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Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#211

Post by BenoitP »

adrianN wrote: post #182
BenoitP wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At scale means with mining requirements as well. With current and projected reserves we can manage intra-day requirements for the whole world. This is the we mine it all option. But we need intra-year storage capacity. Nuclear is clearly the easier and only option (and the most environment-friendly to me, considering the mining requirements)

Mining of what? Hydrogen as storage medium for example doesn't require all that much mining. Are you assuming storage will be in the form of Lithium batteries?

I'm assuming currently proven tech of batteries. And we need to act now for climate change, with current tech.

Electricity to H2 to electricity has horrendous efficiency (about 20% at most IIRC). We'd be much better off CO2-speaking using it to replace coal in steel production, and replace gas in fertilizer production. Both of which are proven tech (but not globally deployed, as coal and gas are cheap)

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#212

Post by rswskg »

BenoitP wrote: post #139
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are no paths to clean energy by 2050 without nuclear power. This is either stupidly wrong or stupidly right. Stupidly right, there's fairly new nuclear plants in operation that there's no real reason to shut down, so will probably be running in 2050. Stupidly wrong, it seems to be placing some entirely unwarranted implication that without nuclear we'd be lost, when most serious analysis agree that renewables…

> most serious analysis agree that renewables will be about 80% Well, let's see them; and see how much they rely on yet to be proven industrially new storage tech (and without humongous mining activity)

Yep!

Once battery storage doesn't pan out(and it won't currently for trucks), I see synth hydrocarbons picking up the transport slack. But that will require alot of energy..

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#213

Post by Manuel_D »

losvedir wrote: post #166

One thing I don't understand is the uninhabitable zone around Chernobyl is not that big, and the U.S. has plenty of space. And electricity can be transmitted decently far, right? So... is it unreasonable to have lots of fairly low-regulated nuclear power plants in, say, 50 mile uninhabited areas (maybe even make it a nature preserve or something for animals)? And if one or two meltdown, oh well?

There was also no real incentive to clean up the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The town of Pripyat existed for the purpose of supporting the nuclear power plants. So when the plants closed, there's no reason to clean up the contamination. This is in contrast to Fukushima, in which the majority of the exclusion zone has been rehabilitated.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#214

Post by mperham »

rswskg wrote: post #207
jeffbee wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to dedicate that much land you could just cover it in solar panels and generate 1500GW of peak electricity for less money.

*in the right conditions, ignoring nighttime, winter, northern hemisphere, etc etc...

That's why you mix in wind too.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#215

Post by sofixa »

tcfhgj wrote: post #198
sofixa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France isnt quite sure what to do. Yes it is ( big nuclear buildout to replace most of the current fleet, while also doing lots of renewables and experimenting with small modular reactors): https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220210-announcing-new-r...

So they're reducing nuclear power production in the long term?

By a small percentage, yes, going down from something like 75% to 55-60% IIRC, with the difference going to renewables.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#216

Post by ElectronCharge »

photochemsyn wrote: post #12

Funny article in that it doesn't discuss lifecycle costs. A side-by-side comparison of the cost of grids powered by nuclear power plant relative to those powered by wind/solar/storage is what I'd expect to see from a 'paper of record' like the NYTimes. Except in some specific cases (Finland, other Arctic regions with long periods of low sunlight) I'm pretty sure this cost comparison comes down firmly on the side of w…

The problem with a cost comparison is that currently renewables account for less than ten percent of global energy generation. What do you think will happen to the cost there as available resources dwindle, and demand for equipment increases?

Also, I’m not sure those comparisons take into account the ~20 year lifespan of solar panels and windmills, versus the ~40-50 year lifespan of nuclear plants.

Finally, another factor that may drastically reduce the cost of nuclear is the fabrication of small modular reactors which eliminate custom construction/permitting and simplify installation.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#217

Post by thehappypm »

lelag wrote: post #162
Brometheus wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/remindme 10years

/remindme in 80 years If I have to choose between an additional 3 Fukushima and the loss of thousands of costal cities due to sea level rise, I know what I'm choosing. This study predict than sea level could rise by 2m by 2100 displacing up to 187 million people. Fukushima displaced about 160 thousands. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6561295/ Pick your poison, wisely.

It’s probably easier to deal with sea level rise since it’s slow motion. If there’s a Fukushima every year.. wow.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#218

Post by rswskg »

adrianN wrote: post #109
phh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though there are political reasons, the biggest reason is... we had enough reactors for our own usage. We built them so fast, that even if we had cross-partisan will to keep forever using nuclear, we'd still have 30-40 years of gap without making any new reactor. And after a generation of engineers, we need to make reactors again and we're basically doing it from scratch again. There are other reasons: people's…

Only a third of France's primary power consumption comes from nuclear. That's a long way to go to carbon neutrality.

Not including transport? That's awful.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#219

Post by Manuel_D »

jeffbee wrote: post #199
losvedir wrote: post #166

One thing I don't understand is the uninhabitable zone around Chernobyl is not that big, and the U.S. has plenty of space. And electricity can be transmitted decently far, right? So... is it unreasonable to have lots of fairly low-regulated nuclear power plants in, say, 50 mile uninhabited areas (maybe even make it a nature preserve or something for animals)? And if one or two meltdown, oh well?

If you're willing to dedicate that much land you could just cover it in solar panels and generate 1500GW of peak electricity for less money.

Except those solar panels generate energy intermittently. Not just in the short term due to the day/night cycle, but also over the long term with weather and seasonal shifts.

Nuclear is unique in that it's the only geographically independent, and non-intermittent energy source. Hydroelectricity and geothermal are non-intermittent but are geographically dependent. And also fossil fuels, but those emit carbon dioxide.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#220

Post by sofixa »

phh wrote: post #124
ohgodplsno wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> We know what to do, every single scientist from the ASN knows what to do, every economist knows what to do. The ones who underestimated Flamanville's cost by 80%? (and it's still not in production) Let's maybe not trust them completely, and have our eggs in other baskets as well.

> The ones who underestimated Flamanville's cost by 80%? (and it's still not in production)

It's an entirely new design of a complicated piece of technology, of course it will be over budget and delayed. Grand Paris Express and the Paris Philharmonic were also over budget and delayed, does that invalidate the opinion of all experts involved in both projects?

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