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Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

world-nuclear-news.org

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Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#311

Post by account42 »

simion314 wrote: post #25
jonplackett wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t this a pretty much solved problem though? Just add a battery to your house? Batteries are just going to get better - especially over a 10y time span

>Isn’t this a pretty much solved problem though? Just add a battery to your house? In winter the days are short, the sky can be covered in clouds for an entire week, the solar panels can be covered in snow also. I have solar panels but I do not have a way to export my data to show you the summer vs winter GIANT difference. So people like me with solar need the other people in the area not to all go for solar, then we…

> I am wondering if it would happen that with so many solar roofs we will either have to pay for people to use my energy

This is already the case - Germany ends up paying for both electricity exports and imports.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#312

Post by account42 »

Mashimo wrote: post #76
bilekas wrote: post #13

Nuclear isn’t something to be afraid of, in fact it’s a natural progression. It’s quite safe when done right, it’s cheap, there is the disposal question but in relation to anything else it’s pretty manageable. If nuclear was a bigger resource we might even see better research into better methods of disposal.

Italy has solved the nuclear waste disposal problem. They ship it to Somalia or sink it in old ships. It's quite cheap as well.

And that's already the commonly accepted solution for pollution from other energy sources!

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#313

Post by account42 »

arlort wrote: post #198
mandmandam wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how many people die because of coal plants every year? It's far, far more than nuclear per unit [0]. Nuclear power is nearly a thousand times less murderous. 0 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

The comment you're replying to is pretty clearly making a joke

Perhaps but it's also a common sentiment and also something that sways illogical voters. Both times mentioned by GP the referendums turned out against nuclear not because factual statistics about safety but because anti-nuclear activists were able to use those very public accidents to scare people.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#314

Post by troupo »

lukan wrote: post #91
troupo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no good for building but are great for solar, like mountainsides. And what's the cost of building on a mountainside, and how much is maintenance? > Besides, if the Netherlands can have solar then Italy can too How much solar are they building in comparison to other sources? > And nuclear lasts 50+ years with constant maintenance, which is really expensive. Unlike solar panels built on mountainsides which are not su…

Maintaining solar panels will be always way, way, waaay cheaper, than maintaining a nuclear reactor and disposing safely the waste. Batteries would need to be cheaper, that is all that is needed for italy. In the south, they have sun all year around.

See how you decided to completely ignore my question. But I like that on top of that, batteries are not cheap either

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#315

Post by Salgat »

tim333 wrote: post #235
Salgat wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, the upholding of the security assurance is still left up to the discretion of nations in the agreement, based on how important non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is to them. It seems that recently, nuclear proliferation is no longer a concern for the US, hence they no longer enforce this agreement, which is their right, for better or worse.

I'm not sure any of these things are really enforceable short of someone taking military action? I think Russia has broken loads of agreements re Ukraine and nothing very much usually happens. Even NATO article 5, I'd expect if Russia rolls into Lithuania Trump would ignore it.

The two main enforcement mechanisms are economic sanctions and military aid, which even the EU has been involved with. Economic sanctions haven't had much impact but coupled with military aid has stopped Russian progress in the invasion. The problem is, with the US pulling out, EU big shoes to fill with military aid.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#316

Post by troupo »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #69
mrob wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not ignoring studies that find risk of tsunami damage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident#Pri...

And how do you stop that? It’s like saying a kingdom is kept safe for its people by avoiding corrupt kings Your link shows a deeper root cause > TEPCO admitted that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants Scientific and engineering reports don’t solve that one

> Scientific and engineering reports don’t solve that one

No tell me why we are still building hydroelectric plants?

Hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#317

Post by troupo »

klooney wrote: post #148
mrighele wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you get an irresponsible government or power company that cheaps out in 30 years, oopsies, you're going to irradiate the local area. How many times did this happen in 80 years? according to [1] not many times. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and... And this is including very early technology and government (e.g. the Russian one) that I wouldn't trust with anything.

Sure, but this is HN, and we get a lot of The Case For Nuclear Power articles coming through, and startups building micro reactors that everyone thinks are very cool- me too, honestly- but I think that the case against gets given short shrift, or can turned into a strawman. The consequences of a nuclear incident are very high, and can be more or less permanent for an area. It's a lot to ask for a technology to be abs…

> The consequences of a nuclear incident are very high, and can be more or less permanent for an area. It's a lot to ask for a technology to be absolutely resilient to mismanagement or even sabotage.

Now apply this logic to many other power sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#318

Post by rhubinak »

legulere wrote: post #144
lelag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia. Not true at all. Russia is producing 5% of the world Uranium, and they probably use quite a lot of that domestically given they produce 8% of all nuclear power in the world with their own plant. Kazakhstan + Uzbekistan is 50% of the word production. Canada is second and will be happy to start selling to the EU. Namibia and Australia both produce twice as much as Ru…

That’s raw uranium ore. Uranium undergoes several refinement steps. In each Russia has an enormous market share.

Not true by skimming the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium

> The following countries are known to operate enrichment facilities: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#319

Post by boringg »

mg wrote: post #3

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses with solar panels and put batteries in all cellars? It might still be useful to build out nuclear power plants. But the solar+battery approach seems like an easier first step to increase the available power, doesn't it?

Different products -- nuclear provides grid stability, power quality and dedicated baseload power. Rooftop solar provides some residential power but not helpful for the grid at large -- requires upgrades to the local infrastructure and decreases reliability. All manageable but people constantly think of power in terms of how much is $/kwh - there is soo many more important qualities to powering the grid than strictly cost.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#320

Post by ben_w »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #244
ben_w wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but irrelevant. The construction of new reactors now is unlikely to be in numbers greater than back then. (Unless new ones are SMR, which is why there's now business interest in SMRs. They may well have numbers large enough to cut costs).

The other issue is that nuclear research has been underfunded for decades. We could have had new safe effective and cost efficient designs.

That is why I say "might, possibly", rather than being firmly yes or no.

R&D is high-variance.

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