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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#401

Post by strawhatguy »

kieranmaine wrote: post #188
yongjik wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a supporter of nuclear, I think most nuclear supporters will be happy if we achieve carbon neutrality by any means. But as other commenters pointed out, renewables are not achieving that in most places. According to Google, a staunchly anti-nuclear Germany has 6.95 tons per capita at 2023. France achieved that at 1986 (!!) and is now at 4.14. It's really a question that should be directed at renewables: "If renewa…

> It's really a question that should be directed at renewables: "If renewables are so cheap and fast to deploy, how come 39 years after Chernobyl, Germany still cannot get below France in CO2 emission?" Because renewables and storage have only been produced at the scale and price required to achieve this for the last 5 years. [1] The following article "Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes…

just looked at 2, using their own numbers, and it says 97% to 24/365, in a sunny area (Las Vegas), which is like an outage 43 minutes out of every day (24 * 0.03 * 60).

That's not what many would consider as 24/365, and certainly not "every hour of every day".

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#402

Post by lostlogin »

crooked-v wrote: post #189
ciconia wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What is needed is a SpaceX-like enterprise, where the engineering effort is concentrated in building economies of scale. To me it's clear that nuclear energy's pros largely outweigh the cons, and that it is a perfect complement to solar and wind power generation.

I really don't want a SpaceX-like attitude to radioactive material.

A nuclear Musk would be interesting.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#403

Post by ezst »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #284
zer00eyz wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the prices, like PG&E in California. If you think PG&E jacking up prices has anything other than greed, hubris and decades of short term thinking behind it, I have news for you. And thats is why people look at nuclear and say "no thanks". The same corporate structures that hi…

> The same corporate structures that hid data about smoking, PFAS and oxycodone are the ones you want running a nuclear plant? Thanks for expressing my concerns over nuclear so clearly. It's not the technology I fear, its the people in charge. Combined with democracy, it means that even if we trusted our governments today to police nuclear companies, they are replaced every few years. Nobody knows who will be in char…

You should fix your model of governance, because by that measure, any hope for progress is futile. The simple fact that we were better a few decades ago should be comforting. Enough of the shirt term profiteering sociopaths running the show, we can certainly cautiously swing back towards more technocracy and careful strategic planning.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#404

Post by godelski »

quotemstr wrote: post #324
Retric wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. It’s really not, nuclear inherently requires extreme costs to operate. Compare costs vs coal which isn’t cost competitive these days. Nuclear inherently need a lot more effort refining fuel as you can’t just dig a shovel full of ore and burn it. Even after refining you can’t just dump fuel in, you need fuel assemblies. Nuclear must have a more complicated boiler setup wi…

> Nuclear inherently need a lot more effort refining fuel as you can’t just dig a shovel full of ore and burn it. You have to take scale into account. This is 20 years of spent fuel. https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cca0b8d/21474836... That's it. 20 years. Just that, for a constant, quiet output of just about a gigawatt. And that's an old, decommissioned reactor. You're right about nuclear fuel refinement,…

If anyone is interested, here's a picture of decades worth of it[0]. I used to have a video of Russia's, but it seems to have gone down. If somehow you can way back it, here's the link[1].

For more comparison, France produces about 2kg of radioactive waste per year, which delivers 70% of the country's electricity. If you removed all nuclear power reactors you'd still be generating 0.8kg of radioactive waste[2]. It'll work it's way out to on the order of (i.e. approximately) a soda can per person per year.

I think people grossly underestimate the scale of waste in many things. Coal produces train loads a day (including radioactive and heavy metals), while nuclear produces like a Costco's worth over decades. The current paradigm of "we'll store it on sight and figure it out later" isn't insane when we're talking about something smaller than a water tower and having about 300 years to figure out a better solution.

On the flip side, people underestimate the waste of many other things. There are things much worse than nuclear waste too. We spend a lot of time talking about nuclear waste yet almost none when it comes to heavy metals and long lived plastics. Metals like lead stay toxic forever and do not become safer through typical reactions. We should definitely be concerned with nuclear waste, but when these heavy metal wastes are several orders of magnitude greater, it seems silly. When it comes to heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, etc) we're talking about millions of tonnage. These things are exceptionally long lived, have shown to enter both our water supply and atmosphere (thanks leaded gasoline!), and are extremely toxic. It's such a weird comparison of scale. Please take nuclear waste seriously, but I don't believe anyone if they claim to be concerned with nuclear waste but is unconcerned with other long lived hazardous wastes that are produced in billions of times greater quantities and with magnitudes lower safety margins.

[0] https://x.com/Orano_usa/status/1182662569619795968

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s

[2] https://www.orano.group/en/unpacking-nuclear/all-about-radio...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#405

Post by derhuerst »

roody15 wrote: post #354

The EU may have a geopolitical interest in taking another look at nuclear. The dependance on Russian natural gas and expensive imported US natural gas is not good for their economic outlook long term. Honestly I am surprised Germany has not fired back up a couple of its plants considering its difficulties with Industrial output and competing in a world market.

In case you are in (or IP-geolocated to) the EU: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/115068-000-A/nuclear-putin-s-d...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#406

Post by 7bit »

reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

People like you believe uranium is growing on trees. Have you actually looked up how it's retrieved? The costs are insane and the ecological damage unrepairable.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#407

Post by ezst »

pfdietz wrote: post #228
boringg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be a quick reminder to the crowd -- Nuclear is almost always a public/private partnership to manage the project development costs and to keep the cost of capital in a reasonable range. The costs are large for a private company to put up the capital with the risk involved.

In other words: nuclear is not viable unless the risks are offloaded to the public. Privatize profits, socialize risks.

Or, you know, socialize risks, socialise profits. I don't know why we would have to put up with this abuse and corruption any longer.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#408

Post by strawhatguy »

jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

Yes? Any sort of system that generates power... can generate lots of power if there's more of that system.

What I find odd is that it has to be an all-or-nothing approach. Maybe sunny areas can do more with solar, great! But that won't work everywhere, and probably isn't a complete replacement anywhere. Other places that are cloudy, it might be better to go nuclear. Or even gas.

The regulations and the subsidies ought to be removed though, let the market decide. Solar or Nuclear will win if it's better, and that might be a per-area contest.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#409

Post by pydry »

opo wrote: post #293
pydry wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poland is the dirtiest coal producer in Europe but a point in its favor (for some) was that it didnt prove conclusively that you could decarbonize your electric grid without any help at all from nuclear power. So, it didnt attract any hate or shaming from the nuclear industry's faux - environmentalist public relations arm. Unlike Germany, whom they really hate and for whom the FUD and lies was nearly constant. (E.g.…

Why are you implying that Germany has decarbonized their grid? Germany has a long term goal of decarbonizing the grid, but it isn’t there yet. They made the decision to keep coal plants burning and shut down their nuclear power plants. And even years later in 2025 they continue to burn coal - the most dangerous and dirty source of power ever invented. >…The share of electricity produced with fossil fuels in Germany i…

>Why are you implying that Germany has decarbonized their grid?

I neither said nor implied that the green transition is complete. Green transitions take decades. Germany is merely transitioning the fastest and doing it without the overpriced and risky albatross that is nuclear power.

>shutting them down when you are still burning coal is almost unbelievable

It's unbelievable that the country some people are most furious at is the one that has decarbonized at the fastest rate.

Not the country next door to it that didnt even try.

They are seemingly obsessed with what was once ~8-12% of Germany's power output, but the actual environment? Not that important.

It's bizarre.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#410

Post by throwawayffffas »

rallyforthesun wrote: post #269

I read a lot of comments talking about „getting down the operational costs“ but i am missing someone talking about the costs of depositing the nuclear waste until it has no more risks. Am i missing something?!

Yes the cost of depositing nuclear waste is trivial, it takes a small number of large concrete structures underground in well picked locations.

The US produces about 1250 cubic meters of waste per year. For comparison the empire state building has a floor area of 208000 square meters, assuming a 3 meter floor height you could fit about 500 years worth of spent fuel inside it.

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