Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

energyrealityproject.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 393 posts

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#221

Post by _ph_ »

Alupis wrote: post #34
vanessapu wrote: post #3

I absolutely agree that nuclear is our best option as long as the reactor and the waste is located in your backyard.

They aren't nearly as dangerous as the popular opinion would have you believe. There has been only a single incident that I'm aware of (Chernobyl), all others were near incidents (Three Mile Island, Japan, etc...). In fact, the technology and safety has come a long way since the 60's. Most US Navy ships are nuclear powered, and have not had incidents (and these are designed to go to war and survive). Japan was hit by…

I live in souther Germany. Because of the Chernobyl incident almost 30 years ago, it is still not completely safe to eat mushrooms and wild boar from the local forests. Nor is this going to change in my lifetime. This makes me very sad and quit a bit averse to the prospect that this might happen in Europe again.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#222

Post by epistasis »

david-given wrote: post #208
brrt wrote: post #45

Actually, renewable energy is, when you actually run the numbers in a sensible way, pretty cost effective: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312... - this finds that with 90% solar/wind and modest amounts of storage, electricity would be cheaper in 2030 than it is today, and that the cheapest option is actually a vast overcapacity. There are plenty of flaws with that article, but still less tha…

Just a reminder that energy use and electricity use are not the same thing --- about 2/3 of all energy is used for heating and transport, and electricity can't be used for that. (Because it's too hard to store, and because the electrical grid simply can't transport that much.) Sure, solving renewable energy is a really valuable thing to do, but it's still only solving 1/3 of the problem.

The electrical grid will be upgraded, it's not static. Heat is easy to switch to electric. Short transport will move to electric. Longer haul transport is more difficult, but liquid fuels can be generated from CO2 in the air or water (at somewhat large expense). However, if there is large amounts of overcapacity, then liquid fuel generation via electricity might become economical.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#223

Post by adventured »

chc wrote: post #215
beat wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Run the numbers on it. What's a reasonable expected area for a real-world nuclear power plant? (not the fantasy of the OP, but what real plants usually cover) Reasonable peak and median output long-term for that much solar panel? Throw in some batteries for storage to stabilize the output, and the numbers are pretty compelling. Then throw in the cost of covering, say, a square mile of land with solar panels versus th…

A sibling commenter already did run the numbers on it, and found nuclear ahead by a factor of 10: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10503382

I should add, that's just for the largest US plant.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa monster in Japan, with seven reactors, was capable of producing nearly 8,000 MW on just ~1,000 acres. Or upwards of 50 to 80 times what the best utility solar installations today can produce at max output on the same amount of land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Pow...

The Solar Star installation could end up being the best solar comparison right now (completed in June). At max capacity, it might narrow the ratio such that the Japanese plant is capable of producing 50 to 60 times the power on the same land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#224

Post by epistasis »

ricardobeat wrote: post #191
Retric wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the worlds grid storage is pumped hydro because nothing else works out. Pumped storage is 70% to 85% efficient, can come online within 15 seconds, and works at scale. The reservoir can provide about 13 GW·h of stored gravitational potential energy (convertible to electricity at about 80% efficiency), or about 2% of China's daily electricity consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianhuangping_Pumped_Storag…

Wow, I'm actually surprised that the battery comes that close. When one of the newer battery technology materializes those numbers might reverse.

Vanadium redox flow batteries are shipping, with their manufacturers claiming that they beat Tesla's lithium ion both on cost and geographic density:

http://www.uetechnologies.com

http://www.imergy.com

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#225

Post by ageofwant »

yazriel wrote: post #187

The article is completely unprofessional. The tone itself is very one-sided - which is bad enough. However, the factual omissions are ridiculous. Here are a few examples: the area used for wind turbines is large, but it is usually re-usable for agriculture, or increasingly off shore official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of…

You assert that an article of this nature needs to be "professional", why is that ? It was written for the great mass of laypeople that (supposedly) holds the power over our nuclear future. It is intended to challenge the ongoing anti-nuclear narrative and re-educate. It achieves those aims admirably.

While your criticisms may be arguably valid for a different audience they are irrelevant here.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#226

Post by bluthru »

vlehto wrote: post #164
bluthru wrote: post #110

Great points as to why nuclear isn't our best option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3nhhOitYmk

1. You can make same argument about any energy recourse. "we need so big number of them, that it's futile." I guess my grandchildren will die then. 2. No way to recycle.. Except there is. Over half of current energy production happens in countries that already have nuclear weapon, or are part of NATO. So because Ghana can't have heavy water nuclear power plant, U.S. can't either? 3. Price going up with the cheapest f…

>"we need so big number of them, that it's futile." I guess my grandchildren will die then.

You can build a lot of PVs and turbines in the same amount of time, and place them closer to where they're being used (reduce transmission loss). You can also place them on top of buildings (reduces AC load by 2%) and on top of parking lots (reduces car heat and urban heat island effect).

You're not going to electrify poor parts of the world with big, expensive, centrally-controlled fission plants.

>You can also cool with seawater.

The video addresses this. Seawater is often near fault lines, but that's not the biggest issue: transmission loss. If your power generation is on the coasts then you lose a lot of electricity powering the interior of the country.

>nuclear is still safe

Even if every nuclear accident was as "safe" as Fukushima, that's still a lot of wasted money. It will cost over $100 BILLION to clean it up. You can buy a lot of safe and renewable energy for that amount of money.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#227

Post by vlehto »

sea2summit wrote: post #176

I'm really tired of all the internet kids plugging nuclear. The numbers don't work, and the cost of failure is huge. We can put solar on everyone's roof and turbines in windy areas and it's completely safe, dumb nuts simple, and decentralized. Nuclear energy is dead. Let it go.

>We can put solar on everyone's roof and turbines in windy areas and it's completely safe, dumb nuts simple, and decentralized.

...and not enough.

http://www.withouthotair.com/

That's from British perspective. Most of the world population lives at similar population densities. So it's kinda representative. The only major exception is U.S.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#228

Post by hospes »

darkmighty wrote: post #79
ebbv wrote: post #17

This article is pretty terrible. The bias is just ridiculous. When discussing wind and solar the author constantly makes assumptions that favor worst cases, and makes questionable comparisons. For example; stating that "more Americans" died from installing rooftop solar than have died from construction or use of nuclear power, cherry picking the most dangerous possible activity related to solar power (some guy up on…

Large countries run their electrical grid on mostly renewables (e.g. Brazil, Iceland), and large countries run their grid on mostly nuclear (e.g. France, Belgium). Centuries of development aren't necessary to achieve it, it's mostly political will. Nuclear power has actually a fantastic track record with regards to mortality and statistical risk. The main problem is it suffers from the "Airplane effect" -- the few fa…

I do not think you can call Iceland (#184 by population and #106 by area) and Belgium (#76 by population and #136 by area) large countries.

>> Centuries of development aren't necessary to achieve it, it's mostly political will.

While political will is important, it is not enough. It highly depends on geographical properties of the country. For example Iceland produces 85% of its energy from geothermal and hydropower sources and Brazil produces 83% of its electricity from hydropower. Both rely on naturally occurring phenomenons, not all countries are lucky enough to have them.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#229

Post by beefman »

iaw wrote: post #103
beefman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about nuclear fission requires startup capital to be large.

There is a 5-10 year lead time between digging the first hole and opening the plant. That's >$100 million in capital investment for 5-10 years without any return, so the plant has to have a present lifetime value >$140 million the day it opens. This ignores various risk cases associated with building a plant that drive the return on capital further up. Source: used to value these types of investments professionally.

You're assuming a very particular kind of nuclear fission machine.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#230

Post by interconnector »

blakeyrat wrote: post #133
interconnector wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever stood next to giant wind turbines? While driving through an area with hundreds of 100 meter wind turbines, I stopped to take a closer look at them. They are genuinely fear inducing, and feel alien. I could not stay close to one for more than a few minutes before I was overcome with dread.

How do you feel about windmills like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/De_Liefd... Genuinely curious. I've never heard of a phobia like yours before, is it just because of the motion, or is there something different about steel towers than stone ones?

I think a few aren't too bad, it was just the sheer numbers that unnerved me. The wind was quite strong, it felt I was standing next to many powerful jet engines.
Post reply on HN