Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thenewlede.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

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

#51

Post by Moldoteck »

ihsw wrote: post #26
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 can be summed up into two key questions: is it necessary, and is it effective? One could argue it is necessary but it is undeniable that it is not effective -- nuclear power plants take decades to bring online and then they may never see break-even. Not only that but they require vast sums of water for the entire lifetime of the nuclear plant (which is fast becoming a scarcity, if not because of increased consumpt…

Aren't solar and wind using water dams to store energy

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

#52

Post by irae »

worik wrote: post #39
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.)

Why should the next thousand generations pay to prop up our greed and consumption for another fifty years? Climate collapse will cripple us, but the system is self correcting. The next civilisation will do it better In the time scales of pollution that nuclear power entails there is room for many such cycles I really cannot square the greed of "consume now" and "pay for a thousand generations" with any moral framewor…

What you just said can be applied for any sides of any infrastructure political discussion.

If we leave nuclear waste (which is already proven not problem over and over) the next generations will come up with solutions we don’t know yet. If we leave the climate worst, by not doing what we should, they will also figure it out.

The discussion right now is about getting to a reduced carbon footprint per country fast (nuclear, in 10 or 20 years) or keep betting renewables will take less than 50 years to make an impact in reducing carbon emissions.

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

#53

Post by nradov »

ianburrell wrote: post #43
adventured wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

We could spend a trillion dollars on 50 nuclear reactors and increase the nuclear percentage to 30% (there are actually 92 nuclear reactors in US). Or we could spend a trillion dollars on 1TW of solar (400GW actual power). Or a mix of solar and wind, or solar and batteries for the off-peak usage. That is enough to wipe out coal. Enough to bankrupt nuclear power plants. Two trillion is probably enough to decarbonize e…

How much battery capacity would that require to maintain grid stability? How many years will it take to manufacture those batteries? Where will the raw materials be mined?

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

#54

Post by nradov »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #5
manp2 wrote: post #2

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

California is side stepping the whole mess with nuclear by building out solar and batteries.

How many GWh of battery storage have California grid operators built recently?

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

#55

Post by pgeorgi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38
pgeorgi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Germany didn’t replace its nukes with gas, but with coal.

Germany replaced its nuclear power plants with all kinds of things, predominantly renewables. The first NPP going offline under the "Atomausstieg" went offline in 2003.

https://www.energie.de/et/news-detailansicht/nsctrl/detail/N... has a chart showing the energy sources for electricity production in Germany (up to 2021).

During the period in which nuclear (Kernenergie) went down from ~160bn kWh (2003) to ~60bn kWh (2021), lignite (Braunkohle) went down from a bit over 150bn kWh to ~110bn kWh. Hard coal (Steinkohle) went down from ~140bn kWh to ~50bn kWh.

There has been an uptick in natural gas (Erdgas) from ~60bn kWh to ~90bn kWh, but most of it was covered by renewables (Erneuerbare), going from ~55bn kWh to ~240bn kWh.

So no, nuclear power wasn't replaced with coal.

There has been an increase in coal to replace natural gas in 2022 (not on this chart) when the gas market imploded following russia's full-scale invasion in Ukraine, but that was more of a temporary measure. With the LNG terminals going online, that will be sorted out soon enough, and measures to increase the build out of renewables to get rid of all fossils (_and_ nuclear) were planned even before 2022.

Germany just had the problem that after a coalition government including the Greens until 2005, the conservative-led coalitions for the next 16 years didn't dare to reopen the snake pit that is nuclear power (it was a conservative government that ended new build out of nuclear power plants in 1989, too) but at the same time hampered the renewables build out - apparently they have some weird infatuation with burning fossils.

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

#56

Post by taylodl »

Moldoteck wrote: post #47
taylodl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're volunteering to put the nuclear power station in your backyard? Because that's the problem - lots of people say they support nuclear power until you try to build a nuclear power station anywhere close to them. Which brings up another problem, you need to build a nuclear power station near a water source such as a lake, or a river, which, interestingly enough, are the same kinds of places where people want t…

Yep, no problem?

Then get your neighbors on board and petition your local utility to build. Point out they're not going to have to spend the millions of dollars it takes to fight the lawsuits from those trying to prevent you from building the nuclear power station. You have them covered!

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

#57

Post by PaulHoule »

irae wrote: post #46

Year over year we see the same discussion: one side say we can’t get to environmental goals without a lot more nuclear. The other side says renewables will be enough if we just [insert trending unproven excuse]. Anyone watching it closely can tell the pro nuclear argument is being proven right over and over and renewables are aways “a few years away”. Why continue insisting on the same error over and over again, with…

The best counter-argument is that people say they are going to build a nuclear plant but a year passes and they add another year to the schedule. That problem, and not what people imagine about safety, nor the fact that the headline costs aren’t terribly attractive, is a big problem,

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

#58

Post by JumpCrisscross »

worik wrote: post #40
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power plants take decades to bring online This plant is already online. That’s what makes the debate interesting.

They take millenia to take off line Better get started

> take millenia to take off line

Don’t look too closely at how solar panels are fabricated.

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

#59

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pgeorgi wrote: post #55
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany didn’t replace its nukes with gas, but with coal.

Germany replaced its nuclear power plants with all kinds of things, predominantly renewables. The first NPP going offline under the "Atomausstieg" went offline in 2003. https://www.energie.de/et/news-detailansicht/nsctrl/detail/N... has a chart showing the energy sources for electricity production in Germany (up to 2021). During the period in which nuclear (Kernenergie) went down from ~160bn kWh (2003) to ~60bn kWh (…

Look at primary production of imported power. That’s where Germany’s coal is burnt.

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

#60

Post by kagakuninja »

irae wrote: post #46

Year over year we see the same discussion: one side say we can’t get to environmental goals without a lot more nuclear. The other side says renewables will be enough if we just [insert trending unproven excuse]. Anyone watching it closely can tell the pro nuclear argument is being proven right over and over and renewables are aways “a few years away”. Why continue insisting on the same error over and over again, with…

The Bush administration gave out major incentives to get more power plants built, yet only a handful of projects were started. These projects ended up (like most nuclear projects) massively delayed and over budget. In the end, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-westin...

Pro nuclear people keep acting like our lack of new nuclear power plants is due to fear or lack of vision. The reality is that corporations do not want to build them, because they are incredibly expensive and may take over a decade before any revenue is produced. Renewables are cheaper and provide fast return on investment.

Post reply on HN