Nothing like this will be built again (2002) • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by Miraste » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 6:55 AM UTC

_dain_ wrote: post #195

hkt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When has such a gargantuan expenditure of time and resources ever produced the promised second-order benefits that outweigh the lack of first-order benefits? Pretty much all space programmes prior to the commercialisation of space. We're only at the start of that, too: today imaging satellites and internet connections, tomorrow potentially heavy industry, solar power generation and mineral extraction. Who knows wha…

>Pretty much all space programmes prior to the commercialisation of space. We're only at the start of that, too: today imaging satellites and internet connections, tomorrow potentially heavy industry, solar power generation and mineral extraction. Who knows what else. Those had *direct* benefits at the time, immediately: satellites of all kinds, classified military stuff, and the dickwaving pleasure of putting a man…

An interesting article, but rather undercut by the fact that he highlights quantum computers as the same situation. Twelve years later, they exist. They work. They have APIs! Yet the development process displayed all the negative symptoms he highlights. How can we be confident fusion is different?

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

#252

Post by tda » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 7:00 AM UTC

otagekki wrote: post #241

tda wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could just overthrow all their governments and make them vassal states. Sounds crazy? Well just take another good look at Saudi Arabia, crazier things happened in name of energy stability. If the choice is between unlimited renewable energy for Europe and sovereignty of the Sahara I know where I stand

You really think it'd be that easy? Europeans, especially France and the UK backed off from that part of Africa mostly because they don't want massive uncontrolled immigration. For over 50 years now France has been corrupting those countries' elites at the expense of more than 90% of the population. For 50 years those countries' cooperation level with each other have been hindered and their industries dilapidated to…

Easy? No. Also highly unlikely and against every treaty etc. But bigger wars have been fought over energy security, so not entirely impossible. And with Russia, China and USA fighting injust wars left and right, it seems Europe is the only major power that still cares a bit about internationally acceptable.

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

#253

Post by randomswede » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 7:35 AM UTC

bshanks wrote: post #236

JetSetWilly wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly hunterston - a nuclear power station on the west coast of Scotland - had a failure of its backup diesel generators. Wikipedia describes it as: > In December 1998, an INES Level 2 incident occurred after severe winds and sea spray disabled all four power lines to the site during the Boxing Day Storm of 1998. After multiple grid failures in a short period of time, emergency diesel generators failed to sta…

Seems like a bit of a misnomer if the "passive" cooling had to be activated.

Well, "passive cooling" means that it requires no external power to cool. Doesn't necessarily mean it's normally plumbed into the circuit. Most probably it would not normally be, as the passive cooling would definitely decrease the power output (it is, after all, what it is designed to do).

So there was probably one or more valves that did not get switched, as the system somehow didn't think they needed to, due to something not being configured as they should.

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

#254

Post by bayesian_horse » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 7:54 AM UTC

navaati wrote: post #133

bayesian_horse wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

France begs to differ. We basically replace fossil fuel with nuclear here (we only have small peaker gas plants, our baseload is all nuclear and some of our variable load is hydro) and there is no particular scale problem, no accidents (incidents yes, but they don't become accidents, the system works), a few pools of waste but whatever, no trouble to procure the fuel...

Even France is having serious issues both currently and in the future. There is considerable national pride involved, so the picture being painted is often more rosy than it is. Nuclear power in France and elsewhere had a leg up in terms of brain share and political will due to the importance of nuclear weapons, it was patriotic to be for nuclear things but that factor has vanished since the end of the cold war. This is also a factor France has a leg up on Germany who was not allowed to have nuclear weapons due to WWII. Without nuclear weapons programs, nuclear power would probably not have had the same importance.

Even when trying to come to a conclusion if nuclear power is worthwhile, one has to realize how much more complex even the equation is. It takes so much more qualified engineers, a much more specialized and expensive supply chain, and then there are huge uncertainty factors with unintentional accidents and malicious interference. Waste storage is a recurring headache and not globally solved. All of this MIGHT be manageable for a first-world democratic country like France, but I really don't like to see China scaling up their nuclear industry, nor would I want to see much of the rest of the world to replace their fossil fuels by those headaches.

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

#255

Post by bayesian_horse » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 7:58 AM UTC

wolfram74 wrote: post #110

bayesian_horse wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not one of those physicists, mind you. I think keeping all the problems substantively in liquid or solid phase gives us a better chance than automatically pumping them in gas form into the atmosphere. not to mention the transport efforts go from a daily coal train per powerplant to a single semi every 18 months. All the logistics up stream similarly impacted. I'll grant it's not as straight forward as disassembli…

That's still not accounting for all the trouble you might run into when scaling up nuclear power. It would also not be enough to do this in highly stable western-style democracies. It's not accounting for all the cost that goes into developing the nuclear industry and dealing with all the consequences. All those cost calculations are either very optimistic or fraught with uncertainties.

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

#256

Post by bayesian_horse » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 8:00 AM UTC

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #93

bayesian_horse wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is also true for solar panels too though - they require rare earth materials. And large scale wind farms can have accidents and fires and harm wildlife. Doing anything at scale is difficult.

I'd be surprised if windmills or solar panels require as much mining per power output as nuclear power...

And you don't have to handle them like the are, well, radioactive...

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

#257

Post by bayesian_horse » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 8:02 AM UTC

topynate wrote: post #65

bayesian_horse wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's difficult to ascribe a single will to a nation. It's more of a split-brain issue.

And making certain professions high-paying isn't as viable a strategy as you might think. Multiple factors go into that. Nuclear engineering isn't a popular thing, just like animal testing.

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

#258

Post by andrewaylett » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 9:34 AM UTC

teamonkey wrote: post #203

jfindley wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While these are real risks, it's worth pointing out two things: - This wasn't just "a single Tsunami", it was the Tsunami resulting from the 4th largest earthquake ever recorded happening just a few hundred km away. - The design of the plant was really old - construction began only 33 years after the death of Marie Curie, and the design was older than that. The effects of the disaster are absolutely terrible, and we…

> The design of the plant was really old - construction began only 33 years after the death of Marie Curie, and the design was older than that. That's the point, though, isn't it? One of the richest and most developed nations failed to decommission the plant in a timely manner, even under excellent conditions, in order to save costs. It's not the technology that's the problem.

There's a circular problem here, though: anti-nuclear activists block development and deployment of new technologies and plants, then complain that everything's old and outdated. The cost of nuclear has to include all the decommissioning costs while Coal and Hydro get to externalise their major environmental costs.

I understand that single incidents are more visible than long-term low-level harm. But as a civilisation we really aren't paying enough attention to the overall cost of everything that's not nuclear.

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

#259

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 12:53 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #246

BlueTemplar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In unrelated news, lowering nuclear to 50% of electricity is set as a political goal. In other unrelated news, safely maintaining the current nuclear electric power would have required a massive buildup starting 10 years ago (to replace the reactors that are currently arriving at the end of their life).

I thought the political goal was maintaining nuclear as high as 50%.

Political promises are rarely so detailed.

Though that sarcasm of mine is slightly outdated, a new promise (exploiting the recent high energy prices) is indeed to build some new reactors, postponing the previous promise of reaching 50% (from the current 75%) from 2025 to 2035 :

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Macron-says-Fran...

(Because it's not like the politicians aren't aware of these issues, it's just that it's rarely politically convenient to raise them.)

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

#260

Post by steenreem » Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 1:11 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #194

voz_ wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the resources. > I am a nuclear expert who got into nuclear to help fight climate change. I think that is very noble. I am thinking of eventually moving my career to solar or wind for the same motivations. Chernobyl was partially contained, it could have gone far, far worse. IIRC only 1 of 4 reactors exploded? I suppose hypotheticals are not extremely useful, but what is the hypothetical upper bound on the…

The hypothetical upper bound of a reactor accident is that 1 radioactive atom gets inhaled by each creature on Earth and the decay of that atom causes a fatal cancer and every living thing dies. There are ~equally unlikely life-ending upper bounds of all energy sources. For example, you could have world-ending wars and famines from solar and wind if a superlarge volcano largely blocks out the sun for a few years. Or…

I'm wondering whether the point you're making can be made even stronger.

I would phrase your argument as simple as: you estimate the world is much more likely to become uninhabitable if we don't use nuclear.

What's the worst case of not using nuclear? It's the same as the best case of using it. Best case, nuclear would enable us to entirely phase out fossil fuel energy production, reducing the world's CO2 production by 25%, reducing green house emissions to the point that large parts of the planet no longer become uninhabitable.