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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

dpa-international.com

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#301

Post by [deleted] »

hylaride wrote: post #173
thrownthatway wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job. Now detail three strengths Belgium posses. If you hyper focus on the problems, you’ll be completely oblivious to the solutions.

They asked if it was bankrupt, not for a feel good or balanced essay. That being said, Belgium can be and is wonderful. I'm a geopolitical nerd and I loved touring the WW1 battlefields. Ghent is one of my favourite mid-sized cities in the world! It's got some of the best gothic architecture around, an amazing and creative beer scene, and is not overrun with tourists the way Bruges is. I was there for a conference (I'…

[deleted]

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#303

Post by crote »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #189
crote wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades. > 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan Sure, but Belgium has to be prep…

>>1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths >"Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". Wikipedia asserts one "suspected" death, which I think is within bounds to call "basically zero". It does list a couple dozen injuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

Just a few lines down:

> The displacements resulted in at least 51 deaths as well as stress and fear of radiological hazards

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#304

Post by adolph »

Alexsky2 wrote: post #253

A bit unrelated to the Belgium story but I recently visited Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, CA and learned a ton about the technical details, safety systems, and policy decisions that go into operating a nuclear power plant. When operating at full capacity, it provides up to 10% of California power! While there is certainly always more such facilities can do for safety and efficiency, my impre…

Yeah, nuclear provides a steady base load, so the percentage goes up or down depending on overall grid utilization. Right now its doing 2.28 MW [0], which is more than what Wikipedia claims as its "Nameplace capacity" of 2.256 MW [1].

0. https://www.gridstatus.io/live/caiso

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#305

Post by WalterBright »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #279
WalterBright wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fukushima disaster could have been averted simply by putting the backup electric generators on a platform, and venting the hydrogen gases outside.

Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind. After SL-1 we realized that that we needed to allow a reactor to fully shut down even with the most important control rod stuck in a fully withdrawn position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1#Accident_and_response

> Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind.

The fixes are still simple and cost little.

I used to work at Boeing on airliner design. The guiding principle is "what happens when X fails" and design for that. It is not "design so X cannot fail", as we do not know how to design things that cannot fail. For Fukushima, it is "what happens if the seawall fails", not "the seawall cannot fail".

Airliners are safe not because critical parts cannot fail, but because there is a backup plan for every critical part.

Venting explosive gas into the building seems like a complete failure to do a proper failure analysis.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#306

Post by j16sdiz »

dmix wrote: post #186
dalyons wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building _new_ nuclear is not going to make their energy costs cheaper. It is the most expensive form of generation

Then why is China building 30 new reactors on top of the 60 they already have, if it's not competitive? https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/china-says-i... The answer is usually more about how China can actually build things, not that nuclear isn't economically feasible.

The way China building new reactor is not typical.

Most of the countries builds _one_ type of reactor, or a group of similar type of reactor. This help reduce the cost of training and certification.

China, otoh, tries to _diversify_ their reactor type.

If you look closely on how China treat techs, they have been doing the same for all tech for past 15+ years. They are strategically growing their tech profile.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#307

Post by boringg »

716dpl wrote: post #31

The EU also released a plan in the past week to accelerate the deployment of both nuclear and renewable energy. This oil shock is going to have lasting impacts. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/accelerateeu-energy...

Couldn't ask for better unintended outcomes from that Iran war than to fast track deployment of renewable and nuclear energy.

Get europe off their anti-nuclear, pro gas stance. France gains a fair bit from this development. Russia loses influence as does the mid-east if the trajectory holds.

Winners: heat pump manufacturers, nuclear re-processing, uranium enrichment, eVs, nuclear heavy manufacturers, solar panels (China)...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#308

Post by thrownthatway »

testing22321 wrote: post #158
shawabawa3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan 3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good us…

> It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster Lead to basically zero direct deaths Which was really just pure luck. It was melting down. Humans could not go in to stop it, robots could not go in to stop it. Pure luck it didn’t go a lot bigger. Also it resulted in severe contamination of ocean water, which will have impacts for a very long time

> severe contamination of ocean water

No it didn’t

Like I said at the time, you could melt all of the cores down at the Fukushima Daiitchi site and dissolve them all in to the oceans and it would be undetectable in sea water.

The oceans weigh around 10^21 kilograms, and the six reactor cores at Fukushima Daiichi would weigh, what, several hundred tons and contain, what, several tens of tonnes of radioactive products.

We’re talking beyond parts per trillion.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#309

Post by londons_explore »

sheauwn wrote: post #142
lifty wrote: post #66

There's a very dark scenario where for some reason or another (all out nuclear war or asteroid hit) sunlight is blocked, in which case having stable base load energy production from nuclear would be very useful. I know this is an unlikely scenario and hopefully it never happens, but it's always good to think about tail risks like these.

If sunlight is blocked the amount of people who die due to starvation from crop failures will probably more than make up for the difference in lost solar power energy. That is to say, we'll have much larger issues than a stable power grid to contend with.

If we directed worldwide LED production all into artificial light for farming, and grew whatever was most calorie-efficient, I think we could theoretically feed every human alive if the sun was blocked out tomorrow.

Obviously that isn't what would happen. The poor would starve whilst the rich still fed cows to eat steak.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#310

Post by Kon5ole »

ETH_start wrote: post #190
crote wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades. > 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan Sure, but Belgium has to be prep…

The impression I've gotten is that almost all of the massive bills associated with nuclear power are because of an irrational fear of the radiation. Factoring in all the nuclear disasters and the radiations released from them, nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.

That's kinda like saying we can release the tiger from the cage because it hasn't killed anyone while it was in the cage.
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