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Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

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Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#81

Post by mpweiher »

Arodex wrote: post #39
GL26 wrote: post #19

Nuclear energy is really the energy of the future, fission still has bright days ahead of it. the startup market for SMRs is going to boom once the core challenges will have been solved, sure that we will see many ETH founders go into that world

Every SMR startup is failing. The more they progress, the more they revise their costs upwards. SMR make as much sense as space datacenters. You can gaslight investors, you can gaslight HN, you can gaslight a national parliament full of lobbyists, but you can't gaslight thermodynamics.

> Every SMR startup is failing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586648

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#82

Post by tribaal »

cogman10 wrote: post #52
tribaal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly all of our potential for pumped hydro is already developed, and there is not a lot left to do for non-pumped hydro. We can't grow hydro at the required scale, and the usual problem with solar and wind (that we should develop nonetheless, don't get me wrong) apply: we can't produce enough power with those all year (winter nights need power too for heat pumps etc...)

Wind would be particularly effective in Switzerland and it's fast to deploy. The swiss grid has less than 1% wind which was pretty shocking to me. It seems like Switzerland has a particularly bad renewable story for an EU nation.

Wind is not that developed in Switzerland because it's not actually that great of a situation... We have a lot of steep mountains which make building wind farms a real challenge, and the flat plains in between have "meh" levels of wind. And a very strong NIMBY mentality. We do have some projects but those are more exception than rule.

The really awesome wind spots are more the coastal or offshore farms, which... well... we can't have (no access to the sea does that to you).

Solar is really really booming right now however, many houses take themselves off grid completely. Mine is a net producer for example.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#84

Post by jkman »

Arodex wrote: post #74
john_strinlai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SMR make as much sense as space datacenters. you are in this thread a lot, so i am guessing you must be very familiar with the industry. maybe you can help me understand: is the wikipedia on SMRs incorrect/lying when they say that there are commercially operating SMRs since 2020? and how have so many smart people and companies been duped into seriously considering SMR technology if SMRs apparently break the laws of…

>commercially operating And struggling, propped up by taylor-made laws and public money. >how have so many smart people and companies been duped into seriously considering SMR technology if SMRs apparently break the laws of thermodynamics? Never said they break the laws of thermodynamics. They are just inefficient and will never be more efficient than alternatives such as... Bigger nuclear reactors. Or solar. And how…

>'taylor-made' Says it all, doesn't it

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#85

Post by tonfa »

jokteur wrote: post #46
alephnerd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland Does discourse from neighboring countries leak in as well? For example, German and Italian media's anti-nuclear sentiment versus French media's neutral to vaguely positive sentiment about nuclear.

French part of Switzerland is much more left leaning, so I can expect more anti-nuclear sentiment on this side. But the sentiment of nuclear depends purely on which party you vote for, I don't think the language itself has an impact. But, Germany's decision after Fukushima to close down all nuclear reactors has had a strong impact on the 2017 votation that banned nuclear in Switzerland. So I guess the influence is th…

I'd see a lot more "nuclear no thanks" stickers in swiss German side than Romandie.

I'd expect the strong anti movement from Germany to have some impact.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#86

Post by Arodex »

ziotom78 wrote: post #61
Arodex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely ridiculous: of all countries, Italy has totally the means to rely only on solar and batteries. You even have the industrial prowess to make it all in the country step by step, whereas nuclear reactors are such humongous engineering projects that building the capacity is very out of reach. Edit: and with the Mediterranean and rivers warming severely - and the latter even suffering from draught - how a…

> It is absolutely ridiculous: of all countries, Italy has totally the means to rely only on solar and batteries Do you have any trustable source for this?

Just look at any map of solar power potential, solar irradiance, hours of sunshine of Europe.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#87

Post by doublepg23 »

Kon5ole wrote: post #76

Citizens should take note that no nuclear plants are ever built without many billions in state loans and guarantees. It's not a cheap source of electricity, it's a way for someone to get money from taxpayers to subsidize their business.

..as opposed to other green energy programs that received no government investment?

...or the externality-free fossil fuel industry?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#89

Post by paytonjjones »

Kon5ole wrote: post #76

Citizens should take note that no nuclear plants are ever built without many billions in state loans and guarantees. It's not a cheap source of electricity, it's a way for someone to get money from taxpayers to subsidize their business.

Por que no los dos?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#90

Post by calvinmorrison »

cogman10 wrote: post #52
tribaal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly all of our potential for pumped hydro is already developed, and there is not a lot left to do for non-pumped hydro. We can't grow hydro at the required scale, and the usual problem with solar and wind (that we should develop nonetheless, don't get me wrong) apply: we can't produce enough power with those all year (winter nights need power too for heat pumps etc...)

Wind would be particularly effective in Switzerland and it's fast to deploy. The swiss grid has less than 1% wind which was pretty shocking to me. It seems like Switzerland has a particularly bad renewable story for an EU nation.

It's not in the EU. It is part of the Schengen Agreement.
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