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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#541

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

epistasis wrote: post #326
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look more closely at your PG&E bill. There are some hidden CA taxes in there. Also PG&E was forced to divest most of their generation assets, so I believe that much of the grid power down there is not under PG&E's control Edit: Finally, any Western US utility needs to bear the cost of wildfire liability. Whether that is a state-owned utility or private, the cost is still there.

Unless by "taxes" you mean "delivery charges" this is simply untrue. The generation is cheap. The delivery, the grid cost, is 3x-5x the cost of the generation. It's all PG&E and the regulators's fault, for not containing costs more.

You're going to have to be more specific about cost control.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#542

Post by locallost »

mpweiher wrote: post #270
medlazik wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What do you mean? I mean it's not clean >one of the lowest impact mining of resources we have Not the point. It's not clean, it shouldn't be called clean end of the story.

Nuclear power uses around 1/10th the resources of intermittent renewables per kWh of electricity produced. So if nuclear isn't clean, renewables are downright filthy.

Citation needed.

I will save you the trouble because I already know where your numbers come from: the Quadrennial Technology Review by the US Department of Energy from around 10 years ago. These numbers have been thoroughly debunked [1]. They are simply wrong, likely out of laziness more than malice.

But the people that spread this around do it out of malice to dupe people and influence opinions. You've been duped.

[1] https://xcancel.com/simonahac/status/1318711842907123712

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#543

Post by alexey-salmin »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #224
alexey-salmin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Germany invested all their renewable money into nuclear, they would be carbon-neutral today. Not by 2050 but today. Instead the CO2 per capita in Germany is 2x the one in France. And France had built their reactors in the 70s for a modest price. The "whole load more renewable energy" idea is peak wishful thinking and it's incredible people still buy it today.

No they couldn't have. Germany has spent $700B on renewable energy and need 250GW of power. Not even China could have built 250GW of nuclear power for $700B although they could come close. Germany likely would have needed to spend $5T. Much of that $700B was spent in the 2000's and 2010's when renewable was more expensive than nuclear. But renewables are far cheaper than nuclear in the 2020's.

France has 58 reactors with combined power of 60GW. The audit in 2011 (after Fukushima) estimated their cost at 96B euros and the total investment into the nuclear industry since 1950 including research at 228B euros.

And that doesn't include the fact that for all these years electricity prices in Germany were higher than in France which helped to keep renewables afloat.

> But renewables are far cheaper than nuclear in the 2020's.

That's yet to be seen, doesn't really match the reality I observe so far. They are promised to be cheaper sure, but you end paying more and subsidizing coal power plants in China along the way.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#544

Post by tcfhgj »

johanyc wrote: post #365
hvb2 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can do find in a day with battery but you can’t really produce a lot in the summer and use in winter. Batteries aren't the only storage. The better options in my opinion are the places where you can use the landscape to your advantage. Pump a lake full when there's too much power and let it drain when there's too little. Also in a connected grid setup, the sun always shines somewhere though that does come with…

You need a reliable source for energy. Pumped storage is not. They are mostly good for dealing with the fluctuations of energy supply and demand. It crucially requires water to operate. You can't do much when there's a drought. Also, did some googling. The world’s largest pumped‑hydro storage plant (Fengning, China) stores nearly 40 GWh, delivering 3.6 GW for about 10.8 hours when full. Thats not even a day. There ar…

Gas doesn't imply natural gas fwiw

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#545

Post by tcfhgj »

aubanel wrote: post #529
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

The answer to this is just "intermittent" : the higher the share of renewables, the higher the share that you have to make up for when you're at night without wind. This can be done through batteries, water storage, or interconnection, but that's the real cost of renewables.

Or gas (produced using renewable energy) storage

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#546

Post by tcfhgj »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #276
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

> in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no? You're exactly right, in theory, in practice it's impossible without some significant amount of energy storage, which we don't really have. I once did this calculation for fun: in Italy, starting from the current energy mix and replacing fossils with more solar while meeting the demand in winter…

Germany sits on storage capacity more than 247 TWh

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#547

Post by tcfhgj »

notatoad wrote: post #139
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

ignoring the fact that we live in the real world where money isn't infinite: nuclear provides stable base power generation, and it does it without taking up a lot of space. Renewables produce power intermittently, and require storage to match demand. Storage either requires non-renewable resources like lithium, or else large amounts of land. in theory yes, any amount of power could be produced by renewables, but in p…

> Storage either requires non-renewable resources like lithium, or else large amounts of land

Neither, see gas caverns underground

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#548

Post by tcfhgj »

mpweiher wrote: post #135
9dev wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you factor in all the cost usually externalised in nuclear power, it’s often a lot more expensive than people realise. Decommissioning nuclear waste and old reactors is a huge, time-consuming, and thus extremely expensive operation.

This turns out not to be the case, and all these supposedly "externalized" costs are actually included in the price of electricity produced by nuclear reactors. For example in Switzerland, all of that still allows full production costs of 4,34 Rappen (with a profit).

In France they aren't, Germany neither

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#549

Post by tcfhgj »

reenorap wrote: post #24

We need to drive down the costs of implementing nuclear energy. Most of it are fake costs due to regulation. I understand that regulation is needed but we also need nuclear energy, we have to find a streamlined way to get more plants up and running as soon as possible. I think they should all be government projects so that private companies can't complain that they're losing money and keep have to ratchet up the pric…

No, we don't really need it though

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#550

Post by [deleted] »

helaoban wrote: post #157
epistasis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are the fake costs from regulation? We have new builds in Europe of the EPR, in France and Finland, and it has had disastrous costs. China has built some too, presumably cheaper, since they keep on building more. What is the regulatory difference there? I have yet to find any concrete defense of the idea that costs are coming from regulation, rather than the costs of construction in advanced economies. If regul…

Shouldn't the burden of proof belong to those that claim that regulation isn't the cost, when it is so extremely obvious to anybody who has ever had to build anything that it is? Just look at building costs in California vs Texas. Both are nominally constituents of the same "advanced economy".

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