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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

#181

Post by dane-pgp »

jpgvm wrote: post #44
pvaldes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that now there is less money for developing a grid of green energies and we need it for yesterday. Because nuclear will take a chunk of the grants, as is much more expensive to build and much more time consuming. So green energies, delayed in the last decades for political reasons, will need to wait, again. And this delay could turn to be a very bad decision in a few years.

That is just fear mongering. We have no evidence of nuclear being built in-place of cheaper renewables. Until we do it's just FUD.

Well, there is at least one study[0] (using data from 123 countries over 25 years) which found that investment in nuclear energy tends to reduce investment in renewables, while not reducing carbon emissions as much.

More research is probably needed, but I wouldn't say we have "no evidence".

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#182

Post by mcv »

origin_path wrote: post #161
mcv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an important point. Nuclear can be very safe in theory . Under the right circumstances, all risks can be accounted for (except long term waste storage, apparently). Problem is, in the hands of profit-seeking companies and aggressive and/or corrupt governments, those circumstances will not be right. Remember that both Fukushima and Deep Water Horizon were caused by companies cutting costs in the face of warnin…

Why can't the waste just be ejected into space. SpaceX has made launches a lot cheaper than it once was and once you push it into the solar system it'll never cause problems again.

Launching large amounts of nuclear material comes with its own risks, and if it orbits the sun in an earth-crossing orbit, we will eventually encounter it again. Launching into the sun would be nice, but that's way more expensive.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#183

Post by nathanaldensr »

progrus wrote: post #151
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…

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.

It's basically victim blaming. "I just punched you in the face and broke your nose. Why are you so ugly now?"

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#184

Post by littlecranky67 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #58
littlecranky67 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet Germany, after two decades and close to a trillion dollar in renewable energies, has one of the most expensive Do you have any sources? Last time I checked, Germany and France weren't that far apart, if you remove taxes out of the costs. The thing is that Germany has a lot of Taxes that have nothing todo with how we generate the electricity. I.e. 90% of the electricity tax (Stromsteuer) goes into the govern…

Technically, you're still not removing taxes from the equation, because the state owned nuclear plants in France are also funded by taxes, it's just not taxes that are added to the cost of units of electricity. Which actually makes sense, if you have a high upfront cost, constant output source iike nuclear, taxing each individual unit makes no sense since the marginal cost is effectively zero up till you need to buil…

Yes, taxes and subsidies distort the actual costs of energy production. But if you look at my example, 90% of the Stromsteuer (tax on your energy bill as a household) don't go into funding of energy production, but to stabilize the (very broken) german mandatory pension/retirment system. But yes, one could argue that it is just moving around taxes in the government spending household.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#185

Post by mcv »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #158
mcv wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's done mostly out of compassion with the average Russians who have no say in the matter. I think it's important to remind people that it's specifically Putin who wants this war, and that most Russians don't. Just like we try not to blame the average German for Hitler's mad aggression.

As many people have pointed out, comparisons to Hitler's conquests at the start of WW2 are not unjustified; Putin is using much of the same rhetoric that Hitler used. His state media is actively discussing the need for genocide. Those "same feelings as Hitler's Germany" are because the facts are far too similar.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#186

Post by nathanaldensr »

moooo99 wrote: post #152
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.

You typed your message on a binary computer, often used to calculate missile trajectories and to run nuclear fuel centrifuges.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#187

Post by mcv »

viscountchocula wrote: post #133
mcv wrote: post #122

I think it's good to recognise gas and nuclear as being preferable to coal and oil, but green they are not. I consider them transitional energy sources; we will be stuck with them for a long time while we transition to greener energy, but coal and oil need to be stopped as soon as possible. After the Fukushima disaster, Germany closed its nuclear power plants and replaced them with coal plans; absolutely the worst po…

I get why gas isn't green, but why isn't nuclear?

Nuclear waste.

Also, nuclear disasters tend to be quite dramatic, leading to birth defects and uninhabitable areas.

Nuclear is only green when you only look at CO2. CO2 is the most pressing issue right now, which is why I support nuclear as a transitional energy source on our way to greener energy, but let's not fool ourselves and pretend it's as clean as wind.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#188

Post by throw_a_grenade »

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.…

> Second, both Russia and Soviet Union before were the most reliable energy partner. They didn't fail their obligations a single time.

Sorry, this is bollocks. For more than 30 years Russia is using energy supplies as a weapon against pretty much all the eastern and central Europe.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#189

Post by breadloaf »

traspler wrote: post #171

I'm always a bit baffled by the amount of pro-nuclear comments on HN and their stance on how everyone who disagrees is just not educated enough. Please educate me: Is the waste problem solved? Are we not still fighting with all the previous attempts of handling it? Is "dig a hole in a salt deposit and keep it there" really good enough for the very, very, very long term? Are old powerplants properly decommissioned and…

I'm always a bit baffled by the amount of pro-renewables comments on HN. Is energy storage solved problem, or are people in northern latitudes going to freeze to death during winter?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#190

Post by dane-pgp »

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…

Sorry to pick up on your specific examples, but I don't know why you are classifying alcohol deaths as under-estimated and abortions as over-estimated(?).

For the record, the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics reports there are about 95,000 alcohol-related deaths in the United States annually[0], while the CDC reports over 600,000 abortions per year.[1]

It's true that someone who reads PR/marketing material is more likely to die from being hit by a drunk driver than by being aborted, but I don't think that's the point you're trying to make.

[0] https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-related-deaths/

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-da...

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