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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

#951

Post by pfdietz »

Moldoteck wrote: post #918
pfdietz wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which nuclear plants were replaced with coal plants? If you say "German plants", I'll point out coal consumption for power generation in Germany has gone down since the decision to phase out nuclear. Coal consumption would likely have gone down even more with nuclear still being used, but that doesn't support your claim as stated.

Germany has coal and no nuclear? Each MW of closed nuclear could have erased that coal. As simple as that. You can come with mental gymnastics but it doesnt change the fact Germany still has coal.

Yes, it could have. But coal didn't replace nuclear. These are different concepts.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#952

Post by Moldoteck »

pfdietz wrote: post #948
Moldoteck wrote: post #919

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT IS REPLACING. If you had nuclear plants that worked fine (highest CF globally probably after US), some even not reaching 40y (when most are extended to 60-80y) and you retire them instead of retiring coal, it means coal replaced nuclear. This is not hard to comprehend. You as a country have a choice - retire coal/gas or retire nuclear. Germany made it's choice and paid heavily https://link.springer.com/article/10.…

> IT IS REPLACING. If you had nuclear plants that worked fine (highest CF globally probably after US), some even not reaching 40y (when most are extended to 60-80y) and you retire them instead of retiring coal, it means coal replaced nuclear. No it doesn't mean that at all. In particular, in Germany, the total coal generation went down, so it couldn't have replaced anything. What replaced nuclear in Germany was renew…

The fact coal generation went down is irrelevant. Coal got down because domestic consumption dropped and Germany switched from net exporting 60TWh/y to being either neutral or net importer in last year.

Since the goal of energy transition is first and foremost decarbonization, if you close a low carbon source while keeping higher carbon sources, you can say that the worst polluter replaced the closed source

The structure of my comment is privileging coal because it has the worst emissions in the context of the ultimate decarbonization goal (among other nasty enviromental impacts from it). That's why it's coal that replaced nuclear and not renewables nor gas.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#953

Post by Moldoteck »

esarbe wrote: post #943
Moldoteck wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are concerned about EDF having 50bn debt and France spending 120bn to build it's entire fleet but you are fine with Germany spending almost 400bn on EEG alone till now to have far worse emissions and still drive coal? This is your concern? "No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all."…

No, my concern is that France will have to spend around €150-200 billion in the next ten years just to keep their current capacity. I guess that's the reason that they went for renewables for capacity expansion - it's much cheaper to build and operate renewables rather than nuclear.

Those are part of EDF financials. Again, EDF already did Great Carenage for over half of reactors. And it didn't have CFD's for that - only own budget. And it was despite stupid ARENH law that got replaced this year.

Germany is about to spend over 600bn for grid expansion till 2045 and EEG subsidies for the next 10 years will too, be about 200bn (if not cancelled by govt which is unlikely unless AFD is elected)

France downscaled ren deployment plans while pushing for 6 new EPR2's + another 8 if there aren't major delays.

So not only France needs to spend/subsidize less in this period - it'll also still have cleaner grid and lower household prices than Germany in parallel

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#954

Post by Moldoteck »

Kon5ole wrote: post #945
Moldoteck wrote: post #940

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It pretty much was compared to modern plants. What happened there can't physically happen in western gen2 plants and even more so in gen3 units. Chernobyl is de facto the worst thing that could have happened unless we start using some wild imagination. Fukushima is a proof that a better design (albeit far from stellar) will result in orders of magnitude less damage/danger despite extreme tsunami and earthquakes

> Chernobyl is de facto the worst thing that could have happened unless we start using some wild imagination A scenario where the fire continued for 4 weeks instead of 10 days takes very little imagination and would be much much worse than what actually happened. >Fukushima is a proof that a better design (albeit far from stellar) will result in orders of magnitude less damage Fukushima would not have had a graphite…

So a scenario where humans will not do anything to stop a fire? Sorry that's not realistic. Chernobyl's fire was stopped because of human intervention, otherwise it would have taken longer. And again - such thing can't happen in western units.

Yes, in Fukushima it would have been much better, even if there was fuel rod fire, due to... better plant design...

Fukushima costs are blown out because Japanes govt wanted it this way. Just like JP govt forced long term evacuation even if the doses both during and after event were not life threatening.

"Seriously, why are we doing things like this when we have cheaper, faster and safer options? Why are we not instead going for the options?" - like what? Renewables firmed by gas and coal like in Germany? You are aware it spent on it's transition so far much more than France spent on nuclear while achieving worse results, while killing thousands from coal pollution in the meantime? So Germany spent more, achieved much less in much longer time. And on top it plans further gas expansion to firm renewables. This is not a cheaper/faster/safer way. It's the exact opposite in all directions.

"It will require so much batteries" Yes. So let's get started, we can build as many batteries as we need 10 times over. "Synth fuels are inefficient", yes, but that doesn't matter when the electricity is close to free." - electricity for synth will not be free and bess will eat into it's economics. Synth fuel infra isn't cheap either. Using H2 for firming is a pipedream pushed by fossil industry to justify expanding gas infrastructure.

It has to be nuclear + renewables. That's the difference - we already know it works good looking at Sweden and France. Others that tried to follow pipedreams ended up worse

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#955

Post by Moldoteck »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #942
Moldoteck wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm complaining that Germany also plans gas expansion into _future_ instead of either refurbing some of existing units for cheap or build new nuclear. Germany doesn't need to wait for it to come online. It needs to keep building ren while building nuclear and erase all fossils infrastructure entirely. No stupid parallel gas/coal firming. Nor cheap green hydrogen pipedreams. France doesn't have parallel gas network so…

Ahhh. The magical, ”just restart”, handwaving away all issues. You do realize that the nuclear lobby group found the easiest reactors to restart were in the north? Which is already constrained by an oversupply of renewables and limited transmission infrastructure. How will that help? Also. Why get less decarbonization by wasting money and opportunity on new built nuclear power when we still need to decarbonize constr…

It's not just restart. It's investing money to restart. The north area still has coal and gas plants so restarting nuclear still makes sense. That's how it'll help.

Also. Why get less decarbonization by wasting money and opportunity on new built nuclear power when we still need to decarbonize construction, agriculture, shipping, showroom, industry? - in this case let's spend zero money on ren deployment too. Electrification will bring much greater results due to efficiency gains even if the grid is powered in it's current form. Such arguments are silly.

Germany does in fact seem to have tons of money. It spent on EEG alone so far double the cost of entire french nuclear fleet. In the meantime it got highest household prices in EU after Ireland. From this year govt decided to funnel additional 6bn/y on transmission. I'm not even talking about tons of fossils subsidies

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#956

Post by gib444 »

Moldoteck wrote: post #883
gib444 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK is trying really hard with its reactors too. Sizewell C, its £38bn current price tag is looking very very shaky - £60bn final cost wouldn't surprise me. And our electricity bills are going up again in order to help fund it. Lovely

Most of UK's bills are up due to gas. Nuclear is a drop in a pond there

That's only part of the story. Wholesale costs are about 1/3 of a bill. The non wholesale costs are rising too:

https://www.electricitybills.uk/

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#957

Post by Krasnol »

palata wrote: post #785
Krasnol wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the risk management of a dam is ridiculously small compared to waste which will be dangerous so far into future that we might not know if people will even know what it is. A dam damming water at a hill is obvious. Some warm stuff set up like something really special, is not.

Yet dams have killed more people than nuclear plants.

They have been around a bit longer don't you think?

How many nuclear actually killed is unknown because it's not as easy as: something happens, people drown.

It's more like: something happens, a few die fast, the rest dies earlier, their children live shorter or have disabilities, their children also, and so on. Meanwhile collecting waste which will do the same for later generations who might not remember what nuclear energy even is.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#958

Post by locallost »

Moldoteck wrote: post #924
locallost wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a better list: * every dollar spent on building new nuclear will be put to use so late it effectively increases CO2 emissions * A country like Poland is the biggest emissions perpetrator in Europe, and the fact they are building nuclear means they will stay that way for literally decades * The fossil fuel exporter countries are pushing nuclear as their agenda. Why do you think that is? * Not a single country h…

every $ spent on not building nuclear results in higher CO2 emissions due to gas firming. Germany plans gas expansion to firm renewables. * Antinuclear movement resulted in DK/DE having worse emissions vs France/Sweden even today. * Finland will give final authorization for Onkalo this summer https://qazinform.com/news/finland-set-to-launch-worlds-firs... Sweden already started construction at Fosmark. But ultimately…

Germany replaced 2/3 of its coal use in 25 years while simultaneously inventing a whole new industry and a new way of thinking (some people still fail to understand it). This way of thinking has led to hundreds of gigawatts of new clean capacity per year in the last few years and continuously growing. This has already now been way more beneficial to mankind than nuclear has achieved in the last 60 years. The biggest problem in the world right now are people actively resisting this by wasting time and money. Poland could be on Germany's level right now for a fraction of the cost because Germany already did the heavy lifting for the whole world, but they refuse to do so on political and ideological grounds. This is a big problem, the biggest problem we have right now.

But anyway: Danke Deutschland

As for Finland and Onkalo, so my list is correct and there is no country in the world with a working permanent solution right now? Or have we invented time travel and are currently in later this summer period of the year?

Most of Sellafield's problem are related to faulty thinking that we'll figure it out no big deal, which is the exact attitude I was commenting on. But sometimes you don't figure it out later as they found out. Don't let it happen to you.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#959

Post by mpweiher »

Arodex wrote: post #739
mpweiher wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Fitting description of what you are peddling.

I am not buying.

And neither is anyone else these days.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#960

Post by FabCH »

Moldoteck wrote: post #895
FabCH wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will probably vote in favor of nuclear, but you have to admit that us not having any uranium and having huge solar and pumped hydro potential up in the alps makes Switzerland pretty bad match for nuclear. Still much better than gas though…

Nuclear requires least amount of materials so you can stockpile uranium for a decade and be fine

You can also use the same money to flood many of those empty bunkers we have with water and pump it up and down indefinitely, with no radioactive waste to get rid of and no dependency what so ever on other countries.

Solar panels on each square cm of roofs together with agrovoltaics and solar on every farm and a few more of those 2TWh hydro storage plants we have, and we are energy independent and can service a large part of our infrastructure ourselves.

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