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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

#131

Post by looping__lui »

wewxjfq wrote: post #120
tannhaeuser wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, we don’t keep nuclear - what is the alternative? Coal? Gas? You are aware, that the majority is still non-renewable and as an industrialized economy we do have a base load for consumption that we cannot just lower when there is no sun or wind.

I’m all pro renewables in general, but they aren’t a 100% solution for our grid or economy. Moving away from nuclear to gas furthermore supported Russias aggressions against Ukraine.

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/09/PE22_374_43312.html

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

#132

Post by simondotau »

askvictor wrote: post #109
cbmuser wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 infras…

The size is an extremely important benefit. It means a country like Japan is able to stockpile a domestic fuel supply sufficient for multiple years of electricity generation.

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

#133

Post by sudhirc »

cbmuser wrote: post #77
emodendroket wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For two: Fukushima was a result of human incompetence, nothing to do with the reactor itself or nuclear technology thereof. The meltdowns at Fukushima #1 could have been completely avoided had the government of the time not been a bunch of worthless fools (hint: TEPCO wanted to scuttle the reactors before they melted down). Surely there is no reason to believe that couldn't happen again.

The reactors in Fukushima and their protection against flooding and cooling failure would have never passed German safety standards. Japan’s nuclear safety standards were way too lenient before the Fukushima accident happened. All the changes that were implemented in Japan after the disaster have been standard in Germany for decades such as hydrogen recombiners, bunkered emergency generators and a filtered containmen…

If I am not wrong, Volkswagen came to light in Germany not too long ago.

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

#134

Post by Bancakes »

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.

FUD is generally frowned upon. The fact there are only single instances of nuclea incidents speaks highly of the technology. Japan probably has no heavy government influence by the likes of Lukoil, either.

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

#135

Post by mpweiher »

locallost wrote: post #117
mpweiher wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Stop spreading disinformation.

> only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal

1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection.

2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things. Unlike renewables, which you you can't schedule at all, and the only thing you really know is that they will produce the least energy when you need it most.

3. Once again: this was scheduled maintenance/inspection. And during the scheduled inspection they found some cracks. This is something that happens when you inspect things. That is why you do the inspections: so you find stuff that you then fix.

[The regularly scheduled car inspection found some problems with the engine that were duly fixed. Germans: OMG!!! WE MUST IMMEDIATELY BAN ALL CARS!!!! ]

5. "Modest". Yep, that's fairly modest, particularly when compared to considering a tripling of gas use as "unchanged". And that reduction went hand-in-hand with an overall reduction in demand in the last years. Also, you need to look at the lignite coal numbers, because lignite is the worst polluting kind: hardly changed at all. We did reduce the hard-coal a bit more due to shutting down the mines (by removing subsidies).

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

#136

Post by mpweiher »

cinntaile wrote: post #125
mpweiher wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You clearly prove his point, more vigilance and/or competence is needed.

If you mean that more vigilance and/or competence is always desirable: Absolutely!

If you mean that more vigilance and/or competence is required to operate nuclear power: I clearly showed the opposite.

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

#137

Post by cinntaile »

mpweiher wrote: post #136
cinntaile wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly prove his point, more vigilance and/or competence is needed.

If you mean that more vigilance and/or competence is always desirable: Absolutely! If you mean that more vigilance and/or competence is required to operate nuclear power: I clearly showed the opposite.

I was under the assumption we were taking about what was required to operate a nuclear power plant while trying to prevent accidents. If accidents are no issue then I agree that the vigilance/competence bar needn't be very high to operate a plant. I don't see how you would sell that to the general public though and I'm not sure I get your point in that case? It's technically right but not really applicable to running a nuclear power plant in society. Society wants a safely operated plant without serious accidents.

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

#138

Post by danson »

cinntaile wrote: post #125
mpweiher wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You clearly prove his point, more vigilance and/or competence is needed.

I think his point is that even with the current levels of vigilance and competence (which unarguably can and should be improved) the actualized impact was "minimal".

In other words, the expected scale of "disaster" here matters when assessing risk vs current operational fitness.

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

#139

Post by locallost »

mpweiher wrote: post #135
locallost wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Stop spreading disinformation. > only a 1/6 of the deficit caused mostly by the nuclear failure in France was replaced by coal 1. Once again: it was not a "failure". It was scheduled maintenance/inspection. 2. Yes. The French were able to schedule this maintenance/inspection in the summer, when energy demand is at its lowest and renewable production at its highest. It is so helpful to be able to schedule these things…

No. The EDF did not schedule maintenance of half of its fleet. A quarter yes, a quarter went out unplanned. This caused a huge energy crunch across most of western Europe. When it became clear the EDF doesn't have the situation under control the futures prices exploded everywhere but especially in France. At one point the futures prices there reached almost 2000$ per MWh. I've posted one link that documented the problem from a reputable source, and posted a quote directly here. That you choose to ignore reality and live in a constructed world is a testament to the wishful thinking mentality of the pro nuclear crowd.

But like I posted elsewhere it doesn't really matter -- Europe needs to remove fossil fuels and this will happen a lot quicker than most people assume. The ink on the plans for new nuclear plants won't even dry.

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

#140

Post by bryanlarsen »

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…

> Solar and wind do not provide baseload and can therefore not replace any conventional power plant.

Think about a hospital, the ultimate baseload requirement. Would a hospital be OK with just power from a single nuclear reactor? Of course not, it would still have a generator for backup power. Nuclear power plants don't run 24/7/365, they have scheduled maintenance and unexpected downtime.

Baseload power is ensured through diversity and spare dispatchable power.

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