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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#41

Post by pydry »

mgaunard wrote: post #23
binaryturtle wrote: post #13

This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong. (Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)

Meanwhile lignite mines (which Germany are re-opening) actively affect the health of everyone nearby, even when everything goes perfectly alright.

The nuclear industry did say that this would happen but the reality was the exact opposite:

>According to research institute Fraunhofer’s Energy Charts, the plant had a utilisation ratio of only 24% in 2024, half as much as ten years before, BR said. Also, the decommissioning of the nearby Isar 2 nuclear plant did not change the shrinking need for the coal plant, even though Bavaria’s government had repeatedly warned that implementing the nuclear phase-out as planned could make the use of more fossil power production capacity necessary.

https://theprogressplaybook.com/2025/02/19/german-state-of-b...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#42

Post by pstuart »

kulahan wrote: post #8
tietjens wrote: post #2

Article claims Germany is beginning to shift. I wouldn’t count on that. Despite having to import all of their energy aside from renewables, there is a wide-spread suspicion of nuclear here. The CDU made a lot of noise about it while they were in the opposition, but turning those closed plants back on is highly unlikely. Very costly and I’m not certain the expertise can be hired.

With AI on the horizon and each server farm using as much energy as a medium-sized city, I have no idea how they hope to meet demand otherwise, unless the plan is just some equivalent to "drill baby drill".

There's a new kind of "drill baby drill" which we should be embracing: geothermal energy. There's a lot of advancements in that space and it is a perfect base load generation source.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#43

Post by sollewitt »

binaryturtle wrote: post #13

This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong. (Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)

Pebble-bed reactors are incapable of catastrophic failure, and molten-salt reactors have negative feedback loops with increasing pressure. Nuclear doesn't have to mean the same designs that were used in the 60s.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#44

Post by epistasis »

yellowapple wrote: post #33
binaryturtle wrote: post #13

This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong. (Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)

Even accounting for the times things have gone “catastrophically wrong”, nuclear is many orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy than every other energy source except solar. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Sure, in deaths per unit energy. But the real risk of nuclear is financial. The tail risk is huge for any producer on their own, which makes insurance extremely expensive, and which means that usually only nations bear the full financial risk of nuclear.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#46

Post by KyleBerezin »

pkoiralap wrote: post #16

Asking because I don't know. How is enrichment governed? Say for instance if a country is only using it for energy vs defense/offense. And are there elements that can be specifically used for energy vs otherwise? Last I remember, having access to enriched uranium was grounds for a country to bomb another one.

IAEA inspections verify your claimed inventory and enrichment facilities. They are trying to detect if any nuclear materials are being skimmed/diverted. As for weapons, nuclear fuel is very low enrichment (usually under 5%). Iran surpassed 60%, which has no peaceful use, so that is why it was said they were perusing weapons.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#47

Post by yellowapple »

reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

> I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the prices, like PG&E in California.

I grew up a few miles away from SMUD's Rancho Seco nuclear power plant; I maintain that shutting it down was SMUD's worst decision. There were problems motivating that shutdown, yes, but nothing that couldn't have been solved.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#48

Post by pydry »

yellowapple wrote: post #14

[flagged]

Poland is the dirtiest coal producer in Europe but a point in its favor (for some) was that it didnt prove conclusively that you could decarbonize your electric grid without any help at all from nuclear power.

So, it didnt attract any hate or shaming from the nuclear industry's faux - environmentalist public relations arm. Unlike Germany, whom they really hate and for whom the FUD and lies was nearly constant.

(E.g. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/energy/german-nucle... remember when the nuclear industry-promised blackouts finally materialized? I dont).

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#49

Post by ben_w »

yellowapple wrote: post #14

[flagged]

Greenpeace is both halves of the name.

While I agree that nuclear is green, IMO Greenpeace are correct about it not being compatible with the "peace" half: the stuff that makes working reactors is the most difficult part of making a working weapons.

This also means that during the cold war they suspected of being soviet plants.

Those suspicions and yours could both be correct for all I know.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#50

Post by SequoiaHope »

ben_w wrote: post #49
yellowapple wrote: post #14

[flagged]

Greenpeace is both halves of the name. While I agree that nuclear is green, IMO Greenpeace are correct about it not being compatible with the "peace" half: the stuff that makes working reactors is the most difficult part of making a working weapons. This also means that during the cold war they suspected of being soviet plants. Those suspicions and yours could both be correct for all I know.

Also nuclear requires a powerful state to manage it safely, which has peace-related side effects.
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