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Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

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Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#111

Post by baybal2 »

JanSt wrote: post #31
ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

There are also many institutes (e.g IDW) constantly pumping out papers that conclude nuclear energy has highest costs, highest danger, will leave unsolvable toxic waste problems, renewable energy is extremely cheap, building enough storage is no problem etc. These people are constantly invited to present these „Zukunftsenergien“ as opposed to the old bad nuclear in talk shows. And yet Germany, after two decades and c…

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Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#112

Post by mschuster91 »

henearkr wrote: post #60

As I heard today again on the radio, the narrative is "to get energy whatever the weather, we cannot rely only on wind and solar". I'm surprised that they haven't heard of the possibility of energy storage . Both already available storage solutions, and the many other solutions in development, are largely enough to enable wind/solar and other renewable sources to replace fossil fuels, without relying on nuclear.

The key thing is, we need a better grid in Europe. While we do have a better grid than the US, simply measured by checking outage rates, it is nowhere near large enough to allow large scale transfer of power across the continent.

Assuming we had a decently sized cross-continental grid, it would be possible to have a lot of overcapacity in wind farms pretty much anywhere on the European coast lines - particularly in Portugal [1] and other areas with constant, strong wind power - and then transferring it to countries which do not have enough wind power.

Additionally, we could transform our industry, particularly aluminium smelters (for example, in Germany one percent of the entire power usage of the country goes to just two huge plants in Essen and Hamburg [2]) to seasonal production - basically, they would only be allowed to produce during the summer when there is enough solar power available. This will be expensive, yes, but unlike the sparsely settled US Europe simply has nowhere to store the waste of nuclear energy.

[1] https://www.evwind.es/2020/02/19/wind-energy-in-portugal-alr...

[2] https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/das-technologie-update/...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#113

Post by denton-scratch »

IMTDb wrote: post #82
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet weirdly, those non-technical people seem to have accidentally stumbled on the solution that the whole world is moving towards, while the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear and even their most ambitious goals include using less nuclear and replacing it with the stuff the ideological German's came up with, because it's better. And it wasn't that long ago that they were threatening to sc…

> the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear They haven't forgotten, they were fighting a witch-hunt orchestrated by the greens. The same eco-ideologist that ruined Germany have made it impossible to properly invest in the nuclear plants in France and to ensure knowledge and expertise is properly transmitted and developed with the younger generation. For years the message was "don't invest in nuc…

> Nuclear is here to stay for the next decades (plural).

That's the problem with nuclear; even if every nuclear power plant on the planet were shut-down today, "nuclear" would still be here to stay for at least a century or two.

No nuclear power plant has ever been fully decommissioned. Decommissioning of the first UK nuclear power plants is expected to last another century. That's being paid for by taxpayers. The builders and operators of those plants were never asked to plan or pay for decommissioning; and anyway, 200 years is a long time to expect a corporation to stay alive.

So let's be quite clear: the cost of a nuclear power plant includes the cost of decommissioning. Since decommissioning takes such a long time, you can't rely on contracts with private companies to ensure they finish the job. Decommissioning is a horrible insurance risk; never having been completed successfully, there's no reliable guide to how much it might cost.

So, step forward, the insurer of last resort: my grandchildren!

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#114

Post by kitkat_new »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

Check the data: https://www.stromdaten.info/ANALYSE/periods/index.php

- Timeframe: 01.06.2021 - 26.06.2022

- Import/Export country: Frankreich

Data:

- physical export balance 11,77 TWh

- monetary export balance: 2,13 Mrd €

- average import price/MWh: 133,71 €

- average export price/MWh: 169,91 €

It's good for Germany, not for France. Germany is selling electricity to France when prices are high, and buying when prices are low. And it is selling way more than buying.

Additionally, France is reducing the nuclear power share. Not by decommissioning working plants, but simply by not building as many new plants as would be necessary to keep the share.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#115

Post by sofixa »

herbst wrote: post #39
osuairt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thanks EU for making everything worse for no reason. Can't they just invent their own label." I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't live in Europe.

I do live in the heart of Europe but not in the EU. Best of both worlds I guess.

Europe but not EU can mean anything from Switzerland to Bosnia and Herzegovina to Moldova to Belarus, so it could be good or pretty bad.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#116

Post by sofixa »

sputr wrote: post #59

When it comes to nuclear, no story is better than the story of the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant in Austria. It was built, finished, ready to start providing 692 MW of power. But was prevented with a referendum on 5 November 1978 by a narrow majority of 50.47% against. So they didn't start it. They instead replace it with Dürnrohr Power Station, a termal power station burning coal and gas. The push for ideological…

And to top it off, Austria imports nuclear energy from neighbours.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#117

Post by dd36 »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #106
ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

The German Green party showed in multiple occasions that it's completely anti-science. They pick scientists that support their agenda, and then represent it as the one and only truth. They are basically a spiritual successor of the middle-age Catholic Church. All they talk is about sacrifice, suffering in our earthly life for better afterlife, bans, and restrictions. The only difference is that instead of God, they s…

Is it supported by the fossil fuel industry?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#118

Post by dd36 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #13
jpgvm wrote: post #2

About time. Nuclear is hardly an environmental risk even compared to the "cleaner" fossil fuels like gas. Hopefully this will allow the EU to return to competitive reactors designs instead of leaving China to pull humanities weight on that front. Though tbh I wouldn't be sad if we bought Chinese reactors until we are back up to speed, having Chinese nuclear > no nuclear. Everyone bitching about China stealing IP fina…

The problem here is that the term "green" means nothing and anything. It is always much better to define objectively what is the issue and what is the aim. It seems to me that the main issue is emissions and that the aim is therefore to reduce them as much as possible. In that context, nuclear is a perfectly valid option and probably unavoidable as things stand. Gas is 'bad' since it obviously does produce emissions…

Is it less emitting once you account for leaky wells and infrastructure?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#119

Post by ren_engineer »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

>De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party

which was funded by Russia behind the scenes, along with anti-fracking and any other alternatives to Russian fossil fuel exports.

>“I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations - environmental organisations working against shale gas - to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”

this was the former head of NATO in 2014, all of this has been known for a long time but nothing was done to prevent it

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/19/russia-s...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#120

Post by stefantalpalaru »

sputr wrote: post #59

When it comes to nuclear, no story is better than the story of the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant in Austria. It was built, finished, ready to start providing 692 MW of power. But was prevented with a referendum on 5 November 1978 by a narrow majority of 50.47% against. So they didn't start it. They instead replace it with Dürnrohr Power Station, a termal power station burning coal and gas. The push for ideological…

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