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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

#721

Post by gambiting »

eqvinox wrote: post #709
rcbdev wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read Directive (EU) 2022/2557 and then tell me how a disgruntled office worker is supposed to do anything they aren't supposed to, given full compliance with the directive. I've seen some preliminary national implementation efforts and it's really serious stuff physical security wise. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

> full compliance with the directive I don't think I've ever seen a place fully compliant with all regulations down to the last letter. Somebody inevitably takes a shortcut somewhere. All you can do is push those shortcuts into places they don't matter. Certainly not the times and culture we live in, but the "test" they tried running at Chornobyl violated their own regulations too…

But again:

>>highly radioactive material is within reach of any disgruntled office worker.

Like, how would that disgruntled office worker even reach that highly radioactive material? Especially without killing themselves in the process. Hospitals already have extremely radioactive cobalt sources on premises, and they are 1) impossible to get to by a normal employee 2) would kill said employee if they ever did get to them somehow.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#722

Post by sajithdilshan »

awesome_dude wrote: post #385
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…

1. Ukraine nuclear power plants are a massive liability - they make for easy targets for the Russians to obliterate the country - is that what you want for Switzerland? 2. The waste - nobody wants it - it's a hazard for tens of thousands of years - what's the plan for managing it? Yes energy generation (and independence) is important, no nuclear ain't it.

by your logic, then what's preventing another country just nuking Switzerland?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#723

Post by m101 »

Kon5ole wrote: post #420
m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

I feel the same frustration but for the opposite reason. I am entirely confident you must be misinformed, not me. I suggest you read actual bookkeeping statements from nuclear operators, national budget items, historical records about radiation incidents, nuclear deposits, agreement texts and the like, instead of reading books that can only be true if they adhere to the information in such sources. - nuclear power is…

I am not sure you have actually closely read what I have said.

Early nuclear builds were cheaper to build:

https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/essay...

Spent fuel is mostly reusable:

https://gordianknotbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/gordi...

Low-dose radiation risk is a contested harm:

https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-two-lies-that-killed...

And no, solar is NOT free..............

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#724

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

awesome_dude wrote: post #385
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…

1. Ukraine nuclear power plants are a massive liability - they make for easy targets for the Russians to obliterate the country - is that what you want for Switzerland? 2. The waste - nobody wants it - it's a hazard for tens of thousands of years - what's the plan for managing it? Yes energy generation (and independence) is important, no nuclear ain't it.

> Ukraine nuclear power plants are a massive liability - they make for easy targets for the Russians to obliterate the country - is that what you want for Switzerland?

This makes no sense. Russia has actual nuclear weapons, it can "obliterate" Ukraine (or Switzerland) on a whim with them, if they decide to. Also, as you can verify by looking at the containment zone of Chernobyl catastrophe, full blown meltdown/explosion of a nuclear reactor doesn't really "obliterate" a country size of Ukraine.

> The waste - nobody wants it - it's a hazard for tens of thousands of years

No, it is not hazardous for "tens of thousands of years".

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#725

Post by SJC_Hacker »

lukan wrote: post #718
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

110 GW at a 90% capacity factor vs 430 GW at maybe 20% capacity factor

430 GW a year on 20% (which it is not, as china has lots of desserts with no clouds) would still be a way bigger number than 110 GW that are planned to be reached in a few years.

Yeah my bd, the capacity factor was mor like 15% for solar PV (utility scale), according to their own data

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/energysource/china-bui...

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#726

Post by gambiting »

onraglanroad wrote: post #350
lenerdenator wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China probably fits in the "politically undesirable" category these days. Considering the Europeans are currently hollowing out their industrial base by importing Chinese EVs instead of building their own, I don't see a nuclear reactor being a bridge too far.

European car manufacturers have been given every opportunity and encouragement to build EVs and the phrase "dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century" springs to mind. People are buying BYD because they're better cars, not because they're forced to.

Honestly, VW spent years developing the ID line which was just too expensive, buggy, and constanly positioned as an alternative to much cheaper and better equipped Golf/Polo lines - it's like they were afraid to canibalize their own products. I don't know a single person who owned an ID.3 and was actually happy with it.

Or Mercedes, where they decided to build extremely expensive EVs that departed from their core design so much their core audience didn't want to buy them, then they were surprised EVs don't sell.

Or Audi who were probably a masterclass in offering the worst possible value for money you could imagine with their EVs - £50k Q4 that still had manual seats, like what are you competing with exactly?

Only Skoda could really kinda buck the trend with the Enyaq, which proves that VW could be competive if they wanted to, but they actively decided not to.

And don't start me on the Peugeot/Renault/Opel cars, which initially looked incredibly interesting and actually competitive, but I can only guess that Stellantis told them to tone it down because again - have to protect their core business of ICE cars, can't be too good.

And then MG came in with very well specced working EVs, and then other Chinese brands moved in, and big european manufacturers are crying that they are eating their lunch. Like, you guys had literally years to address this, but you decided to protect your legacy product over investing in the future = you're reaping the results now.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#727

Post by gambiting »

LtdJorge wrote: post #587
lukan wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For Europe I don't see a reason why each country needs a nuclear waste repository." Because apparently no country wants to be the dumpster for the radioactive waste of the others? I wonder why that is, when it is a solved problem.

Most plants don't need anything special for waste management. They just put it in dry cask storage and leave those in the outside. Ironically, there's less background radiation around the casks than away from them, since they are so shielded you also get shielded from part of the background radiation too.

In Netherlands there is a nuclear energy museum where you can literally walk around spent fuel casks.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#728

Post by mpweiher »

Arodex wrote: post #114
mpweiher wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every SMR startup is failing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586648

Have you read the comments?

Yes. Have you?

Are you of the opinion that the comments on that article are conclusive evidence for all SMR startups failing?

If so, how? Please try to be specific.

I don't see evidence of even one startup failing there, never mind all of them.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#729

Post by palata »

cogman10 wrote: post #608
palata wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also wind turbines kill birds and bats, it is an actual problem to be put in the balance. The balance being: do you build a ton of those turbines, or one nuclear plant?

Skyscraper windows kill birds and bats. It's not a real problem. If it were actually a problem you should be able to walk under a wind turbine and find a bunch of dead birds/bats. The reality is you might find 1 or 2, but not enough to actually observe any sort of impact on the population. Outdoor cats are a far bigger menace to birds and bats. So yeah, you build a ton of those turbines. Because by the time you can d…

> If it were actually a problem you should be able to walk under a wind turbine and find a bunch of dead birds/bats.

That's not how it works, but thanks for not thinking about it for more than a few seconds. It is documented, you can read about that. In Germany, tens of thousands of bats are killed by wind turbines every year. For birds, they do have camera systems that detect bird migrations and stop the turbines.

So yeah, it is very much a real problem, you just have to read about it.

> Wind requires someone to go grease the gears once a year.

So it's not only the birds problem: you don't know how wind turbines are maintained either!

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#730

Post by palata »

eldaisfish wrote: post #543
palata wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also wind turbines kill birds and bats, it is an actual problem to be put in the balance. The balance being: do you build a ton of those turbines, or one nuclear plant?

no, this is not an "actual" problem. It is a problem in the sense that it happens, but not at a meaningful enough scale. The bats and birds is an issue that the oil and gas industry regularly pushes because it sounds concerning, but really isn't.

Are you aware that tens of thousands of endangered bats are killed every year just in Germany (by wind turbines)? It is an actual problem for that species.

Are you aware that wind turbines have detection systems for bird migrations and stop to avoid killing too many birds? If it was not an "actual problem", why would they spend money in actual solutions?

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