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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

#211

Post by kulahan »

oceanplexian wrote: post #29
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".

It’s simple, Germany isn’t going to be participating in the next industrial revolution. It will be the US vs. China. You can already see it happening with their car industry as they struggle to keep up with new technology.

Could you expand more on your car point? I thought BMW and Benz were doing great at the moment. I dunno much about Audi or VW, but Mini also seems to be doing well (which I thought was British, but one of their models has literally the same engine as my last bimmer, so I guess they were sold at some point?).

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#212

Post by GloriousKoji »

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…

As someone also served by PG&E I don't think cheaper electricity will help. At peak hours electricity is $0.13/kwh but the delivery charge is $0.50/kwh.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#213

Post by jabl »

ajross wrote: post #97
exabrial wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the stuff that makes working reactors is the most difficult part of making a working weapons I'm unaware of this to be true. Civilian reactors are hardly-at-all-enirched uranium reactors. Creating highly enriched uranium or plutonium are completely different processes.

Enrichment requires feed stock, and active reactor fuel is much higher in fissionable isotopes than the uranium with which it was fed originally. The U238 naturally breeds up into stable-ish U/Th/Pu isotopes which you can totally turn into a bomb. Obviously there are such things as "breeder reactors" that are deliberately designed for this. But there's really no such thing as a can't-be-used-for-bombs reactor.

If you're going for the enriched uranium route to a bomb, nobody is going to start with used nuclear fuel, because dealing with the highly radioactive spent fuel is such a huge PITA.

If you're going for the U233 (from Th) or Pu route, yes then you need a reactor and spent fuel reprocessing. But not enrichment of spent fuel.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#214

Post by beeflet »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #187
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…

A nuclear fission power plant is never going to be cheaper than a coal plant, and coal plants are very expensive. They're superficially similar types of plants: they heat water and then use a steam turbine to convert it to electricity. Coal plants use higher temperatures and pressures, so they can use smaller turbines. That turbine is a massive part of the cost. Yes, there's room to drive down the cost of nuclear. No…

It can be cheaper to run a nuclear plant than a conventional power plant, due to lower fuel costs. But what kills nuclear is the capital costs of building the plant. It takes a while to reap the reward

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#215

Post by bawolff »

jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #160
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…

[flagged]

I don't think anyone wants to get rid of nuclear regs entirely. There is a popular perception (i dont know if actually true) that safety regs were built around first generation reactor designs which were designed in an inherently unsafe way, and for modern designs that are inherently safer, it makes sense to relax some regulations.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#216

Post by V__ »

mulmen wrote: post #172
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.

By definition the grid is decentralized. That’s what makes it a grid. Resiliency of the grid is a function of excess capacity but not the number of nodes.

I am no expert but remembering the grid outage in Spain this year, which was caused by a substation or node failure and not by a capacity problem. Wouldn't it be fair to describe resiliency as a combination of both capacity and nodes?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#217

Post by charcircuit »

tencentshill wrote: post #200
ciconia wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What is needed is a SpaceX-like enterprise, where the engineering effort is concentrated in building economies of scale. To me it's clear that nuclear energy's pros largely outweigh the cons, and that it is a perfect complement to solar and wind power generation.

We can't blow up nuclear reactors to learn how they failed like spaceX does with rockets.

Sure we can, just not out in the open with a bunch of spectators.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#218

Post by tirant »

jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #160
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…

[flagged]

Advocating for deregulation in order to achieve innovation is the opposite of conservative.

It’s not a matter of being a for profit or not. It’s an also matter of technological development. Most of the early incidents in nuclear plants happened under the management of public or state controlled companies.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#219

Post by monocularvision »

jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #160
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…

[flagged]

It’s always funny to me to see folks with the “HN leans _________” comments every few days with the blank spot filled in with every single political position one can think of.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#220

Post by beeflet »

notTooFarGone wrote: post #151
alexey-salmin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Germany invested all their renewable money into nuclear, they would be carbon-neutral today. Not by 2050 but today. Instead the CO2 per capita in Germany is 2x the one in France. And France had built their reactors in the 70s for a modest price. The "whole load more renewable energy" idea is peak wishful thinking and it's incredible people still buy it today.

[flagged]

>Holy shit - you can't build a nuclear power plant in Germany.

Not with you in the way

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