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A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#191

Post by erikpukinskis »

saagarjha wrote: post #41
nickik wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste) The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true. While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything. Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable. > Third, th…

> The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true. While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything. Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable. While I view nuclear power relatively favorably, this is an extr…

Not in meaningful quantities compared to fossil fuels.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#192

Post by petre »

richardburden wrote: post #164
lando2319 wrote: post #163

Question, why do people talk so pessimistically about the potential for solar? I see lots of comments like, "there is not enough land for solar panels". People seem to have a fixed view about how much power can be drawn. Sure right now the payoff might be underwhelming in relation to the size requirements, but with more development wouldn't the technology improve? I imagine a future where the technology improves to t…

Why not imagine a future where fusion technology improves to the point that there's no point in using anything else? With fission, we're already there, and taking full advantage of fission now, with breeder reactors and spent fuel reprocessing made legal again, will give us the energy to pursue fusion worldwide with a budget similar to the U.S. defense budget. Sticking to solar and other "green" energy means mass-hom…

The tech is there, only breeders are quite expensive, anti nuke lobby and politics screwed things up to such a degree that nuclear became overpriced and overengineered. Still we can fix things, SMRs such as NuScale (basically naval scale PWR tech) are a solution if the licensing hurdles are be resolved and so is geothermal where it's available.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#193

Post by petre »

s21n wrote: post #6
kartan wrote: post #3

I'm writing this from Japan. I do not have the numbers, but as I cross the country in the Shinkansen I see a sea of solar panels. Fukushima has been a lesson here. Strategically, Japan has to import it's energy, except for solar energy. With a float of trains electricity is already at the core of their transportation system. Here, at least, nuclear doesn't look like it's the future.

The growing share of renewables in the mix doesn't mean there's no place for nuclear in the future – it's a false dilemma fallacy. Also, Japan's solar panels may be visually imposing, but they constitute a tiny amount of total energy generation in Japan. After Fukushima Daiichi disaster Japan shut down all it's reactors and switched to fossil fuels, not renewables, and this is the most tragic outcome of the disaster.…

Offshore wind is a good bet for Japan but it has to be supplemented with base load power coming from nuclear or geothermal. I think they have resources for geothermal being a volcanic island.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#194

Post by petre »

mr_toad wrote: post #111
fogetti wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net wind energy percentage in Germany in 2017 was 18.9%. And that's a fact. Which clearly voids your argument. Yes, there are limitations how high it can go and I don't expect it to be anywhere near 100%. But it's clearly a huge source of energy already and it will increase even more in the coming years. The reason why it totals 1.5% is because it costs money to replace existing power sources and the lobby power of t…

Germany can import French power. That’s a big part of the reason they can get away with a low base capacity and avoid price spikes.

And French power is something like 70% nuclear. Germany is basically relying on neighbouring countries and coal for base load.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#195

Post by bovine3dom »

pfdietz wrote: post #153
bovine3dom wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hasn't priced itself out of the market - Governments insisting that it is many orders of magnitude safer [1] than any other form of power generation have unsurprisingly made it very expensive and over-engineered. Nuclear quite simply needs to be given its fair share of blood to be competitive - to get wind power down to the same level of safety we'd have to build robots to climb the turbines to maintain them. [1]…

The argument that governments aren't letting reactors melt down enough is a nonstarter. If nuclear proponents have to resort to that, you might as well give up. I suggest instead pushing for designs that can achieve acceptable levels of safety at lower cost. In particular, molten salt designs, such as the one from Moltex, that allow the size of the containment building to be shrunk by a factor of five from that of an…

It isn't just the reactor that is over-specced - anything to do with nuclear is held to a much higher standard than anything else, relative to the actual risks.

Thorium molten salt reactors have been bandied around for a while, especially in India due to necessity, but I fully expect governments to still make unrealistic demands of them, and therefore drive them up to unrealistic prices.

Stuff like this depresses me - I don't see how politics can handle grown-up conversations about trade-offs like this when people will just vote in the cake-and-eat-it parties.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#196

Post by PavlovsCat »

ThomPete wrote: post #146
PavlovsCat wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear is the safest, most scaleable, greenest most reliable power source we know of bar none That doesn't change the article we have here.

I was responding to the comment not the article

> So, where's this new generation? What demonstrates their love? Show me pictures of a dozen, or it didn't happen.

That's the point of the comment. "Nuclear had it's chance" is what you latched onto, concluding with "The environmentalist not rationality kille nuclear". So I guess you agree, the title is BS.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#197

Post by pvaldes »

mikestew wrote: post #90
pvaldes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CO2 is the most dangerous waste > the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me Not. It doesn't work like that. CO2 is not even waste in the strict sense of the term; is basic for our survival. If you wipe all CO2 from the air, humankind will go extinct in a hurry because all plants would die really fast. All what we eat started as a CO2 molecule being captured by a plant somewhere. T…

And we could say that CO2 is a signifiant danger for the climate Uhh, that’s exactly what I was saying. Maybe too subtle? I wasn’t suggesting that we’d choke on it. there are much worse molecules in this sense. And therefore CO2 shouldn’t be a concern? Where are you going with this?

> And therefore CO2 shouldn’t be a concern?

And therefore CO2 is not topping the list of worse waste created by man over radioactive waste, as you claimed previously...

Is not logical to keep denying that radioactivity is a very, very dangerous stuff at this point. After the Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Fukushima experiences we should expect to start talking seriously about it, instead to deny the problem again and again.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#198

Post by mikestew »

pvaldes wrote: post #197
mikestew wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we could say that CO2 is a signifiant danger for the climate Uhh, that’s exactly what I was saying. Maybe too subtle? I wasn’t suggesting that we’d choke on it. there are much worse molecules in this sense. And therefore CO2 shouldn’t be a concern? Where are you going with this?

> And therefore CO2 shouldn’t be a concern? And therefore CO2 is not topping the list of worse waste created by man over radioactive waste, as you claimed previously... Is not logical to keep denying that radioactivity is a very, very dangerous stuff at this point. After the Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Fukushima experiences we should expect to start talking seriously about it, instead to deny the problem again and again…

as you claimed previously...

No, that was you making up quotes I never actually typed. Right now, concentrations of CO2 affect my life more than nuclear waste ever has and likely ever will. Since you’re content to make up quotes and then argue against them, I’m gonna chalk you up for a loss on this one and go about my day.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#199

Post by philipkglass »

petre wrote: post #194
mr_toad wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany can import French power. That’s a big part of the reason they can get away with a low base capacity and avoid price spikes.

And French power is something like 70% nuclear. Germany is basically relying on neighbouring countries and coal for base load.

France does not have enough nuclear capacity for high winter electricity demand and it has too much nuclear capacity relative to domestic demand in temperate weather. It ends up reliant on imports from Germany in winter time and exports surplus electricity at times of low demand. As I write this, France is importing 6.7 GW from Germany: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/

If France were forced to disconnect from its neighbors, its electricity would be more expensive and/or more emissions-intensive. It would need more fossil combustion to deal with seasonal demand swings and/or it would get less utilization out of its nuclear reactor fleet. The same goes for Germany, of course: electrically isolating itself would also increase costs/emissions. Germany and France both rely on international electrical connections to improve utilization of their non-combustion electricity sources. Both use imports to meet part of their electricity demands. Both are net electricity exporters over the course of a full year.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#200

Post by ThomPete »

ben_w wrote: post #181
ThomPete wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they cant get that then they will never be a baseline energy source as you cant count on them, so keep dreaming.

On the contrary, current efficiency of even cheap-and-dumb electrolysis is 70% {1}, which means that cheap solar like the 2.155¢/kWh plant from 6 montgs ago {2} can easily provide baseline load. This is pretty much entirely because PV keep getting cheaper faster than everyone expected — even as recently as five years ago, pessimism like yours wouldn’t have been unreasonable, and yet the problem is now essentially sol…

Of course they can't and of course it doesn't get cheaper unless you decide to frame it in a way that not at all realistic.

Solar is less then 1% and that's with 300% increase it's not even close to being able to deliver baseline anything regardless of how cheap it gets. It's a dream that's not even close to be realistic and frankly highly naive.

Again 47w per m2 vs. 1000w per m2 and with solar panels needing continous repeairs and no grid or fuel cells in sight plus reliance on coal, nuclear and oil for when the sun doesn't shine.

Good luck.

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