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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

#251

Post by BurningFrog »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #239
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…

> It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. What part of this entire discussion has anything do to with science? Is anyone actually contesting the science? Is it a discussion about the number of orbitals of uranium atoms? Or is it a discussion on which entities handle the long-term financials obligations, whether we favor or not decentralized grids, whether we favor short term or longer…

A lot of the anti-nuclear opinion is passionately opposed to scientific analysis.

They're convinced Chernobyl can happen again, and that scientists are arrogantly playing god when they explain what can and can't happen

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#252

Post by denton-scratch »

floxy wrote: post #232
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…

>No nuclear power plant has ever been fully decommissioned. Trojan? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant

WP says the plant has been "largely decommissioned". To my reading, that means the same as "not decommissioned yet".

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#253

Post by yrgulation »

kergonath wrote: post #209
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 did my PhD at the French nuclear energy agency Cheers from Saclay! :) To be fair, Germans always (in the recent past anyway) cared more about environment issues in general. Recycling, cycling instead of driving, things like that. It was not mainstream in France until fairly recently. But yeah, the lack of understanding of scientific and technical aspects of energy production from a supposed nation of engineers is…

A shame german carmakers didnt care much.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#254

Post by doe88 »

kergonath wrote: post #220
doe88 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's evident nuclear sentiment is not great in germany, from my point of view, I wouldn't characterize it as great in france either. Sadly, I think in this domain (as in many) france lives with the infrastructure and build of its past and currently fails to invest for its future, it's more managing decline than anything else. I think as current nuclear plants become older and mismatch between current needs and…

> While it's evident nuclear sentiment is not great in germany, from my point of view, I wouldn't characterize as great in france either I think it is changing. Both the IPCC and the ERDF reports were unambiguous and politicians and technocrats who were paying attention noticed. Now, skyrocketing gas prices are a warning shot. A blackout or a brownout could completely change public opinion (not that si would welcome…

> That’s why building a series of EPR would be a good thing long-term, as it would provide some justifications to train new engineers and a refreshed skilled workforce.

Also very true. The most difficult is most likelihy to build the first one, reacquire the supply-chain, engineering, knowhow, then, you can build the next ones at scale, certainly with both an economy of time and money.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#255

Post by lwswl »

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…

Money->safety is not a provable claim

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#256

Post by ch4s3 »

DennisP wrote: post #201
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

The US government made nuclear plants pay into a fund for long-term waste storage. Last I saw, that fund had accumulated over $40 billion. But since the Yucca Mountain facility was canceled, the government never provided the waste storage they were charging for. It's not surprising if nuclear operators don't want to pay twice.

Not only that, congress mandated that Yucca Mountain is the only allowable site, and has also prevented its use…

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#257

Post by k__ »

BurningFrog wrote: post #251
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. What part of this entire discussion has anything do to with science? Is anyone actually contesting the science? Is it a discussion about the number of orbitals of uranium atoms? Or is it a discussion on which entities handle the long-term financials obligations, whether we favor or not decentralized grids, whether we favor short term or longer…

A lot of the anti-nuclear opinion is passionately opposed to scientific analysis. They're convinced Chernobyl can happen again, and that scientists are arrogantly playing god when they explain what can and can't happen

The last time I heard a physicist evaluate nuclear, it didn't look like any notable improvements happened in the last 20 years.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#258

Post by toyg »

logicchains wrote: post #241
mort96 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And they are still paying the price for it. https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/hiroshima-and-nagasaki

They were "lucky", btw: "since the bombs were detonated so far above the ground, there was very little contamination—especially in contrast to nuclear test sites such as those in Nevada"

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#259

Post by denton-scratch »

the_gipsy wrote: post #228
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…

> 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. Is this really a problem, though?

Well, I think nuclear waste is a problem. It's highly toxic, and there's no process for detoxifying it. It has to be "got rid of", somehow, or put somewhere that humans can't accidentally encounter it. And it remains dangerous roughly forever, in terms of the span of a human civilisation.

200 years is sorta manageable, I suppose, if you have the resources and longevity of a nation state. You can bury it under a mountain, and set a battalion of armed orcs to guard it. But nation states can change their minds; whether the cost of hiring those orcs is money well-spent is a political decision, and the politicians responsible may not have "the long view" in mind.

I think nuclear power can be done safely; but I don't think that's possible as long as the task is overseen by profit-making corporations or short-termist governments. And I don't see who else can do it.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#260

Post by jseliger »

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…

Assuming this question is made in good faith: air pollution as generated from coal and methane ("natural gas") is really bad and much worse than previously realized: https://patrickcollison.com/pollution.

The literature on it is credible: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/12/wh...

Nuclear produces no air pollution. It produces no direct greenhouse gases. The actual amount of centuries-long waste is tiny: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c..., particularly compared to other industrial activities.

People have some kind of aesthetic / disproportionate fear-based response to nuclear and ignore the deaths that occur due to combusting coal and methane. Most people can't or won't think numerically but we should also try to do better.

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