post by jules » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #94

Ekaros wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is "bad" and scary... Plus you know nuclear weapons. And solar and wind produce plenty... Apart form times when they do not, like many times during winter.

Continent sized landmasses can survive on wind and solar assuming HVDC interconnects. Some storage would be nice to have, preferably more than a weeks' worth.

Let's approximate the cost of that. The energy consumption of my country (the Netherlands) was 3157 PJ in 2017. This was 980 kwh per person per week. Solar batteries cost a bit more than $1000 per kwh. So at these prices this plan costs approximately $1 million per person. Solar batteries last 5-15 years. If we say that they last 20 years, then the energy storage costs are $130 per person per day per week's worth of storage. This plan sounds feasible if costs come down by factor of 10.

Re: Germany shuts down half of its remaining nuclear plants

#180

Post by vlovich123 » Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #165

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not building more nuclear plants doesn't mean you'll be building more fossil fuel plants instead. Uhh… Yes it does. The data shows that. An increased reliance on renewables means a large increase in reliance on LNG.

> The data shows that. Many people are saying this. > An increased reliance on renewables means a large increase in reliance on LNG. What matters is whether increased reliance on renewables slows down the decarbonisation effort. If you have data which shows that, I'd be interested to see it. In return, let me offer a study from last year which found: "in countries with a high GDP per capita, nuclear electricity produ…

Solar and wind mean you need batteries (can’t do off-peak without it). This means you still need peaker plants. Even if you accelerated battery technology drastically (which I’d say is already at max R&D speed mostly), you’re looking at some fundamental challenges getting the precious materials (total volume/cost and also energy required to do the mining). Finally, my understanding is that solar and wind can’t actually be used in some energy-intensive industrial processes because they can’t generate enough heat. This means those power needs are still powered by traditional fossil fuel power plants (and too expensive to use just for the industrial purpose so it’s actually part of the energy mix for good).

Solar and wind are important parts of the energy mix and.OF COURSE we need them. Nuclear is where the bulk of the focus needs to go though to actually decarbonize because it can handle literally every use case that fossil fuels do but cheaper, safer and less polluting.