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All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

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Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#81

Post by kergonath »

theGeatZhopa wrote: post #62

What about drilling for geothermal energy? And what about thermal fusion which is upcoming? For what do we need fission any longer, except to bridge the time up to availability of fusion? As long there is no good concept for the nuclear waste, that long nuclear shouldn't be praised as solution to anything, except for bridging. There have been news on here, for a newly developed technique to "recycle" and/or to "treat…

> And what about thermal fusion which is upcoming?

Fusion is great, and we are making good progress. It could plausibly change everything in a couple of decades. But it is not available today, so we cannot rely on it. That’s the thing when you follow the latest r&d developments: we talk about a technology well before it is useable, so all we can use at a given moment are mature technologies that are old news.

Example with fusion: we’ve been talking about ITER for 20 years, but it’s not finished building yet. Other developments like spherical tokamaks and stellarators are nowhere near prototypes at the industrial scale.

If we are serious about climate change, we need to act now, which means putting in place solutions based on technologies that are already mature and useable. Waiting 10 years for the next fancy energy source with blockchain, or the mythical carbon capture solution (which cannot possibly work with anything resembling the current markets) is reckless.

> There have been news on here, for a newly developed technique to "recycle" and/or to "treat" the nuclear waste by utilizing a collider.

There are much better and cheaper ways of doing that, using breeder reactors. We’re further along the readiness path than with fusion, but they still require some engineering before we can build them.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#82

Post by DisjointedHunt »

asteroidbelt wrote: post #72
asteroidbelt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. No they don’t. Wind and solar energy output can be very well predicted for hours and days ahead.

OK, lots of downvotes and no replies. HN becomes very toxic these days.

This is sadly true and frequent downvoters need to have their points halved.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#83

Post by malthuswaswrong »

That's how you know none of this is real. If mankind was actually on the brink of extinction all options would be on the table. Especially one that offers free unlimited energy. Mankind does not have an energy generation problem. It only has an energy storage problem.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#84

Post by mlindner »

driest wrote: post #73

I am a fan of nuclear energy for various reasons, and it's obvious that the safety and waste problems can be solved with new technology like small modular reactors with inherently safe designs. However, even I realize that nuclear energy is not viable to significantly combat climate change due to the following reasons: * The technology is not there yet. There are a lot of promising companies that are trying to solve…

> * nuclear energy is way to expensive. Wind and solar are much cheaper. current numbers are roughly 50% cheaper for renewables, and while lots of companies promise cheaper nuclear design, these claims are unproven and the renewables are also still significantly improving in cost. The nuclear cost models I've seen also ignore most of the storage and security cost for handling the waste for millenia. There are cheaper alternatives with existing and proven technology. Power to gas for example has an efficiency of roughly 50%. which funny enough corresponds to its cost advantage over nuclear. simply building a lot more wind and solar capacity and using power to gas to fill existing gas storage systems with excess energy from renewables has roughly the same cost as nuclear, without the safety and proliferation headache, and the added advantage of long term storage.

Wind and solar aren't that much cheaper (or actually usually much more expensive), when you include the batteries that are required for them to operate as the entire grid. Right now they can only displace SOME not ALL of the energy generation of a country (unless you have huge natural resources of hydro or geothermal energy that can act as that base load). Nuclear is needed for that baseload, or tons and tons of batteries. Taken in that respect Nuclear is cheaper than solar and wind, for that purpose. Grids will eventually need to go somewhere around 80% solar/wind and 20% nuclear/geothermal/hydro (+/- 15%).

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#85

Post by cbg0 »

beders wrote: post #59
beders wrote: post #46

Good. Focus on renewables + storage. Anything else is too costly and too late. (BTW, 10 countries are running on 95%-100% renewables now. Why can't the US?)

and the pro nuclear hacker news cohorts are already on their way down voting. Do me a favor and google nuclear power plant opportunity cost and read.

Do yourself a favor and write more thought out comments instead of "go google X" before complaining about down votes.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#86

Post by apendleton »

SllX wrote: post #23
ianai wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when the incumbent, fossil fuel energy, has been propped up by subsidies and unpaid externalities for centuries.

A century, I could maybe see. A century and maybe a plural amount of decades, perhaps. Gonna need you to cite that plural centuries though.

Coal was already in reasonably widespread use in industrial processes 200 years ago, and produced unpaid-for externalities then just as it does now (actually worse ones, presumably, given that air quality was not yet regulated in any meaningful way).

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#87

Post by DisjointedHunt »

ianai wrote: post #4
chuckee wrote: post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

Especially when the incumbent, fossil fuel energy, has been propped up by subsidies and unpaid externalities for centuries.

Please don’t fall for the villianization that the media adopt to push an agenda.

Energy is a fundamental need for society to flourish.

Fossil fuels have one of the highest energy densities and hence have been used for ages. We have much to be thankful for thanks to fossil fuels being around.

We are in a position today to bring change and I’m all for that. Losing sight of the benefits of energy simply because some sources have a negative connotation attached sets us up for failure.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#88

Post by Goety »

ep103 wrote: post #70
Goety wrote: post #19

Nuclear is not a palatable political solution for a lot of people and it is easily simpler to reject the proliferation of such materials. The current 'theater' from a geopolitical standpoint for nuclear is China and it does not appear to be succeeding well. I don't expect France to succeed given all that has occurred. Smaller nuclear devices will need constant care and monitoring that it is highly likely people will…

What happened with France?

Currently Macron is trying to promote 'french nuclear power plants' and 'small nuclear reactors' across the globe. Both geopolitical opponents and activists are agains this.

https://fortune.com/2021/10/12/nuclear-power-insulates-franc...

French problems in China nuclear reactor:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/business/china-nuclear-po...

https://weatherboy.com/as-chinese-nuclear-incident-unfolds-e...

There are multiple nuclear reactors being built in China at present.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#89

Post by sandGorgon »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #80
sandGorgon wrote: post #61

So a lot of the discussions here are around EU or US opinions about nuclear power. The problem is something entirely different. India and China will move to emphatically reject coal restrictions during COP26. Remember India has probably some of the largest investments in renewable rightnow. But I dont think people outside of these countries have even an idea of the amount of hunger for power that is being generated a…

China can build nuclear power plants and indeed is building a large number of them. But as you mention the demand for energy is vast and they can't 'just' get rid of coal.

China's nuclear power plants come from the US. Westinghouse's bankruptcy set back the targets for many years.

Of course, the big problem is also geopolitical concerns here.

I would say that India is in a better position here (on geopolitics), however the tech transfer from US even to India has been iffy at best.

Here's a bigger problem - India has set a goal to switch to electrical vehicles by 2030. If that happens, all gasoline/petrol/diesel consumption will switch to coal.

Which means that switching to EV will double India's pollution norms. Unless nuclear power takes over.

Re: All Applications for Nuclear Energy at COP26 Rejected

#90

Post by mlindner »

arrrg wrote: post #6
chuckee wrote: post #3

It's so frustrating seeing nuclear pitted against renewables, while fossil fuel powerplants are still operating/being built, whose baseline power could be replaced by nuclear. But somehow the idea took hold that nuclear would be built instead of solar, and not instead of coal.

With renewables baseline doesn’t make sense. Nuclear doesn’t combine well with renewables, not in a way that would complete the picture. Meaning: you can’t build something that works with only those two building blocks. Even more: baseline is not at all needed with renewables. Renewables need to be combined with power sources that can be turned on and off quickly and on demand. Nuclear emphatically cannot provide tha…

Nuclear power can shed energy as heat with a massive radiator. You don't need to shut it off, you can just "waste it" when there's over supply.
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