141–150 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then why did Fukushima happen?
Old, bad design - from the 1960s, in fact.
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.
Natural uranium on earth is currently about 0.7% U-235; civilian power reactors typically need low-enriched uranium which is 3% to 5% U-235. The critical mass required for a weapon shrinks as enrichment increases; implosion designs would require an infinite mass at or below 5.4% enrichment (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium ). Weapons-grade uranium is more like 85%+ U-235. Enrichment above around 20%…
Which, as I understand it, is because at 20% enrichment you've already done about 70% of the work needed to get to 85%.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant. It shouldn't take this long at all and it's strictly because of regulations. If we cut down the time it takes to build a plant the cost plummets.
Nuclear regulations are no worse than aviation regulation. Yet planes manage to be cost competitive. Cutting regulations isn't necessary the win people think. If safety regulations are cut, it risks accidents in future. Nuclear needs to move from bespoke builds to serial production.
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.
Germany has stopped actively trying to sabotage France on nuclear energy at every occasion in the EU. That’s a start. Give you hope that at some point, they might even move on the brain dead competition policies in the energy market and we might end up with a sensible energy policy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which are the fake costs from regulation? We have new builds in Europe of the EPR, in France and Finland, and it has had disastrous costs. China has built some too, presumably cheaper, since they keep on building more. What is the regulatory difference there? I have yet to find any concrete defense of the idea that costs are coming from regulation, rather than the costs of construction in advanced economies. If regul…
It takes 15 years to build a nuclear power plant. It shouldn't take this long at all and it's strictly because of regulations. If we cut down the time it takes to build a plant the cost plummets.
What would change in the construction process?
China builds the same designs as the EU and US, yet faster. What is different?
I saw toooooooons of reports of construction mishaps in the US at Vogtle and Summer. I didn't see anything about "oh if we changed this sort of regulation it would have saved us money."
It's a very worthwhile to read the retrospectives on these builds. There are lots of plans of future builds of the AP1000 that would be cheaper, but none of the plans even indicate that a regulation change would help.
I beg of people who say regulations are in the way: which regulations? Concretely, what should change to make construction cheaper? Pun intended.
This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong. (Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)
I'd say a reactor in inland Europe is far from the craziest place to put one. God forbid someone were to put one in the Pacific ring of fire... oh, wait...
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…
Which are the fake costs from regulation? We have new builds in Europe of the EPR, in France and Finland, and it has had disastrous costs. China has built some too, presumably cheaper, since they keep on building more. What is the regulatory difference there? I have yet to find any concrete defense of the idea that costs are coming from regulation, rather than the costs of construction in advanced economies. If regul…
That is a funny ask. Regulation doesnt have to be a single thing. It can very well be cost-overrun by a thousand paper cut. You can drown any project in endless paperwork, environmental and national security reviews. In fact unclear and contradictory requirements are much more conductive to drive costs up than a single Lets-make-nuclear-expensive-Act.
That being said if you need to pick a single thing (which is silly) then the “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” principle of radiation protection is a prime candidate. When you have a safety limit you can design a system to remain under it. When you are designing a sytem for the ALARA principle that in itself will blow your costs up.
I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?
It means you either need an alternative when production is too low such as coal or gas-fired power plants or a lot of capacity sufficiently stretched out than they are not stopped at the same time. Managing such a large grid with huge swings in capacity and making it resilient is a massive challenge. That’s why you end up with Germany building 70-ish new gas-fired power plants next to their alleged push towards renewable.
It’s probably doable but when you look at it from this angle nuclear starts to look good as an alternative.
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…
A major reason nuclear plants are super expensive is because we do it so rarely Every reactor and every plant is bespoke, even if they are based on a common "design" each instance is different enough that every project has to be managed from the ground up as a new thing, you get certified only on a single plant, operators can't move from plant to plant without recertification, etc Part of that is because they are so…