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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

#111

Post by mpweiher »

locallost wrote: post #94
mpweiher wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop spreading disinformation. Reduction has been minimal, and now that we no longer have the Russian gas that we used to substitute coal, we are turning coal plants back on . While at the same time shutting down clean nuclear. The mind boggles. Go to https://www.electricitymaps.com On almost every day, Germany is the 2nd least green country in Europe, only after Poland. In 2014, Germany was the largest producer of C…

Here are the official data related to electricity production https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... Coal are the bottom two things on the chart (brown and gray). Drastically down. Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago. Obviously you're making things up. Germany is also not turning coal plants back on: there were about a dozen coal plants put on stand by this year as…

> Germany is also not turning coal plants back on

"Ab Oktober werden insgesamt zwölf Kohlekraftwerke mit einer Leistung bis zu knapp sieben Gigawatt zusätzlich Strom für das deutsche Netz zur Verfügung stellen."

From October, a total of twelve coal-fired power plants with an output of up to almost seven gigawatts will provide additional electricity for the German grid.

https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/stromerzeug...

> Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago.

The very chart you cite has gas use almost tripling from 1990 to 2020, from 36 to 91.

> the collapse of nuclear in France

There was no "collapse" of Nuclear in France. This counter-factual talking point has been corrected so many times it isn't funny any more. What happened was that France scheduled maintenance work that had been deferred during the pandemic. This was planned, because with nuclear power, you can plan things.

The reason that it was planned for summer is that that is when both energy demand is at its lowest and otherwise not-so-stellar renewable production is at its highest.

Unlike renewables, which are mostly unpredictable, and the little that is predictable is bad: that they produce far less energy when it's needed most.

And even the Twitter thread you cite (which also incorrectly speaks of French "outages"), admits that a whopping 1/3rd of the reduction in nuclear production was due to Germany turning off plants.

Also, you might want to take a closer look at the chart you cited. The still very modest drop in coal you spotted mostly coincides with a drop in total energy consumption, making the relative reduction even more modest than it already is. So we just used less energy overall. Whoop-dee-doo. And coal use rose again even in 2021 in absolute terms, so before the war.

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

#112

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

ycuser2 wrote: post #80
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Pole I always found the German politicians’ stance suspicious. It has so obviously played right into over-reliance on gas from the east. Which is a far more dangerous and scary perspective than a single potential accidental melt down. And straight up corrupt considering the sheer scale of eastbound cash flow. This news does go to show that perhaps the Japanese have managed to set fear aside. It is an engineering…

> Would you say stances have changed at all in Germany from your POV since last year? Not from my POV. There were long discussions to longer the running time of a few reactors by ... 3 months I guess? It was nationwide topic. Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically.

So the topic was basically about extending nuclear only in response to the short-term situation? Not about reevaluating it as a valid green energy source?

> Germany wants to safe the whole world by "going by example". So instead of thinking pratically and realisticly "we" try do to things ideologically.

This is so strange to me because my view has always been that Germany is this rational pro-engineering actor. Narcissistic and superior, but nevertheless logical and calculating.

The idea that a bunch of windmills are going to power all these factories? That all the gas is somehow greener? I mean we know how this discussion goes - the amount of energy needed for that level of industrial output is just too big for non-greenhouse gas emitting sources. How exactly do they respond to that?

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

#113

Post by 411111111111111 »

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.

No, global warming is not about prediction.

A consequence of a higher global temperature is that the frequency of natural disasters will increase and their severity will ne amplified, but that's not the same as predicting anything.

An argument can be made that it's already killing people, as both frequency and severely of fires, heat waves, draughts, floods, etc has significantly gotten worse within the last 20 years. That doesn't mean that all deaths to natural disasters can be attributed to global warming for obvious reasons, but logic dictates that by increasing the severity of the event, at least some of the harm can be attributed to climate change. Singling anyone out is gonna be impossible however.

For the record: the increased frequency and magnitude of disasters is a pretty tame side effect of global warming. There are much bigger long time issues for farming, biodiversity and toxicity in water.

https://climate.ec.europa.eu/climate-change/consequences-cli...

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

#114

Post by mpweiher »

wewxjfq wrote: post #101
mpweiher wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well yes, the source you cited to support your claims only explicitly rebuts your claims somewhat incompletely.

But it certainly in no way supports your claims.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#115

Post by wewxjfq »

cbmuser wrote: post #71
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.

Well, you know Japan is just acting like that because they didn’t have a Fukushima like Germant. Oh, wait! On a more serious note: Since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russian war, Germany fully returned 19 coal-fired power units with a total generating capacity of 7.3 GW to the electricity market: > https://www.smard.de/home/rueckkehr-von-kohlekraftwerken-an-... Germany’s last remaining six reactors had a capacity of…

Germany had only three nuclear power plants in 2022, so 4 GW. And since they could only serve about 0.5 GW of peak demand, Germany needed to reactivate coal power plants regardless.

Furthermore, the NPPs were planned to be shut-down years ago, you can't flip a switch and keep them going. They have no fuel, no staff, no certifications. Refueling the last NPPs would have required to take them offline for several months, right at the time Germany needed electricity the most. And the other NPPs that were decommissioned are gone forever, even if they weren't in deconstruction, there are countless of obstacles that won't ever bring them back.

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

#116

Post by Laaas »

askvictor wrote: post #47
Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. 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. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology ther…

> 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…

Theoretically you can extract much (all?) of the uranium you need from sea water: https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-extrac...

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

#117

Post by locallost »

mpweiher wrote: post #111
locallost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are the official data related to electricity production https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38... Coal are the bottom two things on the chart (brown and gray). Drastically down. Gas use percentage wise is pretty much the same as 10 years ago. Obviously you're making things up. Germany is also not turning coal plants back on: there were about a dozen coal plants put on stand by this year as…

> Germany is also not turning coal plants back on "Ab Oktober werden insgesamt zwölf Kohlekraftwerke mit einer Leistung bis zu knapp sieben Gigawatt zusätzlich Strom für das deutsche Netz zur Verfügung stellen." From October, a total of twelve coal-fired power plants with an output of up to almost seven gigawatts will provide additional electricity for the German grid. https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie…

Read the Twitter link I posted: only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal. Those plants were put on stand by because wishful thinking is not a good policy, but they were mostly idle.

A quarter of France plants were out unplanned, another quarter were in planned maintenance. This was all documented extensively, we should not debate facts. On top of that the EDF kept blowing its own deadlines all year. Summary from the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fr...

"A record 26 of its 56 reactors are off-line for maintenance or repairs after the worrisome discovery of cracks and corrosion in some pipes used to cool reactor cores."

Shutting down a quarter of your fleet because of worrisome discovery of cracks, causing panic on the energy markets across the continent does not sound like predictable to me. Renewables on the other hand are extremely predictable and pretty much always deliver on the prediction because they are so distributed.

The chart says Germany produced 165TWh from coal in 2021 and roughly 250TWh in 2010. I believe you should check the dictionary for the words "modest" and "predictable".

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

#118

Post by mpweiher »

rich_sasha wrote: post #73
Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes no sense to not go nuclear. 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. For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology ther…

I'd add, terrifying as Fukushima was, the actual damage seems far far smaller than the outcry. Actual death toll seems dominated by people evacuated through excess caution. See this link for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_di... there is one confirmed fatality due to radiation, 2k or so due to evacuation, and an upper bound on future cancers in the 100s due to prolonged low-level ra…

> terrifying as Fukushima was

As Fukushima was made to appear.

> actual damage seems far far smaller than the outcry.

Yes.

> Actual death toll seems dominated by people evacuated through excess caution.

Yes. Fear of nuclear is far more dangerous than nuclear.

> one confirmed fatality due to radiation,

I thought so, too. But apparently this was a worker at the reactor plant whose cancer death was classified as work-related, but not actually linked to the accident.

> it's a bit if a rounding error.

Exactly.

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

#119

Post by mpweiher »

emodendroket wrote: post #65
Dalewyn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans being humans will always be a thing, but if we let that be the showstopper then we can't do anything period.

If nuclear power requires more vigilance or competence from the people running it to avert disaster then that's a real demerit.

It doesn't.

Fukushima clearly demonstrated this.

1. The reactor was an old design, not really considered safe

2. Known deficiencies were not fixed

3. Despite the regulations saying they needed to be fixed

4. Regulations that were also found to be insufficient

So really colossal screwups piled on top of each other.

And so an accident happened. Explosions happened. Without the containment of more modern plants.

And yet, the actual effect was minimal. (The panic, on the other hand...)

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

#120

Post by wewxjfq »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #68
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 was Ms Merkel who captured the Green Party's long standing stance of zero nuclear power after the Fukushima event - like she did with political positions of other opponents as a general strategy. Today, it's Mr Habeck who'd be responsible for extending lifetimes of nuclear power plants. But of course his investigation into viability of doing just that was bound to come to negative conclusions - everything else wou…

The ministry led by "Mr Habeck" wrote five sober pages on all the obstacles of keeping the nuclear power plants running. I don't see you or anyone else here countering any of the arguments they gave.

No, it's always the same with these comment sections: They are a circle jerk of people who claim to be on the rational side, while they are only spreading unfunded claims, conspiracy theories and lies.

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