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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#251

Post by mpweiher »

mulmen wrote: post #159
V__ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this limitless clean energy source is too expensive, even though it had 60+ years time. I hope the day fusion energy finally has its big breakthrough isn't too far away, but conventional nuclear won't solve our problems.

Wind and solar are literally fusion power with extra steps. Running our own fusion reactors would be great but waste is not limited to fission designs. All nuclear generation has radioactive waste, it’s unavoidable. Grid scale storage with renewables can absolutely meet our needs.

> extra steps.

Those extra steps are crucial, as they massively dilute the output and make it weather/daylight and seasonally dependent.

Intermittent renewables produce at least an order of magnitude more waste than nuclear reactors, be they fusion or fission.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#252

Post by croes »

fmajid wrote: post #240
nicce wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that rare in general - if the U.S. opens the secrets of nuclear submarines - we had had mini reactors for decades.

And the technology is incredibly mature, submarine reactors were some of the first reactors, period.

And they are heavily guarded.

In the current political climate I prefer energy sources that don’t cause severe damage if sabotaged.

Did you hear the worries in Ukraine that Russia could hit a wind turbine with a rocket?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#253

Post by KaseKun »

medlazik wrote: post #175
stonemetal12 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what is clean? By that definition Solar and Wind aren't because copper and iron mines aren't clean.

[flagged]

Now now, there are words that you can say to make your point that don't make you seem deranged.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#254

Post by pfdietz »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #225
zdragnar wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit miffed I can't find the article now, but I recall hearing it was more the reactor design approval process than the operational process regulations that interfered with and drove up costs. Every tiny detail of a site has to be taken into account, forcing modifications to existing designs such that every build ends up being bespoke anyway. On top of that, many of the rules around the design approval process a…

Maybe this article? https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power... There is some regulatory burden for sure. But the NRC has been very conducive to standardization, and approved construction and operation licenses of like 20 brand new latest generation water-cooled reactors in the first nuclear Renaissance (2006). It was Fukushima and fracking that killed that Renaissance, not regulations. https://ww…

> It was Fukushima and fracking that killed that Renaissance, not regulations.

It was mostly fracking. Most plans for new builds had already been put on hold by the time Fukushima occurred. New nuclear in the US made zero sense when gas is cheap and combined cycle power plants are 10% of the capex/power.

And since then, renewables and storage have crashed in price, nailing shut nuclear's coffin lid.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#256

Post by olddustytrail »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #107
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

If Germany invested all their renewable money into nuclear, they would be carbon-neutral today. Not by 2050 but today. Instead the CO2 per capita in Germany is 2x the one in France. And France had built their reactors in the 70s for a modest price. The "whole load more renewable energy" idea is peak wishful thinking and it's incredible people still buy it today.

[flagged]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#257

Post by [deleted] »

reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

[deleted]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#258

Post by mpweiher »

V__ wrote: post #176
mpweiher wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even then it's not actually true. First, solar and wind are massively subsidized pretty much everywhere they are deployed, in addition to the indirect subsidies they get from China subsidizing production (and internal deployments). Second, and more importantly, LCOE is not the full cost, as you rightly point out. It leaves out system costs, and these are huge for intermittent renewables, and not constant. They ri…

Nuclear is also extremely heavily subsidized. Be it through state sponsored loans or tax breaks (France) or the fact, that the public has to bear the cost of dismantling them (Germany). Thus, a comparison isn't that easy to make. System costs may be high, but they are on a downward trend due to the increasing implementation of grid batteries, which also solves the third argument.

> Nuclear is also extremely heavily subsidized.

That is also not true. For example in Germany, nuclear production was never subsidized at all. Even Greenpeace and the Green's chief anti-nuclear Lobbyist, Jürgen Trittin, called nuclear power plants "money printing machines".

> Be it through state sponsored loans or tax breaks (France)

Those are minute compared to subsidies intermittent renewables get in Germany. In particular as there is the ARENH program, which is effectively a negative subsidy (it takes money away from the nuclear company EDF), and of course EDF is profitable and gives money to the government.

When you add it all up, France has a negative subsidy of € 0.1 - 7 billion yearly, whereas Germany subsidizes intermittent renewables to the tune of around €20 billion a year.

> System costs may be high, but they are on a downward trend

That is also not true. System costs are actually rising, because yields are dropping, the share of renewables has risen and the (fairly cheap) coal backup is to be eliminated. Total costs are now estimated at several trillion euros. For comparison, France's nuclear program cost a total of €228 billion through 2011.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#259

Post by croes »

tietjens wrote: post #2

Article claims Germany is beginning to shift. I wouldn’t count on that. Despite having to import all of their energy aside from renewables, there is a wide-spread suspicion of nuclear here. The CDU made a lot of noise about it while they were in the opposition, but turning those closed plants back on is highly unlikely. Very costly and I’m not certain the expertise can be hired.

Still no storage for nuclear waste, long construction times and expensive as hell.

Die you hear about the Söder-Challenge?

The head of the bavarian CSU want to go back to nuclear energy and comedian Marc-Uwe Kling promised to praise him if he finds and operator who is willing to build a nuclear power plant in Germany without any government subsidies.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#260

Post by fundatus »

yellowapple wrote: post #25
bluefirebrand wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is going to take a long time and a lot of resources no matter what so maybe we should be building effective longterm solutions like nuclear instead of stopgap solar and batteries

Not even “instead”. We need all of the above: nuclear for base loads, solar for peak loads, batteries for surplus capture.

Base load is a concept of the past, grids around the world are being redesigned to be flexible to reap zero-production-costs renewable energy. Nuclear (which is impossible to run economically as a flexible asset) simply does not fit into that new world anymore.
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