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EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

reuters.com

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Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#411

Post by roenxi »

csunbird wrote: post #330
godelski wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dirty bombs aren't an issue. You might want to ask yourself why we've never seen one used, especially if you understand how easy it is to obtain the necessary materials. IIRC we've only caught a handful of devices (none exploded). Also we have to consider when it explodes, it just doesn't make enough radiation. It is pretty difficult to generate enough radiation that would actually cause an increase in cancer rates (…

Terrorists are not known to be the most logical people, to be honest. They are going to try anything that can generate terror in large scale and a dirty bomb is a very, very terrorizing thing to general population. General population thinks anything with radiation is panic worthy, even though there isn't that big of a deal.

... so you aren't arguing the premise there (ie, that dirty bombs are inefficient for terrorists). So your argument is distressingly close to "terrorists would be ineffective if they did [this], so we should ban it to stop them making mistakes". I doubt you believe that, I'm just drawing your attention to the fact you have to attack the premise to get anywhere on this issue.

godelski is arguing that terrorists who can be convinced to try and use dirty bombs will be less effective than if they had chosen other, more damaging, options.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#412

Post by redisman »

whatever1 wrote: post #376
dtech wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most plastics are very hard if not impossible to recycle. Especially when different plastics are mixed or a product is made of multiple materials, i.e. nearly all products.

All plastics can be recycled. Is it economical? No. Same goes for nuclear waste.

What do you mean by recycled in this case? From my understanding you can pretty much only grind it down to garbage filler and maybe press it into some primitive shape. It’ll never become cling film or whatever again

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#413

Post by Klinky »

pyrale wrote: post #374
Klinky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

La Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. Reactors currently cannot run 100% on MOX. Separation of Plutonium in the recycling process has proliferation concerns. Other countries have found building similar recycling plants challenging due to cost, with DoE estimating $50+ billion. La Hague was initially designed to extract Plutonium for weapons use, which likely justified its costs at the time. The…

> La Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. That would be a long pipeline, because La Hague is facing the channel, not the north sea.

Sorry, it flows from the channel into the North Sea.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#414

Post by acidburnNSA »

The_rationalist wrote: post #410
acidburnNSA wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned this in another thread but this simply is not true. Thorium breeder reactors are indeed sustainable, but so are uranium breeder reactors. [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604898

I am obviously talking about the order of magnitude greater abundance of thorium on earth than regular uranium used for fission. In what way do your address the point?

* There are 6.1 million tonnes of uranium in reasonably assured deposits (World Nuclear Uranium)

* There are 6.3 million tonnes of thorium in reasonably assured deposits (World Nuclear Thorium)

* Uranium exists in seawater at an average concentration of 0.003 ppm (also World Nuclear Uranium)

* There are about 332 million cubic miles of water on Earth, 96.5% of it is in the ocean (USGS). At a density of 1 gram/cm3, this comes out to 1.4 yottagrams of water, or 1.4e21 kg)

* At 0.003 ppm, this means there are about 4000 million tonnes of uranium in seawater

There is effectively zero thorium in seawater. Seawater uranium extraction with breeder reactors is likely to be more economical than harvesting low-grade thorium from the crust.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#415

Post by pyrale »

corty wrote: post #278
dathinab wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hm interesting the numbers are somewhat different then what I have seen in other places. I mean don't get me wrong offshore wind power is always expensive but enough sources list solar, on-shore wind power as cheaper. Hydro power as comparable and Geothermal power as much cheaper.

Problem with most sources is, there are always assumptions and caveats: Such as cost-based calculations (maybe or maybe not) including teardown and recycling, storage cost, capital cost, land cost, etc. Others do market-price-based calculations (preferably in those markets that prove their point), so you get renewable prices from Germany (where renewables are hugely subsidized and have to be consumed preferentially)…

> the owner of all nuclear power plants is a state owned corp (EDF) that is "rescued" from bancruptcy every few years to keep prices down.

That is as dishonest a take as it gets.

First, the "rescued from bankruptcy every few years" is simply not true. The company has been paying dividends every year for decades, and I can't think of a bailout of company debt in recent years.

Second point: Like most french state-owned companies, EDF is a vessel of "creative" accounting from politicians, but you'll find out that it's not tied to operating nuclear plants specifically. It's just that as a public-owned company, EDF is a tool for public policy. Sometimes it takes on debt to do so.

For instance, EDF is legally forced to buy back green energy at fixed rates as part of a package to help develop green energy. EDF is also forced to sell nuclear power to its competitors (ARENH policy) at fixed price, when they ask it. This means EDF competitors can arbitrage this agreement by buying nuclear power below market at times, and selling green power when market is saturated at other times. From the state's perspective, it's an OK thing to open the market and promote renewables, but from the company perspective it makes no sense. Thus, the company "pays" for a public policy.

This kind of accounting is usual in other former public companies such as SNCF.

That being said, nuclear costs figures should be accurate, since they come from the work of the french finance watchdog, the "cour des comptes", as well as from parlementarian investigations. You're right that these figures would probably not be possible without the scale economies of the initial rollout and without state-backing, but as you cite, this is also true for renewables or any other large industrial policy.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#416

Post by pyrale »

Klinky wrote: post #413
pyrale wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> La Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. That would be a long pipeline, because La Hague is facing the channel, not the north sea.

Sorry, it flows from the channel into the North Sea.

The Hague is closer to the Irish sea, and currents at that location tend to push to the atlantic rather than into the North sea.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#417

Post by whatever1 »

redisman wrote: post #412
whatever1 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All plastics can be recycled. Is it economical? No. Same goes for nuclear waste.

What do you mean by recycled in this case? From my understanding you can pretty much only grind it down to garbage filler and maybe press it into some primitive shape. It’ll never become cling film or whatever again

Polymers can fundamentally be de-polymerized and then you can reuse the monomers, for example see [1]. They call it "chemical recycling". Questionable whether it will ever be price competitive with direct production from crude oil derivatives.

You can also burn them (pyrolysis), collect the carbon and start from scratch. Of course this is insane (economically and thermodynamically), but hey, you are "recycling" the same carbon.

[1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/Plastic-problem-ch...

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#418

Post by ducleonctor »

tpmx wrote: post #398
ducleonctor wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. A large part of their investments are focused is on building and owning ports and roads. This is essential for owning trade, which is how you get to own the governments of Africa. Good to know. I wasn't aware of that. What does that mean for our supply of blood diamonds, copper and similar? Maybe they are more needed in China, now that manufacturing has and is still being outsourced to that piece of two countri…

It's weird that you'd take a random internet stranger on their word. I'd kind of expect someone partaking in this debate to know about this stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_economic_...

I was aware of "debt-trap diplomacy" (IMHO risky tactics without being able to collect the debt using force) and similar tactics, but not that the Chinese state had actually managed to setup a "colonialism-like" foothold in African countries. I assumed their policies were merely aimed at exploiting these countries in the previously "accepted" way.

Considering that our food supply also already critically depends on artificial fertilizer from African mines, why not add energy to the mix? Meaning, we have to stand up for our share of the business in any case and have certainly developed since our imperial past:

Afterall, the African savannahs and jungles do hold a great many tasty species (bats, monkeys, ...), the consumption of some of which are rumored to help with your and your comrade's lacking love life. Some members of African tribes still share these believes, may it actually be a match made in heaven?

I wonder what happens when African communities start noticing that racism and nationalism are concepts that do not exclusively apply to the guests from a century ago.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#419

Post by varajelle »

lispm wrote: post #335
vidarh wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not shutting down plants is an alternative to instead slowing down phasing out coal, like Germany did. And almost all of the alternatives have costly problems too, like causing more deaths for most of them. Large scale solar might be less lethal, but pretty much every other power source causes more short term deaths. I'm not arguing against renewables. I'm arguing that this fear of nuclear costs huge numbers of lives…

> Not shutting down plants is an alternative to instead slowing down phasing out coal, like Germany did. Germany accelerated the development of renewable energy. That was the goal. Nuclear had to go first. Coal is following. The Germany time scale to rebuild its electricity landscape goes over many decades. By investing many many billions into renewables, instead of investing them into nuclear, Germany helped to kick…

They could have done even better if they had not also closed existing nuclear power plants.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#420

Post by p_l »

webreac wrote: post #258
Klinky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

La Hague dumps radioactive waste liquids into the North Sea. Reactors currently cannot run 100% on MOX. Separation of Plutonium in the recycling process has proliferation concerns. Other countries have found building similar recycling plants challenging due to cost, with DoE estimating $50+ billion. La Hague was initially designed to extract Plutonium for weapons use, which likely justified its costs at the time. The…

La Hague used to dump small quantities of radioactive liquid (mainly water used to clean barrels that contained weakly radioactiv waste) in Nort Sea. When I left (in 1999), the project to completely stop this dump was well advanced. The idea was to vaporized the water and collect the remains in a barrel. You are right that we have a lot of plutonium that we can not use. The intent of superphenix was to use this pluto…

Apparently it burned quite a lot of it, though?

Pity that it got closed, I hope technical issues are fixed and a new device based on better understanding replaces it.

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