Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#461

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:07 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #403

andness wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that I don't think we can make nuclear safe. But if the choice seems to be between millions of deaths from global warming or thousands of deaths from nuclear, isn't the latter vastly preferable? Shouldn't we set out and build out nuclear to steer us away from the edge, and then worry about better solutions once we're safe? I suspect the reason people don't buy this argument is that they don't truly b…

Can you provide a timeline and justification on "millions of deaths from global warming". Why can't be invest the money in better alternatives and save the same "millions of lives" with actually sustainable tech that doesn't produce what you are describing as "thousands of deaths"

The book Six Degrees by Mark Lynas is a good start. It has extensive references to peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change.

We've already had thousands of deaths from heat waves that probably wouldn't have happened in the absence of global warming. By three degrees warming we'll have massive food shortages and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.

I find a lot of anti-nuclear renewables advocates really underestimate the scale of the problem we're facing. This book is a great start to seeing what we're really up against.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#462

Post by VyperCard » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:09 AM UTC

turbinerneiter wrote: post #399

jfnixon wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now Germany is not meeting its decarbonization goals. How is that a win for the environment?

That has little to do with the decommissioning itself, and more with the Governments stupidity and ignorance. The decommissioning is only one part of that screw-up. Germany wants (and the whole world should): * enough energy * carbon-free * nuclear-waste-free On order to do that, you need massive investments in renewable energy and storage. Instead, they found a way to have: * large investment in solar energy, withou…

Hey well put and on point.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#463

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:10 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #398

jfnixon wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter risk is having the entire planet rendered uninhabitable for human life, right? Let's see, some area rendered uninhabitable versus the planet rendered uninhabitable... I'm going with A.

The worst of the lies about nuclear is that it can somehow help create a carbon-neutral economy. Of course it wouldn't. Designing a carbon-neutral economy is a much bigger problem that requires much broader strategic thinking. The levelized cost of renewables is already cheaper than the equivalent for nuclear power, with much smaller capital costs, much faster start-up and build costs, and no concerns about long-live…

The levelized cost of renewables with enough battery storage to make reliable carbon-free power is higher than nuclear, except in areas where lots of hydro or geothermal is available.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#464

Post by Bombthecat » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:12 AM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #394

Bombthecat wrote: post #388

Still no answer to the question : what do we with nuclear waste... Only answer I get is : more money will solve it or one day...

It's just a non-issue. All of the world's nuclear waste could fit in one warehouse and isn't that dangerous. You can either put all of it in a building somewhere or keep it in smaller buildings on-site.

And putting it in a warehouse solves the problem?...

I excepted more from hackernews... I'm disappointed.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#465

Post by doe88 » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:16 AM UTC

Gondolin wrote: post #400

I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…

I'm pro-puclear energy, but I also have enough experience and cynicism in life to also know that the biggest danger of nuclear is the human factor itself. As long as men and women will be men and women, there will be errors, malice, corruption, and all kind of factors that will affect our safety. Applying strict measures and processes will limit these risks but the current opacity of this industry is already a bad start and an hindrance to its success. I know it's not an easy problem to fix but it is vital to our safety on the long term.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#466

Post by lazyjones » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:19 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #454

lazyjones wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we are headed for at last a 3°C increase. This is way way worse than a 1°C increase. I am not joking about billions of death if we reach this point. What is borderline insane is not realizing the impact that climate change is going to have is nothing is done. It's beyond borderline insane how people make up these "billions of deaths" numbers with a straight face.

Then you should read the book Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, one chapter per degree. Billions of deaths at three degrees is probably overstating things, but three degrees does bring massive food shortages and hundreds of millions of refugees. At four degrees, billions of deaths doesn't look that unlikely, and it starts getting hard t…

> Then you should read the book Six Degrees by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change

No thanks. He's a journalist and political activist, reading his foregone conclusions from selected papers he claims to have read is a waste of time.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#467

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

rocqua wrote: post #317

petre wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A considerable part of the waste can be reprocessed and further burned in fast breeder reactors, creating fuel for the conventional ones. The rest can be vitrified and stored. Why we don't already do this? Fear of nuclear proliferation, breeders are quite expensive, anti nuclear sentiment.

What are the radioactive properties of the end product like? E.g. does this produce waste with longer half lives? Lower initial radiation?

The waste from fast reactors is just the fission products. It's about 1% as much waste by volume as conventional reactors. Encased it in glass, and the overall mix will be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in a couple centuries.

The waste from conventional reactors is the fission products plus lots of U238, a fair amount of plutonium, some U235, and various transuranics. The transuranics and plutonium are the really long-lived radioactive waste.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#468

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:22 AM UTC

_ink_ wrote: post #321

scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

Can we just get something straight about the waste situation? It's still not solved. As long as that is the case, I think nuclear energy is not an option.

Well then maybe we should develop reactors that solve the problem. Any fast reactor or molten salt breeder will do it. Russia has two fast reactors in commercial operation right now, and a bunch of startups are working on various designs.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#469

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

BluSyn wrote: post #357

antt wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't build this trillion dollar proven technology, build this unproven trillion dollar technology instead!

Both technologies are proven. One has proven to be cheaper than the other.

France and Sweden built very low-carbon electric grids with nuclear. No country in the world has done that with wind/solar. Some have done it with lots of hydro/geothermal, but those aren't available everywhere.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#470

Post by DennisP » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 10:29 AM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #359

antt wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it odd how the people talking about climate change being an extinction level event aren't even prepared to execute a few dozen CEOs of large fossil fuel companies. If the fate of the world is in question then Ted Kaczynski is a rational individual who reacted with restraint.

one small correction: the fate of the world isn’t in question. it’s the fate of humans that is. meaning: the planet has seen several extinction events. it will survive anything we throw at it. but humans need to start building rockets and space stations asap if they want to survive.

Personally I consider millions of other species to be part of "the world." I would like for them to survive.