221–230 of 399 posts
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Quoting from your link: "It is found that daily extreme wind speeds at 10 m are most likely in the early afternoon, whereas those at 200 m are most likely in between midnight and sunrise " Ground is irrelevant; there's a reason why wind turbines are being put on top of tall towers.
200m tall towers?
The view I share with a majority of Germans: Costs of nuclear energy are very much a burden that future generations will have to carry. A hundered thousand years of safe storage is not part of the calculation of the energy price. It is also clear now that the the companies running the plants will not pay for the deconstruction of the plants after they reached their end of life. Tax payers have to pay for this, and a…
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Cost is irrelevant if you can’t store the energy generated. Nuclear is predictable and carbon free. Look at France.
Nuclear is massive-grid-scale base load only in a world that does not need more base load nor massive grid-scale generation. Everything about nuclear is slow, difficult, expensive, dangerous. They are increasingly not handling climate change well. They are decade-scale projects that take a long, long time to become carbon neutral; we cannot wait that long. * Solar and wind are here to stay and they mean we need fast-…
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https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/accident-management/emergen... "To date, there is no evidence that the reactor accident has caused adverse health effects due to radiation in Germany."
A lot of the fallout on land in Western Europe was in Scandinavia and Austria due to the prevailing winds and the places where clouds happened to precipitate into rain. In some regions they are still today monitoring the cesium content of grass and moss, and bringing sheep and reindeer in for the weeks before slaughter to be fed hay from other regions to ensure the meat is within acceptable dose limits. Edit - link t…
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
It’s worth noting that you are confusing system costs and levelized costs of electricity. Cheap wind and solar electricity is absolutely useless if it cannot be produced on demand. Nuclear produces electricity 24/7, independent of weather with no backup required. The kWh costs 30 cents in Germany, but 15 cents in France.
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But your own point is itself moot, given that we are not comparing nuclear to the dirtiest most lethal of fossil fuels, but nuclear to composite solutions of renewables+batteries/electricity storage or renewables+natural gas
When Germany closed nuclear power plants after Fukushima much of it was replaced with coal power plants.[1] So I don't think his point is moot at all, it's actually quite a reasonable argument to make here. [1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598
Yeah, but as you know Germany, and German discussions do not encompass the whole world, so you can certainly bring me points from specific countries, France or US could be other ones, but they also have their own idiosyncrasies
But as I was saying, the core argument for Nuclear decommissioning is not to compare it to the absolute worst energy generation scheme that exists, by that metric then I could mention that using PeatBog for energy generation is "not that bad an idea" compared to Coal.... Which is of course, an awful idea by itself....
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
> Let us not submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income … Why should we not add in every substantial city the dignity of an ancient university or a European capital … an ample theater, a concert hall, a dance hall, a gallery, cafes, and so forth. Assuredly we can afford this and so much more. Anything we can actually do…
It's worth noting that nuclear is really expensive when factoring in insurance and disposable, a lot more so than wind and solar. >The cost of generating solar power ranges from $36 to $44 per megawatt hour (MWh), the WNISR said, while onshore wind power comes in at $29–$56 per MWh. Nuclear energy costs between $112 and $189. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower/nucle...
The need to keep nuclear in the short term is based solely on the urgency of the climate crisis.
Cost is irrelevant in the face of extinction.
We have a couple centuries to figure out wind and solar economics if we convert all coal and gas to nuclear immediately.
Safe nuclear power needs German engineering.
What’s not safe about the nuclear engineering in the UK or France?
https://ehss.energy.gov/SESA/Files/corporatesafety/safety_bu... On April 20, 2005, a camera inspection of a feed clarification cell at THORP revealed that 83,000 liters of dissolver solution had leaked from a broken pipe (Figure 1) into the cell sump. The highly radioactive dissolver solution, consisting of approximately 19 metric tons of uranium, plutonium and fission products dissolved in nitric acid, was entirely contained within the stainless steel-lined cell. No personnel were injured as a result of this incident. However, the cleanup costs for this event are expected to exceed $500 million, and the THORP facility faces a lengthy shutdown (possibly even permanent closure).
France: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-reprocessing-t... Reprocessing also results in radioactive liquid waste: the French reprocessing plant in La Hague discharges 100 million liters of liquid waste (pdf) into the English Channel each year. "They have polluted the ocean all the way to the Arctic," Makhijani says. "Eleven western European countries have asked them to stop reprocessing."
Germany: https://www.nwtrb.gov/docs/default-source/meetings/2018/marc... Since 1991* increasing inflow of brine from the Southern flank Since 1994* reports on contaminated brines (3H, 137Cs)
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I think you’re being glib, but the issue is that you can’t guarantee the alignment of sun and wind to match demand. Sometimes the wind blows at night, yes, but sometimes it does not. On a pure renewable grid, no wind at night means rolling brownouts or blackouts. This is particularly problematic during the summer when people want to run AC in order to sleep, and will also be an issue when people move to electric heat…
> Right now the choice is between a nuclear power plant during these moments, or a natural gas one. Well, gas and coal. Germany is still ~26% coal in 2021[1]. Edit: Maybe 50% coal if you look at consumption, not just generation, per 'incrudible[2]. [1]: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... (Lignite is a kind of coal) [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28857398
https://oneinabillionblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/hourly...
