Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#71

Post by PaulHoule » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:44 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #62

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…

> The story for storage looks better than it ever has but it is still orders of magnitude more expensive more expensive than it needs to be to be practical. Storage is already cheaper than peaker plants and that's all it needs to be for now. Meanwhile HVDC lines appear to also be a viable solution: https://www.power-technology.com/projects/morocco-uk-power-p... Not mentioned in this article is the projected cost of t…

I can name some peaker plants but I struggle to name storage facilities other than a handful of oddities like

https://damfailures.org/case-study/taum-sauk-dam-missouri-20...

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#72

Post by raxxorraxor » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #48

raxxorraxor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't idiotic. While it is partially ideological reasoning behind their rejection, nuclear power is overall a bad deal with current technologies. France might have problems operating theirs because they have a drought and rivers aren't able to cool the plants. Uranium is only available in limited supply additionally to the high costs of nuclear energy this will become a problem in the long term. We only recently h…

Nuclear waste is process and reactor specific. These are engineering problems and are several magnitudes of order smaller problems to deal with that dealing with carbon waste.

No, it is not a small problem. There are processing plants that show elevated cancer rates in the population living near them and a significant part of radioactivity is just pushed into rivers or the ocean. That is after we have forbidden the practice to just drop nuclear waste in barrels but this is still a legislative shortcoming.

Sure, there are better reactor designs and processing methods but they aren't available yet. We should never exclude fission power completely, just that it isn't a good option right now. If research is inhibited by not using bad and costly technologies, we need other sources of funding. That is an issue that could very well need solving.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#73

Post by robin_reala » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

BoxOfRain wrote: post #9

If the Greens in England and Wales dropped their opposition to nuclear and also binned off 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) and I'd probably vote for them at this point. They've only recently been seen as a 'serious' party with mainstream appeal but climate change doesn't real…

Given that no party accurately matches 100% of your policies and that they’re unlikely to achieve a majority and force through the less-palatable-to-you policies (regardless of what they are) it’s probably best to vote based on the critically important issues, which currently is pretty much the climate crisis.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#74

Post by sdenton4 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #55

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…

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.

Sure, CO2 removal is much less efficient than point-capture, but if we're talking about using excess power generated at wind and solar installations, we may as well, right?

...Of course, this isn't what you meant. But there will always be better ways to use 'excess' energy than bitcoin's proof-of-access-to-energy-arbitrage scheme.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#75

Post by qiskit » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:50 PM UTC

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…

> yet to make the electric grid work they have to burn natural gas when renewables aren't available.

Also, keep in mind most renewables are biomass ( aka burning trees for energy ).

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#76

Post by PaulHoule » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #74

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, CO2 removal is much less efficient than point-capture, but if we're talking about using excess power generated at wind and solar installations, we may as well, right? ...Of course, this isn't what you meant. But there will always be better ways to use 'excess' energy than bitcoin's proof-of-access-to-energy-arbitrage scheme.

Also doesn't the Bitcoin network run all the time? Maybe it can average spatially but it can't decide to simplify the problem because less power is available globally.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#77

Post by mikelward » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

xiaq wrote: post #7

chadash wrote: post #3

I have heard a lot of chatter recently about how nuclear has fallen out of favor among certain circles on the left. Can someone explain what the reasons for that are?

The green party started out as an anti-nuclear party: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_party

It gets even more interesting. The Tasmanian Greens are often thought of as the first green party, and they started out as an anti-hydro party. (Well, against a specific dam.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Tasmania_Group

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#78

Post by orangecat » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:55 PM UTC

Gwypaas wrote: post #56

RealityVoid wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reality is that no country has entirely replaced fossil fuels with renewables. If you're advocating shutting down nuclear plants while any amount of power is coming from coal, you are not being serious.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#79

Post by PaulHoule » Mon, May 23, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

qiskit wrote: post #75

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…

> yet to make the electric grid work they have to burn natural gas when renewables aren't available. Also, keep in mind most renewables are biomass ( aka burning trees for energy ).

According to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy

biomass is 5% of "clean energy" which includes a 28% share of nuclear. Hydro is 43% and clearly dominates.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#80

Post by sofixa » Mon, May 23, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

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…

> Deploying 5GW of solar and storage, or 3-4GW of wind, is far easier, faster, and cheaper than trying to build a new reactor

Besides the intermittency of renewables everyone else has already mentioned, a nuclear reactor has a life of 50 years, which is extendable with maintenance. There are literally reactors built in the 1950s still operating today. Solar and wind installations have to be fully rebuilt every 15-20 years (and the decommissioned materials recycled).

So you get stable power, for at least twice as long.