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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

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mount…

People would be less suspicious of your motives if you would spread the same amount of panic about coal industry ash ponds -- where arsenic and heavy metals will be lethal forever rather than just for thousands of years -- or mine tailings dams which burst with alarming regularity killing more people and devastating more square milege annually than nuclear waste ever did or will.

As is, it seems that for you, dangerous waste is a deal breaker for something you are ideologically opposed to, but perfectly fine in other areas.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#602
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was born in 1914; they didn't invent nuclear power until he was 40. It wasn't until the early 2000s that there was consensus that coal and gas caused pollution that was a very serious problem, if you set aside the smogs of the early 50s. My grandparents were from the era of steam-powered mills; I doubt the word "pollution" had been coined before they died. I'm pretty sure the term "ecology" dates from the m…

The term pollution dates back to the 14th Century...

Thank you, I am now better-informed.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mount…

People would be less suspicious of your motives if you would spread the same amount of panic about coal industry ash ponds -- where arsenic and heavy metals will be lethal forever rather than just for thousands of years -- or mine tailings dams which burst with alarming regularity killing more people and devastating more square milege annually than nuclear waste ever did or will. As is, it seems that for you, dangero…

I am from the UK. Our coal industry was almost completely destroyed by Margaret Thatcher. For many years, the notion of digging new pits has not been on the agenda. There is now a pit waiting for planning permission, but I don't think it will succeed (I hope not).

Meanwhile plans to get some foreign company to build giant new nukes here are pressing ahead. So yeah, my focus is on the imminent threat that I can do something about, not on old mistakes that were made before I was born, that I can't do much about.

> something you are ideologically opposed to

You're the second person that has accused me of being "ideological". Is that the same as "having opinions"? That word is generally used dismissively. It should mean that I subscribe to some ideology. What ideology is it that you believe I subscribe to? How could you know whether my views on nuclear are inspired by some ideology that I've bought into wholesale, or whether they are the result of thinking things through for myself?

Feel free to ask me about my opinions, but kindly refrain from telling me what they are.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#604

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…

The death toll for the Fukushima nuclear plant (as opposed to to deaths from the tsunami) is either zero or one. There was one 80 year-old who died of lung cancer, but it's unclear whether the cause was radiation from the incident or if he'd have died of lung cancer anyway as many 80 year-old smokers in Japan do.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofialottopersio/2021/11/04/no-...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#605
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And somehow the cost of the non renewable energies that are required to deal with the volatility of wind and solar are never factored in the cost.

In 2011 ENERTRAG had a constructed a system to use a windpark to produce hydrogen and burn this in a gas/fuelcell plant. But since a change in the EEG Umlage Gesetz made them pay for their own energy produced by wind, it became unprofitable to do so. If that sounds idiotic to you, that's because the change in the EEG was created to make exactly this impossible.

I think your information is out of date. It appears the wind park with hydrogen production is still active [1].

[1] https://enertrag.com/produkte/windgas

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> - 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.

It's normal to do a general maintenance (with upgrades to recent security standard) at the end of projected lifetime and then run it for another 40 years. It's absolute - economically speaking - bullshit to destroy a mostly-good nuclear power plant. It's not like the reactor core is the only thing there, anyways - even replacing it would be much better than tearing the place down.

The worst thing is - you lose experts, and they don't train new experts. And then there's no one to bring the nuclear power plant up again, or build a new one. Lost technology...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Facts are still facts and reality is still reality. The greens are calling for a reactivation of brown coal power plants[1]. Literally the dirtiest of all energy(including coal).

You can bring up your "facts" about Germany's nuclear power plants all you want. But the green policies are part of the reason why the investment in nuclear was halted and on top of that the German Taxpayer had to foot a massive payout to nuclear plant operators for the premature exit. [2]

[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/erdgas-brau...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-utilities-nuclear...

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#608

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…

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.

Renewables literally can't beat nuclear at power generation until long term grid storage is a proven thing. We're not there yet.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#609
As with every complex problem, nuclear is a flawed option, but one that offers small advantages for a limited timeframe. Gas and nuclear will not be discarded for years. Real world applications are rarely “either/or”, but more of a market with many goods served.

But, some facts for the pro nuke crowd here:

Soon, rivers will be to warm to cool down nuclear reactors. Unless you want to kill many things living in the water, but no one proposed this, yet. And the rivers carry less and less water during summer.

The storage was never done for the full time scale necessary, so we might overlook problems. Scientific knowledge progresses, but also earths bodily nature has some surprises in stock. Like in Fukushima, where expectations/specification and real natural phenomena collided catastrophically.

Fusion and fission generate heat. While about 1 % as bad (source: minkorrekt podcast, german language only) as CO2 emissions, we still would need to compensate (even for having ideally cheap infinite fusion energy that would cause rebound effects of increased consumption) by for example using only short term tested carbon capture and storage on a global and permanent scale.

Another way to cool down earth is painting the ground brightly. Or having plants that are brighter to heat radiation than concrete and tar in urban settings. Gras required water but does an ok job. Solar power panels have the same albedo as gras, generate electricity and require water only once during construction. So at least this kind of renewable energy source, but also others, tend to have lower hidden costs and/or effects of placement in a global heating scenario.

Nowadays, wind power is so much cheaper than nuclear that that Germany imports power from denmark (with a high wind percentage) and exports it to France (where a high percentage is nuclear power).

BTW, I really like the investigation of how to harness fusion energy: the project to do this creates scientific progress and productional-and-measurement capabilities which are going hand in hand in increasing our knowledge and capabilities of gaining more knowledge with all of these tools. The Stellerator project (Wendelstein) has a great return in investment. But using this energy source could be counterproductive for a long time on this planet.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Renewables literally can't beat nuclear at power generation until long term grid storage is a proven thing. We're not there yet.

They can beat nuclear right now -- you get more CO2 reduction per $ from adding renewables than you do from adding nuclear. And you get it sooner. Little or no storage is required. By the time storage becomes necessary, the economic environment (price as a function of time) on the grid will be so hostile to new nuclear that there will be no sense even trying to pretend nuclear makes sense.
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