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EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

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Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#761

Post by pqtyw »

tomatocracy wrote: post #733
Nursie wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily. It's on/off that takes a long time. And you can supplement nuclear with pumped storage hydro to steepen its turn up/down curve in extremis.

What's the point though? Isn't the variable cost of nuclear very low in relative terms?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#762

Post by pqtyw »

zvrba wrote: post #554
jama211 wrote: post #84

I’m totally fine with nuclear honestly, but I feel like I don’t understand something. No one seems to be able to give me a straight answer with proper facts that explain why we couldn’t just make a whole load more renewable energy generators instead. Sure, it might cost more, but in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no?

Nuclear has the highest energy density (kWh produced per km2). "Renewables" need much larger areas to produce equivalent power. This means that habitats for many species are negatively affected or destroyed. This is an ongoing debate in Norway where local people are strongly against wind turbines because they want to preserve the nature as it is. EDIT: Relevant poster in the picture. I once was approached by Greenpea…

> because they want to preserve the nature as it is.

In Norway? Or by nature as it is you mean managed nature "parks" or reindeer herding areas?

Don't Scandinavians generally vehemently support the eradication of native species like wolves (despite much bigger number of them doing just fine in much denser areas like Italy or Poland).

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#763

Post by jenadine »

teamonkey wrote: post #724
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.wik…

Don't judge plane safety from the design of the brothers Wright aircraft

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#765

Post by pqtyw »

LinXitoW wrote: post #583
zvrba wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear has the highest energy density (kWh produced per km2). "Renewables" need much larger areas to produce equivalent power. This means that habitats for many species are negatively affected or destroyed. This is an ongoing debate in Norway where local people are strongly against wind turbines because they want to preserve the nature as it is. EDIT: Relevant poster in the picture. I once was approached by Greenpea…

I obviously don't know about Norway, but in most developed countries, the number one reason for habitat destruction or disruption is going to be animal agriculture, or highspeed road infrastructure. While I can't prove it, it seems too convenient that people suddenly care about "nature" right after they've fucked it up for so many other reasons.

> suddenly care about "nature"

Obviously its extremely arbitrary and selective.

https://www.wwf.no/dyr-og-natur/truede-arter/ulv-i-norge/ret...

Moral posturing and virtue signalling is a huge part of Scandinavian culture in general.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#766

Post by [deleted] »

JackSlateur wrote: post #757
nilslindemann wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And some of those data seems sane: the cost of solar panels reduces due to tech improvements: ok The cost of coal increases a bit, maybe due to geopolicital issues: ok, seems legit The cost of nuclear increases .. why ? Why the step between 2016 and 2017 ? Does tech "de-improved" ? More insights would be interesting

[deleted]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#767

Post by spookie »

xkbarkar wrote: post #732

You know what, let’s turn popular city parks to windmill and solarparks. NY central park for example. Copenhagen has a few beloved open green places we could clean out and replace with solarcells, so does Berlin. Im unscientifically guessing support for nc energy would rise very quickly and wed have a whole bunch of them within a decade. Source, I live near a windmill, they are loud as f*k. I drive by solaparks nearl…

Yeah have seen them. Down south of EU, in Portugal, they are buying land used for agriculture for these huge solar farms. And it is as sad as it is here. Surely, food is more important no? If they were placed in some deserts like in Spain... maybe they make sense, but these are very arable lands.

Wind is yeah... a whole other beast, although I do like what they have done in the Baltic and North seas.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#768

Post by pqtyw »

m101 wrote: post #581
Luker88 wrote: post #559

I am not sure people understand the implications of this. First, it's not just nuclear, it's also Natural gas. Second, lots of nations have incentives for "clean" energy. And now magically, all those incentives apply to nuclear and gas. It's a money grab from nuclear and gas manufacturers. It's not that the courts were involved for nothing. Still, we should use more nuclear. If only it was less expensive to build...

Nuclear + gas is the climate friendly solution.

Wasn't gas what killed nuclear in the 80s (in addition to the moral panic)?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#769

Post by gilbetron »

teamonkey wrote: post #724
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.wik…

And yet if you look at the "Fatalities" column, you see a stream of zeroes with a handful of non-zeroes, the worst being Chernobyl at 50 direct fatalities. Rooftop solar accounts for more deaths.

Nuke plants are scary when they fail, but the actual threat is way lower than we play it out to be.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#770

Post by pqtyw »

grafmax wrote: post #650
m101 wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear + gas is the climate friendly solution.

Gas isn’t climate friendly just because of its debatable attractiveness vs coal. And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate. Let’s not pretend it’s some panacea. Renewables are better than both.

> And nuclear comes with catastrophic risks that require large costs to mitigate

Those are still very low compared to fossil fuels. I mean in hindsight if that was something people cared about 40-50 years ago we'd be in a much better place climate change wise.

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