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An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

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Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#141

Post by leereeves »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #136
leereeves wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The largest battery currently being planned is a 1.2GWh setup in Australia. That's a big buffer. Apparently "Total electricity generation in Australia was estimated to be 265,117 gigawatt hours (GWh) in calendar year 2019"[1], which works out to about 30 gigawatts continually for a year. So a 1.2GWh battery could power Australia for about two minutes (...at average use. Longer in the middle of the night). Maybe a h…

That's a battery capable of supplying 1.2 GW peak demand. Or about 1/30th of the energy capacity in Australia if your numbers are correct. Massive buffer. Those TWH factories are being built right now. Multiple of them. Production ramp up is going to take a few years before they actually produce that much. But you can sort of do the math based on the number of cars they are selling. About half a million last year so…

> That's a battery capable of supplying 1.2 GW peak demand.

Is it, and if so, for how long?

I saw several articles talking about battery capacity in GW's, with no mention of how long the batteries can provide that power, so I think some reporters just don't understand the difference between GW's (a measure of instantaneous power) and GWh's (a measure of energy or battery capacity).

Power plant capacity is reported in GW's because they provide that power continually, but batteries should be measured in GWh's.

And Vistra's Moss Landing 1.2 GWh battery storage in Monterey County, California claims to be the world's largest.[1]

> Those TWH factories are being built right now.

I don't doubt the factories will exist soon, but I wonder if they'll be able to find the raw materials to feed so many factories, and customers to buy it all. Probably some/many will go bankrupt.

1: https://insideevs.com/news/489894/vistra-moss-landing-energy...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#142

Post by stevenwoo »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #94
Hammershaft wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the short term nuclear is undoubtedly expensive, but when the debt from construction is payed off, it becomes an incredibly cheap and reliable source of energy. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY

As far as I'm aware, dealing with the waste has cost taxpayers in Germany quite a lot over the last couple of decades, and all of the really hot stuff is sitting in glorified warehouses with no end in sight. I have a feeling this may still become a very significant part of the overall costs. Has any other country actually solved that problem?

Finland? They are still doing construction but it seems all the planning stages have been done, but haven't seen recent update. https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-31/finlands-solution-nuc... they generate the money to pay for the spent fuel disposal by taxing the revenue from the nuclear plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#143

Post by aksss »

vcdimension wrote: post #131
aksss wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have no problem with building one outside our city. And frankly compared the land clearing one would need for solar/thermal or the blight of enormous windmills, I’d prefer it. What you may be really asking is whether people are comfortable with the risk of turning into the next Chernobyl. I feel that risk is quite low, especially for new builds.

I cannot understand how anyone would prefer an enormous grey concrete building with a large exclusion zone and large cooling towers blocking the skyline, to otherwise untouched natural or agricultural landscape dotted with wind turbines. Wind turbines allow you to enjoy more of the countryside because they take up very little space (you can walk around them). Furthermore, they seem to be quieter: https://youtu.be/zKg…

Large turbine farms are an eyesore, IMO, that dominate entire landscapes. Visually destroying the countryside is probably better than emitting 30 billion tons of CO2 each year, though. But yeah, I think a nuclear plant (as I have seen them) would be preferable, visually, to the enormous turbine farm needed to produce an equivalent amount of power. How much would that be? Avg nuclear plant generates 1GW in the US. Average turbine generates 1.67 MW. So about 600 turbines at about an acre a piece. So a square mile of turbines.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#144

Post by leereeves »

worik wrote: post #133
leereeves wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The largest battery currently being planned is a 1.2GWh setup in Australia. That's a big buffer. Apparently "Total electricity generation in Australia was estimated to be 265,117 gigawatt hours (GWh) in calendar year 2019"[1], which works out to about 30 gigawatts continually for a year. So a 1.2GWh battery could power Australia for about two minutes (...at average use. Longer in the middle of the night). Maybe a h…

"So a 1.2GWh battery could power Australia for about two minutes " It is one battery in, if memory serves, the state of Victoria. It is not being asked to power all of Australia.

How does the grid work in Australia? Is Victoria on a separate grid, like Texas is in the US?

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#145

Post by vcdimension »

Hammershaft wrote: post #139
vcdimension wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot understand how anyone would prefer an enormous grey concrete building with a large exclusion zone and large cooling towers blocking the skyline, to otherwise untouched natural or agricultural landscape dotted with wind turbines. Wind turbines allow you to enjoy more of the countryside because they take up very little space (you can walk around them). Furthermore, they seem to be quieter: https://youtu.be/zKg…

When you compare the energy densities & land required there is nothing at all enormous about a nuclear plant. It is by far the most space efficient energy source we have (especially once you factor in the upstream footprint of mining & shipping ops)

That depends on how you measure land use; are you counting the amount of space that becomes otherwise unusable, i.e. the relatively small area occupied by the towers, or the entire area of the fields in which the wind turbines are placed? (which can still be used for other things like agriculture).

Personally I think wind turbines look quite majestic, and I like to see them when I go for a drive in the countryside.

This isn't directly related to the original question of living next to a nuclear power plant vs a wind farm, but as you mentioned, nuclear power stations require large mining operations to supply them with uranium (you have to mine a lot of land for a small amount of uranium), whereas wind turbines do not. And finally, wind turbines can be erected in the sea where they don't displace any land at all.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#146

Post by rhodozelia »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #129
2trill2spill wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about the hidden cost of nuclear? The waste storage. The security measures (can't have terrorists walking off with the nuclear waste). The constant need for inspections, audits, etc. And that's before you consider the corruption and the gravy train that is basically associated with funding existing plants using massive amounts of public funding. Nothing wrong with pointing out issues/costs with nuclear, in fac…

> I think your missing the point. If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances. That kind of is my point: countries are doing this and without blackouts and it's actually fine. You seem to be claiming nuclear is needed to provide an unspecified base load…

>If you ran your entire grid on just solar and wind, no nuclear, or coal or natural gas peaker plants, you'll find that wind and solar is no longer cheap, and is much less resilient to exceptional circumstances. >That kind of is my point: countries are doing this and without blackouts and it's actually fine.

A system that can meet the demand with an increasingly higher percentage of non dispatchable wind and solar needs some plan B for when it is night time and there is no wind. Or it is cloudy and not windy for days. It can be batteries but there is a cost to that too. Any place with a high share of non dispatchable generation tends to either have good interconnections to their neighbors who have firm power supplies, or they have their own natural gas or diesel generation, but there is a cost to having that sitting around too.

I’m fine with cost for nuclear, for batteries, for over building wind and solar, and for nat gas used as a backup for that weather system that moves in once a year that would otherwise result In a blackout. cost is just a number in a ledger somewhere.

The energy supply should come from diverse sources and nuclear is a good part of that solution.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#147

Post by Jedd »

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #109
the_why_of_y wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, blackouts are cheaper than electricity. Texas has demonstrated that you can have blackouts and expensive at the same time if only you cut enough regulations. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/how-and-why...

Funny, everyone was happy about how Texas scrapped so many coal plants and built so many windmills until it reached a cascade failure point and then the narrative shifted to "OMG, look at all the deregulation!"

This is a challenging position to take.

The failure point was a repeat of previous cold events -- it wasn't really a cascade event, of course, given wind turbines provide only 20% of power on the ECOT mini-grid.

Given there are similar capacity wind turbines running happily in Antarctica, and the heads-up from the 2011 & 2019 events to winterise the Texas fleet, it's difficult to see how this is a 'windmill problem'.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#148

Post by Barrin92 »

namdnay wrote: post #38
robocat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear friendly countries are struggling with the costs. Multiple examples of problems were given for France, yet the French government likes nuclear power.

Electricity in France is so cheap that EDF has had to raise domestic electricity prices in order to make it possible for other providers to compete

This is wrong in two ways. First off, electricity in France isn't particular cheap by European standards (which already is not cheap)[1]

Secondly, the EDF is debt-laden and heavily subsidized by the French state, this is why other providers cannot compete. Nuclear energy itself is on the expensive end when it comes to energy sources. As the article points out, France has not even allocated a third of the money it needs to decommission existing plants.

[1]https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#149

Post by nightski »

ic0n0cl4st wrote: post #84
aksss wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we’re trying to be honest here, that’s not an appropriate comparison. Properly disposed-of nuclear waste doesn’t necessarily cause these problems either. When you look at the physical footprint disparities (land-clearing) needed for commensurate solar power generation, rendering such land unusable and ecologically disrupted/destroyed, solar doesn’t come out smelling like roses these days either. If you’re lucky it…

Since you’re going to go there, let’s add in the damage from all the iron, that limestone and uranian required to build the nuclear plant? Also quite damaging. Photovoltaics, not the best. Now what about mirrors pointing at concrete towers moving liquid sodium around, like in Spain, or pointed at steel pipes filled with water. The pro-nuclear crowd have two things in common: 1. They have more faith in humanity than w…

There are 96 nuclear power plants in the U.S. supplying ~20% of our electricity generation. I'm not sure I'd call it a failure?

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#150

Post by EdwardDiego »

rich_sasha wrote: post #22

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no energy storage for renewables? Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

...Europe has 38GW of pumped hydro storage. USA has 20ish.
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