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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

#241

Post by logicchains »

mort96 wrote: post #207
Georgelemental wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is "dig a hole in a salt deposit and keep it there" really good enough for the very, very, very long term? Yes. It's not that dangerous, the whole reason it is waste is that it's no longer radioactive enough to power the plant. (And as plant technology improves, the threshold for "no longer radioactive enough" will get even lower) > Can we really claim to be able to handle worst case scenarios well (e.g. Fukushima)…

You're not gonna convince many sceptical people by looking only at death counts. How many people had to be relocated? How large of an area is now uninhabitable? How many would have died if our luck had been just a bit worse that day? Is there anything about the technology in all currently operating power plants which completely rules out a worst-case meltdown scenario? People are mainly afraid of nuclear because the…

>How many people had to be relocated? How large of an area is now uninhabitable? How many would have died if our luck had been just a bit worse that day?

_Hiroshima_ was re-inhabited just a few years later, and it was literally hit by a nuclear bomb.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#242

Post by Retric »

JanSt wrote: post #90
QuarterReptile wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that there is a transfer from nuclear to renewables of 6.5 cents/kWh for every kWh nuclear generates, or a net market distortion of 13c/kWh between the two (using the tenuous assumption of roughly equivalent capacities between the two sectors)? That's more than I pay in the US in total per kWh for electricity, generated, distributed, and taxed.

6.5ct is added to the cost of every used kwh (no matter where it comes from) and paid to the producers of renewable energy

Germany jumped into solar really early and it's very far north so it’s not that relevant when considering todays tradeoffs.

41.3 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2016 was frankly excessive though it helped PV get much cheaper. Unfortunately, Germany now stuck with these huge agreed upon subsides for another decade.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#243

Post by GuB-42 »

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…

> Is the waste problem solved?

It has never been a problem in the first place. At least not a technical problem. Sure, it is nasty stuff, to be treated with respect, but not worse than toxic chemicals we regularly deal with. It is also potentially useful stuff: rare, exotic matter that gives off energy. Compare with coal plants that also produce nuclear waste (there are radioisotopes in coal), but that waste is dumped in the air you breathe.

> Are old powerplants properly decommissioned and replaced with new ones when the time comes?

The are properly decommissioned, and it is really expensive, and that's indeed a real problem with nuclear power: it is expensive. But the thing is: nuclear plants don't have an expiration date like bottles of milk, you could potentially run them forever with regular maintenance. The reason we don't do that is that is that over time, maintenance becomes more and more expensive, parts become obsolete and stop being produced, etc... At some point it is cheaper to build a new, better plant and decommission the old one instead of spending a fortune on obsolete parts and retrofitting.

> Can we really claim to be able to handle worst case scenarios well (e.g. Fukushima)?

No, they wouldn't be worst case scenarios if we could, but we are doing our best. In the end, even with Chernobyl, nuclear power is still one of the safest per unit of energy produced. It is no excuse, Fukushima shouldn't have happened, but if the only response to an accident was to stop everything, we wouldn't do much.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#244

Post by throw_a_grenade »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #199
throw_a_grenade wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Can you give one single example when it was Russia's guilt for not delivering gas? The only time when we had issue with gas it was some ten years ago when Ukraine stopped the transit hoping to blackmail both Russia and the EU to get a better deal for themselves. Ukraine was a failed state then that couldn't pay for gas they used.

First well published incident was cutting off Estonia in 1993, right after it regained independence.

Note Russia always does something to shift the blame, usually starts "dispute" over payments. It's done because media need to report ”balanced" view, so just by reading general news it's not apparent tha this is really blackmail. Stockholm tribunal regularly disproves Russian version, it just takes time, which is what Russia is after: you can't survive winter without heating, and the final verdict won't arrive in time. So until LNG terminals and pipelines to Norway sprang around the Baltic Sea, coupled with Third Package, Eastern Europeans mostly had to yield to this blackmail.

> The only time when we had issue with gas

ISTM you live west of Oder. No one in Eastern Europe would say this.

> it was some ten years ago when Ukraine stopped the transit hoping to blackmail both Russia and the EU to get a better deal for themselves. Ukraine was a failed state then that couldn't pay for gas they used.

This is false, Ukraine wasn't "failed state". What failed was an attempt to rig an election.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#245

Post by WhompingWindows »

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 headline from HN: "Nuclear turn green" (why the typo?)

The actual headline: "Gas and Nuclear Turn Green as EU Parliament Approves New Taxonomy" (HN left out gas)

So gas is actually being considered "green" now, so calling it a "cleaner" fuel as you do is actually what they're doing.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#246

Post by denton-scratch »

frafra wrote: post #162
denton-scratch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is green energy as long as the criteria are met. That's what the EU Parliament are saying; but the truth is that the criteria are met if the criteria are met. Energy doesn't become "green" just because some bunch of lobbied and whipped politicians say it's green.

It is a definition, which is needed when you need to make plans and decisions, as in any other case. It does not mean that reality changes because of an agreement, of course, even if mixing the two might be tempting when trying to discredit politicians as a whole. That is an evergreen :)

Thing is, the plans and decisions have already been made, under a more stringent definition. By changing the definition, they have effectively undermined those earlier plans and decisions. That's dishonesty.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#247

Post by teakettle42 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #113
IMTDb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bu…

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

We’re the grandchildren of the eco-ideologists that spent the last forty years dumping coal and gas pollution into the atmosphere because they were afraid of nuclear power.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#248

Post by morning_gelato »

liftm wrote: post #194
petre wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same talk show people now talk about how we have a heat and not a power problem, so we don‘t need the nuclear power. Which is even more ridiculos because heat is the primary product of nuclear reactors. Their thermal rating of a nuclear reactor is about 3x the electrical rating.

Out of curiosity, are there any nuclear reactor cogeneration plants in operation?

Yes, for example Switzerland uses two of their nuclear power plants for district heating [1][2]. China has also started using it for district heating in Haiyang [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beznau_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Ref...

[2] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

[3] https://www.nucnet.org/news/city-of-haiyang-first-in-country...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#249

Post by teakettle42 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #224
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is exactly the idealism thats causing problems -the energy futures in germany reaches the highest price in recorded history, the industry is being decimated and it's importing gas from a tyran that has started a war on Gemany's doorstep. Without Europe's gas dollars he would not be able to fund it's millatry and 12 million ukranians would never become homeless refugees. Meanwhile you are complaining about waste…

I think that misses the point. If you reckon it's OK to leave waste lying around, especially in constrained economic and political circumstances, that's a legitimate point of view. Argue for that. But don't declare that "decommissioning" simply means something like "Do your best, and then be done with it". That's dishonest (I'm not accusing you personally of any dishonesty). If "decommissioning" doesn't mean complete…

That’s not what decommissioning means and what you’re asking for is childishly ridiculous.

How, by your definition, would you decommission the coal and gas plants we’ve been running for forty years while people like yourself threw ignorant tantrums over nuclear?

How would you “reverse all harmful results of the operation of a plant”?

How are you going to recapture all the pollution they dumped into our air, exactly?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#250

Post by logifail »

kergonath wrote: post #240
logifail wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My dream would be that france, with help of germany and other eu countries would build new reactors with an overcapacity for france alone and would then provide this energy to other ue countries. Nuclear energy is a chance and is not mutually exclusive with other energies. I think this will stay a dream. Aren't "modern" nuclear plants such as the EPR all a) very late and b) massively over budget? The EPR project is…

> Aren't "modern" nuclear plants such as the EPR all a) very late and b) massively over budget? The Finnish one was both due to epic project management failures, from bad suppliers with dodgy welds, to changing the reactor design as it was being built to accommodate future regulations. Flamanville is also late and over budget for much of the same reasons (shoddy project management and unreliable suppliers; this time…

> These sort of issues get sorted naturally if yew build in series instead of one-of-a kind

That would appear to rule out any possibility of rapid increasing nuclear generating capacity if we are going to be forced to build them one after another in order to work out how to do it well?

> The Chinese did not have any problem building two

...that they've admitted to?

> the British one is progressing more or less as planned

2022: "The nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point will start operating a year later than planned and will cost an extra £3bn, EDF has said"[0]

2021: "British Hinkley Point Nuclear Plant Delayed With Higher Costs First reactor will start producing power in June 2026. Cost will be 500 million pounds more than previously planned"[1]

2019: "Costs Rise Again for U.K. Hinkley Point Nuclear Project. Utility increases bill for Hinkley units, flags possible delay. EDF also cuts estimated return from plant to as little as 7.6%"[2]

My issue with it is more the spectacularly bad deal for the consumer that it represents. Originally the UK government insisted that "the private sector would shoulder both the development costs and risk", but then the financial crisis happened, and they ended up having to rework the deal to the benefit of EDF, who basically had them over a barrel.[3]

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-61519609 [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/edf-sees-... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/edf-raise... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/21/hinkley-point-c...

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