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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

#581

Post by Oberbaumbrucke »

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…

Aparently the German Green Party was started with Russian influence.

So there may be some conflict here.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#582

Post by pfdietz »

arcticbull wrote: post #414
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

The safety of nuclear assumes no nuclear accidents.

Also, at the low deaths/TWh of renewables and nuclear w.o. accidents, the "cost of deaths" (at the $9M/statistical life that the NRC uses) is swamped by the direct cost of the produced energy. So renewables continue to beat new nuclear on the cost front, w. cost of deaths added in.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#583

Post by pfdietz »

sam345 wrote: post #542
brunes wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost to store nuclear waste is $600 / kg When Starship is fully operational the expected cost to launch payload will be $20 / kg IE you can have a 30x margin of error and still just launch the nuclear waste into space.

I agree with more nuclear but blasting waste (at least highly radioactive) to space is a problem as there's always a risk the rocket explodes and spreads the radiation on earth. At least I've always understood that's the objection and seems to me reasonable. Yucca mountain type solutions seem more palatable.

You encapsulate the waste so it survives any accident. This adds some weight, but not an enormous amount of weight.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#584

Post by pvaldes »

throwawayjun21 wrote: post #561
pvaldes wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately we will never know it. The damage to homes was 36 million euro in any case, but this is not the only thing that matters really. The bad press of an European Fukushima in the year of Fukushima would have destroyed the tourism in thousands of Km of the Mediterranean Spanish Coast. Would you buy tomatoes cultured near a central nuclear that "may not have been damaged" by an earthquake?. Would you pass your h…

Same story everywhere, Not in my backyard protests. People get what they deserve.

A company designing potential catastrophes, without checking the most basic facts about the area and with no respect for all the other activities? Planning to build a nuclear plant in what is probably the most active seismic area on the Iberian peninsula (Last earthquakes registered in the area: 29 and 30 March 2022).

Yes. Not in my backyard.

Because sometimes, the plan is simply idiot and sometimes NIMBY is the correct choice.

We are doing really well forty years later with a clean ocean, a strong touristic sector (developed later, in the last two decades, so one of the last really wild areas remaining in the Mediterranean) and we have still a strong greenhouse agriculture sector. We don't need their pennies.

I hope this people had been be fired immediately after proposing the plan.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#585

Post by pfdietz »

arcticbull wrote: post #459
worik wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waste disposal is a solved problem: you put the spicy rocks back where they came from. In the Australian outback those are places people used to live. How are you going to stop people returning for 200,000 years? Greed. Hubris.

Do you think those aren't solved problems? First, fast reactors yield waste products that principally live only a couple of hundred years. [1] And even to answer your original question directly, there's a whole area of study that's fascinating on how to provide long-term warnings. [3] Not necessarily in the Australian outback, Yucca Mountain is a great choice. [2] [edit](That area is adjacent to the Nevada Test Site…

Fast reactors are also in principle subject to Chernobyl-like criticality accidents (only worse) in case of meltdowns.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#586

Post by Moldoteck »

legulere wrote: post #416
jseliger wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, for example storing old batteries full of dangerous chemicals, used for consistent energy supply is quite a challenge, or getting big amounts of lithium for those batteries. There are options of course, for example recently finished "battery" in switzerland with two big water capsules, but still there should happen many improvements in renewables and hopefully in nuclear too. Small nuclear reactors that are cheaper, easier to deploy is a promising concept too

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#587

Post by pvaldes »

WalterBright wrote: post #534
worik wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientifically, nuclear waste disposal is very much solvable problem. No it is not. There is no place on Earth that we know is geologically stable for the time periods required We have no way of knowing what society will be like ten thousand years from now, let alone 100,000 years. How do we communicate with those people bout the danger of what we left behind? Greed. Hubris.

The flora and fauna in the Chernobyl exclusion zone appear to be thriving.

In some cases, yes, in other it seems that they are sink areas that are simply constantly being nurtured with migrant animals from the surroundings (Some birds for example). Is complex.

And we need to remember that some people was poisoned just a few months ago for digging trenches in Chernobyl in the middle of a war. The danger is still there forty years later.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#588

Post by bakuninsbart »

rjzzleep wrote: post #505
Retric wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They also "pulled out" of solar early. I have idea how anyone can make sense of German policies. They seem to be working solely on the basis of emotion. The outcome is a disastrous policy that created one of the highest energy prices for consumers for no good reason. The Greens in Germany seem to be hell bent on de-industrializing Germany. They hate nuclear power and they hate all fossil fuels, but want to buy fracki…

For accusing others of being highly emotional, this post is incredibly biased and doesn't hold a fact check.

- the Greens are the party most opposed to brown coal out of all German parties.

- Gas is far less emissions intense than most other forms of fossil fuels, so it is a good transitional source of energy.

- Germanies nuclear plants were built around 40 years ago, with a lifetime in mind of 40 years. The idea of arguing they can run longer because nothing happened in the last 40 years is preposterous, and betrays a complete lack of understanding of how industry works. Not only are the designs lacking essential security features, every single part was produced with 40 year lifetime in mind.

- the three plants that where built in 87 are going to continue to run for now.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#589

Post by MagnumOpus »

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…

> That's not possible for nuclear which provides base load - in fact they need to be shut down during heat waves

Google "load following nuclear" and also read the article in Wikipedia [0]. That will help stop false information. Summary: Nuclear power plants in France and in Germany operate in load-following mode and can go from full baseload to nearly "running on idle" in 15 minutes if needed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load-following_power_plant#Nuc...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#590

Post by pvaldes »

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

> They're convinced Chernobyl can happen again

Chernobyl has happened each single year since 1986.

Has been swallowing money each single year since 1986. No exceptions. I'm really convinced that the problem will be there still in 2023. And turning much worse is also a possibility because s*t happens in a war-zone.

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