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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#571

Post by JacobiX »

blackoil wrote: post #428
onethought wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren’t they base load? If every country over provisioned renewables, then you have a transmission problem not a storage problem. The sun does always shine, the wind does always blow.

Not sure how much Europe would like to be dependent on Russia, Libya, Turkey ... for the energy requirements.

As I understand from reading Vaclav Smil's “How the World Really Works”. Replacing fossil fuels by renewables isn't simple: "we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life, and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon, and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years."

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#572

Post by LorenPechtel »

pfdietz wrote: post #460
endominus wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, how about; it's safer than literally every other method of energy production? Less deaths per thousand terawatt-hours produced (90) than wind (150), solar (440), or hydroelectric (1400). https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

I already addressed that argument. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32295591 If a statistical human life is worth $9 M, then 440 deaths per thousand TWh adds $0.004/kWh to the cost of solar. This cannot overcome the large cost advantage solar and wind have over nuclear in most places (even with storage costs included). Also, the 440 figure is, I believe, assuming rooftop solar. At scale to power the world solar w…

You can't count solar or wind deaths at present because neither is a viable power system.

To count deaths you need to look at a whole system--solar, wind + the gas plants that cover the gaps, or the hypothetical storage system that covers the gaps. Since we can't count deaths from a tech that doesn't even exist it's solar + wind + gas -- and most of those deaths will be from the gas.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#573

Post by pvaldes »

jefftk wrote: post #140
lstodd wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rio Doce was 43.7 million cubic metres and 18 deaths. If someone blows up Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, it'll be about 18e9 m3, hundreds of thousands dead, wholesale destruction of everything downstream, shutdown of every energy plant that uses the resevoir for cooling, not to mention the hydroelectic station, and untold damage when winds blow the exposed sediment all over the steppe. Which is one of the most productive a…

> This Kakhovka dam is a legitimate military target Not under the Geneva Convention "Works and installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population." https://ihl…

After thousands of war crimes identified, Russians have let crystal clear that they piss on the Geneva Convention.

They have violated yet the Geneva convention (and its laws that oblige to hummanitary treatment of civils in a war) countless times in a few months, and at a level rarely seen before.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#574

Post by belorn »

ianleighton wrote: post #551
belorn wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a single existing pump storage plant in the world that charge with renewables energy and resells it when demand is high. There exist a few proof of concepts, but the only commercial one that I know off do so by charging it from fossil fuel power plants. It act as a large subsidized grid stabilizer for when different fossil fuel power power down. When there are articles about pumped storage plants the usua…

Would this satisfy your criteria? Or are you looking for someone explicitly pairing pumped hydro with other renewables? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal... This was probably made possible by the half-dozen pumped storage hydro plants in Portugal. Now they’re putting floating solar on some as well.

hydro-generated electricity is great, and if they are pumped using renewable energy when supply is high then in theory they could be used to supply that energy when supply is low.

But thanks for that link. Tâmega energy storage complex is actually looking like it will be a real renewable storage, using two attached wind farms. Just like with solar, when renewable is combined with storage it makes more sense when the renewable plants is located next to the storage and operated by the same company.

It would be really interesting to hear some numbers from that plant, like how much money they gain by storing the wind power and selling it at a later point in time. It would also be very interesting to see the cost per kw/h, even through at this point in time with energy prices being what they are, I will likely not matter too much.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#575

Post by mbar84 »

ncmncm wrote: post #468
mbar84 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the market decide. You may be right and I wish you well if you're basing investment decisions on your projections. It does not seem plausible to me that nuclear would be uncompetitive on a free market. There are cost curves and economies of scale that may not be visible due to the regulatory burden and regulatory uncertainty.

Nukes have never been competitive. Every last nuke ever built depended utterly on subsidy coerced from taxpayers or ratepayers.

Then so be it, that's perfectly fine. I'm the last to say people should throw their money out the window when there are better options around.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#576

Post by [deleted] »

JacobiX wrote: post #571
blackoil wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how much Europe would like to be dependent on Russia, Libya, Turkey ... for the energy requirements.

As I understand from reading Vaclav Smil's “How the World Really Works”. Replacing fossil fuels by renewables isn't simple: "we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific advances, quality of life, and prosperity rest on the combustion of huge quantities of fossil carbon, and we cannot simply walk away from this critical determinant of our fortunes in a few decades, never mind years."

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#577

Post by mcronce »

ncmncm wrote: post #474
cycomanic wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is funny how the same people (the nuclear lobby) who used to argue against solar due to economics (too expensive) are now arguing we should not consider economics anymore. The thing is though, at the moment most countries still produce significant portions of their elecricity from fossils. So if we want to remove them as quickly as possible, we should use the solution that gives us the highest capacity for a fixed…

Coal producers love every nuke project: that represents a solid decade more sales, vs. wind or solar that would start displacing coal immediately, several times as much in the end for the same investment, and then radically less opex.

This isn't really accurate. There's a reason that fossil fuel companies/executives "embrace" intermittent renewables while running decades-long smear campaigns to turn public opinion against nuclear.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#578

Post by mcronce »

cycomanic wrote: post #304
mcronce wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presupposes that economics are the most important thing. That isn't really the case. It doesn't matter how much money you have when the climate burns to the ground around you, while energy sources that work when they want to fail to provide for your needs.

It is funny how the same people (the nuclear lobby) who used to argue against solar due to economics (too expensive) are now arguing we should not consider economics anymore. The thing is though, at the moment most countries still produce significant portions of their elecricity from fossils. So if we want to remove them as quickly as possible, we should use the solution that gives us the highest capacity for a fixed…

How does building overcapacity help when those sources aren't producing at all?

Building overcapacity is required with storage. It doesn't help without storage.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#579

Post by crmd »

brutusborn wrote: post #196
crmd wrote: post #47

The most interesting thing in the article for me was that the 250 reactors needed to power Europe would produce 1.3 cubic kilometers of nuclear waste per year. That’s actually way more waste volume than I assumed. I wonder what the figure is for the United States.

I couldn't find that number. Is it hidden in the figures or did you calculate it off something?

Those exact numbers are cited in the last paragraph of the article.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#580

Post by loup-vaillant »

ncmncm wrote: post #431
loup-vaillant wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Not sure about the rest of the world, but in the EU we basically maxed out those years (decades?) ago. We won't be getting much more. (I mean, without actual mountains, your pump storage plant is going to be prohibitively expensive.) > The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of energy production True. In France, we had a very recent r…

We have maxed out only hydro power dams. Pumped storage is not limited to hydro power dams. All you really need is a hill and water, although it costs less with a depression near the hilltop. No watershed needed. Actually you do not need the hill. An underground cavity suffices. And, there are numerous other cheap alternatives.

How many joules would your hill/cavity-and-water (or any of your "numerous cheap alternatives" for that matter) would hold for each dollar spent? How would that compare to actual dams? I need sources & links.

Right now I would bet on a highly unfavourable comparison to be honest. Dams have the overwhelming advantage of letting you build a relatively small wall (compared to the lake you're holding), to hold a gigantic volume of water. The mountain an the river are already there, so you don't need to build them.

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