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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

#781

Post by dalyons »

strawhatguy wrote: post #401
kieranmaine wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's really a question that should be directed at renewables: "If renewables are so cheap and fast to deploy, how come 39 years after Chernobyl, Germany still cannot get below France in CO2 emission?" Because renewables and storage have only been produced at the scale and price required to achieve this for the last 5 years. [1] The following article "Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes…

just looked at 2, using their own numbers, and it says 97% to 24/365, in a sunny area (Las Vegas), which is like an outage 43 minutes out of every day (24 * 0.03 * 60). That's not what many would consider as 24/365, and certainly not "every hour of every day".

If we got to 97% and use gas backups or whatever, we have already clearly won.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#782

Post by natmaka »

tatref wrote: post #636
rootsofallevil wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In France, the last construction is Flamanville EPR. It is at least 5 times over budget and 15 years late https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pl...

At least 5 times, indeed: it was due to cost 3.3 billion euros, its cost to date is 23.7, it it not running at full power and a major update (reactor cover) is already planned.

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/01/14/epr-de-fl...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#783

Post by goobatrooba »

spookie wrote: post #767
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.

Seems like an economics problem? Is farmland cheaper than buying some otherwise less usable land? Or is there now much land available and a huge unmet energy need? And there are also models to use solar that still allow some farming below (e.g. strawberry, beans, greenhouses, ... But maybe not cost effective in this case, or the incentives don't align well.

Have you looked into why this model is chosen?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#784

Post by zvrba »

pqtyw wrote: post #762
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…

> 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).

By "nature" i mean e.g., mountains. Not necessarily managed park. IIRC, the people have also protested against high-voltage lines because... dunno, they "ruin the view" across the fjord I guess.

> reindeer herding areas

There was recently a case in the highest court, Sami people vs state where they wanted newly built wind park in Finnmark to be torn down because... reindeer, native land and rights. They (Sami) won. Funnily, some researchers have shown that reindeer got used to the windmills quickly with seemingly no adverse effects. (Truth to be told, Sami are also internally divided on many issues. There's also a bitter (relatively recent) history between Sami and the state where the state had suppressed Sami culture over decades.)

After the verdict, some lower-ranked politicians said that Finnmark is about to become a museum, no development will now be possible there. I jokingly once thought: give the whole area to Russia so Sami can demonstrate in front of Kremlj.

I don't think the windmills will get torn down, and what happens next, I have no idea.

(For reference: the area is about 48000 km2 and population is around 75000 people. Which gives about 1.5 person per square kilometer.)

> eradication of native species like wolves

Not eradication but controlled number reduction. I'm personally opposed to it, but farmers somehow have a strong-hold on the government there. ATTACKS ON THE LIVE-STOCK! I don't know how much financial damage they suffer yearly, but that's the official explanation.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#785

Post by goobatrooba »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #750
mentalgear wrote: post #743

France, heavily invested in nuclear, now has to shut down their reactors each summer as, due to climate change, the cooling water from rivers cant be used any more to cool the reactors. So much about being future proof. And let's not even get into the argument why no private company ever financed a nuclear reactor, but only build them with huge subsidies from states. Hint: it is because they are completely uneconomic…

> the cooling water from rivers cant be used any more to cool the reactors. So much about being future proof. There are more reactor types than water-cooled reactors, and modern energy plants should use cooling towers even if some water reservoir is available, nuclear or not. > it is because they are completely uneconomically This is why private sector cannot provide infrastructure. State is not a company.

Not all need a river to cool but every single nuclear power plant needs a consistent water source 1) to actually generate the energy (steam!), 2) to cool, 3) as emergency safeguard when things go wrong. If you followed the news about Russia's attack on Ukraine and the risks to Zaporizia much of it was about fear of an incident, among others due to water sources or the energy to bring water to the plant being at risk

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#787

Post by epistasis »

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

There are several factors, but the single biggest reason for nuclear's ever increasing cost is due to construction productivity.

All other forms of productivity have gone up drastically. However construction productivity remains stuck at a constant. And as other areas are more productive, we need to still pay those in construction competitive wages or else they would switch to more productive jobs with higher wages. (Let's just elide the disconnect between wages rising fully with productivity increases, but they do rise some!)

Despite being far more wealthy today than centuries ago, we don't build cathedrals with super intricate stonework, because labor is so much more expensive.

I fear that nuclear is like the gothic cathedral: something that was far easier to do when labor costs were low, but at wealth increases it becomes far more difficult to make economic sense.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#788

Post by sandos »

pqtyw wrote: post #762
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…

> 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).

"Don't Scandinavians generally vehemently support the eradication of native species like wolves" - Don't know where you got this idea from. Yes, Sweden has started allowing licensed (very regulated) hunting of wolf, but only because the population has increased a lot. There is already tension between livestock farmers and wolfs in places, and I believe allowing wolfes to become much more than what we currently would eventuallt results in _fewer_ wolfs because they would start getting hated.

The greens have long been staunch supportes of wolfs in Sweden, and its the right which is not. Atm we do have a right leaning government so... Im sure it will sway the other way eventually.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#789

Post by natmaka »

looofooo0 wrote: post #628
rootsofallevil wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.

> South Korean company build a NPP in 7 years in Saudi Arabia.

Barakah (delivered March 2024) was late (by about 3 years?), undersold (KEPCO hadn't any other ongoing project and the Korean government at the time wanted a nuclear phase-out) and various tricks are now known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_nuclear_scandal

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#790

Post by greesil »

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.

It's a bit more nuanced than this, no? It's better to reflect on why we let important things like nuclear energy go to the lowest bidder, or private entities that want to maximize short term profit.
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