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Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

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Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#231

Post by belorn »

ncmncm wrote: post #225
hgomersall wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some references about cheap storage. I'm keen to learn more about the current state of the art.

The Wikipedia article on pumped hydro mentions some perhaps surprising variations that do not depend on mountain geography. CAES -- compressed air -- is quite mature. Until recently it was considered to have insufficient round-trip efficiency, but that doesn't matter so much anymore. Again, there are numerous interesting variations, including pumping air into a vessel anchored to the sea floor via a pipe from an onsh…

Calling green hydrogen cheap is a bit of a stretch. The Swedish government produced a government report on the viability of it a couple/few years ago and the price was around 10x compared to nuclear, and that just for producing it. Storage and transportation would be additional costs on top. There is a reason why there aren't any current investments Sweden/Finland/Germany in order to create green hydrogen for energy production. (There are project to create green hydrogen in industries that explicitly need the hydrogen itself, in which case the cost calculations is much better).

In practice we should simply apply the open market and allow energy companies to bid for direct decommission of existing capacity in fossil fuel energy plants. If a commercial company can produce a combined renewables + storage solution that is cheaper than nuclear then that is a major win-win for everyone involved. If it is a bit more expensive than nuclear than it might still be worth it, but then the question is how much more. The combination that should not be allowed to bid is the combination of renewables + fossil fuels, and if needed, laws should be added to that effect.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#232

Post by Krasnol »

DANK_YACHT wrote: post #229
Krasnol wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It covers electricity because this is the only sector where nuclear could be relevant. The other sectors like heating and industry use of gas can't be covered by nuclear since electrical heating is negligible in Germany. Didn't you look that up?

You can use nuclear or stored renewables to power a heat pump, which could heat homes for most of the German winter. You’re saying heating is “negligible”, but the fact remains that 25% of all energy consumed in Germany comes from natural gas. There is nothing negligible about that. Also, it seems like you might not be aware, but natural gas has other uses besides heating and electricity. Natural gas is necessary to…

> You can use nuclear or stored renewables to power a heat pump, which could heat homes for most of the German winter.

To even supply something close to a significant amount of homes with heat pumps would take decades. In decades, Germany will be run on renewables completely. Gas or Russia have nothing to do on this level of discussion.

> but the fact remains that 25% of all energy consumed in Germany comes from natural gas

If you just stupidly ignore what I write and repeat the same invalid argument over and over again, it won't become valid.

It is still that 10% which is relevant for the topic here and it can be done next year without having to run a single nuclear reactor a single day longer. This is what will actually happen.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#233

Post by RingoStar »

Sharlin wrote: post #137
ncmncm wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now all the people who insisted the Greens had been co-opted by Big Oil will be completely silent about their having now been co-opted by Big Nuke. But Big Oil/Gas/Coal loves new nuke projects; each represents a decade or more of still buying fossil fuels, instead of incrementallly displacing fossil with renewables. What this really means is probably that their position is moot, because no new nukes are planned or li…

Eh, many of the stakeholders of the Hanhikivi project were individual municipalities which very much would have liked to get their carbon-free source of electricity. In the case of OL3, the only winners were probably lawyers due to the years of court battles between Finnish stakeholders and the French reactor supplier Areva. Everybody else lost. The Greens' new position is mostly relevant in the context of small, mod…

Nuclear power plants are not “carbon free.” They do not emit carbon or other greenhouse gases as they split atoms during the fission process, but their carbon footprint must be assessed on the basis of their complete nuclear fuel life cycle. Significant amounts of fossil fuel are used indirectly in mining, milling, uranium fuel enrichment, plant, and waste storage construction, decommissioning, and ultimately transportation and millennia-long storage of waste. There is plenty of carbon in that footprint that is rarely acknowledged, computed, or mediated. You can read that

Additionally, the industry’s rhetoric masks the astronomical costs for thousands of years of storage that could be better invested in rapidly developing renewable fuels with a lower carbon footprint such as solar, wind, geothermal, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, without any potential side effects.

The prospects for SMRs are poor. Here’s why.

*Economics and scale*

Nuclear reactors are large because of economies of scale. A reactor that produces three times as much power as an #SMR does not need three times as much steel or three times as many workers. This economic penalty for small size was one reason for the early shutdown of many small reactors built in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s.

*Mass manufacturing aspects*

If an error in a mass-manufactured reactor were to result in safety problems, the whole lot might have to be recalled, as was the case with the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner jetliners. But how does one recall a radioactive reactor? What will happen to an electricity system that relies on factory-made identical reactors that need to be recalled?

*SMRs and the climate crisis*

The climate problem is urgent. The IPCC and other international bodies have warned that to stop irreversible damage from climate change, we need to reduce emissions drastically within the next decade. The SMR contribution in the next decade will be essentially zero. The prospects for SMRs beyond that are also bleak, given that entire supply chains would need to be established after the first ones have been built, tested and proven in the field.

*Other concerns*

Water use is another concern that is expected to intensify in the future. Nuclear plants have very high water withdrawal requirements. A single 300 MW reactor operating at 90 percent capacity factor would withdraw 160 million to 390 million gallons of water every day, heating it up before discharge. Reducing the demand for water by using air cooling will require the addition of a tower and large electric fans – further raising the construction cost and reducing output of electricity by up to 7 percent of the capacity of the reactor.

Finally, SMRs will also produce many kinds of radioactive nuclear waste, because the reactors are smaller in physical size and because of refueling practices adopted for economic reasons. SMRs based on light water designs, such as NuScale, will also produce a larger mass of nuclear waste per MWh of electricity generated. The federal government is already paying billions of dollars in fines for not fulfilling its contractual obligations to take possession of spent fuel from existing reactors. The legislative plan in the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act was for a deep geologic disposal repository to open in 1998. After nearly four decades, that plan has come to naught.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#234

Post by jsnell »

ncmncm wrote: post #191
yodelshady wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5GW of solar [in Finland] Okay I'm afraid that's it for me. Being on a discussion board that has to debate "is deploying solar in Finland a good idea?" is not worth it. Incidentally, yes, it took Finland 10 years to build their last reactor. They commissioned it a week or so ago, mere days before Russia disconnected them. Literally nothing we can effectively do to mitigate climate change takes <5 any more, includin…

You understand that parts of Finland get 24-hour sunlight all summer long?

Producing electricity during the summer nights is basically useless. There's a huge diurnal effect, and an even larger seasonal one. The consumption at the winter peak is roughly double that of the summer trough.

Solar is fundamentally a bad fit for Finland. (Wind is a little bit tricky too, since abnormally low winter temperatures correlate with low wind speeds. But that is a problem on the time scale of a week, rather than half the year.)

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#235

Post by ReflectedImage »

Krasnol wrote: post #173
nabla9 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I love to dig out this old article on why "baseload" is a bullshit argument against reneawbles and surprisingly, "baseload" comes up only when it's nuclear astroturf time again. Weird eh? https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=374

Solving the climate crisis with Future Tech is nice and all, but the word "future" does have a meaning.

More practically, we should we be building the last generation of nuclear reactors to cover us for the next 50 years until the Future Tech actually exists.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#236

Post by RingoStar »

kkfx wrote: post #207
rnk wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because: - we do not need energy for private homes ONLY, we also need for industry, hospitals, schools, ... "buildings" that demand MUCH more energy than a home, similarly we do not need only private cars but also trucks, tractors, ... that demand MUCH more power not only in kW terms but also in load capacity and weight: a truck on lithium can be done in vehicle terms, but it's load capacity is less than a half and i…

You missed a lot of things.

It is always claimed that the conversion to 80-100% renewable energies fails because of "non-existent" & "too expensive" storage options. At the same time, most arguments against #VisionZero are reduced to lithium-ion batteries, their costs and their environmental balance. Here is an overview of chemical and mechanical storage options that are affordable & feasible with current technology.

ETH Zurich Energy Storage Handbook: "From today's perspective, the Energy Strategy 2050 is technically feasible. The necessary storage technologies are available - today on the market, marketable or demonstrably realisable." https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000445597

Siemens Gamesa ETES: Electric Thermal Energy Storage https://www.siemensgamesa.com/products-and-services/hybrid-a... https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute/vulkansteine-als-stroms... With these storage systems, in which electricity is converted into heat and this heat is converted into electricity via steam, significant parts of existing power plants can continue to be used!

DEMIKS - Decentralised energy storage by means of integrated kinetic rotational mass storage (in connection with wind turbines) Long name, proven concept increased to 500 kilowatt hours https://www.energiesystem-forschung.de/forschen/projekte/dem...

Pumped storage power plants. Normal in Austria, Switzerland, Norway, for Germany only in a roundabout way https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/nordlink-su....

Continue building pumped-storage power plants: https://twitter.com/senortenor/status/1450777953844006913?s=...

https://www-ingenieur-de.translate.goog/fachmedien/bwk/energ...

Storage

Keeping the grid reliable as solar photovoltaics and wind power (both with accurately forecastable but large variations in output) come to dominate electric generation requires changes in markets, institutions, operations, habits, and mental models. This has proven feasible in both theory and practice, as illustrated by national statistics’ reports of 75 percent renewable coverage of annual electricity consumption in Scotland (2018), 72 percent in Denmark (2017, domestic production only), 67 percent in Portugal (2018), 40 percent in peninsular Spain (2018), and 38 percent in Germany (2018). Most such grids sometimes achieve over 100 percent renewable supply, just as Japan’s southern island of Kyushu reported 76 percent peak solar coverage on 23 April 2017 1008, and Shikoku 102 percent on 3 May 2018 1009, despite Japanese utilities’ insistence that far smaller renewable fractions will crash the grid. No “storage miracle” is needed, though some seem to be emerging. Whether solar, fossil-fueled, or nuclear, no generator needs 100 percent backup, because one generator does not serve one load; rather, all generators serve the grid, which in turn serves all loads. The grid is designed to back up failed plants with working plants, so varying solar and wind power output are backed up by a diversified portfolio of other variable renewables, dispatchable renewables, or other resources. Solar and wind power don’t need massive batteries so they can produce power steadily like big thermal plants; rather, at least eight classes of grid flexibility resources (A) besides bulk electrical storage and fossil-fueled backup are proven, available, cost-effective, and sufficient.(B) We don’t and needn’t yet know all details of their ultimate mix as renewables rise toward 100 percent of generation; for now, we need only know that ample and affordable integration options exist.(C) As climatologist Prof. Ken Caldeira says, “Controversies about how to handle the [electricity] endgame should not overly influence our opening moves.”

(A) Efficient use; 2. unobtrusively flexible demand; 3. modern forecasting of variable renewables’ output (often more accurately than demand); 4. diversifying those variable renewables—wind and solar PV—by type and location; 5. dispatchability—integrating wind and solar PV portfolios with the other renewables (not counting big hydropower, which could also be integrated more effectively than now and with cogeneration that must run anyhow to satisfy its thermal loads; 6. distributed thermal storage worth buying anyway, or managed thermal storage in buildings’ existing thermal mass; 7. distributed electrical storage worth buying anyway (e.g. smart charging and discharging of electric vehicles bought to provide mobility); 8. hydrogen, now most likely from renewable electricity.

(B) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10406...

(C) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211...

https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industr...

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#237

Post by dTal »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #100
DeathArrow wrote: post #52

If we would pour into nuclear research the kind of money we pour into renewables, nuclear power would become safer and cheaper.

You still have to haul around huge amounts of radioactive materials with whatever technology. That alone is a big factor in the impossible risk calculations. So far there has never been a dirty bomb. What if the pro-nuclear fanboys get their wish and we solve the energy problems of the developing world using nuclear power? What if a modestly developed country gets overrun or overturned? I don't like the odds. Most ri…

Even a major nuclear accident is not, in the scheme of things, as terrible as continuing to use fossil fuels, which is the realistic alternative for baseload power. The Great Barrier Reef will not mind a few nuclear accidents.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#238

Post by bayesian_horse »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #110
bayesian_horse wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to haul around huge amounts of radioactive materials with whatever technology. That alone is a big factor in the impossible risk calculations. So far there has never been a dirty bomb. What if the pro-nuclear fanboys get their wish and we solve the energy problems of the developing world using nuclear power? What if a modestly developed country gets overrun or overturned? I don't like the odds. Most ri…

Radioactive material in the United States largely doesn't move. It is stored in concrete casks on site that sit there even after decommissioning. You can see with binoculars or satellite photo. Also, same impossible calculations apply to any power tech. Number of people injured installing rooftop solar or wind, poisoned by graphite mining, trucking accidents, aluminum production, and the like.

With "moving around" I mean mainly getting it out of the ground, processing, installing and waste storage. That alone has proven to be problematic enough.

And no, other power technologies are not as impossible to estimate. Nuclear power plants are very unique in the kind of mess they can make, see Fukushima and Tschernobyl. Those sites still need looking after and cleaning up, the final cost can't even be estimated yet. It's always been the accidents that supposedly can't happen and never happened. With other technologies not so much. Falling of a rooftop is a very knowable thing. Calculating the likelihood a nation state fails and terrorists get access to nuclear material for a dirty bomb? Never happened. But if nuclear power is your solution to the climate crisis, it needs to be everywhere...

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#239

Post by bayesian_horse »

simion314 wrote: post #134
bayesian_horse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is a lot bigger, and for Germany nuclear power certainly isn't sustainable. The population isn't on board for one thing. For another, the supply chain and the complicated life cycle has a tendency to bind huge amounts of resources and manpower that can't be easily used elsewhere in the economy, if you can find it in the first place (France has a shortage of nuclear engineers for example). Add to that the impo…

>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!

Nota bene "and other means". This may include other fossil fuels, even other sources of natural gas in the meantime. Which are still easier to get rid of mid-term than nuclear power.

Nuclear power in Germany is not going to happen. We don't like the risk profile, both financially and otherwise. Other nations may see it differently.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#240

Post by ncmncm »

Krasnol wrote: post #175
FunnyBadger wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same issue with roads and bridges in the US.

Holes in roads and bridges tend not to be as catastrophic as holes in reactors. Nice try though.

If we can't even keep our bridges up, my confidence in maintaining nukes properly for decades is nil.
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