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Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

allianceforscience.cornell.edu

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Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#51

Post by bryanlarsen »

nabla9 wrote: post #42
epistasis wrote: post #16

This is great, and hopefully it will stop the premature shutdown of existing nuclear reactors. But it's pretty tiny climate news overall. Nuclear reactors are aging out and nobody in Western Europe or the US seems to know how to build in a cost competitive way anymore. Deploying 5GW of solar and storage, or 3-4GW of wind, is far easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to build a new reactor, which won't come on line…

As others have said, nuclear not is comparable to wind and solar. Nuclear provides base load, something that wind or solar can't do. Here is a graph: https://i.imgur.com/SaC1HR4.jpeg Wind electricity production in x-axis (MWh/h), y-axis is consumption of electricity (MWh/h). Each do is one hour, dot color is a month. There is no correlation. Here is great summary of how Finland can go 100% fossil fuel free electricit…

No generator provides base load, because load is usage, not power.

Lots of places in the world satisfy base load with dispatchable power.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#53

Post by OJFord »

lbriner wrote: post #46
OJFord wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few of their more anti-egalitarian positions (I cannot in good faith support criminal sentencing where a man goes to jail but a woman doesn't for the same crime for example) That's nuts, haven't heard that before (not that I'm a supporter or anything), any more info on that - what crime for example? Searching not turning up much, since it's being sued for the opposite sexism at the moment; grepping https://policy…

I think I understand where they are coming from but let's not pretend that dads in prison doesn't also have a massive effect on the development of their children (or not!). In some ways the only people who should be in prison are the most violent and who are a danger to the public but we don't have a great range of alternatives for someone who e.g. steals a large amount of money but is not dangerous to the public per…

It also seems like 'scope creep', that they'd be better off as more of a single-issue party. My impression is that's how it's viewed by voters (those they have) anyway - I don't think Green party support is a good reflection of 'women out of prison' support.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#54

Post by Sharlin »

Some context: The Green Party had long been diametrically opposed to nuclear, to the extent that they have twice exited a coalition government in protest of granting additional reactor permits. Over the past ten years their position has gradually shifted though, thanks to STEM-oriented Greens in particular, as it has become obvious that AGW is a bigger threat than nuclear. This in spite of several setbacks:

– Obviously, the Fukushima disaster of 2011.

– The fact that the Olkiluoto 3 reactor project [1], a 1600MW PWR unit, was plagued by chronic delays and cost overruns – it is only now being connected to the grid, over ten years behind schedule. OL3's fundamental problem was that the European nuclear industry simply was not up to the task of delivering a first-of-its-kind, ambitious third-gen reactor after a fifteen-year hiatus during which no new nuclear power plants were built in Europe.

– Another planned nuclear plant, Hanhikivi [2], had problems finding a Western reactor supplier; after some arguably rather shady dealings, a contract was made with Rosatom, the state nuclear corporation of Russia. This received some well-earned criticism, but Finnish decisionmakers (perhaps naively) wanted to think there was no political dimension to such an agreement. After February 24, the project is now almost certainly dead in the water, never having left the planning and design phase.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#55

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

PaulHoule wrote: post #30
epistasis wrote: post #16

This is great, and hopefully it will stop the premature shutdown of existing nuclear reactors. But it's pretty tiny climate news overall. Nuclear reactors are aging out and nobody in Western Europe or the US seems to know how to build in a cost competitive way anymore. Deploying 5GW of solar and storage, or 3-4GW of wind, is far easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to build a new reactor, which won't come on line…

It's not that simple. People quote low prices for renewables today that we might be scoffing at in 50 years just like we scoff at the early claim that "nuclear power is too cheap to meter" Specifically, you can't compare a nuclear reactor that delivers predictable power to solar and wind systems that deliver power when they want to deliver power. Germany has already had episodes where the spot price for electricity w…

There is one profitable use of excess energy that can be turned on demand in milliseconds, but, for some reason, it is very unpopular here on HN.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#56

Post by Gwypaas »

RealityVoid wrote: post #36
sexy_panda wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running nuclear power plants isn't a sane thing to do, but let's pretend Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island never happend.

Yeah, let's pretend thousands of people dying prematurely because of pollution isn't happening as well. Perfect is the enemy of good and looking for a "perfect" solution (zero carbon, zero risk) is just causing suffering and driving us to early extinction.

The alternative isn't fossil fuels. It's renewables. Compare against reality instead of your made up competition.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#57

Post by cinntaile »

pydry wrote: post #43
PaulHoule wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. People quote low prices for renewables today that we might be scoffing at in 50 years just like we scoff at the early claim that "nuclear power is too cheap to meter" Specifically, you can't compare a nuclear reactor that delivers predictable power to solar and wind systems that deliver power when they want to deliver power. Germany has already had episodes where the spot price for electricity w…

Pumped storage combined with solar and wind isnt orders of magnitude more than nuclear power. It's still cheaper. Fengning is less than half the cost of a nuclear plant and delivers twice as much power. It's a very effective battery. Pumped (or indeed, any kind of) storage just isnt very economic when youve got oodles of cheap, dispatchable gas. Nuclear power almost always exists to help prop up military nuclear requ…

Only 2 out of 5 reactors are Russian built, so only 1 out of 2 plants. There were plans for another Russian reactor but those plans are likely shelved now.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#58

Post by [deleted] »

PaulHoule wrote: post #30
epistasis wrote: post #16

This is great, and hopefully it will stop the premature shutdown of existing nuclear reactors. But it's pretty tiny climate news overall. Nuclear reactors are aging out and nobody in Western Europe or the US seems to know how to build in a cost competitive way anymore. Deploying 5GW of solar and storage, or 3-4GW of wind, is far easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to build a new reactor, which won't come on line…

It's not that simple. People quote low prices for renewables today that we might be scoffing at in 50 years just like we scoff at the early claim that "nuclear power is too cheap to meter" Specifically, you can't compare a nuclear reactor that delivers predictable power to solar and wind systems that deliver power when they want to deliver power. Germany has already had episodes where the spot price for electricity w…

[deleted]

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#59

Post by jka »

nabla9 wrote: post #42
epistasis wrote: post #16

This is great, and hopefully it will stop the premature shutdown of existing nuclear reactors. But it's pretty tiny climate news overall. Nuclear reactors are aging out and nobody in Western Europe or the US seems to know how to build in a cost competitive way anymore. Deploying 5GW of solar and storage, or 3-4GW of wind, is far easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to build a new reactor, which won't come on line…

As others have said, nuclear not is comparable to wind and solar. Nuclear provides base load, something that wind or solar can't do. Here is a graph: https://i.imgur.com/SaC1HR4.jpeg Wind electricity production in x-axis (MWh/h), y-axis is consumption of electricity (MWh/h). Each do is one hour, dot color is a month. There is no correlation. Here is great summary of how Finland can go 100% fossil fuel free electricit…

Is there a corresponding graph for solar electricity production, out of interest?

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#60

Post by jamil7 »

csours wrote: post #10

If Germany's Green Party takes the same line, I think it will be a huge blow to Russia. Also, it's about time.

> I think it will be a huge blow to Russia.

Nuclear or not, they'd still need to have electrified heating and industrial processes dependent on Russian gas.

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