Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#201

Post by runarberg » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

aclatuts wrote: post #177

Lacerda69 wrote: post #28

Cue the atomic fanatics vs the renewable cult discussion. Has been discussed a thousand times on HN recently and it always seems both are just shouting how the other side can not see the obvious superiority of their fav energy source. why cant we have a bit of both? renewable seems very good long term and nuclear is also nice for transition. but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors…

I feel like the oil industry has astroturfed nuclear energy, and NIMBYs love it because they know there can not be any significant nuclear capacity that will come online until 2030 at the earliest. Which is my biggest problem with pro nuclear arguments.

I don’t think you are wrong. This article in particular is written by a consultant that works for a lobby group who’s largest funders include energy companies with large fossil fuel portfolio, looking at the author’s twitter profile and writing history revels he’s only real concern with coal seems to be that China is doing it but not USA (there is also a bunch of FUD spreading around renewables, climate denialism, and conspiracy theories, including the great reset).

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#202

Post by haweemwho » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

schainks wrote: post #144

haweemwho wrote: post #81

> Only nuclear power is carbon-free [...] You can stop reading right there as this immediately identifies this piece as disingenuous at best, more likely though propaganda. The whole process is definitely not "carbon-free". Uranium extraction, transport and processing produce emissions. Building the plants and maintaining them does. Eventually demolishing does. Transporting the used fuel as well as building and maint…

_All_ powerplants have those problems, not _just_ nuclear. I agree it's a bit sensationalist of them to not consider the whole picture and declare nuclear "carbon free". What are the total carbon emissions over the life time of usage including construction, operation, maintenance, and destruction of a nuclear plant vs a fossil plant? I wouldn't be surprised if a nuclear plant emits far less carbon overall than a foss…

"X is the only foo that doesn't suffer from Y!"

"But it does!"

"Well so does every other foo!"

You see that this is not a good argument, don't you?

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#203

Post by illiarian » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #190

illiarian wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone from France is telling you that actually, it's really not that great... That person is really just spreading FUD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35659262 > How many times do people need to be told that with all the renewables coming onto the grid, we don't need more base load? Of course we do > We need storage. Yes. And it's non-existent. There are literally no grid-scale strage solutions in existence…

Wonder if this could make a difference? Iron-Air Batteries Are Here. They May Alter the Future of Energy. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42532492/ir...

I'll believe it when I see it. It's a lot of could should would. A lot of tech "revolutions" sizzled away into nothingness after initial round of celebratory press.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#204

Post by Brusco_RF » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #133

polishdude20 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is a great example of how the meanings of words can be taken differently by different people. "Unreliable" is less of a description and more of a flag. Either it is or isn't. But the original commenter's threshold for unreliable = true is much much lower than most people's as illuminated in this discussion. It seems like this is a daily occurrence online and in person.

I'm guessing "micro breaches" refers to hydrogen-induced cracks. Media likes to talk about it in bigly, threatening terms such as "THOUSANDS OF CRACKS FOUND IN REACTOR VESSEL" - of course anyone with half a brain starts to wonder "aren't these PWRs?". Much like people like to write headlines such as "HUNDREDS OF NUCLEAR INCIDENTS AT NPP XYZ", where "nuclear incident" means "reported event", which includes such dramat…

Reminds me of the hysteria surrounding microplastics. I saw an article that once that said there are X many thousands of microplastic particles in a cubic meter of seawater at certain locations. They were actually counting individual particles! Why? because expressing plastics as a % of total mass or volume makes it so negligible as to not be a headline.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#205

Post by KennyBlanken » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #145

fuzzy2 wrote: post #45

I mean, certainly. Well, maybe not the answer, but whatever. However, are we actually capable of building new reactors and managing their operation in the private sector? I’m not talking about possibly maybe here. Are we actually ready, today, to build a new reactor within reasonable time at reasonable cost? I don’t know, but my gut feeling says no. We cannot even build roads like that. Furthermore, is operating thes…

China can. Russia as well. It appears that the secret ingredient is totalitarianism.

Chernobyl happened largely because plant admins wanted to please (or were afraid of) their higher-ups. Russia has had numerous secretive incidents in their southern military nuclear production sites, and more recently? Mysterious things like "high winds"...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/russia-suspected...

In China? Taishan has been plagued with problems.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#206

Post by haweemwho » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

zackees wrote: post #136

haweemwho wrote: post #81

> Only nuclear power is carbon-free [...] You can stop reading right there as this immediately identifies this piece as disingenuous at best, more likely though propaganda. The whole process is definitely not "carbon-free". Uranium extraction, transport and processing produce emissions. Building the plants and maintaining them does. Eventually demolishing does. Transporting the used fuel as well as building and maint…

The same thing can be said of solar panels and wind turbines. The truth is that the once the power plant is built it generates clean power for decades. That power can then be used to power things like building new power plants.

> The truth is that the once the power plant is built it generates clean power for decades.

That is not the truth. The typical fuel cycle in fission plants is 3-6 years.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#207

Post by illiarian » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

locallost wrote: post #152

MikeCapone wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has been mismanaging its fleet and signally for years that they want to move away from it, under-investing in it, etc. It's not the technology's fault. Germany had some of the best managed plants in the world -- until they decided to shut them down, leading to more coal being burned and more dependence on other countries like Russia...

I don't get this bogus argument. Germany is using the least coal in its history for electricity. The data is very easy to find, but it's a knee jerk reaction that they got rid of nuclear and so they must've replaced it with coal. Not true at all, and it's getting tiring reading this nonsense.

They replaced it with coal, gas and biofuel (that is, burning more stuff): https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1647799729734971396

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#208

Post by wolfram74 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

NineStarPoint wrote: post #106

Lacerda69 wrote: post #28

Cue the atomic fanatics vs the renewable cult discussion. Has been discussed a thousand times on HN recently and it always seems both are just shouting how the other side can not see the obvious superiority of their fav energy source. why cant we have a bit of both? renewable seems very good long term and nuclear is also nice for transition. but I wouldnt want to live next to one of those crappy leaky french reactors…

I feel like most people I know who push Nuclear are already arguing for the use of both, and it’s the renewable side that argues that Nuclear is too dangerous to use or not necessary. Or have you come across a lot of Nuclear proponents arguing that we shouldn’t be using solar energy at all?

I was very pro nuclear a few years ago, at this point solar is so far up the learning curve and experiences so many economy of scale benefits, it's really hard imagining what kind of regulatory framework would be able to make it economically competitive.

We collectively in the form of consumers and governments decide how expensive a thing is, and for 50 years, thanks in part to a lot of coal lobby money, decided nuclear should be more expensive than coal, so we got all the radiation /and/ all the CO2 associated with coal power plants, we can't change that history at this point.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#209

Post by llsf » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

m_a_g wrote: post #161

mathiasgredal wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does nuclear fusion solve the issue of rivers getting too hot, such that the plant has to shut down?

There are fusion reactor designs that don't use water. They directly convert to electricity with magnetic fields.

Are you sure about this ? Not heat is produced ? Cold fusion has been controversial in the 80's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion) and never really escape the lab.

Re: Nuclear Power Is the Answer to Global and Environmental Energy Woes

#210

Post by Manuel_D » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

Julesman wrote: post #191

This is objectively false and I always have a hard time believing that this is an organic opinion free of industry influence. Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model. No matter what you think of the safety of nuclear power, what I said is a fact and the industry spends billions on P…

> Nuclear power is the power industry's answer to "clean" energy because it preserves the centralized delivery system in place. It does not disrupt the current distribution model.

Which is a good thing. Energy demand is centralized in big population centers, so centralized production is easier to deploy.

One of the big issues with renewables is that due to the low energy density and geographic variations in power output, they often need to be built far away from where energy is in demand. This puts more strain on transmission networks: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/30/178686...

> Nuclear power is objectively not safe, with the one caveat that we are talking about long term. In the long term even one accident is absolutely devastating to entire regions of the planet. This risk is simply NOT acceptible.

Incorrect. People seem to forget that we detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads in the atmosphere. Chernobyl was exposed to the atmosphere and burned for weeks. Chernobyl really was the worst-case scenario: an explosive meltdown in a reactor with no secondary storage. It really doesn't get any worse than that. We already have good data on the adverse impact of nuclear incidents, and while bad they're not nearly as devastating as you make them out to be.