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

#661

Post by cx42net » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 7:38 AM UTC

A few things annoy me on this article.

About deaths: The author says nuclear causes fewer deaths than the rest. Maybe that's true, but he (voluntarily?) omits to take into consideration long term health issues related to incidents. The Tchernobyl accident released radioactve cloud that affected many people that died of cancer or are having health issues related to it. Worse than that, it's almost impossible to track who got sick because of those clouds. So yeah, maybe just a "small set" of people died DIRECTLY following nuclear incidents, but long term effects cannot be ignored just for the sake of the argument.

Next, the waste. "stored in a walmart, that degrade over time". Again, the author omits to say the duration ... over time is an understatement here, you will be long gone before that "waste" is not dangerous for environment.

I stopped reading after that. The post is written in a way to force you to accept his arguments by omiting half of the true story. That's not journalism.

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

#662

Post by dang » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 8:12 AM UTC

eMSF wrote: post #211

eMSF wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Olkiluoto was not an exercise to make nuclear power affordable. The company was granted with a permission to build a single reactor, the first permit in decades, so they chose the most powerful one available, a first of its kind. With all the overruns, it has certainly proved to be an expensive build. However, it's all been done with private money, unlike the so called cheap renewables that cost the public hundreds o…

Hey, downvoter. You forgot to name yourself as to who we should look up to. In any case, I'll dedicate an extra litre of petrol for you -- hope it was worth it! (I hope you understand why you "greens" don't fare so well when it comes to elections -- you don't have a message to stand on!)

Can you please not post dross comments to HN? They break the site guidelines in many ways. It would be great if you're review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart.

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

#663

Post by ftr45 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 8:57 AM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #327

macspoofing wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Renewable energy is cheaper than nuclear, or will be imminently. Solar and wind are plenty cheap. That's not their problem. The problem, as the article stated, is that "they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon." So now what do you do?

Passive solar design as a requirement for new construction would help reduce how much energy buildings require. It also makes them more comfortable, not less. Design cities for pedestrians, bicycles and public transit. This will help reduce heat island effect, thereby reducing the need for AC. I slept in a tent for nearly six years. I plugged in at the library during the day. I got by on battery power in the evening…

>It's really not a given that we must use high levels of electricity to maintain a high quality of life

this is just an intellectual dishonest excuse to ignore nuclear energy

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

#664

Post by ftr45 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #628

ftr45 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I mean, it's half the cost of nuclear it's not https://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/pubs/2015/7057-proj-costs-elect...

Your report is from 2015. Given how rapidly PV costs have continued to decline (and how major nuclear efforts collapsed with cost explosions since then), that's useless.

> Your report is from 2015

so ?

>Given how rapidly PV costs have continued to decline (and how major nuclear efforts collapsed with cost explosions since then), that's useless.

you say so, but the one with evidence is me not you

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

#665

Post by ftr45 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:07 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #629

ftr45 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe you should try living in 2019, rather than 2012 or 2015.

maybe 4 years aren't so relevant,maybe you should bring proof's of what you say

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

#666

Post by ftr45 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

eigenvector wrote: post #218

wiggler00m wrote: post #207

Renewable energy is cheaper than nuclear, or will be imminently. Proponents of nuclear tend to ignore the long-run costs associated with nuclear (eg. waste transport and storage), and the potential for cost blowouts due to acute disasters like Fukushima (estimated cost to taxpayers: USD $100 Billion). The fact tax money is going towards Fukushima highlights another problem with nuclear power: the agency problem. The…

One of the biggest advantages renewable energy has over both nuclear and mega-dams is that the size of project required to achieve the commonly quoted LCOE (levelized cost of energy) is much, much smaller. 50 MW or perhaps less per site, versus 1000+ MW. This means: 1. no mega projects that attract similarly sized public opposition 2. 1-2 year construction timelines instead of 10+ 3. much, much less financial and reg…

so the only problems with solar are only caused by idiots who oppose it and regulations

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

#667

Post by ftr45 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #450

danmaz74 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dams produce renewable energy.

The problem is the "mega project" part of it, not the means of production. Unlike coal or nuclear, renewables are easily scaled down without creating a huge risk: for coal, you want to go large for efficiency reasons and to ensure that the right set of filters are installed and maintained. For nuclear, there were ideas of building a nuclear power plant in every basement, but given how the power plants we have look li…

>Unlike coal or nuclear, renewables are easily scaled down

beacuse they stop working

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

#668

Post by smueller1234 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #345

smueller1234 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me argue that there's at least one more design flaw: backup generators are generally not very reliable. So for any given plant, there's a comparatively high risk that they don't work when you need them. This risk is non trivial even when the generators are well taken care of (both maintenance and regular test runs) but it's very easy to skimp on the tests. My knowledge is from another industry that relies heavily…

Friend of mine has a high school friend that a maintenance engineer. He has contracts to maintain diesel back up generators for hospitals. And sometimes they don't start. It's very disconcerting when that happens. The other design flaw is diesel or no they require cooling water during shutdown. What bothers me for instance is during the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes the Mississippi ran backwards for a while. During…

To add to that: backup generators are also a logistical mess. Diesel doesn't last infinitely. Do in particular if you expect to run large generators to sustain significant load (like in big data centers, I don't know how significant the load is for the backup gens of a nuclear plant), the amount of diesel you get to store is impressive. Which in turn means that the logistics/tank life issues of the fuel get worse.

The physical&power infrastructure side of big data centers is really quite interesting, by the way. Not something we all get exposed to regularly but I can only encourage anyone who has a chance to learn about it to take that opportunity.

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

#669

Post by mariushn » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

Selecting such a photo for an article aiming to promote nuclear power defeats the purpose. I actually thought that was a coal plant, until reading the fine print.

Maybe the content was written by some folks, and media selection was made by others against nuclear?

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

#670

Post by he0001 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

dirkt wrote: post #582

shanemhansen wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inha…

While I agree mostly what you are saying, I would want to add that one thing we should have in mind and it’s that most of our current risk assessments of nuclear power are done on current technologies. And also the other technologies we could use aren’t risk free either. I think it’s too early to give up on all of the our energy sources, but coal/oil. Unless we find a way to contain all of the emissions immediately.