All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected • Hacker News Board

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#251

Post by throwaway894345 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

go_elmo wrote: post #190

lokimedes wrote: post #182

As long as nuclear energy is treated as PICK_ANY(obsolete, uneconomical, systemically dangerous) it leaves me with zero hope for humanity. Nuclear is way more than technology, it's Prometheus' fire. It may burn the unprepared but it is incomparable to anything else we possess. That factor million more energy per gram than chemical reactions should be enough for us to treat it as literally unlocking the next level of…

While I agree with you regarding the political dimension, the technical, especially regarding safety may not be underestimated regarding cost implications. But the right political setting could imply cheap, mass produced plants, e.g. SMR's. The problem is that were too late, would take several decades to scale up to where we we should be already...

“Too late” relative to what? We don’t have an alternative. It will similarly take decades to scale up renewables (we need some combination of economical grid-scale storage and massive over-provisioning).

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#252

Post by afarrell » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

yodelshady wrote: post #248

At some point, you have to wonder: why does the nuclear industry seem to just suck at lobbying? The wind lobby has professionals who made the case to people who matter. That's not evil, that's your - the industries - job . At a high level the nuclear industry, sorry to say, honestly doesn't care. It's the Boeing of the energy world, except even more so: wring every last drop out of dead tech, and never invest a cent.

> the nuclear energy, sorry to say, honestly doesn’t care.

I’m perplexed where you get this idea. Certainly they are failing, but that does not mean they don’t care.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#253

Post by sp332 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

jpdus wrote: post #213

jillesvangurp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason nuclear is unpopular is that it is expensive. It's more expensive than coal and gas typically. It's also very slow to deploy. A decade is nothing. We'll hit 2035 when several countries are planning to be 100% renewable powered in about 13 years. That's not a lot of time to build a meaningful amount of nuclear plants. Nuclear plants coming online recently are not great examples of speedily execution on a ti…

This! Almost all of the pro-nuclear crowd misses that nuclear is just too expensive. Nobody brought a convincing argument why e.g. China wouldn't push Nuclear way more if nuclear would economically be viable - there are no "activists" over there that would stop them from building thousands of reactors. Additionally, most calculations that result in somewhat competitive prices for nuclear energy dismiss the implied su…

China has 50 nuclear plants running and over a dozen plants under construction right now. Kinda seems like they're ramping up to me.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#254

Post by throwaway894345 » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

go_elmo wrote: post #241

q1w2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. China has built 24 1GW Gen III plants in 15 years. No other solution can provide that much baseline power in 15 years. None.

China can also build anything they want where they want and sell power for state guided prices which is not possible in e.g. europe where people oppose. Also solar is much cheaper already which makes such investments uninteresting for power companies.

What is the cost of 1GW of reliable solar (i.e., with storage and/or over-provisioning such that we have similar reliability to nuclear)?

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#255

Post by dboreham » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

vlovich123 wrote: post #214

lostmyoldone wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is Prometheus' fire, we are not ready to handle that fire yet. When one of the core concerns of using a technology is to prevent it being used to create weapons capable of obliterating entire cities, we are not as a species mature enough to use it on a wider scale. This is only one example of why we are not ready yet. Nuclear (fission) technology is not the problem, we are the problem. Looking at the recent his…

I'm unclear about what your point is. Are you saying that Nuclear power production is somehow linked to nuclear arms production?

Of course it is.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#256

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #205

LatteLazy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But until we have that first plant, it's too early to go for mass implimentiion. I wish Musk would take a shot at it. He's the only engineer/financier/crazy-person who I think could make an impact. Government's clearly aren't interested and no one else can get the cash together.

As he’s said numerous times, solar is fusion at a distance and solar combined with batteries is the future, both of which can be safely recycled and manufactured rapidly at scale. Tesla’s entire business is selling batteries to store clean energy for later use (either in vehicles or stationary storage), and enough sunlight hits the earth every 30 minutes to power humanity for a year. Lithium is abundant in the world’…

I don't disagree that there is abundant solar opportunity at the planet-level, but it's unrealistic to build infrastructure to funnel energy from eligible deserts to the rest of North America.

Here where the sky is cloudy as much as it is sunny, and clear even less, and where it snows, solar works but isn't reasonable to replace all power needs at an individual, county or state level. The logistics involved are much more complex than, say, having a few nuclear reactors in the state. Which work regardless of the weather.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#257

Post by kortex » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

chefkoch wrote: post #231

q1w2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a nuclear reactor does not produce nuclear weapons. This is simply fear-mongering fake news. Also, modern nuclear reactors are dangerous. The GenIII+ specification for all new reactors requires the use of passive shut off. Which means the operator must actively keep the reactor on. If they were to all turn into zombies, for example, the reactor would simply shut off. Omega Tau podcast also did an extensive se…

> We have a PROVEN solution ready to go that can be deployed in literally 10-15 years. We just need to end the ignorance. No we don't. We don't have even one new Gen reactor running and even more important we don't have the people educated to build them in a massive scale. It would take at least ten years to educate the nuclear engineers needed to build dozens or even hundreds of them. And even then they don't have e…

Define "we" and "running". While the US nuclear industry is admittedly a bit moribund at the moment, there are already many gen 3 plants in operation with passive safety features, and several gen 4 in late research and plans to build commercial plants. But the majority of plants in operation are gen 2. We could be doing so much better by just building out gen 3/3.5 plants today.

The big 3 nuclear disasters, Chernobyl (started construction in 1972), Three Mile ('67), and Fukushima ('67), were al really early gen 2, designed in the 60s.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#258

Post by Oddskar » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

DisjointedHunt wrote: post #171

adrianN wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of the statement that fossil fuels have been subsidized directly and by not paying for their externalities is wrong?

I didn’t say it’s wrong. I said it villianizes those fuels. We needed fuels as a society for those 3000 mile flights over the pacific that ships your iPhone here. Energy “subsidies” are a strategic investment in securing your lifestyle. Just look at Europe right now as they head into winter with sky high natural gas prices. They’d go ahead an strike any deal that secures their supplies so they do t freeze half to dea…

I think you've somehow missed the vital part: our lifestyle is not sustainable. We shouldn't aim to sustain something that simply cannot continue.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#259

Post by throw0101a » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

throwaway898989 wrote: post #219

vlovich123 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unclear about what your point is. Are you saying that Nuclear power production is somehow linked to nuclear arms production?

are you saying that nuclear power related accidents like chernobyl don't happen?

> are you saying that nuclear power related accidents like chernobyl don't happen?

The 1975 Banqian Dam failure: 26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#260

Post by DisjointedHunt » Sun, Oct 31, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #242

vlovich123 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a little bit of a non sequitur to the topic in this particular thread chain. Anyway, yes of course they happen. They happen in every power producing industry. It's hard to find good numbers of course as there's going to be some amount of error, but here's one [1]. The point isn't that in that report nuclear has fewer deaths than wind and solar as I'm sure that will cause an emotional reaction. The poi…

To boot, almost every time a nuclear reactor is decommissioned, it is replaced by more fossil fuel plants, not by renewable energy. You can’t be seriously opposed to climate change and nuclear energy at the same time.

We’re seeing this play out in real time in Europe and the lack of serious coverage in the USA is disappointing