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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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, as a more near term issue, say next 1000 years, what happens in case of war? Right now number of nuclear plants are so few that each could be tracked by the world, e.g. Russia getting hold of Chernobyl area was frightening. But if there are 10 times or even 100 times more number of plants in many more countries, some country will use some other's nuclear plant to prove collateral damage, what Iraq did to Kuwait…

For thirty years people have been asking that question, telling us to use "renewables" instead. Renewables aren't getting here fast enough, we can wait another thirty years burning fossil fuels or we can start building nuclear plants now.

Renewables are getting here faster than nuclear.

At a fundamental level this is because you can mobilize a lot more manpower building renewables than you can building nuclear. A million homeowners adding solar power versus decade-long nuclear power plant projects.

During the past decade in Germany, renewables added more power generation capacity than all the remaining nuclear reactors did combined. That energy is here now, and half of it gave benefits already 5 years ago.

So I don't think it's wise to divert money from renewables and storage to build new nuclear, but keeping existing nuclear around for as long as possible is a completely different matter.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#412
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Isn't your choice of telling them false based purely on political agenda? Same happens on other side of the camp, both believe their science is actual science.

It kind of depends on what you consider a fact.

I support nuclear scientifically. I don’t think it has a chance politically.

Scientifically, nuclear waste disposal is very much solvable problem.

Politically, expect to spend billions upon billions and then have things like Yucca Mountain canned after lots of construction.

Both are true and which ones you consider lead to very different conclusions.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#413
post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-nuclear sentiment (both environmentalist and anti-nuclear weapons) was generously sponsored by the Soviet Union. What a surprise than nowadays the same groups are serving the interests of Russia. The most cynical thing is that the biggest nuclear accident in history was caused by Soviet negligence and incompetence and yet they managed to exploit it politically.

That doesn't make any sense because Russian companies are significant suppliers within the nuclear power production logistics footprint. edit: eg. https://www.wired.com/story/the-nuclear-reactors-of-the-futu...

Money Russia gets from nuclear poewr production are miniscule comparing to money from gas/oil export. _any_ expansion of nuclear energy in Europe is against Russian agenda to be major gas/oil provider. Geramany suppose to be broker of that.

For Germany cheap Nuclear energy on central/east Europe is dangerous because cheap energy = more competitive market. Add cheaper workforce and you have very dangerous mix. Read why Bulgaria was forced to shut down majority of their reactors before joining EU. Offically it was about "security". Bulgaria with cheap nuclear energy from already built power plants and cheap workforce was too "dangerous" for old EU countries. Politics is very important when discussing energy market.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#414
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Isn't your choice of telling them false based purely on political agenda? Same happens on other side of the camp, both believe their science is actual science.

Well no, we have plenty of data that shows in reality, nuclear is the safest (lowest deaths per TWh generated [1]), among the lowest-carbon intensity (lower than solar, higher than wind) [2] and with seawater extraction has the potential of being renewable.

Waste disposal is a solved problem: you put the spicy rocks back where they came from.

So-called environmentalists are advocating removing this capacity without accounting for the fact its replacement will be coal, oil and gas.

[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...

[2] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#415
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this common sense reply. The truth is Chernobyl can never happen again, and scientists are completely all-knowing when they explain what can and can't happen.

Arguing with an anti-nuclear activist is indistiguishable to arguing with an anti-vax or climate change denier. They are the same people who opposed all GMO food products despite the science.

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#416

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…

But nuclear or fossil is a false dichotomy: There are also renewables, which of course have their difficulties with intermittency but are often already now the cheapest electricity source.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For thirty years people have been asking that question, telling us to use "renewables" instead. Renewables aren't getting here fast enough, we can wait another thirty years burning fossil fuels or we can start building nuclear plants now.

Renewables are getting here faster than nuclear. At a fundamental level this is because you can mobilize a lot more manpower building renewables than you can building nuclear. A million homeowners adding solar power versus decade-long nuclear power plant projects. During the past decade in Germany, renewables added more power generation capacity than all the remaining nuclear reactors did combined. That energy is her…

> That energy is here now

Is it?

"CO2 emissions per capita in Germany are equivalent to 9.44 tons per person" [0]

"CO2 emissions per capita in France are equivalent to 5.13 tons per person" [1]

[0]https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/germany-co2-emis... & https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

[1]https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/france-co2-emiss... & https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#418

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 digg…

How many of the languages that were spoken 10000 years ago do we still speak? Launching nuclear waste in space is dangerous, not because of what it will do there but because a lot of rockets explode on their way there scattering parts as fine particles all over the world.

Modern rockets, such as the Falcon 9, have an extremely low failure rate. Falcon 9 itself has had over 160 launches, with only 1 complete failure.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#419
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree and just won't help besides fantasies. Lets not dig into the other mess again just because we never went and always deferred starting to do the right thing already 30 years back and now say: nuclear is the only way out. It isn't, it would be too late anyway, it will not scale to the world's power needs, it will cost too much.. and I just haven' touched the usual downsides of nuclear. Even some nuclear…

Nuclear is uneconomically expensive and currently looks like it may always be so, but there are ways to fairly rapidly scale it up to world demand if we really wanted to.

The economics change very fast if we disallow fossil fuel from being used in the energy grid. The current combination of using wind when the weather is optimal and natural gas/oil when demand exceed production is a very cost effective strategy, and it is this combination that has enabled energy prices at very low levels.

A large reason why nuclear has recently gain a lot of popularity is that wind + natural gas has quickly became very expensive and political damaging. One can no longer just pay Russia for cheap gas and look the other way.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#420

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…

There are at least two stances here:

1) Keeping existing nuclear power plants running and making incremental investments in them. I'm a proponent of this for the next 20-30 years because they generate carbon-free base load electricity. I don't think we have a choice given climate change - when we turn off a nuclear plant, we spin up coal and natural gas.

2) Building new nuclear plants. I'm skeptical of this - the costs don't seem to pencil out anymore and the political capital isn't there. From what I've seen we're better off investing in wind+solar+storage.

The worst-case scenarios are a real issue and I wouldn't want to bet on nuclear forever, but to me the imperative to address climate change is bigger in the near term.

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