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Activists who embrace nuclear power

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Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#451

Post by jacobolus »

inter_netuser wrote: post #438
macspoofing wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a lot of empty land in the world that isn't useful for people to live in or to grow crops due to lack of rainfall, which also makes those sites more valuable for solar energy. There is no such thing as 'empty land'. Every square meter of Earth is part of some ecosystem that is under stress due to human activity. Solar and wind compound this problem. >then reduce that to 30 to account for night-time How abou…

Excellent comment that will likely get downvoted into the oblivion here. Somehow nuclear waste is a huge problem, but waste from silicon production and decomissioning of solar panels isn't waste. Roof-solar is probably okay, but replacing baseload with batteries is so far-fetched, I'll believe it when i see it. Windmills impact microclimate as well, kill off birds by millions - everyone ignores that. Why is it ok for…

> Windmills impact microclimate as well, kill off birds by millions

Domestic cats kill billions of birds every year.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#452

Post by inter_netuser »

jacobolus wrote: post #451
inter_netuser wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent comment that will likely get downvoted into the oblivion here. Somehow nuclear waste is a huge problem, but waste from silicon production and decomissioning of solar panels isn't waste. Roof-solar is probably okay, but replacing baseload with batteries is so far-fetched, I'll believe it when i see it. Windmills impact microclimate as well, kill off birds by millions - everyone ignores that. Why is it ok for…

> Windmills impact microclimate as well, kill off birds by millions Domestic cats kill billions of birds every year.

Indeed, pet ownership is form of animal abuse.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#453

Post by runarberg »

inter_netuser wrote: post #438
macspoofing wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a lot of empty land in the world that isn't useful for people to live in or to grow crops due to lack of rainfall, which also makes those sites more valuable for solar energy. There is no such thing as 'empty land'. Every square meter of Earth is part of some ecosystem that is under stress due to human activity. Solar and wind compound this problem. >then reduce that to 30 to account for night-time How abou…

Excellent comment that will likely get downvoted into the oblivion here. Somehow nuclear waste is a huge problem, but waste from silicon production and decomissioning of solar panels isn't waste. Roof-solar is probably okay, but replacing baseload with batteries is so far-fetched, I'll believe it when i see it. Windmills impact microclimate as well, kill off birds by millions - everyone ignores that. Why is it ok for…

Solar cells can be recycled, and windmills killing birds is minuscule next to the rate introduced species do. These arguments are made in bad faith, you could spin nuclear in the exact same direction to make it look equally unsustainable.

This is not to say we shouldn’t strive for sustainability (we should), it is to say that discounting renewables on grounds of non-sustainability is illogical, or done in bad faith.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#454

Post by ncmncm »

arrosenberg wrote: post #434
epistasis wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear fuel is several orders of magnitude more energy dense than solar or wind I think that you'll find the comparison in fuel densities between nuclear and solar/wind does not show nuclear in a good light. Since nuclear fuel doesn't get converted into energy on its own, you had better also include the reactor, turbines, and cooling system if you are going to talk about comparisons of density. And once those get…

I have looked into it and I don't find that at all. I agree that solar and wind are more profitable in the short term, and they fit the private-equity model of funding much better than Nuclear. That has nothing to do with engineering and technology, nor about what the actual best long-term solution for securing our energy needs is. Even if Wind/Solar-only was viable (it's not), available everywhere (it's not), and su…

Many crops benefit from partial shade, as do industrial-building roofs, and parking lots. So, claiming that land used for solar can't be used for anything else, and must be new development displacing ecosystems, is not honest.

There are numerous viable storage alternatives; the only open question is which will turn out to be cheapest. Underground compressed air is interesting because it can use otherwise-mothballed turbines. Gravity storage, in the form of a 20,000 ton weight raised and lowered, is low tech. Ammonia and hydrogen are marketable or even directly useful on their own, when tankage is full.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#455

Post by kolinko »

dismayedjim wrote: post #340
screye wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same level of risk. Disposal of nuclear waste is a huge expense, but the main waste product generated by natural gas (CO2) gets away scot free despite literally being the cause of what might be our generation's biggest problem. The end-of-life expenses of nuclear plants are included in the cost sheets…

You can't wipe a continent out with the worst case coal plant failure. A reactor going critical and exploding, however "impossible" would do just that. Look at the Saudi plant going up. It is jokingly referred to as "a car with no seatbelts".

We are slowly wiping out the whole planet with coal now.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#456

Post by [deleted] »

rhodozelia wrote: post #360
cygx wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the difference shrinks to a factor 2 if you consider per capita values. That's still bad, no argument: France splits atoms, while Germany burns lignite, and peat aside, that's as bad as it gets as far as CO2 goes. However, that's beside the point: The fact remains that Germany did move a significant amount of electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewables.

They could have moved even more power consumption off of fossil fuels had they not freaked out after fukashima and turned all their reactors off!

[deleted]

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#457

Post by cygx »

rhodozelia wrote: post #360
cygx wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the difference shrinks to a factor 2 if you consider per capita values. That's still bad, no argument: France splits atoms, while Germany burns lignite, and peat aside, that's as bad as it gets as far as CO2 goes. However, that's beside the point: The fact remains that Germany did move a significant amount of electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewables.

They could have moved even more power consumption off of fossil fuels had they not freaked out after fukashima and turned all their reactors off!

You have to factor in political opposition by energy companies and unions. So I'd have expected that the bare minimum to hit our reduction goals would have been done. Given that we did manage to hit our goal, things might not have looked much different even in a world where nuclear plants had been kept alive...

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#458

Post by Paradigma11 »

Daho0n wrote: post #258
sofixa wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cost is the impediment to nuclear, not any sort of safety concerns That's not entirely true, and safety features and regulations are a major part of nuclear's cost. > That molten salt reactor will need to have a negative cost in order to compete with the cost of stored renewable energy Does stored renewable energy come for free? From what i recall, there's still no actual solution to that problem on a big scale.

>safety features and regulations are a major part of nuclear's cost. Which regulations -that aren't there for safety- are driving up cost of nuclear power? I can't find any. Are you saying we should cut down on safety to make nuclear able to compete?

No, he is saying that MSR do not have many of those problems and are in compliance with those regulations without costly measures.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#459

Post by merb »

sudosysgen wrote: post #287
merb wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you know that after a hurricane it's way harder to restart a nuclear power plant than a wind turbine right? it's incredible hard to power a nuclear plant if your grid is destroyed. basically you can't start a nuclear power plant with no power at all.

Nuclear reactors never completely turn off. They have generators that can supply the necessary power to run baseline systems and to restart them at any time.

that is not true, when there are disasters they sometimes get shutdown, to not have another catastrophe.

and even then just "restarting" it, is not as easy as restarting software.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#460

Post by nl »

ncmncm wrote: post #448
nl wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Afaik, nuclear energy is more expensive only because it is regulated far beyond what any other form of energy for the same level of risk. This is a ( very ) common misconception. A MIT study found that safety and regulatory increases contributes less than 1/3 of the cost increase in nuclear plants since 1975 (after adjusting for inflation): Since many of the researchers are in the Department of Nuclear Engineering…

> This is a (very) common misconception. It is not just a misconception. It is a Big Lie, endlessly repeated, endlessly debunked. Continuing to repeat it makes one a Big Liar. When you need to lie to make your case, you don't have one . People started lying about nuclear power before it even existed: "Too cheap to meter", they said. Now with FOIA we have documentary evidence that they knew at the time it would always…

I think assuming good faith on HN applies here, and I'm happy to consider it a misconception.

I understand it is a convenient misconception for some, though.

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