Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

world-nuclear-news.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 396 posts

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#91

Post by lukan »

troupo wrote: post #71
wkat4242 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space isn't really an issue. There's many places that are no good for building but are great for solar, like mountainsides. Besides, if the Netherlands can have solar then Italy can too. It's much less densely populated. And nuclear lasts 50+ years with constant maintenance, which is really expensive.

> no good for building but are great for solar, like mountainsides. And what's the cost of building on a mountainside, and how much is maintenance? > Besides, if the Netherlands can have solar then Italy can too How much solar are they building in comparison to other sources? > And nuclear lasts 50+ years with constant maintenance, which is really expensive. Unlike solar panels built on mountainsides which are not su…

Maintaining solar panels will be always way, way, waaay cheaper, than maintaining a nuclear reactor and disposing safely the waste.

Batteries would need to be cheaper, that is all that is needed for italy. In the south, they have sun all year around.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#92

Post by hocuspocus »

hengheng wrote: post #54
surgical_fire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

As always with nuclear there are a few taboo topics. One of them being fuel supply. For European reactors that seems to be either Mali/Niger, or Russia. Both not excellent if the goal is geopolitical independence. Solar, wind and batteries have no fuel concerns, and they are inherently decentralized.

Are you joking? Renewables mean one order of magnitude more raw materials imports from China and Chinese operated mining in unstable African countries.

With some work and investment European nuclear fuel supply could be 100% free from Russia, which anyway is peanuts compared to billions spent on Russian LNG. Uranium ore can come from Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia, not only African countries.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#93

Post by wizzwizz4 »

klooney wrote: post #50
willvarfar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

You can't. The problem with nuclear is that it needs to be properly maintained forever. If you get an irresponsible government or power company that cheaps out in 30 years, oopsies, you're going to irradiate the local area. It's a lot like trusting your private data to a company. Sure, Google in 2007 is pretty great, but maybe you have some doubts about their integrity in 2025. Too late, they have what they have, for…

You can build systems to fail safe, so that lack of proper maintenance leads to the plant becoming safely inoperable, and only grossly-improper maintenance would cause a fallout incident.

Is this guaranteed to work? The Chernobyl disaster was caused by grossly-improper maintenance, so… :shrug:. No matter how many physical safety mechanisms you have, a determined mechanic could remove them – but at that point, it becomes deliberate sabotage, which is rare, detectable, and not unique to nuclear power plants. (You could probably kill more people by destroying the right dam in the middle of the night.)

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#94

Post by miklosz »

Oh, I hoped it's about nuclear weapons. Pitty, it's not. Now, as US is slowly leaving NATO, European countries should urgently work on increasing their nuclear capabilities, developing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and means of delivery (rockets, bombers, submarines).

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#95

Post by Ekaros »

est31 wrote: post #62
wonderwonder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government can centralize the cost of nuclear. All goes to 1 contractor who builds it. With solar, every house is a different size so each house will have a different cost. Pretty hard political sell to tell your voters you are going to give more to the rich because they have bigger houses. Totally makes sense from a "well they use and pay for more power" perspective but a really hard sell politically. Plus renters g…

Indeed rooftop solar is something that rich people benefit from the most: it's a fun gimmick that people who own houses can use to dodge taxes and network fees. The most cost effective solar deployments are larger industrial setups due to the economics of scale. From a national economy point of view, rooftop solar makes less sense. Someone still needs to pay for the network after all, it just gets onto someone else's…

The direction where market must go on that is clear. Higher standing charges for grid connection, more variable market rates. And maybe also more variable transfer rates. Meaning that roof top solar will get less economical as true costs will shift to times when energy is pulled from the grid. Home batteries will shift some of this, but if you want power after they are dark and everyone else want it too it will be expensive.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#96

Post by kevsamuel »

mg wrote: post #3

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses with solar panels and put batteries in all cellars? It might still be useful to build out nuclear power plants. But the solar+battery approach seems like an easier first step to increase the available power, doesn't it?

Where and when? For how long? Does it include dealing with wastes? Does it include powerlines, maintenance and land?

It's not a universal answer.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#97

Post by TacticalCoder »

willvarfar wrote: post #39
surgical_fire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter. As far as I am concerned, self sufficiency comes before price concerns. Nuclear is very safe and reliable. By all means, EU countries should keep investing in Solar, Wind, Geotermal, etc. but that should be done alongside Nuclear.

> Nuclear is very safe and reliable. How do we stop fukushima-like disasters?

[dead]

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#98

Post by bmelton »

bsza wrote: post #78
mg wrote: post #3

Isn't the price of a KW of solar panels similar to the price of a KW of nuclear power these days? I wonder what hinders us to replace the roofs of all houses with solar panels and put batteries in all cellars? It might still be useful to build out nuclear power plants. But the solar+battery approach seems like an easier first step to increase the available power, doesn't it?

Personally, I will install batteries in my cellar when they no longer spontaneously burst into flames that are impossible to put out. But this shouldn’t even be a requirement as long as you can feed it into the grid.

LiCoO2 / NMC aren't the popular chemistries any more. LiFePo4 is a remarkably stable chemistry, with extremely low risks of fire.

In the unlikely event that they do catch fire, they are extinguishable with water.

Nothing has zero risk, but there are much more stable chemistries available than those that formed this (rational) opinion.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#99

Post by snowwrestler »

Maybe not well known, but during the 20th century a number of nations started a nuclear weapons program, but then were convinced to halt the work by security guarantees by the U.S.

You better believe that every single one of those nations is now revisiting that decision.

For those wondering if Italy can afford to build nuclear: their economy is larger than Russia’s. As is Brazil’s, another nation that put nuclear weapons on hold per U.S. request.

Re: Italy moves to reverse anti-nuclear stance

#100

Post by n3storm »

miklosz wrote: post #94

Oh, I hoped it's about nuclear weapons. Pitty, it's not. Now, as US is slowly leaving NATO, European countries should urgently work on increasing their nuclear capabilities, developing strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and means of delivery (rockets, bombers, submarines).

So you think Americans honestly think nuclearly destroying Europe will give them peace?
Post reply on HN