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EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

reuters.com

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Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#511

Post by vidarh »

lispm wrote: post #496
vidarh wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By taking out nuclear first instead of coal they killed thousands of people.

By investing into renewable they saved millions of people.

Turning off the nuclear plants was not in any way a requirement for investing into renewables, so setting them up against each other this way is disingenuous in the extreme.

Nobody here that I can see are saying not to invest in renewables. But the extremist anti-science, anti-nuclear fear-mongering is as harmful to society as anti-vaxxer propaganda. It's causing real harm and real lives lost.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#512

Post by vidarh »

RealityVoid wrote: post #478
Lammy wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables seem like a great way to cap the total possible energy usage of humanity and keep us in a lower-evolved state. I want the future promised by unlimited nuclear energy instead.

Don't worry, it won't. At some point a large nation will eventually start using nuclear at scale and the competitive advantage will be clear so then everyone will have to follow suit. That is, of course, presuming civilization does no collapse because of climate change. Fingers crossed!

China is still steadily increasing it's nuclear power capacity, and it's share of total electricity production in China has kept growing, though still only about 5%-6%.

The 2020 National People's Congress reportedly supported aiming for 6-8 new reactors a year, which would double the existing deployment in 6-8 years, and the aim is to not just increase the number of reactors but doing so at a pace that will increase the overall proportion of electricity from nuclear.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#513

Post by cinntaile »

andbberger wrote: post #446
cinntaile wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spreading misinformation... That's a bit harsh. It's not even in use yet. Thanks for the example though.

Not really. Climate change is an existential problem that nuclear energy is one of few legitimately promising solutions to, so I don't think it's a stretch to compare the vapid and uninformed anti-nuclear arguments that pop up in every HN thread to anti-maskers: harmful rhetoric with no scientific basis.

I am not anti-nuclear though, I don't know where you got that from. Your example isn't even in production use yet so what I said was factually correct and if this is the only country in the entire world then this problem will persist for at least another few decades. It seems like you have very strong feelings about this and that is clouding your rational judgement.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#514

Post by elzbardico »

csunbird wrote: post #330
godelski wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dirty bombs aren't an issue. You might want to ask yourself why we've never seen one used, especially if you understand how easy it is to obtain the necessary materials. IIRC we've only caught a handful of devices (none exploded). Also we have to consider when it explodes, it just doesn't make enough radiation. It is pretty difficult to generate enough radiation that would actually cause an increase in cancer rates (…

Terrorists are not known to be the most logical people, to be honest. They are going to try anything that can generate terror in large scale and a dirty bomb is a very, very terrorizing thing to general population. General population thinks anything with radiation is panic worthy, even though there isn't that big of a deal.

One of the biggest hurdles in the manufacturing of dirty bombs is that they are made from highly active sources. You can more or less safely manipulate a plutonium ball to manufacture a conventional a-bomb. But you just can't do it with highly active sources like cesium-137 without a significant amount of shielding during assembly and transportation. With this kind of source, acute radiation poisoning is a matter of hours, even minutes.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#515

Post by elzbardico »

godelski wrote: post #358
belorn wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulverised fuel ash seems a much more effective component for a dirty bomb. It mixes good with air, is much more harmful to humans both long term and short term, is also very radiactive, and mixes well with fresh water supplies. It also much easier to find and is likely much less guarded, and if stolen less likely to be tracked. The only reason I can see why no one has used that already is that chemical weapons desig…

Those chemical weapons are cheaper, easier to obtain (literally a grocery store), easier to produce, easier to obtain higher yields, etc. They also are extremely terrifying. But even chemical weapons aren't used that often. We rarely hear about anthrax letters and we never hear about terrorist attacks that used bleach and ammonium even though practically everyone knows about this reaction and the materials are cheap,…

Not to mention that chemical sources are harder to detect from distance with sensors.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#516

Post by elzbardico »

godelski wrote: post #234
IshKebab wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's a lot less waste, but most waste isn't radioactive!!

It also just isn't a lot of waste. It sounds like a lot, but consider that the US produces 100 million tons of coal waste per year (2014). Hell, solar has ~30ktons of waste a year (just PV panels). 11ktons over 60 years just is astronomically tiny. That's 138 tons a year, 150x less than solar and 500000x less than coal. They just don't compare.

Tô put in perspective. 11 tons is less than half the tonage of an average cargo ship.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#517

Post by XorNot »

chrisseaton wrote: post #449
XorNot wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asbestos forms naturally too.

Not sure what you’re trying to say? Asbestos is a natural mineral - not sure where you think that fits into this or how it’s relevant, sorry. We aren’t just listing all things that are naturally occurring!

It was implied in the parent context that the fact coal is "naturally" radioactive somehow matters to the fact that it is.

Asbestos is naturally occurring and incredibly dangerous. "natural" has nothing to do with risk to human life.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#518

Post by chrisseaton »

XorNot wrote: post #517
chrisseaton wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you’re trying to say? Asbestos is a natural mineral - not sure where you think that fits into this or how it’s relevant, sorry. We aren’t just listing all things that are naturally occurring!

It was implied in the parent context that the fact coal is "naturally" radioactive somehow matters to the fact that it is. Asbestos is naturally occurring and incredibly dangerous. "natural" has nothing to do with risk to human life.

> "natural" has nothing to do with risk to human life.

Not sure who you think you're disagreeing with? Nobody said otherwise if you read the thread.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#519

Post by baybal2 »

regularfry wrote: post #498
GoOnThenDoTell wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

begins quest for ancient nuclear waste in Egypt

There is a genuine pyramid theory which posits that the Great Pyramid was, in fact, used for power generation. It's actually quite fun: the theory goes that the huge mass of the pyramid was used to couple seismic vibrations into the enormous granite blocks above the King's Chamber. Being stuffed with quartz crystals, this generated a varying electric field which excited a hydrogen atmosphere (provided by a chemical r…

Masers don't maser anywhere close to room temperatures.

Re: EU experts to say nuclear power qualifies for green investment label: document

#520

Post by Klinky »

pyrale wrote: post #505
Klinky wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientific studies show its pollution reaches the North Sea. Simple current maps show current flows through the channel into the North Sea. However, thank you for highlighting it also pollutes the Irish Sea, channel and Atlantic.

Interesting. Do you have a link to the study ?

https://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/wang2/docs/iae...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6177659_Radionuclid...

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