Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

world-nuclear-news.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 396 posts

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#351

Post by Caius-Cosades »

est31 wrote: post #27
Etheryte wrote: post #4

I think realistically this is the only way in the turbulent times we live in. Even in the small and interconnected Europe, you have to be completely self sustainable when the need arises. We've seen more than enough broken pipes, power lines and the like in the last year alone to underline this need.

Italy neither has the engineers to build a nuclear power plant, they would have to ask another nation, like Russia, Canada or France, to build it for them. And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia.

And that's because western nations are run by idiots that can't do long term planning to save their lives.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#352

Post by Caius-Cosades »

MortyWaves wrote: post #114
sph wrote: post #111

As an Italian abroad, this came out of the blue and I was not expecting this change of mind, at all. There have been two referendums on nuclear energy in Italy: one just after the disaster of Chernobyl. They tried again decades later, in 2011; just after the disaster of Fukushima. The result was of course overwhelmingly negative both times. This is great news, and will hopefully lower the cost of electricity that we…

Who's brilliantly dumb idea was it to have the only two referendums ever also immediately after a disaster? That is what you'd do if you want an overwhelmingly biased referendum playing off people's rash and short term panic based decision making.

Because that's how democracy works. Democracy has no need for rational thought, only feelings and ego matters.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#353

Post by lukan »

troupo wrote: post #333
lukan wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See how I am still free to ignore any question you asked and answer just what I want? Which would be: there is not really a need for stationary batteries to be expensive.

> See how I am still free to ignore any question you asked and answer just what I want? It's a very common tactic by renewables maximalists, and I'm very familiar with it

It is a common trait of internet commentators, who are not paid for your education.

"And what's the cost of building on a mountainside, and how much is maintenance?"

Why should I feel it as my duty to answer that specific question to you? Seriously curious.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#354

Post by ben_w »

simion314 wrote: post #350
ben_w wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Short days, but still enough to make a lot of juice in Italy. Scotland and Scandinavia get issues, but Italy's basically OK for winter: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28…

The real life is not as simple as you wish The energy I produce can only go to my neighbors, it can't be sent to a different region in the same village it is a grid limitation. Also when the weather is bad it is bad in a big chunk of Europe, sure in the South they will probably have nicer weather. What about the issue when everyone has solar? then who buys my extra production? Or if there is someone that can buy it b…

> The real life is not as simple as you wish The energy I produce can only go to my neighbors, it can't be sent to a different region in the same village it is a grid limitation.

I would need to write something the size of a PhD thesis, not a comment, to fully describe the various possibilities and their trade-offs for even just the Italian grid, let alone the whole of Europe's.

But to keep it simple, I can say that limits of your grid can be re-engineered, and even for unrelated age and capacity reasons people are already planning to spend more on upgrading the European grid anyway, than it would cost for the material to build a global high-power DC backbone that would let the EU be lit in the middle of night, in the middle of winter, without any batteries at all, by panels in the Australian outback — and I have in fact done the maths on that.

(Only China is actually making enough aluminium, there's geopolitics even before Trump happened, but the price tag to get a single ohm of resistance around the entire planet is actually fine).

> Or if there is someone that can buy it because of too much solar the prices would be close to zero then the solar panels investment will not be worth it since you could be cheap energy from the people with solar panels when the weather is good.

Such investment is still generally worth it, because you don't need to actually sell anything when the price is low (or even negative), and even if it was zero the whole time forever, you've saved 100% of the current cost of supplying yourself with electricity.

> My gut feeling is that 100% solar is stupid, it is like the 20-80 problem we see now a lot of growth since it is very profitable, when more grid investment is needed and profits will go down this growth will stop.

100% anything leads to correlated failures.

But there's several other renewables.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#355

Post by mariuolo »

MortyWaves wrote: post #114
sph wrote: post #111

As an Italian abroad, this came out of the blue and I was not expecting this change of mind, at all. There have been two referendums on nuclear energy in Italy: one just after the disaster of Chernobyl. They tried again decades later, in 2011; just after the disaster of Fukushima. The result was of course overwhelmingly negative both times. This is great news, and will hopefully lower the cost of electricity that we…

Who's brilliantly dumb idea was it to have the only two referendums ever also immediately after a disaster? That is what you'd do if you want an overwhelmingly biased referendum playing off people's rash and short term panic based decision making.

The first one in 1987 was organised by the Radical Party.

The second one was an unfortunate coincidence.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#356

Post by ZeroGravitas »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21
Etheryte wrote: post #4

I think realistically this is the only way in the turbulent times we live in. Even in the small and interconnected Europe, you have to be completely self sustainable when the need arises. We've seen more than enough broken pipes, power lines and the like in the last year alone to underline this need.

> you have to be completely self sustainable when the need arises The last few days have also laid bare that there is no sovereignty without nuclear weapons. A civil nuclear fleet is a stepping stone to nuclear weapons stewardship. (Even absent nuclear weapons, see the special treatment of Zaporizhzhia [1] over Ukraine’s other power infrastructure.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporizhzhia_Nuclear_Power_P...

Russia wants to control its neighbour Ukraine and also is a supplier of nuclear tech to other countries.

It's not guaranteed that every geopolitical rival would have those considerations when deciding whether to care about, or plan to actively attempt, triggering a nuclear meltdown in your nation.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#357

Post by ZeroGravitas »

erezsh wrote: post #143
MortyWaves wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's brilliantly dumb idea was it to have the only two referendums ever also immediately after a disaster? That is what you'd do if you want an overwhelmingly biased referendum playing off people's rash and short term panic based decision making.

The green energy lobby has everything to gain, and it's been working extra to make it a reality. For example, Greenpeace has been fighting nuclear power all over the world.

Greenpeace has the word "peace" in their name because they are anti-war. They claimed civilian nuclear power was part of a weapons program.

There's people in this very thread enthusiastic about nuclear power because it will help Italy develop nuclear weapons. So hard to argue that they were wrong.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#358

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

Etheryte wrote: post #4

I think realistically this is the only way in the turbulent times we live in. Even in the small and interconnected Europe, you have to be completely self sustainable when the need arises. We've seen more than enough broken pipes, power lines and the like in the last year alone to underline this need.

You do know that Europe still haven't been able to decouple from the Russian nuclear supply chain?

The only way to be independent is to invest in renewables and storage.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#359

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

philistine wrote: post #331
legulere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You know refinement can be done anywhere? We take bauxite and ship it to the other side of the world to make aluminium because electric power is cheaper there.

We still haven't been able to decouple from the Russian nuclear industry. It is one of few industries not yet sanctioned.

On the other hand Germany managed to decouple itself from the Russian fossil gas industry within months.

So tell me again "How it can be done anywhere" when we apparently can't do it without Russia 3 years into the war.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#360

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

sph wrote: post #111

As an Italian abroad, this came out of the blue and I was not expecting this change of mind, at all. There have been two referendums on nuclear energy in Italy: one just after the disaster of Chernobyl. They tried again decades later, in 2011; just after the disaster of Fukushima. The result was of course overwhelmingly negative both times. This is great news, and will hopefully lower the cost of electricity that we…

You do know that new built western nuclear power costs €170/MWh. It will in no shape or form lower electricity costs.

Investing in renewables and storage will.

Post reply on HN