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Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

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Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#261

Post by triceratops »

coryrc wrote: post #246
triceratops wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s only expensive and brittle because environmentalists have choked it to death How did they succeed with nuclear energy but fail so miserably with everything else - fossil fuels, meat, even whaling?

Because they were useful idiots funded by fossil fuel companies. (also US whaling is nearly banned by the US and most countries, and we're not going to go to war with Japan over it)

I'm not asking where they got funding. I'm asking why anyone else listened to them on this topic alone. You don't find that strange at all?

The elites, powers that be, whatever you want to call them, had their own reasons for killing nuclear power. And nuclear's economics, compared to fossil fuels, didn't make it a slam dunk to adopt despite powerful opposition. So it had no one to defend it.

Environmentalists weren't just useful idiots then (and I hesitate to call people acting in good faith, without any self-interest, "idiots"). They're convenient fall guys today. The fossil fuel industry killed nuclear power and pinned it on the environmental movement. That had the double benefit of keeping their hands clean while discrediting future environmentalists.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#262

Post by remarkEon »

TheCondor wrote: post #245
bilekas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has an amazing opportunity to be the standard setter in the EU with nuclear though. The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days. It a real shame to leave it all on the table because of poorly designed and managed disasters.

Did waste management become a solved problem? In Colorado they shut down their last reactor (a very modern, at the time, thorium unit) in 1989 and there is still tons of waste product onsite since Yucca mountain was the designated target for it and it never came online. It's in a river basin and the containment facility is supposedly insanely robust (can withstand 300mph winds, etc..) but it's still there and I think…

Yes. It is a solved problem. It has been a solved problem as long as I’ve been alive, and the only reason we are in this situation is because a very sophisticated and organized network of activists convinced people that it is not a solved problem. I will never forgive the boomers for what they did here, it’s so incredibly sad. We could’ve had essentially free clean electricity but instead we shut down reactors “for the environment”.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#263

Post by fundatus »

ahtihn wrote: post #190
bilekas wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not and that's fine, but it's very much part of the European economic area, and we have a great relationship as well as a lot of alignments with standards and so on. The EU wouldn't have no issues taking notes from the Swiss.

Switzerland is not part of the European economic area, aka EEA.

It formally isn't but for (almost) all intents and purposes it is.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#264

Post by palata »

thomasmg wrote: post #238
bilekas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has an amazing opportunity to be the standard setter in the EU with nuclear though. The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days. It a real shame to leave it all on the table because of poorly designed and managed disasters.

Solar, wind and hydro are all much cheaper, far safer and more efficient these days.

Whether or not that's the case, the problem is that if you put together all the nuclear, solar, wind and hydro we can manage, we will still have less energy than what we get easily with oil.

I don't get why they even compete against each other: we need as much as we can of everything that we can.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#265

Post by palata »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #213
jokteur wrote: post #32

This still has to pass with the people in a referendum. The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland. All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear. I am not expecting informed and civil discussions about this topic. Switzerland has a summer/winter energy problem. We have lots of potential of producing energy in the spring and summer (when our dams are full fro…

I really hope Swiss people learned a lesson from Germany and vote to build nuclear power plant. We need more investment in research on how to build safe, efficient power plants and ways of re-using spent nuclear fuel

One thing I want to mention about "safe" nuclear plants: dams are very, very big risks. Destroy a dam and see the result...

People are scared of nuclear plants in the same irrational way they are scared of terrorism. It doesn't kill much, but it is very scary.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#266

Post by tancop »

LinXitoW wrote: post #202
rayiner wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only expensive and brittle because environmentalists have choked it to death. They’re the third biggest villains of climate change, after consumers and oil companies. If the whole developed world had nuclearized the way France did, our discussions about climate change would be entirely different. We would have decades more runway to avoid 2C+ scenarios. We would have already electrified vast swaths of the econom…

So its really safe, but also the evil regulations make it expensive. I'm certain there's ZERO correlation between regulations that make it expensive and regulations making it safe.................... So, where is the free market shitting out nuclear power? Anywhere?

there are regulations that make it safe and the ones that make it expensive. its two different groups. radiation limits and design safety with meltdown prevention is one thing but then you get rules like radiation needs to be as low as possible until you run into a cost limit. that basically means setting a price floor for the whole project.

nuclear being expensive is also kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. the costs for certified equipment are high because the market is small and not competitive, because nobodys building nuclear, because everyone knows its too expensive to build and not worth it.

the only solution i see is massive state investment like what france was doing in the 70s. that would upset the market purists but its more practical than trying to push the industry with a neoliberal hands off approach.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#267

Post by palata »

chinathrow wrote: post #224
jules wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is any country that can safely build nuclear power plants, it is Switzerland.

Unless you drill holes into the outer containment hull.

What if you destroy a dam? It would be catastrophic too... but nobody votes against dams for some reason.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#268

Post by tremon »

TheCondor wrote: post #245
bilekas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has an amazing opportunity to be the standard setter in the EU with nuclear though. The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days. It a real shame to leave it all on the table because of poorly designed and managed disasters.

Did waste management become a solved problem? In Colorado they shut down their last reactor (a very modern, at the time, thorium unit) in 1989 and there is still tons of waste product onsite since Yucca mountain was the designated target for it and it never came online. It's in a river basin and the containment facility is supposedly insanely robust (can withstand 300mph winds, etc..) but it's still there and I think…

Waste management has always been a purely political problem, since breeder reactor designs have existed as long as enriched uranium fission reactors. Most of the waste of breeder reactors is radioactively inert; the problem is that mining uranium is profitable in itself, and it probably shouldn't be.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#269

Post by Tuna-Fish »

pydry wrote: post #218
UltraSane wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

solar and wind is only cheaper up to a certain percentage of total power due to its unreliability. Every watt of wind and solar is subsidized by another dispatchable source. As a sysadmin it seems very comparable to the need to essentially buy 2x and only run things at 50% capacity.

This is what the oil and nuclear industry propaganda says. The reality is that solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think, demand shifting (e.g. charging the car when it's sunny) is easier than you think, batteries and pumped storage and power2gas are cheaper than you think and nuclear power is way, way, way, way more expensive than you think. Weather based models with actual data say that in Australia you'd ne…

> solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think

They anticorrelate in some locations. In others, they don't. Here in Finland in the winter you get effectively zero sun. We also get persistent stationary anticyclones. That means potentially over a month of temps in the -30°C region, and zero wind.

Australia is extremely sunny. California is even better, they are modeling that assuming they keep their current hydro capacity, they only need to add ~3h in batteries. Hot places also do better than cold places, because the usage peaks track the sun.

> In Europe or America you might need 7-8 while in carbon industry PR models (the same people who denied global warming) seem to think you need 300+.

How on earth do you expect 7-8 to be enough? 300 isn't enough either. The real number for a fully renewable-based grid here is somewhere north of 2000.

Renewables are great in some situations. There are places in the world that should go for 100% renewables as quickly as possible. It also makes sense to locate a lot of the high-consuming industry in such places. But before you hawk your solution everywhere, you need to actually study the local conditions, and not try to extrapolate anything from Australia.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#270

Post by [deleted] »

TheCondor wrote: post #245
bilekas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland has an amazing opportunity to be the standard setter in the EU with nuclear though. The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days. It a real shame to leave it all on the table because of poorly designed and managed disasters.

Did waste management become a solved problem? In Colorado they shut down their last reactor (a very modern, at the time, thorium unit) in 1989 and there is still tons of waste product onsite since Yucca mountain was the designated target for it and it never came online. It's in a river basin and the containment facility is supposedly insanely robust (can withstand 300mph winds, etc..) but it's still there and I think…

[deleted]
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