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Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

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Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#381

Post by Archelaos »

varajelle wrote: post #311
Archelaos wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a teenager at that time in southern Germany. Most disturbing was that news about the radioactive cloud trickled in only days after the disaster and then only very, very gradually. It were the first nice, sunny and warm days of spring, but people went outside only when absolutely necessary, because of this invisible threat. No one knew how much there was to come, where it might hit, and how long it might last[1]…

But as it turned out, this was just more fear than harm. These radiation turned out to have almost no health consequences in the population. (And 500kBq is not much. The human body is already 5kBq naturally) > What if the next accident happens not in the Soviet Union or Japan, but in one of the power plants next door? That would be terrible. But how does it compare to other terrible events such as the flood of last y…

> You were victim of the fear propaganda of the 80's,

The threat was real. It is like saying that after someone put a knife at your throat, that it was nothing, because you are still alive.

> but people today are victim of the energy crisis in Germany, which is partly caused by the choice to discontinue nuclear.

It depends how you tell the story. It was the choice to discontinue nuclear, but pospone renewables. The companies in the coal and gas energy sector were mostly identical to those in the nuclear energy sector (3 out of 4 large companies). They did not have much of a problem getting out of nuclear energy if they could stay in the coal and gas business or even expand it and pass on the financial risk of their nuclear waste disposal obligations to the taxpayer[1] -- as long as they had not to fear too much competition from renewables.

It were the very same people in industry and politics that supported nuclear whenever possible, that supported coal and gas as a replacement and constantly downplayed the impact of climate change. The people from the environmental movement who warned about all this were not politically strong enough to push through a better agenda. That is what has brought us to the current situation. Guess who I trust the most to find the best way out of this situation ...

[1] They threatend bankruptcy if not, and got away with a one-time payment of only 24,1 billion Euro.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#382

Post by evilos »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #312
evilos wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It is dangerous yes. That is the nature of the energy being so concentrated. But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need to mind nearly as much material, and it is far far easier to keep an eye on the waste. Where does the waste from coal/gas go? Into the air. It costs way more to try to contain the harms of those substances because they are the opposite of energy dense. Nuclear waste is such a tin…

> I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high. Well you couldn't because you'd have a stew of fissioning soup. But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country. > But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need…

The report that the presentation is covering goes over this in fine detail: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf

> False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants.

There's basically unlimited quantities of uranium in sea water. Plus you can breed it from thorium if you want to.

> But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country.

I highly doubt it but I'd love to see the math on that.

The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible. We don't get it from there today because demand is low and it's cheaper to get it from the ground but ocean uranium capture has been demonstrated.

Solar panels by themselves don't require a lot of rare material but they do require tons of high heat and carbon to "bake". A large part of how cheap they are today is due to the fact that they are made using coking coal in China. But of course the material constraints of the storage needed for solar/wind is the main obstacle. Until we demonstrate cheap storage at scale, wind/solar won't cut it.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#383

Post by Schroedingersat »

evilos wrote: post #382
Schroedingersat wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high. Well you couldn't because you'd have a stew of fissioning soup. But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country. > But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need…

The report that the presentation is covering goes over this in fine detail: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf > False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants. There's basically unlimited quantities of uranium in sea water. Plus you can breed it from thorium if you want to. > But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of…

> The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible.

In addition to ignoring sea uranium mining which does not exist in any meaningful way he also ignores a bunch of things which actually do exist like LiFePO4 batteries, the last 10 years of PV research, trains, LEVs and affordable offshore wind.

It also ignores things that are much more likely to exist than uranium sea mining like prussian blue batteries, AlS, iron air, perovskite solar panels and affordable tidal power (all of which are presently undergoing large scale industrialisation).

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#384

Post by Schroedingersat »

evilos wrote: post #382
Schroedingersat wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high. Well you couldn't because you'd have a stew of fissioning soup. But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of storage it's about the same size as a 4hr battery for the entire country. > But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need…

The report that the presentation is covering goes over this in fine detail: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf > False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants. There's basically unlimited quantities of uranium in sea water. Plus you can breed it from thorium if you want to. > But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of…

> I highly doubt it but I'd love to see the math on that.

It was very rough hyperbole/fermi estimate. Can't find figures for the US, so using europe.

Europe has 2.5 million m^3 of low level waste and 1.5 million m^3 that's fairly imminent from refurbishments/decommisioning and replacement (an array of 6 by 6 football fields stacked 20 yards). This is only about ~50 years, so it will go up over time.

Europe uses about 2660TWh/yr or 300GW

At 500Wh/L (high but existing) that's 4 hours for the 2.5. At 300Wh/L it's 4 hours at 4 million m^3

A lot of that waste probably doesn't need containment after a decade or two, so it's only a ballpark. (and a real battery can't be that densely packed without overheating). Conversely 5% or so of it needs multiple centuries or millenia so it would accumulate much higher.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#385

Post by napier »

ErikCorry wrote: post #60
napier wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately it's possible to use the not yet mothballed nuke plants to split H20 and inject the resulting hydrogen into the natural gas supply for use in heating systems and industrial processes. Blend specifics matter, but the necessaries are well studied and adequately well understood https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hyblend-opportunities-... .

Good luck getting that up and running at scale before the end of the winter.

People in the west have forgotten how to address scaled emergency problem sets with physical world engineering rather than the crutch of financialization so yeah, I'm as optimistic as you are. But it would be orders of magnitude less costly and easier than sticking to the status quo, and also offers a model for potentially using intermittents like wind and solar to generate H2 for injection into the NG pipeline infra. I expect we'll see Japan making pioneering strides in this area over the coming decade, but it takes more than a parallelclimate crisis, global pandemic and return of industrialised warfare to Europe to shock business leaders, politicians and the public out of cognitive dissonance and complacency evidently.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#386

Post by V__ »

arcticbull wrote: post #372
V__ wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be part of a future solution. But building new right now isn't cheap and will just take to long. In addition the old reactors are pretty expensive. I'm looking forward to see how new reactor designs and modular solutions will fare in the next few years.

> I think it will be part of a future solution. I agree completely. Along with solar, wind, hydro (+storage appropriate to each) and probably even natural gas peaker plants. > But building new right now isn't cheap and will just take to long. Yep, definitely - but it should be done. If you're interested I'd suggest listening to the most recent Odd Lots with Jigar Shah, who's in charge of the DoE loan program (~300B i…

Thanks for the podcast suggestion, will take a listen.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#387

Post by llsf »

karamanolev wrote: post #247
llsf wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost to dismantle a nuclear power plant is the same as for coal/gaz power plants. ~10% of the initial price. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

That's irrelevant to this particular discussion. I'm not talking about regular "dismantling a nuclear plant", but if 1/100 of the plants have 1000x the cleanup costs due to accidents, that changes the math. I pulled the above numbers out of my hat, they're probably wrong. I'm just adding a bit of nuance to the TCO calculation.

I was just bring a data point about dismantling. Most reactors would be extended, in US we agreed to extend to 60 years, and already some are asking to push to 80 years. Since we update and replace lots of things every over time, we end up with "newer" plant over time. Pretty much everything is new beside the pool.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#388

Post by ls15 »

Archelaos wrote: post #380
yywwbbn wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the experience of (a much, much higher number than were affected by Chernobyl) people who die every year from cancer and other diseases caused by burning fossil fuels, especially coal? Are their lives less valuable than the right of the so called environmental activists (mainly referring to the ones from the 80s and 90s) to impose their irrational views on the rest of the society? If nuclear expansion cont…

The comparison with fossile fuel is irrelevant. You must compare it with renewables. Worldwide we have roughly 10% nuclear energy for electricity. And we had roughly 20 to 25 years between nuclear disasters (Sellafield, Harrisburg, Chernobyl, Fukushima). If we had had 100% nuclear, it would mean such a disaster would occure approx. every 2 to 2.5 years. We also cannot close the books about this disasters. They still…

Statistically, the low death rates for renewables are comparable to the low death rate for nuclear. Renewables emit more greenhouse gas than nuclear:

https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Nuclear is often compared to flying: accidents can happen and are crazy scary, but on average flying is the safest way to travel.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#389

Post by evilos »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #383
evilos wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The report that the presentation is covering goes over this in fine detail: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf > False. If it's a problem for PV it's a much worse problem for existing nuclear plants. There's basically unlimited quantities of uranium in sea water. Plus you can breed it from thorium if you want to. > But once you include all the concrete and steel and low level waste that needs decades of…

> The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible. In addition to ignoring sea uranium mining which does not exist in any meaningful way he also ignores a bunch of things which actually do exist like LiFePO4 batteries, the last 1…

It doesn't exist industrially because there's no need for it. Uranium has been incredibly cheap for decades. But the cost of fuel is such a small factor in the cost of nuclear energy that you could 10x the fuel costs and the LCOE wouldn't move much at all.

LiFePO4 batteries still need lithium, and any wind turbine > 1MW requires literally tons of copper. These solutions are simply too material intensive, ie not energy dense enough.

Re: Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants

#390

Post by Schroedingersat »

evilos wrote: post #389
Schroedingersat wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author of the report I linked concludes that fission cannot be main power source of the future because of the limits of mineable uranium. However he completely ignores the ocean as a source of uranium, which is basically inexhaustible. In addition to ignoring sea uranium mining which does not exist in any meaningful way he also ignores a bunch of things which actually do exist like LiFePO4 batteries, the last 1…

It doesn't exist industrially because there's no need for it. Uranium has been incredibly cheap for decades. But the cost of fuel is such a small factor in the cost of nuclear energy that you could 10x the fuel costs and the LCOE wouldn't move much at all. LiFePO4 batteries still need lithium, and any wind turbine > 1MW requires literally tons of copper. These solutions are simply too material intensive, ie not energ…

> It doesn't exist industrially because there's no need for it. Uranium has been incredibly cheap for decades. But the cost of fuel is such a small factor in the cost of nuclear energy that you could 10x the fuel costs and the LCOE wouldn't move much at all.

That's a great way of saying 'I believe the capital and operational costs for nuclear are at least 5x as much as renewables and will stay that way'.

Fuel is $1660/kg currently using fairly generous assumptions https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

This is $5/MWh in an AP1000 and $10/MWh in lower burnup models. Once the cheap Uranium goes, that doubles. If Rio Tinto or Kazatomprom actually cleaned up their mess properly, that doubles again. Your proposed 100000km^2 sea mining operation is unlikely to be cheaper. There are subsidy free solar farms already at around $13/MWh with more normal prices being in the $30-50 range.

A vestas 660kW turbine uses around ~500kg or 3t per MW net of copper (less than a nuke plant) in the nacelle, busbars and cabinet https://www.copper.org/environment/green/casestudies/wind_en... everything else including transmission can be made from Aluminum. Bigger turbines are more mass efficient as are ones placed offshore. If you wanted to scare monger about wind, focus on the permanent magnets as that's not solved commercially yet.

PV already uses less than a tenth of this. A TopCon or Perc cell uses about 5-10x as much silver as an AP 1000, but silver plated copper metallization reduces this by a factor of 10 and is already being used in demo plants. There are also Aluminum foil backed cells being trialled commercially.

> LiFePO4 batteries still need lithium,

SIB, Fe-Air, AlS and NaS batteries do not, and supply chains for them are better developed than those for PWRs or for still-fictional mining methods.

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