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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

#261

Post by lispm »

illiarian wrote: post #223
lispm wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This literally happened just 6 days ago. On what day it happened is independent of how often this happens, for how long, with what demand and the amount of other electricity supplies.. > So, some magical future A nice slogan you have here. It sounds cute, but essentially it is pessimistic and anti-technology. We heard this twenty years ago. This year the share of renewable energy for electricity production is 50%.…

> On what day it happened is independent of how often this happens, for how long, with what demand and the amount of other electricity supplies.. This was a regular sping night in a nation of 80 million people in the middle of Europe. Which means that for a lot of the rest of Europe it was also a quite night. > It sounds cute, but essentially it is pessimistic and anti-technology. No. It's realistic. Every time you s…

> This was a regular sping night in a nation of 80 million people in the middle of Europe. Which means that for a lot of the rest of Europe it was also a quite night.

Nothing happened. In ten years we have 80% renewable. Again, nothing will happen.

> the answer is "sometime in unknown future we will surely build enough, and enough grid storage to boot".

Look at a nuclear power plant. If one starts building today, the reactor could be ready in 5, 10 or twenty years. In Finnland the EPR was 13 years late.

Renewable can be deployed much faster and more reliable.

> Almost three-quarters of hydropower, water, coal and nuclear infrastructure projects were over budget by 49% on average,

The new Finnish reactor was 3.6 times more expensive than planned. That's a much larger price increase.

> When there's political will,

of a dictatorship

> there are results. Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant in China: 6.1 GW nameplate capacity. Built over 14 years at 1 reactor per 6 years. Operational. Estimated cost 16 bln USD.

Try to do the same in Western Europe...

Btw, China deploys two large coal power plant blocks every week. -> to quote you: "When there's political will, there are results."

See the share of nuclear in China:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China#/m...

Tiny.

> I shudder to think about the future where we depend on whether or not the wind will blow at night.

I don't.

> There are also laws of physics and reality.

Another slogan. What does it have to do with energy politics and technology?

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

#262

Post by willis936 »

llsf wrote: post #209
m_a_g wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are fusion reactor designs that don't use water. They directly convert to electricity with magnetic fields.

Are you sure about this ? Not heat is produced ? Cold fusion has been controversial in the 80's ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion ) and never really escape the lab.

They're likely referring to p+B11 fusion which is a potentially viable reaction that emits all its energy as accelerated charged particles (a current), which can, in theory, be slowed down by inducing a current in a coil (direct conversion). This skips the thermal cycle of electricity generation. There would still be heat, but it would be contained to the plasma with some amount of leak/waste.

There are a great number of asterisks on this. We are not close to making a p+B11 reactor.

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

#263

Post by notyourwork »

mech7654 wrote: post #241
Nodraak wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material Please share numbers demonstration health hazards. For ex, bananas are radioactive. Should we outlaw bananas? > rivers are getting too hot to cool down nuclear plants correctly That's wrong. In 2022, the power output had to be reduced by 0.18% (not a typo) ( https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1645696906327388160 ). In addition, Nuclear plants can work even i…

To be fair the french have had some massive problems with their fleet recently. There were issues discovered where (IIRC) a supplier that made pressure vessels used steel that was not of sufficient quality and covered it up for decades, only to be discovered recently- this required major downtime and expense. Other issues have resulted in lots of nuclear plant downtime in france as well recently.

Stuff like this should yield criminal charges.

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

#264

Post by walnutclosefarm »

stuff4ben wrote: post #22
Krasnol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind alone produces ~20% of the recent years electricity in Germany. Nuclear produced only half of that in recent years. The whole renewable energy production covers ~40% of all the energy produced. Despite 16 years of almost full stop of expansion. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ...

Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Plus renewables are extremely intermittent power sources. Nuclear solves both the land-use and consistency problems. Plus, from the article: "...to build enough wind turbines and solar panels to supply at least half the electricity needed for global consumption 'would require two billions tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion b…

> Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Plus renewables are extremely intermittent power sources. Nuclear solves both the land-use and consistency problems.

I take no issue with people such as yourself advocating for nuclear power, but this particular argument is nonsense. You could generate all the energy used over a year in the US (100 quads or so) on roughly the amount of land that is currently used to produce corn for ethanol. Yeah, that's a lot of solar panels, and it may not be the way to get all our energy, but running out of land is NOT the issue.

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

#265

Post by eric-burel »

Nodraak wrote: post #159
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…

> one of the plant regularly leaks radioactive material Please share numbers demonstration health hazards. For ex, bananas are radioactive. Should we outlaw bananas? > rivers are getting too hot to cool down nuclear plants correctly That's wrong. In 2022, the power output had to be reduced by 0.18% (not a typo) ( https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1645696906327388160 ). In addition, Nuclear plants can work even i…

You are making good points, however about the leaks, we obviously shouldn't wait for them to be dangerous to worry. It's hard to prove risks, it's also hard to prove the lack of risks if only for the living ecosystem around the plant. The leaks show issues in the alert system, it's not the first time it happened, and an engineer sued the plant for dangerous mismanagement. Doesn't mean we should drop nuclear energy either.

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

#266

Post by llsf »

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.

Actually the secret ingredient might be more "central planning". Mostly used in socialist/communist countries, but US/UK know how to do it, when the stake is high enough (e.g. war). One could argue that climate change is sort of a war, threatening the national security.

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

#267

Post by NineStarPoint »

epistasis wrote: post #220
NineStarPoint wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like most people I know who push Nuclear are already arguing for the use of both, and it’s the renewable side that argues that Nuclear is too dangerous to use or not necessary. Or have you come across a lot of Nuclear proponents arguing that we shouldn’t be using solar energy at all?

The only people I meet who argue in favor of nuclear also spend a ton of time arguing against solar, wind, and storage. They also actively promote outdated incorrect knowledge of these technologies. YMMV, of course! For an example in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35658964

I do find it pretty crazy that anyone would argue against solar (and wind where it’s viable) at this point, it’s just way too cost efficient. (The feasibility and cost of grid scale storage is where my concerns lie)

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

#268

Post by dale_glass »

Manuel_D wrote: post #247
dale_glass wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't believe that modern nuclear plants wouldn't be dramatically more profitable. I can. First, nuclear doesn't always get cheaper. Chernobyl happened, how do we fix that? Containment building. That costs money. Fukushima happened, how do we fix that? Better backup plans. That costs money. Renewables skip this completely. Second, renewables also benefit from progress, but a lot more. Solar and wind are mass indu…

> First, nuclear doesn't always get cheaper. Chernobyl happened, how do we fix that? Containment building. That costs money. Western nuclear power plants always had containment buildings, so no, this isn't a factor. > Fukushima happened, how do we fix that? Better backup plans. Most places aren't subject to magnitude 9.1 earthquakes, so no such plans are needed. Nuclear power benefits from economies of scale. Buildin…

> Western nuclear power plants always had containment buildings, so no, this isn't a factor.

The point is that nuclear is safe because we've been making it safer over time, and that rarely makes it cheaper. The specific ways in which that's done isn't the point.

Mass production in general is made cheaper by simplifying and cutting corners. Nuclear isn't terribly friendly towards this, you can't just go "How about we use 30% less concrete?"

> Nuclear power benefits from economies of scale.

Everything does, but nuclear benefits less. Precisely because of what you said, they have no other market use. You'll need to convince industries that it's worth scaling up for that, and that it won't backfire. That will be tricky.

> No, we can't.

You're missing the point. Here's what I envision:

1. Renewables continue to eat nuclear's lunch 2. Nuclear keeps not getting built 3. Eventually grid destabilizes 4. People want solutions, right now

At point 4, nobody is going to sit there and wait 5-10 years for nuclear to be built. Yeah, batteries are expensive, but remember Tesla's battery in Australia that got done in 100 days?

So that's how I see things going. Once the shit hits the fan, urgent solutions will be needed. And pretty much everything is much faster than nuclear.

I'm not envisioning some utopic future, but one where problems will be ignored until something goes quite wrong, that's going to suck for a while, then things get hurriedly rectified in a huge rush and at great expense, but that will still favor non-nuclear solutions.

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

#269

Post by froh »

haweemwho wrote: post #99
stuff4ben wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Plus renewables are extremely intermittent power sources. Nuclear solves both the land-use and consistency problems. Plus, from the article: "...to build enough wind turbines and solar panels to supply at least half the electricity needed for global consumption 'would require two billions tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion b…

> Soon you're going to run out of land for your renewables. Ramping up from 40% to 100% increases land use by orders of magnitude? Did I miss something?

nope. you didn't miss anything.

we'd already be there if Bavaria and similar states hadn't blocked building wind farms in Bavaria, because of the bad looks, or myth busted infrasound, or myth busted bird mass extinctions, or very real existential angst of Munich's Siemens...

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

#270

Post by Matticus_Rex »

themagician wrote: post #49
rullelito wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

When you actually look at the statistics around large infrastructure projects the results are not comforting. Corners are always cut. Maintenance delayed. Just the "cost of doing business". Trust in both governments and large corporations is not exactly at an all time high. People know that companies will throw radioactive waste and scrap materials into the rivers if they can get away with it. Conversely, the emotion…

Or, you can simply educate people -- this time doesn't need to be very different (though it certainly can be), because already-existing nuclear is very safe. Liability prevents companies dumping radioactive material, and radioactive material is very cheap to store! There's no benefit from dumping it. Yes, mildly irradiated water sometimes gets into rivers, and if you look at the amounts and risks it turns out to be quite reasonable relative even to solar and wind.

What happened in Germany was not rational, and it was not by any means good for the environment, or a net positive for German health and well-being.

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