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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#321

Post by dalyons »

mpweiher wrote: post #297
dalyons wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, even with their buildout the nuclear share of electricity is projected to decline y/y. Because renewables are cheaper. And yes it does show china can build things, but it also highlights the different calculus of a single party state. They can force people & the state to buy uncompetitive nuclear power (under the banner of energy stability) and not worry about being voted out.

No it's not. You actually have to build out intermittent renewables much faster than nuclear even for comparable generating capacity due to the much shorter lifetime of the equipment. See Little's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little%27s_law China recently signed up to the COP28 pledge to triple nuclear generation. In the same time period, worldwide electricity generation is predicted to rise by 50-100%, so the n…

Are you referring to the debunked idea that solar panels only last 20 years? Because yeah, bunk.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/goodbye-to-the-idea-that-solar-...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#322

Post by leonidasrup »

boringg wrote: post #287
pdntspa wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish the same could be said for San Onofre. To say nothing of its value as a landmark -- it will live on in our memories as the great San Onofre boobies

One upside -- is that SONGS being decommissioned gave the energy storage market the ability to level up in a big way back then. They filled part of the gap with some large MW procurements. Allowed BESS to be part of the collective energy solution. Nuclear + Solar + BESS + some small amounts of NG is a dream team.

"Ironically, what originally motivated pumped storage installations was the inflexibility of nuclear power. Nuclear plants’ large steam turbines run best at full power. Pumped storage can defer surplus nuclear power generated overnight (when consumption is low) to help meet the next day’s demand peak."

https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-pumped-hydro-energystorage-renai...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#323

Post by foolfoolz »

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…

diablo canyon has 2 reactors that can make 1.1MW per hour continuously. about 2.2MW/hr they both aren’t always on but that’s the goal. It’s closer to 2MW/hr actual

the largest solar plant in california is Ivanpah. It made 85GW/year. Thats 97MW/hr.

It would take 20 clones of Ivanpah to match one diablo canyon. Ivanpah took 4 years to build, cost 2.5B and was in discussions to close because it’s not cost effective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#324

Post by crote »

otikik wrote: post #274
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…

> ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake > Irrelevant. Well, that needs more nuance. You have to understand that Japan is unusually well prepared for natural disasters. From earthquake resistant building codes, to alarm systems, education, to building, to earthquake refuges. I would venture to say that it is the most earhquake-prepared country in the world (although I have no proof of that point and I don't feel l…

Sure, but Chernobyl didn't require a massive tsunami, and neither did Three Mile Island. On top of that there have been dozens of near-misses. On the other hand: what would have been the result of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hitting a wind farm, or a PV installation?

Nuclear reactors are inherently a very risky business, with virtually unlimited damages if something goes seriously wrong. I'm sure all the reactor operators reviewed their flood procedures after Fukushima and a 1:1 repeat is unlikely, but why didn't they do so before the incident? What other potential causes did the industry miss?

In this case it was indeed a large-scale natural disaster which caused the accident, but how sure are we that some medium-scale terrorism can't do the same, or some small-scale internal sabotage or negligent maintenance? The fact that a Fukushima-scale nuclear disaster can happen at all is a major cause for concern.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#325

Post by jonkoops »

crote wrote: post #209
mpweiher wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact: Finland just built one, for €1 billion. How can that be, if it's so incredibly difficult that Germany has not managed to do this? The simple fact is that it has virtually nothing to do with any "difficulty" of finding a repository site, the problems are purely political, same as the US: "The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[…

Oh, Germany did - see for example the Asse II mine. It just turned out that they weren't careful enough, so now they have got a giant nuclear waste storage pit which is unstable, is trying to leak into the groundwater, needs constant babysitting to prevent it from getting even worse , and will eventually need a nearly-impossible multi-billion-euro cleanup effort. At which point they'll be left with the original waste…

Why the hell did they build this in a former salt mine with known water intrusion.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#326

Post by boringg »

leonidasrup wrote: post #322
boringg wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One upside -- is that SONGS being decommissioned gave the energy storage market the ability to level up in a big way back then. They filled part of the gap with some large MW procurements. Allowed BESS to be part of the collective energy solution. Nuclear + Solar + BESS + some small amounts of NG is a dream team.

"Ironically, what originally motivated pumped storage installations was the inflexibility of nuclear power. Nuclear plants’ large steam turbines run best at full power. Pumped storage can defer surplus nuclear power generated overnight (when consumption is low) to help meet the next day’s demand peak." https://spectrum.ieee.org/a-pumped-hydro-energystorage-renai...

Main challenge with pumped storage is its geographically limited, always a custom project, and large scale deployment.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#327

Post by jonkoops »

nikanj wrote: post #208
cbg0 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a "perfect is the enemy of good" situation. There are certain types of reactors that can reuse uranium to further reduce its half life to around 6000 years so the one million years legal requirement is an unreasonable target.

Any material that is still radioactive after a hundred years wasn’t that deadly to begin with. There is a strong link between ”hotness” and short half-lifes, fast-decaying extra spicy isotopes are..fast-decaying

Actually, those materials can be MUCH more radioactive in the beginning compared to 'conventional' nuclear waste, the half-life is just so short that you can let them sit for a couple of decades and then deal with it.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#328

Post by derriz »

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.

“Better than coal” is a weak argument. Coal hasn’t been in the “game” for decades. The problem for nuclear isn’t anything irrational - it’s economics and operational and deployment flexibility - newer tech like solar PV, gas turbines, batteries and wind have created a new Pareto frontier for electricity generation and nuclear just isn’t anywhere near this frontier for any objective.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#329

Post by bryanlarsen »

foolfoolz wrote: post #323
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…

diablo canyon has 2 reactors that can make 1.1MW per hour continuously. about 2.2MW/hr they both aren’t always on but that’s the goal. It’s closer to 2MW/hr actual the largest solar plant in california is Ivanpah. It made 85GW/year. Thats 97MW/hr. It would take 20 clones of Ivanpah to match one diablo canyon. Ivanpah took 4 years to build, cost 2.5B and was in discussions to close because it’s not cost effective. htt…

Ivanpah is solar thermal. Nobody is advocating for solar thermal, photovoltaic has decisively won.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#330

Post by thrownthatway »

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'…

You still didn’t answers the question.

I’ll get the ball rolling.

Belgium is tiny about 30,000 square kilometres.

But it produces a metric fuck tonne of food.

You only got to come up with two more now. C’mon, you can do eeeeit!

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