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Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

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Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#101

Post by hurricanetc »

crispinb wrote: post #83
hurricanetc wrote: post #67

Environmentalists just can’t get out of their own way. Solar and wind were never viable alternatives to replace nuclear in Japan. It was always going to be coal. But when good is the enemy of perfect this is what you get. So let’s raise our glasses to the next decade of coal energy in Japan. Congratulations environmentalists, you won! You killed nuclear!

Nonsense. "Environmentalists" (a crude & politically inactive umbrella term) can't even get nations to do the minimum necessary for long-term survival (stop catastrophic rates of wetland & forest destruction even in wealthy nations, reduce CO2 emissions, etc, etc, etc). Greens (for example) hardly get elected anywhere outside of a couple of European nations. It is true there is public resistance to nuclear power, alm…

Nonsense. Fear or nuclear is a result of decades of lobbying and fear mongering by anti nuclear environmentalists.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#102

Post by khuey »

intopieces wrote: post #86
khuey wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technology is better but the costs are too high. Also (the surviving units at) Chernobyl have been shut down for several years.

The cost is too high? The monetary cost will be quite besides the point once climate change wipes out the coast cities on four continents.

All in cost on solar and wind is cheaper on a per-megawatt basis.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#103

Post by usrusr »

zetazzed wrote: post #37
nicoburns wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...

Hydro disasters can be dams bursts and are no joke! Thousands dead, towns wiped away, stuff like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure Luckily not that common especially with well-maintained dams. But it was a huge fear with the Mosul dam in Iraq, which was expected to put over a million lives at risk during the ISIL insurgency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam I'm not anti-hydro at all…

GP was saying, I think, that they'd prefer a quick violent water surge over slow radiation poisoning. You can say good bye, but you might have to do nothing else but saying good bye for an awful low of time (perhaps to similarly doomed people).

I don't have data but I assume that most immediate dam breach deaths are from acute force trauma (and then drowning) rather than from just drowning. Less similar to the slow death of being without a boat in the middle of an ocean than to the hypothetical of getting stomped by the Terry Gilliam foot in Flying Circus.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#104

Post by xxgreg »

fiblye wrote: post #78

I have to wonder if this is a deal with China, since it makes Japan less energy independent and the leading political party is known for nonstop corruption scandals and some ties to China. China will likely be a big seller of that coal and profit off this big time, same as they will with the recent bizarre casino legalization plan.

Most of Japan's electricity is from imported LNG, so doesn't make much difference to independence. They already import this energy.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#105

Post by lispm »

espadrine wrote: post #85
FooHentai wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow what you're saying about 'GEN IV' reactors. AFAIK, that's reactors of a type that won't be online until at least 2030: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor The primary failure at Fukushima was a sea wall too low for the tsunami that occurred. How is the reactor design relevant? Also regarding Superphénix, your telling of this seems a bit biased - The rocket attack occurred in 1982 and it…

> I don't follow what you're saying about 'GEN IV' reactors. AFAIK, that's reactors of a type that won't be online until at least 2030 As I mention, Superphénix is a Gen IV, and was finished building in 1981. > the primary failure at Fukushima was a sea wall too low for the tsunami that occurred. How is the reactor design relevant? Fukushima melt down because the water destroyed the backup generators. The generators…

Superphénix: During 11 years, the plant had 53 months of normal operations (mostly at low power), 25 months of outages due to fixing technical problems of the prototype, and 66 months spent on halt due to political and administrative issues.

It was then closed early.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#106

Post by Krasnol »

philwelch wrote: post #60
Krasnol wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes let's look at France, closing down 14 reactors and investing in renewables: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron... Time and money has ran out for nuclear.

It's a beautiful exercise in circular logic you have going here. If time and money have run out for nuclear, it's only because of the anti-nuclear activism people like you have been ignorantly spouting for decades. Your point is less of an argument and more an instance of gloating.

The anti-nuclear activism in France? You got any proof for that anywhere?

The money run out because the technology itself is expensive, the waste disposal is expensive, the costs for repairs were skyrocketing for years (not to mention the costs for buying energy from Germany because of the break downs) and the costs for decommissioning are not even priced in. Also, they recently shut down research there too because...you probably guessed it: too expensive.

I like it when nuclear fans come in, downvote me and the only comment is full of advertisement phrases and lack of information but somehow it must be about me...

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#107

Post by keanzu »

jeltz wrote: post #17
jgwil2 wrote: post #6

Same thing happened in Germany. This is a really hard problem. I consider myself pretty pro-nuclear but it can never be 100% safe. I can't blame Japan for wanting out after Fukushima, but at the same time there has to be some kind of approach that balances short-term safety against the long-term consequences of carbonization.

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

Banqiao Hydroelectric Dam, China, was breached Aug. 8 1975 killing more than 85,000 people that day. A study conducted by eight Chinese water science experts who probably had access to censored government reports, estimated the number of total dead — from flooding and the resulting epidemics and famine — at 230,000.

https://www.ozy.com/flashback/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-...

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#108

Post by FooHentai »

hurricanetc wrote: post #67

Environmentalists just can’t get out of their own way. Solar and wind were never viable alternatives to replace nuclear in Japan. It was always going to be coal. But when good is the enemy of perfect this is what you get. So let’s raise our glasses to the next decade of coal energy in Japan. Congratulations environmentalists, you won! You killed nuclear!

This argument only sounds good if you deliberately omit the geothermal, tidal, and offshore wind potential of Japan.

Offshore wind potential alone is 1600Gw, with 600Gw of that in easy reach.

Tidal is progressing well with some ideal straights locations with consistent, high flow.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#109

Post by adamnemecek »

seabrookmx wrote: post #96
vernie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking forward to the GitHub issue about the color of the plant's bike shed.

This. "Open Source" in this context would be largely meaningless, because there's so few people that contribute at that level.

There is quite a few of them actually. Nuclear engineering a legit field of study.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#110

Post by FooHentai »

hurricanetc wrote: post #101
crispinb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. "Environmentalists" (a crude & politically inactive umbrella term) can't even get nations to do the minimum necessary for long-term survival (stop catastrophic rates of wetland & forest destruction even in wealthy nations, reduce CO2 emissions, etc, etc, etc). Greens (for example) hardly get elected anywhere outside of a couple of European nations. It is true there is public resistance to nuclear power, alm…

Nonsense. Fear or nuclear is a result of decades of lobbying and fear mongering by anti nuclear environmentalists.

Nothing to do with them there accidents, eh.
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