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Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#261

Post by pfdietz »

RappingBoomer wrote: post #228
karaterobot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is discussed in the article. >Instead of reexamining their energy vision, the greens have committed themselves to promoting energy poverty. In part, they’ve stayed the course because doing so has made them lots of money. The Environmental Defense Fund and the NRDC have a combined budget of nearly $384 million, for example... A recent study found that “tax-motivated investors in today’s renewable energy deals are…

no. I don't think that is what he is talking about...I was a young nuclear reactor operator for the navy back in the seventies, and I was there to witness the massive propaganda campaign that effectively killed off nuclear power...granted, that campaign used as ammo all those old nuclear scare movies from the fifties, back when the MIC scared the population regarding the Soviet 'menace' so as to manufacture consent f…

"There were propaganda campaigns" and "nuclear died off" doesn't mean the former caused the latter. Classic correlation/causation fallacy.

Just as a predator is more successful against a dying prey animal, so are activist groups more successful against an industry that is suffering from grave self-induced problems. Nuclear would be in fine shape today, activists or not, if there were money to be made, as there would be if it really were competitive.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#262

Post by Sporktacular »

erentz wrote: post #244
Sporktacular wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so you concede that nuclear power actually isn't sustainable then? Okay. So if you want to pivot to batteries... look at how much secondary batteries have evolved in the last 70 years. Genuinely novel nuclear power plant designs have barely left the drawing board over the same time. It's pretty hard to conclude batteries have proven uneconomical at scale when the term 'battery' is such a fast moving target. No on…

No, I was reflecting your argument back to you but it goes straight over your head apparently. > Unlike Uranium, which is relatively scarce and the cost of which, in $ and kg of carbon, after mining and enriching to 5% LEU is considerable. Simply not true. Nuclear power when considering all lifecycle emissions is lower than wind and solar: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

You earlier in the thread: "Nuclear power is sustainable."

You a few posts later: "[Battery and storage] also aren’t infinitely sustainable either" (also meaning in addition to nuclear).

Me: "Oh, so you concede that nuclear power actually isn't sustainable then? Okay."

Just read back. Is it sustainable or also not sustainable? You contradicted yourself and I think my comment went over your head.

The carbon cost of the construction and decommissioning a nuclear plant as well as producing and disposing of nuclear fuel is significant, and unlikely to become less so. Wind turbines and solar panels have a carbon footprint almost purely at the construction phase. It's significant too but manufacturing techniques are improving yearly while nuclear has been stagnant.

But according to to your source the difference between renewable and nuclear is marginal anyway and it only considers CO2 and air pollution as it affects human lives. It ignores water pollution from uranium mine tailings, radon or leaks of spent fuel are considered and so is a poor source for considering environmental damage in general.

Finally, your link doesn't mention batteries or storage, so is not an especially relevant source to the discussion either.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#263

Post by erentz »

Sporktacular wrote: post #262
erentz wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I was reflecting your argument back to you but it goes straight over your head apparently. > Unlike Uranium, which is relatively scarce and the cost of which, in $ and kg of carbon, after mining and enriching to 5% LEU is considerable. Simply not true. Nuclear power when considering all lifecycle emissions is lower than wind and solar: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

You earlier in the thread: "Nuclear power is sustainable." You a few posts later: "[Battery and storage] also aren’t infinitely sustainable either" (also meaning in addition to nuclear). Me: "Oh, so you concede that nuclear power actually isn't sustainable then? Okay." Just read back. Is it sustainable or also not sustainable? You contradicted yourself and I think my comment went over your head. The carbon cost of th…

No because no one defines sustainability on the infinite terms you do. If people did then your batteries, wind, and solar would not qualify either.

You then proceed to ignore the facts on CO2 emissions because you don’t like them. Adding batteries and storage isn’t going to lower your embedded emissions or minerals use is it. And you go on to invent more claims about uranium mining while ignoring the mining for materials that go into renewables and batteries, which is much larger. Your reasoning here is motivated by the outcome you want to believe and you aren’t willing to do research or accept anything else.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#264

Post by Manuel_D »

bobthepanda wrote: post #254
Manuel_D wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limit on the temperature is as low as 26C or 79F. It's not like the river is boiling. Furthermore this heat dissipates downstream, it's not affecting the entire waterway. This heat has the potential to harm fish in a segment of a few rivers. By comparison, throttling carbon-free energy production has the certain impact of producing more greenhouse gases, which will contribute to global climate change. I seriously…

* many rivers have some kind of migratory fish integral to ecosystems in both the river and whatever the outlet is, so you can’t just mark rivers as discrete segments and say the effect is isolated * the oceans haven’t warmed by all that much and we are already seeing the impacts, it’s not really that much of a stretch to say rivers would see similar effects * given humanity’s track record with the question “how bad…

Remember, though, the consequence of shutting the reactors down is an increase in global climate change. The consequence of running the reactors are increased river temperatures in a handful of rivers - which as you point out are also impacted by climate change!

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#265

Post by Sporktacular »

erentz wrote: post #263
Sporktacular wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You earlier in the thread: "Nuclear power is sustainable." You a few posts later: "[Battery and storage] also aren’t infinitely sustainable either" (also meaning in addition to nuclear). Me: "Oh, so you concede that nuclear power actually isn't sustainable then? Okay." Just read back. Is it sustainable or also not sustainable? You contradicted yourself and I think my comment went over your head. The carbon cost of th…

No because no one defines sustainability on the infinite terms you do. If people did then your batteries, wind, and solar would not qualify either. You then proceed to ignore the facts on CO2 emissions because you don’t like them. Adding batteries and storage isn’t going to lower your embedded emissions or minerals use is it. And you go on to invent more claims about uranium mining while ignoring the mining for mater…

You said infinitely! I never used sustainability that way. Nuclear is not sustainable because there isn't enough uranium available to extract, certainly not in an environmentally friendly way, in order to meet an expanded demand for more than a few decades https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k?t=365

There is, however, more than enough minerals available to make machines that, once built, will continue to produce and store emission free power for their lifetimes. They are being increasingly made out of recyclable materials and there is other research into lowering their footprint further. In other words, actually sustainable - as in for thousands of years. Renewables aren't there yet, but they will be sooner if a fraction of the cost of new nuclear plants is diverted to the very promising R&D that already exists.

Nuclear doesn't have nearly the same interest or rate of advancement into mitigating the serious environmental problems associated with producing and disposing of fuel, something your sources don't consider at all.

You write like you've just discovered the life cycle 'true cost' of renewables while holding the unrevealed wisdom that nuclear isn't that dangerous. These things are obvious to anyone who follows this, people who would never make the mistake of calling nuclear sustainable.

And I used to be a proponent of nuclear until around 6 months ago when I learned that there aren't enough resources available, and that nuclear won't be able to ramp up in time to lower the atmospheric carbon level increased by fossil fuelled power plants. It's the opposite of dogmatism to be able to follow where the data takes you.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#266

Post by tstrimple »

kleene_op wrote: post #175
Sporktacular wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear had decades to become affordable, safer and sustainable. Instead plants have remained hugely expensive and slow to commission, intrinsically safe reactors are still a pipe dream, the environmental impact of building plants and mining and refining uranium is still large when only 1% of it is used, thorium reactors are a rarity and there is only one dependable, permanent waste depot in operation. Economics is n…

I'm sorry but let me just drop this reality check here real quick: Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France despite an uphill battle in the public opinion. Renewable energy is failing to save Germany this winter despite being hailed as the holy grail for the past few decades. Everytime you listen to environmentalists talk you'd think we're already there, that countries are already covered with batteries…

> Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France

This is outright false. Look at any current data on the cost of running nuclear power. These plants are being shut down en-mass because they are too expensive to operate. I live in Iowa. The nuclear plant here was shut down early because buying out the rest of the contract and switching to other sources was cheaper than leaving the plant up and running. Nuclear proponents completely ignore the economic realities of these systems.

https://www.pveurope.eu/markets/energy-policy-fairy-tale-che...

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#267

Post by tstrimple »

jwie wrote: post #117
nullc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... as if the alternative energy solutions don't harm wildlife (including solar and wind). Is this again an example of expecting nuclear to mitigate its externalities while ignoring them for everything else?

This is a very important point. The externalities of nuclear are actually containable because they are so small. Hundreds of kilos of waste product compared to billions in spent fuel products. The heavy industry footprints of logistics to create the plant and equipment also are more efficient. How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensiv…

> How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensive would that process be comparatively? These factors weigh heavily in nuclear power’s favor because it is so energy dense.

And yet literally every single for-profit energy production company in the world is heavily investing in renewables and avoiding nuclear despite government incentives and subsidies for nuclear. Surely if the cost of nuclear was worth while, the folks looking to maximize profits would be investing more in these technologies. Economic reality doesn't support nuclear power. It's unfortunate that the people pushing for nuclear power are also the people who generally push for private ownership of everything, because public ownership and investment is the only time we see anything close to successful nuclear programs.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#268

Post by tstrimple »

gene-h wrote: post #76

"During the 2021 Uri storm, Texas’s $66 billion in renewable energy investments failed to perform in a time of crisis" So did nuclear. A nuclear reactor in texas went offline for two days during the crisis due to cold weather taking 1.3 GW of capacity with it. The linked article the author cites mentions that the outage was primarily caused by the failure of thermal plants which hadn't been winterized rather than lac…

This is borderline misinformation. It's well known that the Texas grid suffers because of budget conscious corner cutting that the choice of technologies powering the state. It was actually natural gas power generation which failed due to the cold because Texas decided to save some money during construction.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/16/texas-wind-turbines-...

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#269

Post by Georgelemental »

locallost wrote: post #161
Georgelemental wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France's nuclear plants are failing to provide for the country's needs because incompetent politicians shut down perfectly functional plants like Fessenheim, and in general refused to invest to maintain the system and preserve expertise. French nuclear didn't fail on its own merits, it was sabotaged.

That's a stretch considering how many of them are out currently. Things either work or they don't. There are always growing pains, but nuclear has had way over 50 years and it hasn't worked. I listened to parts of the recent John Carmack interview, and he touched on nuclear and it was the first time I heard somebody pro nuclear say something sensible on the topic. He said, based on everything he knows, it shouldn't b…

Nuclear works and has worked just fine where and when there has been a sane government/regulatory environment.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#270

Post by kemiller »

pfdietz wrote: post #259
kemiller wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a straw man, it’s the whole point, and no one is saying not to push as hard as possible on renewables too. Porque no los dos? The best part of nuclear is that it slots in for coal as base load with no other changes. If we can do that until solar+wind+storage catch up we can get to net zero faster.

"Nuclear" and "faster" don't belong in the same sentence. Renewables can be brought online, and start displacing CO2 emissions, far faster than nuclear can. Any expenditure on new nuclear is a move away from the optimal path to reducing CO2 emission.

Renewable sources, yes. But not storage, and it’s that base load where nuclear can help.
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