Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#481

Post by pvaldes » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #336

miniwark wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not agree. Actual 'nuclear' (Uranium fission based) is a proved environmental risk: - Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi (INES level 7) are not some sort of small environmental incidents - Kyshtym, First Chalk River, Sellafield (1957), Three Mile Island, Goiânia (INES level 6 & 5), and maybe the Tomsk-7 explosion (not rated) where comparably smaller but the environmental impact was not small - we still do not know wha…

Fukushima is a good case study. Everybody freaked out about it, but if you actually look at the data objectively, I can't see how it's anything other than a resounding success for nuclear. In a once-in-a-generation worst-case scenario (an earthquake beyond the safety parameters to which the plant was designed), you have something on the order of a hundred deaths caused by the reactor leak (this estimate attempting to…

> it's worth noting that deep underwater is not the worst place for a small amount of nuclear waste to end up.

Is worth noting also that sometimes the deep underwater currents raise to surface in some points when crashing against continents, so is not so simple.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#482

Post by kevinpet » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

Headline here omits part of the headline in the linked story: Gas and Nuclear are both now considered green. Which to me just reinforces the absurdity of environmental advocacy. It's clear that CO2 is the most urgent environmental issue today, and I say this as someone who is skeptical of many of the doom and gloom extreme claims and policy prescriptions that amount to shaming for wanting luxury. So in that regard nuclear is not just a bridge solution, but a long term (nearly indefinitely if we reprocess fuel and use breeder reactors), especially if we get our act together and stop making it cost a fortune. While natural gas is continuing to contribute to CO2 in the atmosphere.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#483

Post by xorcist » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #293

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. What part of this entire discussion has anything do to with science? Is anyone actually contesting the science? Is it a discussion about the number of orbitals of uranium atoms? Or is it a discussion on which entities handle the long-term financials obligations, whether we favor or not decentralized grids, whether we favor short term or longer…

Nuclear power was ended in Germany for political reasons. The public has an incorrect idea of how dangerous nuclear power is and how dangerous nuclear waste is and it was easier for the politicians to go along with it for points than stand it's ground. If you're making policy based on scientifically inaccurate ideas then you aren't respecting the science.

This argument is tiresome. Several strong interests wanted to end nuclear power in Germany for a long time before it finally happened. And it wasn't the greens that did it. That much is public knowledge, there are wikipedia pages and everything.

The reason nuclear power ended in Germany was economical. There's no way nuclear can compete with cheap Russian gas, and Germany had over invested in the latter for over two decades, for reasons that obviously had nothing to do with nuclear power.

Look no further than Gerhard Schröder to see how this started. Again, this is not secret and there were newspaper articles everywhere. Then follow to the path across time and party lines to Angela Merkel who saw it through. Simple economics ruled all the way.

This is not complicated, and there's no reason to see a conspiracy here.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#484

Post by knorker » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #308

knorker wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not malicious to scream "chernobyl!" willfully deceptively or willfully ignorantly confusing what can and cannot happen? More people die every single year from radiation in coal than have died in the entire history of nuclear power. Replacing all coal with nuclear would save more lives and health than fighting nuclear ever could, even in theory. And delaying coal to nuclear under the banner of "wind and solar m…

To exemplify the difference between science and politics: - Nuclear is safer than coal: science (true or not, it's not the point) - We need to go all the way nuclear: politics. There's a million other things to consider, many of them don't even each into the realm of what is falsifiable (e.g international relations, fuel availability, who knows). _Even_ if nuclear was literally the safest method ever, it is literally…

I don't think this is relevant to my point. Not wrong, just not relevant.

Individuals who are anti nuclear have reasons, explicitly stated, that are misinformed.

Being anti nuclear because Chernobyl is in fact like being anti airplane because Hindenburg.

The criticism is actually (in this analogy) that they claim the hydrogen in a 747 will catch fire. "It's not hydrogen, it's just filled with oxygen and nitrogen" is met with "then what if that spontaneously combusts?!".

But in a way you make a good point. "I don't want to have a rational discussion or learn anything" is indeed the anti nuclear stance. "I don't want the truth, i just want to be right" is political.

The other things you mention are not really even known to anti nuclear people.

Wanting to be right despite facts or ignorance is almost the definition of politics.

People say they're anti nuclear because they want to spare us radiation and death, but when you tell them nuclear would reduce both then they just scream louder.

You can be factually wrong in politics. When your stated and internal reasons don't align with what your actions will accomplish, then that's wrong.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#485

Post by theshrike79 » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #382

trinovantes wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issues with Fukushima that could've prevented the disaster were raised by engineers/scientists but were ignored for years by the government/politicians

So? Anything could have been prevented on hindsight.

It's not hindsight when someone warns you beforehand.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#486

Post by throw827474737 » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #412

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> constantly pumping out papers that conclude nuclear energy has highest costs, highest danger, will leave unsolvable toxic waste problems, renewable energy is extremely cheap, building enough storage is no problem etc. Isn't your choice of telling them false based purely on political agenda? Same happens on other side of the camp, both believe their science is actual science.

It kind of depends on what you consider a fact. I support nuclear scientifically. I don’t think it has a chance politically. Scientifically, nuclear waste disposal is very much solvable problem. Politically, expect to spend billions upon billions and then have things like Yucca Mountain canned after lots of construction. Both are true and which ones you consider lead to very different conclusions.

Flying is scientifically a well understood and safe thing. Still its the FAA that makes the rules, and engineering that needs to produce robust and reliable systems, and still planes fall out of the sky sometimes..

Scientifically we already proofed that fusion works, which would be the solution for a lot...

So what does "scientifically...much solavable problem" in practice really mean? Worlds apart..

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#487

Post by pvaldes » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

wizofaus wrote: post #139

pvaldes wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until we do it's just FUD. And when we will do, it is too late to change our mind Too late, to little and, with bad luck, a very expensive error. Money is a limited resource. The only reason to tag nuclear as green is to grant nuclear access to subsides for green energy.

Who says money is a limited resource? I'd think only key things it can pay for (skilled human labour) are what're limited - you can "print" as much money as you like. We need far more people skilled in and dedicating their time toward developing low carbon energy sources. Given the number of us doing all manner of BS jobs, that doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve (even if it will necessarily take a number of ye…

If money is unlimited, then just give solar panels for free to everybody. Put it in every roof of the country and you will achieve your goals much faster

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#488

Post by throw827474737 » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #414

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> constantly pumping out papers that conclude nuclear energy has highest costs, highest danger, will leave unsolvable toxic waste problems, renewable energy is extremely cheap, building enough storage is no problem etc. Isn't your choice of telling them false based purely on political agenda? Same happens on other side of the camp, both believe their science is actual science.

Well no, we have plenty of data that shows in reality, nuclear is the safest (lowest deaths per TWh generated [1]), among the lowest-carbon intensity (lower than solar, higher than wind) [2] and with seawater extraction has the potential of being renewable. Waste disposal is a solved problem: you put the spicy rocks back where they came from. So-called environmentalists are advocating removing this capacity without a…

Besides this being studies for which other studiest exist the same, we also learned in the pandemic that "deaths" cannot be the sole metric (however you want to interpret that).

And seawater extraction is as renewable as CO2-scrubbing the atmosphere would allow us to go on with burnign coal - both would equally not scale to needs with current technology, so what?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#489

Post by pornel » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 9:57 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #445

willcipriano wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Asse II salt mine should never have been used in the 1960s and 1970s as a site to dump nuclear waste, said Ingo Bautz of the Federal Office for Radiation Protection. > “Today, nobody would choose this mine to place radioactive waste,” Bautz told journalists during a recent tour of the mine, in the north-western state of Lower Saxony. How is this applicable in 2022? This proves his point, not yours. The problems fro…

I'm just not convinced by the argument "Nuclear power is safe as long as we don't make any of the mistakes of previous generations". Chernobyl didn't make the mistakes of Windscale; Fukushima didn't make the mistakes of Chernobyl; and future nuclear power stations won't make the mistakes of Fukushima (hopefully). It's possible that the track record for nuclear plants, and handling radioactive waste, is getting better…

Count how many people have died in these accidents directly and possibly from thyroid cancers, and compare to lung cancers attributed to coal. Coal kills way more people. It's killing right now.

There are estimates that more people died from fuel poverty due to closure of Fukushima and subsequent raise in fuel prices, than the Fukushima accident itself.

Coal power plants release more radioactive pollution than nuclear power plants, simply because coal is never 100% pure and the sheer volume of coal burned.

So you are demanding perfection. Your fear of hypothetical future risk of harm is perpetuating the actual harm currently happening.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#490

Post by varajelle » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

hello_marmalade wrote: post #359

tb0ne wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is stuff like people religiously dissmising you when you tell them that nuclear is nearly the safest power source in terms of deaths per TWh [1]. They don't base their opinion regarding safety on data, they base it on the feeling that they get from seeing large disasters and not seeing the countless deaths caused in silence, and they refuse to update their view even in the face of contradicting data. [1] https://o…

The reason people are skittish about nuclear is because when it does fail, it fails catastrophically . The biggest failures in memory are all failures that risked making a multi kilometer area potentially completely uninhabitable for decades. Even if the risk is only 1%, coal is a much less scary prospect.

How about hydro? There have been catastrophic damm faillures in the past, too.

Not a damm failure, but last year there was ~250 death in Europe and 10 billions of euros of damages because of the floods. [1] That's much more damages than Fukushima and comparable to Chernobyl.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_European_floods