Live data from Hacker News

Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

allianceforscience.cornell.edu

261–270 of 306 posts

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#261
post #244
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling green hydrogen cheap is a bit of a stretch. The Swedish government produced a government report on the viability of it a couple/few years ago and the price was around 10x compared to nuclear, and that just for producing it. Storage and transportation would be additional costs on top. There is a reason why there aren't any current investments Sweden/Finland/Germany in order to create green hydrogen for energy…

There is not need to transport hydrogen when it can be made right on the spot where it is needed. Cost of green hydrogen is in free fall, just like all storage media, as factories ramp up.

It has a lot of distance to fall before it becomes economical viable.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#262
post #242
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked there doesn't exist a commercial operated pumped hydro that buy renewables when supply is high and sell when the weather/season has changed. I found one plant on the wikipedia list that is at least operated commercially by an private energy company, but they use it to balance their network of fossil fuel power plants when they shut down or start up. During starting/stopping the grid need to stabil…

Obviously until there is enough renewable energy capacity to charge up storage, there will not be storage built to charge with it. Posting "storage isn't built out yet" says nothing informative. Before it's built, it hasn't been built.

It is future tech, similar to fusion.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still have to haul around huge amounts of radioactive materials with whatever technology. That alone is a big factor in the impossible risk calculations. So far there has never been a dirty bomb. What if the pro-nuclear fanboys get their wish and we solve the energy problems of the developing world using nuclear power? What if a modestly developed country gets overrun or overturned? I don't like the odds. Most ri…

I think it's cheaper and easier to construct a biological weapon than a dirty bomb. For the nuclear material one would need an existing nuclear infrastructure, while for a biological weapon only a reasonable good biologist and a lab is enough.

That is a fallacy. I'm talking about a dirty nuclear bomb which consists of the worst radioactive material you can find (which doesn't have to be "weapons grade" btw) dispersed by conventional explosives. This can be achieved anywhere there is a nuclear reactor for power generation or research purposes. ISIS contemplated doing this.

Biological weapons are actually much harder. It does not just take "a lab". What are we talking about? Weaponizing anthrax? Unless you have access to the secret "weaponized" strains you'd need a pretty big lab to "breed" it yourself. At the very least animal testing, maybe human testing, definitely some mass production. That takes time. Also the dispersal methods aren't as simple as one might think. In theory bioweapons sound easy, in practice they haven't proven to be very effective.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#264
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storage will be built when it makes sense to build storage. For storage to be useful, you need enought renewables to charge it from.

How? Magic ? I will buy solar panel for my home now and disconnect from the grid if you are capable provide me with a storage product that makes sense. AFAIK there are no batteries that are safe and make economical sense today and I have no clue what you storage thing you allude too that can be built in 1 year (very convenient of you not to mention what exactly it is you think that storage is that will appear this ye…

It's called the energy market. Some energy consumers and producers are flexible in when they can produce or consume. So there is some elasticity which buffers the transient nature of wind and solar even without any storage even though there is some.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is right in the middle of the biggest and most stable grid on this planet. They don't have to build storage within a year because they don't have to store all that stuff. They can take their time and continue to expand their national grid. Something they've been doing even during the last 16 years where the conservative government has been crippling the expansion of renewable energy.

This makes no sense, the other countries will not build storage for Germany and also they will want to build renweables, you present a fake solution.

Random dudes on Hackernews are pointing out the flaws im Germany's energy policy because with a few minutes of research they can see what experts through years of study and research cannot see...

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#266
post #212
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will giving this money to built up solar and extract the needed neodyme/copper increase the worldwide deployment of solar and wind, or are the mines already running at close to max capacity anyway and new developments are stalled by a lack of workforce, administrative decisions, or environmentalists? If the response is 2, what's the real issue?

Money is diverted from build-out for political and military pressures. Is that "administrative"?

I was talking about mines authorization in Peru (environmental blocks) and in China (administrative blocks).

You did not respond to my question. Do you think your argument 'money to nuclear is bad cause it slows down renewables ' is really true? Aren't we close to max production capacity yet? And in this case, why not continue with nuclear instead of building new coal?

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#267

Funding for the source is interesting: > "The Alliance for Science is a global communications initiative based at the Boyce Thompson Institute, an independent nonprofit research institute affiliated with Cornell University. Our primary source of support is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." The article does gloss over where Finland would source its uranium from. A GW-scale nuclear power plant burns through ~200 to…

> Finland's supplier seems to have been the Russian state-owned uranium outfit Rosatom

"TVO has bought uranium from Canada, Australia and Africa, had it converted to UF6 in Canada and France, and enriched in Russia. Fuel fabrication has been in Germany, Sweden and Spain.

Fortum predecessor company IVOl contracted for a complete fuel supply service from Russia for the Loviisa plant."

(https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...)

For a bit more numbers, wikipedia has this: "In 2009, Finland imported nuclear fuel from Sweden (40%), Russia (18%), Germany (2%) and other countries (40%)."

Fortum is those 18%. The Swedish plant is to my knowledge American owned, and from the numbers I have seen, the biggest source of uranium that it processes comes from Niger. Canada, Australia and Kazakstan isn't that far however, each sitting around 20%.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#268
post #174
post #19

the fossil industry loooooved the green hair folks fighting nuclear. now slowly everyone finds out that with "only renewables", thus without nuclear in the mix, we simply cannot guarantee interrupt free electrical power at scale in most places.

Now fossil industry looooves new nuke projects, because they divert money from renewables for at least a decade until they are finally cancelled.

Any source this actually happened?

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#269
post #3

I have heard a lot of chatter recently about how nuclear has fallen out of favor among certain circles on the left. Can someone explain what the reasons for that are?

It's difficult to have a rational discussion about nuclear power with all the pro-nuclear shilling and the anti-nuclear FUD. However the following concerns are standing: - Nuclear is becoming more expensive while solar and wind are becoming much cheaper. Nuclear and renewables compete for investments so people disagree on what to invest to. - Nuclear proliferation is an unsolved problem and the risk is growing due to…

>- Centralized power production is more vulnerable to war, social unrest and floods compared to distributed power production. Risks of social unrest and climate change is increasing.

You forgot droughts. Low flow rates mean you cannot cool your giant thermal power plant without killing the entire river. So you must turn off your nuclear power plant. Geniuses then place the powerplant near oceans with predictable tsunami risks.

Re: Finland’s Green Party endorses nuclear power

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to have a rational discussion about nuclear power with all the pro-nuclear shilling and the anti-nuclear FUD. However the following concerns are standing: - Nuclear is becoming more expensive while solar and wind are becoming much cheaper. Nuclear and renewables compete for investments so people disagree on what to invest to. - Nuclear proliferation is an unsolved problem and the risk is growing due to…

> Many argue that society should address overproduction and overconsumption of goods, and therefore energy, rather than increasing energy production. These people should be ignored. They are not serious people. And, against these concerns, there are only two renewable sources that provide constant power and both are limited by geography: hydro and tidal. I'm not aware of any high output tidal in the first place, and…

Dictionary definition of over-production

"the production of more of a product, commodity, or substance than is wanted or needed."

Overproduction makes nobody happy by definition and can actively make people unhappy as a sideffect. It is production which is not wanted or needed by anyone, overproduction only exists because we haven't figured out how to share jobs, so instead we give everyone pointless jobs, where they produce pointless products or provide pointless services, just so that they can tick the employment box and get a salary as the division of labor has become an essential part in satisfying basic needs (food and shelter).

Post reply on HN