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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#651

Post by skybrian »

cushychicken wrote: post #621
simplyluke wrote: post #556

Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind, and opposition to nuclear from environmentalist orgs should be viewed as a massive historical mistake as it set us back decades in moving the needle on carbon emissions. The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record.

The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record. It’s also worth noting that the US Navy is the only organization with a perfect nuclear safety record. My point being: by god, let the Navy nukes train everyone else!

Their safety record is good, but can they generate power at a cost that's commercially competitive? If it's too expensive then the plan doesn't work.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#652

Post by yawaramin »

sunaookami wrote: post #636
Manuel_D wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, someone can be both concerned about climate change and oppose nuclear power. But it's a largely self-defeating stance: nuclear is the only non-intermittent geographically independent form of clean energy. Dams and geothermal are geographically constrained. Solar and wind are intermittent, as well as varying in output depending on location.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions.

But they're not entitled to their own facts.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#653

Post by BirAdam »

topspin wrote: post #626
BirAdam wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It carried on until at least 1989, and the effects were present majorly until around 2000, and the superfund site was completed in 2006. So, like, pretty darn recent on the scale of a human lifetime.

That's all correct; a long tail of consequences. Going in the opposite historical direction is the other side of that ledger. The actual plant in question was shut down in 1957. The AEC stepped in years earlier to triage the operation, after actually establishing formal exposure limits in 1950, which didn't exist prior to that point. Before that, the company itself had hired staff to control waste and detect contamin…

The one that injured me and those where I lived was not Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. It was Fernald, and it was active until ‘89.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#654

Post by dahart »

epistasis wrote: post #637
noosphr wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Building lots of new nuclear instead of doing the cheaper option of tons of batteries and renewables This is not the cheaper option. You need to have batteries that can store power for at least a week to have base load as reliable as nuclear power. There isn't enough battery capacity in the world to do this for a state like California, let alone the whole country.

> You need to have batteries that can store power for at least a week to have base load as reliable as nuclear power. This is a complete myth, somebody pulled "a week" out of their butt a decade ago, it gets repeated a ton, but it's not based on reality or studies or numbers. This is a consistent problem with online nuclear advocacy: there's no basis for the numbers, nobody calculates anything, and if they bother to…

> By 2031 or 2032, we’re going to have 20-30TWh of battery production

What’s the source on this? I just googled it, and the sources I see are saying 5TWh by 2036, with increasing supply chain risks over time…

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-lithium-ion-battery-ca...

https://www.iea.org/commentaries/global-battery-markets-are-...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#655

Post by teamonkey »

Pigo wrote: post #150
deanc wrote: post #23

Good. It's time we realised that we need a good strong stable power grid and clean nuclear energy is absolutely going to be a massive part of this.

I'm always wondering how long it will take for popular sentiment to finally shift. So many years of things like Blinky the fish in the Simpsons really did a number on our shared consciousness.

I think the series of actual nuclear disasters from the 1950s to 2000s - plus the fear of a hot nuclear war in the ‘70s - had more impact on the collective consciousness than The Simpsons.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#656

Post by florkbork »

UltraSane wrote: post #643
simplyluke wrote: post #556

Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind, and opposition to nuclear from environmentalist orgs should be viewed as a massive historical mistake as it set us back decades in moving the needle on carbon emissions. The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record.

Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear is like being a firefighter and opposing the use of water to extinguish fires.

That seems to be deliberately obtuse.

It is more like being a firefighter and being opposed to airlifting icebergs to drop on fires.

Sure, you'll get water eventually and you might even extinguish a fire; but how long does it take to organise and deliver, what can go wrong in the process, what are the consequences of a mistake like dropping it prematurely, and why are we ignoring the honking great big cheap river right next to the house fire we are fighting?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#657

Post by [deleted] »

Manuel_D wrote: post #598
sunaookami wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind Yes hello, these are both my opinions, do I exist for you or not ;)? You can say that we are in a climate crisis AND be anti-nuclear.

Sure, someone can be both concerned about climate change and oppose nuclear power. But it's a largely self-defeating stance: nuclear is the only non-intermittent geographically independent form of clean energy. Dams and geothermal are geographically constrained. Solar and wind are intermittent, as well as varying in output depending on location.

[deleted]

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#658

Post by tialaramex »

Manuel_D wrote: post #598
sunaookami wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind Yes hello, these are both my opinions, do I exist for you or not ;)? You can say that we are in a climate crisis AND be anti-nuclear.

Sure, someone can be both concerned about climate change and oppose nuclear power. But it's a largely self-defeating stance: nuclear is the only non-intermittent geographically independent form of clean energy. Dams and geothermal are geographically constrained. Solar and wind are intermittent, as well as varying in output depending on location.

Nuclear is also in practice significantly geographically dependent.

Cities basically won't let you put a nuclear power station within a stone's throw, never mind in their midst. Have you ever visited London? There's a wonderful modern art gallery, on the side of the Thames called Tate Modern, and it has this enormous space which is called the "Turbine Hall". Huh. Tate Modern's shell was a 300MW oil fired power station named "Bankside". They burned tonnes of oil right in the heart of London until the 1980s to make electricity. People weren't happy about it, but they designed, built, and operated the station because although any fool can see there's toxic smoke pouring out of it into your city, electricity is pretty useful.

In practice nuclear power stations get built somewhere with abundant cheap water, far from population centres yet easily connected to the grid. England has more places to put a Nuke than say, a Hydro dam, but they are not, as you've suggested, "geographically independent", unlike say solar PV which doesn't even stop you grazing animals on the land or parking vehicles or whatever else you might want to do.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#659

Post by selfmodruntime »

dalyons wrote: post #640
selfmodruntime wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how the fuck does nuclear power make any economic sense Because these plants run for 80+ years (some countries are now considering 100) while most renewables run for 25 at most. And also because `plus batteries` doesn't exist. The world battery capacity isn't enough to power California for a single week. Large scale battery technology isn't even in its infancy, it just doesn't exist. Don't forget, you've paid for t…

25 year replacement for solar is a myth. [1] . They may degrade to ~80% but they keep on working and producing, so far it seems almost indefinitely. [1] https://www.ecoticias.com/en/goodbye-to-the-idea-that-solar-...

So in essence they studied all of six (6) panels in a non-dusty region with a mild climate and without notable saline corrosion AND the article even mentions that most other studies are well in the 25-30 year range. Also the study clearly outlines that older silicone panels can't be compared against modern mass produced variants. Finally the study only examines modules that are still working, failed or removed systems are not in the dataset so you have heavy hidden distortion.

The sample size is extremely limited. Six systems are not at all robust enough for global conclusions. This popsci article of yours doesn't hold up to scrutiny and neither it nor the study are enough to make sweeping generalizations like declaring the common 25 year lifecycle a myth.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#660

Post by echelon »

avianlyric wrote: post #641
cushychicken wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record. It’s also worth noting that the US Navy is the only organization with a perfect nuclear safety record. My point being: by god, let the Navy nukes train everyone else!

They have done. The Three Mile Island accident happened when it was being operated by Navy vets [1]. Simple training isn’t enough. During the investigation of the accident the Admiral that built and ran the Navy nuclear program was asked how the Navy had managed to operate accident free, and what others could learn. This was his response: > Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Progra…

How many people have died on account of nuclear accidents?

Vs. coal?

Vs. not having enough energy? (eg. blackouts killing hospital ventilators, etc.)

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Edit: because of HN rate limits, I can't respond to a sibling comment. I'll do that here:

> Their safety record is good, but can they generate power at a cost that's commercially competitive? If it's too expensive then the plan doesn't work.

Is a purely wind/solar + battery grid viable?

Wouldn't it be better to have a rich heterogeneous mix of various power inputs that can be scaled and maintained independently?

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