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Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

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Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#11

Post by lowbloodsugar »

ars wrote: post #4
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #3

“Clean” energy. Gas fired plants are clean: they only produce CO2 and H20. Nuclear is “dirty”: they produce no CO2, but relatively small amounts of highly toxic waste. Bonus for “clean” “biomass” plants that actually produce hazard gases from burning tires!

I know you are being ironic with "clear", but gas fired plants should also be "billed" for the dirt created by mining the natural gas in the first place.

Sure. Same for solar. Same for forever plastics in wind turbines. Same for ecological damage for hydro.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#12

Post by krasin »

ars wrote: post #4
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #3

“Clean” energy. Gas fired plants are clean: they only produce CO2 and H20. Nuclear is “dirty”: they produce no CO2, but relatively small amounts of highly toxic waste. Bonus for “clean” “biomass” plants that actually produce hazard gases from burning tires!

I know you are being ironic with "clear", but gas fired plants should also be "billed" for the dirt created by mining the natural gas in the first place.

> I know you are being ironic with "clear", but gas fired plants should also be "billed" for the dirt created by mining the natural gas in the first place.

+1 to taxing externalities.

I would also add a tax to the plants that ever used Russian gas with proceeds going to restoration of Ukraine. If not for the decision of German public to shut down their nuclear reactors, Putin would have never had that much money to start the war.

(edit: as correctly pointed out below, significant part of the lost electricity capacity after turning down the nuclear plants was substituted by domestic coal, not Russian gas, so my comment was based on partially wrong info; sorry about that)

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#13

Post by philsnow »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #3

“Clean” energy. Gas fired plants are clean: they only produce CO2 and H20. Nuclear is “dirty”: they produce no CO2, but relatively small amounts of highly toxic waste. Bonus for “clean” “biomass” plants that actually produce hazard gases from burning tires!

TIL a lot about natural gas. Gas-fired plants use "dry" natural gas which has had most impurities removed and consists of around 94% methane, with the rest mostly ethane, propane, and butane. I was about to say "ah-ha! what about ethane combustion?" but then I looked it up and the combustion reactions with ethane, propane, and butane all produce only water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Now, how to dry "wet" natural gas (remove the impurities that don't burn to just H2O + CO2), and how to "sweeten" "sour" natural gas (remove the toxic/lethal sulfur compounds like H2S)? I don't know what all of those reactions look like and what the processes cost in terms of energy and waste byproducts, but those are the kinds of externalities that are sometimes dismissed because they're not as visible (like the wastewater heating for the Diablo nuclear plant).

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#14

Post by [deleted] »

zardo wrote: post #6

> “Radioactive pollutants build up in the cooling water,” said Judson. “In order for the plant to continue functioning properly, they have to discharge them. Some of it is vented out of the smokestack and some of it is released into the water.” Is there any truth to that? That is not how I thought a nuclear power plant worked.

[deleted]

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#15

Post by adventured »

timmg wrote: post #9

I really can't square this idea that "global warming will end civilization" if we don't reduce CO2 with not using nuclear power. (Even worse, shutting down existing, working plants.)

It doesn't square, it's extraordinarily irrational.

With a trillion dollars the US could build 40-60 new domestic nuclear power plants (we have 54 currently). We can afford it (witness stimulus programs, or the Ukraine v Russia war).

What we can't afford is to not do it and to watch our nuclear power base vanish. And we should be going further than that. We should be leveraging the global reserve currency and trade agreements to assist other stable countries in more cheaply (as cheaply as is possible with nuclear) building their own nuclear power plants. We can help countries either skip the fossil fuel driven economic build-out phase (in regards to fairly stable developing nations), or accelerate their leap off of it. And it can be beneficial to the US economy: export our tech, develop it further, train domestic labor specifically for this program.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#16

Post by cesarb »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #3

“Clean” energy. Gas fired plants are clean: they only produce CO2 and H20. Nuclear is “dirty”: they produce no CO2, but relatively small amounts of highly toxic waste. Bonus for “clean” “biomass” plants that actually produce hazard gases from burning tires!

> Gas fired plants are clean: they only produce CO2 and H20.

AFAIK, that can only be the case if you combust the gas with pure oxygen; air also has a lot of nitrogen, so combusting with air will always lead to some oxides of nitrogen appearing in the output.

> Nuclear is “dirty”: they produce no CO2, but relatively small amounts of highly toxic waste.

It depends on your point of view. That highly toxic waste is completely contained in normal operation, so looking from the outside, it's "clean"; it's only when (or if) you open the box that it becomes "dirty".

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#17

Post by flaviut »

zardo wrote: post #6

> “Radioactive pollutants build up in the cooling water,” said Judson. “In order for the plant to continue functioning properly, they have to discharge them. Some of it is vented out of the smokestack and some of it is released into the water.” Is there any truth to that? That is not how I thought a nuclear power plant worked.

No. Coal plants on the other hand: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

> The chances of experiencing adverse health effects from radiation are slim for both nuclear and coal-fired power plants—they're just somewhat higher for the coal ones. "You're talking about one chance in a billion for nuclear power plants," Christensen says. "And it's one in 10 million to one in a hundred million for coal plants."

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#18

Post by fuoqi »

zardo wrote: post #6

> “Radioactive pollutants build up in the cooling water,” said Judson. “In order for the plant to continue functioning properly, they have to discharge them. Some of it is vented out of the smokestack and some of it is released into the water.” Is there any truth to that? That is not how I thought a nuclear power plant worked.

Technically... yes. Nuclear plants routinely discharge a certain amount of tritiated water and radioactive gases. But it's well below natural radioactivity levels and certainly MUCH smaller than amount of "radioactive pollutants" released into environment by coal plants.

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#19

Post by _aavaa_ »

manp2 wrote: post #2

question, why aren't we building more nuclear power plant like china? isn't gen 4 reactor safer?

Because even in china they can't build nuclear as quickly (and likely as cheaply) as wind and solar. It's hugely different [0][1]. Over the last 10 years, they used 3.5x more energy (so not nameplate capacity, but actually generated energy) from solar and wind than they did from nuclear.

Further, if you download the data [1] an look at the derivative you get an even more grim picture. Not only is wind and solar increasing rapidly, but the derivative is positive (and possibly increasing itself). But when you look at nuclear, you find that not only is it not increasing as rapidly, but it's derivative is going down and heading for zero fast.

[0] https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/06/renewables-in-china-tre...

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/china#what-sources...

Re: Critical hearing looms in battle over California’s last nuclear power plant

#20

Post by pgeorgi »

krasin wrote: post #12
ars wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are being ironic with "clear", but gas fired plants should also be "billed" for the dirt created by mining the natural gas in the first place.

> I know you are being ironic with "clear", but gas fired plants should also be "billed" for the dirt created by mining the natural gas in the first place. +1 to taxing externalities. I would also add a tax to the plants that ever used Russian gas with proceeds going to restoration of Ukraine. If not for the decision of German public to shut down their nuclear reactors, Putin would have never had that much money to s…

> If not for the decision of German public to shut down their nuclear reactors, Putin would have never had that much money to start the war.

55% of natural gas that circulated in Germany in 2021 came from russia. 48% of natural gas that circulated in Germany in 2021 was exported to other countries. ~13% of natural gas in Germany that year was used for electricity production.

But go on and tell us how keeping nuclear power on in Germany would have cut those natural gas exports, heated the 14 million domestic gas boilers, or produced fertilizer.

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