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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

#791

Post by natmaka »

JackSlateur wrote: post #759
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.

From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem. The issue is political. Ibidem for the fuel: yes, you can depends on wild countries; You can also depends on Australia, Canada and India, which seems like not-so-bad countries (in my opinion);

> From a technical point of view, nuclear waste is a solved problem

When it comes to nuclear waste repositories real experts official publish: "Internationally, it is understood that there is no reliable scientific basis for predicting the process or likelihood of inadvertent human intrusion."

Source: https://international.andra.fr/sites/international/files/201...

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#792

Post by zvrba »

lm28469 wrote: post #699
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…

> 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. Really ? They don't mind being one of the top oil exporter in the world though

Oil and gas extraction is "invisible", platforms far, far away on the sea. Nothing to complain about. :)

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#793

Post by natmaka »

pzo wrote: post #703
gnatolf wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'recyclable' is such a vague term. E.g. radiation-affected typically easily recycled materials are very hard to deal with (think e.g. pipe steel from power plants) and are effectively non-recyclable, instead of close to 100% recyclable, as their non-contaminated counterparts. Opposed to that, battery recycling is mostly hard to deal with in terms of economics, and admittedly the chemistry involved is complex, but at…

I'm talking about wind turbine wings. A lot of stuff is fiberglass and have to be buried.

In many Western nations bury them is now forbidden. Most are burnt in cement kilns (producing useful heat).

In France, 95% of the mass of a wind turbine must be recycled (legal obligation), the concrete base is not spared and the law requires wind farm operators to lock (upfront) a financial guarantee (deposit).

Recyclable blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones are being considered: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-che...

According to EDF (multinational electric utility company owned by the government of France, the giant in France, owning and operating all nuke plants) 94% of a solar panel is recyclable. In France most of it is already recycled.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#794

Post by natmaka »

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.

> Nuclear can be turned up and down relatively easily

TLDR: it doesn't work this way.

Detailed version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41796580

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#795

Post by [deleted] »

AndyPa32 wrote: post #587
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 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.

[deleted]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#796

Post by s1mplicissimus »

unturned3 wrote: post #349
s1mplicissimus wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about long term environmental cost? I might consider your preference if you agree to have all the nuclear waste dumped in your families backyard. Until then, I'd rather not have that waste produced in the first place.

> if you agree to have all the nuclear waste dumped in your families backyard What an unnecessary strawman. Nobody's gonna have nuclear waste in their backyards. It's all gonna get stored safety in glass vials under geologically inactive mountains.

Thanks for the downvote and not being able to distinguish hyperbole from strawman. I guess the former is the price for getting the amusement of the latter.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#797

Post by kranke155 »

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.

The reason to be against nuclear energy is quite simple - human error.

Unlike flying, we’ve not shown nuclear energy to be sufficiently idiot-proof for many people to be comfortable with it. That and the fact that radiation is invisible, which makes it somehow almost paranormal.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#798

Post by MichaelDickens »

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.

The reason I used to oppose nuclear energy is that its proponents would say nuclear waste isn't a problem, but they would never explain why it isn't a problem. I knew the half-life of uranium was 4 billion years; I didn't see how you could possibly make that safe, and nobody on the pro-nuclear side seemed to have an explanation, so I assumed that no explanation existed.

(Turns out the answer is that you can store nuclear waste deep underground at geologically stable locations where tectonics won't cause it to eventually resurface.)

(Also radioactive waste isn't uranium and the half-life is considerably shorter than 4 billion years, although it's still quite long.)

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#799

Post by Angostura »

gilbetron wrote: post #769
teamonkey wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Rooftop solar accounts for more deaths.

On the other hand, me falling of my roof, isn't going to put sheep farmers livelihoods at risk 1,800 miles away

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#800

Post by Angostura »

m101 wrote: post #591
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.

It is expensive because of the regulatory burdens associated with making it unreasonably safe. By unreasonably safe I mean that harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific, and death rate expectations are far lower than alternative power generation technologies. Nuclear fuel storage is relatively straightforward, and volumes have potential to be reduced 30x through recycling.

> harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific,

Where are your scientific alternative models?

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