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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

#111

Post by Arodex »

cogman10 wrote: post #73
jsnell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an EU nation.

Oh wow, I didn't realize that! That's crazy, basically everyone that borders them are EU members. I was also under the impression (but haven't checked) that it was pretty easy to cross the swiss border both into and out of the EU.

Switzerland unilaterally got out of negotiations with the EU, which also dealt with energy grid coordination.

As such, as of now, the EU can shut down Switzerland without warning if the grid is overloaded and they need to avoid a blackout.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#112

Post by john_strinlai »

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…

>Never said they break the laws of thermodynamics.

true, you said "gaslight thermodynamics", which i have no idea what that means, so i took a guess at what you were implying.

>never be more efficient than alternatives such as... Bigger nuclear reactors.

is efficiency really the only metric to be considered? i feel like available space, availability of alternatives, time to complete construction, etc. are worthwhile to consider.

>And how long have you been out there? Have you never seen investors dumping and wasting billions in dead-ends? Never seen a mania before?

considering the length of time and sheer number of people, companies, and governments worldwide considering/investing in SMR tech it seems unlikely to be a mania. but i am not an expert. you are talking like you are one, which is why i am asking questions.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#113

Post by Plankaluel »

cogman10 wrote: post #48
_diyar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. As a. swiss voter, this is close to my heart. 50% of all energy in the swiss economy is oil / gas. Of the remaining 50% (electricity), 2/3 are generated by hydro. The remaining ~1/3 by nuclear fission. Swiss electricity prices are sky-high, and the demand for electricity is going to continue to rise. To remain a competitive industrial economy, to transition away from oil/gas, and to offset any potentia…

Why hasn't Switzerland deployed solar/wind? That seems like a pretty big miss in general. The Swiss grid has almost no wind which is strange for such a mountainous nation. And solar is also quite low which is also strange given how much empty land exists in Switzerland along with it's relatively low latitude.

Regarding wind and mountains. Some perspective from someone from neighboring Tyrol:

The reason there is so little wind power: Probably the same reason the western, alpine parts of Austria have basically zero wind power - and why neighbouring Carinthia recently voted in a referendum to ban it completely.

People who live in the Alps generally don't like seeing the mountains altered. It is treated almost as sacrilege. And since these areas are heavily dependent on tourism, where the appeal rests on a romantic, Disney-fied fantasy of wild, untamed nature, locals worry that turbines would make the region less attractive to tourists. Of course, this "untouched" landscape is largely a fiction in the first place: most of it looks the way it does precisely because people have lived in it and shaped it for centuries.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#114

Post by Arodex »

mpweiher wrote: post #81
Arodex wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Have you read the comments?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#115

Post by lightedman »

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.

"SMR make as much sense as space datacenters."

So a whole lot of sense given the entire US Navy uses them and I already have one datacenter operating up in space (small test unit that over 3 months has provided ZERO issues) and a bigger one heading up into orbit next year when it's done being made.

"but you can't gaslight thermodynamics"

No but you can certainly conflate them like you're doing right now.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#116

Post by Arodex »

vablings wrote: post #103
Arodex wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I think you have a misunderstanding of what a SMR is supposed to be. Nuclear power plants are eye watering levels of expensive. The require massive scale and cost with lengthy approvals and requirements, the fundamental idea of SMRs is to move that cost and approvals into a smaller scale so that multiple standard units can be produced and deployed in a turnkey situation, they still will be expensive but the time to d…

>The problem with solar is that you need power 24/7 and solar will not make power in the night.

Ok, question: for the cost of one nuclear power plant, how many batteries can you have?

For the cost of the R&D of one next generation nuclear reactor design, how many next generation battery and solar panels technologies can you develop?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#117

Post by hereme888 »

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.

The estimated levelized cost of electricity changes dramatically with financing cost: from roughly the low-$100s/MWh under cheap capital to well above $200/MWh under high capital-cost assumptions. But wasn't that the case for wind and solar too?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#118

Post by testing22321 »

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.

Also absolutely minimum of 20 years to build it.

So this is fixing nothing short term.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#119

Post by Kipters »

Arodex wrote: post #22
reddalo wrote: post #5

I wish Italy did the same. We still have to deal with the consequences of a referendum hold not so long after che Chernobyl accident which made it illegal to build and operate nuclear power plants.

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…

Why not both?

We still need rotating mass to keep the grid stable, which means either building giant flywheels, keep burning gas or bring nuclear into the mix.

One of these can also produce a ton of energy when needed, the other two cant.

We can and should build more renewables, but we can't risk grid stability!

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#120

Post by suddenlybananas »

Arodex wrote: post #104
eightysixfour wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy security is something I expect the government to invest my tax dollars in especially energy generation that is resilient to international politics and reduced carbon emissions.

Then nuclear isn't it. Switzerland has no uranium and no strong relationship with an uranium-producing country. They also regularly antagonise the EU (especially the far-right isolationisz SVP/UDC, which is... pro-nuclear, of course) which controls every way fission products could be brought inside Switzerland. The same far-right country is also the one who wanted to cap the population because "there isn't room anymo…

>Nuclear will also boil over Swiss rivers and shallow lakes.

What on earth are you talking about?

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