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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

#911

Post by nilslindemann »

whatevertrevor wrote: post #904
nilslindemann wrote: post #832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how much does a modern jet cost, including insurance? Compared to an armada of solar driven mini drones?

Without doing or seeing the actual math, my intuition leans on the side of it's probably much more efficient to put people together under certain constraints and fly them in one big container, than lots of unconstrained individual containers. See public transport vs cars for a similar tradeoff.

You have not understood the analogy, and I am not explaining it.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#912

Post by jama211 »

BrtByte wrote: post #532
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?

In theory, you can replace nuclear with a massive buildout of renewables and storage and grid upgrades and overcapacity to handle intermittency. The challenge is that doing all of that fast enough

Is it faster or slower than building nuclear plants?

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#913

Post by opo »

tcfhgj wrote: post #546
rnhmjoj wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in theory any amount of power a nuclear plant would generate could also be achieved with large amounts of renewables no? You're exactly right, in theory, in practice it's impossible without some significant amount of energy storage, which we don't really have. I once did this calculation for fun: in Italy, starting from the current energy mix and replacing fossils with more solar while meeting the demand in winter…

Germany sits on storage capacity more than 247 TWh

What is the 247 TWh number referring too?

Germany uses a little over 500 TWh of electricity per year.

Germany has a little more than 20 GWh of grid storage.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#914

Post by uecker »

dgellow wrote: post #834
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.

How is it not economically viable given it is actively used since multiple decades in France? I also disagree with saying it is the cheapest, in practice it is actually pretty expensive compared to solar and wind, but economically nuclear makes a lot of sense, it fits a really good role in the grid

Just that it is used does not mean it is economically viable if the government is deeply involved - which is the case in France.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#915

Post by jama211 »

mikepavone wrote: post #274
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?

You totally can do it with some combination of overbuilding, storage and increased interconnection. It just starts to get expensive the higher the portion of your generation you want to supply with renewables. There's a good Construction Physics article[0] about this (though it simplifies by only looking at solar, batteries and natural gas plants and mostly does not distinguish between peaker and more baseload orient…

Thank you for this, this along with many other comments have really helped me understand.

This isn’t a simple issue, and I think your basic common sense take now mostly aligns with mine (though correct me if I’m wrong) which is something along the lines of that we don’t have to be anti-nuclear specifically but we do have to be bearish because it has downsides that mean if we are going to use it for some specific use case we’d better be sure that the pros are significant to outweigh the natural cons it brings with it.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#916

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

mpweiher wrote: post #651
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…

No, the exceptions are builds like HPC. The average build time is currently 6.5 years. The median is lower at 5.8. The variations across both time and space of those average are neither large nor particularly systematic. There have always been outliers, so if you focus on those you can "prove" anything you like. https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/nuclear-constructi...

Which for western construction creates a dataset weighted around ~1980. Not sure why that is relevant half a century later?

Instead taking the average of all modern western construction and we get close to 15 years.

With the recent insanely subsidies european projects being proposed even the initial timeline calls for a ~10 years build time. Assuming everything goes to plan.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#917

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#918

Post by pfdietz »

pembrook wrote: post #876
pfdietz wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're wrong. Batteries are now fine for diurnal storage, which is their intended use. Batteries are not fine for seasonal storage, but there are alternatives for that when it is needed. China is installing vastly more renewables than nuclear. Their nuclear builds appear to be just a holding action to preserve their capability to build NPPs; that can't last forever.

Yes the alternatives for the seasonal storage problem are...fossil fuels. So obviously if we can't solve the seasonal problem yet with batteries, current battery tech isn't capable enough to make clean energy a reality without Nuclear. Also, China's energy mix is irrelevant for Europe, the two regions have vastly different climates, population distributions, and government. Europe has much bigger seasonal gaps in the…

That's an alternative for the seasonal storage problem, and currently the cheapest one. That doesn't mean other alternatives don't exist, just that those alternatives are not currently competitive with fossil fuels.

One should not use this situation that those alternatives can't exist or be reasonably expected to exist, or that a system using them would be more expensive than a system using nuclear. If that were a valid argument, one could equally argue that because new nuclear cannot compete with natural gas combined cycle for baseload, new nuclear is not an option.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#919

Post by epistasis »

pzo wrote: post #709
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60% of that energy is lost as waste heat and doesn't need replaced as we decarbonise and electrify. For already developed nations predictions are for electricity to double but energy use to halve at the same time as they electrify end uses.

Not everybody live in house and have enough rooftop area. In Europe majority people live in apartments. If you want to have wind warm and solar farm there is also energy wasted with power lines transmission. Energy powerbanks also have energy waste. I'm all in to have energy mix and more people to have solar panels if they can but it's not a holly grail

Take all the land area that we currently devote to oil extraction, refining, delivery, etc.

Just that tiny amount of land is enough to supply the entire world's energy needs, if covered with solar panels.

Power line transmission losses are negligible. We don't need to put solar directly at the site, just as we don't need to put nuclear directly at the site of energy use. The round trip efficiency of energy storage is accounted for in the cost of the storage, whether that storage is hydro, battery, or hydrogen.

Solar really is the holy grail of energy: super cheap, super scalable big, super scalable small, and highly distributable or centralized. Pair that with the incredible cheapness of current batteries, and their falling prices in future years, and we are looking at a future of incredible energy abundance. As long as we are willing to accept it.

Re: EU court rules nuclear energy is clean energy

#920

Post by tiberius_p »

makeitdouble wrote: post #745
tiberius_p wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the anti-nuclear fever went viral in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear accident caused by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. I think the correct lesson to be learned from that experience is not to built nuclear power plants in places where they can be damaged by natural disasters...and not to call for all nuclear power plants around the world to be shut down.

> in places where they can be damaged by natural disasters. And places where they can be damaged by human actions as well. That leaves so many places to build reactors, right ?

I think human actions are easier to predict and prevent than natural disasters. Earthquakes are the biggest deal breakers.
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