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All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

world-nuclear-news.org

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Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#181

Post by [deleted] »

apendleton wrote: post #145
cycomanic wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you are just proposing to use molten salt as energy storage, but if we have efficient storage we don't need nuclear because we can charge the storage much cheaper and environmentally friendlier using renewables. As a side note, every time someone points out the shortcomings of nuclear power plants (not easily adjustable, huge investment costs/expensive, storage ...) there's the replies about, "but those new futu…

Yes, this is energy storage, but a big tank to put salt in has the potential to be considerably cheaper than lithium ion cells. To your second point: all technologies have the property that we can't know for sure if they'll deliver on their promises without trying them, and the very reason we don't know in the case of nuclear is because opponents of nuclear power undermine attempts to try out novel architectures, poi…

[deleted]

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#182

Post by lokimedes »

As long as nuclear energy is treated as PICK_ANY(obsolete, uneconomical, systemically dangerous) it leaves me with zero hope for humanity.

Nuclear is way more than technology, it's Prometheus' fire. It may burn the unprepared but it is incomparable to anything else we possess. That factor million more energy per gram than chemical reactions should be enough for us to treat it as literally unlocking the next level of human development.

This petty discussion on whether it is sustainable, dirty, expensive or dangerous is simply mind-boggling. Yes, it requires a much deeper "readiness" to utilise by our civilization than any other energy source, but the long-term benefit should be what it is held up against.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#183

Post by xvilka »

throwawaysea wrote: post #99
glogla wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is a huge win for coal lobby. This might be the turning point that kills humanity.

> This might be the turning point that kills humanity. What makes you say that? To me it seems like the worst case is probably human deaths in the hundreds of millions, not extinction.

In the worst case only few hundred millions will survive.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#184

Post by midasuni »

arrrg wrote: post #6
chuckee wrote: 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…

Or combined with variable sources - say green hydrogen production. Produce too much, push energy into electrolysis, produce too little and turn that off.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#185

Post by iamgopal »

mlindner wrote: post #55

What a dissappointment. Nuclear (of some kind, hoping for Fusion later) is a key component of any plan to stop global warming. Solar and Wind can get you to a greater than 50% green power production, but as you get closer to 100% you need exponentially more and more production and more and more transmission lines to handle dips and avoid blackouts from rare situations. You need a power generation source that is consi…

We make millions/billions of high tech phones, battery is just peanuts compare to this, it was a problem of right kind of tech , which I think current gen battery tech have achieved and also price point requirement is also achieved, very soon, once all usual suspects starts manufacturing the same, sky will only be the limit.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#187

Post by japanuspus »

Azsy wrote: post #56
japanuspus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument does not make a lot of sense without detailing which power sources that can turn on and off quickly you are talking about. The only ones I can think of are hydro and gas-powered thermal? So you want natural gas over nuclear? On the other hand, your comment presumes that there is such a thing as too much power. Once hydrolyzers mature, we could use all of the current renewable power in Europe just for pr…

You're missing a lot of background on how these markets work. And i'm not remotely qualified to explain them. But, very broadly and simplistically speaking. We are not even remotely close to living in a "We have too much power" world. ( Markets will change drastically then.) All the nuclear supply has already been sold and is being constantly used 100% of the time. It never makes sense to turn off the nuclear power p…

Working in the strategy back office of a one of the worlds largest producer of renewable power, I feel I have a reasonable grasp of the problem here. Not sure what background you believe I am missing.

The point I was trying to make in my second paragraph is that when hydrolyzers get sufficiently cheap that you can buy enough to cover your peak over-production and let them idle when you are missing power, then you have effectively moved the elasticity from the production side to the demand side -- and then slow baseload does not require you to derate down your renewables.

This is far from the situation today where hydrolyzers are so expensive that you need to run them at pretty high utilization to make the economics work out.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#189

Post by ceejayoz »

throwawaysea wrote: post #99
glogla wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is a huge win for coal lobby. This might be the turning point that kills humanity.

> This might be the turning point that kills humanity. What makes you say that? To me it seems like the worst case is probably human deaths in the hundreds of millions, not extinction.

> To me it seems like the worst case is probably human deaths in the hundreds of millions, not extinction.

I think this underestimates the societal repercussions of an initial set of hundreds of millions of deaths.

Millions of deaths probably means billions of refugees looking for new places to live, probably in places that are already struggling with the changes themselves.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#190

Post by go_elmo »

lokimedes wrote: post #182

As long as nuclear energy is treated as PICK_ANY(obsolete, uneconomical, systemically dangerous) it leaves me with zero hope for humanity. Nuclear is way more than technology, it's Prometheus' fire. It may burn the unprepared but it is incomparable to anything else we possess. That factor million more energy per gram than chemical reactions should be enough for us to treat it as literally unlocking the next level of…

While I agree with you regarding the political dimension, the technical, especially regarding safety may not be underestimated regarding cost implications. But the right political setting could imply cheap, mass produced plants, e.g. SMR's. The problem is that were too late, would take several decades to scale up to where we we should be already...
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