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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

#961

Post by Kon5ole »

Moldoteck wrote: post #954
Kon5ole wrote: post #945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>So a scenario where humans will not do anything to stop a fire? Sorry that's not realistic.

You seriously can't imagine people fleeing instead of sacrificing their lives? You can't imagine an ongoing war or natural disaster making it impossible to stop a fire? You can't imagine anyone wanting to sabotage a plant as a terrorist act?

We are very lucky then that the people actually in charge of nuclear power have better imagination!

>Yes, in Fukushima it would have been much better

Only in the sense that it wouldn't have spread as far as Chernobyl's waste did. It would still have meant hundreds of thousand dead in Japan, and probably made it impossible to stop the groundwater contamination, leaving large areas of Japan uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

Again, you seem to be woefully uninformed, or even misinformed, about the actual dangers involved because you only look at what has happened so far.

The gun was fired, the victim was hit in the shoulder, and the hospital patched him up - your conclusion is "guns are not dangerous". This is the wrong conclusion.

I can only reiterate that you need to look at what COULD happen, not what DID happen.

>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?

France is nowhere done spending money on nuclear. They got a 64 bn "forgotten bill" just 4 years ago, it has happened before and will happen again.

The truth here is that France basically pretends to have cheap electricity by hiding a large part of the electricity bill in general taxes, that is not only paid by taxpayers today but will be paid for generations to come.

As for Germany, since they closed the 3 remaining nuclear plants in 2023 they have added approx 3x as much power generation in TWh from solar than those plants produced.

So they could never have reached the same amount of power production by going for nuclear instead. No chance.

Now - one might argue that they should not have decided to close the existing plants when Russia was about to attack Ukraine, and I certainly agree with that!

Maybe they too suffered from lack of imagination?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#963

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Moldoteck wrote: post #955
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Electrif…

Exactly? We are removing renewable subsidies all over the world because they aren't needed anymore?

In Germany the recent solar renewable subsidies are lower than market price for their electricity, but it offers longterm stability for the producer which is why they sign up.

This is not driven by subsidies:

> Driven by record solar growth, low-carbon power generation increased by 887 TWh in 2025, outpacing electricity demand growth of 849 TWh. Solar power alone met 75% of the net increase in electricity demand. Together with wind, the two sources met almost all (99%) demand growth. For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and only the fifth time this century, fossil generation did not rise, recording a small fall of 38 TWh (-0.2%).

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

Followed by still only being able to look back. Complaining that 2010 solar is expensive. To what relevence you still haven't been able to explain.

You do realize that to decarbonize society, no matter the source, we need to 2-3x our grid size depending on local industry? The transmission uprating is coming no matter the source of electricity.

Again. Are you suggesting that Germany would be better off by keeping their current emissions until the mid ~2040s waiting for horrifyingly expensive new built nuclear power to come online?

Why are you so afraid of renewables and storage?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#964

Post by Moldoteck »

locallost wrote: post #958
Moldoteck wrote: post #924

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No it didn't replace 2/3 of coal. Coal demand dropped as consumption dropped and Germany became net importer down from exporting 60+TWh/y

The claim of what Germany did for humanity was more beneficial is such a farce considering it's emissions

Your claim about repository somewhat implies that since there isn't a repository there will not he one which is bullshit. Humanity has tons of repositories for handling dangerous substances, herfa Neurode being a good example. Onkalo will soon get final permit. Fosmark is under construction. You are making this sound like some world ending problem

As said. Most of sellafield problems are from weapons testing era which both created waste of various kind ehich was not stored accordingly. This has nothing to do with commercial operation of commercial plants where final waste "type" is more or less the same, just like how it should be isolated.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#965

Post by Moldoteck »

FabCH wrote: post #960
Moldoteck wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No you can't. Hydro is already mostly tapped with few exceptions.

Solar requires more materials per kwh even compared to nuclear. But even if it didn't - since hydro potential isn't sufficient - gas is required for firming. This was also mentioned by axpo

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#966

Post by Moldoteck »

Kon5ole wrote: post #961
Moldoteck wrote: post #954

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>So a scenario where humans will not do anything to stop a fire? Sorry that's not realistic. You seriously can't imagine people fleeing instead of sacrificing their lives? You can't imagine an ongoing war or natural disaster making it impossible to stop a fire? You can't imagine anyone wanting to sabotage a plant as a terrorist act? We are very lucky then that the people actually in charge of nuclear power have bette…

Countries do have armies where ppl sacrifice their lives, Ukraine's war being a proof, so no, I can't imagine a Chernobyl situation being worse in this regard.

Wth are you saying about Fukushima? It would not have been such a catastrophy- Fukushima is a direct proof that even under extreme conditions of tsunami and earthquakes a proper design leads to better results. And situation got much better after that due to adapted regulations

What kind of terrorist sabotage you think of? Don't be ridiculous. And even if it magically happened it would still not be as bad as Chernobyl

It looks more like you are spreading fear mongering trying to portray nuclear more dangerous that it is. The data is clear. We know what can happen with a twrrible design. We know what can happen under extreme conditions.

France is nowhere near being over with nuclear- but this doesn't disprove my argument. What a nonsense are you implying? What do you mean with a forgotten bill? Germany is spending 18bn/y on eeg and 6bn/y on transmission subsidies. And has still much worse emissions.

The statement about pretending to have cheap electricity is total bullshit and you know it, sorry. EDF debt to ebitda ratio is fine. Household prices are lower than Germany despite EEG. Emissions much better since 90s.

I don't care how much Germany added in renewables after phaseout. I care that Germany shut down nuclear before coal and gas and is planning gas expansion to firm renewables

Germany should not have closed nuclear in general, not because of russian war. Closing nuclear before fossils is a terrible mistake in itself

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#967

Post by Moldoteck »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #963
Moldoteck wrote: post #955

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Electrif…

Exactly? We are removing renewable subsidies all over the world because they aren't needed anymore? In Germany the recent solar renewable subsidies are lower than market price for their electricity, but it offers longterm stability for the producer which is why they sign up. This is not driven by subsidies: > Driven by record solar growth, low-carbon power generation increased by 887 TWh in 2025, outpacing electricit…

Removing subsidies? Are you aware that UK increased ren CFDs for latest AR rounds? Are you aware that offshore projects without CFDs are already facing problems? Germany still pays 18bn/y on EEG and the amount is projected to rise due to more frequent payments

Transmission upgrade requirements are far smaller with not so distributed generation. This can be clearly seen in case of Germany vs France. You need vastly more transmission for distributed power put based on fertile weather patterns and even more to reduce curtailment with projects like sudlink

I didn't suggest it to keep current emissions what a nonsense. I've suggested tp expand nuclear in parallel with renewables instead of expanding renewables+gas

Please stop asking this stupid question about being afraid of renewables and storage because that's not the topic of the discussion. German pathway includes gas and the fact you leave this "small" detail makes me think you either don't mind it or you haven't read the proposals of Fraunhofer ISE/Habeck/Reiche

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#969

Post by UltraSane »

pydry wrote: post #218
UltraSane wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is what the oil and nuclear industry propaganda says. The reality is that solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think, demand shifting (e.g. charging the car when it's sunny) is easier than you think, batteries and pumped storage and power2gas are cheaper than you think and nuclear power is way, way, way, way more expensive than you think. Weather based models with actual data say that in Australia you'd ne…

It isn't propaganda. No country gets 100% of its electricity from wind and solar 100% of the time for a reason.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#970

Post by UltraSane »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #531
UltraSane wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I am against it now because we have other safer, cheaper, and more sustainable options." Not if you want 100% reliable power with no CO2 emissions.

If you start a plant today, it's probably a decade before it comes online. At this point, solar is more than enough for most places if we invested in it and subsidized it like we do for coal and oil. Batteries are improving rapidly and another decade will be a massive difference. I just don't see it making sense to start a new plant.

A decade is nothing. Humans will need low carbon electricity forever. People like you treat batteries like a religion.
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