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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

#551

Post by Ringz »

eftychis wrote: post #544
Gelenoto wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you talk about Germany than this has nothing to do with nuclear.

I will agree with the sibling comment -- as an anecdotal opinion I guess. It has everything to do with nuclear. Since a few days ago, Germany's policy to reduce or keep energy prices and meet demand depends inextricably to France's building more nuclear reactors. (I am talking about the last industrial nuclear reactors going offline, and the future energy budget planning related to that.)

Do you have a source for these claims? A peer-reviewed study would be best? All statistics of the last years show that Germany has replaced reactor capacity with renewables. And at the same time it has cut back on coal. The current negative development has to do with the war and the gas supply stop and not with the dismantling of nuclear power plants.

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

#552

Post by Ringz »

Gud wrote: post #528
Gelenoto wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you talk about Germany than this has nothing to do with nuclear.

No, this has everything to do with nuclear(and energy politics in general). Since at least the 80s, nuclear power has carried a huge political risk in Northern Europe including Germany. Reactors have been shut down prematurely - instead coal and oil power plants have been kept operational.

Do you have a source for these claims? A peer-reviewed study would be best? All statistics of the last years indicate that Germany has replaced reactor capacity with renewables. And at the same time, it has cut back on coal. The current negative development has to do with the war and the gas supply stop and not with the dismantling of nuclear power plants.

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

#553

Post by haweemwho »

RC_ITR wrote: post #447
haweemwho wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). Directly? Probably not. But the contamination from fallout is more than sufficient to poison a significant fraction of humans over a not-too-long time horizon and provide everybody else with a significant cancer risk. The ensuing chaos and resulting breakdown of civilization will do the rest.…

I suggest you look into the decay rate of fallout and the relative amount of nuclear material in bombs vs power plants. There’s just not that much nuclear material in a given bomb (and the whole point is to release as much energy as possible as quickly as possible), whereas Chernobyl is dangerous because the elephants foot is gigantic and still uranium .

Modern crisis research [1] shows that a sudden loss of just 10% of a population (that is, essentially over night) would have devastating consequences. Basically, breakdown of society as we know it.

Now combine that with nuclear winter and resulting consequences for crops and lifestock. We don't all need to die directly from bombs. Just a minor disruption in stability and hunger and civil unrest do the rest.

[1] It's pretty fascinating how vulnerable our societies are. Other results are things like .. 3 days power outage and you'd also be on the verge of civil war if government doesn't immediately pour in enormous resources in crisis management.

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

#554

Post by tmp20230324 »

Ringz wrote: post #552
Gud wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this has everything to do with nuclear(and energy politics in general). Since at least the 80s, nuclear power has carried a huge political risk in Northern Europe including Germany. Reactors have been shut down prematurely - instead coal and oil power plants have been kept operational.

Do you have a source for these claims? A peer-reviewed study would be best? All statistics of the last years indicate that Germany has replaced reactor capacity with renewables. And at the same time, it has cut back on coal. The current negative development has to do with the war and the gas supply stop and not with the dismantling of nuclear power plants.

If you are going to ask for a source, would you mind providing sources for your assertions as well? As an outsider, I would be interested in seeing numbers/evidence for both view points. (Although looking at the parent comment, I'm not exactly sure what you would like a peer-reviewed study of.)

Also, would you please not copy-and-paste the same response multiple times as you've done in the thread? It comes across less as thoughtful discussion and more as spam. (I'm not trying to be rude, but that's how it came across to me.)

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

#555

Post by CatWChainsaw »

willis936 wrote: post #410
yellowapple wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion is perpetually 50 years away. We don't have that long to wait when we're already crossing points of no return.

Does the world end in 50 years?

No, it ends in 30.

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

#556

Post by illiarian »

uecker wrote: post #530
k8wk1 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the reason this is only possible at all is that Germany uses the rest of Europe as a giant battery to manage the non-dispatchability of renewables. The import-export balance often changes by as much as one third of Germany consumption in 12 hours [1]. The electricity prices are also becoming zero[2] in Germany during parts of the day, which is a great outcome only on the surface. As this progresses, the consequ…

The grid is for trade, so I am not sure what sense this complaint makes. Also France relies on imports sometimes. Electricity prices changing with production and demand is also exactly what market is for. As long as the market is working, this is beneficial to buyer and seller and changing prices are signals that allow the market to optimize production and consumption. Even when the price becomes zero sometimes, that…

> As long as the market is working, this is beneficial to buyer and seller and changing prices are signals that allow the market to optimize production and consumption.

The market will always look to extract the highest possible price from the consumer.

> If there is trade, then because this is cheaper overall (and in general this helps buyer and seller).

Strange how "cheaper overall" fantasy is "consumer energy prices have quintupled in the past few years" in reality

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

#557

Post by illiarian »

uecker wrote: post #529
illiarian wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again: total numbers mean absolutely nothing on a night when there's zero production from renewables. That "shill" is showing data . Just the fact that you don't like this data doesn't make it invalid. Right now it's night in Germany, and even though the wind is blowing, it's only at 40% generation. And look, there's coal, supplying 22%, and gas supplying another 9%: https://imgur.com/a/3bYudyd

So what? You are complaining that Germany still uses coal. This is a fair complaint (and one should complain about this), but Germany is in the middle of the transition to renewables and that in the middle of the transition you still use coal does not tell you that the transition is not working. In fact, there are plenty of simulation studies which show that it will work. We also know that nuclear will have no meanin…

> but Germany is in the middle of the transition to renewables and that in the middle of the transition you still use coal does not tell you that the transition is not working.

No, it shows that people believe in bullshit and actively hurt their own clean power generation capabilities due to decades of FUD.

And yes, however many renewables you build, you still have no answer for intermittent power generation.

> We also know that nuclear will have no meaningful impact in fighting climate change because it is too expensive and too slow to build.

Strange how some countries build them relatively fast (China can builds 1 reactor in 6 years, building several reactors in parallel, see Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant) while e.g. in Europe after three decades of FUD, scremongering and underinvestment, we not only believe they can't be built fast enough, but can't build them either.

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

#558

Post by illiarian »

locallost wrote: post #534
illiarian wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The proof is in the pudding -- data beats predictions. Tell me, using data, on a quiet night, where does Germany's electricity come from, and where it will come from this wondrous future of 2030?

Makes no difference. Your claim was that Germany replaced nuclear with coal. Here are the hard numbers: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/38 ... The bottom three are: black coal in magenta nuclear in gray brown coal in brown Nuclear shutdowns started in Germany in 2011. Check the numbers. BTW with what did France replace its failing reactors last year? https://apnews.com/article/europe-busines…

> Your claim was that Germany replaced nuclear with coal. Here are the hard numbers:

Funny how these hard numbers don't answer a simple question: where does Germany get its power on a quiet night like April 15th (answer is simple: buring coal, gas, and biofuels).

> BTW with what did France replace its failing reactors last year?

Last year it's "failing" generators were taken of for planned maintenance. The actual failures accounted for 0.18% loss in power.

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

#559

Post by illiarian »

Krasnol wrote: post #543
illiarian wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not only high level long-live which has to be stored deep and safe. Your source shows it pretty good, and therefore it's not "just" 0,2% but 9% + an unknown amount of VLLW. See, again you're bunching very different types of waste together as if they were the same thing. VLLW is "Very Low Level Waste". Disposal: Existing surface disposal. And yet, you're bunching it up with high-level waste. So, to correct my c…

This thread is about decommissioning so I'm not allowed to mention decomissioning because it breaks your own FUD? lol...I showed actual numbers above. We have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS OF HAZARDOUS WASTE WE DON'T HOW TO DEAL WITH in Germany alone. This is the situation today.

> This thread is about decommissioning

It isn't about decomissioning.

> I showed actual numbers above.

You didn't. You clumped together different types of waste and pretended they are all the same.

> We have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS OF HAZARDOUS WASTE WE DON'T HOW TO DEAL WITH in Germany alone.

And as it has been repeatedly shown to you, 97% of that waste poses no problem, and we know how to safely dispose of it. And the High Level waste we also know how to safely dispose of, and how to safely store until disposal facilities become available.

This is literally in the document I showed, you pretended you read, and couldn't be bothered top make an effort to understand it.

What you're doing is spreading FUD, pure and simple. And yes, politicians are just as susceptible to FUD and populism.

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