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

Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

antipope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 269 posts

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#61

Post by mikepurvis »

tonyarkles wrote: post #59
joshvm wrote: post #51

On safety - one of the places I had the opportunity to visit had a car park where you were only allowed to reverse in. I'm not sure if it was a holdover from a previous establishment, but I think they kept something on site that was volatile enough (like a lot of gas) that if a swift evacuation was required, they didn't want people futzing around getting out of spaces.

I spent some time at an active petroleum refinery a few years ago and one of the safety things that surprised me a little was that every vehicle inside the complex must have the keys in the ignition at all times. Not turned on, but in the event of an evacuation they didn't want anyone to have to futz around looking for keys.

I think part of what's wild about that for me is just imagining the risk analysis that would lead to that kind of thing. Like, obviously not an explosion that's over in seconds, but everyone would be dead anyway. And not a normal fire because then you'd just evacuate as usual and carpool if you can't find your keys.

But there's a class of refinery-specific disasters where I guess you have tens of seconds to get out, where looking for your missing keys could well mean the difference between escaping or now.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#62

Post by bayesian_horse »

topynate wrote: post #60
bocytron wrote: post #21

French power grid agency RTE made a report[0] forecasting 2050 France energy mix, and because of loss of knowledge and increased security measures, even with strong political will, France won't be able to maintain its 70% nuclear power electricity share. Most nuclear-intensive scenario in this report is max 50% nuclear energy. [0] https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2021-12/Futurs-Ene... in french

That's 28 years away. People not yet born will be trained nuclear engineers by then. On what basis does RTE regard the loss of knowledge as already locked-in?

Probably on the basis of not expecting a rapid increase in people wanting to become nuclear engineers...

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#63

Post by bayesian_horse »

ArtWomb wrote: post #18

"nothing like this will be built again" ITER / DEMO / PROTO plants planned to eclipse everything previous in scale. And with nuclear fission now classified as green tech by the EU, maybe the political will is finally here ;) https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220109-europe-nuclea...

He meant "like this" in terms of a reactor of a similar design and scale. Because that particular design turns out to be too expensive.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#64

Post by speedgoose »

mdorazio wrote: post #58
speedgoose wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CO2 cost is low though. You don’t need to fire coal and gas power plants when it’s dark and not windy.

One would hope that by 2050 energy storage and/or long-range transmission will be a non-issue for renewables, rendering this argument moot.

I hope too.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#65

Post by topynate »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #62
topynate wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 28 years away. People not yet born will be trained nuclear engineers by then. On what basis does RTE regard the loss of knowledge as already locked-in?

Probably on the basis of not expecting a rapid increase in people wanting to become nuclear engineers...

That would contradict "even if she wanted to, France couldn't". If she wanted to, France could make nuclear engineering a highly-paid profession with strong job security. It would just cost more money.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#66

Post by bayesian_horse »

wolfram74 wrote: post #39
ArtWomb wrote: post #18

"nothing like this will be built again" ITER / DEMO / PROTO plants planned to eclipse everything previous in scale. And with nuclear fission now classified as green tech by the EU, maybe the political will is finally here ;) https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220109-europe-nuclea...

The fact fission is classified as green /might/ impact fusion's future classification, but who knows. I was listening to a podcast and a disillusioned engineer said "environmentalists favorite nuclear power plant is always one that doesn't exist, as soon as it's ready to be built it's ready to be protested". Probably an instance of many groups under one label acting disparately, but I get the sentiment :/

Nuclear reactors are just bigger pains than even the coal plants they might replace.

Especially to replace enough fossil fuel one would have to scale up the problems with mining, waste disposal, and risks of accidents or malicious interference. I know this isn't a popular idea here, but there also lots of physicists who don't believe in nuclear fission as a mid-term or near-long-term solution.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#69

Post by baking »

thehappypm wrote: post #50
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #41

Meanwhile, in China: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Demonstration-HT...

210 MW? That’s rather small, no?

Demo and pilot plants tend to be small because they are intended to prove the technology to be feasible and economic. The next step would be a commercial scale plant.

Re: Nothing like this will be built again (2002)

#70

Post by JPKab »

prionassembly wrote: post #28
le-mark wrote: post #6

Always a treat to read something by Charles Stross. Seems like Accelerando was required reading for the previous generation, is it still? I was not familiar with the UK advanced gas cooled reactors, which use CO2 to cool the core and transfer heat to the steam. From the name it seems to be gas and not supercritical CO2 although I may have that wrong. Power generation is the one topic that makes thermodynamics crystal…

I read "The Fountainhead" at age 18 and was marvelled by it. I even quoted bits of Howard Roark's speeches on second-handers. I re-read it at age 25 and, uh, it's a really bad novel built around a couple of awesome "yas queen" kind of put-down rants. I feel the same about Accelerando. At one point I was in a clubbing phase and always took my paperback in my jacket pockets. Then, I never fully read it a second time be…

Indeed on Stross lacking humility. His recent post where he talked about COVID was pretty rife with inaccuracies and assumptions, which is fine, but he presented them with this unbridled level of certainty that simply isn't available in the data.

I've grown to tire over the "certain" people trying to analyze the science in this pandemic, on both "sides". (If you force it into a binary framing, it's the "holy shit this is bad" side and the "holy shit you guys are overreacting" side, both of whom have loud nutbags who are too confident in their assumptions.)

Post reply on HN