Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#571

Post by pfdietz » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #316

thangalin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just loses out because it’s too expensive and worse, it gets more expensive with time. "The estimated cost of the remaining border wall segments are between $15 and $25 billion, with each mile of fencing costing $16 million." [1] "The total investment for the stellarator itself over 1997–2014 amounted to €370 million, while the total cost for the IPP site in Greifswald including investment plus operating costs (…

Wendelstein is an experiment, many decades away from a practical application. The ITER is expected to cost >20bn €

If ITER were augmented with a blanket and turbine to turn its gross fusion output into electrical power at 40% efficiency, the cost would be just ~$100/W(e), or two orders of magnitude higher than PV. Even adjusting for capacity factor (stipulating the fusion reactor at 100%), it would be ludicrously uncompetitive.

Part of the reason for this is just how massive ITER is. The power density of the reactor is 0.05 MW/m^3, some 400 times lower than the power density of the reactor vessel of a commercial PWR.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#572

Post by unityByFreedom » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #409

sjwright wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of "safer" is fewer people killed per kilowatt hour of energy generated. By that very reasonable metric, nuclear power is objectively less deadly than rooftop solar or wind turbines.

People are usually more ok with predictable risks that can be mitigated by the parties involved. Example taking proper safety precautions against falls vs oops we melted down and gave you cancer 10 years later.

> People are usually more ok with predictable risks

This ignores the point of above comments which is to educate people about which energy is safer per kWh generated.

It's not like solar/wind installations are done w/out safety precautions already.

Per kWh generated, nuclear is safer.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#573

Post by warabe » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

I am Japanese, who was in Japan and experienced Fukushima melt down in 2011(although I was not in Fukushima, Tokyo). From my perspective, people in HN village are missing a very crucial point. Nuclear power is not a problem of engineering or math, it is a problem of human nature. Yeah, I can understand the technology can control nuclear reaction 100% well, but who operate reactors? Who decide how reactors should be operated? Who develop software to control reactors? The answer is people! People in HN are so smart and very rational, so they cannot see sometimes irrational decisions are made(as happened in Fukushima) and they cannot understand some idiots do terribly stupid things(as happened in Tokaimura JOC accident). As long as human beings are involved, nothing can be perfect and safe.

Also, I see in some comments people think impacts of nuclear accidents and wastes can be limited and localized. In Japan, as of 18/08, 60000 people still live in temporary housing due to Fukushima incident. We still struggle to remove debris out of nuclear power plants, and it's said it will take around 30-40 years.

For me, the impact of this disaster is anything but "trivial".

*edit: grammer

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#574

Post by Xylakant » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #568

Xylakant wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I do see a comment that tries to imply that the degree of Cs-137 contamination is about a thousand times higher than safe levels (300 years, ~30 year half-life) That’s not what the comment says. It says that it will take 300 years for all the CS to vanish. But even by your interpretation, a response along the lines “This is a perfectly safe amount of radiation by all standards (or, as my comment: This is perfec…

> It says that it will take 300 years for all the CS to vanish. Yeah, and that's an obviously wrong statement when taken literally. So which is the more reasonable interpretation: that he was trying to say that the danger from the Cs-137 would take 300 years to vanish, or that he was providing a number that's not just wrong, but also irrelevant and misleading?

Look, you’re moving goalposts. I criticize the usage of the BED in trying to make that point. I don’t intend to discuss whether the dosage is dangerous or not, or whether the point that levels still are substantially increased was well made or even appropriate.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#575

Post by ineedasername » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #182

ineedasername wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's incompetence, it's a lack of political will. On energy, entrenched interests win out through regulatory capture and lobbying. On other infrastructure issues, most people and politicians simply don't care. Maybe once we get to a few bridge collapse per week.

That is untrue. The Vogtle 3 and 4 construction project has received $12 billion in federal loan guarantees over the last ten years. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/22/reuters-america-update-1-u-s... The project is a complete clusterfuck and I think the cost overruns is about 300% or so of original estimates. The evidence clearly shows that US politicians love nuclear power. Despite that love they can't get nuclear reac…

My comment was more in regards to infrastructure in general, not necessarily nuclear in particular. However, even there you're not completely right. Regardless of how much has been spent on failed/failing projects, many of these began their planning a decade or more in the past. Now, the tide has pretty much turned against nuclear power. More people oppose it than support it [0]

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/190064/first-time-majority-oppo...

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#576

Post by Krasnol » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #541

Krasnol wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear hype is timeless The only timeless thing about nuclear is the the waste. Something many future generations can have to be pissed about us. Nobody was talking about nuclear for years before that new hype started a few months ago and suddenly it's allover the place. Come on... > Thus we have a public education issue. No we don't and painting the opposition to the hype as stupid or uneducated only hurts nuclea…

There are hundreds of millions of dollars per year going into advanced nuclear from big investors right now in the USA. Check out Kairos, USNC, TerraPower, etc. https://www.thirdway.org/graphic/keeping-up-with-the-advance... I am not painting opposition as stupid. I'm painting the general public as unaware that nuclear is statistically quite safe compared with almost all other energy sources. There is almost no nucle…

https://www.iea.org/tcep/power/nuclear/ Why would you even invest in anything that looks like that? Especially compared to the curves here: https://www.iea.org/tcep/power/renewables/

Meanwhile at the construction sites: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/climate/nuclear-power-pro... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/03/fate-of-...

> There is almost no nuclear lobby to speak of. Nuclear advocacy is almost all grassroots.

You have to be kidding me. Even if you somehow missed the recent hype driven by people like Michael Shellenberger, you can't assume that a billion dollar industry in decline has no lobby and is "grassroots".

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#577

Post by ineedasername » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #236

ineedasername wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's incompetence, it's a lack of political will. On energy, entrenched interests win out through regulatory capture and lobbying. On other infrastructure issues, most people and politicians simply don't care. Maybe once we get to a few bridge collapse per week.

IMHO that's exactly wrong. The problem is far too much will, and not enough competence. This is the second forum where I've seen a "not enough will" comment, despite it making no sense when you look at the history of the excessive amounts of capital thrown unproductively at the task. Nuclear has some amazing lobbying going for it, amazing backers that will throw away billions of tens of billions of dollars into black…

As I said in my other reply, my comment was more in regards to infrastructure in general, not necessarily nuclear in particular. However, even there you're not completely right. Regardless of how much has been spent on failed/failing projects, many of these began their planning a decade or more in the past. Now, the tide has pretty much turned against nuclear power. More people oppose it than support it [0]

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/190064/first-time-majority-oppo...

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#578

Post by wtallis » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

jason0597 wrote: post #551

kuzehanka wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a terrorist do with a nuclear powerplant exactly? We've flown fighter jets into nuclear powerplants to test them[1]. They're protected by armed guards. The US has a nuclear emergency task force ready to fly pumps and generators to any plant. The best attack even a highly resourced terrorist could mount would be to damage the cooling tower and not really make any difference? If you're imagining some kind of…

A bit off-topic (but still nuclear-related): All that adds big cost to nuclear and makes it less feasible

On what basis are you determining that armed guards are a big cost? It's certainly a readily identifiable cost that's larger on a per-power plant basis for nuclear than other forms of power, but is it really large enough to matter to the overall economic viability of nuclear power?

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#579

Post by daveheq » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

Countries other than America are just going to have to prove to the US that their safe nuclear works long-term.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#580

Post by Tomte » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #485

v_lisivka wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power plant failure, like Chornobyl, _can_ make whole continent inhabitable for thousands of years.

Chernobyl made a large area a restricted zone, but nowhere near a continent scale. Besides, I really dislike people bringing up Chernobyl as an example of dangers - the RBMK reactor type like the one in Chernobyl still operates in 10 reactors producing electricity(and they will until 2024 at least). Even Chernobyl itself operated into 2000s before the last reactor block was shut down. And the only catastrophic fault…

Sure, if we exclude everything that could go wrong, we have a very safe system.

Unfortunately, it happened. It really happened. And "only those stupid Russians could have done it" doesn't comfort me.