An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:42 AM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #97

2trill2spill wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uranium mining seems hell of a lot better than Copper/Nickel mining[1]. Not only is the scale of copper and nickel needed for wind and solar vastly greater than the amount of Uranium needed, but Copper/nickel mines have all the same issues with leaching heavy metals and arsenic, just on a larger scale. And wind turbines use a lot of copper[2], so I'm fine with looking into the costs of nuclear energy through uranium…

I guess the amount of copper used in nuclear waste disposal https://www.copper.org/publications/newsletters/innovations/... And nuclear plants in general would also need to be factored in. As well as the nickel used in corrosion proof alloys needed in nuclear facilities. https://nickelinstitute.org/about-nickel/nickel-alloys-in-oi...

Who is actually doing this work? I have had an idea for a kind of 'public meta-analysis' site, where we could give simple headline figures for important questions like this based on consensus estimates. A bit like the Cochrane or Mental Elf, but for everything and producing a dataset of actual numbers to be used in arguments like this. It's so frustrating in comment threads like this that nobody actually has reasonable numbers for the fundamental assumptions of the arguments on either side.

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

#202

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:45 AM UTC

QuarterReptile wrote: post #153

mike_d wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an exhaustive study of attributable deaths per TWH of power generated, nuclear is safer than wind and solar. Even when you factor in scary words like "radioactive contamination," people falling off roofs installing solar panels is still more dangerous. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

Worth mentioning that Chernobyl is included in this data. If someone has a worse long-tail risk in mind, it would be interesting to hear. The risk from contamination is certainly below coal, which generates far greater quantities of RAM, with constituents being basically consistent with nuclear plant waste.

The real long tail risks from nuclear are the long term ones, which aren't factored in because we don't know what nuclear storage sites will be like in 100 or 1000 years. That's what many rational people object to about nuclear power — it involves a massive discounting of future risk, and we know people are really bad at over-discounting future risk in general.

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

#203

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:48 AM UTC

berkes wrote: post #193

rich_sasha wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland has cloudy winters with short days and no reliable offshore winds (nothing comparable to the trade winds on the North Sea for example). It is mostly a lowland country with no potential for pumped hydro, or for the most part, regular hydro. I’m not, like many Polish people are, pro coal and climate change denier, just saying we can’t solve global warming on the assumption of Californian weather.

Would that not make a great argument for more European integration in energy infrastructure? Where Spanish solar, Danish and Dutch North Sea Wind, Norwegian Hydro, or Swedish Geothermal, power Poland on the days when its own wind and solar is below whats needed? I'm from the Netherlands, and many fellow countryman and politicians have similar excuses for not going renewables (there is little Sun, no space for windmil…

When people worry about land-use of solar, I think about exactly this. There are large chunks of central Spain that would be largely improved by covering them in solar panels (joke, but only just in some places).

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

#204

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

ajarmst wrote: post #161

Mycle Schneider isn’t a trustworthy source. He’s an anti-nuclear activist with a clear agenda and a history of misrepresenting or obfuscating facts about the industry and its inherent danger.

Without any evidence, this is just an adhominem. Please cite an example of obfuscation or misrepresentation.

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

#205

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #88

ruph123 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> recycling issues You gotta love the whataboutism of the nuclear folks ranting about recycling issues of current renewable energy tech when nuclear leaves behind toxic material that has to be kept in a safe place for a long time surviving changes in government, potential revolutions, terrorist attacks, incompetence, greed, etc.

When the main arguments against nuclear power are around cost, it's entirely reasonable to point out costs and inconveniences around alternative power generation sources, which for renewables are mostly around land use, rare and bad to mine materials used in construction, pollution around them and potential recycling, and the lack of stability. All those bring costs up, and some are outright ignored when arguing nucl…

The difference is, most of these costs _are_ factored in to renewable costs because there are few subsidies (at least at grid level). In contrast, there is a huge implicit subsidy to nuclear by punting the issue of nuclear waste storage to future generations. I just don't understand why we're still talking about this when nuclear storage costs, even when included, are laughably optimistic. None of the long term storage plans made since the 1960s have panned out. Everything is still in temporary swimming pools until the music stops and someone has to pick up the bill.

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

#206

Post by pydry » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

edbob wrote: post #178

pydry wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every power source failed in Texas.

Every power source had some failures, but the only power sources that dropped all the way to 0 were solar and wind. Nuclear operated at 75% of capacity, while fossil generation seems to have been around 60%. Wind recovered slightly and "exceeded projections" by producing in the 15-30% range, but closer to 15% at night when it's coldest.

This isn't true. Gas and coal production suffered a lot more than wind:

https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/feb/16/natural-gas-n...

Wind ran at about 50% of capacity and that was because it wasn't winterized.

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

#207

Post by bigfudge » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #185

FooHentai wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Decommissioning options for a retired nuclear plant may be chosen based on availability of decommissioning funds , operation of other reactors at the same site, or availability of waste disposal facilities." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFSTOR Today, about half the EoL reactors in the USA are on the SAFSTOR track instead of the one where they are immediately decommissioned. There is a single waste disposal site av…

Nuclear power plants in the US have been charged massive fees to establish funds for decommissioning. The cost is baked into the energy, even if the political will to spend the funds and store the waste isn't. https://www.nrc.gov/waste/decommissioning/finan-assur.html

That isn't true in Europe, but even accepting your argument: this is a problem for the nuclear industry. Unless we can see evidence that the system as a whole (i.e. nuclear industry plus government of various levels of corruption) can function to process and store waste safely, this is a black mark against the nuclear industry. It doesn't matter if this is 'unfair' in some sense... at the end of the day the waste will exist and after 40+ years there is no evidence of a combined political-industrial system with the capacity to do the right thing.

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

#208

Post by pydry » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #191

pydry wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you from that has no wind or sun?

Poland has cloudy winters with short days and no reliable offshore winds (nothing comparable to the trade winds on the North Sea for example). It is mostly a lowland country with no potential for pumped hydro, or for the most part, regular hydro. I’m not, like many Polish people are, pro coal and climate change denier, just saying we can’t solve global warming on the assumption of Californian weather.

Even in Poland renewables dominate new sources of electricity generation.

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

#209

Post by rich_sasha » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

pydry wrote: post #208

rich_sasha wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland has cloudy winters with short days and no reliable offshore winds (nothing comparable to the trade winds on the North Sea for example). It is mostly a lowland country with no potential for pumped hydro, or for the most part, regular hydro. I’m not, like many Polish people are, pro coal and climate change denier, just saying we can’t solve global warming on the assumption of Californian weather.

Even in Poland renewables dominate new sources of electricity generation.

Sort of. Poland has traditionally relied heavily on coal. Now for a variety of economic, ecological and political reasons, there are no new coal plants being installed, and old ones reaching EOL. There is no nuclear, despite half-hearted attempts to bring that about. Gas has mostly been imported from Russia, with constant concerns about continued supplies being used as a political tool, so no significant gas plants either.

So yes, once you factor out all other options, solar and wind is the only thing that you can make progress on. But that's a far cry from saying you could run the country on them.

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

#210

Post by rich_sasha » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 11:10 AM UTC

berkes wrote: post #193

rich_sasha wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland has cloudy winters with short days and no reliable offshore winds (nothing comparable to the trade winds on the North Sea for example). It is mostly a lowland country with no potential for pumped hydro, or for the most part, regular hydro. I’m not, like many Polish people are, pro coal and climate change denier, just saying we can’t solve global warming on the assumption of Californian weather.

Would that not make a great argument for more European integration in energy infrastructure? Where Spanish solar, Danish and Dutch North Sea Wind, Norwegian Hydro, or Swedish Geothermal, power Poland on the days when its own wind and solar is below whats needed? I'm from the Netherlands, and many fellow countryman and politicians have similar excuses for not going renewables (there is little Sun, no space for windmil…

I'd be up for that. I am concerned about how that works in practice.

Leaving aside technical issues (can you really push power from Spain to Latvia? Is it really true that total renewable power in Europe can always power the whole continent?), this is an economic project larger than the Euro or the vaccine roll-out. There will be weekly issues of power redistribution - who gets it when there's a shortage? Whose job is it to maintain trans-border infrastructure? Some countries, through resourcefulness or good fortune, will have more spare power, and thus powering, hmm, less powerful countries, leading to the usual "{country-X} power for people from {country-X}". What about electricity costs? Is there a flat rate in Europe? Etc.

I'm not sure how to actually make that work in practice.