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Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

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Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#531

Post by brunes »

wolverine876 wrote: post #519
arcticbull wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> environmentalists are advocating removing this capacity without accounting for the fact its replacement will be coal, oil and gas. Could you identify any broadly accepted environmental analysis that says this? It's easy to make accusaiont > Waste disposal is a solved problem: you put the spicy rocks back where they came from. The waste rocks are not at all like the ones removed from the ground, in critical ways (ra…

The cost to store nuclear waste is $600 / kg

When Starship is fully operational the expected cost to launch payload will be $20 / kg

IE you can have a 30x margin of error and still just launch the nuclear waste into space.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#532

Post by wolverine876 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #330
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite sure that no one who asks "can chernobyl can happen again?" is actually interested in the response to "can chernobyl happen again _in exactly the same way_"?. This is malicious nitpicking. In the same way that I'm sure the victims of the next Airbus crash will be happy to know that "it didn't crash like the Hindenburg did".

If all you mean by "chernobyl happening again" is "a serious accident could happen", you've moved the goalposts beyond where I think meaningful discussion is possible. It also means that a "new chernobyl" can happen at any power station, be it hydro, coal, solar, etc.

> a "new chernobyl" can happen at any power station, be it hydro, coal, solar, etc

Clearly, the nuclear energy in power plants is far more dangerous than those other forms. This is devolving into a silly discussion.

There is a serious discussion to be had about the trade-off in nuclear energy between cost and safety, and whether it's worthwhile.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#533

Post by Turing_Machine »

worik wrote: post #455
colechristensen wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the waste sit in place for decades to decay away much of its radioactivity, dig a hole in a geologically boring mountain away from people, dump waste in the hole. Alternative first step: build breeder reactors to recycle most of the waste into nuclear fuel and dump the smaller amount of leftovers in the mountain.

> dig a hole in a geologically boring mountain away from people Where? Where on Earth will you find a place that will still be like that in 200,000 years.

Nuclear waste doesn't need to be sequestered for anything like 200,000 years.

After a few hundred years it's no more radioactive than the rocks from which it came.

You seem to have the common misconception that "long half-life" = "more radioactive", when in fact "long half-life" = "less radioactive", by definition.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#534

Post by WalterBright »

worik wrote: post #444
MattGaiser wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Scientifically, nuclear waste disposal is very much solvable problem. No it is not. There is no place on Earth that we know is geologically stable for the time periods required We have no way of knowing what society will be like ten thousand years from now, let alone 100,000 years. How do we communicate with those people bout the danger of what we left behind? Greed. Hubris.

The flora and fauna in the Chernobyl exclusion zone appear to be thriving.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#535

Post by wolverine876 »

trinovantes wrote: post #374
Patrol8394 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's talk Fukushima ?

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

Similar claims are often made after accidents, especially by people sympathetic to engineers an scientists (such as at HN). Given a large enough population, you can always find people who predict disaster. Every leader (of a large enough population) has to decide which predictions to trust and which not to; there isn't enough money and time in the world to listen to them all, and to perfect any machine - especially large, highly complex ones.

The question is not 'was this one prediction accurate?', but 'how reliable is that population of predictions?'

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#536

Post by wolverine876 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #485
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Anything could have been prevented on hindsight.

It's not hindsight when someone warns you beforehand.

Given a large enough population, you can always in hindsight find someone who predicted the outcome.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#537

Post by wolverine876 »

dimitar wrote: post #266
ThePhysicist wrote: post #16

De-nuclearization of other European countries is a long-held goal of the German environmentalist movement and the Green party. It's understandable that France doesn't want to go with that, as they don't want to be forced down the same ruinous path we're currently on here in Germany. And honestly, good for them. It's just sad to see how little actual science is respected in Germany. I did my PhD at the French nuclear…

Anti-nuclear sentiment (both environmentalist and anti-nuclear weapons) was generously sponsored by the Soviet Union. What a surprise than nowadays the same groups are serving the interests of Russia. The most cynical thing is that the biggest nuclear accident in history was caused by Soviet negligence and incompetence and yet they managed to exploit it politically.

> Anti-nuclear sentiment (both environmentalist and anti-nuclear weapons) was generously sponsored by the Soviet Union.

Can you back that up?

> What a surprise than nowadays the same groups are serving the interests of Russia.

It's actually the reactionary right that is supporting Russia these days.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#538

Post by wolverine876 »

IMTDb wrote: post #82
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet weirdly, those non-technical people seem to have accidentally stumbled on the solution that the whole world is moving towards, while the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear and even their most ambitious goals include using less nuclear and replacing it with the stuff the ideological German's came up with, because it's better. And it wasn't that long ago that they were threatening to sc…

> the highly technical French have forgotten how to build nuclear They haven't forgotten, they were fighting a witch-hunt orchestrated by the greens. The same eco-ideologist that ruined Germany have made it impossible to properly invest in the nuclear plants in France and to ensure knowledge and expertise is properly transmitted and developed with the younger generation. For years the message was "don't invest in nuc…

We have many better solutions than nuclear, and have for decades. Why not use them - reduce energy consumption, use a market-based solution of making people pay the actual cost of greenhouse gas production (e.g., trading carbon credits), etc.?

It's the reactionaries that are in the way. Why blame the only people who have been concerned about climate change? Because it's easier to attack them; because people are scared of taking on the reactionaries.

> a witch-hunt orchestrated by the greens

This is just jumping on the bandwagon of demonizing the target du jour. Can you back this up? What do you mean by witch-hunt? Who in particular was attacked? By who?

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#539

Post by Retric »

rjzzleep wrote: post #505
Retric wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany jumped into solar really early and it's very far north so it’s not that relevant when considering todays tradeoffs. 41.3 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2016 was frankly excessive though it helped PV get much cheaper. Unfortunately, Germany now stuck with these huge agreed upon subsides for another decade.

They also "pulled out" of solar early. I have idea how anyone can make sense of German policies. They seem to be working solely on the basis of emotion. The outcome is a disastrous policy that created one of the highest energy prices for consumers for no good reason. The Greens in Germany seem to be hell bent on de-industrializing Germany. They hate nuclear power and they hate all fossil fuels, but want to buy fracki…

The subsidy was focused on developing a domestic manufacturing sector. Unfortunately rather than pay the subsidy at at instill they bound future customers with it which hid just how much money was involved.

Re: Nuclear turn green as EU parliament approves new taxonomy

#540

Post by wolverine876 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #172
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fully decommissioned" by some somewhat unintuitive definitions: > The DOE was required by contract and statute to begin removing spent nuclear fuel and GTCC waste by January 31, 1998. To date, the DOE has not removed any spent fuel or GTCC waste from the CY site, and it is unknown when it will. The current 'plan' is for the companies looking after the waste on the original site to sue the government every few years…

this is exactly the idealism thats causing problems -the energy futures in germany reaches the highest price in recorded history, the industry is being decimated and it's importing gas from a tyran that has started a war on Gemany's doorstep. Without Europe's gas dollars he would not be able to fund it's millatry and 12 million ukranians would never become homeless refugees. Meanwhile you are complaining about waste…

> the energy futures in germany reaches the highest price in recorded history, the industry is being decimated and it's importing gas from a tyran that has started a war on Gemany's doorstep. Without Europe's gas dollars he would not be able to fund it's millatry and 12 million ukranians would never become homeless refugees.

Obviously, nothing can be done with nuclear power now to address that problem. Looking back, there is no reason to think that fossil fuel usage would have disappeared by now. Even the issue of climate change has had little impact. Nuclear is generally far more expensive.

Now if we had had made the fossil fuel industry pay the true cost of their waste products - greenhouse gases - then there might have been a market for nuclear.

> idealism

If you have a good argument, why disparage people who disagree? Why not address their concerns seriously?

The threat of nuclear waste is very real and serious. There are solutions, but these are serious issues that won't be addressed by disparaging other people.

> waste that sitting sealed and monitored, and is not hurting anyone.

Nobody has died yet (is that even true?), so it's safe?

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