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Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#231

Post by selectodude »

hugi wrote: post #24
cm2187 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much because Merkel decided so in the days following Fukushima. Not exactly the result of long term strategy.

Fukushima was an excellent demonstration of what can happen. You devastate huge areas of land and make them unlivable for generations. This is especially applicable to the United States that has proven entirely unable to handle it's own nuclear waste and just accumulates it at the sites where it's generated, waiting for disaster to happen.

Hiroshima was literally leveled by an atomic bomb and wasn’t unlivable for even a full generation.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#232

Post by hellllllllooo »

addicted wrote: post #15

Nuclear power can save the world.... If the US can build reactors at 1/10th the cost they do right now. That’s the solution. Not the much cheaper clean energy sources that already exist and are being built out in record numbers... Nuclear is great. It just loses out because it’s too expensive and worse, it gets more expensive with time. If the reasoning behind that is based on irrational human fears then first propos…

Exactly, people can't agree on basic stuff that will help people at a small scale. This is beyond a technical problem but more a problem with a disfunctional processes. We could solve lots of current problems if there was the collective will to.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#233

Post by nwallin »

scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

> in Fukushima Dai-ichi's case, for some reason (possibly financial?), it was decided that the tsunami barrier was sufficient (it wasn't) for the job,

Plate tectonics was not understood or scientifically described until 65-67. It was not a widely accepted theory until later, at least the 70s. By that point, Fukushima had already been permitted and built.

Without plate tectonics to create the plate shift earthquake which resulted in the tsunami which caused the disaster, the only mechanism to create tsunamis known was underground rockfalls from steep slopes. Afaik the builders of the plant studied the bathymetry around the area, and saw limited risk of tsunamis.

The primitive science of the time ruled out the possibility of a tsunami overcoming a tsunami wall that was X feet tall. So they built a tsunami wall that was X+k feet tall, and called it a day. When later scientific theory showed that larger tsunamis were not just possible, but inevitable, the plant was not retrofitted to deal with the new reality. Oops.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#234

Post by epistasis »

jacques_chester wrote: post #181
epistasis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, public opinion has nearly nothing to do with the lack of new construction. The problem is far simpler here: nobody can build a reactor reliably without going vastly over budget, or off schedule. Going off schedule also means going off budget because costs are front loaded over the 40-60 year lifespan and therefore every year of delay costs massive amounts of interest. There are plenty of viable sites for n…

Part of this came down to the logic of pursuing economies of scale. It costs a lot to build a 750MW plant, but not twice as much to build a 1500MW plant. So the utilities leaned towards bigger plants (for everything, not just nuclear). But bigger plants take longer, overall. That means you need more capacity in the development pipeline, because you're forecasting that the market is growing. Soon you're needing to hav…

Yes, that's a great point to bring up. Nuclear, as it's been deployed so far, doesn't scale very well. In contrast, renewables are deplorable at basically any scale desired, without nearly as many one time costs. Transmission is the biggie, of course, but nuclear has the same issue when it's trying to connect the grid to a gigantic thermal dump like a river or ocean.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#235

Post by wiggler00m »

BurningFrog wrote: post #217
wiggler00m wrote: post #207

Renewable energy is cheaper than nuclear, or will be imminently. Proponents of nuclear tend to ignore the long-run costs associated with nuclear (eg. waste transport and storage), and the potential for cost blowouts due to acute disasters like Fukushima (estimated cost to taxpayers: USD $100 Billion). The fact tax money is going towards Fukushima highlights another problem with nuclear power: the agency problem. The…

> Renewable energy is cheaper than nuclear, or will be imminently. Renewable energy at that scale is still theoretical and hasn't shown its downsides yet. Nuclear has shown all its downsides, and they have been 95% corrected. It's a mature, known technology.

Renewables already supply a similar amount of power to nuclear, its growth rate is higher, and its cost curve is improving faster.

As for plant capacity, the largest power plant in the world is renewable (Hydropower):22.5 GW. Compare that with the largest nuclear plant, the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (currently closed due to safety concerns): 8GW.

If you limit "renewables" to only solar and wind, there are already 1GW+ wind and solar PV projects operating, and more in the planning and construction phase. There's no theoretical obstacle to building 8GW solar PV projects, though it might be unnecessary, as they can be deployed in a modular fashion. There are several 500MW solar thermal projects operating and more planned.

The downsides of nuclear are not comprehensively understood. The consequences of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster of 2011 may be with us for decades or centuries. The interactions between radioactive material, the atmosphere, the ocean, the human body, and other organic matter, are complex.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#236

Post by epistasis »

ineedasername wrote: post #95
Ericson2314 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US cannot do infrastructure, or really any serious investment, period. Our laughable incompetance would seriously hinder any strategy. With other strategies, that is one of many impedements. With nuclear that is the only impedement. Hopefully US figures that our rampent cost diesese on sll the things is just embarrassing, and we need a "time out", a throwing away of the actuarial pessimism, and a command economy…

I don't think it's incompetence, it's a lack of political will. On energy, entrenched interests win out through regulatory capture and lobbying. On other infrastructure issues, most people and politicians simply don't care. Maybe once we get to a few bridge collapse per week.

IMHO that's exactly wrong. The problem is far too much will, and not enough competence. This is the second forum where I've seen a "not enough will" comment, despite it making no sense when you look at the history of the excessive amounts of capital thrown unproductively at the task.

Nuclear has some amazing lobbying going for it, amazing backers that will throw away billions of tens of billions of dollars into black pits of construction hell, despite knowing the rate of so many construction projects before it. And they take this massive risk without the possibility of VC like upsides; the financial upside of nuclear is minesxule compared to the massive risk of building. It makes no financial sense to any rational person.

No, the problem is certainly not a lack of will. The problem is that those pushing nuclear don't know how to build it. They like the idea, but don't have the skills and can't hire people with the skills. Nuclear construction is all a game of raking in some contracting cash and making sure that when the inevitable lawsuit comes due to failed construction, your side doesn't lose.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#237

Post by djakjxnanjak »

pfdietz wrote: post #157
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the resistance to nuclear power mostly at the state/local level or is there also a lot of federal opposition? I wonder if some western state with unpopulated land could make a lot of money by doing a huge nuclear project and sell the power to California with UHV lines. The politics seem kind of similar to pipeline projects, but the ultimate goal would be to save the earth rather than burn it down so maybe there wo…

The resistance is from those being asked to pay for it.

Seems like many of the costs are design and management overhead that would probably be less of an issue at larger scale?

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#238

Post by scarygliders »

nwallin wrote: post #233
scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

> in Fukushima Dai-ichi's case, for some reason (possibly financial?), it was decided that the tsunami barrier was sufficient (it wasn't) for the job, Plate tectonics was not understood or scientifically described until 65-67. It was not a widely accepted theory until later, at least the 70s. By that point, Fukushima had already been permitted and built. Without plate tectonics to create the plate shift earthquake wh…

Indeed!

And so goes hindsight.

And we (the human race) have learned.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#239

Post by realusername »

wiggler00m wrote: post #235
BurningFrog wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewable energy is cheaper than nuclear, or will be imminently. Renewable energy at that scale is still theoretical and hasn't shown its downsides yet. Nuclear has shown all its downsides, and they have been 95% corrected. It's a mature, known technology.

Renewables already supply a similar amount of power to nuclear, its growth rate is higher, and its cost curve is improving faster. As for plant capacity, the largest power plant in the world is renewable (Hydropower):22.5 GW. Compare that with the largest nuclear plant, the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (currently closed due to safety concerns): 8GW. If you limit "renewables" to only solar and wind, there ar…

> As for plant capacity, the largest power plant in the world is renewable (Hydropower):22.5 GW. Compare that with the largest nuclear plant, the Kashiwazaki Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (currently closed due to safety concerns): 8GW.

Hydro works well and is the best solution if our country has capacity for it, unfortunately, it's not available everywhere.

> The downsides of nuclear are not comprehensively understood. The consequences of Fukushima may be with us for decades or centuries. The interactions between radioactive material, the atmosphere, the ocean, the human body, and other organic matter, are complex.

The downsides are completely understood and the consequences of Fukushima (please specify in your message the nuclear plant) are well studied, the result is that there's not much impact.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#240

Post by superpermutat0r »

jjordan wrote: post #58

Generation III+ reactors are orders of magnitude safer than everything else that was built before the turn of the century. China is actually leading the charge right now, with AP1000 reactors under construction. One of the plants just went live last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable.

I'm not sure how they can calculate safety levels that represent anything measurable or measured accurately. Nuclear plants are black swans, they should be built deep below.
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