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

nytimes.com

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

#471

Post by heisenbit »

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…

Even if you were right the spent fuel ponds were not safe. Just let an airplane crash there - the reactor may survive it the ponds will not and they may very well be the bigger problem. The amount of radioactivity stored in these ad-hoc structures globally is staggering. Increasing the problem by further investing in nuclear is not a good idea.

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

#472

Post by vlehto »

lazyjones wrote: post #434
Gondolin wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, coal related death are of the order of 1-5 millions by year. By contrast the worst estimate for Chernobyl is 200000 deaths. The closing of germany's reactor, which amount to around 60GWh, if it had been used instead to close coal based plants would have saved around 6000 lives per year. So over 10 years would have saved 60000 lives. An average temperature increase of 1 degree would not be so bad, it would prob…

> 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.

"Climatic changes already are estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually."

https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/

Ten fold increase over the next century seems believable given that the projected effect has hardly started yet.

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

#473

Post by pytester »

lispm wrote: post #413
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 find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to…

Yep, Hinkley point is ~£95 per MWh while renewables are ~£45. It makes no sense to complain about how polluting coal plants are in relation to nuclear. It isn't the main source of competition.

Germany has been taking both nuclear and coal offline and renewables have been plugging the gap for both for some years now and will likely continue to do so.

It boggles my mind that the nuclear industry itself demands that all disaster cleanup costs over $300 million be shouldered by the government yet it is trying to project an image of how it is the "safe" option. If they don't have enough faith in their own safety to raise the cap why should we?

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

#474

Post by [deleted] »

pytester wrote: post #473
lispm wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to…

Yep, Hinkley point is ~£95 per MWh while renewables are ~£45. It makes no sense to complain about how polluting coal plants are in relation to nuclear. It isn't the main source of competition. Germany has been taking both nuclear and coal offline and renewables have been plugging the gap for both for some years now and will likely continue to do so. It boggles my mind that the nuclear industry itself demands that all…

[deleted]

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

#475

Post by ilitirit »

sbov wrote: post #288
ilitirit wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything is "arguably" worse or better. But honestly, I would challenge that point any day. As much as I'm against fossil fuels, coal powered plants only contribute a very minor part to global warming compared to lets say... ships, planes and cars. And my point is not about coal specifically - it was just mentioned because that's what the main opposition is to nuclear. Not solar/wind/water. My point is that failure o…

> As much as I'm against fossil fuels, coal powered plants only contribute a very minor part to global warming compared to lets say... ships, planes and cars. Do you have a source behind this? From what I can tell this statement seems wrong. E.g.: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-and-changing-en... Coal is a huge source of energy. And the dir…

This varies by region. In the US transport and coal power are equal in terms of their contribution. In Nigeria it's diesel and deforestation. But I will concede that it's not "minor" (not sure why I said that...)

I'm not saying that coal is good or nuclear is bad or vice versa. As I said in my original comment, there is no one practical (in terms of safety, efficiency, cost etc) global energy solution right now. I don't believe any coal-powered plants should be built. Should existing ones be replaced by nuclear? Depends on the actual area, geo-political situation (which changes over time) etc.

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

#476

Post by vlehto »

lispm wrote: post #455
vlehto wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://withouthotair.com/ "A vital tool agains global warming" means that it's our only possibility. It's not about cost, it's about what is physically possible.

repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stag…

If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these:

>How many?

As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time.

>What timeframe?

Now.

>Costs?

Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change.

>Who builds them?

Whoever can.

>Which models?

Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal.

>Where do we build them?

Doesn't matter. Any location is safer than burning coal.

>What effects does it have when?

Hope that we might have climate change to stop below 3 degrees.

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

#477

Post by lispm »

vlehto wrote: post #476
lispm wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stag…

If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these: >How many? As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time. >What timeframe? Now. >Costs? Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change. >Who builds them? Whoever can. >Which models? Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal. >Where do we build them? Doesn't mat…

Just like I thought. You have no idea how to do it, what it is going to cost and what impact it will have.

This will convince nobody.

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

#478

Post by aurelwu »

vlehto wrote: post #448
lispm wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to…

http://withouthotair.com/ "A vital tool agains global warming" means that it's our only possibility. It's not about cost, it's about what is physically possible.

It's always about cost, if it wasn't about cost we could just build so much PV/Wind + Power to Gas/Liquid Facilities as we need and be done with it. And building new nuclear is way more expensive than projected in your link, (No blame to the authors, 10 years ago they couldn't know that those numbers are not realistic) while Wind/PV are still becoming cheaper every year)

they assume ~1,3 Billion per 1 GW nuclear capacity[0], but right now it looks like 3-5 Billion per 1 GW is more whats happening. [0] http://withouthotair.com/c28/page_216.shtml [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

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

#479

Post by lazyjones »

vlehto wrote: post #472
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.

"Climatic changes already are estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually." https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/ Ten fold increase over the next century seems believable given that the projected effect has hardly started yet.

> Ten fold increase over the next century seems believable given that the projected effect has hardly started yet.

Good example for how these numbers are pulled out of thin air: take an old WHO estimate (which includes Malaria deaths), multiply by 10 for the heck of it and sum over 100 years...

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

#480

Post by iforgotpassword »

vlehto wrote: post #476
lispm wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stag…

If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these: >How many? As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time. >What timeframe? Now. >Costs? Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change. >Who builds them? Whoever can. >Which models? Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal. >Where do we build them? Doesn't mat…

Again just random stuff you pulled out of your ass.
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