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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#721

Post by ETH_start »

Kon5ole wrote: post #310
ETH_start wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impression I've gotten is that almost all of the massive bills associated with nuclear power are because of an irrational fear of the radiation. Factoring in all the nuclear disasters and the radiations released from them, nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.

That's kinda like saying we can release the tiger from the cage because it hasn't killed anyone while it was in the cage.

Not quite, because there have been disasters and radiation leaks. And if the number of deaths per megawatt produced is 10,000 times less than coal, despite those radiation leaks, radiation leaks cannot be anywhere as dangerous as commonly perceived.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#722

Post by margalabargala »

simplyluke wrote: post #556

Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind, and opposition to nuclear from environmentalist orgs should be viewed as a massive historical mistake as it set us back decades in moving the needle on carbon emissions. The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record.

> Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind

Not at all. Some people are depopulationists.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#723

Post by sandworm101 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #598
sunaookami wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind Yes hello, these are both my opinions, do I exist for you or not ;)? You can say that we are in a climate crisis AND be anti-nuclear.

Sure, someone can be both concerned about climate change and oppose nuclear power. But it's a largely self-defeating stance: nuclear is the only non-intermittent geographically independent form of clean energy. Dams and geothermal are geographically constrained. Solar and wind are intermittent, as well as varying in output depending on location.

Small thing, dams are not carbon neutral. Depending on location, the plant life they inundate no longer absorbs carbon and, worse yet, the rotting plant life emits methane and other not-good gasses.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#724

Post by laurencerowe »

echelon wrote: post #660
avianlyric wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have done. The Three Mile Island accident happened when it was being operated by Navy vets [1]. Simple training isn’t enough. During the investigation of the accident the Admiral that built and ran the Navy nuclear program was asked how the Navy had managed to operate accident free, and what others could learn. This was his response: > Over the years, many people have asked me how I run the Naval Reactors Progra…

How many people have died on account of nuclear accidents? Vs. coal? Vs. not having enough energy? (eg. blackouts killing hospital ventilators, etc.) ----- Edit: because of HN rate limits, I can't respond to a sibling comment. I'll do that here: > Their safety record is good, but can they generate power at a cost that's commercially competitive? If it's too expensive then the plan doesn't work. Is a purely wind/solar…

Purity isn’t really important. We need to decarbonise as much of our energy grid as we can as quickly as possible since cumulative carbon emissions matter.

Does it make sense for France to replace their existing nuclear power plants with new ones? Possibly, since the existing power generation is clean so there is less rush.

Does spending the effort on building new nuclear outweigh the opportunity costs for others? Given new nuclear plants in Europe are taking 20 years to build I have strong doubts. It seems absolutely clear that wind/solar + batteries can get most countries to 80-90% clean energy faster and at lower cost. And after that happens nuclear seems a very awkward addition to the mix since it is not cost effective to run when it’s power is only needed 10-20% of the time.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#725

Post by igorramazanov »

margalabargala wrote: post #722
simplyluke wrote: post #556

Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind, and opposition to nuclear from environmentalist orgs should be viewed as a massive historical mistake as it set us back decades in moving the needle on carbon emissions. The engineering side of running reactors safely is a solved problem, the US navy has > 7500 reactor-years with a perfect safety record.

> Believing we're in a climate crisis and also being anti-nuclear are mutually exclusive positions in my mind Not at all. Some people are depopulationists.

I've heard an opinion that having less people leads to a technological regression, because some things to create/research are so expensive that they become profitable and functioning only at the world's scale

E.g. China is too small to have an isolated closed market for a competitive and efficient semiconductors manufactoring

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#726

Post by Manuel_D »

sandworm101 wrote: post #723
Manuel_D wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, someone can be both concerned about climate change and oppose nuclear power. But it's a largely self-defeating stance: nuclear is the only non-intermittent geographically independent form of clean energy. Dams and geothermal are geographically constrained. Solar and wind are intermittent, as well as varying in output depending on location.

Small thing, dams are not carbon neutral. Depending on location, the plant life they inundate no longer absorbs carbon and, worse yet, the rotting plant life emits methane and other not-good gasses.

Yes, and pouring concrete also emits carbon dioxide. And building wind turbines requires fossil fuel emissions. And the truck driving solar panels out to the solar farm emits CO2, etc. But at the end of the day, the carbon intensity of dams, nuclear, wind, etc. relative to fossil fuels is near zero: https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/electricity-emissions-around...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#727

Post by thrownthatway »

legulere wrote: post #550
thrownthatway wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What nuclear disasters? Exactly? Name one nuclear disaster at an old nuclear plant whose lessons weren’t applied to the whole fleet.

Chernobyl lacked a containment and there are still reactors of the same type running without containment in Russia.

There’s still 7 RMBK reactors running, I believe.

And other than Chernobyl no melt downs.

So they seem to be fairly reliable if they aren’t run by clowns.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#728

Post by FabHK »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #536
pqtyw wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All nuclear reactors are massively safer than coal power plants though. If you excluded climate change and Co2 emissions entirely and measured harm/deaths adjusted by the amount of power generated the difference would be astronomical.

Or you know, just build renewables and storage. Displace vastly more coal faster with a death per kWh where the only injuries comes from traditional construction and mechanical industry work. No need for any special casing.

> where the only injuries comes from traditional construction and mechanical industry work.

Still count.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#729

Post by FabHK »

soulclap wrote: post #413

I am surprised that a community like HN where a large percentage consists of developers is so positive about a nuclear power plant. One bug could lead to severe damage to everything and everyone around a nuclear power plant. We see those kind of bugs on the front page daily. In my opinion it is absolutely irresponsible to start them up in the first. I have seen too much to actually trust in people always getting thei…

We can engineer planes to function extremely reliably. And power plants operate in more predictable environments than planes.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#730

Post by FabHK »

cryptoneo wrote: post #379

Everytime this comes up, HN is becoming more and more an X-like echo chamber: Touting nukes as the solution to a spike-load problem in a densely populated area, and the waste disposal as a solved problem (by externalizing the cost). Meanwhile the prices dropped further than ever, 20kW peak with 20kWh batteries for EUR 10k, which provides >95% self-sufficiency in a 2p Household and lets you sell more than 80% of the y…

Industrial uses plus those missing 5% are the problem.
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