Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good thing you can pick it up and move it to other places.
Good thing electricity is cheap to transmit.
Transmitting power over long distances has its own problems and infrastructure costs. It isn't trivial.
Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
151–160 of 818 posts
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#152The biggest problem nuclear has is that it's too cheap and the fuel lasts too long.
That means that the oil, gas, wind and solar industry has more money and interest in spreading FUD.
On top of that the fear that has been succesfully deployed, has pushed nuclear energy into a bureaucratic nightmare, driving up costs, and also incentivizing a large part of the nuclear industry (the part living off the regulation and bureaucracy) to continue the FUD.
The total number of causalities and environmental impact from non-weaponized nuclear power, including Chernobyl, Fukushima and three mile island are so small, that I guess a larger number of people have died or been injured from rare-earth metal mines for solar panels or floods due to dams for water turbines.
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Nuclear cheaper?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_sourc... Depends. With just the cost per kWh is photovoltaic cheaper, but you would need additional storage for the nighttime, so it would become more expensive than nuclear. Also this didn’t account for winter time (in Germany photovoltaic make 5-10% compared to summer) and storing a half year worth of energy is going to be funny.(this will cost way way more tha…
Its only mid-november til mid-february that really sees a strong dip in production.
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> have been told multiple times by the EU that the reserves that operators have to provide for decommissioning of plants are much too low Why is the EU more trustworthy on these estimates than the French?
Well in fairness, the French government currently in power have an economic incentive to kick the can down the road to subsequent governments. Reduce reserve requirements now, next generation of taxpayers foot the bill later. Does the EU have an incentive to inflate the reserve requirement?
The "EU" is just the client countries of the EU. Some countries neighbouring france are strongly against nuclear energy, and thus would have cause to exaggerate the costs.
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#155Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#156I recently read the Serhii Plokhy book Atoms and Ashes, where he discusses 6 most notable nuclear accidents in depth. And his conclusion was pretty grim. Paraphrasing: If we bet on nuclear for mitigation of climate change, it is inevitable that nuclear accidents will happen more often. Also each accident causes a major setback in peoples minds regarding nuclear safety and the next Fukushima might kill off a lot of pr…
All it takes is for a few newspapers to regularly publish alongside any article about any power source the figures of "X people died per year by nuclear, Y by solar, Z by coal", etc.
Any newspaper mogul could make that happen.
Any time there is any accident, people interviewed need to start with "There is a risk this incident might stop nuclear from being the safest energy source. But to be honest, I think we'll still keep the crown".
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
France has nuclear plants because in the 1970s it decided it didnt want to be dependent on middle eastern oil. It was very very expensive. It was also nothing to do with global warming. Those plants are fully paid off but nearly all close to death. Replacing them will still be very very expensive. Extending their lives will be dangerous. France isnt quite sure what to do. If there's unlimited money and patience for y…
>Those plants are nearly all close to death. No, these plants are close to the end of their original grant for exploitation. Many of them get renewed for 10, 20 years easily. The US has had plants renewed for 40 years and are still running just fine. > France isnt quite sure what to do. We know what to do, every single scientist from the ASN knows what to do, every economist knows what to do. The non-renewal of nucle…
> >Those plants are nearly all close to death.
> No, these plants are close to the end of their original grant for exploitation. Many of them get renewed for 10, 20 years easily. The US has had plants renewed for 40 years and are still running just fine.
The moving goal post by nuclear proponents never cease to amaze. When we talk about safety the argument is always: "don't look at these old designs, all these modern designs are 100% safe". Then when we talk about cost it is: "don't look at the cost of building new plants, just extend the operation of these 40 year old plants by another 40 years". And the they complain about regulations for nuclear, while at the same time arguing that regulations about decommissioning a plant after its regulated lifetime ran out should not apply to nuclear plants.
Why should the rules about safe operation lifetimes not apply to nuclear plants?
> > France isnt quite sure what to do.
> We know what to do, every single scientist from the ASN knows what to do, every economist knows what to do. The non-renewal of nuclear plants is purely a political play to gain votes.
> Stop spreading your ignorant, fearmongering, unsubstantiated opinions.
They are not fear mongering or unsubstantiated. Plants were build/commissioned with an expected lifetime. There are reasons for this, aging of components and materials especially under exposure to radiation, aging of computer systems...
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#158Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#159Please can the nuclear industry stop paying PR consultants. We have one use for the nuclear industry - building scientists who can then build nuclear bombs. IMO this is a reasonable use of public funds - the strategic needs of nuclear weapons are not going away. But please please just accept that and move on. Stop getting in a vital public debate. Nuclear fission is a terrible civilian technology - vastly expensive,…
China is going to do it, and you seem to believe the safety profile of nuclear energy technology has been frozen for 50 years. It's extremely strange to think something as broad as the process of nuclear fission can be spoken about as having a universal, never changing risk-profile, regardless of technological advancement. We don't do this for any other technology. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/c…
China is building out mostly solar and wind.
Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
French electrical power is 70% nuclear and has an installed capacity of 135 GW of power today. That comes out to 94.5 GW of nuclear power in France alone. Is there any country in the world that can supply hundreds of gigawatts to the grid from batteries today? If not, then the problem of grid power storage is unsolved at scale compared to nuclear.
I don't think that's a common use of "unsolved at scale". We know how to do it, it just doesn't make economic sense right now. I mean, suppose you have hundreds of GW of storage of some form installed. You could just claim it's still not "solved at scale" because the global energy consumption is even higher.
The global supply chains for lithium batteries are already struggling to keep up just with current demand. Where are we going to get enough cobalt? Hopefully not DR Congo.