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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

#591

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

JanSt wrote: post #31
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…

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…

What's happening in Germany is unfortunate, But I feel that while rebutting the statements of Anti-Nuclear Energy institutions with science people often forget that in the end humans run the reactors and the safety/efficacy of a Nuclear reactor also depends upon the people who run it i.e. even the stringent of safety protocols & design choices can be rendered useless by corrupt imbeciles(As we've seen in the past).

So we should be careful in appropriating the overwhelming evidence of Nuclear Energy being safe and efficient to reactor in X vs Y.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#592

Post by nix23 »

988747 wrote: post #268
bloak wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal: C + O2 -> CO2 Gas: CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O I don't know off hand exactly how many joules of energy (heat) are produced per mole in each case but it's not surprising that gas gives more joules per mole of CO2: it's a bit like you're burning hydrogen at the same time. EDIT: It's relevant that O-H bonds are stronger than C-H bonds, presumably.

You also need to consider that H2O itself is also a greenhouse gas, much worse than CO2, although much easier to remove from atmosphere.

>H2O

Water...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#593

Post by blablabla123 »

belorn wrote: post #577
blablabla123 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

I mean there's a law for coal power in Germany, already since decades but the new add-on codifies that. They might be doing worse than France in terms of CO2 emissions per capita but far better than the US.

Since cost is mentioned:

"The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189."

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSK...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#594

Post by touisteur »

ricardobayes wrote: post #335
touisteur wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the engineering know-how isn't there as much. When you haven't actually built a plant in 30 years and all the experienced building and designer engineers have moved on, you don't actually know how to build one any more. I feel the delays on the new projects are mostly caused by lack of experience, lack of clarity on actual risks, a lot of second system syndrome (we're doing it right this time , say the mainta…

Hungary is just building one right now.

That's great news. I wish the European nuclear industry would have always 10 of these projects running at any time, so we could continuously learn, train and improve ever-so-slightly the designs.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#595

Post by nixass »

oezi wrote: post #511
arcticbull wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Still nuclear is finished everywhere (or on the way out except in China) and won't come back from the grave. It is like asking for cars from the 70ties to return.

No, the nuclear from the 70s won't come back. Modern ones will.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#596

Post by pfdietz »

bloak wrote: post #203
adolph wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gas emits so little CO2 compared to coal At a molecular level this doesn't make sense to me. The fundamental carbon cycle value proposition is to harvest energy released when a carbon atom (re)joins two oxygens. For the same energy, how would methane and coal produce different amounts of CO2? That said, I can see how the oxygen reaction would be less efficient and create more byproducts (i.e. acid rain) using coal…

Coal: C + O2 -> CO2 Gas: CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O I don't know off hand exactly how many joules of energy (heat) are produced per mole in each case but it's not surprising that gas gives more joules per mole of CO2: it's a bit like you're burning hydrogen at the same time. EDIT: It's relevant that O-H bonds are stronger than C-H bonds, presumably.

Coal is more like CH on average.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#597

Post by pfdietz »

CardenB wrote: post #432
potatoz2 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you’re saying, but it seems impossible to prove it literally cannot happen if you just assume every safety system we put in place all fail at once, which is _possible_ I guess. We live with worse tail risks daily though: we have nuclear weapons in the center of Europe (could be misused, there could be an accident, etc.), we have labs that handle or create deadly pathogens (there could be a leak, etc.), we…

That’s a very fair argument. One consideration that comes to mind is if the scale necessary for operating nuclear is much greater than the examples you cited? Thinking out loud, without taking a stance on either side, it seems we would need to scale nuclear power to the hands of many lesser qualified people than in the cases you mentioned, which would push the tail risk much harder. That said, I haven’t thought deepl…

Scaling nuclear to power the world would also likely require extensive use of breeder reactors.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#598

Post by MagnumOpus »

yongjik wrote: post #422
Patrol8394 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's talk Fukushima ?

Fukushima also coincided with the largest earthquake Japan has ever seen (which caused Fukushima incident itself and complicated evacuation efforts). The expected death toll ranges between several hundred and several thousands. By comparison, vehicle emission is expected cause ~20,000 premature deaths in the US, every year [1]. (Sorry, I couldn't find a stat for Japan.) In other words, mankind's second worst nuclear…

> mankind's second worst nuclear disaster killed about as many people as vehicle emission kills in the US every month.

In fact the tsunami killed 20,000 people - and would have done so regardless of whether there was a power plant accident. The nuclear accident killed one person.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#599

Post by origin_path »

988747 wrote: post #282
origin_path wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the waste just be ejected into space. SpaceX has made launches a lot cheaper than it once was and once you push it into the solar system it'll never cause problems again.

Putting few tons of radioactive material on top of dozens of tons of highly explosive rocket fuel... what could possibly go wrong?

Compared to keeping it on earth, or putting it in the ocean, where there are also many things that can go wrong? Yes, launches can explode, but it's very rare, getting rarer and presumably these rockets could be launched from small islands where if there's an explosion the fallout would mostly be over the ocean.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#600

Post by denton-scratch »

frafra wrote: post #470
denton-scratch wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There were no plans and decisions on the taxonomy regarding gas or nuclear before, which is part of the Commission action plan on financing sustainable growth. The taxonomy still needs a final vote to pass, actually, and it does not replace any previous taxonomy or regulation. Check your sources before moving accusations.

The previous "taxonomy" was the default understanding, that "green" doesn't include burning methane.
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