Why is the nuclear power industry stagnant?

Post by uecker » Sun, May 22, 2022, 12:08 PM UTC

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.

Post by chess_buster » Sun, May 22, 2022, 12:14 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #489

jillesvangurp wrote: post #450

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Don't underestimate the Germans. They'll get this done. They'll be pretty far done executing those plans in five years and probably will raise the ambition level rather than lowering it. I also predict they will trigger a pretty big economic boom doing so. All that money flowing into the economy will do a lot of good. They've actually been criticized for holding back too much in the last few decades. This looks like…

Don’t think the Germans still know how to “get it done”. Afaik their power transmission network hasn’t received significant improvements (even though I had last read something on the subject a few years ago, maybe things have changed) and their energy prices were among the highest in Europe before this war started. I’m also very bearish when it comes to their car industry efforts to transition to EVs, but that’s a sl…

Post by chess_buster » Sun, May 22, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

nickelpro wrote: post #360

arinlen wrote: post #340

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> Ignorant? Either disingenuous or ignorant, yes. > Energy storage is not a short or medium term solution. The primary role of energy storage systems in renewable energy sources is to balance supply and demand. Your assertion makes no sense because it ignores even the most fundamental aspects of the problem domain. > Pumped hydro is already maxxed out pretty much everywhere it's possible as not all dams are suitable…

> Meanwhile, back in the real world not only are power grids distributed at a continental level but there also multiple sources of power feeding into that grid, including imported energy generated from renewable sources. There is nothing close to the grid capacity to make this statement true. Germany lacks base load capacity and imports energy from coal and natural gas burning neighbors when their renewables go offli…

Post by uecker » Sun, May 22, 2022, 12:20 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #400

legulere wrote: post #379

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I think we're discussing semantics there. Coal use fell, coal and gas combined fell, but gas alone has risen. Which goes against predictions that coal would replace nuclear, that somehow some people claim have come true when there is obvious data that shows the opposite. I agree with the point that we should have phased out coal before nuclear, but you have to state it like that and not cling onto some dream that nuc…

> "Actually, Germany did not have a long term increase in coal/gas due to the nuclear shut down but a decrease" Arguably this is semantics. But that's because the semantics of your claim is unhelpfully ambiguous. In absolute terms coal and gas make up approximately the same share of Germany's capacity as it did in 2010. In relative terms, because the total output has increased, it's share has fallen. But I say it is…

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 » Sun, May 22, 2022, 12:21 PM UTC

liftm wrote: post #92

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #15

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it does get mentioned, and you can have nuclear power without producing plutonium.

The rest of hackernews seems to have decided that plutonium is a step on the way to solve the waste problem. What's your take on that?