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Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

bloomberg.com

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Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#111

Post by MichaelCollins »

locallost wrote: post #98
MichaelCollins wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that, you're probably in a cult. The most extreme climate models don't predict anything you could reasonably characterize as "won't be a planet left."

I am in the cult of "living in the present, where one part of the world has experienced one of the severest droughts in the history of mankind, and the other the worst floods". Recently I joined a second cult called "it's only going to get worse". So what the heck, we've got money and time for expensive solutions that take forever to finish.

> where one part of the world has experienced one of the severest droughts in the history of mankind, and the other the worst floods".

Nothing happening today, extrapolated out to 20 years with the most severe climate models, will be severe enough to cause the "end of the world". Anybody who's telling you we'll have total societal collapse by 2042 is out of touch with reality. The only way for things to go that badly that fast is for Earth to be hit by something big from space, but that is very unlikely to happen in any given 20 year period.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#112

Post by LightG »

One question for nuclear advocates, as I know it's full on-trend at the moment:

What's to stop adversaries holding countries to ransom using their nucealer facilities?

Just like Russia is playing "games" around the Ukranian nuclear plant? What's to stop that being used as the new threat? We won't turn your gas off, we'll threaten your nuclear plants?

Genuine question.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#113

Post by MichaelCollins »

naillo wrote: post #82
MichaelCollins wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that, you're probably in a cult. The most extreme climate models don't predict anything you could reasonably characterize as "won't be a planet left."

Not to start this whole flamewar but I was totally in the other camp (not yours) and then covid hit and now my trust in consensus science is super worn out and have basically started to believe it might be fine.

The "consensus science" doesn't say anything about the "end of the world" or societal collapse in 20 years.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#114

Post by froh »

oifjsidjf wrote: post #41
froh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Angela Merkel holds a PhD in quantum physics. she stands by her cabinets decision to leave nuclear energy in densely populated Germany, as per a recent interview. renewables will provide for 80% of Germanies energy needs by 2030, and close enough to 100% in 2050.

How exactly will you be 100% renewable during a cloudy and windless period with solar and wind?

Dunkelflaute is 0.5% - 1.5% of the year and most of the events last shorter than 24h

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute

in my book 98.5% easily fits the bill of "close to 100%"

so the answer is exactly what we do today: have a reserve capacity. part of that may even be traditional peaker power plants that remain turned off most of the year just like today.

I'd be curious about climate data on the distribution of Dunkelflaute duration, by region.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#115

Post by ncmncm »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #18
_Microft wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the economics of nuclear power somehow more favorable in Sweden? That seems to be the major issue elsewhere from what I understand.

They aren't better in Sweden. The right's support for it is not really related to the costs. I'm personally curious how it's going to pan out considering the right-wing parties claimed they'd be against state subsidies.

The single most reliable feature of all right-wing parties is that they are against state subsidies unless the subsidies are directed into their own pockets.

They are singularly skilled at directing subsidies reliably into their own pockets. Nukes and military procurement have worked well for that in past decades.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#116

Post by froh »

capitainenemo wrote: post #9
froh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Angela Merkel holds a PhD in quantum physics. she stands by her cabinets decision to leave nuclear energy in densely populated Germany, as per a recent interview. renewables will provide for 80% of Germanies energy needs by 2030, and close enough to 100% in 2050.

The last I read into Germany's plan to be "100%" renewable, it was using other countries in Europe to provide the base load using their hydro and nuclear. Which is great so long as they have excess to provide Germany I suppose. There does not seem to be nearly enough construction of pumped storage or battery to cover the unevenness of German wind power. In fact, their prices have gone negative repeatedly in the past,…

> we'll pay anyone to take this power before the grid blows up

that's not how that works.

also:

Dunkelflaute is 0.5% - 1.5% per year and only very rarely for longer than 24h. peaker power plants are turned off most of the time today and a combination of those and decentralized battery storage will easily buffer Dunkelflaute in Germany.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkelflaute

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#117

Post by Isolus »

capitainenemo wrote: post #9
froh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Angela Merkel holds a PhD in quantum physics. she stands by her cabinets decision to leave nuclear energy in densely populated Germany, as per a recent interview. renewables will provide for 80% of Germanies energy needs by 2030, and close enough to 100% in 2050.

The last I read into Germany's plan to be "100%" renewable, it was using other countries in Europe to provide the base load using their hydro and nuclear. Which is great so long as they have excess to provide Germany I suppose. There does not seem to be nearly enough construction of pumped storage or battery to cover the unevenness of German wind power. In fact, their prices have gone negative repeatedly in the past,…

In fact, many believe that storage as hydrogen shows promise. There are many test plants for this right now in areas with a lot of wind and connection to the national gas grid.

The idea is that the hydrogen can then be used in existing gas power plants.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#118

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

ncmncm wrote: post #108
nathanaldensr wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sun doesn't shine, especially at useful angles, enough and battery technology at scale isn't there. We absolutely need nuclear, essentially no matter the cost, assuming populations of certain countries don't want to use coal.

The overwhelming majority of utility scale storage will not be in batteries, so battery technology does not matter. The sun does, in fact, shine far, far more than enough.

Ok, I'll bite.

What type of utility scale storage isn't a battery? The answer is, of course: any energy storage setup is a battery[1].

A more generous interpretation of your comment is that you meant won't be chemical batteries.

In which case, I'll bite: what then?

1. Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time[1] to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#119

Post by AtNightWeCode »

The funny thing about a country like Sweden is that their energy problem is 100% based on energy exports to the EU market. Sweden produces way more electricity than it needs at any given time. During one of the latest “crises” a single company exported energy worth several hundreds of millions Euros to other countries.

Re: Sweden’s incoming cabinet says new nuclear reactors will be built

#120

Post by ncmncm »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #106
belorn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to both sides, the electricity prices at the time when the decision was made was very different from today. We had prices in the south of sweden 2020 that was as low as around €0.02 per kw/h, compared to over €0.3 in 2022, and in 2020 the price trend was looking to be going downwards. If prices had continue to go down and let say had landed at €0.01 per kw/h this year than we would not be discussing nuclea…

It’s probably fair to say that energy demand over the next ten years will increase significantly. The anecdotes of the end of Moores law that signifies the end of electronic efficiency through miniaturization alone and the increasing adoption of energy hungry devices for personal compute or lifestyle will certainly have a multiplicative effect over time as these trends make their way through society. In such a scenar…

Energy demand will not increase in the next decade. It will, instead, fall, as it has in recent years.

Electricity demand will increase as that takes over for other energy uses that will be collapsing.

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