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Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

reuters.com

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Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#151

Post by adastra22 »

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #137
adastra22 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear was not economically viable vs going green This is such a strange statement as nuclear is the greenest power source.

Regarding numbers like CO2 emission per MW that is definitely true. However, the highly destructive, scary and dangerous trash that it does produce is like a comical epitome of the kind of visible pollution the first generation green movement was fighting. There is a reason that dystopian sci-fi trash heap illustrations always feature a leaking nuclear barrel. Combined with the fact that Germany is just (fairly) dens…

The entirely of the nuclear waste produced by the United States since the beginning of its atomic program could fit in a couple of olympic sized swimming pools. And water does such a good job of stopping the radiation that is actually a pretty good way of storing it.

And that's without considering fuel reprocessing, which would not only drastically reduce the raw fuel need (and therefore increase the green value of nuclear power), but would reduce the final waste product to something that could fit in a broom closet.

The scale of the nuclear waste problem is seriously, seriously oversold.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#152

Post by Mawr »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #107
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…

> 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…

> I believe part of the problem is that nuclear power proponents were claiming that nuclear power is safe before Chernobyl. Then Chernobyl happened.

Because it was and still is safe. Planes crash too, does that mean they're not safe?

Nothing is 100% safe, that'd be ridiculous. The point is that nuclear energy is the safest, by a huge margin.

> people are not willing to take the chance that they're being lied to again.

Well yes, the general public is irrational. We need politicians with balls that will do the right thing regardless of the ignorant public perceptions.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#153

Post by adastra22 »

ncmncm wrote: post #142
adastra22 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear was not economically viable vs going green This is such a strange statement as nuclear is the greenest power source.

It doesn't produce any power until 10 years after you secure the money, usually costs much more than budgeted, and then has very high operating cost. Each euro earmarked for a nuke plant is a euro not spent building out solar, wind, and storage that would yield much more power than the nuke, almost immediately, and have extremely low operating cost. So, not green, because it competes with actually green for capital.

That is largely because due to green lobbyists making sure that nuclear is subjected to greater regulatory oversight and financial barriers than other sources of energy.

I'm sorry that I'm not that familiar with the German regulatory situation, but here in the USA for example new nuclear plants are required to pre-fund their decommissioning costs upfront before they are ever turned on, and have insurance against accidents, etc. Which is probably a good thing and I'm not arguing against--except that literally no other source of energy is subject to the same requirements. And so when people say "nuclear is expensive!" they are comparing apples-to-oranges.

A coal or natural gas plant generates literal tonnes of environmental waste that they don't need to pay to clean up, and they aren't required to have insurance or bonds against the much more likely industrial accidents their workers and community members will suffer.

Same for solar, which would be a heck of a lot more expensive if solar installation companies had to insure millions of dollars against their workers falling off roofs, or pre-pay the costs of smelting solar panels that reach end of life so their parts don't end up in land fills.

Nuclear isn't expensive. The nuclear energy and regulatory environment is. As it was designed to be by people who don't want nuclear power.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#154

Post by Mawr »

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.

> How long does it take if we look how long the berlin airport took or Stuttgart 21 will take.

Pointing out outliers isn't productive. What's the average time to completion of projects on that scale in Germany?

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#155

Post by croes »

SEJeff wrote: post #111
croes wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What about Fukushima? All safety protocols and safeguards were utterly ignored for profit. Here is an unbiased source on how spectacularly bad this was: https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-p... The Fukushima reactor as it was deployed would have never passed inspection in the US or EU, for literally the reasons that caused the unfortunate event to pass. It is like building an automobile in 20…

Better technology doesn't exclude corruption and botch.

There are to many examples in the past where profit resulted in security protocol and standards not being adhered to.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#156

Post by robertlagrant »

croes wrote: post #135
robertlagrant wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that excluded from the total cost calculations of nuclear power?

Depends on who you ask. Power plant companies usually omit these costs.

Okay, but given you quoted that point above, what are you saying in relation to what I said?

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#157

Post by usrusr »

Traster wrote: post #12

I know this article isn't great, but is there anyone on HN who lives in Germany who could explain why there's such a scepticism of Nuclear power there? I'm from the UK and we have largely transitioned away from Nuclear for one clear reason - there was no political appetite to spend a tonne of money on an expensive form of energy that wasn't likely to pay off in the current parliamentary term. The german response to N…

My take is this: after Chernobyl, the risk was talked down by proponents as "happened because communism". And the other side got even more entrenched in their positions. Then Fukushima happened and "because communism" proponents suddenly stood without pants.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#158

Post by holbrad »

Azsy wrote: post #131
nine_k wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany, is very supporting of pacifism. I'd say that pacifism only works as long as nobody cares to attack you, or you have someone else around, much stronger than yourself, to protect you. That is, it works as long as you don't have to face any real evil. I'm afraid it's not a realistic long-term policy.

Germany was told to be supporting of pacifism by the Americans after WW2. But with the Americans signaling that they are no longer willing to play world police, a shift in that attitude is a matter of time. > That is, it works as long as you don't have to face any real evil. Also, lets not conflate national interests with good and evil. That's the propaganda talking.

I think the sentiment that pacifism externalises the costs of dealing with violence to others, is spot on in both a personal and country context.

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#159

Post by tonyedgecombe »

adastra22 wrote: post #153
ncmncm wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't produce any power until 10 years after you secure the money, usually costs much more than budgeted, and then has very high operating cost. Each euro earmarked for a nuke plant is a euro not spent building out solar, wind, and storage that would yield much more power than the nuke, almost immediately, and have extremely low operating cost. So, not green, because it competes with actually green for capital.

That is largely because due to green lobbyists making sure that nuclear is subjected to greater regulatory oversight and financial barriers than other sources of energy. I'm sorry that I'm not that familiar with the German regulatory situation, but here in the USA for example new nuclear plants are required to pre-fund their decommissioning costs upfront before they are ever turned on, and have insurance against acci…

>That is largely because due to green lobbyists making sure that nuclear is subjected to greater regulatory oversight and financial barriers than other sources of energy.

Even if this was true (which I don't think it is) then what are you proposing? Relaxing the regulations?

Re: Germany mulls extending nuclear plants' life-span

#160

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

Wiring up the grid globally makes more sense than trying to store energy overnight.
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