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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

#221

Post by esarbe »

UltraSane wrote: post #176
esarbe wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also incredibly expensive and brittle and cannot be moderated without additional costs[1]. At this point nuclear is just a dead horse. It hasn't managed to displace fossil fuels in over 70 years - a feat that renewables have done within 20 years. Nuclear is too slow and too expensive. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/france...

Nuclear reactors can last up to 80 years. The main reason nuclear hasn't displaced fossil fuels over the last 70 years is due to relentless irrational opposition.

No reactor has yet even reached the operating age of 60 years. That 80 years number is wholly speculative.

We stopped building nuclear reactors in the 1970ies[0] because with the additional complexity to make them safe, the systems were just too expensive.

It has nothing to do with "relentless irrational opposition".

[0] https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/Nuclear-Reactor-Construct...

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#222

Post by orangecat »

esarbe wrote: post #165
cloudie78 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should take note that you’re uninformed or intentionally spreading false information and misrepresenting reality. Fact of the matter is it takes a large upfront investment to build a nuclear reactor and it has a longer time horizon before it becomes profitable in comparison to something like a gas or coal power plant. It comes down to whether or not the country, government, citizens and country have the ability t…

There's no false information there. Nuclear is complex and so expensive that despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel. It's also slow, with building times up to more than a decade. France tried it. Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives, makes about €3 billion per year in profits and has to invest about €150 billion in new reactors, upgrad…

It always amuses me when nuclear power is the one area where the left becomes Very Concerned about excessive government spending.

despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel

Except for France which came up with the clever strategy of "not banning it", but that was apparently a mistake and they should have just used fossil fuels?

Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives

€50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#223

Post by cryptonym »

esarbe wrote: post #165
cloudie78 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should take note that you’re uninformed or intentionally spreading false information and misrepresenting reality. Fact of the matter is it takes a large upfront investment to build a nuclear reactor and it has a longer time horizon before it becomes profitable in comparison to something like a gas or coal power plant. It comes down to whether or not the country, government, citizens and country have the ability t…

There's no false information there. Nuclear is complex and so expensive that despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel. It's also slow, with building times up to more than a decade. France tried it. Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives, makes about €3 billion per year in profits and has to invest about €150 billion in new reactors, upgrad…

France also produces less CO2, sell electricity at reasonable and stable cost.

If fossil fuel weren't massively subsided (impact the environment for free, wars with taxpayer money), Nuclear would have made a massive dent.

Producing the same with other sources will have a massive immediate impact on the land / environment.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#224

Post by chinathrow »

jules wrote: post #157
jokteur wrote: post #32

This still has to pass with the people in a referendum. The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland. All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear. I am not expecting informed and civil discussions about this topic. Switzerland has a summer/winter energy problem. We have lots of potential of producing energy in the spring and summer (when our dams are full fro…

If there is any country that can safely build nuclear power plants, it is Switzerland.

Unless you drill holes into the outer containment hull.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#225

Post by jrflowers »

LinXitoW wrote: post #202
rayiner wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only expensive and brittle because environmentalists have choked it to death. They’re the third biggest villains of climate change, after consumers and oil companies. If the whole developed world had nuclearized the way France did, our discussions about climate change would be entirely different. We would have decades more runway to avoid 2C+ scenarios. We would have already electrified vast swaths of the econom…

So its really safe, but also the evil regulations make it expensive. I'm certain there's ZERO correlation between regulations that make it expensive and regulations making it safe.................... So, where is the free market shitting out nuclear power? Anywhere?

> The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has over 7,500 reactor years of cumulative reactor operation, and nuclear powered ships have steamed over 175 million miles. Since the inception of the program, there has never been an accident involving a naval reactor nor a release of radioactivity to the environment which has adversely affected public health or safety.

https://www.nr-ha.org/history

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#226

Post by s1artibartfast »

Plankaluel wrote: post #113
cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. A…

yeah, some it has been shaped by man, but that does not negate or invalidate the fact that they like it the way that it is.

My clean dinner table is completely artificial, but that doesnt mean I should be neutral to someone placing a bowl of shit on it.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#227

Post by spikels »

UltraSane wrote: post #188
pydry wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China and South Korea build everything more cheaply because they have a better developed industrial base. Solar and wind is still vastly cheaper for them and still much cheaper when paired with storage.

solar and wind is only cheaper up to a certain percentage of total power due to its unreliability. Every watt of wind and solar is subsidized by another dispatchable source. As a sysadmin it seems very comparable to the need to essentially buy 2x and only run things at 50% capacity.

The US uses ~0.5 TW of electricity on average but to go 100% solar you would need ~3 TW of solar capacity (6X average usage) and ~30 TWh of battery storage, maybe lots more, plus a massive upgrade to the grid.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#228

Post by uxp100 »

esarbe wrote: post #186
rayiner wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only expensive and brittle because environmentalists have choked it to death. They’re the third biggest villains of climate change, after consumers and oil companies. If the whole developed world had nuclearized the way France did, our discussions about climate change would be entirely different. We would have decades more runway to avoid 2C+ scenarios. We would have already electrified vast swaths of the econom…

Ah, yes - "the evil environmentalists." Congratulations, you really torched that straw man. We stopped building nuclear reactors in the early 1970ies[0], long before there was any large organized civil movement organizing against it - because with the required additional complexity to make them safe, the technology was just too expensive. (As always - it's the capitalists that messed things up, not civil society.) De…

I mostly agree with your larger point, but the anti-nuclear movement predates the 70s by quite a bit.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#229

Post by Jolter »

Arodex wrote: post #123
john_strinlai wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 worthwhil…

>i feel like available space, time to complete construction All of these favor again bigger reactors. >considering the length of time and sheer number of people, companies, and governments considering/investing in SMR tech it seems unlikely to be a mania. All of the Swiss energy companies are asking to be bailed out in advance of the investment in nuclear.

Sweden recently did the same: in order for companies to agree to make new reactors, the government had to promise them a price floor for the electricity they produce. The price floor suggested is more than twice the current price on the spot market. That means that, for the lifetime of those reactors, Swedish taxpayers will be subsidizing production of nuclear power. I thought the idea was that they would be profitable? What happened to the political right’s love of the free market? When politicians go fixing prices with this kind of ”advance bailout”, it just makes it look like they are trying to get a nice retirement job in the nuclear power sector…

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#230

Post by 0-_-0 »

Arodex wrote: post #143
chickenbig wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thermodynamics are the reason why SMR aren't, and will never, be economical. And the link between thermodynamics and the price of electricity is what?

Your small nuclear reactor is going to need almost as much engineering , plumbing, safety mechanism, personnel, maintenance, etc... as your big nuclear reactor.

Not if it's mass produced
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