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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

#41

Post by aw4y »

torginus wrote: post #32
aw4y wrote: post #22

The problem with nuclear in Italy is just one: how many time have you read about a public bridge fallen because of bad construction? Same for roads, houses and so on. Most of the time the reason is the company building those, trying to spend less in materials and avoiding regulations - something unfortunately not so unusual in Italy. So imagine what could happen with a nuclear plant... (nuclear is safe, building in I…

National stereotypes... Italy's the 3rd largest economy in the EU, and 8th in the world, with an advanced technology sector to boot. And if they somehow cannot figure it out, their French neighbors most assuredly can.

not exactly a stereotype, just facts.

for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi_collapse

and also check what happens (now more than ever) everytime there's a big rain in a lot of italian places. I'm very concerned about this.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#43

Post by stavros »

amarcheschi wrote: post #23
patall wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples to oranges. But in italy, solar with batteries may already be cheaper. Or geothermal energy. But, hey, they want to do a study and the study will find that out too.

Geothermal energy is already exploited in italy. About 1/3rd of Tuscany energy production happens thanks to geothermal, which is also used for heating purposes [1] There are also new plants in the making [2] Being tuscanian, I visited the museum or geothermal energy in larderello once, the area of larderello is quite uncanny, in some parts the ground is literally fuming steam. There's also a smell of rotten eggs lol…

Are you sure it was Larderello? Are you sure it wasn't... hell?

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#44

Post by slavik81 »

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.

Why not get the nuclear fuel from Canada? There's plenty of uranium in Saskatchewan.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#45

Post by datadeft »

jacobp100 wrote: post #34
datadeft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major point here is that nuclear is controllable energy type while solar is not. So comparing only the price is apples to oranges comparison. Most human energy consumers need energy with a fixed rate and all physical metrics withing a tight margin. To prouduce that with only solar energy is impossible. This means you have to build other energy sources into the grid like gas turbines to be able to control the grid…

Solar + batteries is still cheaper than nuclear

In what timeframe?

Solar panels last 20-25 years. Nuclear power plants last for 50+ years and use fraction of the space that solar. It is hard to believe that the TCO is lower. Usually people just looking at the price in the short term and comparing that. Batteries are a whole different can of worms. Super toxic and you need a high volume of those because the energy density is much lower.

https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Energy_density

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#46

Post by GaggiX »

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.

Italy has highly skilled nuclear engineers.

>And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia.

Nonsense.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#47

Post by stavros »

willvarfar wrote: post #39
surgical_fire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

Mainly by not building reactors designed in the 1960s.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#48

Post by wonderwonder »

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?

Government can centralize the cost of nuclear. All goes to 1 contractor who builds it. With solar, every house is a different size so each house will have a different cost. Pretty hard political sell to tell your voters you are going to give more to the rich because they have bigger houses. Totally makes sense from a "well they use and pay for more power" perspective but a really hard sell politically. Plus renters get nothing.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#49

Post by jovial_cavalier »

willvarfar wrote: post #39
surgical_fire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

The death toll from that incident was one (1).

You can see online, nuclear power is actually one of the safest methods of energy generation, behind solar and ahead of wind, because sometimes dudes fall from the tops of the windmills.

Could you start looking at the second-order effects of the meltdown to get a higher death toll? Probably, but you could probably also look at all of the pollutants generated by solar panels, and the fact that they get shipped to Africa and crushed up and thrown in the ground to make solar's death toll look higher too.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#50

Post by klooney »

willvarfar wrote: post #39
surgical_fire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

You can't. The problem with nuclear is that it needs to be properly maintained forever. If you get an irresponsible government or power company that cheaps out in 30 years, oopsies, you're going to irradiate the local area.

It's a lot like trusting your private data to a company. Sure, Google in 2007 is pretty great, but maybe you have some doubts about their integrity in 2025. Too late, they have what they have, forever.

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