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Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

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Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#251

Post by eric-burel »

deeg wrote: post #154
KennyBlanken wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear proponents when trying to sell nuclear love to shout about how successful France is. Someone from France is telling you that actually, it's really not that great...and now France's nuclear program is terrible and the result of 20-30 years of neglect and politics? Also, which part of "nuclear plants are sensitive to environmental changes" didn't you get? If there's no cooling water, or the water is too hot, th…

> Someone from France is telling you that actually, it's really not that great. Relative to...what? Is there any major country that has a great power grid, objectively better than France? Certainly we have plenty of problems here in the US. I'm a big nuclear power advocate but of course NP has problems, like any human project. It has dangers, like any scalable power supply. I support NP because it is better than all…

I do agree with that and some replies in favour of nuclear energy were totally sensical. The initial article is not and should be balanced with issues and yes, sometimes irrational fears, we do face as a country relying mostly on this energy source. The risk of electricity cut was a big deal this winter, might be next winter too.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#252

Post by llsf »

bottlepalm wrote: post #118
jhp123 wrote: post #30

the article mentions that 2 billion tons of coal would be needed to manufacture solar panels to meet half of today's global energy needs with renewables. That is about 3 months of global coal consumption at current rates. If we decide to go all in on nuclear instead, we can turn off the coal plants in a mere 15 years or so.

Think of all the new disasters we'll get to experience with thousands of new nuclear power plants.

France has been using nuclear power plants for more than 50 years, producing up to 75% of all electricity and exporting to other countries, and did not suffer any disaster. There has been natural nuclear power plants that has been running for few hundred thousand years (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo_Mine)... so nature did it before us, and nature did not really care and left all the waste on the site. We have found more efficient ways to produce, reuse the waste and properly dispose it.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#253

Post by HDThoreaun »

Tade0 wrote: post #145
fuzzy2 wrote: post #45

I mean, certainly. Well, maybe not the answer, but whatever. However, are we actually capable of building new reactors and managing their operation in the private sector? I’m not talking about possibly maybe here. Are we actually ready, today, to build a new reactor within reasonable time at reasonable cost? I don’t know, but my gut feeling says no. We cannot even build roads like that. Furthermore, is operating thes…

China can. Russia as well. It appears that the secret ingredient is totalitarianism.

No, China can not build nuclear economically. That's why they're drastically reducing their nuclear goal while they continue to scale up coal and solar.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#254

Post by haweemwho »

jonahx wrote: post #236
haweemwho wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you didn't actually address my comment, which had nothing to do with solar working at night or similar. It's useful to keep separate arguments separate since jumping around if something doesn't suit your liking is not a sincere discussion style. > If you believe that carbon emissions are an existential threat to human survival FWIW, I don't believe that. Humans will survive, unless we do something like a nuclea…

> It's a species that mostly doesn't care about other species survival. As opposed to which species that do?

Geez, I'm really worried about discussion styles here.

Nobody claimed that other species do. That has little to do with the question of why I should care about our's surviving.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#255

Post by option »

lispm wrote: post #238
option wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland seems to have no issues launching nuclear without russians. But you are right, Russia is big on nuclear. They are authoritarian but are not stupid.

If they were 'not stupid' they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine and caused a massive reaction in Europe for independence of Russian energy. If they were 'not stupid' and 'not evil', they wouldn't attack a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. Russia is both stupid and evil with its current invasion of its neighbor country. The amount of environmental damage caused by this war is extremely high. Russian nuclear technology…

you are making a stupid mistake 99% of Westerners make when dealing with Russia. You are projecting your values and rationality on them.

I am actually from Ukraine, my family is still there and I now leave in USA. I hate russian gov just as much or more as any normal human being.

The Western view is that West and Ukraine are winning because of costs russian people and army are suffering. But another view, closer to ru gov values is that ru gained significant territory while Ukraine lost it since Feb 22. You make think it is stupid and is definitely below their original goal, but it is non-trivial “gain” towards what they care about.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#256

Post by RC_ITR »

haweemwho wrote: post #165
SoftTalker wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that can be true and yet still trivial in comparison to the emissions that would be eliminated by replacing all fossil-fuel electrical generation with nuclear. Nuclear works at night and in locations that aren't good for solar or wind generation. Nuclear with a relatively small number of generating sites feeding a large distributiion network fits in with our existing electricial infrastrucure better than the w…

Well, you didn't actually address my comment, which had nothing to do with solar working at night or similar. It's useful to keep separate arguments separate since jumping around if something doesn't suit your liking is not a sincere discussion style. > If you believe that carbon emissions are an existential threat to human survival FWIW, I don't believe that. Humans will survive, unless we do something like a nuclea…

> unless we do something like a nuclear weapons armageddon

FWIW, the only way nuclear weapons wipe out all of humanity is if they start unprecedentedly large fires that change the climate.

At peak, we had about 80k nukes (way less now). That’s nowhere near enough to kill all 8bn people (as spread out as we are).

The way nukes end humanity is blacking out the sun and reducing plant/food output.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#257

Post by HDThoreaun »

rullelito wrote: post #40
themagician wrote: post #38

My 2¢: We live in a world where all work goes to the lowest bidder and people will always cut corners if they believe the liability won't fall on them. The entire world could be safely powered off nuclear energy if it wasn't for pesky humans that will always lie, cheat, and steal from each other. Given that human greed is unavoidable and a nuclear accident can pollute an area for 10,000 years it's probably best to re…

An alternative to emotional arguments is to look at the statistics.

The statistics confirm, people are greedy and while quickly cut corners when given the opportunity to enrich themselves in the short term.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#258

Post by froh »

eric-burel wrote: post #12

As a French not expert in the matter but living near nuclear plants: - one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material - rivers are getting too hot to cool down nuclear plants correctly - nuclear plants are very unreliable, we almost got out of power this winter and next winter will be equally tough (only an abnormally hot winter avoid cuts...) - the government wants to simplify control organism and laws around…

in Germany more than 40% of the total water consumption is cooling water evaporation.

btw how does France deal with nuclear waste?

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#259

Post by haweemwho »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #228
haweemwho wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"X is the only foo that doesn't suffer from Y!" "But it does!" "Well so does every other foo!" You see that this is not a good argument, don't you?

This is why we look at the actual amount of carbon released, not just a binary yes/no. I mean even if you had a magic power source that did not emit one single molecule of C02, a FUD spreader like you could use that exact same argument the first time a worker sparks a cigarette. So tell me, how much C02 does mining uranium emit as compared to a coal station on a kg/Watt basis? six orders of magnitude less? seven?

> a FUD spreader like you

Eh, what? That's not a very nice thing to say.

> So tell me

No, I don't need to. I refuted a claim. You can move the goal posts, but I won't participate in that game.

Obviously a coal plant emits more CO2 than a nuclear fission plant. But the criticized sentence contained the words "carbon free". Which is just not true. I don't see how pointing that out is FUD.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#260

Post by Matticus_Rex »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #174
brucethemoose2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Yes! 2. Just some more than we have now. 3. Yes! 4. Yes! Seriously though, I just want some reactor construction to spin up with non ancient reactor designs, to replace some fossil fuel plants. PBR[1] sounds good to me... but what do I know? There are experts who can decide this. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor

In the US we're replacing nuclear plants with renewables at a 6:1 ratio. The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant.

> The only people who think we need more nuclear power plants is the nuclear power industry and the politicians they're heavily lobbying to stay relevant.

And also quite a few energy experts and the people who listen to them. The US nuclear industry's major players are bloated cronies satisfied with ALARA and other idiotic policies that keep them alive by preventing competition.

If ALARA weren't in place, nuclear would be thriving and competitive (and still safe!).

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