Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

weplanet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 1001 posts

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#721

Post by Krasnol »

This is the actual judgement: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62...

One of the reasons they judged this way is the lack of feasible low-carbon alternatives. Which is hilarious because we're talking about EU taxpayer money here. Money that can be spend only once. If you spend it on a nuclear reactor which may or may not be build within 10 years, you can't spend it on those "feasible low-carbon alternatives" which we already have and which would have produced a lot of energy in that construction time.

The court however said also, that the strict regulations, which are often the main argument of nuclear fans, are not to be lowered. Therefore there is no outcome for nuclear where it will get cheaper. The French, which have never stopped building nuclear all over the world, still didn't manage to get it cheaper. There are always cost explosions which cause the energy price to rise over time.

Which brings us back to why we're even talking about this:

France has a fleet which needs more and more maintenance. It is costly and the state already supports every Watt of nuclear energy through their tarif bleu. They desperately need this EU money to support this show. Without it, they'd be forced to innovate and expand on renewables, like the rest of the planet.

...but just like the Germans with their fossil fuel cars, they'll try to keep it alive as long as possible, even though the market comes apart around them.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#722

Post by Nursie »

rootsofallevil wrote: post #624
freetonik wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long build times are often the result of constantly changing regulations. Also it’s interesting that build times in Japan are almost 2 times smaller than in US.

Nuclear doesn't have a great record in other countries either. I might have the wrong figures but Hinkley Points C is over 2 times over budget and likely to be 5+ years late. The exemption being France and maybe China? France did a programme of nuclear power stations rather than the 1 or 2 offs that seem to be the norm elsewhere and that seems to have worked pretty well. I'd be surprised if HPC is competitive with so…

It won’t be competitive with anything.

But that’s OK, Theresa May signed a guarantee that they’d get paid an uncompetitive price by the taxpayer, regardless.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#723

Post by Nursie »

jeroenhd wrote: post #680
AndyPa32 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with cheapest. If you factor in twenty years build time and nuclear waste disposal, the whole thing is not economically viable. Then there's a problem with nuclear fuel. The sources are mostly countries you don't want to depend on. You are of course right with your assessment that nuclear is green, safe and eco-friendly. That's a hard one to swallow for a lot of eco activists.

Until we solve the long-term energy storage problem that renewable sources have, we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter. So far the cleanest solution we've come up with is gas plants, but gas plants made Europe extremely dependent on Russia. The alternatives are oppressive regimes or the US, which has been starting trade wars seemingly out of boredom…

> we're going to need a backup of some sort. Something you can turn up late at night in the middle of winter.

AFAICT this is not really nuclear. They excel at constant production, not switch ability to fill in around renewables.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#724

Post by teamonkey »

m101 wrote: post #561

I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.

> I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place.

The context is a long string of nuclear incidents throughout the Cold War through to the ‘90s.

Not just Chernobyl, not just Fukushima, but the string of disasters at Windscale / Sellafield and many others across the globe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...

These disasters were huge, newsworthy and alarmingly regular. People read about those getting sick and dying directly as a result. They felt the cleanup costs as taxpayers. They saw how land became unusable after a large event, and, especially terrifying for those who had lived as adults through Cold War, saw the radioactive fallout blown across international borders by the wind.

It’s not Greenpeace or an anti-nuclear lobby who caused the widespread public reaction to nuclear. It was the public reaction seeing it with their own eyes, and making an understandable decision that they didn’t like the risks.

Chernobyl was one hammer blow to the coffin lid, Fukushima the second, but nuclear power was already half-dead before either of those events, kept alive only by unpopular political necessity.

I’m not even anti-nuclear myself, but let’s be clear: the worldwide nuclear energy industry is itself to blame for the lack of faith in nuclear energy.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#725

Post by tomatocracy »

sdfssdf wrote: post #713
pzo wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's not 24/7 and europe even worse in winter and fall. Solar is unrealistic to replace most energy usage [1]. In EU it's just less than 5% usage. In germany less than 6% usage. And wind is not a replacement either (less than 11% energy usage in germany). And just for comparison in france nuclear power plants provides 37% of energy [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

A look at destatis tells me something else for Germany (in 2024): Solar has a share of 15 %, and wind 28 %. In total 57 % of the produced energy comes from renewable sources. ( https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ... )

I think you're looking at electricity here, not energy. Energy is much more than electricity.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#726

Post by dvtkrlbs »

flohofwoe wrote: post #582
m101 wrote: post #561

I think a good exercise for the reader is to reflect on why they were ever against nuclear power in the first place. Nuclear power was always the greenest, most climate friendly, safest, cheapest (save for what we do to ourselves), most energy dense, most long lasting, option.

> most long lasting ...which also applies to nuclear waste unfortunately, and that answers part of your question - e.g. as irrational as it may be, but at least in Germany nobody wants to have a nuclear waste storage in their backyard (the other part of the answer is Chornobyl - and for the same 'not in my backyard' reason). Also when looking at recent years, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have a few large nucle…

The annoying thing is recycling nuclear waste is kind of a solved problem. I've watched this video a while ago but iirc it is just more expensive to build a reactor that can also recycle its own waste. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzQ3gFRj0Bc

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#727

Post by ZeroGravitas »

sdfssdf wrote: post #713
pzo wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's not 24/7 and europe even worse in winter and fall. Solar is unrealistic to replace most energy usage [1]. In EU it's just less than 5% usage. In germany less than 6% usage. And wind is not a replacement either (less than 11% energy usage in germany). And just for comparison in france nuclear power plants provides 37% of energy [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

A look at destatis tells me something else for Germany (in 2024): Solar has a share of 15 %, and wind 28 %. In total 57 % of the produced energy comes from renewable sources. ( https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-Unternehmen/Energ... )

They are trying to switch the conversation from electricity where renewables are making unmistakably swift progress, to all energy (e.g. gas for heat in homes and factories and oil for cars and trucks).

They think the horrific inefficiency of fossil fuels in these uses makes progress look slow and futile as it massively inflates the total energy usage.

In reality, once we get the easy bits of renewable electricity done and are at 80% carbon free electricity, these other markets let us avoid the hard part of getting to 100% clean energy but still make rapid progress on decarbonisation.

An EV or heat pump running on mostly clean energy is a 5 or 6x improvement in carbon even before you account for the grid benefits of having such a large amount of battery and heat storage attached to the grid.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#728

Post by tsoukase »

Price per Wh plays no role in the coming decades. Solid fuels can become x10 or x100 more expensive as they deplete. So the now extensive nuclear can become relatively cheap.

The globe must change its behavior NOW: electricity prices at night, under shade or without wind must become very extensive because they need extensive tech (batteries, nuclear, fuels).

If I were a regulator for a day I would strive making fossil fuels and night elecricity x10 more expensive and leave the market regulate by itself. In ten years I would make them x10 once more.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#729

Post by tomatocracy »

nilslindemann wrote: post #707
kolinko wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far it was either the cheapest or the safest. Also, solar is now both cheaper and safer.

Yep, the data suggests that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

This doesn't measure the cost of providing dispatchable electricity though. If I want 1MWh of electricity at night provided by solar, it's going to cost more than solar's LCoE because I will also need to pay for a way to store and dispatch it.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#730

Post by slightwinder »

mpweiher wrote: post #649
tiberius_p wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the anti-nuclear fever went viral in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear accident caused by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. I think the correct lesson to be learned from that experience is not to built nuclear power plants in places where they can be damaged by natural disasters...and not to call for all nuclear power plants around the world to be shut down.

Or if you build them there, build them so they can withstand that disaster. There was another similar plant even closer to the epicenter, and it was hit with a (slightly) higher tsunami crest. It survived basically undamaged and even served as shelter for tsunami refugees. Because they had built the tsunami-wall to spec. And didn't partially dismantle it to make access easier like what was done in Fukushima. Oh, and…

> Or if you build them there, build them so they can withstand that disaster.

You can't build to withstand humans ignorance. You always can argue to do this or that, but if the responsible managers won't approve it, it's all just theory and good hopes. Even worse if the ignorance grows over time; because the last decades it worked out, surely it will work another decade or two...

That's why things like nuclear are so problematic, because small neglections can explode into cataclysmic events.

Post reply on HN