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Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#261

Post by croes »

oceanplexian wrote: post #229
jillesvangurp wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany Actually, Germany did not have a long term increase in coal/gas due to the nuclear shut down but a decrease. Coal has been in a slow but steady decline in Germany (mainly due to cost); which is on track to decline all the way to 0 as Germany is committing to getting rid of coal based production completely by 2035 or so. Gas production did grow but mainly to offset decli…

> Recent events in the Ukraine are cutting off cheap Russian supply of both coal and gas This is not the impression I have gotten from recent events. The reason Germany hasn’t experienced blackouts is because they are funding the Russian Federation’s war in Ukraine in exchange for energy. Germany has advocated for the continued purchase of Russian gas and has pushed back against the EU admitting Ukraine to the union.…

Gas has more use cases than just electricity.

These can't easily be replaced by nuclear power.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#262

Post by webmaven »

Manuel_D wrote: post #111
mateo1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The issue is that the NRC requires this process even for subsequent versions of the same design. That's just nonsense, if it's a copy of an approved design this process is unnecessary.

Which of course encourages subsequent designs to be substantially changed.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#263

Post by croes »

ulfw wrote: post #234
jillesvangurp wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany Actually, Germany did not have a long term increase in coal/gas due to the nuclear shut down but a decrease. Coal has been in a slow but steady decline in Germany (mainly due to cost); which is on track to decline all the way to 0 as Germany is committing to getting rid of coal based production completely by 2035 or so. Gas production did grow but mainly to offset decli…

Germany has one of the highest electricity costs on the planet. That leads to reduction of use (as people just can't afford it) and this is before the Russian corrupt cheap gas deals. Who knows what it'll look like with higher gas and oil prices.

That would be a strange corruption that causes cheap gas

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#264

Post by emteycz »

bamboozled wrote: post #196
maccam94 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the root cause here is that people are afraid to live near nuclear plants, and would get mad at their political representatives if they got built in their area. Making these limits more stringent makes it look like the politicians are forcing the plants to be safer, when really they are just blocking the plants from being built in their districts at all.

Would you like to live near one ?

I live near one, it's the best environment I've ever lived within, especially compared to the coal thermal plant that was near where I used to live.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#265

Post by croes »

LilBytes wrote: post #246
cycomanic wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas peaker plants are needed for nuclear just as much. Generally the article is looking at the most favourable conditions for the technology, e.g. only considering OCC and not interest cost for building and decommissioning of nuclear plants.

You're going to have to source this because there's been absolutely no need for gas plants in the two cities I've lived in that were both powdered by nuclear in Europe.

Energy networks are not city-specific but are cross-national. Or are these cities self-sufficient and not connected to the rest of the grid?

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#266

Post by Emma_Goldman »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #209
uranium wrote: post #66

"Recently, places as diverse as Texas, California, Oklahoma/Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska (SPP), the UK, and Germany have rapidly decarbonized without nuclear." Uh...Germany's actually recarbonized by shutting down their nuclear [increasing coal and imported electricity to pick up the slack]. "The nuclear electricity production lost in Germany's phase-out was primarily replaced with coal electricity production and electricity…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany Actually, Germany did not have a long term increase in coal/gas due to the nuclear shut down but a decrease. Coal has been in a slow but steady decline in Germany (mainly due to cost); which is on track to decline all the way to 0 as Germany is committing to getting rid of coal based production completely by 2035 or so. Gas production did grow but mainly to offset decli…

> "Actually, Germany did not have a long term increase in coal/gas due to the nuclear shut down but a decrease"

> "Gas production did grow but mainly to offset declines in coal"

This is dishonest at two levels.

First, nuclear power fell and, at the same time, renewables and gas sharply rose in Germany's energy mix. Power is fungible. It is not as if power generated by renewables substitutes for nuclear, but power generated by gas doesn't. Germany had to add up it's energy inputs to meet 100% of its needs, and it used both sources to do so.

Second, everyone in Germany knew they were supposed to get rid of coal by 2030. That's the international deadline for coal in advanced economies. But the national phase-out law, until very recently, was eliminating coal at a far slower pace - aiming towards a terminal date of 2038. One reason why was the decline of nuclear.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#267

Post by Robin_Message »

bamboozled wrote: post #196
maccam94 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the root cause here is that people are afraid to live near nuclear plants, and would get mad at their political representatives if they got built in their area. Making these limits more stringent makes it look like the politicians are forcing the plants to be safer, when really they are just blocking the plants from being built in their districts at all.

Would you like to live near one ?

I live in Europe. Currently, instead of the small risk of a nuclear plant going near me going bad (which even in the worst case scenarios has led to very limited loss of life), we're instead funding a country that is actively threatening nuclear retaliation for some of our policies.

So personally, I'd be happy to trade the small risk of a nearby industrial accident for the small risk of a massive fucking bomb exploding in my general vicinity.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#268

Post by cycomanic »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #95
Meandering wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your favorite or most closely watched Gen IV reactor? Figure you'd be one to ask.

I think we should be building the best LWRs right now to decarbonize immediately: ABWR, APR-1400, AP1000. My favorite decarbonize rapidly at scale idea is to build a shipyard-based nuclear reactor gigafactory and mass-produce floating PWRs. (This was actually almost done in the 1970s in Jacksonville Florida. They had a manufacturing license from the NRC, the world's largest gantry crane installed and, everything [1])…

So if nuclear is significantly more expensive that wind/solar like stated in the original article and faster to build (or are you disputing the numbers?), why would we not use the same money to instead build more renewables to get us there faster?

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#269

Post by croes »

varajelle wrote: post #199
stkdump wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is still a net exporter of electricity. France benefits from that, because in recent years they had to shut down their nuclear plants during heatwaves, when the rivers they use to cool them got too warm. I guess that will only get more frequent in the future.

This is a funny argument against nuclear. Some nuclear reactor have to shut down for a few days to avoid heating the rivers is a big problem. But the solar panel being down more than half the time (night or clouds) and the wind turbine also being down depending on the wind in uncontrollable ways is Ok.

How many wind turbines have to be down to have the same effect as one nuclear power plant being down?

Not to mention that some people think Putin could attack other countries after Ukraine. That's not the time you want nuclear power plants as possible target.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#270

Post by drak0n1c »

uranium wrote: post #66

"Recently, places as diverse as Texas, California, Oklahoma/Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska (SPP), the UK, and Germany have rapidly decarbonized without nuclear." Uh...Germany's actually recarbonized by shutting down their nuclear [increasing coal and imported electricity to pick up the slack]. "The nuclear electricity production lost in Germany's phase-out was primarily replaced with coal electricity production and electricity…

New York has also built 3 new gas power plants to make up for Cuomo's premature closing of the Indian Point nuclear plant.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47776

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/nyregion/indian-point-pow...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-utilities-nypa-energy-ind...

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