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Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

japannews.yomiuri.co.jp

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Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#101

Post by wewxjfq »

mpweiher wrote: post #84
wewxjfq wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hard facts are that Russia processes half of the world's uranium and no country, not even the US, could sanction their nuclear energy sector. This is the reality, not your fuel efficiency and breeder reactor hopium. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-i...

The article you cite clearly states that even the worst-case impact of Russian supplies would be minimal: "at worst, some long-term Russian supply contracts could not be executed, and that would perhaps raise the price of electricity 1 or 2 percent." World-ending.

He leaves completely open how the US electricity market would replace the missing nuclear energy. For all we know, he might expect the US to crank up their gas power plants. I fail to see how this is a win for nuclear energy.

Also, it's an US-centric article and as it's states, the US only has a 15% dependency on Russia. So you are already looking at a very favorable outlier that makes the situation look better than it actually is. Most other countries have a much greater dependency.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#103

Post by locallost »

The costs of Fukushima cleanup will end up around $200B, as estimated by the government [1], with some estimates going triple that [2].

What is doing the same thing and expecting different results?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-fukushima-costs-i...

[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi...

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#104

Post by Mawr »

emodendroket wrote: post #60
simondotau wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not you support nuclear power, being “scared” of it is an admission of ignorance and indicative of short-term reactionary thinking. It ought to be a source of national shame, not pride. With apologies to Yoda, fear is the path to the dark ages.

Do you think we evolved fear by accident? If I were handling a venomous snake I'd be scared to be bit and rightly so. There's no reason to be proud of being heedless of risk.

I'm more afraid of flying than driving despite knowing the numbers involved. Irrational fear is nothing to be proud of.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#105

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

locallost wrote: post #103

The costs of Fukushima cleanup will end up around $200B, as estimated by the government [1], with some estimates going triple that [2]. What is doing the same thing and expecting different results? [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-fukushima-costs-i... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi...

Presumably they won’t be using designs from the 1960’s.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#106

Post by wizofaus »

bsaul wrote: post #100
lucb1e wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone in Germany but not German, this aspect of Germany is bizarre to me. You have green energy already and instead of maintaining it or building it out, you build extra coal plants, mine more villages, but shut the green energy down? Huh, interesting choice. I understand the principles behind closing it. The old reactors are not the latest and greatest, there is this fear similar to the fear of flying (you're n…

Wait, global warming is already killing people ?? Weather-related events has killed people since the beginning of times, but I was under the impression global warming was still about predictions of catastrophies.

The "air pollution" part is measurable enough but it's obviously impossible to attribute the death of any individual that was caused by, say, a natural disaster or extreme heat event bolstered by global warming to any particular source of carbon emissions. Especially because you can very reasonably argue that those carbon emissions were a by-product of providing the energy needed to maintain first world standards of living, including the medical care etc that comes with it (I would totally agree that if we shut down all fossil-fuel- based energy generation tomorrow, it would result in significant excess deaths - far more than would be saved. Of course if you extend the period over which you count such deaths - say, to the next 50 or 100 years - the reverse is likely to be true, especially considering how much the earth's population is likely to increase in the next couple of decades).

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#107

Post by guitarbill »

lucb1e wrote: post #55
ycuser2 wrote: post #3

As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear energy. And now Japan goes max nuclear.

As someone in Germany but not German, this aspect of Germany is bizarre to me. You have green energy already and instead of maintaining it or building it out, you build extra coal plants, mine more villages, but shut the green energy down? Huh, interesting choice. I understand the principles behind closing it. The old reactors are not the latest and greatest, there is this fear similar to the fear of flying (you're n…

> The "only the purest ideal is good enough, shut everything else down" mentality has its upsides in many (most?) situations.

Unfortunately, I have come to see this differently. For example Threema. It turns out it wasn't a great choice, at least from the cryptographic side. Maybe it's still a good choice from a data protection standpoint. Or the high Android usage. Is buying e.g. Huawei phones really a good idea?

Even if we could say there is a way to go from ideal to the practical "best", so much time is wasted in endless debates about the "best". This only works for issues where time isn't of the essence. Sometimes, pragmatism is required.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#108

Post by rejectfinite »

ycuser2 wrote: post #3

As a German this is quite bizzare to me. Here, our politicians take Fukushima as an example why we should stop nuclear energy. People are scared of nuclear energy. And now Japan goes max nuclear.

It's so dumb.

Sweden did this too in the 80s and vote no to more nuclear. And here we are...

Even if we build now, it's going to be 20 years or more until they are done.

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#109

Post by askvictor »

cbmuser wrote: post #82
askvictor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be reliant o…

> How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be reliant on other countries. Solar panels, even if imported, do not require the ongoing importation of fuel. Nuclear requires a tiny fraction of the material that any other generation type needs. We’re talking about a factor of one million more energy dense compared…

Agree that nuclear fuel is a lot more dense, but still has the same geopolitical problems as any imported fuel, just fewer (and probably more specialized) ships to transport it.

Also agree about the base-load issue, but that's a different argument (and there are some ways to lessen it without always resorting to conventional power-plants; see how Australia has performed over the past decade with crumbling coal infrastructure and no ability for long term planning due to policy paralysis - our base-load has been crumbling but through some clever grid manipulation there have been far fewer blackouts than anyone expected)

Re: Japan adopts plan to make maximum use of nuclear power

#110

Post by askvictor »

Dalewyn wrote: post #58
askvictor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one: Japan has no natural resources. Fuel for power must be imported. Materials for solar panels (or the panels themselves) must be imported. Nuclear is by far one of the most efficient /and/ effective forms of power generation humanity currently has. How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? Sure it's more compact, but it has other complications regarding transport. They're still going to be reliant o…

>How is nuclear fuel any different in this respect? We're already talking about what we will do once major reserves of coal and oil run dry. It's obviously not going to happen any time soon, maybe even not this century, but I'm not aware of similar sentiments being thrown around about nuclear fuel such as uranium and plutonium. Nuclear power also does not belch out greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere unlike coal an…

The original argument was that Japan imports all of its energy; nuclear is no different to fossil fuels in this regard. You raise plenty of other interesting issues, but don't address the question of energy sovereignty.
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