many proved it worked, including the Phenix and Superphenix, but were closed due to political reasons. Now russia is the leader with bn-600 and india/china are catching up
Phenix was not industrial (250 MWe) but a research reactor. Superphenix was an attempt to haul it to industrial scale and it failed to do so, just as every other similar project. Russia BN-600 is obsolete and was so leaky (sodium!) is isn't even funny. It was superseded by the BN-800 which started in 2014 and has various problems (most related to fuel, the core of this challenge). This path is officially paused (a pl…
phenix and superphenix were closed mainly for political reasons, not because these didn't deliver|
"This path is officially paused" - meaning the reactor is closed?
It really makes me so sad to see that some people can be so confidently so wrong. It really does appear that believing in renewables as a way to perpetuate industrial society at scale has become part of some people's identity, and regardless of any actual study on the subject, this belief appears to be a necessity to be part of non-deplorable human society. Nuclear reactors are a safe way to electrify as much as can…
I note that your polemic is long on faith in nuclear but short on the same sources you’re demanding. Perhaps you could model the standard you expect from other people by providing sources and some analysis of the very sweeping assertions you’re making.
The one specific slide about the low EROEI of solar panel is in: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJvoAm__WVtumohStkF4KwT66cS...
The 2.7 value is from 2019, as calculated for Spain, this one slide is in english. Panels have not made a x10 EROEI explosion in the past 5 years, a lot of the energy costs in that calculation are independent of panel technology improvements.
I have spread no disinformation. Seems to me you fail to come up with arguments against what I actually said so instead you create a strawman. Nuclear costs are way higher than anyone has ever accounted for and they are kicked to future generations. This is a fact and we can do better. The right thing to do is surely to spend now on tech that continues to pay dividends in the future. Maybe we ourselves won't see the…
> So, if your fathers started coal plants, you close them, stop paying for them and can forget about them. I suspect you don't live in e.g. Tuvalu? Or in a country experiencing desertification like Spain?
You misunderstood the point: yes, burning coal is bad. The argument is that once you stop doing that, it’s over. I don’t think that’s completely true - the impact of mining and ash won’t instantly disappear - but if the question is whether we should switch from one thing which has significant environmental hazards to another which poses significant risks or alternatives which do not, that past example suggests that we should be having that conversation about how realistic it is to assume that a multi-century mitigation effort will be effective. Coal is especially interesting as an example because we’ve seen how the mining side of it became a powerful political force where even people whose families were negatively impacted by the pollution still lobbied for its preservation. Nuclear would be smaller but still likely to have that factor to account for as we’ve seen with “temporary” storage becoming de facto permanent.
many proved it worked, including the Phenix and Superphenix, but were closed due to political reasons. Now russia is the leader with bn-600 and india/china are catching up
Does “catching up” mean this is actually working somewhere it can be measured - like we have been with renewables - or is this still theoretical?
The government was no more or less inept than any other organisation - government or private - anywhere in the world. When faced with pressure to save money but still deliver, weighed up against a very low risk of catastrophe in their time, they did the mental math and cut corners, found ways around the safeguarding policies previously put in place and kicked infrastructure spending down the line. The big problem wit…
You literally do not know what transpired. When the tsunami hit and Fukushima #1 lost power and was at risk of meltdown, TEPCO was ready to scuttle the reactors by dumping seawater in them. It would have rendered the reactors unusable, but meltdown would be prevented. The Japanese government at the time, coming from the Prime Minister (Naoto Kan) himself, denied TEPCO from scuttling them because the government wanted…
This story has a very bad smell of urban legend/history rewriting on it. I don't say it is, but without good sources (for instance good investigative journalism by renowned journalists and backed by leaked documents) the stink doesn't go away. Just to say it "transpired" doesn't suffice. Where are the sources and references for the story you tell?
The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. The precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets hot ("decay heat"). Without cooling, it melts. Cooling was lost during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded anywhere. The "Great East Japan Earthquake" and its tsunami killed 19,759 people. The…
Deaths (nuclear accident): 1 confirmed from radiation (lung cancer, 4 years later), and 2,202 from evacuation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... Long-term effects on health are disputed: http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Repor... http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/e... https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article The nuclear accident…
It is a bit strange that we don't see death counts from other evacuations. It is not that uncommon to see mass evacuations from flooding, like the one we had in Europe this year or 2021, but its only death caused directly by the flooding that get reported. There the recurring hurricanes in the US and the also recurring evacuations when it happens. Taking a more direct 1:1 example, the Oroville Dam crisis in California evacuated 20,000 more people than Fukushima and to my knowledge there isn't any official numbers on attributed deaths.
'Advanced nuclear' neglects the last developments (the Vogtle nuclear plant project hugely over-budget and late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla... , cancelled plans (Montagorda, V. C. Summer, River Band, Callaway...). Even the newest pipe dream in town (SMR) already had its first rebuff ( https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/first-planned-small-... ). Last but not least... there is no…
you sure it neglects vogtle? > AFAIK because they consider that electric vehicles' batteries will be useful (through V2G). - lol, kinda interesting assumptions, especially considering that it'll still imply additional costs > AFAIK the idea is to interconnect at continental scale - lol, at such scales that sounds as a bigger pipedream than cheap h2 emission free generation > if it'll be used less and less, youll need…
> you sure it neglects vogtle?
No, your "Advanced Nuclear - Pathways to Commercial Liftoff" plays the usual "we benefit from failures because we learn" card, and concludes with promises "The next AP1000s would also realize substantial cost reductions". This is not IMHO solid, especially given well-known pertinent experience (about gaining from experience!), such as https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
V2G seems solid to me and to most experts (even France seriously studies it!).
Deaths (nuclear accident): 1 confirmed from radiation (lung cancer, 4 years later), and 2,202 from evacuation. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... Long-term effects on health are disputed: http://csrp.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2013-UNSCEAR-Repor... http://www.fukushima-disaster.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/e... https://apjjf.org/thierry-ribault/4761/article The nuclear accident…
It is a bit strange that we don't see death counts from other evacuations. It is not that uncommon to see mass evacuations from flooding, like the one we had in Europe this year or 2021, but its only death caused directly by the flooding that get reported. There the recurring hurricanes in the US and the also recurring evacuations when it happens. Taking a more direct 1:1 example, the Oroville Dam crisis in Californi…
A key difference is that an evacuation triggered by a major nuclear accident could have been avoided (typically: by building renewables instead of a nuclear plant).
> Was the evacuation poorly executed in Japan?
This is a matter of debate. During the Fukushima nuclear accident information was scarce and volatile, specialists said that evacuating up to Tokyo may prove necessary (this was revealed by Kan Naoto, then Japan's Prime Minister: ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-ody... ). The extent of the implemented evacuation was considerably inferior. Nowadays, after the battle, according to some pro-nuclear no evacuation was necessary.
Nuclear power is one of the few industries where a single mistake can cost you as much as replacing the entire nuclear power plant fleet.
Not at all, the chemical industry also can do this. Worse, we store untreatable chemical waste forever (see Germany's many chemical waste dumps), unlike nuclear waste which will eventually become safe.