Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it • Hacker News Board

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#51

Post by xaduha » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #23

Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the safeguards needed to try to avert catastrophic accidents. Humans are fallible, and our best intentions can be subverted by inadequate training; fatigue; inattention; laziness; or what we used to call "a loss-of-brain accident." As a result, we can f[oul] up at any stage of design, construction, operation, or maintenance of a nuclear reactor. (Neither Three Mi…

I wonder what you think of these

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#52

Post by Manuel_D » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

locallost wrote: post #27

The article starts by praising the French nuclear program in the 70s. Yet, that same nuclear program is currently going through a complete debacle, failing to provide for its own country's needs, and is partially the reason prices are going into the stratosphere on the whole continent. If you can't factor in the reality of what is actually happening as we speak as a potential risk for your analysis, well... The Frenc…

Nuclear power is cheaper when built in serial production. That's the basic conclusion of any analysis of the history of nuclear power construction. There's nuance as to why, but the basic pattern is that putting an order of 40 steam generators [1] is cheaper than a run of just 4 of them. Similar deal with specialized pumps and other nuclear power components. Suppliers can re-use infrastructure and expertise, and get better deals on input materials by guaranteeing a stable demand.

France's nuclear program in the 70s was much more effective than current nuclear projects because of that economy of scale. They build ~50 reactors of only a few types. The US is similar: many of its plants built in the late 1960 and 1970s delivered power at $2-3 billon USD per GW (adjusted for inflation), and some of them under $2 billion per GW. And these aren't equal to other forms of generation: nuclear power's capacity factor is among the highest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_generator_(nuclear_power...

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#53

Post by arez » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

jwie wrote: post #39

Anti nuclear fearmongering is based on ignorance for the most part, and a kind of exploitative cynicism on the other. Most people just don’t know how safe nuclear power is. I worked on a nuclear reactor personally. We used to joke that the safest thing we had in the power plant was the radiation. I received less operational exposure in 6 years than typical nuclear medicine procedures create. The other source is entre…

tell that to france and their inability to generate power with many reactors because either the rivers are dry or too hot. How is that a sustainable solution

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#54

Post by dctoedt » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

mwattsun wrote: post #48

dctoedt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another ex-nuke here — when I got out and went to law school, coincidentally right after Three Mile Island, my dad (neither a lawyer nor an engineer) tried to convince me that I should specialize in nuclear-energy law because I'd have a built-in advantage. I politely explained why I thought that would be a dead end, and that turned out to be correct.

Working in nuclear under normal operations is boring anyway and consists mostly of watching gauges and other indicators. At least on the submarine we'd scram the reactor and run drills. I'm sure civilian nuclear is less exciting than this. I had one buddy who did it for a career, but just one that I know of.

> and consists mostly of watching gauges and other indicators

And logs. You forgot taking logs* — or is that done automatically these days? It's been decades since I've been in a nuclear plant, so I have no idea.

* That is, recording readings of various indicators.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#55

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #41

dctoedt wrote: post #23

Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the safeguards needed to try to avert catastrophic accidents. Humans are fallible, and our best intentions can be subverted by inadequate training; fatigue; inattention; laziness; or what we used to call "a loss-of-brain accident." As a result, we can f[oul] up at any stage of design, construction, operation, or maintenance of a nuclear reactor. (Neither Three Mi…

Strong safeguards are also needed in iron smelters and steel foundries, in ammonia synthesis, and in making aluminum. In the mining of coal and extraction of oil and natural gas. Yet all these materials are cheap.

> Yet all these materials are cheap.

Yes, in large part because the safeguards are not nearly as strong. (And a lot of the rest is because the safeguards impede research on how to make nuclear cheaper.)

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#56

Post by fundatus » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:43 PM UTC

jdasdf wrote: post #17

jmyeet wrote: post #13

I'm familiar with the argument that nuclear power is the answer to greenhouse gas emissions. Still, this article is the next level of pro-nuclear propaganda as it launches into quite the anti-environmentalist screed. For example: > The postwar American environmental movement began as an outgrowth from the eugenaics movement. and > Having fallen out of favor during World War II due to its associations with Nazism, eug…

>The pro-nuclear lobby has no argument against Chernobyl~ We could have a chernobyl every year for the next hundred years, and you would cause less environment damage, and human deaths than we did by operating fossil fuel plants in 2021. There is no argument against chernobyl because chernobil is quite frankly irrelevant beyond an economic cost to cleanup and contain, both of which can be accounted for, and arguably…

After Chernobyl clouds containing radioactive material where blown westwards by the wind and eventually those clouds rained down over parts of Germany. To this day if you go out hunting for example wild boards in those areas they have to be tested for radioactivity before they can be processed further, since their diet mostly consists of mushrooms and plants that contain a lot of Caesium-137 from that rainfall back in 1986.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#57

Post by dctoedt » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #46

dctoedt wrote: post #23

Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the safeguards needed to try to avert catastrophic accidents. Humans are fallible, and our best intentions can be subverted by inadequate training; fatigue; inattention; laziness; or what we used to call "a loss-of-brain accident." As a result, we can f[oul] up at any stage of design, construction, operation, or maintenance of a nuclear reactor. (Neither Three Mi…

Newer reactor designs with entirely passive safety features remove the need for operators to take particular actions in the event of a problem, so "loss of brain accidents" are no longer possible. (Whether those designs can support the requirements for military use, which are quite different from those for civilian power generation, is a different question.) That said, civilian nuclear power, at least in the US, was…

> Newer reactor designs with entirely passive safety features remove the need for operators to take particular actions in the event of a problem, so "loss of brain accidents" are no longer possible.

That would be excellent — although color me doubtful; people always seem to find new and innovative ways to f[oul] up ....

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#58

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

who killed nuclear energy? Nobody did. The decline in nuclear energy utilization with very few exceptions is secular and global[1]. Two very mundane reasons, the high, largely stagnant cost of generating nuclear energy combined with the rapidly falling cost of renewables.

It's amazing to me how everything in the United States can be turned into some weird culture war debate, ignoring the most material explanations, the article straight up ventures into conspiracy theory territory at the end

"The all-renewables dream was never about reducing greenhouse gasses, but about entrenching energy poverty to halt population growth, so as to spare the environment."

[1]https://www.dw.com/en/world-nuclear-industry-status-report-c...

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#59

Post by rglover » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:49 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #11

Effective CO2 reduction can only happen if a sensible and effective policy is taken, to wit: 1. a tax on the carbon content of fuels 2. nuclear plants for base load power and the rest will be taken care of by natural market forces. Green energy will never be practical without nuclear power: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-energy-transition-will-...

Thank you. This is a dirt simple and obvious track that would create a wealth of jobs and potential for everyone. It's the ultimate pro-humanity solution to our concerns around energy/pollution.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#60

Post by jjk166 » Fri, Aug 26, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

fundatus wrote: post #5

Who Killed Nuclear Energy? The absurd cost to build this technology and the emergence of much more cost-effective and emission-free alternatives. It's as simple as that. It wasn't the tree-huggers or a big conspiracy.

Except it's not an absurd cost to build. In South Korea LCOE of nuclear is less than half that of solar, at approximately $0.05/kwh. In most of the world, the cost of nuclear power has remained constant or decreased adjusted for inflation since the 60s, only in the US has the cost skyrocketed. This suggests a political issue, not a technological one.