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

#581

Post by acidburnNSA » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #576

acidburnNSA wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 almo…

> Why would you even invest in anything that looks like that?

You'll have to ask Peter Thiel, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, and some others why they invested in advanced nuclear. I suspect you'll hear something about how nuclear can produce low-footprint 24/7 carbon-free energy in sites all over the world.

Certainly I wouldn't expect a traditional investor to invest in nuclear to make a buck. It's mostly people who are trying to build a safe and prosperous world and believe nuclear can help us get there.

> you can't assume that a billion dollar industry in decline has no lobby and is "grassroots".

Sure I can. This industry has no pure-nuclear stakeholders. All the owner/operators are utilities, which have vast fossil, wind, solar resources to operate. The utility executives don't give two shoots about nuclear, they only see bottom lines in current markets. Among the vendors, GE is largely divesting from nuclear to make gas and wind turbines. I've seen pro-nuclear advertising, but only in France. I've never seen pro-nuclear advertising in the USA. You see wind and natural gas ads all over the damn place. If there were a functional nuclear lobby, you could probably point me to at least one pro-nuclear advertisement on TV. Can you?

I personally know a lot of grassroots nuclear advocates:

* https://mothersfornuclear.org/ -- a bunch of moms who worked at nuclear plants and wanted to tell people that they were actually good

* Seattle Friends of Fission: https://seattlefof.org/ -- a couple local grandparents who heard about nuclear wanted to spread the news of its low-carbon capabilities to other Seattle environmentalists.

* https://whatisnuclear.com -- a bunch of ~2006-era nuclear graduates who were trying to spread information about nuclear to help with climate change. Disclaimer: I founded this one so I know the story very well.

* https://www.generationatomic.org/ -- a few Minnesota folks who learned about nuclear and dedicated their efforts to it

* https://energyfromthorium.com/ -- a NASA tech named Kirk in Alabama who read an old book, got crazy excited, single-handedly rallied thousands of people with excitement about thorium, started a company, and recently got awarded a DOE voucher to develop his tech. If you've heard of Thorium, it's because of this guy, and it's about as grassroots as it gets.

The actual nuclear lobby group (NEI) is funded almost entirely by utilities who will rarely allow them to explain nuclear advantages over either fossil or renewables (because all the stakeholders have interests in those). They do good work, but it's not as targeted or hard-hitting as you might expect from a typical lobby group.

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

#582

Post by dirkt » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:30 PM UTC

shanemhansen wrote: post #396

dirkt wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is that nuclear power is safe, as long as all disaster scenarios are taken into account I don't know if you are old enough to remember it, but that's exactly what nuclear energy proponents said in the 70s. Since then, actual experience showed that about every 20 years, there has been a big incident with global impact, and it will take decades if not centuries until the affected area is usable again. And th…

I feel like it's bad to talk about safety of nuclear without comparing it to another option. What's the safety of fossil fuels? What bar would have to be met for nuclear to save lives when compared to alternatives? For the most part nuclear falls victim to the same human reasoning flaws that make us more worried about flying on a plane than driving even though driving is way riskier. For more info: https://en.wikiped…

Seeing the number of "nuclear energy is our saviour, and will solve all our problems, and is the only option" posts on the Internet, yes, the first step is to talk about the safety of nuclear without comparing it to other options.

And no, the comparison to plane vs. car is not appropriate: In both kinds of accidents, a number of people get injured or killed. In case of a nuclear accident, a sizeable area becomes inhabitable for centuries. That's on a completely different scale.

(And just for the record, I'm neither worried about flying in a plane, nor I am worried about driving a car. I am also not worried that the nuclear power plant near me will explode next.)

If we can agree that nuclear is not safe in the long run, and should eventually be abandoned, then we've made progress in the discussion.

It's also not "nuclear or coal". That's another thing in those discussions that bugs me. Fossil fuels (not only coal) are not the answer, either: they'll eventually run out, and they contribute to global warming.

And comparing them by "counting deaths" and "how many lives can be saved" is completely missing the point. Neither nuclear accidents nor coal usage immediately kill people. And it gets totally ridiculous when people try to argue that "there are accidents during wind power constructions; people have fallen to death. So wind power is mucher more dangerous than both nuclear and coal (if you only count the deaths)."

So in the long run, we need alternatives to both nuclear and fossil fuels. If those who say "nuclear is the only solution, it's so great" get the upper hand, we'll never develop those alternatives. And that's the point.

As for the short run, I don't really care. If we can efficiently stop global warming by shutting down all coal plantes and keeping the nuclear plants for a few decades, I'm all for it. Though I doubt that will be enough to stop global warming; we must also drastically reduce energy usage; up usage of renewables, redesign the electric grid, and efficient means of storage to it, restart projects like Desertec, etc., etc.

There's enough we can do. but arguing "let's just bet everything on nuclear, it's totally safe" is the wrong thing to do.

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

#583

Post by pfdietz » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #506

v_lisivka wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet, we will develop that technology in much much shorter time than we need to store nuclear waste.

There’s little need to store nuclear waste. Reprocess it and use the remaining fuel.

This does nothing to the fission products. And reprocessing only lets you destroy the actinides if you burn them in a fast reactor. Fast reactors have, so far, been even more expensive than thermal reactors.

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

#584

Post by Gondolin » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #561

Gondolin wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the production capacity (you are right it is not a good measure), but I was replying based on the graphic. If I look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany Germany went from 60% fossil, 23% nuclear, 17% renewable to 49%/13%/38% respectively. How much further down do you expect fossil to go in ten years? I am pretty sure that by investing both on nuclear and renewable germany…

We have invested decades ago in new nuclear (pebble bed reactor, breeder, reprocessing, ...) and it was a costly failure. Why should we keep making mistakes? Look at France, they have zillions Euros to invest to get ONE EPR reactor online. They are losing huge amounts of money on another one they are building in Finland. Germany lost a lot of money on the EPR, too. The EPR France builds in the UK will be the most exp…

So still 35% coming from fossil if the remaining nuclear plants are shut down. Again, Germany goals and effort are laudable, but you miss my point, it is not about nuclear vs renewable, but nuclear vs fossils as a complement to renewable.

Why didn't Germany close its coal plants first? This would have saved several Metric Tons of CO2 and saved the life of a few thousands people (due to air pollution).

When is Germany going to reach no CO2 emissions? (Expanding nuclear along renewable would have meant it could have reached this goal right now). You talk about the costs of EPR (which exploded I agree), but this is nothing compared to the cost of climate change, which Germany contribute three times more than France. This cost is shared across the world, but this is hypocritical to not take it into account.

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

#585

Post by Faark » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #501

loup-vaillant wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Germans seems to prefer coal to nuclear. Oh, maybe they thought lowering nuclear would increase the renewable? The renewable sure did increase, but it doesn't compensate the decrease in nuke power. What did is the other fossil fuels. Of course, most Germans would deny that. But the fact is, reducing nuke power leave us only two alternatives: increase the consumption of coal/oil etc, or decrease energy consumption…

Renewables today produce twice as much power as nuclear plants back when Germany had twice as much nuclear than it has now and the share is growing by 4-5% per year. By the time a new nuclear plant is done Germany would be at 90% renewables.

Your numbers are a bit off (2018: 155TWh solar+wind; 65TWh biomass+hydro; 2006: 158TWh nuclear as of [0]), but I'd agree with your conclusion. The biggest disappointment in those graphs is the near constant use of lignite, but politicians seem still very resistant giving up the jobs of that industry.

[0] https://energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&perio...

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

#586

Post by jason0597 » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #101

acidburnNSA wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consensus solution to nuclear waste is to put it in geologic repositories where it will be safely out of the biosphere until well after it decays to stability. This issue of a toxic but carefully handled substance is very small compared to the looming threat of climate change. As far as I'm aware, commercial nuclear waste in storage has never injured a single person.

> As far as I'm aware, commercial nuclear waste in storage has never injured a single person You'd be surprised: By October several thousand shipments were illegally dumped at the landfill in north St. Louis County, in violation of federal standards; they contained an estimated 43,000 tons of radioactive uranium processing wastes and contaminated soil. (...) No strangers to advanced statistical tools, within two year…

What are the sources?

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

#587

Post by mch82 » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #476

lispm wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stag…

If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these: >How many? As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time. >What timeframe? Now. >Costs? Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change. >Who builds them? Whoever can. >Which models? Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal. >Where do we build them? Doesn't mat…

Two important questions to ask are:

- Will you volunteer to live by the nuclear plant or waste storage facilities?

- Will you work at or advise your friends & family to work there?

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

#588

Post by lispm » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

vlehto wrote: post #570

iforgotpassword wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again just random stuff you pulled out of your ass.

If we talk about future, everything is random stuff pulled from someones ass. Future cannot be researched, calculated or predicted. You can just be worried about stuff and bet on some solutions to give your children a decent place to live in.

> Future cannot be researched, calculated or predicted

Sure it can. Otherwise you wouldn't know about the effects of climate change.

> You can just be worried about stuff and bet on some solutions to give your children a decent place to live in.

Use a bicycle. Don't fly. Don't make vacation on a cruise ship. Don't buy flown in goods. Don't eat meat. Don't reproduce. Recycle stuff. Get solar onto your roof. Heat with electricity from non-fossil fuels. Don't use a car.

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

#589

Post by ftr45 » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

pytester wrote: post #473

lispm wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to…

Yep, Hinkley point is ~£95 per MWh while renewables are ~£45. It makes no sense to complain about how polluting coal plants are in relation to nuclear. It isn't the main source of competition. Germany has been taking both nuclear and coal offline and renewables have been plugging the gap for both for some years now and will likely continue to do so. It boggles my mind that the nuclear industry itself demands that all…

nuclear is the safest and cheapest option https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...

https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2015/7057-proj-costs-elect...

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

#590

Post by ftr45 » Sun, Apr 07, 2019, 3:02 PM UTC

pytester wrote: post #534

Gondolin wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany has been taking coal offline after taking nuclear offline; and are replacing coal by gas (so they depend even more on Russia) instead of replacing it by nuclear or renewable. They produce 3x the CO2 of France, despite their commitment against global warming. In an ideal world, renewable would replace everything. We are not yet in this ideal world, and we don't know the time frame to get to it (there are huge…

It certainly doesn't look like natural gas usage is ramping up: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... >They produce 3x the CO2 of France, despite their commitment against global warming. That's because France started replacing fossil fuels with nuclear in the 80s. That was the only sensible approach to reducing CO2 in the 80s. This isn't the 80s though. >In an ideal world, renewable would re…

>I mean, it's half the cost of nuclear

it's not https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2015/7057-proj-costs-elect...