Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

Post by SEJeff » Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 2:06 AM UTC

croes wrote: post #75

SEJeff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The historical experience of Chernobyl is not remotely relevant to modern reactors that are (by design) unable to melt down. Look at the pebble bed reactors, or the smr reactors from nuscale, or the chinese molten salt reactor designs. These are all using new technology to make meltdown next to or completely impossible. Nuscale is calling their smr reactors "walk away safe" in that you could just abandon them and the…

What about Fukushima? And modern reactors have to be built first. How long does it take if we look how long the berlin airport took or Stuttgart 21 will take.

Post by joshe » Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

stdbrouw wrote: post #36

joshe wrote: post #30

Here's better, more numerate coverage: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1498005296299622408 Also the whole thread covers other nuclear topics the press is a bit lost on. Remember, the number of nuclear engineers at reuters is 0.

“As Energy Ministries across the EU become "ecology" Ministries led by people who don't even know the units used to quantify energy, Finance Ministries become the adults.” This is not more numerate coverage, it’s semi-informed snark.

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #110

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reactors that are (by design) unable to melt down. I believe part of the problem is that nuclear power proponents were claiming that nuclear power is safe before Chernobyl. Then Chernobyl happened. Then proponents were claiming that that happened due to the way Chernobyl was designed, that the Western designs were entirely different, and that it couldn't happen. Then it did happen in Fukushima. People don't care ab…

They literally ignored all of the guidance on safely operating a nuclear reactor and many who told them so. Fukushima was a tragedy, but it also would not have passed inspection in the US or Europe due to blatant disregard for safeguards. https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-p... here is an unbiased source on this and how it was utterly preventable.

Post by jpgvm » Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

tempestn wrote: post #96

jliptzin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not against nuclear power but can anyone explain why a similar sized investment in solar+wind+geothermal+battery storage would not work?

Interesting question. I had thought batteries were still orders of magnitude more expensive than nuclear, but just looked up some numbers to try and get an idea. Caveat, these are just numbers I've looked up; they look reasonable to me, but I'm no expert, so could well be making a mistake here. Also I'm just looking at capital costs, not operation. From what I can find, the capital cost of a new nuclear plant is some…

Post by urthor » Mon, Feb 28, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

hansthehorse wrote: post #99

urthor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially it. Nuclear power has been economically inefficient for a long time. This is true for many, many economies. Even in places like Japan and South Korea, nuclear energy is more expensive than seaborn LNG. The reason that nuclear energy has been supported is the "unspoken" externality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency Having a "peaceful" nuclear plant, means you can throw together a bomb…

There is enough spent fuel stored in America and around the world to reprocess and enrich fuel for thousands upon thousands of nuclear warheads. There is also enough energy in spent fuel already stored that, if reprocessed, could fuel existing reactors for decades. Jimmy Carter broke the fuel cycle when he outlawed spent fuel reprocessing using the reasoning that it risked nuclear proliferation.