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All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

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Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#131

Post by driest »

mlindner wrote: post #84
driest wrote: post #73

I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved with new technology like small modular reactors with inherently safe designs. However, even I realize that nuclear energy is not viable to significantly combat climate change due to the following reasons: * The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve…

> * nuclear energy is way to expensive. Wind and solar are much cheaper. current numbers are roughly 50% cheaper for renewables, and while lots of companies promise cheaper nuclear design, these claims are unproven and the renewables are also still significantly improving in cost. The nuclear cost models I've seen also ignore most of the storage and security cost for handling the waste for millenia. There are cheaper…

You do realize that batteries are not the only method of energy storage? In fact, there are lots of better ways to store excess energy from renewables over longer periods of time, but power to gas was mentioned as an example that works everywhere, and can use abundant existing storage and distribution systems.

Lets add a reference to get some actual numbers to play with: The US Energy Information Administration has published a report reasoning about the levelized cost of electricity (LCOS) for new power plants of different energy sources [1]. According to page 8 of this report, the LCOS of one megawatt hour of nuclear energy is around 69 USD, while solar is around 33 USD and onshore wind is 37 USD.

If you factor in a 50% loss in converting the renewable energy to gas and back to electricity you end up in the same ball park as nuclear, but without the proliferation, safety, and waste problems.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#132

Post by Brian_K_White »

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #82
asteroidbelt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, lots of downvotes and no replies. HN becomes very toxic these days.

This is sadly true and frequent downvoters need to have their points halved.

Apply that the same way for up or down and I like it.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#133

Post by Brian_K_White »

atroche wrote: post #122
apendleton wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal was already in reasonably widespread use in industrial processes 200 years ago, and produced unpaid-for externalities then just as it does now (actually worse ones, presumably, given that air quality was not yet regulated in any meaningful way).

But was it being "propped up" two centuries ago?

Unpaid externalities is a fancy way of saying propped up.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#134

Post by SllX »

apendleton wrote: post #86
SllX wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A century, I could maybe see. A century and maybe a plural amount of decades, perhaps. Gonna need you to cite that plural centuries though.

Coal was already in reasonably widespread use in industrial processes 200 years ago, and produced unpaid-for externalities then just as it does now (actually worse ones, presumably, given that air quality was not yet regulated in any meaningful way).

Where’s my citation I asked for?

I’m not saying the parent is necessarily wrong, but given the recency of the industrial revolution and the length of time between which it “began” and when many of the most useful industrial applications for coal were discovered, I can’t take it at face value “centuries” is correct. It might be close to correct, it might be technically correct, but it’s not merely an pedantic point: his comment reads as hyperbole because of the vagueness of what centuries even means here. Even if it has been technically two centuries, century plural technically, that’s overstating his case. Overstating your case is a good way to get people to turn off to what you are saying if they perceive it that way.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#135

Post by moksly »

rsj_hn wrote: post #22
moksly wrote: post #20

I think this is a more complicated issue than most people seem to think it is. Very few countries have knowledge in nuclear technology while they have decades of knowledge in other green technologies. So it’s only natural that there is a severe push from European countries to make sure Nuclear doesn’t become a “green” source of energy because our industries are build upon wind and solar, and if we start using Nuclear…

The issue isn't whether nuclear energy is complicated, but whether it's part of the discussion. Of course it has to be part of the discussion, so this makes COP look less serious, as it seems like they are catering more to Green movement politics than to fossil fuel alternatives.

I’m not sure people view COP as serious in general. In my anecdotal experience, people sort of stopped thinking the political elite would solve this back in the 90’ies. And back then they managed to do something about the hole in the ozone layer. A hole that is bigger today than it was back then, prompting no action.

But you’re right of course. I was just getting into the myriad of reasons why some EU leaders actively work against Nuclear at places like COP.

My own country is actively lobbying against getting Nuclear recognised as green technology by the EU because wind and solar are major industries in Denmark.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#136

Post by dane-pgp »

fsh wrote: post #93
dane-pgp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting question, actually, and the numbers seem difficult to come by. A master's thesis from 2011 says[0]: "data on the amount of rare earths in wind turbines vary, ranging from 0.2 to 3.3 kg of neodymium content per kW of rated capacity" For comparison, a nuclear power station generates[1]: "24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235" So, taking the lower estimate for the neodymium content, the wind turb…

235U may have an impressive energy density, but uranium ore contains very little natural uranium and natural uranium contains very little 235U. According to this back-of-the-envelope calculation [1], a typical energy density of uranium ore is only around 1400 MJ/kg, so only 60 times higher than that of coal. [1] http://www.plux.co.uk/energy-density-of-uranium/

To convert that into the (slightly more clumsy) units of my post above, 1400 MJ is about 390 kWh (which is a lot smaller than 24 million). Even taking the upper estimate of neodymium content then, 3.3 x 390 hours is only 54 days.

I don't know how much ore needs to be dug up to extract 1 kg of neodymium, but one site boasts 7% rare earth content in the material it processes[0] so there might need to be a 14x scale factor to avoid comparing apples to ore ranges.

54 days x 14 is 2 years, which should be well under the average life time of a turbine, even before recycling is taken into account. We do have to also consider the capacity factor of wind turbines, though (not just their rated capacity), which "range from 0.26 to 0.52" according to a recent factsheet[1], so that might bump the estimate to 8 years.

[0] https://mpmaterials.com/what-we-do/

[1] https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/wind-energy-factsheet

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#137

Post by moksly »

visarga wrote: post #44
moksly wrote: post #20

I think this is a more complicated issue than most people seem to think it is. Very few countries have knowledge in nuclear technology while they have decades of knowledge in other green technologies. So it’s only natural that there is a severe push from European countries to make sure Nuclear doesn’t become a “green” source of energy because our industries are build upon wind and solar, and if we start using Nuclear…

> So it’s not that I don’t trust the technology, it’s that I don’t trust us to handle it. Glossing over the human death toll caused by the other energy sources is not useful. It's not like the other sources are perfectly safe.

The human death toll is no doubt greater from fossils, but it’s sort of like traffic safety isn’t it? Something we just live with.

In my part of Europe, anyone of my age or above still remembers Chernobyl and how we had to burn farming produce, clothes that had been drying outside and a range of other things, even here in Scandinavia because it wasn’t safe.

I don’t think you’re ever going to convince my generation and the ones that came before that Nuclear is a good idea. Because we lived through the risk of Europe becoming inhabitable due to human in competence.

But maybe I’m wrong.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#138

Post by 7952 »

rglover wrote: post #14

Read between the lines. It's not about the best solution(s), it's about _their_ solution. Nuclear solves the problem they champion, which means, it negates the need for their efforts and existence (economic). Ironically, the rejection of nuclear as a viable option seems to be the result of a psychological existential threat to the supposed "elite" of our world. The mask is off. Protecting the future of humanity isn't…

I think you could make the same argument against nuclear advocates. Ego based focus on the "best" option and endless ad-hominem against proponents of good options. When actually the best option is one that is politically possible.

Also, the green zone is managed by the British Government rather than the UN who are fairly supportive of nuclear. Nuclear is politically viable in the UK so it gets built. Onshore turbines in South-East England are not politically viable so they don't get built and we go offshore instead. The objective should be to stop climate change rather than chase optimal technology.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#139

Post by driest »

adev_ wrote: post #94
driest wrote: post #73

I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved with new technology like small modular reactors with inherently safe designs. However, even I realize that nuclear energy is not viable to significantly combat climate change due to the following reasons: * The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve…

> I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved No you don't from your arguments. > The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve the safety problem.[...], we don't have decades, we need to start replacing coal right now. That's bullshit. Even nuclear reactors designs from the 70s are statistically…

> No you don't from your arguments.

One can be a fan of something without trying to blindly apply it to areas where it doesn't make sense.

> nuclear reactors designs from the 70s are statistically safer than coal. And kill a lot less than coal.

That's a strawman's argument, I'm not arguing for coal, I'm arguing for storage of renewables.

> France had one of the cheapest electricity in Europe for 3 decades [...] Nuclear is cheap [...]

That is simply false. The levelized cost of nuclear is about twice as high as that of solar or wind, see page 8 of the referenced EIA report [1].

> There is today not a single installation world wide existing of power to gas to the scale it would be needed

Again, strawman's argument. The discussion is about what should be built, not what has been built. There are already megawatt scale plants running for years without problems [2], and there are shipping container scale demonstrators for higher efficient versions [3]. So it's pretty obvious that the technology around power to gas is well understood, and ready for mass production and deployment.

> And that would anhiliate any hypothetical cost of the renewable energy anyway

Again, this is false. As explained above, nuclear energy is twice as expensive as renewables, and power to gas has an end to end loss of roughly 50%. So in reality, renewables + power to gas has roughly the same cost as nuclear, without the proliferation, safety, security, and waste problems. And as an added bonus every MWh you use while renewables are producing costs half of nuclear ;).

[1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....

[2] http://hybalance.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Large-scale-P...

[3] http://www.helmeth.eu/images/joomlaplates/documents/Publisha...

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#140

Post by 7952 »

adev_ wrote: post #94
driest wrote: post #73

I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved with new technology like small modular reactors with inherently safe designs. However, even I realize that nuclear energy is not viable to significantly combat climate change due to the following reasons: * The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve…

> I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved No you don't from your arguments. > The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve the safety problem.[...], we don't have decades, we need to start replacing coal right now. That's bullshit. Even nuclear reactors designs from the 70s are statistically…

Things like power to gas would work economically because you buy cheap and sell high. The efficiency figure becomes less important if renewables are cheap and gas is expensive.
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