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Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

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Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#301

Post by bakuninsbart »

sharikous wrote: post #260
mdp2021 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no longer countries Well, no. The entities united in the European Union are still Countries - Sovereign States, "governments over permanent populations in defined territories enabled to relate with peers, entering as part of the international community after recognition from at least one peer". They have embassies and deal with embassies. The distinction you are trying to convey, allegedly changing the scenario in…

EU law arguably has a greater weight than individual constitutions now. There are some countries like Poland which claim to not accept that, but the principle of EU law supremacy has become generally accepted (even without a referendum in that sense...)

The actual situation is a bit more complex. Basically, the EU would argue that EU law trumps national law, and this is also in some of the contracts... however, there is no higher authority here in Germany than the consitution, some parts of which cannot be changed. Basically, if our constitutional court decides that some of the things going on in the EU are unconstitutional, and the legislative can't change those paragraphs in the constitution, then Germany would crash out of the EU. This is similar for a lot of the other member states, so there's a lot of careful maneuvring to avoid these kinds of confrontations.

One situation where this almost happened was during the discussion on Eurobonds. [0]

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-launches-infringement-proceedings-a...

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#302

Post by mdp2021 »

jhgb wrote: post #289
inglor_cz wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"an acceptable place" Look at the situation in Germany. "An" acceptable place, yes, but given how many of the Windräder you need, finding enough such places is a different task, because many less populated places are wildlife refuges. And yes, German wind power is expanding into old growth forests and mountains, which provokes embittered fights with classical nature protectionists who do not want to allow such damage…

Germany has more problems with north-south transmission lines than with places to put wind turbines in. Their windy coast would serve them perfectly well if they managed to push those transmission projects through.

> Their windy coast

In fact, it remains a good idea to place wind farms at least far away at sea, unless you have the comfort of hosting deserts.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#303

Post by Gravityloss »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #252
oceanplexian wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

Germany can't wave a magic wand and switch off Russian imports overnight. But they did just commit a few hundred billion to accelerate their plans to get rid of coal and gas based generation. That's a direct consequence of the Ukrainian situation. Like the US, Germany was overly depending on cheap gas until recently. Now that it has to import the gas in liquid form from the US (and a few other places), it's going to…

Germany could have cancelled their nuclear shutdown process. But saving face is more important than Ukrainian lives.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#304

Post by jhgb »

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…

> Uh...Germany's actually recarbonized by shutting down their nuclear [increasing coal and imported electricity to pick up the slack].

No, they did not -- look at the fourth chart in https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c... . There's no "increasing coal". The recent changes in nuclear and coal generation correlate rather than anti-correlate. You'd need them to anti-correlate for the thing that you're claiming to be true.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#305

Post by kesor »

bbu wrote: post #180

Has anyone built a facility to store the waste for 1 million years yet? I think Finland is the only country in earth who started for real. It is mind boggling to me that people even consider building more waste before having the slightest idea what to do with nuclear waste. And the talking about how clean it is. Lol.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#306

Post by vrfvr »

dsnr wrote: post #296
cschwarm wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't convert about 40 million households [1] in a year or two. Also, in the German climate and with its many 'old' buildings, merely switching the heat source won't do. One also needs additional isolation, and new radiators. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/heating-40-millio...

> You can't convert about 40 million households [1] in a year or two. Who's talking about a year or two? Germany has been pushing for russian gas since the 90's, against all logic.

> in fact you could argue that their denuclearization is the very reason Russia has so much leverage in the situation

If we had more nuclear power, this wouldn't change much, if anything

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#307

Post by jhgb »

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.…

You're confusing German gas consumption and German electricity consumption. It couldn't escape my attention that many people especially from the US make this fatal mistake (presumably because of the prevalence of natural gas electricity generation in the US - almost 40% in the US, compared to ~15% in Germany). In Germany, the vast majority of gas is being used for heating or for industrial purposes (chemistry etc.). This is not (yet) substitutable by other electricity sources.

Even if the denuclearization hadn't taken place, they'd still be dependent on Russian gas for at least a significant part of their gas supply. They can always substitute basically any gas shortfalls in the electricity sector simply by increasing coal generation, since there's a lot of unused capacity now that renewables leaped massively, and even replacing all the gas currently being used for electricity generation (because there's so little of it!) with coal would not even reach the levels of coal generation that Germany had as recently as just five years ago, so the coal plants can simply somewhat increase their output for a while. What Germans currently don't have is any way to not freeze to death and keep the industry running without Russian gas.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#308

Post by int0x2e »

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 ?

Yes! Yes I would! I currently live about 4 miles away from a coal plant. I know it's giving us various health issues the slow way. I'd much rather live next door to a nuclear plant. Even if you falsely assume we'd have a Chernobyl-style disaster every 10 years once we switched most of our coal plants to nuclear power (which would be extremely unlikely with competent system planning and operation, things we have learned well by now) - it would still be much safer with nuclear once you realize the health costs of coal plants - nuclear simply is the way to go.

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#309

Post by vrfvr »

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 leads to reduction of use (as people just can't afford it)

I consider this a good thing. Wasting energy ain't good, especially when it isn't completely climate neutral

Re: Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

#310

Post by dsnr »

vrfvr wrote: post #306
dsnr wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't convert about 40 million households [1] in a year or two. Who's talking about a year or two? Germany has been pushing for russian gas since the 90's, against all logic.

> in fact you could argue that their denuclearization is the very reason Russia has so much leverage in the situation If we had more nuclear power, this wouldn't change much, if anything

I think you replied to the wrong person.
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