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Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

world-nuclear-news.org

61–70 of 396 posts

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#61
post #27
post #4

I think realistically this is the only way in the turbulent times we live in. Even in the small and interconnected Europe, you have to be completely self sustainable when the need arises. We've seen more than enough broken pipes, power lines and the like in the last year alone to underline this need.

Italy neither has the engineers to build a nuclear power plant, they would have to ask another nation, like Russia, Canada or France, to build it for them. And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia.

[deleted]

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#62
post #3

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses with solar panels and put batteries in all cellars? It might still be useful to build out nuclear power plants. But the solar+battery approach seems like an easier first step to increase the available power, doesn't it?

Government can centralize the cost of nuclear. All goes to 1 contractor who builds it. With solar, every house is a different size so each house will have a different cost. Pretty hard political sell to tell your voters you are going to give more to the rich because they have bigger houses. Totally makes sense from a "well they use and pay for more power" perspective but a really hard sell politically. Plus renters g…

Indeed rooftop solar is something that rich people benefit from the most: it's a fun gimmick that people who own houses can use to dodge taxes and network fees. The most cost effective solar deployments are larger industrial setups due to the economics of scale. From a national economy point of view, rooftop solar makes less sense. Someone still needs to pay for the network after all, it just gets onto someone else's shoulders.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#63
post #46
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy neither has the engineers to build a nuclear power plant, they would have to ask another nation, like Russia, Canada or France, to build it for them. And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia.

Italy has highly skilled nuclear engineers. >And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia. Nonsense.

What are those engineers doing currently, then? It takes time to actually build a technology base for somethin like nuclear, and it generally requires that you are building and running nuclear power plants.

And even after years of the war in Ukraine, Russia is still the second largest source of uranium for the EU, making up a quarter of imports

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar + batteries is still cheaper than nuclear

In what timeframe? Solar panels last 20-25 years. Nuclear power plants last for 50+ years and use fraction of the space that solar. It is hard to believe that the TCO is lower. Usually people just looking at the price in the short term and comparing that. Batteries are a whole different can of worms. Super toxic and you need a high volume of those because the energy density is much lower. https://energyeducation.ca/e…

and in 0-10 years solar make infinitely more power than a nuclear plant.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#66
post #22

The problem with nuclear in Italy is just one: how many time have you read about a public bridge fallen because of bad construction? Same for roads, houses and so on. Most of the time the reason is the company building those, trying to spend less in materials and avoiding regulations - something unfortunately not so unusual in Italy. So imagine what could happen with a nuclear plant... (nuclear is safe, building in I…

> The problem with nuclear in Italy is just one:

Remember when Italy paid the mafia to get rid of nuclear waste, they put it on old boats and sunk them :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27...

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

Just don't build the plant next to Vesuvius. The biggest recorded earthquake in Europe was 7.1 magnitude, compared to 7.4 that caused tsunami that hit fukushima.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#68
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

National stereotypes... Italy's the 3rd largest economy in the EU, and 8th in the world, with an advanced technology sector to boot. And if they somehow cannot figure it out, their French neighbors most assuredly can.

not exactly a stereotype, just facts. for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponte_Morandi_collapse and also check what happens (now more than ever) everytime there's a big rain in a lot of italian places. I'm very concerned about this.

Bridge failures regularly happen in many countries, including France and South Korea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures#2000%E...

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#69
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

By not ignoring studies that find risk of tsunami damage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident#Pri...

And how do you stop that? It’s like saying a kingdom is kept safe for its people by avoiding corrupt kings

Your link shows a deeper root cause

> TEPCO admitted that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants

Scientific and engineering reports don’t solve that one

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar + batteries is still cheaper than nuclear

In what timeframe? Solar panels last 20-25 years. Nuclear power plants last for 50+ years and use fraction of the space that solar. It is hard to believe that the TCO is lower. Usually people just looking at the price in the short term and comparing that. Batteries are a whole different can of worms. Super toxic and you need a high volume of those because the energy density is much lower. https://energyeducation.ca/e…

In the timeframe of the duration of the installation. (Total cost for the whole project + total costs for fuels & maintainance) / (kW generated * lifetime of the project)
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