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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

#151

Post by progrus »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48
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…

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…

You are arguing in bad faith. As IMTDb correctly points out, these plants have become more difficult to build because of a deliberate bullying campaign - one that you are continuing here.

> Weird, it’s almost like these ideological people were listening to the experts.

Go away, bully.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#152

Post by moooo99 »

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…

I don’t really have a strong stance on the nuclear energy debate (although I highly doubt that it is as clear cut as the debates make it out to be). But I can’t really blame people for not being too excited about a technology that was first introduced to them by bombing two Japanese cities, had two worst case disasters, and was subject of the biggest arms race in history.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#153

Post by Veen »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #109
Veen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm puzzled about why nuclear is deemed less satisfactory than dependence on Putin's Russia for the energy requirements of the world's 4th biggest economy.

> dependence on Putin's Russia First, it's Russia, not Putin's Russia. It's derogatory to frame discussion like that. Should we also start putting "Biden's USA" and "Macron's France"? Just writing this way, and suddenly both USA and France appear like some fourth world banana republics. Second, both Russia and Soviet Union before were the most reliable energy partner. They didn't fail their obligations a single time.…

No post body was provided.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#154

Post by willcipriano »

You know how I know environmentalists are just dragging their feet on nuclear for ideological reasons?

When we talk about a storage facility for nuclear waste, a scenario they insist you prepare for: if human civilization completely collapses to the point that any of the currently spoken languages on earth are no longer able to be read how to we keep the, whatever comes after us, from busting up the concrete and digging down deep into the earth and playing with it. That's the last gasp of someone out of obstructionist ideas. I've had these people tell me that launching the waste into the sun would be dangerous for the sun, they aren't serious and need to be ignored.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warn...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#155

Post by Swenrekcah »

ben_w wrote: post #149
Swenrekcah wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s true it’s expensive. But 1. a large part of that is regulatory expenses not inherent to the technology, and 2. are we sure it is uneconomically expensive after taking into account the expenses spared by not completely fucking up our climate stability?

1. then it would be even less politically acceptable, which is already the biggest problem. 2. yes we are sure, because even current green tech — PV and "enough" batteries — is already cost-competitive with nuclear, and we have good reasons to expect both PV and storage to get cheaper.

I doubt it’s a good strategy to put all our eggs in a photovoltaic basket.

I love PV tech, I think it’s incredibly useful for small and medium scale self sustainability. And yes, in many areas it makes sense to dedicate a bunch of space to PVs and energy storage.

But PV is inherently intermittent and unless you massively overbuild capacity you’ll always face a weather threat.

Until we manage to harness nuclear fusion we’ll need nuclear fission along with hydropower to be the backbone of our energy generation.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#156

Post by bluGill »

blub wrote: post #103
agapon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredibly short-sighted. Soviets pulling out of Eastern Germany, the collapse of the GDR, the Warsaw Pact, the USSR has very little to do with the energy imports. One might even argue that the USSR would collapse economically even earlier if not for all the currency it got from oil and gas sales.

Having a relationship based on mutually beneficial economic exchanges is an important reason why one would treat their economic partner nicely. It’s perhaps not the reason, but it is a reason. Given how peacefully it collapsed and the huge potential for mayhem, I’d stay away from altering the timeline.

We have no idea what the alternate histories would look like. We can guess - yours is a reasonable guess - but it is all guesses. I can come up with reasons thing would things went far worse, and if you think a little you should be able to as well - they may be somewhat unlikely, but that is all the more we can say.

What we do know is where we are today: Russia is not playing nice with the world despite our attempts to have beneficial economic exchanges. Would the not play nice with USSR scenarios be worse - we have no real idea.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#157

Post by jpgvm »

chrsw wrote: post #141
jpgvm wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear safety in war time is unproven sure but I would argue that a nuclear power plant is much less dangerous than a hydro dam. Imagine a strike on Three Gorges Dam, at minimum millions would die, without needing to use a nuclear weapon. Sure it's a tough pile of concrete, but that is exactly what a nuclear power plant is too. Nuclear fuel is a non-issue if it was profitable to mine it. Australia has vast supplies…

Nuclear definitely has a PR problem and I don't have enough background in the science to claim how unfounded the problem actually is. But what I do have are memories of how people react to anything nuclear related. All it takes is one high profile incident and all the political capital spent on selling nuclear as an attractive option to the public vanishes instantly. I don't know why other energy sources don't seem t…

For the same reason why people turn a blind eye to oil, coal, guns, alcohol and cigarettes yet have a problem with cannabis, abortions, nuclear power, gun control and until recently electric cars.

PR/marketing trumps all because people aren't sufficiently educated in science and statistics to understand what represents risk vs what is feasible, etc.

Because they can't interpret the data themselves they defer to media and public figures and unfortunately in our world those people aren't incentivised to present things honestly - even in the rare cases they are educated enough to do so.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#158

Post by tut-urut-utut »

mcv wrote: post #125
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dependence on Putin's Russia First, it's Russia, not Putin's Russia. It's derogatory to frame discussion like that. Should we also start putting "Biden's USA" and "Macron's France"? Just writing this way, and suddenly both USA and France appear like some fourth world banana republics. Second, both Russia and Soviet Union before were the most reliable energy partner. They didn't fail their obligations a single time.…

Putin's power in Russia is a lot more absolute than Biden's in the US or Macron's in France. And especially with his war against Ukraine and general hatred of democracy, Putin is relevant. The EU would have had less problems buying gas from Yeltsin's Russia. In fact, that's how we got into this situation; Russia was supposed to be on the road to becoming a normal, open democracy. And then Putin changed course.

Demonizing an enemy by personalisation and reduction to one evil dictator is a known propaganda / manipulation technique.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonizing_the_enemy#Personifi...

This has always been a standard operation model for the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...

So yes, Putin's Russia is used intentionally to introduce the same feeling as Hitler's Germany. That's the way how Biden's USA works, supported by Ursula von der Layens EU, Stoltenberg's NATO and their minions.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#159

Post by ZeroGravitas »

ch4s3 wrote: post #144
denton-scratch wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bu…

In the US operators pay into a fund for decommissioning. >No nuclear power plant has ever been fully decommissioned. There have been 10 plants in the US that have been fully decommissioned[1]. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=33792

"fully decommissioned" by some somewhat unintuitive definitions:

> The DOE was required by contract and statute to begin removing spent nuclear fuel and GTCC waste by January 31, 1998. To date, the DOE has not removed any spent fuel or GTCC waste from the CY site, and it is unknown when it will.

The current 'plan' is for the companies looking after the waste on the original site to sue the government every few years to get paid for looking after the waste.

http://connyankee.com/

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#160

Post by henearkr »

jpgvm wrote: post #157
chrsw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear definitely has a PR problem and I don't have enough background in the science to claim how unfounded the problem actually is. But what I do have are memories of how people react to anything nuclear related. All it takes is one high profile incident and all the political capital spent on selling nuclear as an attractive option to the public vanishes instantly. I don't know why other energy sources don't seem t…

For the same reason why people turn a blind eye to oil, coal, guns, alcohol and cigarettes yet have a problem with cannabis, abortions, nuclear power, gun control and until recently electric cars. PR/marketing trumps all because people aren't sufficiently educated in science and statistics to understand what represents risk vs what is feasible, etc. Because they can't interpret the data themselves they defer to media…

Well it depends on the country.

In France for example, people who are anti-abortion, anti-cannabis, anti-EV, etc (most often those are Conservative people) are also anti-wind-turbines and pro-nuclear.

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