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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#131

Post by darkamaul »

epistasis wrote: post #39
reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

Which are the fake costs from regulation? We have new builds in Europe of the EPR, in France and Finland, and it has had disastrous costs. China has built some too, presumably cheaper, since they keep on building more. What is the regulatory difference there? I have yet to find any concrete defense of the idea that costs are coming from regulation, rather than the costs of construction in advanced economies. If regul…

All the safety and countermeasure costs here ultimately stem from regulation. If we allowed less safe power plants, they would likely be cheaper to build and operate.

However, I’m not sure I want private for profits actor deciding the level of safety of such projects.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#132

Post by diordiderot »

thw_9a83c wrote: post #60
dmitrygr wrote: post #38

[flagged]

I see your point but it's not really that simple in this particular case. Nuclear energy production is clean under assumption: 1. You can operate the facility with a zero critical accident over the whole lifespan of the power plant. 2. You know what to do with a nuclear waste (like keep it safely deeply buried for 10'000 years). However, point 2) is almost irrelevant now because we already have enough depleted nuclea…

1. Only six reactors have had meltdowns, partial meltdowns, serious core damage, or fatalities.

Gen 4 reactors have gravity driven control rods, passive cooling systems, core catchers, safer fuel, and moderators.

If humans were raptured, they couldn't melt down.

2. The entire planets worth of spent nuclear fuel would fit into 15 Olympic swimming pools.

Fast breeder reactors can use almost all of the existing waste and on top of that reduce it's lifespan from 100k+ years to a few hundred.

You'd get more radiation exposure from living in Denver than you would sleeping on a cask in Miami

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#133

Post by a3w »

nilslindemann wrote: post #87
exabrial wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are incorrect fortunately. Western designs are safe, most Soviet-era ones are/were not. It's unfortunate that nuclear power still has this stigma, as it's like saying "all cars are unsafe" while comparing the crash test ratings of a modern sedan to a 1960's chevy bel aire.

Then why did Fukushima happen?

Japan is very in the east, they said western designs. The reactor knows where it is, by knowing where it is not.

Just kidding.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#134

Post by bluGill »

V__ wrote: post #81
kulahan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With AI on the horizon and each server farm using as much energy as a medium-sized city, I have no idea how they hope to meet demand otherwise, unless the plan is just some equivalent to "drill baby drill".

I willing to wager that the AI bubble will burst before you could even begin to build power plants for them.

I'm sure the bubble will burst. However we have already found a few uses for AI and those uses will continue after the burst (if they are economical)

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#135

Post by mpweiher »

9dev wrote: post #106
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

If you factor in all the cost usually externalised in nuclear power, it’s often a lot more expensive than people realise. Decommissioning nuclear waste and old reactors is a huge, time-consuming, and thus extremely expensive operation.

This turns out not to be the case, and all these supposedly "externalized" costs are actually included in the price of electricity produced by nuclear reactors.

For example in Switzerland, all of that still allows full production costs of 4,34 Rappen (with a profit).

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#136

Post by SCUSKU »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #102
SCUSKU wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason PGE is so expensive is because it's a privately owned monopoly with a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns. Additionally, the urban areas of California are subsidizing the fire prone rural areas of the state. The "fake costs" are not primarily from regulation as much as it is from the need to squeeze profit. For comparison, look at Silicon Valley Power which is owned and operated by the city of S…

>the urban areas of California are subsidizing the fire prone rural areas of the state Meanwhile Rural California is where the electricity is actually generated[1]; they're "subsidizing" urban use. >SVP vs PG&E This has nothing to do with the ownership model and everything to do with not being obligated to serve rural areas. They get to serve only lower cost dense areas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power…

True that SVP benefits from not serving a rural area, but we also need to consider again that PGE is a for-profit organization that in 2024 posted $2.5B in profits, which were distributed to shareholders[1]. If PGE were owned by the state with no such fiduciary duty, this money could instead be used to lower rates and/or invest in infrastructure.

[1] - https://www.zacks.com/stock/quote/PCG/income-statement?icid=...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#137

Post by mixdup »

reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

A major reason nuclear plants are super expensive is because we do it so rarely

Every reactor and every plant is bespoke, even if they are based on a common "design" each instance is different enough that every project has to be managed from the ground up as a new thing, you get certified only on a single plant, operators can't move from plant to plant without recertification, etc

Part of that is because they are so big and massive, and take a long time to build. If we'd build smaller, modular reactors that are literally exactly the same every single time you would begin to get economies of scale, you'd be able to get by without having to build a complete replica for training every time, and by being smaller you'd get to value delivery much quicker reducing the finance costs, which would then let you plow the profits from Reactor A into Reactor B's construction

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#138

Post by medlazik »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #122
medlazik wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What do you mean? I mean it's not clean >one of the lowest impact mining of resources we have Not the point. It's not clean, it shouldn't be called clean end of the story.

Ok, well by this definition, all human development activity is unclean. This is a perfectly valid point of view but is pretty distinct from the modern definition of clean.

> all human development activity is unclean

of course

> modern definition of clean

clean is clean. no need to lie or modernize word definitions to fit your agenda of promoting nuclear energy all day every day for a decade

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#139

Post by notatoad »

jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

ignoring the fact that we live in the real world where money isn't infinite: nuclear provides stable base power generation, and it does it without taking up a lot of space.

Renewables produce power intermittently, and require storage to match demand. Storage either requires non-renewable resources like lithium, or else large amounts of land. in theory yes, any amount of power could be produced by renewables, but in practice renewables require other non-infinite resources to turn the power they generate into actual usable electricity coming out of your wall socket.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#140

Post by stonemetal12 »

oceanplexian wrote: post #79
V__ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the fears are overblown, but at the same time the hype for nuclear is just weird. It's more complex, more expensive, less adjustable and more risky. Even the new hip small modular reactors are many years away. The LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) for solar with battery is already better than current solutions, and dropping. Wind and battery closely following. There is no way that nuclear technology w…

How is the hype for a limitless clean energy source, something that could benefit every aspect of humanity more than any other invention in human history considered “weird”?

For something that is supposed to be clean it sure keeps making places unhabitable.
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