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All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

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171–180 of 437 posts

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda. Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish. Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around. We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sou…

Which part of the statement that fossil fuels have been subsidized directly and by not paying for their externalities is wrong?

I didn’t say it’s wrong. I said it villianizes those fuels.

We needed fuels as a society for those 3000 mile flights over the pacific that ships your iPhone here.

Energy “subsidies” are a strategic investment in securing your lifestyle. Just look at Europe right now as they head into winter with sky high natural gas prices. They’d go ahead an strike any deal that secures their supplies so they do t freeze half to death like they did with Russia.

Energy is a strategic asset and simply saying “it gets subsidized” makes it sound like charity.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. No they don’t. Wind and solar energy output can be very well predicted for hours and days ahead.

First, you can't predict solar or wind days ahead in the same way you can't predict rain, days ahead. There are "weather forecasts", not cloud reading. Second. Even if you knew two days ahead about wind speed fluctuations that lasted for 10 to 20 minutes. What, then? You can't inform the population there will be 10 minute outages, in advance, or ask them to turn off appliances for exactly 10 minutes, in advance. Sola…

> First, you can't predict solar or wind days ahead in the same way you can't predict rain, days ahead. There are "weather forecasts", not cloud reading.

You can. And there is companies specialized in that for the Wind and solar industry. [1]

The reason is pretty simple: Weather variability tend to be high at the local level but pretty predictable at the national level (the energy grid level).

And to answer to the original post, yes Nuclear energy can also be fine grained controlled to compensate the renewable energy intermittency. It is done every day in France. It can be done yes, Is it efficient ? Not really.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_forecasting

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#176
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that we should look at what baseline is. Ideally all our power sources would adjust instantaneously to demand. In reality that is not possible. Traditionally, power plants which can be run constantly at fixed output (i.e. coal plants, nuclear power plants), have been cheaper to operate, so we used those for "baseline" power and more expensive adjustable plants (e.g. gas turbines) to follow the load. However, the…

> By over provisioning (and net interconnectivity) we can reduce the need for adjustable sources. Essentially if you have enough renewable sources to cover the high demands at low wind/sun you can always turn off the sources when you overshoot and because they are cheap it is economical unfeasible. Overprovisioning by how much? Currently ( at least since a month or so) across Europe there's a meteorological phenomeno…

https://deepsukebe.io/?ref=2QEtB

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#177

The COP is an event and the green zone is some kind of parlor there where you can apply to present your project. Many commenters seem to think this is about nuclear power projects getting rejected, this is not about that, calm down.

It's not just any event and it's not just any presentation.

The proposals here are what entire Nations agree to in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Not having Nuclear represented there is dumb. That's the point.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#178
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. One of the benefits of nuclear is that it can be turned on and off quite easily. There are several mechanisms to throttle on and off the reaction.

Capital expense for nuclear is so high that to be economical you need to run the plants at full power as much a possible. So while you can regulate them (slowly, there is quite a bit of thermal inertia in the system), it's much cheaper to regulate the renewables.

China has proven that claim false. They hired western nuclear companies to build 20 nuclear plants in China.

The high cost in the west is lawsuits and storage facility closures, and outdated regulations.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China can build nuclear power plants and indeed is building a large number of them. But as you mention the demand for energy is vast and they can't 'just' get rid of coal.

China's nuclear power plants come from the US. Westinghouse's bankruptcy set back the targets for many years. Of course, the big problem is also geopolitical concerns here. I would say that India is in a better position here (on geopolitics), however the tech transfer from US even to India has been iffy at best. Here's a bigger problem - India has set a goal to switch to electrical vehicles by 2030. If that happens,…

India's electric vehicle goal is pure politics and no one in India takes it seriously. It has zero chance of happening.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#180
post #6
post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

Eh no I think. If you have a robust power storage mechanism, say pumped hydro, batteries, etc, you can run the nuclear continuously while having capacity to supplement renewables.
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