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Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

allianceforscience.cornell.edu

181–190 of 306 posts

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd obviously have to limit the price fluctuations for consumer contracts. But currently I'm just starting the dishwasher or washing machine when I fill them, but I don't care when they're done as long as it's within ~12 hours. In many places I can get cheaper electricity at night and save a bit by running them then. But with renewables surplus might happen at any time of day, not just at night. A smart meter combi…

It just seems to me like as we move all the very heavy energy consumption like transportation and heating from oil and gas to electricity, small gains like your washing machine are going to be negligible. I'm from a country where in the north the sun goes down for good for a few weeks in the winter. We've managed until now with nuclear but those are all nearing end-of-life and are being shut down and we have no alter…

But heating and (battery powered) transportation are perfect examples of time-insensitive demand. I don't care when my car is charged, as long as it's reasonably full in the morning. And if your house has enough thermal mass (like an office building) and you give your heating system some wiggle room (let's say 2 degrees up and down) you can heat a bit above the target when energy is cheap so you don't have to heat as much when it's expensive.

If you purpose build the system for it you can do even better, like having an oversized boiler as thermal storage, or ice as cold storage. Those systems exist, they just aren't common because there's little incentive with the way electricity is currently metered.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#182
post #54

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: – Obvious…

That reactor is on one of my favourite wikipedia articles:

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

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#183
post #54

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: – Obvious…

That reactor is on one of my favourite wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_buildin...

Huh, I was unaware of Flamanville 3 [1]. Sounds like the exact same story as Olkiluoto 3, except even more expensive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#184
post #43

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…

> Fengning is less than half the cost of a nuclear plant and delivers twice as much power.

But the issue is not power but storage capacity. Fengning has 40 GWh of storage capacity, that is less than day of production of basic 2 GW nuclear power plant.

For countries in central Europe (or even northern Europe, like Finland), solar production during winter is generally negligible so from renewables you are left with wind energy. There are multiple-day periods of no wind, so just to keep 3 days of wind energy to replace one continuous 2 GW nuclear power, you would need ~3.6 Fengnings.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#185
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can do that in a year or two with renewable energy and other means while avoiding a lot of the other problems. How can you do that? Can you create build storage in 1 year for entire Germany needs? How?, please explain!

Storage will be built when it makes sense to build storage. For storage to be useful, you need enought renewables to charge it from.

How? Magic ?

I will buy solar panel for my home now and disconnect from the grid if you are capable provide me with a storage product that makes sense. AFAIK there are no batteries that are safe and make economical sense today and I have no clue what you storage thing you allude too that can be built in 1 year (very convenient of you not to mention what exactly it is you think that storage is that will appear this year if there is a demand)

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can do that in a year or two with renewable energy and other means while avoiding a lot of the other problems. How can you do that? Can you create build storage in 1 year for entire Germany needs? How?, please explain!

Germany is right in the middle of the biggest and most stable grid on this planet. They don't have to build storage within a year because they don't have to store all that stuff. They can take their time and continue to expand their national grid. Something they've been doing even during the last 16 years where the conservative government has been crippling the expansion of renewable energy.

This makes no sense, the other countries will not build storage for Germany and also they will want to build renweables, you present a fake solution.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#187
Seems like China is gonna be have the best nuclear energy tech in the near future. They currently use French and U.S. designs, but within a generation I bet they'll be making their own, probably better ones.

""" Lufeng, run by China General Nuclear Power Group, will receive a pair of third-generation Hualong One pressurized water reactors. China General Nuclear and China National Nuclear Corp. say they together independently developed the advanced reactor, which is based on U.S. and French designs.

Haiyang and Sanmen, which are run by State Power Investment Corp. and CNNC, respectively, will receive CAP1000 pressurized water reactors. The technology is based on the AP1000 reactor developed by Westinghouse.

China had 53 nuclear power plants at the end of 2021 with an total generating capacity of about 55 gigawatts. The government plans to expand the scale to 70 GW by 2025. Capacity is expected to grow further until it reaches between 120 GW to 150 GW in 2030, which may be enough to surpass the U.S. and France. """

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/China-greenlights-6-....

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#188
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm missing in this conclusion is weighing it against other options. At all. Sure, it's expensive. It is also expensive as compared to buying farmland for solar panels and getting food from elsewhere? And as compared to finding enough people that are okay with wind turbines nearby? (If you can't just get it all from the sea of course.) From my point of view we ought to work on both fronts, I'm not sure this was…

In general, solar is not in the same category of energy generation as nuclear because it can't carry the base load of the energy grid, because it is so inconsistent. We do not currently have a general-purpose battery for solar and wind that could power the grid when they stop producing. (Some regions can through pumped storage hydro.) Nuclear compares against base-load power sources: coal, gas, oil, hydro, geothermal…

That's an additional issue I didn't think of when writing my comment. Another omission in the linked video I guess? Though I am kinda expecting we can fix this with batteries, pumped hydro, flywheels, load shifting, interconnects, molten salt future tech idk, it generally seems like we have solutions here that should, however, be factored in (as you correctly comment) when comparing most renewables to nuclear.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#189
post #68

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 fantasy is storage: I have a small p.v. with lithium storage just as a protection against blackouts (AC coupled solar inverter to keep it on in case of no national grid frequency presence), in around a year battery capacity is already dropped to 99% and I do not allow more than 10% discharge since it's small, just enough for VMC + fridges/freezer + lights and computers, no main heating/cooling, cooking, washing m…

Why is it a fantasy? Millions of people in the us already have tesla power walls, there are hundreds at least of other solutions, and these things are sold out for a year or more. It works great, and people are using it. Your concern is that it won't last somehow? Your claims look like fear uncertainty and doubt. As others have posted, battery storage is already cheaper than gas peaker plants.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#190
post #189
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fantasy is storage: I have a small p.v. with lithium storage just as a protection against blackouts (AC coupled solar inverter to keep it on in case of no national grid frequency presence), in around a year battery capacity is already dropped to 99% and I do not allow more than 10% discharge since it's small, just enough for VMC + fridges/freezer + lights and computers, no main heating/cooling, cooking, washing m…

Why is it a fantasy? Millions of people in the us already have tesla power walls, there are hundreds at least of other solutions, and these things are sold out for a year or more. It works great, and people are using it. Your concern is that it won't last somehow? Your claims look like fear uncertainty and doubt. As others have posted, battery storage is already cheaper than gas peaker plants.

Millions of people have Tesla power walls? Not a lot of data but the one article I did find from 2021 says 200,000.

https://insideevs.com/news/510007/tesla-powerwall-installati...

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