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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

#271
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You limit data center power demand until the AI bubble pops. Peak Bubble - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45218790 - September 2025 US Data center projects blocked or delayed amid local opposition - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44097350 - May 2025

Cool, your country fell way behind every other developed nation in this and you've missed out on a huge industry. In the end, your citizens will still use the products, they'll just probably end up having to pay more for the same functionality.

The already use it and are not impressed.

AI wears out quickly if you have special demands.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#272
Finally, France will be happy after years of being pushed back on this with the drive for solar and wind turbines, which sadly all got supplemented via gas on the back that nuclear was bad.

Sadly, with electricity becoming more reliant on gas and other fossil fuels when it is not so sunny in winter, or on those cloudy days with no wind, means fossil fuel usage ends up higher than if they had stayed and expanded nuclear - instead they closed many plants(Germany a prime example, in favour of....gas).

Then the whole over-dependence on Russian gas and oil really did whammy the energy price market, not just for Europe, but with a knock-on effect across the world. One we still pay for today.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#273
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Submarine reactors run on super high enriched fuel instantly one could instantly repurpose into a bomb. Lots of gen 4 and 5 reactor designs that combine low cost, compact footprint, and running on less expensive and carefully controlled fuel.

French have some LEU submarines. They seem to be pretty good on paper. Needs refueling every ten years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffren-class_submarine

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#274
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?

You totally can do it with some combination of overbuilding, storage and increased interconnection. It just starts to get expensive the higher the portion of your generation you want to supply with renewables. There's a good Construction Physics article[0] about this (though it simplifies by only looking at solar, batteries and natural gas plants and mostly does not distinguish between peaker and more baseload oriented combined cycle plants).

Personally, while I'm not opposed to nuclear, I'm pretty bearish on it. Most places are seeing nuclear get more expensive and not less. Meanwhile solar and batteries are getting cheaper. There's also the issue that nuclear reactors are generally most economical when operating with very high load factors (i.e. baseload generation) because they have high capital costs, but low fuel costs. Renewables make the net-demand curve (demand - renewable generation) very lumpy which generally favors dispatchable (peaker plants, batteries, etc.) generation over baseload.

Now a lot of what makes nuclear expensive (especially in the US) is some combination of regulatory posture and lack of experience (we build these very infrequently). We will also eventually hit a limit on how cheap solar and batteries can get. So it's definitely possible current trends will not hold, but current trends are not favorable. Currently the cheapest way to add incremental zero-carbon energy is solar + batteries. By the time you deploy enough that nuclear starts getting competitive on an LCOE basis, solar and batteries will probably have gotten cheaper and nuclear might have gotten more expensive.

[0] https://www.construction-physics.com/p/can-we-afford-large-s...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#275
post #27
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.

Germany will come around when their Green ship comes aground. Probably within the next ~5 years. The coal phaseout will happen, but only by replacing it with natural gas. It will result in the last easily achievable reduction in CO2, but it will also increase the already sky-high energy prices in Germany. After that? There's nothing. There are no credible plans that will result in further CO2 reductions. The noises a…

Coal phaseout is already 3+ years ahead of schedule in Germany without any government intervention because coal plants simply can't compete against renewables anymore.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#276
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?

> in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

You're exactly right, in theory, in practice it's impossible without some significant amount of energy storage, which we don't really have.

I once did this calculation for fun: in Italy, starting from the current energy mix and replacing fossils with more solar while meeting the demand in winter would require covering with panels an area equal to the region of Abruzzo (that's like 5% of Italy's total surface).

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#277

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…

Found the fatal flaw, and right here it is in glorious action:

> and strong regulations and safety culture ensure that it remains one of the safest forms of energy available to humanity.

It is thinking like the comment above why nuclear power is unsafe and will be unsafe as long as the drive to reduce the expense is viewed as "fake costs due to regulation."

No, that person does not understand larger human culture and how it destroys anything with a nuance to understand, such as the need for regulations.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#278
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?

Different energy product. And it doesn't preclude renewable energy from being deployed alongside.

This pitting of renewables vs nuclear is not helpful for renewables or nuclear. They both work well together.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#279
post #252
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's the danger in hitting a micro nuclear reactor with a rocket ? A shitty dirty bomb detonated near the powerplant ?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#280
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.

The problem is economics. Just because the Us built a fleet does not mean that they are economical once put in a non-military application.

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