Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#571

Post by dimitar » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 4:16 AM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #286

dimitar wrote: post #266

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.

I would love to read more about this. Can you provide sources?

Check the sources here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_influence_on_the_peace_...

It has been claimed many times by Soviet defectors. Every defector from GRU or and high-profile officers from the KGB claimed so. It is very hard to prove, but it is so extremely serving to the USSR.

Peace meant unilateral disarmament and abandonment of nuclear technology - how convenient. Today the claims by some politicians in Europe that "aiding Ukraine prolongs the war" are a similar trope of Russian origin.

Back in the Cold War one of the policies the "Peace movement" advocated was "nuclear-free zones" in Western countries. The USSR encouraged organisations by providing funds and used its propaganda arms to aid the movement (conveniently keeping quit on its own arrangements).

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#572

Post by dimitar » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 4:26 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #537

dimitar wrote: post #266

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.

> Anti-nuclear sentiment (both environmentalist and anti-nuclear weapons) was generously sponsored by the Soviet Union. Can you back that up? > What a surprise than nowadays the same groups are serving the interests of Russia. It's actually the reactionary right that is supporting Russia these days.

There is barely a speech by Putin and Lavrov where they don't literally say something like "beginning of a radical breakdown of the US-style world order. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism"

So this is why Russia supports and is supported by all radical groups that want to change the current order - left or right.

The state it self is right-wing but you can see even anarchist organisations parroting its agenda.

Russian trolls also just stir up trouble - the same people will post extreme fake claims supposedly by BLM protesters and then right-wing conspiracy theories. They see stirring up racial and class tensions as useful because it destroys the "hypocritical liberal order" - it paralyses countries and governments so they can't do effective foreign policy.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#573

Post by dimitar » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 4:28 AM UTC

sp0ck wrote: post #413

dv_dt wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

Exactly! Plus the majority of customers for Russias nuclear tech are not in the West - they are in places like Iran, Turkey, China and some smaller countries.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#574

Post by wizofaus » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

pvaldes wrote: post #487

wizofaus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says money is a limited resource? I'd think only key things it can pay for (skilled human labour) are what're limited - you can "print" as much money as you like. We need far more people skilled in and dedicating their time toward developing low carbon energy sources. Given the number of us doing all manner of BS jobs, that doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve (even if it will necessarily take a number of ye…

If money is unlimited, then just give solar panels for free to everybody. Put it in every roof of the country and you will achieve your goals much faster

Indeed, governments should probably be subsidizing solar panels more heavily than they have been. As I said, obviously it requires the available skilled labor and capital investment to produce/install vastly more than we are currently but there are really no physical limits stopping that currently, just economical ones because the price signals are wrong.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#575

Post by blub » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 7:34 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #178

blub wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone attribute to deception what could just as easily be attributed to this relationship being beneficial for Germany (and a lot of other EU countries which are conveniently omitted from this discussion)? Energy is at the core of economic development and Germany and a bunch of other countries were able to get gas for decades.

"could just as easily be attributed to this relationship being beneficial for Germany" There is no single concience called Germany that may definitively answer the question of whether it benefits them. As is often the case, people benefetting from this relationship are not the ones paying the price when something goes wrong. For every 1 billion of economic benefit produced by this relationship, this war has destroyed…

The fact that it persisted for decades and increased in capacity is proof that it benefited Germany and the other European countries.

And you’ve noticed yourself that the benefits accrued in the EU and the costs were incurred in Ukraine. But this is oversimplifying things - the Ukraine war has other important geopolitical facets besides the admittedly important energy aspect, such as NATO expansion.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#576

Post by belorn » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 7:55 AM UTC

freshpots wrote: post #558

belorn wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are water around mines that will be toxic to human life until the sun collapse and the earth burns up. People will have to be aware of those dangers for as long human exist, unless humans mutate enough to tolerate lead and sulfur in their fresh water. How should we communicate to those people of those dangers?

Lead and sulfur are relatively easy to remove from water. Wildlife, however, will be affected by that. We have bigger issues.

We can filter it out, but unless people know that the water is toxic then they might still be harmed. How do we inform the people of the future of the dangers that contaminated fresh water has, and how do we do that for billions of years into the future?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#577

Post by belorn » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 8:06 AM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #543

belorn wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

65 billion kWh from Nuclear and 45 billion kWh from solar, actually ... 111 billion kWh from wind, 30 billion kWh from bio gas, 18 billion kWh from hydro, 156 billion kWh from coal, 65 billion kWh from gas. 25% of the total was from coal, making coal the single largest but source for energy in Germany.

I'm aware of that and it's summed up together with hydro etc. Why would you want to compare Nuclear with solar? I mean solar alone doesn't make much sense because it depends on daylight - which surely is great since most energy is used during the day and battery storage is getting increasingly deployed. But it's better to diversify and therefore rather consider the sum. > 25% of the total was from coal, making coal t…

Actually, nuclear plants can be started and be shutdown quickly. Most countries don't do that because a large portion of the investment cost is in construction rather than fuels, so lifting the rods is just a cost center unless the grid is extremely over saturated.

> Well yeah but it's getting phased out on the long-term.

Who will take responsibility for the pollution of that. Saying that it will be phased out doesn't actually mean anything. Every technology and building will at some point in the future be phased out when the time is right, the investments has been repaid, and alternative technology can out compete the old. Current solar plants that is being built today will also be phased out on the long term.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#578

Post by tut-urut-utut » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 8:14 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #179

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You might have a point if any of the other people you mention had maintained unchallenged political power for 2 decades by the expedient of murdering their political rivals.

I am just pointing out that if you use these terms, it frames the whole country in a negative sense.

Would Bush's USA, Clinton's USA, Nixon's USA, Obama's USA or POTUS X' USA work better? Because each one of the US presidents except Trump and Biden (give him some more time) is directly or indirectly responsible for more killing around the world than Putin would ever be. Hundreds of thousands (in case of some presidents even millions) people have been murdered on their direct command. Even if "Putin's Russia" is really responsible for everything that US / NATO propaganda accuses them, they still have a long way to go to reach this levels of atrocities and destruction.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#579

Post by Akronymus » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 8:16 AM UTC

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #381

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "scientific" analysis has claimed "chernobyl can't happen again" ? It would be as ridiculous as someone claiming the new Airbus XXX model can't crash. Even analysis of the type "a chernobyl will happen once every XX years" are more political in nature than scientific, since you are assuming a stable society for decades to come (i.e. no degradation in the skill level of constructors or operators, etc. -- even for…

If by "Chernobyl" you mean any nuclear accident that results in some kind of radiation release, then of course, it is a possibility as long as we build any kind of nuclear reactor. But if by "Chernobyl" we mean a massive explosion of an uncontained reactor that contaminates thousand of square kilomoters of land severely, and spreads some degree of contamination across continental areas, then it's an entirely differen…

And even if a chernobyl as in the massive explosion were to happen yearly, it'd still be much less deaths than coal, for example.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#580

Post by belorn » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 8:18 AM UTC

cure wrote: post #553

belorn wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who made those exact arguments 10-20 years ago where wrong, since those plants would have prevented a lot of coal, oil and gas from being burned. Those people have both blood and an ongoing climate crisis on their hands. Who should we blame in 10-20 from now if people still are burning coal, oil and gas? Who will take responsibility for the inaction?

> People who made those exact arguments 10-20 years ago where wrong, since those plants would have prevented a lot of coal, oil and gas from being burned. Those people have both blood and an ongoing climate crisis on their hands. Perhaps. But 10-20 years ago, solar/wind/storage was a lot more expensive and a lot less efficient. The situation is quite different now. > Who should we blame in 10-20 from now if people st…

> Realistically, there will probably still be knuckleheads who will be burning coal, oil and gas in 10-20 years from now. But hopefully they will be a very small minority.

Germany is the largest country in EU. If they are still burning coal, oil and gas in order to supply energy when the wind is low, what will we say about this "very small minority". Investors are putting a lot of money today on fossil fuel power plants that has several decades in estimated life-spans. We can wish and hope that some future technology will prove them wrong, just like climate change denials can wish and hope that scientists are all wrong.

This lead me just back to my original question. Who should we blame in 10-20 if people still are burning coal, oil and gas? If future tech won't save us, who can we blame for making this gamble and using the planet as collateral?