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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

#201

Post by zdragnar »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #62
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…

This is said a lot but I don't think regs as written are necessarily the major cost driver. I did a nuclear industry survey to ask what specific regulations people would want changed recently. The one where using commercial grade QA instead of nuclear grade is very interesting. I think industry overreaction to the regs is possibly as large or larger of a problem than the regs themselves. https://whatisnuclear.com/new…

I'm a bit miffed I can't find the article now, but I recall hearing it was more the reactor design approval process than the operational process regulations that interfered with and drove up costs. Every tiny detail of a site has to be taken into account, forcing modifications to existing designs such that every build ends up being bespoke anyway. On top of that, many of the rules around the design approval process are geared towards older generation reactors and newer generation reactors end up being cost ineffective because they need to account for things that don't apply to them.

If anyone remembers that article, I'd love to cite it here. If not, feel free to ignore what is otherwise unfounded speculation I guess.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#202

Post by thw_9a83c »

diordiderot wrote: post #132
thw_9a83c wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point but it's not really that simple in this particular case. Nuclear energy production is clean under assumption: 1. You can operate the facility with a zero critical accident over the whole lifespan of the power plant. 2. You know what to do with a nuclear waste (like keep it safely deeply buried for 10'000 years). However, point 2) is almost irrelevant now because we already have enough depleted nuclea…

1. Only six reactors have had meltdowns, partial meltdowns, serious core damage, or fatalities. Gen 4 reactors have gravity driven control rods, passive cooling systems, core catchers, safer fuel, and moderators. If humans were raptured, they couldn't melt down. 2. The entire planets worth of spent nuclear fuel would fit into 15 Olympic swimming pools. Fast breeder reactors can use almost all of the existing waste an…

I'm not arguing about whether we should or shouldn't use nuclear energy. We should.

> 1. Only six reactors have had meltdowns, partial meltdowns, serious core damage, or fatalities.

If we assume that everything above INES[0] level 4 is already serious enough, then there were 11 accidents [1] and around 4484 fatalities (mostly 4000 indirect from Chernobyl but still).

> Gen 4 reactors have gravity driven control rods, passive cooling systems, core catchers, safer fuel, and moderators.

And yet, 100% safety is not achievable. But the risk is probably quite acceptable now.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_and_Radi...>

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...>

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#203

Post by ThinkBeat »

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".

A country is not forced to have AI farms running in it. Building giant powerplant for the AI tech (possible) bubble not seems wise.

The plant will take 5 - 10 years to build, who knows what demands AI will have at that point.

SO let some countries that want to spent enormous amounts of their energy on AI do so, adn the rest can connect to those.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#204

Post by [deleted] »

i5heu wrote: post #190
kulahan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Not with a tech that needs 15 years to be build

[deleted]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#205

Post by cyberax »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #170
cyberax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany will come around when their Green ship comes aground. Probably within the next ~5 years. The coal phaseout will happen, but only by replacing it with natural gas. It will result in the last easily achievable reduction in CO2, but it will also increase the already sky-high energy prices in Germany. After that? There's nothing. There are no credible plans that will result in further CO2 reductions. The noises a…

The data does not back up this narrative: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source?coun... The share of electricity production that coal lost is primarily take up by wind and solar, not gas.

The devil is in the details. The easy part is now done, and further significant increases in solar/wind in Germany are not going to happen.

Renewables now dominate generation during the optimal periods, but there's nothing on the horizon for other times.

Your graph also ignores energy used for heating and for industrial processes. Their electrification is now stalled by high energy prices.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#206

Post by V__ »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #185
V__ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am totally in agreement, that nuclear plants shouldn't be shut down before fossil ones. A decentralized grid sound way more resilient, then one with a few nuclear plants, which often have long unexpected downtimes (see France). I agree with you on the potential logistical dependencies, however that sadly applies to nearly everything right now.

The French grid has been extremely resilient with only a minor setback a couple years ago when multiple plants were in maintenance at the same time and that’s despite not significantly investing in it for decades. Technically, a grid based on nuclear production is also a distributed grid. You have multiple plants and it’s easy to add overcapacity to the grid because nuclear is easy to modulate.

This year again multiple nuclear plants in France had to reduce their output due to heatwaves and water levels, and ongoing cooling concerns. This is becoming a yearly occurrence. Though, I am not saying you can't have a nuclear grid, or you shouldn't use it at all, it's just that renewables seem to be a much better solution for most cases.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#207

Post by varispeed »

varispeed wrote: post #74
yellowapple wrote: post #14

[flagged]

These are orchestrated by Russia. They want to destabilise European energy sector and economies and they are sponsoring various organisations to spread such misinformation.

The West is losing information war with Russia - see the downvotes. Sites are infested with Russian bots and useful idiots helping the genocidal regime.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#208

Post by zer00eyz »

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.

If you think PG&E jacking up prices has anything other than greed, hubris and decades of short term thinking behind it, I have news for you.

And thats is why people look at nuclear and say "no thanks". The same corporate structures that hid data about smoking, PFAS and oxycodone are the ones you want running a nuclear plant?

Can you make a nuclear plant safe, small and useful: yes. The navy has been doing it for decades now with nary an incident. That doesn't mean you can do it outside a rigid structure where safety and efficiency are above costs. The moment you make that other constraint a factor something else has to give.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#209

Post by quickthrowman »

V__ wrote: post #67
yellowapple wrote: post #14

[flagged]

I agree that the fears are overblown, but at the same time the hype for nuclear is just weird. It's more complex, more expensive, less adjustable and more risky. Even the new hip small modular reactors are many years away. The LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) for solar with battery is already better than current solutions, and dropping. Wind and battery closely following. There is no way that nuclear technology w…

There is no grid that can be sustained on solar and batteries or wind and solar and batteries or wind and solar and pumped hydro and batteries. Possibly geothermal for base load could replace nuclear and natural gas plants, combined with renewal energy and battery storage.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#210

Post by parhamn »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #203
kulahan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

A country is not forced to have AI farms running in it. Building giant powerplant for the AI tech (possible) bubble not seems wise. The plant will take 5 - 10 years to build, who knows what demands AI will have at that point. SO let some countries that want to spent enormous amounts of their energy on AI do so, adn the rest can connect to those.

> who knows what demands AI will have at that point

This is true for any investment pretty much.

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