Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54211450
578 comments
Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front (and I’m not saying that is a bad thing to require). A nuclear plant can’t be built if the money to make it safe (as per some specification), insure against all health complications while it’s in operation, decommission it, clean up the site, securely dump all spent fuel, and return the site back to “normal” decades later isn’t put up in escrow from the start: that’s all captured in the price.
If we did that for fossil (and other) fuels, you’d bet they would cost more too.
If we did that for fossil (and other) fuels, you’d bet they would cost more too.
In fact, there is considerable concern over nuclear, precisely because it looks like it is underpriced due to underestimation of the decomissioning costs.
The economic lifetime of the first commercial installations is only now starting to end (partly because they have been extended so often). So we do not have that much data to work with, but so far it does not look good:
Moreover, like the decomissioned reactors, the fuel will have to be stored for a very very long time. Most of the fuel generated since the 40's and 50s is in "temporary storage", in their original installation. We have never built installations that have to last as long as the nuclear storage sites we envision, and we have no idea how the ones we have started to build will hold up over the hundreds if not thousands of years that they have to last.
I can apreciate people taking an optimistic view on this, and saying that these problems should not preclude nuclear. But saying that nuclear is compared in an unfair light due to decomissioning is taking the issue the wrong way around.
The economic lifetime of the first commercial installations is only now starting to end (partly because they have been extended so often). So we do not have that much data to work with, but so far it does not look good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning
Moreover, like the decomissioned reactors, the fuel will have to be stored for a very very long time. Most of the fuel generated since the 40's and 50s is in "temporary storage", in their original installation. We have never built installations that have to last as long as the nuclear storage sites we envision, and we have no idea how the ones we have started to build will hold up over the hundreds if not thousands of years that they have to last.
I can apreciate people taking an optimistic view on this, and saying that these problems should not preclude nuclear. But saying that nuclear is compared in an unfair light due to decomissioning is taking the issue the wrong way around.
> securely dump all spent fuel
Reminder that Coal and oil energy gets to dump their spent fuel in the atmosphere, and thereby our lungs!
The uneven treatment of different energy sources really is fantastic!
Reminder that Coal and oil energy gets to dump their spent fuel in the atmosphere, and thereby our lungs!
The uneven treatment of different energy sources really is fantastic!
That's only about half their waste, the other half gets put into man made ash ponds that eventually become superfund sites, or leak into rivers and cause massive damage.
Rough numbers, but I get 917 million tons of coal consumed in the US (2014) and 130 million tons of fly ash (2014), or roughly 14% of the total input.
Still a lot, and nasty stuff, but less than half, to pick a nit.
https://www.worldometers.info/coal/us-coal/
https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-basics
Still a lot, and nasty stuff, but less than half, to pick a nit.
https://www.worldometers.info/coal/us-coal/
https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-basics
And that's not counting accidents in coalmines and tragedy's like Aberfan - where a soil tip collapsed onto a school and killed 115 Kids and 28 Adults.
And that burnt coal leaves a toxic waste product that also needs to be taken care of safely.
If that were the case, then why are we moving away from fossil fuels to renewables at all?
I wonder if a fairer cost comparison would thus be coal power plus carbon capture? IIRC that works out at similar costs, though I never looked much into it.
> Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front
Can you state in which country nuclear has to pay all the externalities up front? And if that country has any nuclear to begin with? (I know from Germany that the opposite was always a major point of criticism - the insurance nuclear plant operators need is limited, lots of the responsibility and costs of nuclear waste handling has been transferred to the state.)
Can you state in which country nuclear has to pay all the externalities up front? And if that country has any nuclear to begin with? (I know from Germany that the opposite was always a major point of criticism - the insurance nuclear plant operators need is limited, lots of the responsibility and costs of nuclear waste handling has been transferred to the state.)
The nuclear power plants in Czech Republic set asside a fraction of earnings for every MW/h they sell to a decomissioning fund.
If I read this [1] correctly, the fund covers only technical decommissioning work, "liability resulting from
spent-fuel management (e.g., costs for on-site interim storage) and all costs related to final nuclear waste disposal is not covered by these estimates".
Even only the decommissioning fund requires a payment of 5 cents/kWh, which just itself is a cost that solar can compete with.
[1] https://epub.wupperinst.org/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/26...
Even only the decommissioning fund requires a payment of 5 cents/kWh, which just itself is a cost that solar can compete with.
[1] https://epub.wupperinst.org/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/26...
This would be great if it were true, but sadly the cost of waste disposal and plant decomissioning was not priced in during running times, at least in Germany.
I'm only familiar with policies in Germany and France, but there the externalities are in no way "covered up front".
I'm right now ambivalent on nuclear in its current form, but you're darn right it's not a fair fight (some would say free market). Petrol is subsidized up the wazoo in addition to people ignoring the externalities of climate change and pollution.
Your post conveniently ignores solar/wind + batteries, which is even cheaper than coal.
Where are you getting this claim? Natural gas costs somewhere between $40 and $70 per MWh [1]. Storage costs for batteries range from $100/KWh (very optimistic) to $300/KWh [2]. But that's per kilowatt hours. That's $100,000 per MWh to $300,000 per MWh.
Solar and wind's dispatchability remains its key weakness. Storage at anywhere near the required amounts remains a fantasy. That's why Germany and California are still burning fossil fuels for ~40% of their energy, while France's share of fossil fuel generation is under 10%.
1. https://blog.aee.net/the-numbers-are-in-and-renewables-are-w....
2. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf
Solar and wind's dispatchability remains its key weakness. Storage at anywhere near the required amounts remains a fantasy. That's why Germany and California are still burning fossil fuels for ~40% of their energy, while France's share of fossil fuel generation is under 10%.
1. https://blog.aee.net/the-numbers-are-in-and-renewables-are-w....
2. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf
You are mixing up the price of capacity vs. the price of generating the electric energy. A battery for 100/kwh can be used several 100 to 1000s of cycles.
> A battery for 100/kwh can be used several 100 to 1000s of cycles.
You're making the same error as reitzensteinm. The fact that you can charge and discharge a 1 KWh battery a thousand times doesn't make it a 1 MWh battery.
If the United States wants to use 80% renewables we need 12 hours of energy storage, which works out to 6 TWh. Even at a very generous cost estimate of $100/KWh, this works out to 600 billion dollars. The fact that batteries can be cycled for a few thousand cycles doesn't make this any cheaper. It just means we "only" need to spend 600 billion dollars every 5 to 10 years. And we'd still be burning fossil fuels at about 1/3rd the rate we currently do.
You're making the same error as reitzensteinm. The fact that you can charge and discharge a 1 KWh battery a thousand times doesn't make it a 1 MWh battery.
If the United States wants to use 80% renewables we need 12 hours of energy storage, which works out to 6 TWh. Even at a very generous cost estimate of $100/KWh, this works out to 600 billion dollars. The fact that batteries can be cycled for a few thousand cycles doesn't make this any cheaper. It just means we "only" need to spend 600 billion dollars every 5 to 10 years. And we'd still be burning fossil fuels at about 1/3rd the rate we currently do.
600 billion = +/- overnight cost of 30 nuclear powerplants (AP-1000).
And would struggle with providing 500Gw that the battery above could.
At that scale everything is expensive, but the market still seems to say that Nuclear is more expensive than the other options.
My hand-wavy maths aside, the people who sign the checks seem to agree that today (2020, it is cheaper to get power from solar/wind + battery than nuclear). Cost of wind and solar today is what nuclear needs to beat, comparison to gas and coal are not relevant for new build systems (as in neither are getting the same kind of new build capacity as solar/wind in the coming years).
And would struggle with providing 500Gw that the battery above could.
At that scale everything is expensive, but the market still seems to say that Nuclear is more expensive than the other options.
My hand-wavy maths aside, the people who sign the checks seem to agree that today (2020, it is cheaper to get power from solar/wind + battery than nuclear). Cost of wind and solar today is what nuclear needs to beat, comparison to gas and coal are not relevant for new build systems (as in neither are getting the same kind of new build capacity as solar/wind in the coming years).
The batteries need to be replaced every 5 to 10 years depending on how many cycles they can endure. By comparison, the AP-1000 is rated to last 60 years. Furthermore you're being very pessimistic with the $20 billion dollar cost estimate for the AP1000. Plants with equivalent output have been built for less than $10 billion.
When you include the cost of storage, solar and wind is still enormously more expensive than nuclear. The reality is that we don't event know what storage at this scale would even look like. It would take 800 years of global battery production at the current production rates to reach the 3 weeks of energy storage required to decarbonize the US with renewables. And that's with the infeasible idea we're dedicating 100% of batteries to grid storage: no EVs, no smartphones, all grid storage. And again, this is just for the US's storage needs.
Forget cost, energy storage at this scale isn't event possible with one current levels of technology.
When you include the cost of storage, solar and wind is still enormously more expensive than nuclear. The reality is that we don't event know what storage at this scale would even look like. It would take 800 years of global battery production at the current production rates to reach the 3 weeks of energy storage required to decarbonize the US with renewables. And that's with the infeasible idea we're dedicating 100% of batteries to grid storage: no EVs, no smartphones, all grid storage. And again, this is just for the US's storage needs.
Forget cost, energy storage at this scale isn't event possible with one current levels of technology.
Batteries can be build that last more than 5 to 10 years.
e.g. https://ironedison.com/nickel-iron-ni-fe-battery
e.g. https://ironedison.com/nickel-iron-ni-fe-battery
Nickel-Iron batteries have 10-20 times less energy density and are more difficult to manufacture. You might get a battery that lasts 30-50 years instead of 5-10 years but at a cost increase that's greater than the gain in number of cycles.
The battery isn't the source of the energy. You are missing wind and solar (which isn't free), an electrical grid overdesigned for the peak-energy requirements (since you will not get all of your energy over the course of a day).
4 APR-1400 will cost the UAE ~ $24.4 bn to complete. So $600 bn will give you 98 APR-1400 reactors, for a total of 131GW of electrical power – not to mention twice that in thermal power, which can be used for central heating, hydrogen production, etc.
This thermal energy is currently ignored in almost all calculations; it makes little sense to include it in a debate that only focuses on electricity, but at the same time it makes little sense to have such a debate (unless one is a lobbyist), when the use-case is much broader.
The most expensive part of nuclear energy are the capital costs – the discount rate in particular – since it is a "everything up front"-project, where political scrutiny is extremely high (much of it for good reason, but too much is mainly the 'vetocracy' and NIMBYism in action) and the low amount of new plants being built is limiting the build-up of knowledge.
In my native country of Denmark, there is basically zero research in nuclear compared to other energy sources; even in the institutions that were led or founded by the Nobel-prize winning Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. That is all due to politics and it shifts the debate to be less and less about science, which is one of the saddest things to happen.
4 APR-1400 will cost the UAE ~ $24.4 bn to complete. So $600 bn will give you 98 APR-1400 reactors, for a total of 131GW of electrical power – not to mention twice that in thermal power, which can be used for central heating, hydrogen production, etc.
This thermal energy is currently ignored in almost all calculations; it makes little sense to include it in a debate that only focuses on electricity, but at the same time it makes little sense to have such a debate (unless one is a lobbyist), when the use-case is much broader.
The most expensive part of nuclear energy are the capital costs – the discount rate in particular – since it is a "everything up front"-project, where political scrutiny is extremely high (much of it for good reason, but too much is mainly the 'vetocracy' and NIMBYism in action) and the low amount of new plants being built is limiting the build-up of knowledge.
In my native country of Denmark, there is basically zero research in nuclear compared to other energy sources; even in the institutions that were led or founded by the Nobel-prize winning Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. That is all due to politics and it shifts the debate to be less and less about science, which is one of the saddest things to happen.
So to meet the requirement of the poster I replied too, you need to spend another +/- $1800bn to get to the 500Gw peak power production. What amount of wind and solar can you purchase for that? Considering you have just bought the battery per the description? Hornsea 1 pricing would get you there, and that includes transmission etc. With Hornsea 2 being half that and other offshore even cheaper.
After 60 years of being build and in action, the nuclear industry should be able to support it's own research needs. Considering the amounts still going to EurAtom (1.6 billion euro per five years) it is not yet as poor as one might expect.
I think the Nuclear proponents should really look at the numbers as they are today and in the near future * Why are they are these not good enough in a modern market place. * Why are the safe modern reactors not build ? * Why are the smaller modular reactors not yet in the market ? * Where are the complications? is it the NIMBYs or has the nuclear power industry taken the wrong direction ? * On a manufacturing level, how come I can order pv or wind turbines from a vast number of players at short notice (years) ? * What is required to compete with the expected pricing cost of battery, wind and solar of 2035 ? * Why are so many projects delayed in the construction phase ? How often from lawsuits How often from defects * Could nuclear be build at a rate that makes a difference if money and site licenses were not an issue ?
Nuclear should be wining, but why isn't it? My guess is that the physics is simple, but the chemistry is complicated.
After 60 years of being build and in action, the nuclear industry should be able to support it's own research needs. Considering the amounts still going to EurAtom (1.6 billion euro per five years) it is not yet as poor as one might expect.
I think the Nuclear proponents should really look at the numbers as they are today and in the near future * Why are they are these not good enough in a modern market place. * Why are the safe modern reactors not build ? * Why are the smaller modular reactors not yet in the market ? * Where are the complications? is it the NIMBYs or has the nuclear power industry taken the wrong direction ? * On a manufacturing level, how come I can order pv or wind turbines from a vast number of players at short notice (years) ? * What is required to compete with the expected pricing cost of battery, wind and solar of 2035 ? * Why are so many projects delayed in the construction phase ? How often from lawsuits How often from defects * Could nuclear be build at a rate that makes a difference if money and site licenses were not an issue ?
Nuclear should be wining, but why isn't it? My guess is that the physics is simple, but the chemistry is complicated.
You are skipping a crucial variable: Capacitance Factor.
New nuclear power plants come in at 90-95%+, while lower for both solar (10-25%) and wind (22% for onshore and 36% for offshore in 2018). This means that 1GW of nuclear power will, on average, result in 0,9-0,95GW of grid capacity, while 1GW of offshore wind will result in 1/3rd of that.
So if we use your example with Hornsea 2 (I haven't checked your data, but choose to believe you), Hornsea 2 is 50% more expensive than nuclear power, with out factoring in the cost of large scale energy storage. Ask any honest person in the battery industry – I have done that, because I wanted to know whether or not it was an option – and she will clearly tell you, that they will not even be able to meet the anywhere close to 10% of EU or US storage needs in 2050, while also supplying batteries to EVs and other needs.
Those windmills have an operating life of 15-20 years. Once again, we need to triple or quadruple the cost, to keep that capacity on the grid for an equal amount of time. The same goes for whichever storage solution you choose – batteries for example.
Newer battery technology might change that, but that is a very schizophrenic approach that I see in far too many people, who put their politics first: The environmental challenges are enormous, present and must be solved fast... just not with that specific type of technology, but rather one that we haven't invented yet. I find this close to disqualifying.
Safe modern reactors are built; look at the South Korean project in UAE. SMR's are a relative new field, they have already come very far, which is surprising for many, since government support of this research is close to none, compared to money spent on other green energy projects (even the foolish ones, such as wave energy).
Nuclear is stable and delivers energy 24/7. When the requirement is for stable energy with a high total EROEI, nuclear is a great technology. If one thinks of the environmental situation as a crisis, one should want to act now. Nuclear can be rolled out now and a wide rollout would make the industry do all those things, you think it is lacking. Because not enough is being done now and if it was a purely economic discussion (including proper safety, storage of spent fuel until it can be used, etc. – not cutting corners!), nuclear would already be the major power source in he world. But feelings go above facts, which is hurting science, humanity and the planet.
New nuclear power plants come in at 90-95%+, while lower for both solar (10-25%) and wind (22% for onshore and 36% for offshore in 2018). This means that 1GW of nuclear power will, on average, result in 0,9-0,95GW of grid capacity, while 1GW of offshore wind will result in 1/3rd of that.
So if we use your example with Hornsea 2 (I haven't checked your data, but choose to believe you), Hornsea 2 is 50% more expensive than nuclear power, with out factoring in the cost of large scale energy storage. Ask any honest person in the battery industry – I have done that, because I wanted to know whether or not it was an option – and she will clearly tell you, that they will not even be able to meet the anywhere close to 10% of EU or US storage needs in 2050, while also supplying batteries to EVs and other needs.
Those windmills have an operating life of 15-20 years. Once again, we need to triple or quadruple the cost, to keep that capacity on the grid for an equal amount of time. The same goes for whichever storage solution you choose – batteries for example.
Newer battery technology might change that, but that is a very schizophrenic approach that I see in far too many people, who put their politics first: The environmental challenges are enormous, present and must be solved fast... just not with that specific type of technology, but rather one that we haven't invented yet. I find this close to disqualifying.
Safe modern reactors are built; look at the South Korean project in UAE. SMR's are a relative new field, they have already come very far, which is surprising for many, since government support of this research is close to none, compared to money spent on other green energy projects (even the foolish ones, such as wave energy).
Nuclear is stable and delivers energy 24/7. When the requirement is for stable energy with a high total EROEI, nuclear is a great technology. If one thinks of the environmental situation as a crisis, one should want to act now. Nuclear can be rolled out now and a wide rollout would make the industry do all those things, you think it is lacking. Because not enough is being done now and if it was a purely economic discussion (including proper safety, storage of spent fuel until it can be used, etc. – not cutting corners!), nuclear would already be the major power source in he world. But feelings go above facts, which is hurting science, humanity and the planet.
Capacity factor is bounded by limited demand. You can't put power on the grid that no one wants. So for an all nuclear grid you end up with a capacity factor that is around 60-70%. (note: France exports/imports a lot so capacity factor is higher than if it was an isolated grid).
For wind, if there is storage capacity factor goes up. Basically, if it can produce and there is a consumer (the battery) then the wind mill will turn. If there is no consumer it shut's off even if there is wind.
Windmills have a guarantee for 20 years (in common contracts, sometimes 25). Included in the above prices. Nuclear island lasts 60 years, but will be refurbished and it's power island is not guaranteed for 60 years (turbines). Solar panels guarantees are heading towards the 40 year mark (inverters not yet).
The law of large numbers favor's wind and solar for reliability at scale.
It's not about feelings, it's about hard economic reality. That even with massive economic subsidies very few modern nuclear plants are viable.
With the problem, that the scale up period of Nuclear is too slow. Even successes take decades to build. And are limited by sites/foundery's that themselves takes years to build.
For wind, if there is storage capacity factor goes up. Basically, if it can produce and there is a consumer (the battery) then the wind mill will turn. If there is no consumer it shut's off even if there is wind.
Windmills have a guarantee for 20 years (in common contracts, sometimes 25). Included in the above prices. Nuclear island lasts 60 years, but will be refurbished and it's power island is not guaranteed for 60 years (turbines). Solar panels guarantees are heading towards the 40 year mark (inverters not yet).
The law of large numbers favor's wind and solar for reliability at scale.
It's not about feelings, it's about hard economic reality. That even with massive economic subsidies very few modern nuclear plants are viable.
With the problem, that the scale up period of Nuclear is too slow. Even successes take decades to build. And are limited by sites/foundery's that themselves takes years to build.
History demonstrates otherwise. Not one country generates the majoirty of their power from solar or wind. By comparison, France and Belgium generate the majority of their electricity from nuclear power. Similarly the claim that nuclear is too slow to build is false. France constructed the majority of their reactor fleet over the course of 15 years.
Solar and wind are only viable with storage. Hydroelectric storage is currently the most popular, but it's geographically limited. Batteries don't provide anywhere near the scale of storage requires. The US would need 12 hours of storage to reach 80% renewable generation and 3 weeks of storage to reach 100% renewable generation [1]. The US consumes 11.5 TWh of electricity daily. But global lithium ion battery production is only 300 GWh per year [2]. Even if we contributed 100% of global battery production to grid storage in the US, it would take 800 years to fulfill 3 weeks of storage. Sure, battery production is set to increase to 2,000 GWh per year some time in 2030, but that only brings this time down to 120 years. And remember, this is just the storage demands for the United States.
If we're worried about the time it takes to decarbonize, then solar and wind are very poor choices.
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
2. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt...
Solar and wind are only viable with storage. Hydroelectric storage is currently the most popular, but it's geographically limited. Batteries don't provide anywhere near the scale of storage requires. The US would need 12 hours of storage to reach 80% renewable generation and 3 weeks of storage to reach 100% renewable generation [1]. The US consumes 11.5 TWh of electricity daily. But global lithium ion battery production is only 300 GWh per year [2]. Even if we contributed 100% of global battery production to grid storage in the US, it would take 800 years to fulfill 3 weeks of storage. Sure, battery production is set to increase to 2,000 GWh per year some time in 2030, but that only brings this time down to 120 years. And remember, this is just the storage demands for the United States.
If we're worried about the time it takes to decarbonize, then solar and wind are very poor choices.
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
2. https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/14/global-lithium-ion-batt...
You can avoid a lot of storage requirements by making your grid smarter and electrifying transportation and heating. 60% renewables are possible with hardly any storage at all, certainly less than 12 hours. Shifting demand is always cheaper than storage. Once you've electrified transportation, you have hundreds of millions of car batteries that can help out with demand spikes. That distributes the high upfront cost of battery storage somewhat. Car batteries that are no longer good for transportation can than be repurposed for grid storage, hopefully much cheaper than buying new batteries.
To get to 100% renewables you most likely need chemical storage as hydrogen or methane.
To get to 100% renewables you most likely need chemical storage as hydrogen or methane.
Electrifying heating doesn't improve this situation, it worsens it drastically. People come back home after work and turn on the heat or AC right as the sun goes down. A big part of why renewable generation is so high in Germany is because they mostly heat their homes with gas (which emits carbon, but doesn't factor into electricity generation statistics).
Using car batteries for storage doesn't solve the fundamental mismatch between the staggering amount of batteries that get produced and the amount of storage that is required. Not to mention, I'm dubious if this scheme would even work. Why would I hook my car storage up to the grid? It's going to eat away at the battery life of my car. This essentially just offloads the cost of battery storage to consumers by decreasing the battery life of their EVs due to the constant charge and discharging.
Using car batteries for storage doesn't solve the fundamental mismatch between the staggering amount of batteries that get produced and the amount of storage that is required. Not to mention, I'm dubious if this scheme would even work. Why would I hook my car storage up to the grid? It's going to eat away at the battery life of my car. This essentially just offloads the cost of battery storage to consumers by decreasing the battery life of their EVs due to the constant charge and discharging.
Agree about the car batteries. If you think about the storage problem in a less abstract way, it's largely shifting demand from around noon when the sun is shining to about 7-8pm when people are active but solar is producing zero.
For car battery storage to help with this, the car has to be plugged in while its owner is at work to soak up the noonday power, and then plugged in again at home to be discharged. By the time most people go to work in the morning, there isn't enough sun to charge the car yet, so they have to go to work without whatever power has been taken out of the battery at night, so the battery has to be bigger than is necessary for driving.
This extra battery capacity in the car is much more expensive. It's not 100% available, because sometimes people won't plug in their car, and it has to be made more rugged to deal with driving on the road. You're also paying an energy cost to haul an energy storage system to and from the office every day.
Overall, you'd do better by just using large scale fixed battery banks that can be optimized for energy storage. The only real reason to like vehicle based energy storage is that it takes the cost of energy storage off the books of renewable generation and hides it in transportation costs.
For car battery storage to help with this, the car has to be plugged in while its owner is at work to soak up the noonday power, and then plugged in again at home to be discharged. By the time most people go to work in the morning, there isn't enough sun to charge the car yet, so they have to go to work without whatever power has been taken out of the battery at night, so the battery has to be bigger than is necessary for driving.
This extra battery capacity in the car is much more expensive. It's not 100% available, because sometimes people won't plug in their car, and it has to be made more rugged to deal with driving on the road. You're also paying an energy cost to haul an energy storage system to and from the office every day.
Overall, you'd do better by just using large scale fixed battery banks that can be optimized for energy storage. The only real reason to like vehicle based energy storage is that it takes the cost of energy storage off the books of renewable generation and hides it in transportation costs.
Eletrifying heating helps a lot if you integrate it with a smart grid. People generally don't care whether their home is 21 or 23 degrees warm, but the difference enables a lot of load shifting. I know people who take advantage of this today. This is btw, also true for many industrial processes.
You'd integrate your car battery with the grid because you'd get cheaper charging in return, or some other form of monetary reward.
You'd integrate your car battery with the grid because you'd get cheaper charging in return, or some other form of monetary reward.
You use the word "smart grid" as though it just automatically makes electricity usage go down. A smart grid works by redistributing load to when there is power. A smart grid almost always needs storage, unless it's doing simple things like running your dryer where it's just a matter of turning on your appliances at a certain time of day. If you're at he from 7pm to 8am, and you want your home to be heated while you're there a smart grid isn't going to help you. A smart grid would tell to to be at home at different hours of the day, but people aren't appliances.
And again, car batteries being used or not, we wouldn't have enough battery storage fulfill the storage requirements for decades or even centuries, and by then the first batteries we built will have long since worn out.
And again, car batteries being used or not, we wouldn't have enough battery storage fulfill the storage requirements for decades or even centuries, and by then the first batteries we built will have long since worn out.
I use "smart grid" to mean that the electricity provider has a measure of control over the load. For example they can turn heating in your home on or off as long as the temperature stays within a band defined by you. This is not science fiction, it exists today. I know people who use it already.
> For example they can turn heating in your home on or off as long as the temperature stays within a band defined by you. This is not science fiction, it exists today. I know people who use it already.
That's how literally every thermostat has worked that I've encountered in my entire life, and I'm close to 30. Yes, this technology already exists. That's why there's no benefit to it: almost everyone already has a thermostat that works like this.
The problem is that most people turn the heat on from 7pm to 8am, which is when solar is producing little to no energy.
That's how literally every thermostat has worked that I've encountered in my entire life, and I'm close to 30. Yes, this technology already exists. That's why there's no benefit to it: almost everyone already has a thermostat that works like this.
The problem is that most people turn the heat on from 7pm to 8am, which is when solar is producing little to no energy.
How much can the provider shave off the load though? if i set my band between 21 and 23 degrees, is the reduction more than a few percent max? Doesn't seem to make a dent given the peak requirement when the majority of the people all shift locations (i.e. go home)?
And even more so if your heating and/or cooling system has integrated thermal storage. Storing a joule as heat (or cold) is much easier/cheaper than storing it in a battery.
Not to mention that modern district heating is super efficient thanks to modern isolation methods on all the pipes & you have a huge flexibility of prpducing the heat - combined gas steam cycle, waste incineration or extra heat from thermal or even nuclear power plants.
This very much depends on how you do the heating / cooling.
An efficient way to heat a house is to have a heatpump plus low temperature floor heating (and cooling). This system works best by keeping the floor at a constant temperature, day and night.
Of course, a house also needs to be properly insulated and have ventilation with heat recovery
An efficient way to heat a house is to have a heatpump plus low temperature floor heating (and cooling). This system works best by keeping the floor at a constant temperature, day and night.
Of course, a house also needs to be properly insulated and have ventilation with heat recovery
Also using car batteries seem an odd choice, as the mismatch between renewable production and electrical consumption (duck curve) happens in the early morning and in the evening, just when people are about to drive (so they don't want to have their batteries emptied by the grid), are driving (so their batteries aren't connected to the grid) or have finished their drive so the batteries aren't full
Very few commutes require the draining of an electric car battery. If the cars were parked plugged in during the day they whey would likely have sufficient capacity to help with the main after-work spikes, base load nuclear during the evening would then recharge over night.
Peak demand for electricity occurs in the evening. If you're going to fulfill this demand with nuclear power, the just run the nuclear power plants at full capacity all day and don't bother with any storage or solar panels.
You can use batteries more than once! If you cycle them once per day for ten years to store solar power until night, your numbers given mean they add $30-100 per MWh to the cost of that stored power (but not daytime use).
Not cheap, but in no way a "fantasy". Certainly not in a world with sane carbon pricing.
Not cheap, but in no way a "fantasy". Certainly not in a world with sane carbon pricing.
No, that's not this works. Batteries currently cost ~$150 to $250 per KWh. As in, if you want to store one kilowatt hour, you need to spend $150 to $250 dollars on batteries. If you want to store one megawatt hour, then that's $150,000 to $250,000 worth of batteries. Yes, you can cycle this battery multiple times. I'm not sure how you think that this somehow makes storage cheaper. The fact that you can charge a 1 KWh battery and discharge it 1,000 times doesn't magically make it a 1 MWh battery. Battery cost is measured in terms of cost of capacity, in watt hours.
It absolutely is a fantasy to use this for grid storage. To put this in perspective, the US uses 11.5 TWh of electricity each day. The entire world produces 300 GWh of batteries every year. In order to achieve the 12 hours of storage for 80% renewables we'd consume global battery production for several years. To reach the 3 weeks storage for 100% renewable we'd need 805 years of the entire world's battery production at current levels. Sure, battery production is set to double over the next decade. But we're still talking centuries worth of global battery production to fulfill the storage demands of just the United States. And we're ignoring the fact that batteries wear out after a few thousand cycles.
Again, the idea that batteries are going to make wind and solar feasible is a fantasy.
It absolutely is a fantasy to use this for grid storage. To put this in perspective, the US uses 11.5 TWh of electricity each day. The entire world produces 300 GWh of batteries every year. In order to achieve the 12 hours of storage for 80% renewables we'd consume global battery production for several years. To reach the 3 weeks storage for 100% renewable we'd need 805 years of the entire world's battery production at current levels. Sure, battery production is set to double over the next decade. But we're still talking centuries worth of global battery production to fulfill the storage demands of just the United States. And we're ignoring the fact that batteries wear out after a few thousand cycles.
Again, the idea that batteries are going to make wind and solar feasible is a fantasy.
Parent compared the price of one MWh of power from a natural gas plant with the capital cost of building batteries that can store one MWh. This is a type error.
The enormous capital costs demonstrates how expensive it makes solar and wind in simple terms. Even if we measure in terms of cost per watt hour stored and drawn over the lifetime of the batter it's still hugely expensive. Most batteries can support 300 to 1,000 charge and discharge cycles. So in terms of overall cost of storage, that's still in the range of $200 to $700 per MWh of energy stored and drawn over the lifetime of the battery.
This point is largely moot because we don't even have the manufacturing capacity to deliver the amount of batteries required. We only build 300 GWh of batteries globally each year. To reach 12 hours of storage, the US would need 6 TWh - 20 years of global production at current production rates.
This point is largely moot because we don't even have the manufacturing capacity to deliver the amount of batteries required. We only build 300 GWh of batteries globally each year. To reach 12 hours of storage, the US would need 6 TWh - 20 years of global production at current production rates.
US oil consumption increased by almost 100x from 1900-1970. In 1850 it was just a few thousand barrels annually! That orders of magnitude more batteries are needed is not in itself an issue, as long as the solution itself is sound.
NMC chemistry (as used in Hornsdale) is good for 3000-4000 cycles, although it's about 50% more expensive than LFP, at least if you buy them from CATL.
This isn't going to be cheap. But it is feasible, and if you care about carbon I'm not sure how else you do it.
NMC chemistry (as used in Hornsdale) is good for 3000-4000 cycles, although it's about 50% more expensive than LFP, at least if you buy them from CATL.
This isn't going to be cheap. But it is feasible, and if you care about carbon I'm not sure how else you do it.
> This isn't going to be cheap. But it is feasible, and if you care about carbon I'm not sure how else you do it.
How about we use the carbon free method of generating electricity that France has used to generate most of it's electricity for close to half a century?
We don't have to wait for a miracle that makes batteries cheaper, we don't have to scale up battery production by several orders of magnitude. If we built ten nuclear plants for every one that exists in the US today, that's enough for 100% carbon free electricity generation. It'd also provide enormous amounts of water if we use the waste heat for desalination. It also wouldn't involves consuming massive areas of land for solar panels. It would only involve technologies that currently exist and that we have decades of experience working with.
How about we use the carbon free method of generating electricity that France has used to generate most of it's electricity for close to half a century?
We don't have to wait for a miracle that makes batteries cheaper, we don't have to scale up battery production by several orders of magnitude. If we built ten nuclear plants for every one that exists in the US today, that's enough for 100% carbon free electricity generation. It'd also provide enormous amounts of water if we use the waste heat for desalination. It also wouldn't involves consuming massive areas of land for solar panels. It would only involve technologies that currently exist and that we have decades of experience working with.
You don't need a "miracle". Hornsdale was installed for $500/kWh, which works out to $125/MWh of storage at 4000 cycles. Prices have already decreased by over 30%, so we're probably at $100/MWh today.
If you need to store half your generation on a diurnal cycle, add it on to the LCOE of ~$50/MWh for utility scale solar, and you are cost competitive with the LCOE of nuclear today.
Lithium battery production is going to skyrocket regardless of whether it's used for grid storage; we're going to need enough for a billion cars over the next decades, even if the world converted to nuclear. Prices will continue to fall just as they have.
I am a strong believer that we should have embraced nuclear, given what we know now about climate change. But starting in 2020 with next to nothing, we're just now passing parity where renewables are starting to win, and the gap is going to get larger.
If you need to store half your generation on a diurnal cycle, add it on to the LCOE of ~$50/MWh for utility scale solar, and you are cost competitive with the LCOE of nuclear today.
Lithium battery production is going to skyrocket regardless of whether it's used for grid storage; we're going to need enough for a billion cars over the next decades, even if the world converted to nuclear. Prices will continue to fall just as they have.
I am a strong believer that we should have embraced nuclear, given what we know now about climate change. But starting in 2020 with next to nothing, we're just now passing parity where renewables are starting to win, and the gap is going to get larger.
$500 KWh is still much more expensive nuclear. Furthermore competition with electric vehicles isn't going to decrease battery cost, it's going to increase it. More demand for a constrained supply leads to higher prices. Wind is also geographically dependent, not all regions are capable of generating wind power at the same cost as Hornsdale. If your wind averages half the average wind speed you're going to have to build a lot more wind turbines. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is geographically independent in terms of it's output.
Sure. Just make sure you don't ask the French to build your plants. It's 2020 now and we're still waiting:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
Cherry-picking an individual plant doesn't change the fact that France produces electricity with much less carbon than most other countries, and often at an even cheaper cost.
Your arguments are the most compelling I've seen so far for more nuclear as opposed to renewables.
I'm still leaning towards renewables for various reasons, but could be swayed - could you share any more details about where the 12 hour capacity requirement and costs mentioned come from?
I'm still leaning towards renewables for various reasons, but could be swayed - could you share any more details about where the 12 hour capacity requirement and costs mentioned come from?
please don't be swayed, he uses lots logical phallusese, in this thread for example: taking the US electric consumption at face value as being the power to be displaced 12 hours.
note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system
also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might.
note how this assumes that every joule you consume must have come from the storage system as if there were zero overlap between consumption and demand such that all energy had to pass indirectly through the battery system
also note how he typically treats reminders by others as claims of silver bullet panaceas: even if governments had devoted to fully switching to renewables and had solid plans distributed over multiple sources (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ...) and over multiple storage systems (synthetic fuel, batteries, flywheels, ...) in a way it sufficed our needs, it's not surprising that pointing at just one energy source or just one storage type, you'd arrive to the conclusion batteries, or solar won't suffice... even though in combination they might.
12 hours of capacity would still leave 20% of electricity to be fulfilled by fossil fuels. To get to 100% renewable we'd need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
So the cost of storage would exceed the cost of generating the same power via a CCGT plant?
I just took parent's numbers at face value to show how they were misinterpreting them.
I haven't seen much in the way of true apples to apples comparisons. Most solar plants with storage don't have much storage. For instance I saw a link this week on HN for $30 + $15/MWh for solar + storage, but the storage was only one hour of the nameplate capacity.
Based on the falling prices of batteries, I don't think it will be long before solar + storage providing power evenly over 24h (an unrealistic worst case) becomes economical.
At a 30% capacity factor, assuming the batteries are charging for 8 hours and draining for 16, that plant would need 5x as much storage for a cost of $30 + $75/MWh.
More realistically you'd only need 3-4x as much storage as you get small amounts of sunlight later and earlier in the day, and demand curves are not flat. Halve the price of batteries, which already happened in the 2010s, and that's looking economical even with a zero price on carbon.
But most countries are pretty far from saturating solar potential, so you can still build solar without storage for a while. Once you need the battery backing, it's probably going to be cheap enough.
I haven't seen much in the way of true apples to apples comparisons. Most solar plants with storage don't have much storage. For instance I saw a link this week on HN for $30 + $15/MWh for solar + storage, but the storage was only one hour of the nameplate capacity.
Based on the falling prices of batteries, I don't think it will be long before solar + storage providing power evenly over 24h (an unrealistic worst case) becomes economical.
At a 30% capacity factor, assuming the batteries are charging for 8 hours and draining for 16, that plant would need 5x as much storage for a cost of $30 + $75/MWh.
More realistically you'd only need 3-4x as much storage as you get small amounts of sunlight later and earlier in the day, and demand curves are not flat. Halve the price of batteries, which already happened in the 2010s, and that's looking economical even with a zero price on carbon.
But most countries are pretty far from saturating solar potential, so you can still build solar without storage for a while. Once you need the battery backing, it's probably going to be cheap enough.
Are you sure it was $15/MWh? That seems more than 1000x cheaper than state of the art batteries.
I just checked some prices for small scale PV farms you can plant to your house.
It's 16,83 euro-cent for the PV per KWH and 23,74 euro-cent for the storage.
Production is 10KWH, storage is 11KWH.
So if we (naively) multiply by 1000 we get 23,74€/MWh. And that is for the home market. I know battery storage doesn't scale linearly, but also if you were to build this as a highly-scaled farm, I'm sure prices would also drop as well.
So if we (naively) multiply by 1000 we get 23,74€/MWh. And that is for the home market. I know battery storage doesn't scale linearly, but also if you were to build this as a highly-scaled farm, I'm sure prices would also drop as well.
23 euro cents * 1000 is 230 Euros, not 23. But that is still a factor of 1000 lower then the prices mentioned in https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy19osti/73222.pdf and other web publications. Are you sure about those numbers and what kind of storage do they refer to?
That's how much the storage added to the price of power in the bid, not the capital cost of the batteries.
Oh! Thank you.
> solar + storage providing power evenly over 24h (an unrealistic worst case) becomes economical.
That's not the the worst case. Solar output varies by season. So you have to have enough storage for multiple weeks. This also means you have to greatly over-provison solar panels so that they not only provide power, but also enough to charge batteries.
That's not the the worst case. Solar output varies by season. So you have to have enough storage for multiple weeks. This also means you have to greatly over-provison solar panels so that they not only provide power, but also enough to charge batteries.
No, you don't need storage for multiple weeks, that would be silly.
Solar is so cheap now that already panel generation capacity is frequently getting oversized compared to the potential inverter output, to maximize costs.
Future solar farm design will optimize seasonal generation capacity similarly; size your panels for the seasonal minimum, attach batteries, and you can have year round output of a firm amount with only hours worth of batteries.
Solar is so cheap now that already panel generation capacity is frequently getting oversized compared to the potential inverter output, to maximize costs.
Future solar farm design will optimize seasonal generation capacity similarly; size your panels for the seasonal minimum, attach batteries, and you can have year round output of a firm amount with only hours worth of batteries.
>No, you don't need storage for multiple weeks
You have seasonal, and inter-seasonal variability in a solar and wind output. You need to account for that, in an economy that requires orders of magnitude more energy then being provided by renewables and is still electrifing. What do you mean it's silly?
I've seen a few articles now where a baseline required battery storage is on the order of weeks. What do you mean a few hours is all that's required? What if you have a multi-day cloudy, wind-still weather? What do you do then?????
>size your panels for the seasonal minimum, attach batteries
No. You need to over-provison even for minimum seasonal output, because even in seasonal minimum you still need to charge your batteries. Winter is very long.
> only hours worth of batteries
If you don't mind constant blanks during periods of prolonged reduced wind/solar output...then sure. I don't what 'few hours' means - there's a day-night cycle every single day. Multi-day and highly variable multi-weeks where solar and wind output is minimal or none are relatively common.
Here's what should give you pause and maybe make you reexamine your confidence - nobody is actually building out a solar/wind/battery infrastructure - nobody. We're essentially expanding natural gas use and complementing it with solar/wind (there's a reason why Germany is singing multi-decade contracts to ship Russian natural gas, and why every natural gas company is pushing renewables). Natural gas is not a transitional technology to renewables. It's the end-state for renewables.
You have seasonal, and inter-seasonal variability in a solar and wind output. You need to account for that, in an economy that requires orders of magnitude more energy then being provided by renewables and is still electrifing. What do you mean it's silly?
I've seen a few articles now where a baseline required battery storage is on the order of weeks. What do you mean a few hours is all that's required? What if you have a multi-day cloudy, wind-still weather? What do you do then?????
>size your panels for the seasonal minimum, attach batteries
No. You need to over-provison even for minimum seasonal output, because even in seasonal minimum you still need to charge your batteries. Winter is very long.
> only hours worth of batteries
If you don't mind constant blanks during periods of prolonged reduced wind/solar output...then sure. I don't what 'few hours' means - there's a day-night cycle every single day. Multi-day and highly variable multi-weeks where solar and wind output is minimal or none are relatively common.
Here's what should give you pause and maybe make you reexamine your confidence - nobody is actually building out a solar/wind/battery infrastructure - nobody. We're essentially expanding natural gas use and complementing it with solar/wind (there's a reason why Germany is singing multi-decade contracts to ship Russian natural gas, and why every natural gas company is pushing renewables). Natural gas is not a transitional technology to renewables. It's the end-state for renewables.
Very rare long term outages would not be covered by batteries. For that, you want a rock bottom low capital cost, even if it's much less efficient. Hydrogen makes sense for that use case, burned in turbines.
For seasonal variation, simply overbuilding is also a possibility. No storage would be needed at all in Minnesota, for example, until renewables get to 70% of consumed electrical energy.
For seasonal variation, simply overbuilding is also a possibility. No storage would be needed at all in Minnesota, for example, until renewables get to 70% of consumed electrical energy.
>Hydrogen makes sense for that use case, burned in turbines.
And where's hydrogen going to come from? You need to overprovision renewables so that they not only provide power for now, but also store enough power (via batteries or hydrogen or whatever) to get around daily, seasonal and inter-seasonal variability.
And by the way, hydrogen from renewables is massively inefficient.
And where's hydrogen going to come from? You need to overprovision renewables so that they not only provide power for now, but also store enough power (via batteries or hydrogen or whatever) to get around daily, seasonal and inter-seasonal variability.
And by the way, hydrogen from renewables is massively inefficient.
It would come from electrolysis of water, using renewable energy when that's in oversupply.
Overprovisioning renewables for immediate consumption works in tandem with hydrogen, since it means there will be times excess power is available to make the hydrogen.
The round trip efficiency of power->hydrogen->power through turbines will be maybe 33%. But this is FINE, if the capital cost of storing hydrogen in underground caverns is low enough and renewables are otherwise cheap enough (low LCoE).
Overprovisioning renewables for immediate consumption works in tandem with hydrogen, since it means there will be times excess power is available to make the hydrogen.
The round trip efficiency of power->hydrogen->power through turbines will be maybe 33%. But this is FINE, if the capital cost of storing hydrogen in underground caverns is low enough and renewables are otherwise cheap enough (low LCoE).
If you're using caverns to reduce the capital cost of storing hydrogen, then you're ignoring a substantial amount of the real cost. Caverns are a geographically dependent feature, you might as well just say that we should use hydroelectricity as our main source of power.
Those are held to a much lower standard. I've seen people on HN seriously argue that we need to isolate nuclear waste from the biosphere for multiple generations, including contingencies for the collapse of English as a comprehensible language.
What is the plan to isolate the poisonous meals in a solar panel for multiple generations? There isn't one. It just goes in landfill, I expect with relatively little concern for if it is setting up the next Flint, Michigan scenario.
I doubt any form of energy would be economic if it was held to the same standards as Nuclear. It is perfectly safe, has proved itself to be perfectly safe now that we have 50 years of evidence and then the operators have to spend however much it takes to make it safer than that. This impossible task turns out to be hellishly expensive.
There are literally 2 or 3 stories where there was a bad meltdown, and even then the damage seems to be comparable to having used coal over the same period of time. Worst-case scenario with 40 year old reactor designs is comparable to business as usual, and people start arguing over if that is safe enough.
What is the plan to isolate the poisonous meals in a solar panel for multiple generations? There isn't one. It just goes in landfill, I expect with relatively little concern for if it is setting up the next Flint, Michigan scenario.
I doubt any form of energy would be economic if it was held to the same standards as Nuclear. It is perfectly safe, has proved itself to be perfectly safe now that we have 50 years of evidence and then the operators have to spend however much it takes to make it safer than that. This impossible task turns out to be hellishly expensive.
There are literally 2 or 3 stories where there was a bad meltdown, and even then the damage seems to be comparable to having used coal over the same period of time. Worst-case scenario with 40 year old reactor designs is comparable to business as usual, and people start arguing over if that is safe enough.
Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it is enough to be harmful. It's just not comparable to anything in a solar panel.
After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed.
After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed.
The second hand market for decommissioned panels is now strong enough that it has gotten hard to source them by the container load.
This used to be a great way of sourcing solar panels for off grid applications where a small drop in efficiency was totally offset by the low cost.
I think we can also safely assume used lithium batteries will similarly remain in high demand.
This used to be a great way of sourcing solar panels for off grid applications where a small drop in efficiency was totally offset by the low cost.
I think we can also safely assume used lithium batteries will similarly remain in high demand.
> Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it is enough to be harmful. It's just not comparable to anything in a solar panel.
I don't think that is true, the article cites that the majority of the bad cancer cases from Chernobyl were caused by ingestion of tainted milk.
Besides, the core of that argument there is you have no evidence ergo there is no problem. That isn't a good argument. There are some horrific substances used in industrial processes (like, eg, the production of solar panels). Just because you want to think about them in nuclear but not elsewhere doesn't mean the problems go away. Industrial waste is industrial waste; humanity has been ignoring this stuff for millennia. It is no reason to block something as measurably environmentally positive as nuclear. The numbers suggest nuclear does less harm.
We should be holding all the options to the same safety standards.
> After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed.
Don't build a house there then. Incidentally it'd be a prime spot for a new nuclear plant.
These things are perfectly safe for people to work in, the issue is highly localised. The area of a plant is small. And, again, by the numbers a solar panel farm is going to sterilise a larger area of land. The fact that in theory it could be used doesn't change the fact it is going to be unusable by virtue of being covered in solar panels.
I don't think that is true, the article cites that the majority of the bad cancer cases from Chernobyl were caused by ingestion of tainted milk.
Besides, the core of that argument there is you have no evidence ergo there is no problem. That isn't a good argument. There are some horrific substances used in industrial processes (like, eg, the production of solar panels). Just because you want to think about them in nuclear but not elsewhere doesn't mean the problems go away. Industrial waste is industrial waste; humanity has been ignoring this stuff for millennia. It is no reason to block something as measurably environmentally positive as nuclear. The numbers suggest nuclear does less harm.
We should be holding all the options to the same safety standards.
> After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed.
Don't build a house there then. Incidentally it'd be a prime spot for a new nuclear plant.
These things are perfectly safe for people to work in, the issue is highly localised. The area of a plant is small. And, again, by the numbers a solar panel farm is going to sterilise a larger area of land. The fact that in theory it could be used doesn't change the fact it is going to be unusable by virtue of being covered in solar panels.
Just wait until people find out how lithium batteries are an incredibly toxic fire hazard with incredibly expensive externalities involved in their production and disposal. At least people haven't been stockpiling nuclear fuel pellets in their homes and sending them to their local landfill.
What are you doing with the waste? Coal being as dangerous is no argument, which also should not use coal. Also suing Coal has a different probability distribution. Coal power plants do not blow up like Nuclear power plants do. Even if they would do the consequences would be much smaller. How do you measure BTW lost area of the Chernobyl accident? You IMHO just cannot count only how many people died (which is difficult enough).
If solar/wind + batteries is cheaper than coal, why are new fossil fueled plants being built at a speed of about 10x capacity for every watt of renewable energy? Are people just bad at investments?
If I was an investor and I would choose something that has lower cost and higher profits, especially if it also favored political. Lower costs and higher profits are pretty nice. Choosing something that cost more and has less profits sounds terrible.
If I was an investor and I would choose something that has lower cost and higher profits, especially if it also favored political. Lower costs and higher profits are pretty nice. Choosing something that cost more and has less profits sounds terrible.
Coal is a subset of fossil fuels.
The investment in fossil fuel plants is mostly because of natural gas - a great deal many of coal plants have been converted or shutdown.
The investment in fossil fuel plants is mostly because of natural gas - a great deal many of coal plants have been converted or shutdown.
Are you really suggesting those have zero externalities not priced in?
There is no such thing as batteries for wind/solar. You have battery-based peaker plants and occasionally you may have the right geography to for pumped storage. But no, there is no battery storage technology capable of bridging the variability of wind/solar.
Why not? Its just a function of availability/price.
Assuming some conservative numbers of 1kwh of batteries costs 100usd and can do 2k cycles, that results in extra 5cents per kwh.
With the day/night cycle the utilization could be around 50%. Offset by only roughly half of your electricity needs to be stored. Sunless days would be pain though.
Imo if combined with cheap solar can be competitive.
FWIW my current electricity provider already applies a 1 cent/kwh surcharge for "peak capacity assurance".
Assuming some conservative numbers of 1kwh of batteries costs 100usd and can do 2k cycles, that results in extra 5cents per kwh.
With the day/night cycle the utilization could be around 50%. Offset by only roughly half of your electricity needs to be stored. Sunless days would be pain though.
Imo if combined with cheap solar can be competitive.
FWIW my current electricity provider already applies a 1 cent/kwh surcharge for "peak capacity assurance".
And that's why electricity is so cheap in Germany, right?
At least in the US utilities are now waking up to this reality for coal, which is why coal plants keep shutting down and no new ones are getting built.
In Germany the concept of "Ewigkeitskosten" ist factored in for coal and nuclear.
That is a fairly bold claim. There are laws around it, but it's far from clear whether all the costs are accounted for. There is for example continuous conflict over flooding old mines. That saves a lot of money, but it also risks contaminating ground water with e.g. PCBs.
Sorry, my comment was not meant to imply that _all_ future costs are covered by this. Just that there is a concept to factor in costs that would impact future generations.
This amount factored in will always be political in nature.
This amount factored in will always be political in nature.
The concept exists but it’s not exactly transparent how those costs translate into actual energy prices because coal mining has been heavily subsidised.
There are estimates, however, saying that those costs will exceed the overall benefits in the next few years, i.e. in the end it‘ll have been a negative-sum game.
There are estimates, however, saying that those costs will exceed the overall benefits in the next few years, i.e. in the end it‘ll have been a negative-sum game.
I am sure that you are right. Factoring _all_ costs is near impossible and as such the Ewigkeitskosten will not cover all the environmental impact ever.
What I meant is, that there is a concept to factor in such costs at all. Is it "complete" - surely not. Is it at least a concept that could be applied when talking about incurring costs for future generations? IMHO absolutely.
What I meant is, that there is a concept to factor in such costs at all. Is it "complete" - surely not. Is it at least a concept that could be applied when talking about incurring costs for future generations? IMHO absolutely.
Correct. The right questions to ask is not 'But what about Chernobyl' (which is unlikely in most countries) but instead:
What about decommissioning costs?
Fukushima is a good example of costs from a normal accident we can expect from time to time. Costs are at 200b USD and rising, and they still don't have the reactor site under control.
Even normal decommissioning is incredibly expensive and usually covered by governments and ignored in the costs of electricity.
https://nuclear-news.net/2020/09/24/9-1-2-years-after-meltdo...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-...
Nuclear fusion (if we ever get to commercial production), will make nuclear much more attractive again though and cut decommissioning costs a bit (though there is still the question of how to deal with reactor parts).
What about decommissioning costs?
Fukushima is a good example of costs from a normal accident we can expect from time to time. Costs are at 200b USD and rising, and they still don't have the reactor site under control.
Even normal decommissioning is incredibly expensive and usually covered by governments and ignored in the costs of electricity.
https://nuclear-news.net/2020/09/24/9-1-2-years-after-meltdo...
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-...
Nuclear fusion (if we ever get to commercial production), will make nuclear much more attractive again though and cut decommissioning costs a bit (though there is still the question of how to deal with reactor parts).
Can you show me the costs associated with decommisioning a hydro electric dam?
This is a hurdle people are only throwing in front of nuclear plants. Nuclear plants can run indefinitely if maintained - just like all major infrastructure.
This is a hurdle people are only throwing in front of nuclear plants. Nuclear plants can run indefinitely if maintained - just like all major infrastructure.
I think we should be building nuclear everywhere, but it's important to realise the life of a nuclear power plant is between 20 to 40 years.
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf
> It is evident that the average age of power reactors in the IAEA's Member States is increasing. (See accompanying graphs.) By 2000, more than 50 nuclear plants will have been providing electricity for 25 years or longer. Most nuclear power plants have operating life-times of between 20 and 40 years.
> Ageing is defined as a continuing time-dependent degradation of material due to service conditions,including normal operation and transient conditions. It is common experience that over long periods of time, there is a gradual change in the properties of materials. These changes can affect the capability of engineered components, systems, or structures to perform their required function. Not all changes are deleterious, but it is commonly observed that ageing processes normally involve a gradual reduction in performance capability.
> All materials in a nuclear power plant can suffer from ageing and can partially or totally lose their designed function. Ageing is not only of concern for active components (for which the probability of malfunction increases with time) but also for passive ones, since the safety margin is being reduced towards the lowest allow-able level
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/29402043133.pdf
> It is evident that the average age of power reactors in the IAEA's Member States is increasing. (See accompanying graphs.) By 2000, more than 50 nuclear plants will have been providing electricity for 25 years or longer. Most nuclear power plants have operating life-times of between 20 and 40 years.
> Ageing is defined as a continuing time-dependent degradation of material due to service conditions,including normal operation and transient conditions. It is common experience that over long periods of time, there is a gradual change in the properties of materials. These changes can affect the capability of engineered components, systems, or structures to perform their required function. Not all changes are deleterious, but it is commonly observed that ageing processes normally involve a gradual reduction in performance capability.
> All materials in a nuclear power plant can suffer from ageing and can partially or totally lose their designed function. Ageing is not only of concern for active components (for which the probability of malfunction increases with time) but also for passive ones, since the safety margin is being reduced towards the lowest allow-able level
> I think we should be building nuclear everywhere, but it's important to realise the life of a nuclear power plant is between 20 to 40 years.
This is simply untrue. Just look at French fleet. 40 years is minimum of their planned lifetime, and they probably will be operated for 50 or maybe even 60 years.
This is simply untrue. Just look at French fleet. 40 years is minimum of their planned lifetime, and they probably will be operated for 50 or maybe even 60 years.
Surely the same aging effects also affect dams too, though?
The construction materials becoming brittle due to constant bombardment with nuclear emissions? Not noticeable in a hydroelectric dam. The materials becoming brittle and breaking down due to constant exposure to heat? Steam does not normally factor in hydroelectric production.
Nuclear ages faster then thermoelectric, which ages faster than hydroelectric. It's a tradeoff.
Nuclear ages faster then thermoelectric, which ages faster than hydroelectric. It's a tradeoff.
Not at all.
The aging effects are largely from radiation and heat.
This study is from 1987. Might it it be slightly outdated?
This article from 2009 addresses the lower age estimates from the 1980’s era, saying reactors could last for 80 years or even more.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-pla...
This article from 2009 addresses the lower age estimates from the 1980’s era, saying reactors could last for 80 years or even more.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-pla...
In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In practice, there is.
FTA :
"We think we can replace almost every component in a nuclear power plant," said Jan van der Lee, director of the Materials Ageing Institute (MAI), a nuclear research facility inaugurated this week in France and run by the state-owned nuclear giant EDF.
EDF is state owned just as much as nuclear reactor construction company => I wouldn't trust that guy
"We think we can replace almost every component in a nuclear power plant," said Jan van der Lee, director of the Materials Ageing Institute (MAI), a nuclear research facility inaugurated this week in France and run by the state-owned nuclear giant EDF.
EDF is state owned just as much as nuclear reactor construction company => I wouldn't trust that guy
This is a bit of an edge case. Who else can you ask about the practicality of replacing reactors, other than people who replace reactors?
This study is strongly influenced by when nuclear reactors were built. Of course there aren't any 100-year-old nuclear plants; the technology isn't that old.
Some components certainly do degrade due to use, but it's entirely feasible to reuse large portions of the old plant by replacing the components that have degraded.
Some components certainly do degrade due to use, but it's entirely feasible to reuse large portions of the old plant by replacing the components that have degraded.
"What about Chernobyl" is usually outright dismissed as being an edge case owing its disaster to the Soviet regime, more concerned over image than safety.
The real important question, as you aluded to, is "What about Fukushima" - a disaster occuring in a rich, western nation, Japan; Japan is a nation generally seen as being on the leading edge of technology. If a disaster can occur in Japan, it can feasibly happen anywhere in the west.
The real important question, as you aluded to, is "What about Fukushima" - a disaster occuring in a rich, western nation, Japan; Japan is a nation generally seen as being on the leading edge of technology. If a disaster can occur in Japan, it can feasibly happen anywhere in the west.
Totally unrelated but why the land of rising sun (cannot go east than that) is being called a western nation.
Western as in democratic, high income, economically prosperous, broadly supportive of human rights, etc.
Another chilling moment when I realise that I'm way too old and can perceive slow changes of things (like the meanings of words). Please don't do that.
I highly doubt you are old enough that western did not always have that meaning for the majority of your life. It's a holdover from the Cold War, after all.
“West” is a vague notion that is neither coherent nor consistent. It’s particularly annoying because it’s named after a geographic concept, even though the selection criteria (as much as it exists) is socio-political.
The big giveaway here is that we now consider the great Greek writers as part of the “Western Canon”, while the Greeks and the Romans of the time considered the Greeks to be eastern. Oh and the byzantines are considered mostly considered to be Greek speaking easterners, even though they considered themselves to be Romans and the name “Byzantine Empire” was created long after it fell.
It’s a very confusing thing.
The big giveaway here is that we now consider the great Greek writers as part of the “Western Canon”, while the Greeks and the Romans of the time considered the Greeks to be eastern. Oh and the byzantines are considered mostly considered to be Greek speaking easterners, even though they considered themselves to be Romans and the name “Byzantine Empire” was created long after it fell.
It’s a very confusing thing.
Of course the probability is never 0,00%. But it is obvious that the Fukushima accident happened due to geological factors. The same power plant would hum away nicely in Germany to this day, where there is little to no seismic activity and none on the scale of what happened in Fukushima.
But unforeseen factors are always a component of accidents. Otherwise it wouldn't be an accident. Of course boost is planning for this to happen.
The point is that it does happen despite planning. It won't happen in the same way in Germany but something else can happen.
The point is that it does happen despite planning. It won't happen in the same way in Germany but something else can happen.
But the problems were very much foreseen!
The chief architect of the Fukushima plant tried hard to convince his bosses that the wall which protects the plant is not tall enough to protect against rare but possible huge tsunami waves, but hasn't been heard. He turned out to be right.
The plant also had emergency cooling pumps, but the pumps were connected incorrectly. This was unforeseen, I can give you that.
In any case, the Fukushima disaster caused one direct human death, or something like that.
In general, modern nuclear stations are no less reliable than fossil fuel plants, and only freak accidents, like a major earthquake and a tsunami, or personnel knowingly switching off all safety systems (the Chernobyl case) lead to catastrophic failures. This still can and should be improved upon, by using reactors with inherently self-contained designs, lack of high-pressure components within the reactor, etc.
The chief architect of the Fukushima plant tried hard to convince his bosses that the wall which protects the plant is not tall enough to protect against rare but possible huge tsunami waves, but hasn't been heard. He turned out to be right.
The plant also had emergency cooling pumps, but the pumps were connected incorrectly. This was unforeseen, I can give you that.
In any case, the Fukushima disaster caused one direct human death, or something like that.
In general, modern nuclear stations are no less reliable than fossil fuel plants, and only freak accidents, like a major earthquake and a tsunami, or personnel knowingly switching off all safety systems (the Chernobyl case) lead to catastrophic failures. This still can and should be improved upon, by using reactors with inherently self-contained designs, lack of high-pressure components within the reactor, etc.
That makes it even worse though! If the problems were foreseen but willfully ignored.
It goes to show that even in developed countries corruption happens and this is a major liability to nuclear plants. If it can happen there it can happen anywhere.
And deaths aren't the only measure of accidents. It also caused major pollution.
It goes to show that even in developed countries corruption happens and this is a major liability to nuclear plants. If it can happen there it can happen anywhere.
And deaths aren't the only measure of accidents. It also caused major pollution.
Were the builders of Fukushima unaware of the geology of Japan?
I would argue that they were aware and still got hit by the risk. I don’t see “well, that specific failure won’t be what gets us in Germany” as especially compelling.
I would argue that they were aware and still got hit by the risk. I don’t see “well, that specific failure won’t be what gets us in Germany” as especially compelling.
It’s hard to believe they took it fully into consideration. Or more likely someone just said ‘fuck it, just build it’ at some point.
Given the costs involved however, I find it hard to imagine tepco will make the same mistake again in the next 50 years or so.
Given the costs involved however, I find it hard to imagine tepco will make the same mistake again in the next 50 years or so.
Your first paragraph is exactly my point. What suggests that the plants being contemplated elsewhere in the world won't be subject to the same "fuck it, just built it" decision-making, whether that's around site safety, engineering, fuel handling, waste disposal, and other topics? (Especially because, at some point, you do have to actually say "judging everything, let's build it" which can look to opponents exactly like "fuck it, just build it".)
(Side note: I am pro-nuclear for baseline load in general. I'm also a realist about how likely problems are to repeat/ryhme.)
(Side note: I am pro-nuclear for baseline load in general. I'm also a realist about how likely problems are to repeat/ryhme.)
They planned for a certain level of tsunami/earthquake, but this particular tsunami exceeded norms.
They could have protected against this, but siting it near the coast is desirable for cooling purposes too (and has been helpful in some ways for cleanup as they've been able to dispose of waste in the ocean), so there are conflicting concerns here.
Things fail from time to time, if that thing failing is catastrophic, it gets very expensive to ensure 100% reliability.
They could have protected against this, but siting it near the coast is desirable for cooling purposes too (and has been helpful in some ways for cleanup as they've been able to dispose of waste in the ocean), so there are conflicting concerns here.
Things fail from time to time, if that thing failing is catastrophic, it gets very expensive to ensure 100% reliability.
Shoved the critical electrical stuff below the sea level... It's not like the reactors have fallen into a sudden volcano.
>there is still the question of how to deal with reactor parts
I don’t think this has ever been a question. Put them in a shed for 100 years then recycle the metal.
I don’t think this has ever been a question. Put them in a shed for 100 years then recycle the metal.
I would say the largest inherent danger with fusion reactors is the prospect of a tritium leak. D-D fusion reactor designs are not on the horizon. They are a “probably, one day” option. So for now we are aiming for D-T operation. All signs point towards a functional MCF reactor needing to be pretty large and, by extension, have a large recirculating stored energy (roughly 100 MJ). Tokamaks face the prospect of disruptions that slam all of that stored energy into the wall. An event like this would breach the reactor and leak the tritium fuel. The entire reactor and tritium processing facility should be behind a bioshield that shouldn’t leak, but the risk is there and real. It takes extreme care to prevent dire scenarios.
Stellarators don’t have the chance of disruptions, but would still need to rely on tritium.
Stellarators don’t have the chance of disruptions, but would still need to rely on tritium.
Well well. My girlfriends oldest brother died in what was a wave of cancer infant deaths that strangely coincides with the fallout of Chernobyl's radioactive cloud.
Her other brother came to the world deformed, which again happened to more mothers than hers. In my school class (~30 kids) alone there were 4 kids who had deformations or other mutations that affected their life's negatively (for those who still live: to this day). All of them were born in the years after the fallout.
In my region you are still adviced not to eat certain mushrooms or the meat of boars.
Not to speak that one death and one deformed child that needs life long attention does something to the families tho whom such things happen.
Of course all of it is incredibly hard to attribute this to Chernobyl, but the region which got the brink of the radioactive rain (southern Bavaria, southern Austria) had the most of such cases to such a degree that the doctors noticed it.
That being said: of course a lot improved after Chernobyl in terms of reactor safety. But nuclear is still a business, where a (not insignificant) part of the costs linked to waste and potential catastrophes aren't carried by those who earn the money.
So whether nuclear really is affordable depends on how you do the accounting — how much you get the public, the environment and by future generations to carry for free.
E.g. how much does it cost to store 1 kg of nuclear waste safely for 10 000 years? Is that cost prized into the cost of the produced electricity or do we expect future generations to carry it even after all uranium has been burned?
Please convince me that nuclear isn't a Ponzi-scheme on the future generations.
Her other brother came to the world deformed, which again happened to more mothers than hers. In my school class (~30 kids) alone there were 4 kids who had deformations or other mutations that affected their life's negatively (for those who still live: to this day). All of them were born in the years after the fallout.
In my region you are still adviced not to eat certain mushrooms or the meat of boars.
Not to speak that one death and one deformed child that needs life long attention does something to the families tho whom such things happen.
Of course all of it is incredibly hard to attribute this to Chernobyl, but the region which got the brink of the radioactive rain (southern Bavaria, southern Austria) had the most of such cases to such a degree that the doctors noticed it.
That being said: of course a lot improved after Chernobyl in terms of reactor safety. But nuclear is still a business, where a (not insignificant) part of the costs linked to waste and potential catastrophes aren't carried by those who earn the money.
So whether nuclear really is affordable depends on how you do the accounting — how much you get the public, the environment and by future generations to carry for free.
E.g. how much does it cost to store 1 kg of nuclear waste safely for 10 000 years? Is that cost prized into the cost of the produced electricity or do we expect future generations to carry it even after all uranium has been burned?
Please convince me that nuclear isn't a Ponzi-scheme on the future generations.
> of course a lot improved after Chernobyl in terms of reactor safety
My understanding is that Chernobyl was caused by an experiment that went wrong due to errors in following processes correctly.
I would assume that most reactors just make electricity, and outside of smaller reactors used for research they aren't used for experiments. Is that correct?
My understanding is that Chernobyl was caused by an experiment that went wrong due to errors in following processes correctly.
I would assume that most reactors just make electricity, and outside of smaller reactors used for research they aren't used for experiments. Is that correct?
Not an expert but my understanding is that you are largely incorrect. The "experiment" was a test the facility had to pass (dark station shutdown) in order to be certified safe. The site's primary function was to generate electricity. Secondary function to create weapons material precursors. That humans had to follow processes in order to avoid contaminating large parts of Europe is a fundamental failing.
Kinda.
Dark Station shutdown is still a problem in some senses.
They were indeed, doing an experiment, not just to pass a certification, but they were testing a theory, that in fact makes perfect sense, just the execution of the test was extremely crap.
The problem: when the power grid fails, there is no power to keep the coolant system pumps working, thus might cause a meltdown.
Chernobyl solution: attempt to improve the turbine designs so they can keep generating power using their own inertia until the diesel generators are online.
Chernobyl first failed attempts: improvements were not enough, the idea DID worked, but the turbines stopped spinning too early.
Chernobyl last attempt: power usage in the day of the test was unusually high, not only the test was delayed but the reactor had to produce more power than usual, when the test finally came, the procedures of the test weren't followed properly, the crew that did the test didn't knew how to do it, and after they pushed the reactor parameters to values outside the design limits, the computer attempted to fight back, so they disabled the safety features of the computer and tried to control the situation manually, doing things the computer was requesting them to NOT do.
Dark Station shutdown is still a problem in some senses.
They were indeed, doing an experiment, not just to pass a certification, but they were testing a theory, that in fact makes perfect sense, just the execution of the test was extremely crap.
The problem: when the power grid fails, there is no power to keep the coolant system pumps working, thus might cause a meltdown.
Chernobyl solution: attempt to improve the turbine designs so they can keep generating power using their own inertia until the diesel generators are online.
Chernobyl first failed attempts: improvements were not enough, the idea DID worked, but the turbines stopped spinning too early.
Chernobyl last attempt: power usage in the day of the test was unusually high, not only the test was delayed but the reactor had to produce more power than usual, when the test finally came, the procedures of the test weren't followed properly, the crew that did the test didn't knew how to do it, and after they pushed the reactor parameters to values outside the design limits, the computer attempted to fight back, so they disabled the safety features of the computer and tried to control the situation manually, doing things the computer was requesting them to NOT do.
No, there was a design flaw in the reactor, that caused the emergency shutdown procedure to trigger a runaway reaction.
> My girlfriends oldest brother died in what was a wave of cancer infant deaths [..]
That's horrible, and I don't want to diminish it in any way. Nuclear power has killed many people, and impacted many more others negatively. Thousands, certainly, possibly tens of thousands. Some (very disputed) estimates for Chernobyl range as high as hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. Each of those is a unique tragedy.
On the other hand, fossil fuels kills thousands of people per day. There's no free lunch here. Deactivating a nuclear power plant and then having to rely on more coal than otherwise costs actual lives.
You can point to some actual victims of Chernobyl, so it feels realer to you, but the victims of fossil fuels are all around you too, and outnumber them enormously.
> of course a lot improved after Chernobyl
Quite true, but again, coal is hundreds of times more deadly than nuclear even if you include Chernobyl in the statistics. If you assume things have gotten better since then, then the deck is even more overwhelmingly stacked in favour of the safety of nuclear power.
To be clear: Even if you assume that nuclear power is a horrifying thing that will send a plume of radioactive ash across Europe every few decades causing birth defects and death, it still beats coal on safety. Of course, nobody thinks modern nuclear power plants are remotely that dangerous...and yet we're still building new coal plants, even today.
Oh, and not that it matter hugely, but:
> E.g. how much does it cost to store 1 kg of nuclear waste safely for 10 000 years?
So low it rounds to zero. I'm sceptical about the true unsubsidised costs of nuclear power, but waste storage isn't a particularly hard (or expensive) problem.
On the other hand, flip it around; what's the cost to store 1 kg of the radioactive waste safely? Wait, we can't store it safely; by the design of the plant it emits it straight into the atmosphere.
> Please convince me that nuclear isn't a Ponzi-scheme on the future generations.
The real question is whether it's affordable for current generations. It's clearly just fine for future generations.
That's horrible, and I don't want to diminish it in any way. Nuclear power has killed many people, and impacted many more others negatively. Thousands, certainly, possibly tens of thousands. Some (very disputed) estimates for Chernobyl range as high as hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. Each of those is a unique tragedy.
On the other hand, fossil fuels kills thousands of people per day. There's no free lunch here. Deactivating a nuclear power plant and then having to rely on more coal than otherwise costs actual lives.
You can point to some actual victims of Chernobyl, so it feels realer to you, but the victims of fossil fuels are all around you too, and outnumber them enormously.
> of course a lot improved after Chernobyl
Quite true, but again, coal is hundreds of times more deadly than nuclear even if you include Chernobyl in the statistics. If you assume things have gotten better since then, then the deck is even more overwhelmingly stacked in favour of the safety of nuclear power.
To be clear: Even if you assume that nuclear power is a horrifying thing that will send a plume of radioactive ash across Europe every few decades causing birth defects and death, it still beats coal on safety. Of course, nobody thinks modern nuclear power plants are remotely that dangerous...and yet we're still building new coal plants, even today.
Oh, and not that it matter hugely, but:
> E.g. how much does it cost to store 1 kg of nuclear waste safely for 10 000 years?
So low it rounds to zero. I'm sceptical about the true unsubsidised costs of nuclear power, but waste storage isn't a particularly hard (or expensive) problem.
On the other hand, flip it around; what's the cost to store 1 kg of the radioactive waste safely? Wait, we can't store it safely; by the design of the plant it emits it straight into the atmosphere.
> Please convince me that nuclear isn't a Ponzi-scheme on the future generations.
The real question is whether it's affordable for current generations. It's clearly just fine for future generations.
Compare vs renewables not coal.
Renewables are not a silver bullet either. There are plenty of nasty things that go into building batteries and solar panels with no where near the attention to safely disposing them. Plus, renewables just can't handle baseload and load follow the way fossil or nuclear can.
Battery storage follows load much faster than fossil, and nuclear can't follow at all.
Wrong on nuclear. They operate in load following in France just fine.
Until it gets too hot and they have to ironically shut down the plants during heat waves.
The same would be true of any thermoelectric power station. They all need cooling of the condenser.
But not true of photovoltaic or wind power stations...
We're still building coal power plants right now. See, eg, "Japan Races to Build New Coal-Burning Power Plants" from Feb of this year (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush...).
In many places, what replaced nuclear power plants we decommission or choose not to build is not renewables, so that's by no means the only relevant comparison.
In many places, what replaced nuclear power plants we decommission or choose not to build is not renewables, so that's by no means the only relevant comparison.
> Does that mean nuclear is just a totally great idea? No; the issue with nuclear is cost. Historically it has been quite expensive, but subsidised in opaque ways. In a zero carbon world, it might make sense for baseline generation even if it's expensive; in the world we live in it needs to compete on price. Can it?
Compete against fossil fuels? No, but neither can solar and wind. Nuclear power also loses out against solar and wind in the very short term, and depending on the geography. Solar is cheap until you saturate the energy market during peak generation hours. Adding storage into the mix creates costs an order of magnitude larger than nuclear. We don't have a plan to decarbonize the electricity sector with solar and wind that doesn't involve a massive breakthrough in energy storage.
The reality is that the only proven ways of powering nations with carbon-free energy are either geographically dependent (hydroelectricity and geothermal power) and nuclear. Nuclear also provides additional benefits in the form of things like desalination with the waste heat - which is going to be highly in demand as climate change ramps up- and thermochemical hydrogen production, which is likely our best method of decarbonizing shipping.
Compete against fossil fuels? No, but neither can solar and wind. Nuclear power also loses out against solar and wind in the very short term, and depending on the geography. Solar is cheap until you saturate the energy market during peak generation hours. Adding storage into the mix creates costs an order of magnitude larger than nuclear. We don't have a plan to decarbonize the electricity sector with solar and wind that doesn't involve a massive breakthrough in energy storage.
The reality is that the only proven ways of powering nations with carbon-free energy are either geographically dependent (hydroelectricity and geothermal power) and nuclear. Nuclear also provides additional benefits in the form of things like desalination with the waste heat - which is going to be highly in demand as climate change ramps up- and thermochemical hydrogen production, which is likely our best method of decarbonizing shipping.
The economic reality is that battery on the grid is out-competing gas peaker plants in a lot of places because even with the current scarcity and price levels in the battery market, it seems economical to buy them by the MWH.
Technically, peak prices dropping because of solar/wind is a problem of everything else being too expensive. Battery storage solves that problem by being cheaper. Of course we'll need many TWH and the current production levels are still measured in GWH. But as we learned last week, Tesla is looking to fix that. But even at current price levels picking something expensive like lithium ion seems to make sense for some. Of course better options are possible and being worked on. But it's competitive already. We're talking about making it even more competitive.
This is actually proven technology; there are a growing number of places that have sharply reduced their conventional power generation and vastly reduced cost simply by deploying modest amounts of battery.
Basically the notion of a peaker plant seems to be reserved for recovering the sunk cost in prematurely unprofitable gas and coal plants. Building new peaker plants is not really a thing. The economic outlook for investors behind such plants is downright depressing as they can look at trends in the market and extrapolate sub 0.01 $/kwh solar prices are coming (rounded down, this already happened actually).
That's also why nuclear is not really viable because its closer to 0.1 $/kwh. That's an order of magnitude difference. It's too expensive. Too risky (financially). Too uncertain. And that's before you consider the general mood (irrational as that may be) against nuclear.
Technically, peak prices dropping because of solar/wind is a problem of everything else being too expensive. Battery storage solves that problem by being cheaper. Of course we'll need many TWH and the current production levels are still measured in GWH. But as we learned last week, Tesla is looking to fix that. But even at current price levels picking something expensive like lithium ion seems to make sense for some. Of course better options are possible and being worked on. But it's competitive already. We're talking about making it even more competitive.
This is actually proven technology; there are a growing number of places that have sharply reduced their conventional power generation and vastly reduced cost simply by deploying modest amounts of battery.
Basically the notion of a peaker plant seems to be reserved for recovering the sunk cost in prematurely unprofitable gas and coal plants. Building new peaker plants is not really a thing. The economic outlook for investors behind such plants is downright depressing as they can look at trends in the market and extrapolate sub 0.01 $/kwh solar prices are coming (rounded down, this already happened actually).
That's also why nuclear is not really viable because its closer to 0.1 $/kwh. That's an order of magnitude difference. It's too expensive. Too risky (financially). Too uncertain. And that's before you consider the general mood (irrational as that may be) against nuclear.
> The economic reality is that battery on the grid is out-competing gas peaker plants in a lot of places because even with the current scarcity and price levels in the battery market, it seems economical to buy them by the MWH.
Do you have any citation for this because I've seen no evidence that this is true. The largest grid scale lithium battery is barely a drop in the ocean by comparison to the energy consumption of the grid. It is only used for short term grid frequency stabilization, which it does admirably.
Do you have any citation for this because I've seen no evidence that this is true. The largest grid scale lithium battery is barely a drop in the ocean by comparison to the energy consumption of the grid. It is only used for short term grid frequency stabilization, which it does admirably.
I just read the news in the energy market. I think California just ordered a few MwH of battery from Tesla. They seem to be doing a brisk business of selling batteries to grid providers in a market that is entirely supply limited. There are loads of companies working on alternate storage technologies.
You are right that there is very little right now. But I'd counter that that is growing rapidly and that that is inspired by those investments paying off for their early adopters.
Short term stabilization is actually the key problem that needs solving with energy peaks (which are inherently short term). The sun comes out quite reliably every day to provide a predictable minimum of power levels. Basically solar and wind combined are quite OK. Things like seasonal variation are actually more predictable and something you can plan for. Extended freak periods of clouds with no wind across an entire continent is not a really thing. Such effects tend to be local and temporary. So we can fix a lot by simply moving power around (with cables, another proven technology).
The unspoken presumption with storage critics is that we'll need unspecified days/weeks/months of storage for such apocalyptic conditions. As far as I can see this is simply wrong and not something that energy companies are putting a lot of serious money on the table for.
I've actually seen zero credible evidence for this; not even a ballpark number of how many TWH of storage that would be needed. So, I'll bounce that question right back at you: how much TWH/PTW do you think is needed/economically justifiable and why? That will allow us to put a price tag on it.
The reality is that interconnected grids means the sun is always shining somewhere and wind turbines out on the water or wherever are always providing some power somewhere. If you look at the market, grid connectivity and storage are exactly two things where investments are happening. Long term storage seems much less of a concern for grid providers. Mostly 2-4 hours seems to be the sweet spot of what grid providers seem to be spending on.
You are right that there is very little right now. But I'd counter that that is growing rapidly and that that is inspired by those investments paying off for their early adopters.
Short term stabilization is actually the key problem that needs solving with energy peaks (which are inherently short term). The sun comes out quite reliably every day to provide a predictable minimum of power levels. Basically solar and wind combined are quite OK. Things like seasonal variation are actually more predictable and something you can plan for. Extended freak periods of clouds with no wind across an entire continent is not a really thing. Such effects tend to be local and temporary. So we can fix a lot by simply moving power around (with cables, another proven technology).
The unspoken presumption with storage critics is that we'll need unspecified days/weeks/months of storage for such apocalyptic conditions. As far as I can see this is simply wrong and not something that energy companies are putting a lot of serious money on the table for.
I've actually seen zero credible evidence for this; not even a ballpark number of how many TWH of storage that would be needed. So, I'll bounce that question right back at you: how much TWH/PTW do you think is needed/economically justifiable and why? That will allow us to put a price tag on it.
The reality is that interconnected grids means the sun is always shining somewhere and wind turbines out on the water or wherever are always providing some power somewhere. If you look at the market, grid connectivity and storage are exactly two things where investments are happening. Long term storage seems much less of a concern for grid providers. Mostly 2-4 hours seems to be the sweet spot of what grid providers seem to be spending on.
In order to reach 80% renewables we'll need 12 hours of storage. In order to reach 100% renewables we'll need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
For grid stabilization in the UK we already have 28GWh of pumped hydro storage. I'm not an expert in sizing grid infrastructure but I expect we'd need storage of several times that to balance a less dispatchable grid.
The sun is always shining somewhere doesn't work for day / night solar production. Transmission losses are of the order of 0.5% per 100km. By the time you transmit power 20,000km there is nothing left.
The sun is always shining somewhere doesn't work for day / night solar production. Transmission losses are of the order of 0.5% per 100km. By the time you transmit power 20,000km there is nothing left.
Its <3 percent per 1000km if using high voltage DC and multiplicative not additive. So 0.97^(20000/1000)= 0.54.
Just under half lost, not infeasible.
Also building enough battery capacity to offset the night is doable. UK annual consumption is around 300TWH, let's round to 1TWH a day.
The nighttime consumption is about half of the daytime's so only 33% needs to be saved.
So we need 350GWH of batteries. It will take a while, cost 35 Billion assuming 100 usd for 1 kwh. Or 2 billion a year or 0.6 cents per KWH of energy consumed.
Also building enough battery capacity to offset the night is doable. UK annual consumption is around 300TWH, let's round to 1TWH a day.
The nighttime consumption is about half of the daytime's so only 33% needs to be saved.
So we need 350GWH of batteries. It will take a while, cost 35 Billion assuming 100 usd for 1 kwh. Or 2 billion a year or 0.6 cents per KWH of energy consumed.
I don't think you can really quote prices when you are talking about battery capacities on the order of the current world wide lithium battery production.
Also, it's interesting that Iceland, with their abundance of geothermal power, don't have an interconnection with Europe. That's only 1000km as the crow flies and yet hasn't been considered economically feasible yet.
Also, it's interesting that Iceland, with their abundance of geothermal power, don't have an interconnection with Europe. That's only 1000km as the crow flies and yet hasn't been considered economically feasible yet.
There is no lithium shortage. E.g. Tesla is basically mining in Nevada in a place that has apparently more than enough for their quite ambitious roadmap. Also money quote from Elon Musk last week was that it's one of the most common elements in the world. Basically, we've only scratched the surface (quite literally) in terms of actively looking for the stuff as the demand for lithium at this scale is a fairly recent development.
As for geothermal, Iceland has geothermal; yes. So do other places. You're talking as if using that as an infinite source of energy is both cheap, feasible, and scalable. It's probably none of those things. Iceland has about 300K people, the UK has around 66M, so we're talking about 220x the energy demand. And running cables across the Atlantic. And doing a lot of infrastructure development in Iceland at the cost of many billions in a market that has energy prices trending down because of other clean energy options. Perhaps that's the reason that it was never really considered as an option.
Regarding the quoted prices, I think for the sake of argument this person was deliberately using numbers that are on the super conservative side. E.g. buying battery at 100$/kwh would probably be a spectacularly bad deal considering prices are already dipping below that (and that's for car batteries). Also, for the sake of argument assuming everything happens right now at today's prices is arguably not how this would play out at all. But as he's argueing, even if you make such assumptions it's still doable. So, it's likely to end up being a good deal cheaper than projected there as this plays out over the next decades as prices for batteries continue to drop and we figure out how to do this at scale.
As for geothermal, Iceland has geothermal; yes. So do other places. You're talking as if using that as an infinite source of energy is both cheap, feasible, and scalable. It's probably none of those things. Iceland has about 300K people, the UK has around 66M, so we're talking about 220x the energy demand. And running cables across the Atlantic. And doing a lot of infrastructure development in Iceland at the cost of many billions in a market that has energy prices trending down because of other clean energy options. Perhaps that's the reason that it was never really considered as an option.
Regarding the quoted prices, I think for the sake of argument this person was deliberately using numbers that are on the super conservative side. E.g. buying battery at 100$/kwh would probably be a spectacularly bad deal considering prices are already dipping below that (and that's for car batteries). Also, for the sake of argument assuming everything happens right now at today's prices is arguably not how this would play out at all. But as he's argueing, even if you make such assumptions it's still doable. So, it's likely to end up being a good deal cheaper than projected there as this plays out over the next decades as prices for batteries continue to drop and we figure out how to do this at scale.
You have to be very careful with claims about relative abundance. Take water as an example, 2/3 of our planets surface is covered in it and yet for practical purposes it's useless to us for drinking or watering crops. Regardless, I didn't make any claim about abundance of lithium, only the current manufacturing capacity.
My point about Iceland is they already have huge amounts of geothermal power and they should be able to develop it and sell it back to Europe as green electricity. Currently 70% of their power consumption is used to smelt aluminium so it's not like they are constrained.
My point about Iceland is they already have huge amounts of geothermal power and they should be able to develop it and sell it back to Europe as green electricity. Currently 70% of their power consumption is used to smelt aluminium so it's not like they are constrained.
> Take water as an example, 2/3 of our planets surface is covered in it and yet for practical purposes it's useless to us for drinking or watering crops.
It's not useless, it just requires too much processing and transportation to be practical. The issue with water is that for what we need it, we really require enormous amounts of it. This is not the case with lithium, where required amounts are trivial in comparison. Just to make the point: a truck-load full of lithium is worth around $300,000. To desalinate the same truck-load worth of salt water, it costs about $20, that is, 4 orders of magnitude less. If you don't have to desalinate, but instead can just draw fresh water, it will be around $1-2 for a truck-load. Obviously, trucking in water is still too expensive, because we need lots and lots of water, truly insane amounts compared to anything else.
It's not useless, it just requires too much processing and transportation to be practical. The issue with water is that for what we need it, we really require enormous amounts of it. This is not the case with lithium, where required amounts are trivial in comparison. Just to make the point: a truck-load full of lithium is worth around $300,000. To desalinate the same truck-load worth of salt water, it costs about $20, that is, 4 orders of magnitude less. If you don't have to desalinate, but instead can just draw fresh water, it will be around $1-2 for a truck-load. Obviously, trucking in water is still too expensive, because we need lots and lots of water, truly insane amounts compared to anything else.
You are forgetting wind.
The problem is there simply are not that many batteries. On a small scale the Tesla Australia battery is making money nad its out-competing gas peakers. But we don't jet have batteries of the scale to cover the really long substained drops.
Even the most optimistic projections about battery fall short of what is needed to replace gas peakers.
Lets hope Tesla, LG, CATL can spit out insane amounts of batteries and we maybe get some dispatchable CSP.
Even the most optimistic projections about battery fall short of what is needed to replace gas peakers.
Lets hope Tesla, LG, CATL can spit out insane amounts of batteries and we maybe get some dispatchable CSP.
Sure, solar + natural gas is cheaper than nuclear. But that's not a solution to climate change. The amount of battery storage that some plants use is negligible compared to the 11.5 TWh that the US uses on average every day. The entire country has 8 seconds worth of battery storage.
The reality is that nobody has a plan to power a country with renewables. The storage requirements to do so are staggering. The US would need 12 hours of storage to get to 80% renewables - and we'd still be burning fossil fuels for the remainder. To get to 100% renewables we'd need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
Intermittent sources are fundamentally not viable as a primary form of generation. Solar is currently being used to supplement fossil fuel generation during the day, but one you saturate daytime power generation the usable energy you get from solar drops substantially.
The reality is that nobody has a plan to power a country with renewables. The storage requirements to do so are staggering. The US would need 12 hours of storage to get to 80% renewables - and we'd still be burning fossil fuels for the remainder. To get to 100% renewables we'd need 3 weeks of storage: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
Intermittent sources are fundamentally not viable as a primary form of generation. Solar is currently being used to supplement fossil fuel generation during the day, but one you saturate daytime power generation the usable energy you get from solar drops substantially.
Just a day ago someone on HM mentioned that the Diablo Canyon plant is being shut down because it would need a 7B USD cooling system (evaporation towers), and building 40 GWh storage would cost less.
(I found this ~400 USD / kWh for 4 hours number, that gives 17.5 GW for 4 hours for 7B. by W Cole at NREL.)
(I found this ~400 USD / kWh for 4 hours number, that gives 17.5 GW for 4 hours for 7B. by W Cole at NREL.)
I don't doubt that the Diablo Canyon upgrade is expensive, and various interests have been set on killing that plant for decades, but there is no way on earth you're getting 40 GWh of storage in central California at any price within a decade.
The total pumped and gas storage capacity of the United States is only like 25 GWh. Building that would require a majority of the total battery production of the entire planet for a year, and most of that wouldn't even be the right kind of batteries regardless of what technology they settled on. Some sort of dream moonshot project to build that would be awesome, but is completely outside the scope of any modern commercial endeavor.
The total pumped and gas storage capacity of the United States is only like 25 GWh. Building that would require a majority of the total battery production of the entire planet for a year, and most of that wouldn't even be the right kind of batteries regardless of what technology they settled on. Some sort of dream moonshot project to build that would be awesome, but is completely outside the scope of any modern commercial endeavor.
There are 2 scenarios:
1. We drastically reduce fossils using regulation / legislation, in which case they become harder to get (eg more expensive) than the alternatives for most users.
2. We don't reduce fossils, in which case we're left with just trying to outcompete energy supply so nobody wants to pump the cheap oil and gas from the ground anymore.
Option 2 is never going to work and is equivalent to just giving up on fighting climate change.
1. We drastically reduce fossils using regulation / legislation, in which case they become harder to get (eg more expensive) than the alternatives for most users.
2. We don't reduce fossils, in which case we're left with just trying to outcompete energy supply so nobody wants to pump the cheap oil and gas from the ground anymore.
Option 2 is never going to work and is equivalent to just giving up on fighting climate change.
>Option 2 is never going to work and is equivalent to just giving up on fighting climate change.
And option 1 is no better. You tax the crap out of fossil fuels forcing billions of people's standard of living to go substantially backwards, they start revolting, maybe have you lined up and shot, people like me say "told ya so" and we're left with shattered economies, refugee crisis and basically all the bad things climate change is going to bring anyway.
We're long past the point of solving this easily. Whatever option we pick is going to hurt given the choice between suffering at the hand of other people and suffering at the hand of nature I think the latter is going to result in a lot less overall suffering because the correlation between land becoming uninhabitable or non-productive and revolt is much weaker (or at the very least it takes longer) than the correlation between oppressive taxation/regulation and revolt. The climate change bill is gonna come due regardless. Having governments try and collect proactively is just gonna give is broken governments to go with our broken planet.
And option 1 is no better. You tax the crap out of fossil fuels forcing billions of people's standard of living to go substantially backwards, they start revolting, maybe have you lined up and shot, people like me say "told ya so" and we're left with shattered economies, refugee crisis and basically all the bad things climate change is going to bring anyway.
We're long past the point of solving this easily. Whatever option we pick is going to hurt given the choice between suffering at the hand of other people and suffering at the hand of nature I think the latter is going to result in a lot less overall suffering because the correlation between land becoming uninhabitable or non-productive and revolt is much weaker (or at the very least it takes longer) than the correlation between oppressive taxation/regulation and revolt. The climate change bill is gonna come due regardless. Having governments try and collect proactively is just gonna give is broken governments to go with our broken planet.
Pretty gloomy view!
Taxing fossils yields revenue that has to be used for thngs like income transfers or breaking dependency on fossils to offset these steps back.
Taxing fossils yields revenue that has to be used for thngs like income transfers or breaking dependency on fossils to offset these steps back.
>Does that mean nuclear is just a totally great idea? No; the issue with nuclear is cost.
Oh don't forget the other issue: It takes decades to build a new plant. We don't got that time.
For the $6 Billion or more it takes to build a nuclear plant that will then take 15 to 20 years to license and build before it generates a single Watt, we could have had a $6 Billion of solar and wind deployed and operating for 12+ years already.
Oh don't forget the other issue: It takes decades to build a new plant. We don't got that time.
For the $6 Billion or more it takes to build a nuclear plant that will then take 15 to 20 years to license and build before it generates a single Watt, we could have had a $6 Billion of solar and wind deployed and operating for 12+ years already.
> It takes decades to build a new plant.
No, it doesn't. It only takes a few years. What takes decades is resolving all the NIMBY lawsuits.
No, it doesn't. It only takes a few years. What takes decades is resolving all the NIMBY lawsuits.
Vogtle, Summer, Flamanville 3, and Olkiluoto 3 weren't delayed by NIMBY lawsuits. They were delayed by construction screw ups. Nuclear power plants are complex, and if they are required to be constructed to high standards, delays and overruns are almost inevitable.
A PV field, on the other hand, is much simpler, with much more inherent redundancy, and can tolerate construction mistakes without either safety implications or substantial loss of capacity.
A PV field, on the other hand, is much simpler, with much more inherent redundancy, and can tolerate construction mistakes without either safety implications or substantial loss of capacity.
Virginia-class nuclear submarine(GE "S9G" PWR using HEU cores, 210 MWth) takes as little as 1-2 year from laydown to launching. 19 such hulls is in service, 11 in construction.
Thats still pretty small and usage specific - modern 1000 MW electricity producing nuclear power plants produce about 3000 MW of heat, so about 15x the naval nuclear reactor in your example.
Like I said, US had commissioned around 20 of those reactors in the past couple decades.
How is the cost per MWh in construction and ops?
Fair enough - still what I'm trying to say is that those 20 cover the thermal output of a single modern reactor & many are needed even just to get rid of seriously polluting power sources, like the brown coal/lignite fired power plants used in many places in Europe.
Three of the plants you mentioned were 40+ years ago, right? Seems a bit outdated to point to in 2020.
None of the plants I mentioned were 40+ years ago. They are all contemporary. Vogtle is still under construction, Summer was cancelled a couple of years ago ($9B down the drain), Flamanville 3 is still under construction, and the last is near completion. You may be confused with earlier reactors at some of those sites.
Olkiluoto 3 is a new design though. Making a second exact same one again will be much faster and cheaper as you have now worked out most of the issues.
Olkiluoto 1 and 2 were both built quickly and on schedule. Mainly because they were already proven designs with tens of other units already built around the world (and the second reactor is practically identical with the first one)
Olkiluoto 1 and 2 were both built quickly and on schedule. Mainly because they were already proven designs with tens of other units already built around the world (and the second reactor is practically identical with the first one)
> Olkiluoto 3 is a new design though. Making a second exact same one again will be much faster and cheaper as you have now worked out most of the issues.
The second exact same one is actually Flamanville 3, the other one with the massive cost overruns.
The second exact same one is actually Flamanville 3, the other one with the massive cost overruns.
Yes. Though they did start building it before Olkiluoto 3 was up and running so can't really use all the learnings from it.
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The Chinese have started building two reactors of similar conception as Flamanville 3 and Olkiluoto 3 after these, and they both came online in 2018 after a little less than 6 years of construction. Proof enough that it's totally political, if you ask me.
Looking at this page [1] it seems China takes about 5 years to go from start of construction to commercial operation of a reactor.
I'm pretty sure they have no NIMBY lawsuits to content with, so this seems like a realistic timeframe.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
I'm pretty sure they have no NIMBY lawsuits to content with, so this seems like a realistic timeframe.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#China
Sure it does. It takes one decade for America to build 1.7 miles of rail. That's for a thing that is done daily across the globe. Doing a thing that's done rarely? Yeah, I have no hope that there is an American company today that can do it.
By the time we build expertise it will be 2080. And all that capital will be tied up until then. Who even knows if fission will be the right tool then.
By the time we build expertise it will be 2080. And all that capital will be tied up until then. Who even knows if fission will be the right tool then.
So in practice is does take decades.
If we had enough solar to power the world, would all of the solar cells actually lower the temperature of Earth due to being black?
No. If you want to keep the planet cool you need to use white surfaces or mirrors to reflect that energy back into space.
Plus most electricty/energy that isn't stored somehow gets converted into heat. That's just how the universe works.
If you capture some energy with your solar panel just to immediately release ~100% of it as heat again because you power your servers with it, you didn't accomplish anything.
Plus most electricty/energy that isn't stored somehow gets converted into heat. That's just how the universe works.
If you capture some energy with your solar panel just to immediately release ~100% of it as heat again because you power your servers with it, you didn't accomplish anything.
Still you could use that energy to power the work needed to bring the temperature down - produce the mirrors you mention, extract stuff from atmosphere that makes the temperature higher and store it, etc..
Solar radiation that is absorbed by a solar panel will either heat the panel or generate electricity, which will also mostly become heat in the end. Reflected radiation will hopefully leave the earth.
The things that cool the planet are mostly white — reflective. Clouds, white roofs, etc.
Trees cool their local area by performing endothermic reactions creating carbohydrates and lignans.
The things that cool the planet are mostly white — reflective. Clouds, white roofs, etc.
Trees cool their local area by performing endothermic reactions creating carbohydrates and lignans.
> Trees cool their local area by performing endothermic reactions creating carbohydrates and lignans.
Let's not forget shade. How much are they cooling the air above them?
Let's not forget shade. How much are they cooling the air above them?
A fair bit. I don't have numbers for trees in particular, but one of the benefits of putting solar panels above farms is supposed to be cooler panels, which improves panel efficiency.
Though most of that would be evaporation, not chemistry.
Though most of that would be evaporation, not chemistry.
Possibly if we channeled the generatef power off-planet using eg high efficiency lasers.
solar/wind + batteries is now cheaper than coal and nuclear. And it can be brought online faster with virtually no safety issues.
Nuclear had it's day and it's over. At this point subsidizing it is just creating a mess so that we can give money to GE et al for providing something that--thanks to technology--has no value. If you really want to, just give GE the money directly so that we won't have to bother decommissioning some disaster decades from now.
Nuclear had it's day and it's over. At this point subsidizing it is just creating a mess so that we can give money to GE et al for providing something that--thanks to technology--has no value. If you really want to, just give GE the money directly so that we won't have to bother decommissioning some disaster decades from now.
Do you have evidence that batteries are cheaper than say nuclear? I only heard of the opposite, batteries are prohibitively expensive.
Until recently, batteries have been very expensive. However, like wind and solar, as we build the industry they are dropping exponentially in cost, at about 20% per year over the past decade [1], and we are hitting a non-linear inflection point when it's more profitable to include batteries in a new build than to omit them.
One set of estimated from Lazard: advanced nuclear at $118-$192/MWh, and lithium-ion charged from directly attached solar at $102-$139/MWh [2].
Lazard have analyses for energy generation costs by technology, and storage costs based on use case and scenario. (Note that the storage use cases include the cost of charging the storage system.)
These cost estimates work hard to simplify a hugely complex subject, by estimating a levelized cost of energy, which is then of course an oversimplification. It doesn't consider the value of when energy is delivered, or the price of when the storage is charged. EIA, filled with a lot of hard energy guys that are dismayed to see renewables outperforming in cost, puts out ridiculous numbers, but has also embraced something called the LACE to try to compensate. However they have been so wrong on hard numbers that they can't be trusted when it comes to renewables.
The design of energy markets has absolutely huge impacts on the profitability of storage as well, and it can still be very hard to get compensated for the value provided to the grid. There probably would already have been GW of batteries on Texas' ERCOT grid if they buy/sell dual nature had been legal earlier.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/the-story-of-che...
[2] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
One set of estimated from Lazard: advanced nuclear at $118-$192/MWh, and lithium-ion charged from directly attached solar at $102-$139/MWh [2].
Lazard have analyses for energy generation costs by technology, and storage costs based on use case and scenario. (Note that the storage use cases include the cost of charging the storage system.)
These cost estimates work hard to simplify a hugely complex subject, by estimating a levelized cost of energy, which is then of course an oversimplification. It doesn't consider the value of when energy is delivered, or the price of when the storage is charged. EIA, filled with a lot of hard energy guys that are dismayed to see renewables outperforming in cost, puts out ridiculous numbers, but has also embraced something called the LACE to try to compensate. However they have been so wrong on hard numbers that they can't be trusted when it comes to renewables.
The design of energy markets has absolutely huge impacts on the profitability of storage as well, and it can still be very hard to get compensated for the value provided to the grid. There probably would already have been GW of batteries on Texas' ERCOT grid if they buy/sell dual nature had been legal earlier.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/the-story-of-che...
[2] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
Batteries are only the most of expensive of many candidates for energy storage.
But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
But only adequate for a very narrow use-case so far, _not_ as a daily driver.
Here in South Australia where I live the Hornsdale installation (the Tesla one) is capable of storing 150MW. Its purpose is not to drive the entire grid every day, but to help deal with minor fluctuations in supply and demand, and mitigate brown/blackouts during emergencies. In-between those times it stores electricity while prices are cheap, and sells when the prices are high to turn a profit
The overwhelming source of electricity across Australia is supplied by fossil fuels (despite our abundance of clean nuclear fuel).
The entire reason the installation was built in the first place was because of a series of brownouts and blackouts caused by interruptions in the supply of electricity from interstate one day (we don't generate enough by ourselves sadly). It caused a fairly large political situation to develop, and resulted in the construction of the Hornsdale installation.
Contractually Hornsdale is obliged to be able to supply 70MW for 10 minutes, or 30MW for 3 hours on demand during emergencies. For some perspective, the current load on the grid as at the time I started writing this is 2150MW(6pm local time).
Australian battery installations are simply not operating at the scale you want them to be here. Hornsdale has a niche it is filling quite admirably, but be careful when you use it as an example of grid-scale viability. It's simply not.
Here in South Australia where I live the Hornsdale installation (the Tesla one) is capable of storing 150MW. Its purpose is not to drive the entire grid every day, but to help deal with minor fluctuations in supply and demand, and mitigate brown/blackouts during emergencies. In-between those times it stores electricity while prices are cheap, and sells when the prices are high to turn a profit
The overwhelming source of electricity across Australia is supplied by fossil fuels (despite our abundance of clean nuclear fuel).
The entire reason the installation was built in the first place was because of a series of brownouts and blackouts caused by interruptions in the supply of electricity from interstate one day (we don't generate enough by ourselves sadly). It caused a fairly large political situation to develop, and resulted in the construction of the Hornsdale installation.
Contractually Hornsdale is obliged to be able to supply 70MW for 10 minutes, or 30MW for 3 hours on demand during emergencies. For some perspective, the current load on the grid as at the time I started writing this is 2150MW(6pm local time).
Australian battery installations are simply not operating at the scale you want them to be here. Hornsdale has a niche it is filling quite admirably, but be careful when you use it as an example of grid-scale viability. It's simply not.
I love that Australia battery, but lets be real its tiny. Comparing that to a solution that could fully balance all solar/wind energy is a gigantic strech.
I have looked into all of these storage mechanism, and not one is actually really read for the market and is mass deployable quickly.
We just have to hope Tesla can actually spit out many tera of batteries by 2030 and the other companies match them.
I have looked into all of these storage mechanism, and not one is actually really read for the market and is mass deployable quickly.
We just have to hope Tesla can actually spit out many tera of batteries by 2030 and the other companies match them.
> Batteries are only the most of expensive of many candidates for energy storage.
Maybe. But nuclear does not require batteries.
> But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
I do don’t have the numbers from Australia at hand. Do you? Is it really cheaper than nuclear, or they heavily overpaid for them, or Telsa sold it with large discount?
Maybe. But nuclear does not require batteries.
> But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
I do don’t have the numbers from Australia at hand. Do you? Is it really cheaper than nuclear, or they heavily overpaid for them, or Telsa sold it with large discount?
One potential alternative to batteries might be to build a couple of towers lifting concrete blocks up and down: https://energyvault.com/#operating-parameters
My research into this a little while ago showed that this has a very poor energy density to capital cost. There are some other techs like molten salt which are supposed to be better.
I’m not sure this idea is all that they’re marketing it as.
Here’s a video discussing the drawbacks [0], the guy doing the video can be kind of abrasive at times but worth watching/skimming as a counterpoint.
[0]: https://youtu.be/NIhCuzxNvv0
Here’s a video discussing the drawbacks [0], the guy doing the video can be kind of abrasive at times but worth watching/skimming as a counterpoint.
[0]: https://youtu.be/NIhCuzxNvv0
I'd heard of this as a theory many times before, I didn't know someone had actually built one! Good site too, thanks for the link.
Australia has a tiny (on grid scale) battery used to stabilize the grid, not for long term storage like you would need for relying on solar energy in place that actually has winters.
I would assume wind and solar having unknown undesirable secondary effects.
A nuclear power plant is fairly self-contained.
A giant black solar installation captures a lot of heat that would’ve been reflected back into space.
Wind farms slow down wind (obviously..)
We all know how important the gyres in the oceans to preserving the current ecosystem.
Everything is in a delicate balance, if we start messing up something new who knows what would happen.
Are there any studies in this area?
A nuclear power plant is fairly self-contained.
A giant black solar installation captures a lot of heat that would’ve been reflected back into space.
Wind farms slow down wind (obviously..)
We all know how important the gyres in the oceans to preserving the current ecosystem.
Everything is in a delicate balance, if we start messing up something new who knows what would happen.
Are there any studies in this area?
>A giant black solar installation captures a lot of heat that would’ve been reflected back into space.
Nuclear plants take energy sequestered in matter and unleashes it to a form that ultimately will decay to heat just the same. This outcome is the same regardless of the power source.
If climate change is a relevant concern to the discussion then alongside discussing of sustainable energy there's an equal topic of how we re-sequester or eject the additional energy we've so far pumped into the atmosphere in the form of energy decaying to heat. Not to mention how to curb our energy demands so that we don't continue to worsen the situation.
>Wind farms slow down wind (obviously..)
Yeah quite a lot on the scale of large farms, slowing wind speeds by up to 50%. The optimist in me thinks this could be a beneficial thing given our atmosphere is generally expected to become more chaotic with stronger winds as a result of climate change, but the realist in me thinks it's largely irrelevant since turbines can't operate during the extremes, which are expected to become more commonplace.
>Are there any studies in this area?
Not sure, but it's an interesting question.
Nuclear plants take energy sequestered in matter and unleashes it to a form that ultimately will decay to heat just the same. This outcome is the same regardless of the power source.
If climate change is a relevant concern to the discussion then alongside discussing of sustainable energy there's an equal topic of how we re-sequester or eject the additional energy we've so far pumped into the atmosphere in the form of energy decaying to heat. Not to mention how to curb our energy demands so that we don't continue to worsen the situation.
>Wind farms slow down wind (obviously..)
Yeah quite a lot on the scale of large farms, slowing wind speeds by up to 50%. The optimist in me thinks this could be a beneficial thing given our atmosphere is generally expected to become more chaotic with stronger winds as a result of climate change, but the realist in me thinks it's largely irrelevant since turbines can't operate during the extremes, which are expected to become more commonplace.
>Are there any studies in this area?
Not sure, but it's an interesting question.
And nuclear plants release 2 units of waste heat energy for every 1 unit of electrical energy they produce. A solar field, if its efficiency > the albedo of the ground on which it was built, causes net local cooling. In both cases the produced power is eventually degraded to heat (in the grid and at the consumer), but the overall burden for direct global thermal pollution is lower for solar than for nuclear. Note, of course, that direct thermal pollution is greatly overshadowed right now by forcing from increasing greenhouse gases.
The direct global thermal pollution for both solar panels and nuclear are negligible compared to the 100-200 petawatts of light hitting the earth constantly.
Right. It's not any immediate global concern.
Don't know about studies but there are enough scary photos for solar that looks great on PowerPoint:
https://sg.catbox.moe/qzkord.png
https://images.app.goo.gl/b7gju1qDFncVwPoMA
https://images.app.goo.gl/BqLwCnkYp918TVhD9
https://images.app.goo.gl/tgQ9fYbnRgKPzaf56
https://sg.catbox.moe/qzkord.png
https://images.app.goo.gl/b7gju1qDFncVwPoMA
https://images.app.goo.gl/BqLwCnkYp918TVhD9
https://images.app.goo.gl/tgQ9fYbnRgKPzaf56
Nuclear companies generally aren't prepared to assume full liability for nuclear accidents [1]. This makes me pretty skeptical that nuclear power is really that safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
Nuclear energy is regularly significantly (usually more than an order of magnitude, from what I've seen) cheaper for electricity than any other source in comparable countries (e.g. nuclear electricity in Toronto >10x cheaper than coal/solar electricity in Berlin)
Nuclear energy is and always has been inherently competitive on total profitability over the course of a plant's lifetime.
The main issue is the time it takes to get a plant built, and the heavy upfront investment. Both of these extend painfully the time before investors reach nonnegative ROI, which is (imo) part of why despite the actual profitability being much better human investors with inherently limited lifetimes opt for, for example, natural gas or solar installations.
+ Also of course, nuclear is much more heavily regulated than other sources of energy, which leads to good things like reduced accident deaths, but also heavily increases cost and time to build.
Nuclear energy is and always has been inherently competitive on total profitability over the course of a plant's lifetime.
The main issue is the time it takes to get a plant built, and the heavy upfront investment. Both of these extend painfully the time before investors reach nonnegative ROI, which is (imo) part of why despite the actual profitability being much better human investors with inherently limited lifetimes opt for, for example, natural gas or solar installations.
+ Also of course, nuclear is much more heavily regulated than other sources of energy, which leads to good things like reduced accident deaths, but also heavily increases cost and time to build.
do you have a source for the >10x? because that was my assumption as well, but after reading through [0-3] i'm pretty amazed how cheap solar and wind have become over the last years.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source [1] https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/solar-power-cost-decrease-... [2] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source [1] https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/solar-power-cost-decrease-... [2] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019/
The average price I paid for electricity in Ontario over a couple years vs. the average of a number of sources I found for cost of electricity across Germany. I don't have any links saved, but yeah it was like ~0.05 CAD vs 0.55 CAD per kWh iirc.
You're right that solar has become very price competitive. We're pushing that at Tesla & I do think as the current regulatory environment around nuclear continues to stay roughly the same, solar will be much cheaper in the coming decade.
It should be noted that subsidies, regulatory fees, and economies of scale play a MUCH larger role in the LCOE of energy sources today than the fundamental physics, efficiency, material costs etc do.
Therefore it is wiser to look at the options from a first principles perspective and consider the potential costs of sources after equally large effort is put into scaling and optimization, and ignoring political factors. When you analyze the options in this way, nuclear wins every single time.
You're right that solar has become very price competitive. We're pushing that at Tesla & I do think as the current regulatory environment around nuclear continues to stay roughly the same, solar will be much cheaper in the coming decade.
It should be noted that subsidies, regulatory fees, and economies of scale play a MUCH larger role in the LCOE of energy sources today than the fundamental physics, efficiency, material costs etc do.
Therefore it is wiser to look at the options from a first principles perspective and consider the potential costs of sources after equally large effort is put into scaling and optimization, and ignoring political factors. When you analyze the options in this way, nuclear wins every single time.
Nuclear is possibly cheaper if your power plant was gifted to you by the Nuclear Fairy. If you have to pay to have it built, and then service the debt, not so much.
They're extremely cheap to build by LCOE if you take away the extra regulatatory fees. Fission has several orders of magnitude less levelized material throughput per unit power than any other source of electricity.
If the world got to the point where corporations could successfully scale up mass production of reactors, this could drop by a further order or two of magnitude.
If the world got to the point where corporations could successfully scale up mass production of reactors, this could drop by a further order or two of magnitude.
Regulatory fees? Nonsense. You mean cost of work required by regulation? Tell me how we make NPPs safe without regulation, or how we find sufficiently omniscient Regulator Philosopher Kings who can tell the necessary from unnecessary regulations beforehand.
Most of the cost of a MWh of nuclear comes from the cost of capital (interests). [1] Put differently, if capital is backed by the state, that the $/MWh could be a _lot_ less than it is.
1. https://imgur.com/a/4mAlUbO
1. https://imgur.com/a/4mAlUbO
This also seems to be a problem because the US seems to have gotten much worse at building fixed structures (bridges, buildints &c.) over the last 100 year.
Some of that cost is probably due to better workplace safety, but some of that cost has come in the past 40 years, and I don't feel like OSHA has tightened the screws that much in the psat 40 years.
Some of that cost is probably due to better workplace safety, but some of that cost has come in the past 40 years, and I don't feel like OSHA has tightened the screws that much in the psat 40 years.
Not only the US. The Flamanville EPR has suffered increased costs because the welders that actually learned how to do nuclear-level welds had retired by the time someone decided to build a new nuclear reactor after Chernobyl. Additionally, the foundries that build a key part of the nuclear core (I belive it’s called a chaudron in French, but it’s basically a big metal boiler) were not as good as they were, because they had to actually remake it twice.
It is horrifying but we lost a technological capacity.
Here’s a good source in French on that subject: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/rapport-epr-flamanville#
It is horrifying but we lost a technological capacity.
Here’s a good source in French on that subject: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/rapport-epr-flamanville#
It's less that we've lost a technological capacity, and more than we are no longer leveraging economies of scale. France and the US built a lot of nuclear power plants in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (well, mostly just France in the 1980s). Nuclear power plants often require specialized parts that aren't found in any other industry. That means when one-off plants are built an entire portion of the supply chain needs to be rebuilt, but when a serial run of plants are constructed (as was done in France) overhead costs of setting up the supply chain are spread out across all plants.
I think you may have missed the punchline in the story of the defective castings for the Flamanville reactor pressure vessel: the foundry responsible were exactly as good as they used to be, their previous castings going back decades and in use at existing nuclear power plants had similar defects, and they'd just managed to cover it up for all that time. I suspect the same might be true of some of the welding on the existing nuclear fleet too; they've definitely discovered some welding defects.
Things are much cheaper when someone subsidizes them. If the state funds nuclear at below the rate the market would give, that's a subsidy. It could mean, for example, that the state is taking on financial risk that would otherwise have been accounted for in higher interest rates.
This is not a subsidy but a loan.
If the state wants to stay out of it, but only has to say: "we are going to be using nuclear power for the next 40 years", and the interests will naturally go down because the investment is safer, and so everybody would pay less.
One would think that the state backing (either politically or financially) investment in infrastructure would make sense, since it benefits everyone.
If the state wants to stay out of it, but only has to say: "we are going to be using nuclear power for the next 40 years", and the interests will naturally go down because the investment is safer, and so everybody would pay less.
One would think that the state backing (either politically or financially) investment in infrastructure would make sense, since it benefits everyone.
It's a subsidy, because the interest on the loan is below what the market would charge.
Requiring use of nuclear even if it becomes noncompetitive is also a subsidy.
What's happening in both cases is that risk is being moved from the investor to the public. Privatize profits, socialize risk. It's the nuclear story as old as time.
Requiring use of nuclear even if it becomes noncompetitive is also a subsidy.
What's happening in both cases is that risk is being moved from the investor to the public. Privatize profits, socialize risk. It's the nuclear story as old as time.
I cannot stress this enough - we have people allergic to direct development paid for by the state because "it's socialist".
Instead we invent all kinds of stupid ways of financing power plants, such a guaranteed electricity price for 50 years ahead, guaranteed profits to attract 'free market investors' for a project thats specified, sited and planned by the government and where all risk is born by the government. Ao then, instead of 0.25% interest we get fianance at 3-5% interest.
Instead we invent all kinds of stupid ways of financing power plants, such a guaranteed electricity price for 50 years ahead, guaranteed profits to attract 'free market investors' for a project thats specified, sited and planned by the government and where all risk is born by the government. Ao then, instead of 0.25% interest we get fianance at 3-5% interest.
Last I checked, 30 years treasuries were in the neighborhood of 1.5%, and not 0.25%.
More importantly, the reason all those stupid ways are employed is that then the private companies running it have incentive to keep the costs down. Just compare it with recent California's high speed rail project, which was direct development paid for by the state, like you suggest. The most recent cost estimate was $100B, or $250M per mile.
More importantly, the reason all those stupid ways are employed is that then the private companies running it have incentive to keep the costs down. Just compare it with recent California's high speed rail project, which was direct development paid for by the state, like you suggest. The most recent cost estimate was $100B, or $250M per mile.
Also because it's economically inefficient and fertile ground for rent seeking parasites.
Note that cost would also include getting rid of the nuclear waste, which AFAIK is still not a solved problem.
E.g. you could send the waste via rockets to thes sun, but that would be very costly ;-) The problem with the statistics is also that we cannot rely on averages here. E.g. one big accident might cause huge environmental issues. Estimating accurately how likely that is seems difficult to impossible
Regarding nuclear waste: first off, the amount of nuclear waste generated today is drastically less than in the past. During WWII and the Cold War era the methods for processing nukes was extremely crude, resulting in an embarrassing amount of waste, which we are still dealing with today. Today, the amount of waste is small fraction of that. Second, the waste problem has been solved by vitrification. Vitrification takes nuclear waste (in liquid or solid form) and blends it with molten glass in a high-strength steel casing. When it cools, it becomes solidified. Then it can be stored in a remote location. Vitrified nuclear waste poses no acute danger to humans and IMHO is much preferred to the damaging effects of fossil fuels which include both harmful pollutants (Particulate Matter, NOx, Ozone, etc.) and dramatic acceleration of climate change.
Firstly, it's not really waste. Only a fraction of useful energy has been extracted & there is a lot of useful elements mixed in due to all the transmutations and fision going on. There are techniques to reprocess used nuckear fuel into more fuel and other useful substances but there is often no political will & a lot of noise from people protesting agains anything nuclear that prevents used up fuel from being properly reused.
This is the first time I have seen nuclear described as more expensive. My understanding was that it was several times cheaper than coal. I could be totally wrong of course.
That's because its a bit of a bait and switch. When people pull that out, it's about keeping existing plants running- extending them to run for 60+ years. That's pretty cheap, since the cost of fuel is tiny and you just need to pay for the ~1000 people onsite. The issue there is risk- you can't just open up all the valves to check how worn out they are, or if all the computers still have nice transistors and clean relays. You can do some basic stuff like looking for cracks, but the system is ancient. Who knows if that is okay or not.
Then, if you talk about new construction, the issue is cost but the conversation is entirely about risk. There's very, very little danger even for many decades. Cost is another matter. The best estimates are that nuclear costs as much as the most expensive other technologies to build, but the actual end figure has just gotten higher and higher over time. Manufacturing is not what it used to be and these huge plants have been outpaced by smaller plants and different technologies.
Then, if you talk about new construction, the issue is cost but the conversation is entirely about risk. There's very, very little danger even for many decades. Cost is another matter. The best estimates are that nuclear costs as much as the most expensive other technologies to build, but the actual end figure has just gotten higher and higher over time. Manufacturing is not what it used to be and these huge plants have been outpaced by smaller plants and different technologies.
That’s just part of the story, annual nuclear refueling is also surprisingly expensive. The raw material is cheap, but you need to refine it to reactor grade, creating fuel rods, and only use ~6% of it before replacing the rods. So on net it ends up being quite costly before considering long term storage. You also need to shutdown the reactor for refueling. Other costs like maintenance starts to really add up over time. Similarly, reactors are small but nuclear power plants take up a lot of land for security, staff, etc.
It’s really a combination of several factors that’s keeping Nuclear so expensive in every country around the world not just the US.
It’s really a combination of several factors that’s keeping Nuclear so expensive in every country around the world not just the US.
Also the nuclear waste problem. Nuclear reprocessing looks nice on paper, but the technical implementation is problematic, it's chemistry but in a radioactive environment. If something catches on fire there's problems.
France has successfully processed 23,000 tons of spent fuel, or 14 years worth. With zero incidents. In fact it works so well, they process other countries' spent fuel, too.
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
Spent-fuel processing isn't sufficient. After ~50 years with running nuclear plants France doesn't have any long-term waste disposal facility, and is actively searching a solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse/Haute_Marne_Underground_...
They have also very successfully "outsourced" part of the reprocessing to eastern Europe… there have been documented reports of storage in huge open vats of fuel officially sent for reprocessing.
That article shows the issue. “The entire process adds about 6 percent in costs for the French.”
Reprocessing is simply not cost effective due to how cheap reactor grade Uranium is.
Reprocessing is simply not cost effective due to how cheap reactor grade Uranium is.
So you are saying the reason a huge problem exists is because money? Hold the phone.
This is mostly just a problem in the minds of the general public.
Individual nuclear fuel rods get significantly less radioactive over time as short half life byproducts decay. Which makes both reprocessing and long term sequestration cheaper. Storing them for ~100 years is relatively cheap and can be funded ahead of time, so punting the issue seems quite reasonable IMO.
Individual nuclear fuel rods get significantly less radioactive over time as short half life byproducts decay. Which makes both reprocessing and long term sequestration cheaper. Storing them for ~100 years is relatively cheap and can be funded ahead of time, so punting the issue seems quite reasonable IMO.
Well, sure, we are lucky that the waste from nuclear reactors is primarily solid heavy metals rather than fly ash or anything else, so we can just plunk them into pools and forget about them for a while. But eventually it makes sense to do something with all that waste.
Reprocessing doesn’t actually get rid of the highly radioactive waste though. You have exactly as much Caesium-137 and all the other nasty fission products before and after reprocessing, all it does is separate the waste you need to store from the useful fuel while contaminating all your reprocessing equipment. As we have plenty of fuel so that not particularly valuable.
What nuclear waste problem?
"Nuclear waste generally is over 90% uranium. Thus, the spent fuel (waste) still contains 90% usable fuel! It can be chemically processed and placed in other reactors to close the fuel cycle. A closed fuel cycle means much less nuclear waste and much more energy extracted from the raw ore. Additionally, this process allows you to convert your waste into chemical forms that are totally immobilized. France currently recycles their spent fuel. They put the remaining good nuclear fuel back in their reactors in the form of MOX fuel and immobilize the remaining waste in vitrified borosilicate glass.
The US had a recycling program featuring the use of advanced fast reactors (which have not been deployed on any major scale yet) that was shut down because it created Plutonium, which could be used to make a nuclear weapon. Were some plutonium diverted in the recycling process, a non-nuclear entity could be one step close to building a bomb. However, under programs such as the (now stalled) GNEP [wikipedia], where only countries who already have nuclear weapons recycle, proliferation-free waste recycling can exist. Since the many of the largest energy users are already nuclear weapons states, a massive expansion of nuclear could be done there with no additional proliferation concerns whatsoever.
If all the electricity use of the USA was distributed evenly among its population, and all of it came from nuclear power, then the amount of nuclear waste each person would generate per year would be 39.5 grams. That’s the weight of seven U. S. quarters of waste, per year! A detailed description of this result can be found here. If we got all our electricity from coal and natural gas, expect to have over 10,000 kilograms of CO2/yr attributed to each person, not to mention other poisonous emissions directly to the biosphere (based on EIA emissions data).
If you want raw numbers: in 2018, there were just over 80,000 metric tonnes of high-level waste in the USA. Between 1971 and 2018, nuclear reactors in the USA generated 3000 GW-years of electricity to make this waste.
For comparison, in 2007 alone the US burned 948,000,000 metric tonnes of coal. This means that coal plants made 32 times more waste every single day than the US nuclear fleet has made in the past 45 years! Granted, coal made a higher fraction of the country’s electricity, but the numbers are still crazy impressive for nuclear."
Source: https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
---
Interesting: "2018 Nobel Prize for Physics-winner Gérard Mourou has proposed using Chirped pulse amplification to generate high-energy and low-duration laser pulses to transmute highly radioactive material (contained in a target) to significantly reduce its half-life, from thousands of years to only a few minutes."
---
Aaaand then I have not yet mentioned fusion reactors... Just check it out here: https://www.iter.org/sci/Fusion
"Nuclear waste generally is over 90% uranium. Thus, the spent fuel (waste) still contains 90% usable fuel! It can be chemically processed and placed in other reactors to close the fuel cycle. A closed fuel cycle means much less nuclear waste and much more energy extracted from the raw ore. Additionally, this process allows you to convert your waste into chemical forms that are totally immobilized. France currently recycles their spent fuel. They put the remaining good nuclear fuel back in their reactors in the form of MOX fuel and immobilize the remaining waste in vitrified borosilicate glass.
The US had a recycling program featuring the use of advanced fast reactors (which have not been deployed on any major scale yet) that was shut down because it created Plutonium, which could be used to make a nuclear weapon. Were some plutonium diverted in the recycling process, a non-nuclear entity could be one step close to building a bomb. However, under programs such as the (now stalled) GNEP [wikipedia], where only countries who already have nuclear weapons recycle, proliferation-free waste recycling can exist. Since the many of the largest energy users are already nuclear weapons states, a massive expansion of nuclear could be done there with no additional proliferation concerns whatsoever.
If all the electricity use of the USA was distributed evenly among its population, and all of it came from nuclear power, then the amount of nuclear waste each person would generate per year would be 39.5 grams. That’s the weight of seven U. S. quarters of waste, per year! A detailed description of this result can be found here. If we got all our electricity from coal and natural gas, expect to have over 10,000 kilograms of CO2/yr attributed to each person, not to mention other poisonous emissions directly to the biosphere (based on EIA emissions data).
If you want raw numbers: in 2018, there were just over 80,000 metric tonnes of high-level waste in the USA. Between 1971 and 2018, nuclear reactors in the USA generated 3000 GW-years of electricity to make this waste.
For comparison, in 2007 alone the US burned 948,000,000 metric tonnes of coal. This means that coal plants made 32 times more waste every single day than the US nuclear fleet has made in the past 45 years! Granted, coal made a higher fraction of the country’s electricity, but the numbers are still crazy impressive for nuclear."
Source: https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
---
Interesting: "2018 Nobel Prize for Physics-winner Gérard Mourou has proposed using Chirped pulse amplification to generate high-energy and low-duration laser pulses to transmute highly radioactive material (contained in a target) to significantly reduce its half-life, from thousands of years to only a few minutes."
---
Aaaand then I have not yet mentioned fusion reactors... Just check it out here: https://www.iter.org/sci/Fusion
There will be no useful fusion power produced on Earth in this century, at least in a Tokamak.
Tokamak fusion is a jobs program for high neutron flux physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. It does not need to produce other results.
Tokamak fusion is a jobs program for high neutron flux physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. It does not need to produce other results.
The first part is very likely wrong.
Fusion won’t be a major grid player in this century and by extension may be “too late” for meaningful climate change. However, we may be more fucked than people think. Seasonal energy storage (10^14 Wh scale) has no solutions. Where are the low carbon alternatives to base load power production?
The second part is entirely wrong. That only applies to IEF programs in the US. NIF is the weapons program. Most of the money going into fusion energy research is to say “at least we tried” when the energy crisis causes a societal collapse.
Fusion won’t be a major grid player in this century and by extension may be “too late” for meaningful climate change. However, we may be more fucked than people think. Seasonal energy storage (10^14 Wh scale) has no solutions. Where are the low carbon alternatives to base load power production?
The second part is entirely wrong. That only applies to IEF programs in the US. NIF is the weapons program. Most of the money going into fusion energy research is to say “at least we tried” when the energy crisis causes a societal collapse.
You seem to be saying that all that is needed to conceal weapons-targeted budgeting from you is to label it "EIF"?
Sorry I should have said “ICF”: inertial confinement fusion. IEC is inertial electrostatic confinement. It’s a confusing set of acronyms that are easy to fumble.
NIF has always been a weapons project. It was made to step around test ban treaties. That’s how it was bankrolled. It’s time on energy research is up and its current primary objective is to keep a team of nuclear weapons experts sharp. The next largest ICF machine is tiny by comparison. I don’t generalize “all ICF machines”, but NIF is the representative of the technology, similar to W7-X for stellarators and ITER for tokamaks.
NIF has always been a weapons project. It was made to step around test ban treaties. That’s how it was bankrolled. It’s time on energy research is up and its current primary objective is to keep a team of nuclear weapons experts sharp. The next largest ICF machine is tiny by comparison. I don’t generalize “all ICF machines”, but NIF is the representative of the technology, similar to W7-X for stellarators and ITER for tokamaks.
There is zero need for seasonal storage. Solar is insanely cheap, just build excess capacity. If on average 50% of annual solar generation was wasted, that bumps it up to ~4c/kWh. Assuming 40% of your energy needs comes from battery‘s that adds 10c/kWh * 40%. So your total 24/7 365 grid energy including peaking power averages to just 8c/kWh which is vastly less than nuclear.
Further that’s optimistic from nuclear’s perspective, hydro and wind power significantly reduce the needs for battery storage.
Further that’s optimistic from nuclear’s perspective, hydro and wind power significantly reduce the needs for battery storage.
What is "quite costly", compared to wha? The statement is so vague its not informative - how much is it actually?
It's cheaper than millions of tons of coal needed to produce an equivalent amount of energy, or any other fossil fuel. Only renewables have lower running costs.
Nuclear is not expensive in Russia , France or China
It's cheaper than millions of tons of coal needed to produce an equivalent amount of energy, or any other fossil fuel. Only renewables have lower running costs.
Nuclear is not expensive in Russia , France or China
If Uranium fuel rods where the only cost, nuclear would be ~50% as expensive as direct Solar in the US. Unfortunately, it represents 10% of of nuclear’s overall costs per kWh in the US. So compared to the perception or competing energy sources, refueling is surprisingly expensive.
With current US nuclear subsides it’s less expensive for power companies to use unsubsidized solar power and lithium batteries than build Nuclear. That’s not a question of which is more green, just basic economics.
PS: Numbers from a very pro nuclear article: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...
With current US nuclear subsides it’s less expensive for power companies to use unsubsidized solar power and lithium batteries than build Nuclear. That’s not a question of which is more green, just basic economics.
PS: Numbers from a very pro nuclear article: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...
A useful term to search the web for related to this is 'LCOE' - an acronym for 'levelized cost of energy'.
It's essentially the same notion as 'total cost of ownership' in IT, but in the domain of energy generation.
It's essentially the same notion as 'total cost of ownership' in IT, but in the domain of energy generation.
You haven't read much from a particular mindset then.
They tend to evaluate nuclear waste storage as pretty much an eternal cost.
They tend to evaluate nuclear waste storage as pretty much an eternal cost.
> Do we stress about the risks nuclear power far out of proportion to how safe it is? Yes. Even accounting for the worst accidents, it kills a very low number of people per TWh.
That statement is true, but you are overlooking that fact that the reason nuclear power kills so few people is because we focus so much on the risks.
That statement is true, but you are overlooking that fact that the reason nuclear power kills so few people is because we focus so much on the risks.
Why are containment and cost frequently seen as constants while the solar + battery solutions are frequently argued as the only practical solution as long as we keep funding the tech?
I have seen very few comments (if any) on HN that are critical of nuclear and offer thoughtful solutions on how to bring the cost down.
I have seen very few comments (if any) on HN that are critical of nuclear and offer thoughtful solutions on how to bring the cost down.
This death per TWh calculation is naive. In reality modeling and averages are not enough here.
If can tell a coal plant kills X people per year, then I can pretty safely deduce it will kill somewhere between 0.9X and 1.1X people next year. (Made up numbers, but the point holds)
For nuclear, we can easily estimate with the same models the damage. One miscalculation, or one disastrous outcome can cause 50000 deaths, or turn the entirety of New York City to radiated ground that has to be avoided for decades.
As long as the extrapolations for nuclear are prone to extreme outcomes, nuclear is more unpredictable and therefore has more danger potential. This is why small nuclear reactors which fail independently are the way to turn nuclear plants into common energy source. They can reduce our fragility to extreme Chernobyl like outcomes.
If can tell a coal plant kills X people per year, then I can pretty safely deduce it will kill somewhere between 0.9X and 1.1X people next year. (Made up numbers, but the point holds)
For nuclear, we can easily estimate with the same models the damage. One miscalculation, or one disastrous outcome can cause 50000 deaths, or turn the entirety of New York City to radiated ground that has to be avoided for decades.
As long as the extrapolations for nuclear are prone to extreme outcomes, nuclear is more unpredictable and therefore has more danger potential. This is why small nuclear reactors which fail independently are the way to turn nuclear plants into common energy source. They can reduce our fragility to extreme Chernobyl like outcomes.
> As long as the extrapolations for nuclear are prone to extreme outcomes
The extrapolations for coal are prone to very extreme outcomes, believe me. :-)
> nuclear is more unpredictable
Citation needed, I think. The impact of coal on the climate and human health is still an open question, and given the scale of its use, a small change in our estimation of impact yields very large changes down the line.
I can see arguing that a "safety factor" should be baked into calculations based on how confident we are in the models. If you can say X +/- 50%, maybe we should just assume it's 2X, just to be safe (or whatever), but iff you can say X +/- 2%, X seems like a pretty good baseline.
However, I think you greatly underestimate the uncertainty of fossil fuels , and greatly overestimate the uncertainty of the safety of nuclear power. I mean....how exactly would a nuclear power plant cause 50k deaths? Or irradiate New York City? Obviously no nuclear power plants (or any other...) are being built in the middle of Manhattan.
The extrapolations for coal are prone to very extreme outcomes, believe me. :-)
> nuclear is more unpredictable
Citation needed, I think. The impact of coal on the climate and human health is still an open question, and given the scale of its use, a small change in our estimation of impact yields very large changes down the line.
I can see arguing that a "safety factor" should be baked into calculations based on how confident we are in the models. If you can say X +/- 50%, maybe we should just assume it's 2X, just to be safe (or whatever), but iff you can say X +/- 2%, X seems like a pretty good baseline.
However, I think you greatly underestimate the uncertainty of fossil fuels , and greatly overestimate the uncertainty of the safety of nuclear power. I mean....how exactly would a nuclear power plant cause 50k deaths? Or irradiate New York City? Obviously no nuclear power plants (or any other...) are being built in the middle of Manhattan.
But in the middle, but there closest nuclear plant to Manhattan is 40 miles away. And that’s in a world where everyone avoids nuclear plants like the plague.
the price of protecting many small nuclear reactors against say aeroplanes will rise per watt.
I certainly agree with death per TWh calculations being naive, but for a different reason: ethics trumps metrics.
If I agree to climb a roof and maintain some solar panels in exchange for money, I am risking my own life and limb. A child 100 years from now will not fall off in my place.
If you agree to work in a nuclear reactor today, in theory a child in the future could get cancer from a mishap today.
Put differently: even if eating 20 grams of human babies cured AIDS, and hence many lives could be saved in exchange for one, does not justify the trade. We expect informed consent of all parties involved.
I certainly agree with death per TWh calculations being naive, but for a different reason: ethics trumps metrics.
If I agree to climb a roof and maintain some solar panels in exchange for money, I am risking my own life and limb. A child 100 years from now will not fall off in my place.
If you agree to work in a nuclear reactor today, in theory a child in the future could get cancer from a mishap today.
Put differently: even if eating 20 grams of human babies cured AIDS, and hence many lives could be saved in exchange for one, does not justify the trade. We expect informed consent of all parties involved.
How do you quantify the life and healthcost of the mining, “recycling”, and disposal of the PV and the battery?
PV and batteries are expected to last only three decades or a decade+, respectively.
Unlike a centralized power source, decentralized power has all of the downsides that we have today with consumer garbage. Disposal is left to the consumer, which means it’s just going into landfills.
Ethics is a strawman.
PV and batteries are expected to last only three decades or a decade+, respectively.
Unlike a centralized power source, decentralized power has all of the downsides that we have today with consumer garbage. Disposal is left to the consumer, which means it’s just going into landfills.
Ethics is a strawman.
As long as the mining activity was by informed consent, i.e. no slavery explicit nor implicit, any life and healthcost of mining, recycling and disposal is incurred with informed consent...
The effects of mining and disposal don’t disappear after one generation, and solar and wind is not a solution that works for all climates and regions.
The multi-generational ethical problems you’ve constructed apply to oil; gas; solar; windmills; nuclear.
To put it another way: There is no free lunch, but some sources like gas and oil must be reduced. Of that there is no doubt.
The unethical choice is to outright disregard other proven solutions because of unfounded fear and doubt, and leave an irreversible disaster for the next generation.
The multi-generational ethical problems you’ve constructed apply to oil; gas; solar; windmills; nuclear.
To put it another way: There is no free lunch, but some sources like gas and oil must be reduced. Of that there is no doubt.
The unethical choice is to outright disregard other proven solutions because of unfounded fear and doubt, and leave an irreversible disaster for the next generation.
sorting isotopes takes a lot more energy than sorting chemicals
Even if we completely put aside the discussion about safety, storage of the nuclear waste etc., the killer argument is the price. There are no current designs available that would allow nuclear compete with renewables. On top of that, nuclear power plants are rather slow to switch output levels, so are not a good companion to the renewable producers. Instead we should use gas for filling the gaps in the renewable production. Gas plants are rather quick to change power output and as long as we drill for oil, gas often gets even burned on site as there is not enough demand. And of course we should grow renewable sources strongly.
Exactly, its a bit like discussing systemd in that way. I suspect small modular nuclear reactors will find their niche for islands etc., but renewables + batteries will win due to cost reasons.
Okay you win, systemd as nuclear power is pretty epic. :-)
That said, there is something about nuclear power that is puzzling. Sure it has a lot of fearmongering but it is very well supported by folks who create these sorts of false narratives.
Kind of like conspiracy theories to me, how to they continue to exist when the narrative is clearly incorrect in the presence of all the facts?
I had a professor at USC who was teaching Nuclear Engineering and he was solidly convinced that these "whisper campaigns" were funded by the big oil companies. His thesis was that big oil couldn't survive if electricity became so cheap that the things we do with oil now could be done more cost effectively with electricity.
It is too bad he didn't live to see the revolution in PV solar power. Clearly the geopolitical aspects of cheap solar is changing the landscape, and yet solar didn't seem to get the same treatment as nuclear.
If I have learned only one thing in my life it is that if you can keep the debate emotional (fear, hate, anger) then you can prevent the incursion of unpleasant facts by shutting down the listener's ability to reason. This was not a fun thing to learn.
That said, there is something about nuclear power that is puzzling. Sure it has a lot of fearmongering but it is very well supported by folks who create these sorts of false narratives.
Kind of like conspiracy theories to me, how to they continue to exist when the narrative is clearly incorrect in the presence of all the facts?
I had a professor at USC who was teaching Nuclear Engineering and he was solidly convinced that these "whisper campaigns" were funded by the big oil companies. His thesis was that big oil couldn't survive if electricity became so cheap that the things we do with oil now could be done more cost effectively with electricity.
It is too bad he didn't live to see the revolution in PV solar power. Clearly the geopolitical aspects of cheap solar is changing the landscape, and yet solar didn't seem to get the same treatment as nuclear.
If I have learned only one thing in my life it is that if you can keep the debate emotional (fear, hate, anger) then you can prevent the incursion of unpleasant facts by shutting down the listener's ability to reason. This was not a fun thing to learn.
There are lots of good reasons why mega-projects fail or under-perform that nuclear is hardly immune to. In fact the complexity, scale and grandeur of nuclear may make it particularly susceptible.
To me the bummer of nuclear power is how much advocates try to underestimate the cost of handling the waste for decades and the potential risks.
I think if you really think we need to go full speed ahead with nuclear power you need to ask how close a waste deposit to your home are you comfortable with? Often times these things just get transported to supposedly remote places which just mean a more vulnerable community may be exposed to the long term risks.
Modern nuclear power plants use waste from previous generation nuclear power plants as their fuel.
No, they don't, in most cases. And when they do (MOX fuel in some thermal reactors) it's a net economic loss. MOX fuel is difficult to fabricate; the Pu used has negative value compared to just using fresh enriched uranium.
Doesn't that then make it easier to get to the bomb?
The limit to producing nukes now is mostly energy requirements. Nuclear chemistry is not a secret and anybody can go to school for it. The limitation is the massive energy requirements to actually purify the materials to such high grades. The Manhattan project used 10% of the US total electrical generation capacity.
So then yes, it would be easier
ikr, too cheap to meter!
The power grid is a complex beast. In Europe, as an example, the power grid is the subject to the regulations, political ambitions, restrictions and technological legacy of around 30 countries, the European Union, Commonwealth of Independent States, NATO, CSTO and probably a bunch of others as well. Getting everyone to play along amidst power-play, public opinion, financial concerns and so forth is a nightmare, and yet that is BEFORE the expected major impact from any major changes introduced in order to fight climate change.
So, in order to be able to do a large roll-out of nuclear power, you need to:
1) Find a location where building a plant is viable and from where you will be able to transmit the produced energy to it's indended destination.
2) Convince the public that the plant won't render their home uninhabitable.
3) Convince the public that the plant won't result in more environtal damage in their back yard compared to someone else's back yard.
4) Convince the authorities to give you a permits for new plants.
5) Convince the authorities that you're the right one to build it, because they WILL have an issue if you involve people seen as political opponents, say a business from another power block.
5) Convince someone that it's OK if you dig down depleted fuel in their back yard for 100,000 years.
6) Convince the authorities that that it's OK to dig down that depleted fuel in someones back yard for 100,000 years.
Now, if you fail any of those things, then your new shiny plant will most likely never be constructed. Even if you do make it, you still need to compete with solar/wind/storage to make ends meet, while a semi-monopoly sold by the state to private investors in the 90's is still sitting on the huge dam built in the 20's, and can churn out base power from it considerably cheaper.
After all, it's not their problem if your local power grid is to weak to handle all that energy being sent through the entire country through one single line built in the 50's. You should have thought of that beforce you decided to replace your coal plant with a nuclear one!
End result: the owner of the local grid gets the blame and everyone switches to solar because the government is trying to stimulate the market and no matter how inefficient and insufficient it may or may not be compared to your nuclear plant, a solar panel on the roof is preferable to a nuclear power plant for many, many people.
I'm sure there will be new nuclear plants built in the future too. Not many though -- the situation's too messed up for that.
So, in order to be able to do a large roll-out of nuclear power, you need to:
1) Find a location where building a plant is viable and from where you will be able to transmit the produced energy to it's indended destination.
2) Convince the public that the plant won't render their home uninhabitable.
3) Convince the public that the plant won't result in more environtal damage in their back yard compared to someone else's back yard.
4) Convince the authorities to give you a permits for new plants.
5) Convince the authorities that you're the right one to build it, because they WILL have an issue if you involve people seen as political opponents, say a business from another power block.
5) Convince someone that it's OK if you dig down depleted fuel in their back yard for 100,000 years.
6) Convince the authorities that that it's OK to dig down that depleted fuel in someones back yard for 100,000 years.
Now, if you fail any of those things, then your new shiny plant will most likely never be constructed. Even if you do make it, you still need to compete with solar/wind/storage to make ends meet, while a semi-monopoly sold by the state to private investors in the 90's is still sitting on the huge dam built in the 20's, and can churn out base power from it considerably cheaper.
After all, it's not their problem if your local power grid is to weak to handle all that energy being sent through the entire country through one single line built in the 50's. You should have thought of that beforce you decided to replace your coal plant with a nuclear one!
End result: the owner of the local grid gets the blame and everyone switches to solar because the government is trying to stimulate the market and no matter how inefficient and insufficient it may or may not be compared to your nuclear plant, a solar panel on the roof is preferable to a nuclear power plant for many, many people.
I'm sure there will be new nuclear plants built in the future too. Not many though -- the situation's too messed up for that.
> it kills a very low number of people per TWh.
I worked in energy for 5 years. Deaths per TWh was not a metric we measured. Deaths are not made acceptable because of energy production. The goal was zero. We did not reach that goal, but nobody ever said deaths would be OK if only the numbers went up.
I worked in energy for 5 years. Deaths per TWh was not a metric we measured. Deaths are not made acceptable because of energy production. The goal was zero. We did not reach that goal, but nobody ever said deaths would be OK if only the numbers went up.
Obviously zero deaths is a great target, yes. Obviously zero deaths is impossible. No energy production method causes zero deaths; even wind and solar have a death toll (eg, from workers falling off things, construction accidents, manufacturing processes, etc), and yes, at the scale we're talking about that adds up.
Everything causes deaths when you're talking about thousands of TWhs. At most you can minimise the deaths.
> Deaths are not made acceptable because of energy production.
Nor are they acceptable because of food production, and yet food production causes deaths. Fishing boats are famously dangerous places; even farms have a lot of hazards (chemicals, large animals, heavy machinery). We could say the same about minerals, lumber (a friend of mine lost her father at a young age; he worked in forestry and a tree came down the wrong way), and more. And yet, we need all these things.
> Deaths per TWh was not a metric we measured. [...] nobody ever said deaths would be OK if only the numbers went up.
I don't doubt it. That is, after all, how we ended up in this mess.
Japan is currently building a large fleet of coal fired power plants (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush...). Those plants will kill a horrifying number of people; many hundreds of times more than died from the Fukushima disaster.
That seems fairly clearly like the sort of decision you'd made if you weren't thinking about the obvious results.
Everything causes deaths when you're talking about thousands of TWhs. At most you can minimise the deaths.
> Deaths are not made acceptable because of energy production.
Nor are they acceptable because of food production, and yet food production causes deaths. Fishing boats are famously dangerous places; even farms have a lot of hazards (chemicals, large animals, heavy machinery). We could say the same about minerals, lumber (a friend of mine lost her father at a young age; he worked in forestry and a tree came down the wrong way), and more. And yet, we need all these things.
> Deaths per TWh was not a metric we measured. [...] nobody ever said deaths would be OK if only the numbers went up.
I don't doubt it. That is, after all, how we ended up in this mess.
Japan is currently building a large fleet of coal fired power plants (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush...). Those plants will kill a horrifying number of people; many hundreds of times more than died from the Fukushima disaster.
That seems fairly clearly like the sort of decision you'd made if you weren't thinking about the obvious results.
The buried lede from that article:
> But Japan relies on coal for more than a third of its power generation needs. And while older coal plants will start retiring, eventually reducing overall coal dependency, the country still expects to meet more than a quarter of its electricity needs from coal in 2030.
So this decade Japan's reliance on coal power will roughly drop from 33% to 25%. To provide even more context, Japan's energy consumption has been falling since before the 2011 disaster:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_energy_and_GDP.svg
> But Japan relies on coal for more than a third of its power generation needs. And while older coal plants will start retiring, eventually reducing overall coal dependency, the country still expects to meet more than a quarter of its electricity needs from coal in 2030.
So this decade Japan's reliance on coal power will roughly drop from 33% to 25%. To provide even more context, Japan's energy consumption has been falling since before the 2011 disaster:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_energy_and_GDP.svg
> Japan's energy consumption has been falling since before the 2011 disaster
That is really surprising. Can this be traced back to a cause. Some industry that closed down or did appliances and lighting got that more efficient?
That is really surprising. Can this be traced back to a cause. Some industry that closed down or did appliances and lighting got that more efficient?
It's worth pointing out that the trend is seen not just in Japan but in other major developed economies too:
https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/0784d9d63336606d4ca025...
The usual explanation given is that these countries have outsourced their energy-intensive industries to other countries that have a corresponding increase in energy use, but there is reason to be optimistic even when factoring in "imported emissions" of CO2, in the UK, for example:
"While UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peaked in 1972, once we consider imported emissions – such as when the UK imports products that are manufactured abroad – UK emissions peaked in 2007."[0]
Of course, peaking emissions isn't the same as peaking energy usage, but it does assuage some of the concerns about outsourcing our manufacturing to countries with "dirtier" energy like China.
[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoracco...
https://d33wubrfki0l68.cloudfront.net/0784d9d63336606d4ca025...
The usual explanation given is that these countries have outsourced their energy-intensive industries to other countries that have a corresponding increase in energy use, but there is reason to be optimistic even when factoring in "imported emissions" of CO2, in the UK, for example:
"While UK carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions peaked in 1972, once we consider imported emissions – such as when the UK imports products that are manufactured abroad – UK emissions peaked in 2007."[0]
Of course, peaking emissions isn't the same as peaking energy usage, but it does assuage some of the concerns about outsourcing our manufacturing to countries with "dirtier" energy like China.
[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoracco...
> Deaths are not made acceptable because of energy production.
What? Of course they are. Just like deaths are made acceptable by anything else people need.
What? Of course they are. Just like deaths are made acceptable by anything else people need.
> No; the issue with nuclear is cost.
Is it though? It seems countries are quite willing to build new nuclear power plants, but nobody wants them in their backyard.
Is it though? It seems countries are quite willing to build new nuclear power plants, but nobody wants them in their backyard.
> Does that mean nuclear is just a totally great idea? No; the issue with nuclear is cost. Historically it has been quite expensive, but subsidised in opaque ways. In a zero carbon world, it might make sense for baseline generation even if it's expensive; in the world we live in it needs to compete on price. Can it?
We are still using basically 1960 tech, that's why its expensive. As Elon Musk pointed out often, what matters is pace of innovation.
Nuclear has a pace of innovation that is almost inperceptable. The reasons are that its almost impossible for a startup to do anything, without 10s of millions or better 100s you don't even have to start. The existing reactors last for 60-100 years, so if the country built some in the 1970-1980, it might be enough for multible generations.
You don't have a large industry that can substain itself on building reactors. Industry basically makes money with the fuel dilivery, but those companies have no insentive to innovate on the reactor.
You can not even build a prototype or experimete. A university level research reactor is not enough to validate a real reactor. And the only other thing is a full commercial reactor.
This means companies are forced to develop everything on paper, long before they even get some uranium to play with. That is an insnaly difficult way to build anything, compare that to SpaceX Starship development.
I am a huge fan of nuclear, and we really did have the technology in the 1970 to basically solve climate change as France basically showed. I believe one 'gigafactory' that mass produces small or medium reactors and a appropritae fuel cycle would be by far the cheapest long term solution. Sadly I see no way how we can get to that situation, a single sighting project takes many, many years.
Also, the concept of 'baseload' is dead. If you only produce when renewables are not needed you are in a horrible market situation. Even if you wanted to be dynamic, current tech can't be. This is not an issue with nuclear in general, but the current generation. A load following nuclear reactor is possible, but even that will simply lead to an underutilized resource.
That is why companies like Moltex Energy are designing their reactor more like CSP installation. Where the nuclear reactor has a 'heat-battery' and multible CCGT so that when there is money to be made, you actually triple the output of the reactor for when prices are high. It also leads to the nuclear part of the investment being only like 30% and the rest is known cost, but of course it requries a pretty large scale of project to work.
All in all, I hope the best for nuclear, it would have been the right solution, but its unfortunate history and properties just didn't fit in socity correctly for many reasons. I hope by the end of the decade we have some advanced nuclear, but unfortunatly I now beleive the majority of 'green' energy will have to come from gathering up wind and solar power on massive scale, plus Terrafactories worth of battery production with some gas backup plants.
We are still using basically 1960 tech, that's why its expensive. As Elon Musk pointed out often, what matters is pace of innovation.
Nuclear has a pace of innovation that is almost inperceptable. The reasons are that its almost impossible for a startup to do anything, without 10s of millions or better 100s you don't even have to start. The existing reactors last for 60-100 years, so if the country built some in the 1970-1980, it might be enough for multible generations.
You don't have a large industry that can substain itself on building reactors. Industry basically makes money with the fuel dilivery, but those companies have no insentive to innovate on the reactor.
You can not even build a prototype or experimete. A university level research reactor is not enough to validate a real reactor. And the only other thing is a full commercial reactor.
This means companies are forced to develop everything on paper, long before they even get some uranium to play with. That is an insnaly difficult way to build anything, compare that to SpaceX Starship development.
I am a huge fan of nuclear, and we really did have the technology in the 1970 to basically solve climate change as France basically showed. I believe one 'gigafactory' that mass produces small or medium reactors and a appropritae fuel cycle would be by far the cheapest long term solution. Sadly I see no way how we can get to that situation, a single sighting project takes many, many years.
Also, the concept of 'baseload' is dead. If you only produce when renewables are not needed you are in a horrible market situation. Even if you wanted to be dynamic, current tech can't be. This is not an issue with nuclear in general, but the current generation. A load following nuclear reactor is possible, but even that will simply lead to an underutilized resource.
That is why companies like Moltex Energy are designing their reactor more like CSP installation. Where the nuclear reactor has a 'heat-battery' and multible CCGT so that when there is money to be made, you actually triple the output of the reactor for when prices are high. It also leads to the nuclear part of the investment being only like 30% and the rest is known cost, but of course it requries a pretty large scale of project to work.
All in all, I hope the best for nuclear, it would have been the right solution, but its unfortunate history and properties just didn't fit in socity correctly for many reasons. I hope by the end of the decade we have some advanced nuclear, but unfortunatly I now beleive the majority of 'green' energy will have to come from gathering up wind and solar power on massive scale, plus Terrafactories worth of battery production with some gas backup plants.
[deleted]
The problem with nuclear is that people are afraid of it. If we had spent the last 40 years trying to make it cheaper instead of trying to prevent accidents, it wouldn't be so expensive.
True, but this isn't exactly irrational. Nuclear only has such a good safety record because we have been so careful with it. Nobody seriously thinks "move fast and break things" nuclear reactors are a good idea.
Its about time a lot of nuclear power plans will reach their life-expancy. I wanna see how countries like France, Japan, Germany, Russia, China are going to deal with that.
Fukushima was not a good example of “how to treat reports of damaged facility”. Goverment knew and did nothing.
Newer nuclear reactors are safe, but older designs are a ticking time bombs.
Fukushima was not a good example of “how to treat reports of damaged facility”. Goverment knew and did nothing.
Newer nuclear reactors are safe, but older designs are a ticking time bombs.
Not a single person has died directly of radiation from the Fukushima accident. That's in the context of a tsunami wave that has directly killed large number of people by impact. So in general, Fukushima should be a very good example for promotion of nuclear power.
However the Fukushima cleanup has been very expensive (hundreds of billions of US dollars). If you factor in the cost of accidents like Fukushima then nuclear becomes pretty uncompetitive cost wise.
> Not a single person has died directly of radiation from the Fukushima accident.
This claim has been extensively debunked in Hacker News yet.
This claim has been extensively debunked in Hacker News yet.
Is Wikipedia currently wrong on this with the sources listed there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
For long-term displacement, many people (mostly sick and elderly) died at an increased rate[17] while in temporary housing and shelters. Degraded living conditions and separation from support networks[19] are likely contributing factors. As of 27 February 2017, the Fukushima prefecture government counted 2,129 "disaster-related deaths" in the prefecture."
While looking at the tsunami itself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
Deaths
0 from radiation,[3]
2,202 from evacuation,[4]
Non-fatal injuries
37 with physical injuries,[5]
2 workers taken to hospital with radiation burns[6][7]
For long-term displacement, many people (mostly sick and elderly) died at an increased rate[17] while in temporary housing and shelters. Degraded living conditions and separation from support networks[19] are likely contributing factors. As of 27 February 2017, the Fukushima prefecture government counted 2,129 "disaster-related deaths" in the prefecture."
While looking at the tsunami itself:
Casualties
15,899 deaths,[2] +2 (Overseas),
6,157 injured,[3]
2,529 people missing> Is wikipedia currently wrong on this...?
Aye
Aye
Well, do you have any data or sources?
They used to, and every major accident raised the demanded safety measures.
But then we'd have more accidents and people would be more inclined to ban it.
This isn't a rational numbers game; if a nuclear plant goes, the effects last for decades.
I mean compare it with transport; airplanes are safer than cars because there's just so much more training and oversight involved. But if there's a car crash, it gets (at best) a byline in a local newspaper. If there's an airplane crash, it's world news. In the US alone, 35-40 thousand people die in vehicle fatalities per year; internationally, according to https://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/, it's 1.35 MILLION. Death toll from planes is less than 1000 per year, worldwide (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263443/worldwide-air-tra...). Don't take this as fact because I just googled for a few seconds, but car accidents cause more than 1000 times as many deaths as planes.
But planes get all the media attention and all the legislation, training, safety requirements, development, etc.
I'm not sure if I'm making an actual point here, but the tl;dr is that people will not be rational about their opinion on nuclear safety vs other forms of energy.
This isn't a rational numbers game; if a nuclear plant goes, the effects last for decades.
I mean compare it with transport; airplanes are safer than cars because there's just so much more training and oversight involved. But if there's a car crash, it gets (at best) a byline in a local newspaper. If there's an airplane crash, it's world news. In the US alone, 35-40 thousand people die in vehicle fatalities per year; internationally, according to https://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/, it's 1.35 MILLION. Death toll from planes is less than 1000 per year, worldwide (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263443/worldwide-air-tra...). Don't take this as fact because I just googled for a few seconds, but car accidents cause more than 1000 times as many deaths as planes.
But planes get all the media attention and all the legislation, training, safety requirements, development, etc.
I'm not sure if I'm making an actual point here, but the tl;dr is that people will not be rational about their opinion on nuclear safety vs other forms of energy.
Sometimes I wonder if this ingrained fear is the biggest long term cost of Hiroshima.
"the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space.
Nuclear energy researches were stagnant for many, many years - anything "atomic" was considered to be "non-green", and green movements were fighting nuclear energy vigorously, as a result there were not much research done in this area - working on that was a dangerous career choice, people who did that were treated like Holocaust deniers, people who do researches on differences between races or try to cure homosexuality.
Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. As a result finding location for nuclear plant is very hard, there are protests, people do everything to stop building plants in the area, so there is huge cost associated with paying compensations.
Fun fact: in early '90 there was a plan to build nuclear plant in Poland, obviously it was heavily protested, Greenpeace and friends arrived, do their usual stuff like chaining to to whatever they could, etc. The project was abandoned (first government after fall of communism was reluctant to act heavy-handed), however, believe or not, 30 years later people leaving near the planned location still put on their houses "stop atom" banners. I would not believe that myself I hadn't seen them. So instead of having clean energy Poland keeps emitting CO2 (not that the amount is even comparable to Germany emission or other more developed countries, but still).
Cost is also a matter of scale. France, which relays on nuclear energy a lot, managed to make it feasible with a great effect for both economy and environment.
Nuclear energy researches were stagnant for many, many years - anything "atomic" was considered to be "non-green", and green movements were fighting nuclear energy vigorously, as a result there were not much research done in this area - working on that was a dangerous career choice, people who did that were treated like Holocaust deniers, people who do researches on differences between races or try to cure homosexuality.
Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people. As a result finding location for nuclear plant is very hard, there are protests, people do everything to stop building plants in the area, so there is huge cost associated with paying compensations.
Fun fact: in early '90 there was a plan to build nuclear plant in Poland, obviously it was heavily protested, Greenpeace and friends arrived, do their usual stuff like chaining to to whatever they could, etc. The project was abandoned (first government after fall of communism was reluctant to act heavy-handed), however, believe or not, 30 years later people leaving near the planned location still put on their houses "stop atom" banners. I would not believe that myself I hadn't seen them. So instead of having clean energy Poland keeps emitting CO2 (not that the amount is even comparable to Germany emission or other more developed countries, but still).
Cost is also a matter of scale. France, which relays on nuclear energy a lot, managed to make it feasible with a great effect for both economy and environment.
> Another "success" of ecologist was that they've managed to scare people.
And that saves lives and protects the economy of entire areas.
In 1974 somebody wanted to build a nuclear plant in Murcia Spain. Same BWR model as Fukushima. A few ecologists marched with home made banners, a famous actor protested, and the plan eventually was dismissed.
In 2011, just 37 years after, the same area chosen to hold a nuclear plant suffered a 5.1 earthquake that devastated the city. The idiots were trying to build a nuclear plant over a fault.
Sometimes, ecologists just are right. Things would be really different in Europe today without this heroes daring to say the things that nobody wanted to hear.
And that saves lives and protects the economy of entire areas.
In 1974 somebody wanted to build a nuclear plant in Murcia Spain. Same BWR model as Fukushima. A few ecologists marched with home made banners, a famous actor protested, and the plan eventually was dismissed.
In 2011, just 37 years after, the same area chosen to hold a nuclear plant suffered a 5.1 earthquake that devastated the city. The idiots were trying to build a nuclear plant over a fault.
Sometimes, ecologists just are right. Things would be really different in Europe today without this heroes daring to say the things that nobody wanted to hear.
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake would not have done much to a GE Mark I BWR like the one in Fukushima - the 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake didn't damage the Fukushima Mark I. The tsunami did.
This is a bad kind of fearmongering.
This is a bad kind of fearmongering.
Not a joke at all. Just the presence of a old nuclear plant in a place being hit by an earthquake would have created enough reasonable doubts to distroy the tourism in the area. Loses by 2% of the country GDP at least since them. Probably much more if we extend the bad publicity to adjacent Mediterranean coasts.
Tourism is like 14% of the Spanish GDP so raise your offer or go away with your nuclear crap. No matter how safe you claim that it is, would be still a lose.
This in the best case. With even minor damages in the plant, things would turn scarily expensive. Really fast.
So it is a mistake to think in terms of either nuclear or fossils. In real life either you have nuclear, or you have tourism plus fisheries plus agriculture plus wind turbines. You can not just say that you want to replace Silicon Valley with a nuclear plant; that would be political suicide.
Nuclear needs to use exclusively a lot of room, can damage huge areas if something goes wrong, and is only justified if there is not a better option. At this moment there are potentially dozens of alternative uses that are not only better economically but also much safer.
Tourism is like 14% of the Spanish GDP so raise your offer or go away with your nuclear crap. No matter how safe you claim that it is, would be still a lose.
This in the best case. With even minor damages in the plant, things would turn scarily expensive. Really fast.
So it is a mistake to think in terms of either nuclear or fossils. In real life either you have nuclear, or you have tourism plus fisheries plus agriculture plus wind turbines. You can not just say that you want to replace Silicon Valley with a nuclear plant; that would be political suicide.
Nuclear needs to use exclusively a lot of room, can damage huge areas if something goes wrong, and is only justified if there is not a better option. At this moment there are potentially dozens of alternative uses that are not only better economically but also much safer.
It's telling that the same argument didn't work in say, France, which has dozens of nuclear power plants (and a fuel reprocessing plant) on the coasts and yet continues having successful fisheries and tourism.
You're implying that Spain couldn't have done the same thing ? Why not ? Are they any less capable ? More sensitive to radiation ?
You're implying that Spain couldn't have done the same thing ? Why not ? Are they any less capable ? More sensitive to radiation ?
Maybe more smart?
Spain has the biggest fishing industry in EU and is the biggest producer of fish in the area. Period. France is not even close in terms of captures or people employed.
And the area where the plant was about to be raised exports tomatoes to all EU currently. There are kilometers of greenhouses in the countryside. Another activity totally incompatible with the presence of a maybe-cracking-maybe-not ancient nuclear plant.
Spain has the biggest fishing industry in EU and is the biggest producer of fish in the area. Period. France is not even close in terms of captures or people employed.
And the area where the plant was about to be raised exports tomatoes to all EU currently. There are kilometers of greenhouses in the countryside. Another activity totally incompatible with the presence of a maybe-cracking-maybe-not ancient nuclear plant.
A lots of greenhouses nearby ? Well, thats perfect - nuclear power plants produce a lot of heat that could be used fow greenhouse heating instead of being dumped via cooling towers/sea water thermal exchangers. Win-Win!
Similar fear mongering resulted in Austria never completing their Zwentendorf nuclear powerplant. Instead they built a huge gas fired thernal plant & protest the Czech Temelin nuckear powerplant being completed, that resulted in many Czech dirty brown coal power plants being shut down. Really, a productive affair...
> "the issue with nuclear is cost" the cost is the problem indeed, but the cost is something that can be lowered with sufficient amount of innovation - see how SpaceX managed to lower cost of sending satellites or people to the space.
so, four nuclear disasters in 13 years? :)
so, four nuclear disasters in 13 years? :)
The first working nuclear reactor was hastily cobbled together in a tennis court. It's literally just a critical mass of inexpensive magic rocks, a control system, and some way to remove the heat.
The only reason it costs so much is precisely because everyone is paranoid, so we demand expensive security systems and protocols. If the regulators got out of the way you could probably put one together for a few million dollars.
The only reason it costs so much is precisely because everyone is paranoid, so we demand expensive security systems and protocols. If the regulators got out of the way you could probably put one together for a few million dollars.
We could, but we shouldn't.
The fact that we can is probably the reason for the fears around the reactor. People don't fear the technical limitations of a well-build and well-managed safe reactor, and those can be built. But they fear the danger of the corruption and corner-cutting in some countries which is very difficult to constrain, which will lead to building an unsafe reactor.
The fact that we can is probably the reason for the fears around the reactor. People don't fear the technical limitations of a well-build and well-managed safe reactor, and those can be built. But they fear the danger of the corruption and corner-cutting in some countries which is very difficult to constrain, which will lead to building an unsafe reactor.
And the consequences of building such a reactor.
At the height of the Chernobyl disaster, calculations were suggesting a vast swath of Europe could be rendered uninhabitable by humans for several generations in the melt-to-groundwater-detonation scenario. As it stands, an area of diameter slightly smaller than the length of Manhattan is still considered high-risk for permanent habitation.
At the height of the Chernobyl disaster, calculations were suggesting a vast swath of Europe could be rendered uninhabitable by humans for several generations in the melt-to-groundwater-detonation scenario. As it stands, an area of diameter slightly smaller than the length of Manhattan is still considered high-risk for permanent habitation.
Strong disagree. And the brushing off of large scale risks from current technology, fail-deadly nuclear is very irresponsible.
Nuclear has the possibility for point-scale accidents to render large areas permanently uninhabitable. Given the fallibility of human social organizations point scale accidents are guaranteed in all domains. Therefor using nuclear power is conceding areas will be rendered uninhabitable. As we saw with the Chernobyl near miss and since, these areas may be as large as a continent in the case the point scale accident is bad.
Note all of this changes if nuclear technology is fail-safe. Examples include the fusion-seeded fission model, and the candlestick reactor model. Technology here is severely underfunded in interest of fail-deadly technologies more likely to be implemented and yield profit in the short term, even if we’re running huge risks by adopting them.
In the era of Covid where we see how badly our social systems can fail, the hand wavy attitude toward nuclear is simply appalling.
Nuclear has the possibility for point-scale accidents to render large areas permanently uninhabitable. Given the fallibility of human social organizations point scale accidents are guaranteed in all domains. Therefor using nuclear power is conceding areas will be rendered uninhabitable. As we saw with the Chernobyl near miss and since, these areas may be as large as a continent in the case the point scale accident is bad.
Note all of this changes if nuclear technology is fail-safe. Examples include the fusion-seeded fission model, and the candlestick reactor model. Technology here is severely underfunded in interest of fail-deadly technologies more likely to be implemented and yield profit in the short term, even if we’re running huge risks by adopting them.
In the era of Covid where we see how badly our social systems can fail, the hand wavy attitude toward nuclear is simply appalling.
>Nuclear has the possibility for point-scale accidents to render large areas permanently uninhabitable
I disagree with your point, but on a tangent, didn't US(and others) explode nuclear bombs in caves,deserts, space etc so maybe there are such desert areas where you can have nuclear plants where nobody would be affected.
I disagree with your point, but on a tangent, didn't US(and others) explode nuclear bombs in caves,deserts, space etc so maybe there are such desert areas where you can have nuclear plants where nobody would be affected.
Copying another comment of mine since you're making the exact same argument as a sibling comment:
Countries like the Netherlands that don't have the space for sufficient on-shore wind have to go to off-shore wind, which is actually more expensive than nuclear energy.
With nuclear we'd be making faster progress instead of fighting residents and nature preservation for every plot of land again and again, auctioning land leases for every few megawatts, and it all just taking forever (basically how the rollout is going in most countries right now). But in the end it's cheaper yeah! Just that we can take more than a decade to build a few plants and we'll still be faster than with only wind and solar (exception: if you're in a country with water and significant height differences, by all means choose that over nuclear). Let's first get CO2-neutral, which is an asap job, with any means not more expensive than off-shore wind (we're building that anyway so apparently anything cheaper will do) and then worry about how to get to a final, perfect state.
Countries like the Netherlands that don't have the space for sufficient on-shore wind have to go to off-shore wind, which is actually more expensive than nuclear energy.
With nuclear we'd be making faster progress instead of fighting residents and nature preservation for every plot of land again and again, auctioning land leases for every few megawatts, and it all just taking forever (basically how the rollout is going in most countries right now). But in the end it's cheaper yeah! Just that we can take more than a decade to build a few plants and we'll still be faster than with only wind and solar (exception: if you're in a country with water and significant height differences, by all means choose that over nuclear). Let's first get CO2-neutral, which is an asap job, with any means not more expensive than off-shore wind (we're building that anyway so apparently anything cheaper will do) and then worry about how to get to a final, perfect state.
That does not compute. The netherlands needs about 40000 wind turbines to cover current needs. The Netherlands is about 40000 km2. So you need roughly 1 wind turbine per km2 for current needs which is completely doable. Of course we need more in the future, but there is plenty of space.
At the same time, building off-shore wind turbines is profitable today.
In contrast, nobody is going to invest in nuclear if nuclear has to compete at the same conditions as now hold for off-shore wind (which includes putting up a reserve now for when the wind turbine needs to be removed). And of course, people find wind turbines ugly, but nobody wants to live next to a nuclear power plant.
At the same time, building off-shore wind turbines is profitable today.
In contrast, nobody is going to invest in nuclear if nuclear has to compete at the same conditions as now hold for off-shore wind (which includes putting up a reserve now for when the wind turbine needs to be removed). And of course, people find wind turbines ugly, but nobody wants to live next to a nuclear power plant.
> it kills a very low number of people per TWh
This is a grossly naive and over-simplistic way to judge safety and efficacy. Yes, perhaps fewer people die in a major accidents, but then you've left a large swath of land unusable for hundreds or thousands of years. And the cost for managing the disasters is astronomical. In a place like Japan, they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident. While other forms of energy may overall cause more deaths, it's been distributed across everyone evenly. And apparently this is considered an better outcome, because that is precisely the policy we are taking with Covid. I'd make a bet that by the end of this pandemic, the amount of suffering and death caused by the lockdowns will be more than from Covid itself, when you consider the massive economic failure of small business, children in isolation for so long, depression, overdoses, suicide, domestic abuse, diseases not being diagnosed or treated, civil unrest, etc. It's considered a good policy to share the suffering across everyone to avoid a few directly attributable deaths of compromised individuals.
edit: I'd be curious if anyone was willing to refute my statement rather than downvote it. I strongly believe what I say but am a big supporter of critical thought and would love for someone to challenge my statement and give me a reason to think otherwise.
This is a grossly naive and over-simplistic way to judge safety and efficacy. Yes, perhaps fewer people die in a major accidents, but then you've left a large swath of land unusable for hundreds or thousands of years. And the cost for managing the disasters is astronomical. In a place like Japan, they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident. While other forms of energy may overall cause more deaths, it's been distributed across everyone evenly. And apparently this is considered an better outcome, because that is precisely the policy we are taking with Covid. I'd make a bet that by the end of this pandemic, the amount of suffering and death caused by the lockdowns will be more than from Covid itself, when you consider the massive economic failure of small business, children in isolation for so long, depression, overdoses, suicide, domestic abuse, diseases not being diagnosed or treated, civil unrest, etc. It's considered a good policy to share the suffering across everyone to avoid a few directly attributable deaths of compromised individuals.
edit: I'd be curious if anyone was willing to refute my statement rather than downvote it. I strongly believe what I say but am a big supporter of critical thought and would love for someone to challenge my statement and give me a reason to think otherwise.
> they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident.
After a tsunami wave. That was the reason for losing large land mass and a lot of destruction and death. It would have largely been the same way with or without the nuclear plant there.
After a tsunami wave. That was the reason for losing large land mass and a lot of destruction and death. It would have largely been the same way with or without the nuclear plant there.
Which large parcel of land in Japan is unusable for hundreds of years ? I am not aware of any large area declared unusable that way.
Where does it say the evacuated areas are off limit for hundreds of years ?
After doing a bit of searching around, it looks like 20-40 years:
https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-rec....
So one of my assumptions was incorrect - but only about Fukushima. Chernobyl is estimated at 20,000 years. So it depends on the nature of the contaminaation.
https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-rec....
So one of my assumptions was incorrect - but only about Fukushima. Chernobyl is estimated at 20,000 years. So it depends on the nature of the contaminaation.
I have no doubt that all advocates for nuclear would agree Chernobyl is not acceptable, and that Chernobyl can't happen in more modern reactor designs.
If Fukushima is the worst case (and newer designs may even avoid/prevent Fukushima style event entirely), I'd say the cost is acceptable. ~300 square km area that's affected is relatively small, given the grand scheme of things - it would be certainly much, much less impact than coal mining has on land use and pollution (by mining itself, not counting the effect of burning coal).
So if I have a magic wand, I'd happily remove all coal mining and power plants, and replace them all with nuclear power plants (though not necessarily put them on the same location), and I think humanity will be better off.
In the really long term, if/when there's enough energy storage solutions, I think we may not need much of nuclear power plants anymore. But I think we can not wait for that to be viable as the climate disaster is already on its way.
If Fukushima is the worst case (and newer designs may even avoid/prevent Fukushima style event entirely), I'd say the cost is acceptable. ~300 square km area that's affected is relatively small, given the grand scheme of things - it would be certainly much, much less impact than coal mining has on land use and pollution (by mining itself, not counting the effect of burning coal).
So if I have a magic wand, I'd happily remove all coal mining and power plants, and replace them all with nuclear power plants (though not necessarily put them on the same location), and I think humanity will be better off.
In the really long term, if/when there's enough energy storage solutions, I think we may not need much of nuclear power plants anymore. But I think we can not wait for that to be viable as the climate disaster is already on its way.
BBC on nuclear: asking the questions that don't matter.
You know what the real problem with nuclear is? It's not economically competitive. What if I told you: you can invest in a project that will tie up your money for 10+ years and once it's completed will provide energy for 10x the current cost of solar/wind. And while youre building this plant, solar/wind and batteries will keep getting cheaper.. and by the time your ready to start selling energy, maybe no one wants to buy it at any price that ever returns a dime to you or the other investors.
Why don't you just go flush your money down the toilet today and save yourself 10 years of your life.
Until nuclear solves that issue... the rest of this just doesn't matter. These were the questions of last decade before solar/wind and batteries scaled up.
You know what the real problem with nuclear is? It's not economically competitive. What if I told you: you can invest in a project that will tie up your money for 10+ years and once it's completed will provide energy for 10x the current cost of solar/wind. And while youre building this plant, solar/wind and batteries will keep getting cheaper.. and by the time your ready to start selling energy, maybe no one wants to buy it at any price that ever returns a dime to you or the other investors.
Why don't you just go flush your money down the toilet today and save yourself 10 years of your life.
Until nuclear solves that issue... the rest of this just doesn't matter. These were the questions of last decade before solar/wind and batteries scaled up.
1. It's slightly less than 2x, not 10x.
2. Countries like the Netherlands that don't have the space for sufficient on-shore wind have to go to off-shore wind, which is actually more expensive than nuclear energy.
3. We'd be making actual progress instead of fighting residents and nature preservation for every plot of land again and again, auctioning land leases for every few megawatts, and it all just taking forever (basically how the rollout is going in most countries right now). But in the end it's cheaper yeah! Just that we can take more than a decade to build a few plants and we'll still be faster than with only wind and solar (exception: if you're in a country with water and significant height differences, by all means choose that over nuclear). Let's first get CO2-neutral, which is an asap job, with any means not more expensive than off-shore wind (we're building that anyway so apparently anything cheaper will do) and then worry about how to get to a final, perfect state.
2. Countries like the Netherlands that don't have the space for sufficient on-shore wind have to go to off-shore wind, which is actually more expensive than nuclear energy.
3. We'd be making actual progress instead of fighting residents and nature preservation for every plot of land again and again, auctioning land leases for every few megawatts, and it all just taking forever (basically how the rollout is going in most countries right now). But in the end it's cheaper yeah! Just that we can take more than a decade to build a few plants and we'll still be faster than with only wind and solar (exception: if you're in a country with water and significant height differences, by all means choose that over nuclear). Let's first get CO2-neutral, which is an asap job, with any means not more expensive than off-shore wind (we're building that anyway so apparently anything cheaper will do) and then worry about how to get to a final, perfect state.
The Netherlands has plenty of space for on-shore wind, what it doesn't have is sufficient space for them to get away from the NIMBY's. Hence building them off-shore.
Off-shore is of course a great way to have the benefits without the drawbacks. The Netherlands is quite full already and we should be careful with the small amounts of nature we have left. The added cost isn't a huge thing when your factor in it's clean energy without long term waste like nuclear.
Of course it has a huge drawback: opportunity cost.
If you look at two recently constructed wind farms in The Netherlands[1][2] then by a conservative estimate the offshore one costs around 5 million/MW compared to 2.5 million/MW for the (mostly) on-shore one.
That conservatively gives you a cost difference of around 1.5 billion for building it offshore. Or around 1 million EUR per the 150 turbines that make up Gemini.
So yes, I agree with you about the importance of preserving nature. I just think it's a better investment to place 150 relatively low-footprint turbines around the country and use the 1 million leftover EUR for each one to expand the public land around them into a park or outdoor area.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpark_Noordoostpolder
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Wind_Farm
If you look at two recently constructed wind farms in The Netherlands[1][2] then by a conservative estimate the offshore one costs around 5 million/MW compared to 2.5 million/MW for the (mostly) on-shore one.
That conservatively gives you a cost difference of around 1.5 billion for building it offshore. Or around 1 million EUR per the 150 turbines that make up Gemini.
So yes, I agree with you about the importance of preserving nature. I just think it's a better investment to place 150 relatively low-footprint turbines around the country and use the 1 million leftover EUR for each one to expand the public land around them into a park or outdoor area.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpark_Noordoostpolder
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Wind_Farm
I'm very sceptical about the claim that offshore wind is more expensive than nuclear. Licenses to operate offshore wind parks are auctioned in Germany, with interested parties bidding on the amount of subsidies they'll receive. Those subsidies are now usually negative, i.e. the companies pay extra to be allowed to build there.
Meanwhile, even just running nuclear reactors is barely profitable, to the point that the federal government had to bail energy companies out twice by limiting liability and taking over most of the costs of demolishing old plants.
Meanwhile, even just running nuclear reactors is barely profitable, to the point that the federal government had to bail energy companies out twice by limiting liability and taking over most of the costs of demolishing old plants.
The Netherlands are thinking of building 10 nuclear reactors.
https://fr.businessam.be/les-pays-bas-songent-a-construire-1...
I wanted to check up your reasoning. Actual calculations can be pretty complicated so I relied on a real world example: the largest solar array project under construction in the world, Australia's Sun Cable.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-m...
A few numbers: the projected cost is $20 billion. The nameplate capacity is 10GW. The most efficient solar plant in the world (located in Arizona) has an efficiency of about 30%, and I think we can assume similar efficiency for the Australian one, which translates to a 3GW average output, assuming it includes enough giant batteries to stabilize the output. The size of the array, in one of the most favourable places in the world by climatic conditions, is 150Km^2 (more or les the size of Amsterdam). Note that in the Australian desert we can assume the cost of the land to be almost zero.
Always according to WP, the cost of nuclear per GW should be about $6 billion. So a 3GW nuclear power plant should cost about the same as the 3GW (in average output) solar array. The difference is that the power output of a nuclear plant is steady and entirely predictable, it occupies a minimal fraction of the space needed by the solar array, and it can work anywhere in the world- from Australia to the coldest and rainiest regions. Transferring the Sun Cable project from the Australian desert to Germany is simply impossible due to the climate and the cost of land; while it's perfectly possible to build in Germany ten or twenty 3GW nuclear plants.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/just-a-m...
A few numbers: the projected cost is $20 billion. The nameplate capacity is 10GW. The most efficient solar plant in the world (located in Arizona) has an efficiency of about 30%, and I think we can assume similar efficiency for the Australian one, which translates to a 3GW average output, assuming it includes enough giant batteries to stabilize the output. The size of the array, in one of the most favourable places in the world by climatic conditions, is 150Km^2 (more or les the size of Amsterdam). Note that in the Australian desert we can assume the cost of the land to be almost zero.
Always according to WP, the cost of nuclear per GW should be about $6 billion. So a 3GW nuclear power plant should cost about the same as the 3GW (in average output) solar array. The difference is that the power output of a nuclear plant is steady and entirely predictable, it occupies a minimal fraction of the space needed by the solar array, and it can work anywhere in the world- from Australia to the coldest and rainiest regions. Transferring the Sun Cable project from the Australian desert to Germany is simply impossible due to the climate and the cost of land; while it's perfectly possible to build in Germany ten or twenty 3GW nuclear plants.
im glad someone did their due diligence than pulling out facts from their butts.
There's a significant risk of that price difference expanding to two orders of magnitude. There is a lot of research around solar that is basically about potentially delivering 10x improvements potentially (cumulatively). At a 100x cost differential, things are going to be brutal for investors with sunk investments in legacy power generation. We're talking electricity prices dropping to tenths of a dollar cent per kwh. Considering solar bids are going out for 1.3 cents right now, that could happen relatively quickly.
IMHO nuclear could actually work but it will need a much more ambitious agenda than merely matching price levels of already too expensive gas plants. Fusion is the interesting thing to keep an eye on. Perpetually decades out but it at least offers the right orders of magnitude improvements we actually need; on paper.
IMHO nuclear could actually work but it will need a much more ambitious agenda than merely matching price levels of already too expensive gas plants. Fusion is the interesting thing to keep an eye on. Perpetually decades out but it at least offers the right orders of magnitude improvements we actually need; on paper.
> lot of research around solar that is basically about potentially delivering 10x improvements potentially (cumulatively)
Can you back that up? Last time I spoke to a guy working on solar, he said a 1% increase in efficiency is considered a great achievement.
Can you back that up? Last time I spoke to a guy working on solar, he said a 1% increase in efficiency is considered a great achievement.
I'm talking mostly about cost. Technical efficiency is a nice to have but we are not short on square meters generally.
In any case, I've read several articles lately that are talking 10-30% efficiencies through in the context of various research projects. Some of those things indeed sound a bit wild/far out but not implausible. Most of this is early research. But generally what we have in the market today is not even close to being the final answer or even close to the theoretical limit of what is possible of stuff people work on in labs right now. I'd call 1% a distinct lack of imagination or ambition.
Cost is a whole different matter. Economies of scale and new processes & materials can accomplish a lot. E.g. organic molecules printed on any surface even at a reduced efficiency could end up being so dirt cheap to produce and deploy that it still ends up cheaper per kwh.
If somebody produces something half as efficient but 20 times as cheap, we'd still get 10x more energy for my money. You get cost improvements in all parts of the production process, installation, and operation. IMHO the combination of new solar cell types, ways to produce them, and ways to do that with cheaper materials can over time certainly get us to an order of magnitude cost improvement; if not far more.
In any case, I've read several articles lately that are talking 10-30% efficiencies through in the context of various research projects. Some of those things indeed sound a bit wild/far out but not implausible. Most of this is early research. But generally what we have in the market today is not even close to being the final answer or even close to the theoretical limit of what is possible of stuff people work on in labs right now. I'd call 1% a distinct lack of imagination or ambition.
Cost is a whole different matter. Economies of scale and new processes & materials can accomplish a lot. E.g. organic molecules printed on any surface even at a reduced efficiency could end up being so dirt cheap to produce and deploy that it still ends up cheaper per kwh.
If somebody produces something half as efficient but 20 times as cheap, we'd still get 10x more energy for my money. You get cost improvements in all parts of the production process, installation, and operation. IMHO the combination of new solar cell types, ways to produce them, and ways to do that with cheaper materials can over time certainly get us to an order of magnitude cost improvement; if not far more.
The building costs are high because noone builds them. It's always expensive when each project is a "first" for the people involved.
> once it's completed will provide energy for 10x the current cost of solar/wind.
Ah right that must be why electricity costs in Germany are so high and so low in France LOL
> once it's completed will provide energy for 10x the current cost of solar/wind.
Ah right that must be why electricity costs in Germany are so high and so low in France LOL
France strongly subsidised their plants due to the side effects to their nuclear weapons program.
Comparing nuclear (available 24/7) with solar without storage (available only in during the day only in some seasons) seems tricky - of course the solar will be cheaper. It doesn't cover all the need though.
And storage is mostly unsolved problem at scale. Nobody in the world ever built GWh size battery.
So supporting solar means you're either suggesting going with stuff that doesn't exist (and might as well go with fusion then, right?) or you're basically supporting fossil fuels.
And storage is mostly unsolved problem at scale. Nobody in the world ever built GWh size battery.
So supporting solar means you're either suggesting going with stuff that doesn't exist (and might as well go with fusion then, right?) or you're basically supporting fossil fuels.
Most of demand isn't absolute need, the rest is just dynamic pricing and adapting consumption to it by eg intra day shifting of heating/cooling/charging loads.
Can you back these figures up? No, you can't. Long-running nuclear plants like France's are much cheaper to operate and maintain than wind/solar. Wind turbines get decommissioned after 10-15 years around here (typically because government funding expires and they can't compete on the energy market), solar is better but still needs expensive storage capacity to make it competitive in availability.
Unless you assume France's nuclear plants are still benefiting from taxpayers' funding decades after they were built, the market has proven that nuclear power is far cheaper than wind and solar.
Unless you assume France's nuclear plants are still benefiting from taxpayers' funding decades after they were built, the market has proven that nuclear power is far cheaper than wind and solar.
I think it's definitely true people are overly anxious about radiation, and irrationally so. For example, it's easy to find people who get anxious about xrays but not about flying even though it gives you roughly the same amount of exposure.
I know I was pretty anxious when I had a chest xray as a kid. It's just the invisible nature of radiation. Coupled with the real and brutal effects of extreme doses, it just lends itself to horrifying media portrayals.
I know I was pretty anxious when I had a chest xray as a kid. It's just the invisible nature of radiation. Coupled with the real and brutal effects of extreme doses, it just lends itself to horrifying media portrayals.
> For example, it's easy to find people who get anxious about xrays but not about flying even though it gives you roughly the same amount of exposure.
A 7 hour flight gives you 1/5th (.02 mSv- 2000x daily background exposure) as much as a chest xray and 1/350th as much as a chest CT. They're only similar if you fly relatively often, and if you get any kind of CT you need to fly a LOT to make them comparable.
Your example also under-rates the danger of xrays compared to flying under models that are suspected to be more realistic than current linear threshold. If acute doses are worse than spread out doses, the xray is even worse than the plane.
As a child, you would have gotten even less radiation from a flight. An xray exposes you to roughly the same dose, since the image is confined to a specific spot on your body. Everybody gets the dose delivered to a roughly 1'x1' area, yadda yadda. On a flight, every part of your body receives more radiation- so a 50 lb child will get 1/4th as much radiation as a 200 lb adult. If they get an xray, a smaller area needs to be exposed... but not 1/4 the size. It's actually related to the square-cube law, since the image is cross-sectional but dose delivery depends on volume.
https://www.xrayrisk.com/faq.php
A 7 hour flight gives you 1/5th (.02 mSv- 2000x daily background exposure) as much as a chest xray and 1/350th as much as a chest CT. They're only similar if you fly relatively often, and if you get any kind of CT you need to fly a LOT to make them comparable.
Your example also under-rates the danger of xrays compared to flying under models that are suspected to be more realistic than current linear threshold. If acute doses are worse than spread out doses, the xray is even worse than the plane.
As a child, you would have gotten even less radiation from a flight. An xray exposes you to roughly the same dose, since the image is confined to a specific spot on your body. Everybody gets the dose delivered to a roughly 1'x1' area, yadda yadda. On a flight, every part of your body receives more radiation- so a 50 lb child will get 1/4th as much radiation as a 200 lb adult. If they get an xray, a smaller area needs to be exposed... but not 1/4 the size. It's actually related to the square-cube law, since the image is cross-sectional but dose delivery depends on volume.
https://www.xrayrisk.com/faq.php
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201... says:
During times of calm space weather, travelers on flights from say, Chicago to Beijing, over the north pole get the equivalent radiation dose of a chest X‐ray (~0.1 mSv) [e.g., Meier et al., 2009; Bennett et al., 2012, 2013; Joyce et al., 2016; Tobiska et al., 2016].
During times of calm space weather, travelers on flights from say, Chicago to Beijing, over the north pole get the equivalent radiation dose of a chest X‐ray (~0.1 mSv) [e.g., Meier et al., 2009; Bennett et al., 2012, 2013; Joyce et al., 2016; Tobiska et al., 2016].
I guess 'Chicago to Beijing over the north pole' can hardly be considered as standard for 'flying' ...
I’ve just had approximately 7 weeks of radiation therapy as post-surgery treatment for a cancer in my neck. 2 grays each treatment (I think) and 33 treatments, 66 grays in total.
My skin in the treatment area held up fine until the last week when it basically gave up, so I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of applying gel and changing bandages...
So even quite moderate exposures can have significant effects, I can’t imagine what this would be like across my whole body.
My skin in the treatment area held up fine until the last week when it basically gave up, so I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of applying gel and changing bandages...
So even quite moderate exposures can have significant effects, I can’t imagine what this would be like across my whole body.
66 Gray is far from moderate as a whole body dose. The 100% lethal onetime dose for gamma or beta rays (which you probably got one of) is around 10 Gray, LD50 is 3 Gray iirc. A wholebody dose of 2 Gray consequently would get you severe radiation sickness, depletion of white blood cells and possible secondary infections with some chance of death.
Radiation therapy therefore needs to "aim" right, so as not to hit too much of the sensitive tissues like nerves, bone marrow, mucosa, etc.
Edit: here is a chart for a comparison of typical doses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert#/media/File%3A027_do...
Hope you beat the cancer.
Radiation therapy therefore needs to "aim" right, so as not to hit too much of the sensitive tissues like nerves, bone marrow, mucosa, etc.
Edit: here is a chart for a comparison of typical doses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert#/media/File%3A027_do...
Hope you beat the cancer.
I hope you recover soon. Wishing for the best!
I wish you all the best.
Compare that to the days when scientists like Marie Curie cared around vials of radioactive material, shoe stores had flouroscopes to test fit shoes, and xrays were used as an acne treatment.
I think the most legitimate concern about nuclear safety is, what happens to the plant if you push the "OFF" button and go home?
The current gigawatt-scale plants (AP1000, Hualong One, etc.) can cool without external water for 72 hours, after which a meltdown occurs. NuScale plans to run their reactors at the bottom of a pool, with enough water to passively transition to air cooling over the course of a month. (There are a bunch of proposed reactor designs with similar safety characteristics, but I know more about NuScale because they've been in the news lately.)
I'm not against building plants with a 72-hour buffer for now, due to the pressing need for low-carbon energy, but we should really focus our future resources on passive self-cooling designs that we can safely copy-paste across the planet on a massive scale.
The current gigawatt-scale plants (AP1000, Hualong One, etc.) can cool without external water for 72 hours, after which a meltdown occurs. NuScale plans to run their reactors at the bottom of a pool, with enough water to passively transition to air cooling over the course of a month. (There are a bunch of proposed reactor designs with similar safety characteristics, but I know more about NuScale because they've been in the news lately.)
I'm not against building plants with a 72-hour buffer for now, due to the pressing need for low-carbon energy, but we should really focus our future resources on passive self-cooling designs that we can safely copy-paste across the planet on a massive scale.
> I think the most legitimate concern about nuclear safety is, what happens to the plant if you push the "OFF" button and go home?
Local peasants get in, take some pretty glowing things back home, apply the stuff as makeup, and die horrible deaths. When the family tries to bury their daughter in the town cemetery, the rest of the town marches in protest.
Clearly, the lesson is that we should stop building... hospitals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
Local peasants get in, take some pretty glowing things back home, apply the stuff as makeup, and die horrible deaths. When the family tries to bury their daughter in the town cemetery, the rest of the town marches in protest.
Clearly, the lesson is that we should stop building... hospitals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
I don't understand who's bright idea it was to use water as the primary coolant for a nuclear reactor. IIRC almost every single major nuclear incident has been caused or dramatically exacerbated by having it boil away or cause a steam explosion or mix with the ground water or chemically react with the fuel rods to produce additional heat and hydrogen gas which also explodes.
Like just go through this list and count the number of times water was a good chunk of the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
There are multiple options that don't have this issue. For instance, if you use liquid lead the thing can sit around indefinitely with no active cooling. In fact you have the opposite problem, you need to keep heating the lead to prevent the whole reactor pool from freezing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-cooled_fast_reactor
Like just go through this list and count the number of times water was a good chunk of the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
There are multiple options that don't have this issue. For instance, if you use liquid lead the thing can sit around indefinitely with no active cooling. In fact you have the opposite problem, you need to keep heating the lead to prevent the whole reactor pool from freezing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-cooled_fast_reactor
Water certainly causes trouble. At least they're not cooled by something that explodes on contact with air or water!
Liquid metal reactors also have had their fair share of accidents despite their small presence.
Of course, but a liquid lead reactor's failure modes don't usually involve a massive release of radioactivity all over the environment. Absolute worst case you'll get a meltdown and/or a coolant leak. But diligent materials choices should prevent an associated fire or steam explosions that would spread radioactive elements all over the place.
This isn't true with all liquid metal reactors though. Liquid sodium reactors have flammable radioactive coolant, and a coolant breach could be environmentally disastrous.
This isn't true with all liquid metal reactors though. Liquid sodium reactors have flammable radioactive coolant, and a coolant breach could be environmentally disastrous.
For a bit of perspective, it's worth considering that the Boeing 737-Max problems have killed more people than possibly all western and Japanese nuclear disasters combined (depends on how you count it).
Nuclear power is not without its dangers, but so is almost any other type of project of this scale - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano-Shushenskaya_power... (Even with Solar Power the risks are in the factories and mines that made the panel)
Nuclear power is not without its dangers, but so is almost any other type of project of this scale - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano-Shushenskaya_power... (Even with Solar Power the risks are in the factories and mines that made the panel)
The attitude on risks of radiation have little to do with the economic and technological failures of nuclear power. With multiple schedule and cost failures it seems like fission nuclear is an exercise in what is possible, but not really practical compared to what is accessible via renewables + storage and it's far less constrained financial and technological foundations.
Nuclear opponents: File lawsuits and generally propose BANANA policy
Also nuclear opponents: Gee, look how long it takes to build a nuclear plant.
Absolute nonsense. Owners of nuclear plants are far more likely to open suits, and the suits against plants are over quickly and very rarely successful: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1901/ML19010A148.pdf
Take SCANA as an example. They apply to the NRC in March 2008, are granted a price increase three days later, and are granted project approval 5 months after that. 4 months after that the construction plan is approved. 10 months from filing to green light, with first construction in 3 years and completion in 10 years. Projected cost is 9.8 billion for two AP1000 units- $5.4 million per MW capacity (inflation adjusted). Far more expensive than gas or renewable energy: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.p...
Before even starting, they need to redesign. NRC approves. First new US reactor in 30 years. Construction begins in 2013. In 2014, they suddenly need an extra year and 1.2 billion more. By 2016 they have hiked rates NINE times. In 2017 Westinghouse goes bankrupt trying to build these reactors. Estimates put the total cost to finish at 23 BILLION USD. The parent company votes to abandon the project.
https://www.chooseenergy.com/news/article/failed-v-c-summer-...
That has absolutely nothing to do with lawsuits or policy. The legislature gave them absolutely everything they wanted, and they had a wide open door to build reactors. They couldn't do it. It's a simple as that.
Take SCANA as an example. They apply to the NRC in March 2008, are granted a price increase three days later, and are granted project approval 5 months after that. 4 months after that the construction plan is approved. 10 months from filing to green light, with first construction in 3 years and completion in 10 years. Projected cost is 9.8 billion for two AP1000 units- $5.4 million per MW capacity (inflation adjusted). Far more expensive than gas or renewable energy: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/assumptions/pdf/table_8.2.p...
Before even starting, they need to redesign. NRC approves. First new US reactor in 30 years. Construction begins in 2013. In 2014, they suddenly need an extra year and 1.2 billion more. By 2016 they have hiked rates NINE times. In 2017 Westinghouse goes bankrupt trying to build these reactors. Estimates put the total cost to finish at 23 BILLION USD. The parent company votes to abandon the project.
https://www.chooseenergy.com/news/article/failed-v-c-summer-...
That has absolutely nothing to do with lawsuits or policy. The legislature gave them absolutely everything they wanted, and they had a wide open door to build reactors. They couldn't do it. It's a simple as that.
>and the suits against plants are over quickly and very rarely successful
Because the court system is well practiced at identifying and dismissing suits that are brought for no other reason than to delay and obstruct something.
Because the court system is well practiced at identifying and dismissing suits that are brought for no other reason than to delay and obstruct something.
Except failures were more due to insider problems. No one forced Westinghouse to screw up on Summer or Vogtle. No one forced the welds to be botched on Flamanville 3.
There were also cost and schedule overruns in other nations like China and France, besides the ones in the US and UK.
Also let's not forget the problem of burnt fuel storage. Burned nuclear fuel will stay radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Unless we plan to offload the cost of storage to future generations - which we actually do now - nuclear power is horribly unprofitable.
The total amount of nuclear waste from civilian power generation in the US occupies a volume the footprint of a football field and less than 10 meters high [1]. Not yearly waste, total waste dating back all the way to the 1960s. What you do is you bury it in bedrock where there's no groundwater. The only real risk of nuclear waste is groundwater contamination.
1. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
1. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
Storage is overblown. Newer techniques have created additional uses for waste, and storage space really isn’t much of an issue.
It's far less of a problem than advertised. Nuclear fuel contains far more energy per kg of fuel than carbon-based, so the total stock of nuclear waste in the US could fit in a two-story warehouse the size of a football field. It doesn't make sense to store it unless we discover fusion, since at some point we will come to our senses and use that "waste" as fuel for newer reactors.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
It can be stored safely, it's not even that difficult nor costly.
And for a fun side-project, check out what they make the blades of wind genreators out of. The 100 meter long ones they need to replace every 5-10 years because of mechanical wear and tear.
Answer: They're 100% unrecycleable carbon fiber or plastic fiber. The current "recycling process" is "dig a big-ass hole and dump them in there".
It can be stored safely, it's not even that difficult nor costly.
And for a fun side-project, check out what they make the blades of wind genreators out of. The 100 meter long ones they need to replace every 5-10 years because of mechanical wear and tear.
Answer: They're 100% unrecycleable carbon fiber or plastic fiber. The current "recycling process" is "dig a big-ass hole and dump them in there".
As far as I've heard, newer designs can reuse this spent fuel but there's no political will to go forward with it for some reason.
It's not economical.
Reprocessing is a thing.
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...
Bury it into 1-kilometer shaft and forget about it?
Do we have any examples of working renewables + storage? Because as far as I know, nobody in the world ever built grid scale storage. There are no proven commercial solutions available, no expertise built.
There might not even be enough lithium on the planet to support all of this, who knows.
Relying on something unproven to swoop in and save us ... might as well wait for fusion, right? In the end, what you're doing is extending the reign of fossil fuels and destroying the world.
There might not even be enough lithium on the planet to support all of this, who knows.
Relying on something unproven to swoop in and save us ... might as well wait for fusion, right? In the end, what you're doing is extending the reign of fossil fuels and destroying the world.
The only valid storage for renewables as of today (already built or could be built today) is pumping water or pressurizing air inside rock.
Both of which are only valid if you've already got the natural formations for that.
Both of which are only valid if you've already got the natural formations for that.
This is a ridiculous statement. The schedule and cost overruns is BECAUSE of un-ending environmental reviews, community protests, more safety planning lawsuits, then lawsuits over the disposal of waste, then another environmental impact review...
These are all problems for which we have reasonable technical solutions (ex: Yucca mountain was a GREAT solution for nuclear waste storage until breeder reactors come online). The problem is in the politics and planning.
These are all problems for which we have reasonable technical solutions (ex: Yucca mountain was a GREAT solution for nuclear waste storage until breeder reactors come online). The problem is in the politics and planning.
No the reasons are far simpler. Nuclear has been abandoned for decades. Anyone who wants to do anything in this space has to start from scratch, which is very expensive. There is a reason why there is a move to modular reactors. It's easier to produce a thousand of them (or at least finish your first 10 prototypes before you go bankrupt), than to produce 20 "boutique" power plants.
HMRs (Hail Mary Reactors) are being pursued because all other options for nuclear are gone. I very much doubt they're going to go anywhere.
Flamanville reactor in France was supposed to cost 3.3 G€ in 2007, it is now at 19.1 G€ in 2020 and called a "mess" by energy minister (https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/french-epr-is-a-mess--en...).
Nuclear energy is great but it is a pain to build, maintain, manage, decommission etc.
Nuclear energy is great but it is a pain to build, maintain, manage, decommission etc.
This nuclear reactor is. There are a lot of different reactors and types.
France in the past very succesfully and quickly built a lot of reactors. They massively reduced their CO2 footprint. So it can be done.
France in the past very succesfully and quickly built a lot of reactors. They massively reduced their CO2 footprint. So it can be done.
> Flamanville reactor in France was supposed to cost 3.3 G€ in 2007, it is now at 19.1 G€ in 2020 and called a "mess" by energy minister (https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/french-epr-is-a-mess--en...).
Your information is very misleading, very.
The quote come from the minister of the ecological transition, not 'energy minister', whose official duty is, quoting wikipedia 'responsible for preparing and implementing the French government’s policy in the fields of sustainable development, climate, energy transition, and biodiversity.'
This new minister has a political degree (Science Po), no technological background, and is member of the local pro-ecological party since 2000.
Of course she's referring to EPR as a mess, which is true in a certain way, but in her mind it's just a political stance she's feeling obligated to say publicly.
Of course the EPR is a giant project, maybe too giant, of course it was underestimated in order to get it going, and of course it takes much longer to be built than every one would want.
But that's the price of technological advancement, that's how we learn to build better things.
And what's the alternative? 1650MWe of wind turbines, where would you put it?
Your information is very misleading, very.
The quote come from the minister of the ecological transition, not 'energy minister', whose official duty is, quoting wikipedia 'responsible for preparing and implementing the French government’s policy in the fields of sustainable development, climate, energy transition, and biodiversity.'
This new minister has a political degree (Science Po), no technological background, and is member of the local pro-ecological party since 2000.
Of course she's referring to EPR as a mess, which is true in a certain way, but in her mind it's just a political stance she's feeling obligated to say publicly.
Of course the EPR is a giant project, maybe too giant, of course it was underestimated in order to get it going, and of course it takes much longer to be built than every one would want.
But that's the price of technological advancement, that's how we learn to build better things.
And what's the alternative? 1650MWe of wind turbines, where would you put it?
The UK has just finished building the Hornsea Project 1 offshore wind farm. [1]
It had a projected cost of $5.2 billion for a nameplate capacity of 1.2GW and an actual average output of 0.46GW. Scaled to the output of the Flamanville mess (1.6GW), it means that a wind farm with equivalent average output would cost about $18 billion. Though I imagine that the average lifetime of a 174-turbines wind farm over an area of 630 sq kms in the middle of the sea might be shorter than that of a nuclear plant.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsea_Wind_Farm
It had a projected cost of $5.2 billion for a nameplate capacity of 1.2GW and an actual average output of 0.46GW. Scaled to the output of the Flamanville mess (1.6GW), it means that a wind farm with equivalent average output would cost about $18 billion. Though I imagine that the average lifetime of a 174-turbines wind farm over an area of 630 sq kms in the middle of the sea might be shorter than that of a nuclear plant.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsea_Wind_Farm
That data speaks for itself.
And we're still talking about an average output. When wind will not blow enough for meeting consumption then additional energy will be drawn from other sources, and it will, it already is.
Renewable energy is great but it is a non-viable option as a main energy source.
And we're still talking about an average output. When wind will not blow enough for meeting consumption then additional energy will be drawn from other sources, and it will, it already is.
Renewable energy is great but it is a non-viable option as a main energy source.
I can’t really reconcile people who genuinely, in their heart of hearts, believe we’re on the precipice of doom because of carbon emissions, and are at the same time strongly against nuclear power.
Can someone who feels this way chime in and help me understand? I’m genuinely curious how these two ideas fit together.
Can someone who feels this way chime in and help me understand? I’m genuinely curious how these two ideas fit together.
We can build a lot more carbon free generation, much quicker, and reduce the carbon load of the atmosphere quicker by never ever building anther nuclear plant and instead use that money for renewables, transmission, and storage.
It is simple. There are cheaper and quicker, and lots less risky ways to decarbonize generation.
It is simple. There are cheaper and quicker, and lots less risky ways to decarbonize generation.
>...use that money for renewables, transmission, and storage.
If grid storage was simple or easy, it would have become ubiquitous decades ago. To deal with seasonal variations in power output, would require new massive battery systems that could store power for months and/or a massive over buildup of power generation. Neither of these options would be cheap and it isn’t clear how the cost would compare with building nuclear power plants. More importantly, nobody has yet tried to build such a long term grid storage system. (And no, using natural gas to cover for shortfalls from power sources that are intermittent is not a long term answer.)
Many people also ignore how expensive and time-consuming it would be to rebuild the grid so that for example, the southwest could provide solar power for the east coast. Even the relatively small proposed Tres Amos SuperStation hasn’t been completed yet.
It is possible there will be some major advances in grid storage that will allow us to stop using natural gas to cover for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. In that case - great! But... what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. Is your fear of nuclear power so great that if you had to choose, you would prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?
If grid storage was simple or easy, it would have become ubiquitous decades ago. To deal with seasonal variations in power output, would require new massive battery systems that could store power for months and/or a massive over buildup of power generation. Neither of these options would be cheap and it isn’t clear how the cost would compare with building nuclear power plants. More importantly, nobody has yet tried to build such a long term grid storage system. (And no, using natural gas to cover for shortfalls from power sources that are intermittent is not a long term answer.)
Many people also ignore how expensive and time-consuming it would be to rebuild the grid so that for example, the southwest could provide solar power for the east coast. Even the relatively small proposed Tres Amos SuperStation hasn’t been completed yet.
It is possible there will be some major advances in grid storage that will allow us to stop using natural gas to cover for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. In that case - great! But... what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. Is your fear of nuclear power so great that if you had to choose, you would prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?
The only people fitting both categories at once would have to be in favour of a very very quick de-growth/economic contraction and return to the lifestyle that was ubiquitous a couple centuries ago: no fossil fuels is pretty much a show-stopper for modern civilization.
That's a position that can be argued for and defended while being entirely coherent though (although it's not one that I'm particularly thrilled to run towards).
That's a position that can be argued for and defended while being entirely coherent though (although it's not one that I'm particularly thrilled to run towards).
I believe we're heading for a very rough time if we can avoid collapse. In an unstable society, I want energy production that is simple and decentralized. Nuclear energy does not fit that bill.
I can't really reconcile people who deny the reality of climate chaos yet insist we must urgently embrace a nuclear solution.
Can anyone who feels this way delete their account? I'm genuinely tired of your shtick.
Can anyone who feels this way delete their account? I'm genuinely tired of your shtick.
With advances in long distance power transmission, I don't know why theyre not being build on desert coasts. Does anyone know?
The Singapore-Australia line is about the se distance as a Western Sahara-UK line would be...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Powe...
The Singapore-Australia line is about the se distance as a Western Sahara-UK line would be...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Powe...
I believe that it may be partly due to the workforce required to keep the plant running. It will be very difficult for the workers to provide a good life to their families or education to their children in some remote location on a desert coast.
Sure they do this ok the oil rigs - long periods away from family, all that. I presume you could set up a similar arrangement
I'm guessing you don't just want geological stability, but also political stability where you build nuclear plants. Northern Africa, and occupied territories in general, aren't the greatest of places to put important industry.
> I don't know why they're not being build on desert coast
If we talk about Western Sahara, those coasts are strategic areas for the economy of the planet and many big companies operate there.
My bet is that anybody enough silly to treat the huge fisheries, strategic maritime routes moving oil and raw materials, and the touristic areas adjacent in the Canary Islands, EU just with the purpose to build one nuclear plant would be sued to death and buried in a coffin of law papers. The boycott level would be insane.
If we talk about Western Sahara, those coasts are strategic areas for the economy of the planet and many big companies operate there.
My bet is that anybody enough silly to treat the huge fisheries, strategic maritime routes moving oil and raw materials, and the touristic areas adjacent in the Canary Islands, EU just with the purpose to build one nuclear plant would be sued to death and buried in a coffin of law papers. The boycott level would be insane.
Probably for the reason renewable energy plants are not built there [1]: Problems of politics and stability.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec
I would assume that transmission adds costs, and nuclear is already economically uncompetitive before you add that extra overhead.
Transmission distance adds capital costs, maintenance costs, and transmission losses; plus, nuclear tail risks aren't narrowly localized, so you don't get much mitigation with distance, especially if the distance simultaneously puts in a less securable, including political stability, location.
Yes, too anxious about nuclear energy generally.
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
This article implies radiation is the only objection to nuclear power, which isn’t true. It also fails to mention any alternatives (renewables) at all. Both seem major omissions.. especially from the BBC, which I always found was a bit more balanced on these topics.
So far the largest solar plant in the world is about 1500MW in China. That’s still only a fraction of the largest nuclear facilities in the world. And solar plants only work during the day, to a first approximation (yes, there are storage approaches that sort of work, in some parts of the world.) Overall, most renewables don’t really come all that close to nuclear as far as generation capacity goes...
> So far the largest solar plant in the world is about 1500MW in China. That’s still only a fraction of the largest nuclear facilities in the world.
Why is this a problem? If solar plants can be cheap without being big, that's a feature, not a bug.
Why is this a problem? If solar plants can be cheap without being big, that's a feature, not a bug.
A 1.5GW solar plant is going to cover a massive amount of land. For comparison sake, the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Plant had roughly 2.7 GW of generation capacity, and the official website estimates it would take roughly 18 square miles of solar panels to replace that capacity.
https://www.songscommunity.com/about/virtual-tour
https://www.songscommunity.com/about/virtual-tour
Not sure how they arrived that that number as the effective capacity factor of solar is in the 25-28% range in the best of circumstances, so my napkin math of realistic PV density from real projects like Desert Sunlight (the 550 MW plant in the Mojave that covers about 6.5 sq miles) puts that at closer to 101 square miles of equivalent capacity at (.90 capacity factore versus .28, roughly 88 MW per sq mile on a totally flat desert), and that's not counting whatever storage is being used to offset all the non-generating hours.
There is plenty of land. The notion that land constraints seriously limit solar is an oft-repeated canard. You can see this by either comparing the land needed to the land available, or by comparing the cost of land to the cost of the equipment that is put on the land.
Nuclear's land use typically ignores the land used by the distribution network for its power. If you add that in, the land ratio of solar vs. nuclear is much smaller.
Nuclear's land use typically ignores the land used by the distribution network for its power. If you add that in, the land ratio of solar vs. nuclear is much smaller.
> There is plenty of land. The notion that land constraints seriously limit solar is an oft-repeated canard.
I mean, I guess that's technically true, but not all land is made the same - solar is obviously going to be more productive in California, Arizona and Florida than it will be in Washington or Maine. I'm also not arguing that we can't do it because of land — it's poor land use, and works counter to the goal of sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere.
How many ecosystems should be destroy by covering it in panels, when we could install a couple dozen mass manufactured nuclear plants and call it a day?
> Nuclear's land use typically ignores the land used by the distribution network for its power.
How do you figure? You are going to have transmission from the desert to cities, and you will need last mile delivery either way. When you do the math on the number of 18 square mile solar plants you would need for the equivalent number of small-footprint nuclear plants, it's really hard for me to see how this is true.
I mean, I guess that's technically true, but not all land is made the same - solar is obviously going to be more productive in California, Arizona and Florida than it will be in Washington or Maine. I'm also not arguing that we can't do it because of land — it's poor land use, and works counter to the goal of sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere.
How many ecosystems should be destroy by covering it in panels, when we could install a couple dozen mass manufactured nuclear plants and call it a day?
> Nuclear's land use typically ignores the land used by the distribution network for its power.
How do you figure? You are going to have transmission from the desert to cities, and you will need last mile delivery either way. When you do the math on the number of 18 square mile solar plants you would need for the equivalent number of small-footprint nuclear plants, it's really hard for me to see how this is true.
Yes, not all land is the same. I think people who worry about land are thinking about the land they see every day, which is in populated areas. They don't think about the vast quantities of very cheap land outside those urban areas.
> How many ecosystems should be destroy by covering it in panels,
Many fewer than were destroyed covering far vaster areas with farms.
> How do you figure? You are going to have transmission from the desert to cities, and you will need last mile delivery either way.
That doesn't contradict the point I made.
> How many ecosystems should be destroy by covering it in panels,
Many fewer than were destroyed covering far vaster areas with farms.
> How do you figure? You are going to have transmission from the desert to cities, and you will need last mile delivery either way.
That doesn't contradict the point I made.
> Many fewer than were destroyed covering far vaster areas with farms.
How is that relevant? You can't eat solar power, and we can't grow enough food indoors to replace farms. It doesn't make sense to compare the energy, agricultural, or land use needs of early 1800s America to 2020 America. Completely different ballgame.
> That doesn't contradict the point I made.
Your point require more explanation than you've given if it's a serious one. It's not clear how solar is going to magically need less land use for transmission infrastructure.
How is that relevant? You can't eat solar power, and we can't grow enough food indoors to replace farms. It doesn't make sense to compare the energy, agricultural, or land use needs of early 1800s America to 2020 America. Completely different ballgame.
> That doesn't contradict the point I made.
Your point require more explanation than you've given if it's a serious one. It's not clear how solar is going to magically need less land use for transmission infrastructure.
Numerous crops benefit from sharing the field with solar panels, by reduced peak heat exposure. (And, of course, numerous farms are happy to rent out a bit of space for wind turbines.)
Not to mention parking lots, factories, and warehouses that benefit from protection against sun exposure.
Not to mention parking lots, factories, and warehouses that benefit from protection against sun exposure.
The ground under solar panels is not just lost. Things can still grow, and can be a more valuable ecosystem than intensive farmland.
In fact this is one of the biggest reasons why nuclear is failing. Building even just a single power plant is a project that is so large no single company can do it.
The other thing is that 1500 MW solar with capacity factor of 11 % (that's number for Germany) is going to deliver significantly less energy than 1500 MW nuclear plant with capacity factor 98 %.
The other front page post today makes a strong case for why the horse has already bolted on Nuclear vs Solar.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605191
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605191
Everyone is pro nuclear energy untill the government decides to set up a plant near your neighborhood.
Yet I have 3-4 reactor near my neighborhood and I'm not against.
It is used for research, and produce Technetium-99m that is used for nuclear medicine for scintigraphy.
It is used for research, and produce Technetium-99m that is used for nuclear medicine for scintigraphy.
[deleted]
Yeah I have no issues with this. Power in California is stupid expensive and we are going back to rolling blackouts to shed load to keep the grid stable.
I love discussions about nuclear power because they do a really good job showing how the HN demographics are no better at being well reasoned and logically consistent than any other demographic.
[deleted]
It's called illusory superiority.
Solve the radiation problem and we are still left with the problems of massive cost overruns, corruption, and centralized control of energy which takes away individual freedom to choose where to spend energy money, because the cost gets passed down to us as taxes and fees. A better idea is to scale up battery production and use renewables. Nuclear may still be needed but as a last / worst option amongst all non-fossil fuel options.
It's amazing how HN ignores the problem of centralization vs decentralization of power production.
I don't understand the discussion surrounding the cost of nuclear, talking about it being non-competitive.. When the alternative is what? Unleashing series of catastrophic events due to climate change? which will have an unbounded enormous cost on societies at large.
We've seen already what harm this type of thinking (cost-effectiveness of health systems, worry about costs of closing travel) is causing thanks to the Covid19 example.
We've seen already what harm this type of thinking (cost-effectiveness of health systems, worry about costs of closing travel) is causing thanks to the Covid19 example.
"Just Have A Think" put out a video about geothermal energy today. Iceland and California both have large faults they use for short distance access (3km) to the >200 Celsius available at an average depth of ~40km everywhere else in the world.
I'm not sure of the implications of drilling that deep, but since horizontal drilling is required for steam return - could it ever be an avenue down which to deploy drilling assets that were originally used for fracking? If oil prices stay depressed, and California achieves total ban of gasoline vehicles before 2035, then oil demand is going to drop more and it would be good to continue to utilize advanced drilling tech that would ultimately be able to start up a grid anywhere there is lower than average crust depths.
I'm not sure of the implications of drilling that deep, but since horizontal drilling is required for steam return - could it ever be an avenue down which to deploy drilling assets that were originally used for fracking? If oil prices stay depressed, and California achieves total ban of gasoline vehicles before 2035, then oil demand is going to drop more and it would be good to continue to utilize advanced drilling tech that would ultimately be able to start up a grid anywhere there is lower than average crust depths.
The problem with geothermal power is that it's only feasible in a few areas. California already generates about 5% of its electricity from geothermal power: https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/renewables_data/geothermal....
Yeah because of the fault line bringing mantle temperature closer. I think they have drilled 3km to tap into this heat, whereas the deepest hole ever dug so far is in Russia at a depth of around 10km (small diameter). Drilling was limited at this distance because of increasing heat.
If we could figure out how to drill a large enough hole at those ~43km crust lengths, wouldn't tectonic activity shift shafts out of alignment?
Metallurgy, abrasives, and durable gearing are to conventional drills (Howard Hughes Sr) as perhaps focused optics would be to future drilling as depicted in lots of sci fi. Either way - tunneling itself is so much the challenge as would be removing the aggregate.
How hilarious would it be to have drilled so far deep vertically to access the mantle that you'd have to use rockets to remove the ore. Space elevator/launch concept also has massive material penalty.
If we could figure out how to drill a large enough hole at those ~43km crust lengths, wouldn't tectonic activity shift shafts out of alignment?
Metallurgy, abrasives, and durable gearing are to conventional drills (Howard Hughes Sr) as perhaps focused optics would be to future drilling as depicted in lots of sci fi. Either way - tunneling itself is so much the challenge as would be removing the aggregate.
How hilarious would it be to have drilled so far deep vertically to access the mantle that you'd have to use rockets to remove the ore. Space elevator/launch concept also has massive material penalty.
Maybe the fear of actual death by radiation is over-proportionate, but what about nuclear waste? It is only mentioned in the very end of the article, but many countries are having problems finding a suitable site for long-term storage of nuclear waste.
Whenever people bring up "but how do we store the waste!?", how much storage space would the nuclear waste used to power
all of America for a year take up? Feels like the amount is an important point, but I never hear it mentioned.
This is not a hard start to find if you're actually curious, especially given that I've seen multiple people in this thread already cite how much waste has been created since the 60s. I'm on mobile and should be sleeping but I remember seeing the per-year at 100% nuclear before, just don't remember what it is, and keep in mind that nobody here is proposing going 100% forever. It's a mix and a quick way to stop producing CO2 for power.
Perhaps some of us are not concerned about radiation risks, we simply do not want a continuation of old centralized paradigms. The future is energy systems based on decentralization, redundancy, and dispersal.
Maybe the key to stop having anxiety is in how to remove or minimize the radiation effects. With my ignorance on the subject, analyzing radiosynthesis of some mushrooms can lead to some promising discoveries https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.16.205534v1
Yes. We do many worse things to ourselves, and they have all the potential and realized risks that nuclear promised. The only difference? We’ve been inundated with ads from the coal industry.
Deaths from nuclear power, including all the heritable effects from all nuclear accidents, are less than all power sources except hydro.
Deaths from nuclear power, including all the heritable effects from all nuclear accidents, are less than all power sources except hydro.
If we were rational about even radiation, we’d be freaked out about coal power too for the same reasons, but we’re not. Nuclear power is on the losing side of one of the most effective public persuasion campaigns in the US, much to my frustration.
this year, the veil fell and the usa nuclear fuel working group showed the industry for what it is:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-e...
The nexus with weapons is undeniable. I stand with hibakusha in opposition to nuclearism.
https://www.icanw.org/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-e...
The nexus with weapons is undeniable. I stand with hibakusha in opposition to nuclearism.
https://www.icanw.org/
... What? Trump decided to enact some protectionist uranium policies and this makes the nuclear industry the baddies..? Did you throw out all your cutlery in disgust when he jacked up steel import tariffs? This is cretinous.
hey murry, I'm from a pseudo-independant steel (and uranium) producing nation.
perhaps this summary is clearer: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/us-uranium-mining-nfwg...
"according to the Department of Energy, the desire to enhance the domestic uranium industry is being driven by a demand for low-enriched uranium that will be used in tritium production for nuclear weapons in the 2040s, as well as highly-enriched uranium needed to fuel Navy nuclear reactors in the 2050s"
perhaps this summary is clearer: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/us-uranium-mining-nfwg...
"according to the Department of Energy, the desire to enhance the domestic uranium industry is being driven by a demand for low-enriched uranium that will be used in tritium production for nuclear weapons in the 2040s, as well as highly-enriched uranium needed to fuel Navy nuclear reactors in the 2050s"
> "we know that things like bad diet, inactivity, obesity and alcohol can also cause cancer"
No, we actually don't know that.
I would say that correlation isn't causation, but for at least 3 of those factors I'm pretty sure we don't even have the correlation.
This sentence here spoiled the entire article for me, as this is IMO an unacceptable mistake for a science journalist.
No, we actually don't know that.
I would say that correlation isn't causation, but for at least 3 of those factors I'm pretty sure we don't even have the correlation.
This sentence here spoiled the entire article for me, as this is IMO an unacceptable mistake for a science journalist.
Correlation is indeed not causation. However all four statements hold true for correlation. And at least alcohol can cause cancer.
- Bad diet: for example red meat increases risk of colorectal cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4698595/
- physical activity reduces the risk of many cancers. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
- overweight people have a higher risk of cancer. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
- alcohol increases risk of head and neck, oesophageal, liver, breast, colorectal caner and many others . https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/a...
- Bad diet: for example red meat increases risk of colorectal cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4698595/
- physical activity reduces the risk of many cancers. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
- overweight people have a higher risk of cancer. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/o...
- alcohol increases risk of head and neck, oesophageal, liver, breast, colorectal caner and many others . https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/a...
Time for simple waste heat generators. What is holding us back to use it?
nuclear reactors are one unusual earth quake away from rendering entire continent uninhabitable.
A rare violation of Betteridge's law of headlines: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
There are many things we do not understand about radiation. The traditional models on radiation dosis and health effects are probably too simple. There is a strain of research on epigenetic effects of ionizing radiation:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=epig...
Simply put, we often see the DNA as a kind of program which is executing on our body. But it is actually a program which, activates, inactivates, modifies and rewrites itself, so that the program code can reflect environmental conditions - especially during the growth of a fetus.
Radiation effects are very difficult to capture by statistics. A part of the reason is that cancer is not a rare illness, and any kind of cancer which might be induced by additional low doses of radiation will be covered by a lot of noise. But if these low doses of radiation affect a large number of individuals, radiation could still cause a lot of damage. What makes it even more difficult is that radiation, as it affects genetic control loops in the cell, has no distinct picture of its effects. It could be cancer, but it could also be effects on the central nervous system. Or circulatory diseases, which have been reported from Chernobyl as well. And what makes it more difficult of course is that it is not an area where one can make controlled experiments, so it is mostly science by observation. This is tricky because there are so many confounding factors. Even with something entirely plausible like, say, "smoking causes cancer", or "neonicotinoids probably affect bees and insects", it is hard to come to a conclusion.
There are also more concrete causes for concern. In Germany, following some irregularities at the Kruemmel nuclear plant, in the Wesermarsch area near Hamburg, it was found there was a cluster of leukemia cases in children - many times more than what was to be expected from the normal statistical case numbers. In the follow-up, the incidence of leukemia near all nuclear power stations was determined, and compared to other factors. A significantly higher incidence of leukemia was found, with no good explanation so far.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9728737/
http://www.crause.de/elbmarschleukaemie.html
https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leuk%C3%A4mieclus...
Some researchers also have found there is a correlation between the proportion of sexes of humans at birth, and radiation:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783...
I need to point out that this is not established science - but it poses very important questions.
The traditional theory on effects of ionizing radiation can so far still not explain this. A possible hypothesis is that radiation disturbs the expression of the delicate self-modifying genetic program, which has disproportionately large effects during early development.
Another interesting observation is that in Chernobyl, insects seem more affected by radiation than vertebrates.
https://www.thoughtco.com/chernobyl-animal-mutations-4155348
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679916/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/chernobyls-bugs-...
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=epig...
Simply put, we often see the DNA as a kind of program which is executing on our body. But it is actually a program which, activates, inactivates, modifies and rewrites itself, so that the program code can reflect environmental conditions - especially during the growth of a fetus.
Radiation effects are very difficult to capture by statistics. A part of the reason is that cancer is not a rare illness, and any kind of cancer which might be induced by additional low doses of radiation will be covered by a lot of noise. But if these low doses of radiation affect a large number of individuals, radiation could still cause a lot of damage. What makes it even more difficult is that radiation, as it affects genetic control loops in the cell, has no distinct picture of its effects. It could be cancer, but it could also be effects on the central nervous system. Or circulatory diseases, which have been reported from Chernobyl as well. And what makes it more difficult of course is that it is not an area where one can make controlled experiments, so it is mostly science by observation. This is tricky because there are so many confounding factors. Even with something entirely plausible like, say, "smoking causes cancer", or "neonicotinoids probably affect bees and insects", it is hard to come to a conclusion.
There are also more concrete causes for concern. In Germany, following some irregularities at the Kruemmel nuclear plant, in the Wesermarsch area near Hamburg, it was found there was a cluster of leukemia cases in children - many times more than what was to be expected from the normal statistical case numbers. In the follow-up, the incidence of leukemia near all nuclear power stations was determined, and compared to other factors. A significantly higher incidence of leukemia was found, with no good explanation so far.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9728737/
http://www.crause.de/elbmarschleukaemie.html
https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leuk%C3%A4mieclus...
Some researchers also have found there is a correlation between the proportion of sexes of humans at birth, and radiation:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03783...
I need to point out that this is not established science - but it poses very important questions.
The traditional theory on effects of ionizing radiation can so far still not explain this. A possible hypothesis is that radiation disturbs the expression of the delicate self-modifying genetic program, which has disproportionately large effects during early development.
Another interesting observation is that in Chernobyl, insects seem more affected by radiation than vertebrates.
https://www.thoughtco.com/chernobyl-animal-mutations-4155348
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679916/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/chernobyls-bugs-...
Yes
Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami. Being anxious about it is more than justified, especially with idiotic countries in mind.
But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched. It's becoming safer and safer and with the introduction of modular built reactors, the cost and time to market metrics will go down. Whether is fission or fusion - that remains to be seen...
But that doesn't mean we need to abandon it. Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched. It's becoming safer and safer and with the introduction of modular built reactors, the cost and time to market metrics will go down. Whether is fission or fusion - that remains to be seen...
Problem is that you don’t get to opt out of the “human bullshit”. Nuclear power comes with a massive and unavoidable cost from these matters.
Those costs are negligible compared to climate change.
Fukushima every 5 years for next 1000 years, or gradually leaking long term nuclear waste, are several orders of magnitude less harmful for humanity or life on earth than climate change.
Fukushima every 5 years for next 1000 years, or gradually leaking long term nuclear waste, are several orders of magnitude less harmful for humanity or life on earth than climate change.
But investing in wind, solar and storage would be much cheaper still. The fukushima cleanup effort has cost close to $100 billion. Imagine where we could take renewable and energy storag tech with that level of investment.
Just looked up some numbers from Wikipedia:
"Japan had 282 GW of total installed electricity generating capacity in 2010"
"A 2010 study by the Japanese government (pre-Fukushima disaster), called the Energy White Paper,[citation needed] concluded the cost for kilowatt hour was ¥49 for solar, ¥10 to ¥14 for wind, and ¥5 or ¥6 for nuclear power.
Masayoshi Son, an advocate for renewable energy, however, has pointed out that the government estimates for nuclear power did not include the costs for reprocessing the fuel or disaster insurance liability. Son estimated that if these costs were included, the cost of nuclear power was about the same as wind power.[49][50][51]
More recently, the cost of solar in Japan has decreased to between ¥13.1/kWh to ¥21.3/kWh (on average, ¥15.3/kWh, or $0.142/kWh).[52] "
And:
"Photovoltaic prices have fallen from $76.67 per watt in 1977 to nearly $0.102 per watt in October 2019, for multi crystalline silicon solar cells and module price to $0.21 per watt."
so ~10W/$ for photovoltaic gives 1TW for $100 billion, about four times larger than the 2010 installed energy generation capacity.
realistically there will be more costs than just the panels.
"Japan had 282 GW of total installed electricity generating capacity in 2010"
"A 2010 study by the Japanese government (pre-Fukushima disaster), called the Energy White Paper,[citation needed] concluded the cost for kilowatt hour was ¥49 for solar, ¥10 to ¥14 for wind, and ¥5 or ¥6 for nuclear power.
Masayoshi Son, an advocate for renewable energy, however, has pointed out that the government estimates for nuclear power did not include the costs for reprocessing the fuel or disaster insurance liability. Son estimated that if these costs were included, the cost of nuclear power was about the same as wind power.[49][50][51]
More recently, the cost of solar in Japan has decreased to between ¥13.1/kWh to ¥21.3/kWh (on average, ¥15.3/kWh, or $0.142/kWh).[52] "
And:
"Photovoltaic prices have fallen from $76.67 per watt in 1977 to nearly $0.102 per watt in October 2019, for multi crystalline silicon solar cells and module price to $0.21 per watt."
so ~10W/$ for photovoltaic gives 1TW for $100 billion, about four times larger than the 2010 installed energy generation capacity.
realistically there will be more costs than just the panels.
10 years ago? It's 2020, wind/solar have dropped by significant percentages every year since then.
Wind/solar are cheaper (LCOE) than everything except natural gas, which it is on parity with right now, and shortly will pass even for installed generation (meaning it will be worth it for electric companies to invest in replacing the natural gas generators)
Wind/solar are cheaper (LCOE) than everything except natural gas, which it is on parity with right now, and shortly will pass even for installed generation (meaning it will be worth it for electric companies to invest in replacing the natural gas generators)
Yes renewables have gotten cheaper but nuclear isn't outlandishly expensive either.
If it doesn't match expectations and the price doesn't significantly drop further from today (seems unlikely), going nuclear would be a good decision. If renewable continues to drop, we have a bit more expensive power depending on the percentage of nuclear to renewable power. However, if we don't build nuclear, I'm really not sure how much CO2 we're adding to the air and how many more people had to die from pollution before we managed to build enough renewables. If it's ballpark reasonable I don't see that we can afford to wait.
If it doesn't match expectations and the price doesn't significantly drop further from today (seems unlikely), going nuclear would be a good decision. If renewable continues to drop, we have a bit more expensive power depending on the percentage of nuclear to renewable power. However, if we don't build nuclear, I'm really not sure how much CO2 we're adding to the air and how many more people had to die from pollution before we managed to build enough renewables. If it's ballpark reasonable I don't see that we can afford to wait.
I'm a very enthusiastic LFTR stan that wondered why we weren't full on into Thorium reactor research at the beginning of the Obama administration.
But wind/solar have just changed the face of energy generation.
I agree that in theory, nuclear can provide cheap and plentiful energy in a large number of applications. But in practice it has not, and the regulatory structures and entrenched interests (fuel rod reprocessor companies, US military wanting weapons grade isotopes, NIMBY) simply make it really really hard to do a new reactor.
I think small scale reactors that fit in a shipping container or pallet box is what should be pursued. A "disposable" reactor that can simply be sent back for recycling is the way to go.
As someone else has noted, a new nuclear project is a five year lead time. Look at the improvement curves in solar/wind EROEI / LCOE. Five years will be another annualized 10-20% savings in panels / rotors / batteries. Nuclear won't be able to compete.
When the main curves for solar / wind finally stabilize, then nuclear can probably target something that might be competitive.
But wind/solar have just changed the face of energy generation.
I agree that in theory, nuclear can provide cheap and plentiful energy in a large number of applications. But in practice it has not, and the regulatory structures and entrenched interests (fuel rod reprocessor companies, US military wanting weapons grade isotopes, NIMBY) simply make it really really hard to do a new reactor.
I think small scale reactors that fit in a shipping container or pallet box is what should be pursued. A "disposable" reactor that can simply be sent back for recycling is the way to go.
As someone else has noted, a new nuclear project is a five year lead time. Look at the improvement curves in solar/wind EROEI / LCOE. Five years will be another annualized 10-20% savings in panels / rotors / batteries. Nuclear won't be able to compete.
When the main curves for solar / wind finally stabilize, then nuclear can probably target something that might be competitive.
> However, if we don't build nuclear, I'm really not sure how much CO2 we're adding to the air and how many more people had to die from pollution before we managed to build enough renewables
To me the achilles heel in this scheme is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power station. This article [0] says that modern nuclear plants are planned to be built in 5 years (this assumes no time overruns which have been common in practice in recent years). I'm not convinced that nuclear will still be relevant in 5-10 years times once it's actually been built.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...
To me the achilles heel in this scheme is how long it takes to build a new nuclear power station. This article [0] says that modern nuclear plants are planned to be built in 5 years (this assumes no time overruns which have been common in practice in recent years). I'm not convinced that nuclear will still be relevant in 5-10 years times once it's actually been built.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...
I'm aware of the building time unfortunately (10-15 years iirc, seems to match what you wrote), but yeah I'm still expecting it'll be helpful to at least plan for a third, maybe half the power to come from nuclear plants. It's not as if we are likely to be using less energy than today, and on top of that we need a tenfold amount as we use today to replace the petajoules currently coming from oil (e.g. for transportation, I don't know the exact uses, just that NL in 2014 used 10x more kWh or mtoe than we produce+import in electrical power).
Looking at how much renewable power we managed to build in the past ten years, we need to ramp it up massively, while at the same time we just did the low hanging fruit in terms of where to build. A video I watched a few days ago mentioned that Germany had been debating over laws regarding the placement of wind turbines. Germany, the big country (to me), where there is still a lot of nature and space (compared to where I'm from, the Netherlands, here I can find a big forest not far from home and housing is also cheaper due to lower demand for the space). Apparently they were debating over a 1000 meter minimum distance between dwellings and a wind turbine for noise reasons, but that would apparently already have left nearly no space. Now it's 300 meters but some states have higher distance requirements and so you see few turbines there. It's a real pickle...
Looking at how much renewable power we managed to build in the past ten years, we need to ramp it up massively, while at the same time we just did the low hanging fruit in terms of where to build. A video I watched a few days ago mentioned that Germany had been debating over laws regarding the placement of wind turbines. Germany, the big country (to me), where there is still a lot of nature and space (compared to where I'm from, the Netherlands, here I can find a big forest not far from home and housing is also cheaper due to lower demand for the space). Apparently they were debating over a 1000 meter minimum distance between dwellings and a wind turbine for noise reasons, but that would apparently already have left nearly no space. Now it's 300 meters but some states have higher distance requirements and so you see few turbines there. It's a real pickle...
How do you know that the storage investment will produce something viable? Investments still have risk and nuclear can fill that hole.
It's true that there's always risk involved. As we know, that is true for nuclear as much as any other energy technology.
My view on this is that we are not particularly far away from this being viable even with 2020 technology. And that this is especially true if we are creative in how we apply technology, for example by decentralising the grid and installing storage capacity in people's homes, and by being aggressive with load shifting to reduce the storage capacity required. And there are dozens of promising new energy storage technologies. It seems unlikely that none of them pan out. I thus consider the risk of going all-in on renewables fairly low.
My view on this is that we are not particularly far away from this being viable even with 2020 technology. And that this is especially true if we are creative in how we apply technology, for example by decentralising the grid and installing storage capacity in people's homes, and by being aggressive with load shifting to reduce the storage capacity required. And there are dozens of promising new energy storage technologies. It seems unlikely that none of them pan out. I thus consider the risk of going all-in on renewables fairly low.
Sure, but the stakes are human existence on the planet. I don't know why you would turn away from solutions we already have with boundable risk.
Investing nuclear, wind, solar and storage is be cheaper than leaving nuclear out.
Nuclear has it's place in the mix.
Nuclear has it's place in the mix.
Whereas with lovely coal and oil we get to ignore the problem. It's just smoke until... Catastrophic climate feedback loops, mass extinction, hundreds of millions of climate migrants escaping uninhabitable parts of earth, coral and shellfish disappear in acidic oceans, entire ecosystems collapse and etc etc. But nuclear had costs. Sure. But we could at least begin to calculate those costs.
Why does the answer always reply with coal and oil instead of Renewables and storage?
Because we need truly fantastic levels of storage to make renewables even remotely feasible. The US has 8 seconds of battery storage, and ~4 minutes of hydroelectric storage. We need 12 hours of storage to get to 80% renewable generation, and 3 weeks of storage to get to 100% renewable generation [1]. And even if we did go this route, we'd still need to cover 3-5% of the landmass of the Earth with solar panels to achieve this.
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora....
1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora....
There have been many studies since 2018 that say areas where they previously thought it would be difficult to get to 80%, that would be perfectly feasible to get to 100% with near term technologies. See Austrailian grid analysis. The key difference is that the prices for both renewables and storage are far ahead of cost reduction estimates in previous forcasts.
Australia has vast tracts of cheap land and very good solar potential (close to equator, little cloud cover). They also have energy usage patterns that are amenable to solar, with ACs run during the day and little need for heating at night. Most countries do not share these characteristics.
And I'd still like to see what they have planned for energy storage. It likely still involves shifting demand (in other words, they can't actually fulfill demand and they have to tell people not to use electricity during certain times of day).
And I'd still like to see what they have planned for energy storage. It likely still involves shifting demand (in other words, they can't actually fulfill demand and they have to tell people not to use electricity during certain times of day).
That seems to have improved greatly in a years time. The speed with which renewable sources come one line I think is surprising everyone.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/08/31/renewables-improve-re...
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/08/31/renewables-improve-re...
For the last 40 years, that has been the actual alternative.
Can you imagine where we'd be if we had continued pursuing the nuclear future? A largely decarbonized grid, advanced reactor designs deployed, knock-on effects from plentiful power, etc. What would the CO2 levels look like now? But no, instead we're now at a crisis point...
Can you imagine where we'd be if we had continued pursuing the nuclear future? A largely decarbonized grid, advanced reactor designs deployed, knock-on effects from plentiful power, etc. What would the CO2 levels look like now? But no, instead we're now at a crisis point...
If you’re German for one, then it’s justified, because Merkel has been shutting down nuclear plants which forced a switch back to more coal.
Then why isn't the argument that Germany should build more solar and wind generation? Nuclear plants take decades from start to finish - if they even finish in the West. Vs months to a few years for many renewable projects.
Becayse germany has been very rapidly ramping up wind and solar, and still they are struggling to replace the reactors. They have made no progress in decarbonising the grid because rhey've been replacing one zero-carbon source with another zero carbon source, instead of removing coal.
Because the plants are finished and working. They just shut them down.
Nuclear plants have a lifetime of 30ish years. Many are getting shutdown now because the first wave of builds was around 30-50 years ago. The risks of continuing to operate older designs gets higher if they're refurbished.
Sure, but newer designs were shut down too. I used to live basically next to one. It was in construction for years, very close to completion when Fukushima happened. It was definitely not a rational reaction to cancel that thing.
Germany has cut coal use in half since the wind-down of the nuclear fleet began. Please do not repeat misinformation.
That’s misinformation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
You can clearly see how coal is on the rise shortly after 2010. So it is factually true to say they switched back to coal. You would be correct to point out that coal use has gone down since, but not by half. Not even close.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany
You can clearly see how coal is on the rise shortly after 2010. So it is factually true to say they switched back to coal. You would be correct to point out that coal use has gone down since, but not by half. Not even close.
Let’s use German industry data[1]
[1] https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/index.php?article_id=29&fileNa...
Fuel 2010 2019 (TWH)
Lignite 145.9 113.9
Hard Coal 117.0 57.3
Nuclear 140.6 75.1
Renewables 105.2 244.3
Natural Gas 89.3 91.0
[1] https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/index.php?article_id=29&fileNa...
Your numbers also show that coal use went up by several TWh shortly after the Energiewende. I'll concur that the numbers improved much faster than I would have expected based on what I had in mind from previous years. But they still went up.
Anyone who describes the Energiewende nuclear draw down as having caused coal consumption to rise is propagating misinformation.
While there may be some small, tightly qualified way in which the statement can be twisted to be true the impression that is conveyed is one that is in conflict with the facts.
Misinformation often uses small truths to tell larger lies.
While there may be some small, tightly qualified way in which the statement can be twisted to be true the impression that is conveyed is one that is in conflict with the facts.
Misinformation often uses small truths to tell larger lies.
> Anyone who describes the Energiewende nuclear draw down as having caused coal consumption to rise is propagating misinformation.
Anyone who does that would be factually correct, as proven by your own numbers. And this accusation is especially ironic coming from someone who made a factually incorrect statement.
> there may be some small, tightly qualified way in which the statement can be twisted to be true
It was true for several years and for several TWh. It's not at all fair to call that "twisted and tightly qualified".
If you don't think so, note that from 2010 until now, the length of time in which coal use was elevated is about the same as the length of time where it decreased. So if my statement is twisted and tightly qualified, then so is your statement that coal use has been reduced by 35%. Not to mention your initial claim that it's been cut in half.
> the impression that is conveyed is one that is in conflict with the facts.
Since you insist, I'll amend my statement: getting out of nuclear forced an increase in coal use for several years.
But the main point remains untouched. From a climate standpoint, Germany would've been strictly better off with nuclear.
Anyone who does that would be factually correct, as proven by your own numbers. And this accusation is especially ironic coming from someone who made a factually incorrect statement.
> there may be some small, tightly qualified way in which the statement can be twisted to be true
It was true for several years and for several TWh. It's not at all fair to call that "twisted and tightly qualified".
If you don't think so, note that from 2010 until now, the length of time in which coal use was elevated is about the same as the length of time where it decreased. So if my statement is twisted and tightly qualified, then so is your statement that coal use has been reduced by 35%. Not to mention your initial claim that it's been cut in half.
> the impression that is conveyed is one that is in conflict with the facts.
Since you insist, I'll amend my statement: getting out of nuclear forced an increase in coal use for several years.
But the main point remains untouched. From a climate standpoint, Germany would've been strictly better off with nuclear.
And they would have cut it to zero by now if they left nuclear plants alone.
That is factully incorrect. Even if Germany had left nuclear on a level of 1995 and replaced aging plants with new plants of the same capcity the net nuclear output combined with renewables would not be enough to offset coal/gas/oil. See https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung
This graph seems to show that coal would have been gone by now.
What I getting wrong?
What I getting wrong?
Because nobody has put forth any workable plan to provide the storage capacity needed to rely on solar or wind.
Because you cannot simply replace conventional rotational generators with inverters. The inertia of the turbomachinery smooths out fluctuations in the grid keeping it stable. Lots of details in [0].
So without lots of hydro or synchronous wind generation, there will always been a need for some kind of conventional generation to keep the grid stable.
0. https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/10/25/grid-inertia...
So without lots of hydro or synchronous wind generation, there will always been a need for some kind of conventional generation to keep the grid stable.
0. https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/10/25/grid-inertia...
I'm no expert, but I did find this[1] recent (May 2020) information posted by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab that indicates that non-inverted power sources (such as solar and wind) may be able to produce synthetic current frequency in order to maintain grid stability. This technology can be included within large-scale storage batteries.
In addition, these inertial techniques ('fast frequency response') are digital and as a result could provide lower-latency and higher-accuracy response compared to mechanical approaches.
If I understand that correctly, then eventually these approaches could phase out the need for rotational inertia (no pun intended).
[1] - https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2020/inertia-and-the-power...
Edit: adding a useful quote from the linked report, below:
"In the United States, the Texas grid (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT) is the smallest of three main grids. ERCOT’s relatively small size, combined with its large wind deployment, has required it to compensate for declining inertia by adopting several low-cost solutions, including allowing fast-responding noncritical loads to respond to changes in frequency. This has enabled ERCOT to achieve increasingly high instantaneous wind penetrations—reaching a record of 58% in 2019—while maintaining reliability."
In addition, these inertial techniques ('fast frequency response') are digital and as a result could provide lower-latency and higher-accuracy response compared to mechanical approaches.
If I understand that correctly, then eventually these approaches could phase out the need for rotational inertia (no pun intended).
[1] - https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2020/inertia-and-the-power...
Edit: adding a useful quote from the linked report, below:
"In the United States, the Texas grid (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT) is the smallest of three main grids. ERCOT’s relatively small size, combined with its large wind deployment, has required it to compensate for declining inertia by adopting several low-cost solutions, including allowing fast-responding noncritical loads to respond to changes in frequency. This has enabled ERCOT to achieve increasingly high instantaneous wind penetrations—reaching a record of 58% in 2019—while maintaining reliability."
If you're building a grid-scale battery storage system, isn't it a relatively straightforward engineering problem to emulate the inertia of a flywheel?
I would be much more concerned about batteries' ability to respond on the days/weeks/months scale than the milliseconds scale.
I would be much more concerned about batteries' ability to respond on the days/weeks/months scale than the milliseconds scale.
What challenges do you foresee in responding over days/weeks/months?
The challenge is just having enough raw capacity to meet demand using intermittent renewable sources. Weather varies on the scale of days/weeks, and winter is cold because of limited sunlight. What energy source will we use to stay warm all winter?
Make hydrogen, store it underground, and have enough combustion turbines available to back up the grid. A simple cycle combustion turbine power plant is about 5% of the cost of a nuclear power plant, per unit of power output.
That seems physically plausible, though it would be a lot easier if we could make methane efficiently, because we already have the infrastructure to transport and burn it.
The problem then is where do you get the carbon to make the methane. Ammonia might be a possibility, if it can be kept from escaping (toxic) or dissolving in underground water.
Yet another possibility is underground storage of high temperature heat, artificial geothermal, if you will. But it would have to be extractable with cheap equipment. Perhaps it could be used to superheat hydrogen for injection into those combustion turbines.
Yet another possibility is underground storage of high temperature heat, artificial geothermal, if you will. But it would have to be extractable with cheap equipment. Perhaps it could be used to superheat hydrogen for injection into those combustion turbines.
Making hydrogen via electrolysis is very lossy though.. it's only worth it if you have nothing else to burn the power on.
Or if you need a chemical energy store with very low $/kWh of storage capacity, for long term or rarely used storage. There, the efficiency penalty is much less important than it would be for rapidly cycling diurnal storage.
[deleted]
Nobody said otherwise. What point are you trying to make?
Massive compared to what, though? Chernobyl was a catastrophe, but it's also like just a month of driving deaths here in america, or a couple coal plants just doing their thing. None of these are even on the same amount of destruction that climate change will wreak, up to and including possible extinction, something scarier even than a nuclear holocaust. Perhaps you might articulate what the risk you're alluding to is?
Cost is massive indeed, but even in extreme cases like in Chernobyl, it will be offset to non-existence compared to the gains we will reap in the long run if we master this technology.
Remember, that nuclear is still in its early stages. Newer and better designs emerge and we're even still researching fusion.
Early cars were like a death sentence in Texas. But that didn't stop engineers from improving and making them better. What if they said after the first crash - "Screw it, back to horses and carts, this stuff is too dangerous."
Remember, that nuclear is still in its early stages. Newer and better designs emerge and we're even still researching fusion.
Early cars were like a death sentence in Texas. But that didn't stop engineers from improving and making them better. What if they said after the first crash - "Screw it, back to horses and carts, this stuff is too dangerous."
Does it, though? A large portion can definitely be avoided with design and technology. Chernobyl happened because it was a positive feedback loop, in the West it was an obsolete design even before it was built. And Fukushima was quite literally acts of god (in the actuarial sense.)
Yes, it does. Humans lie and cheat and steal and misrepresent. Contractors use inappropriate materials or cut corners. Regulators demand unreasonable operational constraints because of political pressure. Insurers demand unaffordable costs. Protestors fight construction because of unfounded fears. Political stasis prevents sensible waste management strategies. And so on.
I absolutely think it would be possible to build a safe future on nuclear power - in an ideal world. But the world is very very far from ideal; the impression I get is that that effort which would be required to actually deliver a modern nuclear strategy is unattainable.
I absolutely think it would be possible to build a safe future on nuclear power - in an ideal world. But the world is very very far from ideal; the impression I get is that that effort which would be required to actually deliver a modern nuclear strategy is unattainable.
It doesn't matter if you have a new design if you don't deploy it. The Fukushima plant was older than the Chernobyl plant. One could have simply decided to replace it with a newer design. In hindsight if Japan's government didn't have to pay for the Fukushima cleanup they could have done more sensible things, like update the entire nuclear fleet. It certainly would have been cheaper to tear all nuclear plants in Japan down and build new ones when you look at the cost overruns at Fukushima.
As an equal analogy - why can't we design our way out of governments having lots of "human bullshit" problems? If you can answer that question, you solve a much bigger problem than energy.
You do. US Navy had zero nuclear accidents so far, simply because one Hyman Rickover was able to convince the government that safety overrides everything else.
Unlike the Air Force which accidentally flew two nukes to the wrong state :). But that’s not nuclear power so I suppose you are correct.
And dropped a couple on Spain for good measure.
"coal energy destroyed zero inhabitable planetary biospheres so far"
Um, are you sure about that? I can think of at least two.
I assume that you're referring to USS Thresher and Scorpion. These weren't nuclear accidents.
> These weren't nuclear accidents.
Of course they were, unless we assume that those nuclear plants were lost on purpose and not accidentally
Anything related with the destruction of a damned nuclear submarine that is lost somewhere in the sea bottom is a nuclear accident, by definition.
Of course they were, unless we assume that those nuclear plants were lost on purpose and not accidentally
Anything related with the destruction of a damned nuclear submarine that is lost somewhere in the sea bottom is a nuclear accident, by definition.
> US Navy had zero nuclear accidents so far
and here we go again....
and here we go again....
> Everything around the nuclear disasters has been a human bullshit of a problem, not a technological one. Probably with the exception of Fukushima, where all the conditions were put into the extreme - killer earthquake and monster tsunami.
In fact, even Fukushima there were human (stupid) mistakes:
- the levee was too low, and the regulator told TEPCO they needed to improve it (which they didn't). Interestingly enough, the exact same issue (too small levee, leading to loss of all power and water supply) happened in France in CPNE du Blayais in 1999, and in this case also the regulator told EDF that their levee was too low, with no reaction…
- a valve was automatically closed (which is the standard behavior in case of shutdown) but the Japanese operators weren't aware of this behavior, so they believed the valve was still open. When they realized it, it was too late. Opening this valve would have given several hours more of cooling water to the reactor, which could have been enough to save it because help came only a little too late.
Main takeaway: humans are going to do stupid things, which in case of nuclear will eventually lead to a disaster every once in a while. The question raised by the article, is “how much of a disaster is it really” and “do we really need to evacuate a entire region when things like this happen”.
If the answer is “yes” (which is what's commonly accepted) then nuclear is probably too risky to be reasonable (for instance, if CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated).
But if the answer is “no”, and the actual risk from contamination (not irradiation actually…) is actually comparable or even lower than regular air pollution or other pollutants, then maybe nuclear is fine, even if we admit that dramatic events will inevitably occur.
In fact, even Fukushima there were human (stupid) mistakes:
- the levee was too low, and the regulator told TEPCO they needed to improve it (which they didn't). Interestingly enough, the exact same issue (too small levee, leading to loss of all power and water supply) happened in France in CPNE du Blayais in 1999, and in this case also the regulator told EDF that their levee was too low, with no reaction…
- a valve was automatically closed (which is the standard behavior in case of shutdown) but the Japanese operators weren't aware of this behavior, so they believed the valve was still open. When they realized it, it was too late. Opening this valve would have given several hours more of cooling water to the reactor, which could have been enough to save it because help came only a little too late.
Main takeaway: humans are going to do stupid things, which in case of nuclear will eventually lead to a disaster every once in a while. The question raised by the article, is “how much of a disaster is it really” and “do we really need to evacuate a entire region when things like this happen”.
If the answer is “yes” (which is what's commonly accepted) then nuclear is probably too risky to be reasonable (for instance, if CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated).
But if the answer is “no”, and the actual risk from contamination (not irradiation actually…) is actually comparable or even lower than regular air pollution or other pollutants, then maybe nuclear is fine, even if we admit that dramatic events will inevitably occur.
>CPNE de Nogent sur Seine suffered a critical failure, Paris and the entire Île-de-France region, which concentrate most of the French economic power, would need to be evacuated
Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs).
This is scaremongering.
Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs).
This is scaremongering.
> Why ? Paris is as far from Nogent NPP (89 km) as Kiev is from Chernobyl NPP, so there's plenty of space to setup an exclusion zone, even in the worst case scenario of an open core meltdown (which are much less probable with Western PWR designs).
You stopped halfway through in your reasoning: a PWR reactor is less prone to reactor meltdown than an RBMK one, AND the consequences would be different.
Because there's no graphite, there would be no fire, then the radioactive dust cloud would be almost nonexistent. What would happen instead would probably be a Fukushima-like scenario, where tons of contaminated water would end up in the environment. But this time, the environment wouldn't be the gigantic Pacific Ocean, but the Seine river… which crosses Paris and is a major supplier of freshwater for the whole urban area.
You really don't want a catastrophic failure at Nogent!
(You'd have the same issue with CNPE du Bugey and the city of Lyon btw).
You stopped halfway through in your reasoning: a PWR reactor is less prone to reactor meltdown than an RBMK one, AND the consequences would be different.
Because there's no graphite, there would be no fire, then the radioactive dust cloud would be almost nonexistent. What would happen instead would probably be a Fukushima-like scenario, where tons of contaminated water would end up in the environment. But this time, the environment wouldn't be the gigantic Pacific Ocean, but the Seine river… which crosses Paris and is a major supplier of freshwater for the whole urban area.
You really don't want a catastrophic failure at Nogent!
(You'd have the same issue with CNPE du Bugey and the city of Lyon btw).
But this scenario is much easier to handle than an open core meltdown. The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent. I guess that must be by design when the siting decision was made.
So even the need to discharge contamination in the Seine wouldn't matter that much. It would forbid some uses of the Seine for a few months.
Containment pools can be readily dug to contain discharge until activity levels decay and to dilute the discharge.
These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
So even the need to discharge contamination in the Seine wouldn't matter that much. It would forbid some uses of the Seine for a few months.
Containment pools can be readily dug to contain discharge until activity levels decay and to dilute the discharge.
These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
> But this scenario is much easier to handle than an open core meltdown.
It's still not handled in Fukushima yet… And because of that, Fukushima is higher than Chernobyl in terms of radioactive material released in the environment…
> The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent.
What?
> These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
This is probably why some people won't ever trust nuclear: the feeling of invulnerability conveyed by some nuclear enthusiasts, is just scary.
I'm long on nuclear, I moved from Paris to the middle of nowhere because my wife is working at the local powerplant, I studied nuclear engineering myself in engineering school and even considered it as a career (but I eventually chose software engineering instead). And let me tell you: this argument “These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process” is bullshit. The plant was designed, then after some bad experience (France and worldwide) security was improved, then computer simulation improved and they discovered other failure possibilities and improved the security again. Then, Fukushima happened, and they discovered huge holes in security (especially when you lose all power supply AND all water supply, which wasn't a scenario deemed plausible before) and they improved security yet again (they created the FARN to have a dedicated emergency response agency, in case everybody else is busy as hell with other issues, and they added new bunkerized and elevated diesel generators to ensure the power is never fully lost).
But we cannot be 100% sure we have everything covered now, and I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if another catastrophic event occurred in the next twenty years somewhere in the world. (And if it happens in France, I'm ready to bet this will be caused by fire, because French safety standards regarding fires are waaay behind UK ones.
It's still not handled in Fukushima yet… And because of that, Fukushima is higher than Chernobyl in terms of radioactive material released in the environment…
> The Seine supplies drinking water upstream from Nogent.
What?
> These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process.
This is probably why some people won't ever trust nuclear: the feeling of invulnerability conveyed by some nuclear enthusiasts, is just scary.
I'm long on nuclear, I moved from Paris to the middle of nowhere because my wife is working at the local powerplant, I studied nuclear engineering myself in engineering school and even considered it as a career (but I eventually chose software engineering instead). And let me tell you: this argument “These worst case scenarios have already been gamed through during the plant planning process” is bullshit. The plant was designed, then after some bad experience (France and worldwide) security was improved, then computer simulation improved and they discovered other failure possibilities and improved the security again. Then, Fukushima happened, and they discovered huge holes in security (especially when you lose all power supply AND all water supply, which wasn't a scenario deemed plausible before) and they improved security yet again (they created the FARN to have a dedicated emergency response agency, in case everybody else is busy as hell with other issues, and they added new bunkerized and elevated diesel generators to ensure the power is never fully lost).
But we cannot be 100% sure we have everything covered now, and I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if another catastrophic event occurred in the next twenty years somewhere in the world. (And if it happens in France, I'm ready to bet this will be caused by fire, because French safety standards regarding fires are waaay behind UK ones.
I can’t think of a single instance of a technology where we thought that failure wasn’t an option, were supposed to put everything behind it to succeed and had a 100% clear success.
Dams fail. Rockets fail. Medical devices fail. Do you see any that doesn’t fail, whatever the cause is ?
It’s natural to assume power plant at some point will fail. If we’re fine losing a gigantic living area for half a century each time a plant fails, perhaps you are right. But looking at Fukushima that doesn’t seem like a tradeoff people are fine with.
Dams fail. Rockets fail. Medical devices fail. Do you see any that doesn’t fail, whatever the cause is ?
It’s natural to assume power plant at some point will fail. If we’re fine losing a gigantic living area for half a century each time a plant fails, perhaps you are right. But looking at Fukushima that doesn’t seem like a tradeoff people are fine with.
Planning for failure is a core activity in nuclear plant design.
Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.
Modern plants could sustain pretty much any failure and no living area would be lost.
including an airliner flying into surface storage next to the plant?
According to one article newly built nuclear reactor in Belarus can withstand crash of an aircraft up to 5700 kg with speed up to 100 m/s. That's modern design, older designs probably are worse. Air liner is two orders heavier.
Honestly withstanding airliner crash sounds like an impossible task. And crashing airliner into something is perfectly achievable by a terrorist or crazy pilot.
So I think that's a real danger.
Honestly withstanding airliner crash sounds like an impossible task. And crashing airliner into something is perfectly achievable by a terrorist or crazy pilot.
So I think that's a real danger.
They tested for that:
https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-react...
https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-react...
please read carefully: surface storage, i.e. the dry storage casks outside of the reactor. A reactor contains less nuclear material than the dry storage casks which contain decennia worth of nuclear waste.
The surface storage isn't at temperature, though. Waste is cooled off in a pool of water until it's cooled, before it's placed in dry storage.
Sure, rupturing that would release toxic materials out into the surrounding area. But how is that different from flying a plane into a chemical plant? If terrorists hijacked a plane, it'd probably kill an order of magnitude more people by flying it into a skyscraper than into dry waste caskets.
Sure, rupturing that would release toxic materials out into the surrounding area. But how is that different from flying a plane into a chemical plant? If terrorists hijacked a plane, it'd probably kill an order of magnitude more people by flying it into a skyscraper than into dry waste caskets.
who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times.
theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
> who cares about the surface storage temperature? a dirty bomb can deny access to surrounding areas for prolonged times.
A dirty bomb is a device specifically designed to disperse radioactive material. Spent nuclear fuels is actually much less harmful than the isotopes that could be used in a dirty bomb, and it's potential for dispersal is much less in a ground collision than in an atmospheric detonation. Nuclear waste would get dispersed over a few hundred meters, and the top couple feet of dirt in these areas would be cleared away and replaced.
> theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
Which is why most plants have more than one cooling tower (well, some don't have any cooling towers if they're cooled by ocean water). And even in the event that all cooling facilities are destroyed, plant operators would insert the cooling rods to shut down the reactors. There are backup diesel generators to power the control systems in the event that the plant's main electric generator fails.
These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd. By, the way, what happens if someone flies a plane into a chemical plant manufacturing solar panels? Harmful chemicals could be released into the surrounding areas. Should we shut down solar plant manufacturing until this failure point is addressed? Of course not, such a complaint is as nonsensical about the ones you're trying to make towards nuclear.
A dirty bomb is a device specifically designed to disperse radioactive material. Spent nuclear fuels is actually much less harmful than the isotopes that could be used in a dirty bomb, and it's potential for dispersal is much less in a ground collision than in an atmospheric detonation. Nuclear waste would get dispersed over a few hundred meters, and the top couple feet of dirt in these areas would be cleared away and replaced.
> theres so many potential failure points, here is another: if they fly through the electric pylons and into the cooling tower, there is no place to dump the energy as the reactor can't be shut down immediately, and cooling will fail soon, ...
Which is why most plants have more than one cooling tower (well, some don't have any cooling towers if they're cooled by ocean water). And even in the event that all cooling facilities are destroyed, plant operators would insert the cooling rods to shut down the reactors. There are backup diesel generators to power the control systems in the event that the plant's main electric generator fails.
These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd. By, the way, what happens if someone flies a plane into a chemical plant manufacturing solar panels? Harmful chemicals could be released into the surrounding areas. Should we shut down solar plant manufacturing until this failure point is addressed? Of course not, such a complaint is as nonsensical about the ones you're trying to make towards nuclear.
A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target.
What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide...
> These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd
So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million ..., about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators...
Good luck with Mohr's circle...
What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide...
> These kinds of scenarios are borderline absurd
So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million ..., about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators...
Good luck with Mohr's circle...
This thread is a quintessential anti-nuclear circular argument. Sorry for bad paraphrasing, but basically:
A: Nuclear is dangerous because bad things happen if a jumbo jet crashes onto it.
B: Is there anything that doesn't cause bad things when a jumbo jet crashes onto it?
A: Irrelevant, these things aren't as dangerous as nuclear.
I get that there are issues with nuclear. This isn't one.
A: Nuclear is dangerous because bad things happen if a jumbo jet crashes onto it.
B: Is there anything that doesn't cause bad things when a jumbo jet crashes onto it?
A: Irrelevant, these things aren't as dangerous as nuclear.
I get that there are issues with nuclear. This isn't one.
did you read my comment about Southern Airways Flight 49?
its not just about things being bad when an airliner crashes, but about the additional risk incurred.
if I can choose between a nuclear power plant getting hit 10km from me, or some silane also 10km from me, I'd know what I'd dissaprove of most.
if I can choose between leaving for the next generations a location where surface storage was hit by an airliner, or where some silane gas was used being hit by an airliner, I'd know what I prefer to leave behind for them...
chemicals are easier to sort than isotopes
its not just about things being bad when an airliner crashes, but about the additional risk incurred.
if I can choose between a nuclear power plant getting hit 10km from me, or some silane also 10km from me, I'd know what I'd dissaprove of most.
if I can choose between leaving for the next generations a location where surface storage was hit by an airliner, or where some silane gas was used being hit by an airliner, I'd know what I prefer to leave behind for them...
chemicals are easier to sort than isotopes
> A terrorist is not likely to select a solar manufacturing plant as a target.
A terrorist is not likely to select a nuclear power plant's dry storage either. Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet.
> What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide
Crashing a plane into inert concrete casks is too great a risk but crashing into a plant with explosives is fine? And depending on the type of solar panel being crated, manufacturing could involve cadmium and other materials that could easily pose a cancer risk on par with the uranium in the dry storage casks. And I doubt these materials are as well secured.
> So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million
The plane itself is more expensive than the $2M. I doubt the authorities' decisions would have been different if the hijackers threatened to fly into the nearest skyscraper. And by the way, the hijackers threatened to crash into the reactor not the dry storage casks.
> about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators
Earthquakes are real concerns, planes flying into dry storage casks are not. There's no Mohr's circle here, only increasingly bizarre scenarios about how someone might compromise dry storage casks (coupled with handwaving away the fact that there are far more dangerous things a person could do with a hijacked plane, like fly it into an occupied building).
A terrorist is not likely to select a nuclear power plant's dry storage either. Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet.
> What chemicals would you be talking about? silane gas is explosive, but burns to water and silicon dioxide
Crashing a plane into inert concrete casks is too great a risk but crashing into a plant with explosives is fine? And depending on the type of solar panel being crated, manufacturing could involve cadmium and other materials that could easily pose a cancer risk on par with the uranium in the dry storage casks. And I doubt these materials are as well secured.
> So absurd, the US government gave the hijackers of Southern Airways Flight 49 $2 million
The plane itself is more expensive than the $2M. I doubt the authorities' decisions would have been different if the hijackers threatened to fly into the nearest skyscraper. And by the way, the hijackers threatened to crash into the reactor not the dry storage casks.
> about as absurd as an earthquake and a tsunami flooding some emergency generators
Earthquakes are real concerns, planes flying into dry storage casks are not. There's no Mohr's circle here, only increasingly bizarre scenarios about how someone might compromise dry storage casks (coupled with handwaving away the fact that there are far more dangerous things a person could do with a hijacked plane, like fly it into an occupied building).
> Again, a terrorist stands to kill far more people crashing a plane into a building than either dry cask storage or solar panel manufacturing planet.
For terrorists, body count isn't the goal it's one means to an ends indicated by the label.
For terrorists, body count isn't the goal it's one means to an ends indicated by the label.
is cadmium still even used for new solar panels?
why the downvote?
I know of 0 incidents where terrorists did or threatened to attack a solar manufacturing plant with an aeroplane.
But we know of at least 1 incident of terrorists threatening to attack a nuclear facility with an aeroplane.
I know of 0 incidents where terrorists did or threatened to attack a solar manufacturing plant with an aeroplane.
But we know of at least 1 incident of terrorists threatening to attack a nuclear facility with an aeroplane.
I would not be surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY446h4pZdc
do you have a title so I can check it through DDG? I refuse to click the consent pop-ip on YT...
EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
EDIT: watched. An aeroplane is not a train.
1) A train is a nastier impactor than a plane, which is mostly air, soft-ish metal and plastic.
2) What's your point? You can kill way more people by flying an airplane into a building than any nuclear facility.
2) What's your point? You can kill way more people by flying an airplane into a building than any nuclear facility.
1) kinetic energy and momentum ... and jet fuel
2) don't ask me what the point is, as long as some people can envision a point to it, it's irresponsible to not avoid such a situation. don't ask me what the point is, ask the hijackers of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49
2) don't ask me what the point is, as long as some people can envision a point to it, it's irresponsible to not avoid such a situation. don't ask me what the point is, ask the hijackers of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Flight_49
Dry storage casks are embedded in some seriously thick concrete for radiation shielding. I wouldn't be surprised if a direct hit of an A-380 engine at Mach 1 didn't actually destroy it.
Again, if you have a highjacked plane on hand you can cause way more damage by crashing it into a skyscraper than some nuclear waste storage - it's a somewhat different risk but not a greater one.
Again, if you have a highjacked plane on hand you can cause way more damage by crashing it into a skyscraper than some nuclear waste storage - it's a somewhat different risk but not a greater one.
How thick?
Check out these, with humans for comparison:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg
Check out these, with humans for comparison:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuclear_dry_storage.jpg
Some 70 cm. That's right, about half of diameter of these cylinders are concrete walls.
For comparison, Schwerer Gustav shells weighed about the same as A380 engine, were mostly hardened solid steel, arrived on target at about Mach 2 and could penetrate some 7 meters of concrete (including the explosive charge).
You can help yourself to a F-4 vs concrete test that doesn't really make a dent in about 1m of concrete.
For comparison, Schwerer Gustav shells weighed about the same as A380 engine, were mostly hardened solid steel, arrived on target at about Mach 2 and could penetrate some 7 meters of concrete (including the explosive charge).
You can help yourself to a F-4 vs concrete test that doesn't really make a dent in about 1m of concrete.
From that video (F4 vs concrete), the narrator who was present at the test says that ultimately its the energy that counts (wheither you model a detailed plane colliding, or a simple sausage shape of same mass and velocity, turns out you get essentially the same result).
So let's calculate the kinetic energy for the 3 things mentioned: the Phantom F4 II kinetic energy, the Schwerer Gustav shell kinetic energy (I don't know the energy in the explosive charge though) and the A380 kinetic energy:
E = 1/2 * m * v * v (not sure how to use caret in markdown)
Phantom F4 II: 1/2 18,824 kg (770 / 3.6 m / s) (770 / 3.6 m / s) = 430 MJ
Schwere Gustav shell: 1/2 7000 kg 343 m / s 343 m / s = 412 MJ EDIT: this should be 4 x 412 MJ = 1.6 GJ since I forgot to double the speed of sound.
A-380: 1/2 500000 kg ( 945 / 3.6 m / s ) ( 945 / 3.6 m / s ) = 17.226 GJ
where I used 500 tonnes instead of max takeoff weight of 575 tonnes, and V MO of 945 km/h
so thats 40 x more energy than the F4 test...
the F4 test resulted in a 6 cm deep scratch, so naively multiplying by 40 gives 2.4 m , i.e. substantially more than 70 cm (to see it's not that naive, just consider crashing 40 F4's sequentially, they'll dig deeper and deeper)
So let's calculate the kinetic energy for the 3 things mentioned: the Phantom F4 II kinetic energy, the Schwerer Gustav shell kinetic energy (I don't know the energy in the explosive charge though) and the A380 kinetic energy:
E = 1/2 * m * v * v (not sure how to use caret in markdown)
Phantom F4 II: 1/2 18,824 kg (770 / 3.6 m / s) (770 / 3.6 m / s) = 430 MJ
Schwere Gustav shell: 1/2 7000 kg 343 m / s 343 m / s = 412 MJ EDIT: this should be 4 x 412 MJ = 1.6 GJ since I forgot to double the speed of sound.
A-380: 1/2 500000 kg ( 945 / 3.6 m / s ) ( 945 / 3.6 m / s ) = 17.226 GJ
where I used 500 tonnes instead of max takeoff weight of 575 tonnes, and V MO of 945 km/h
so thats 40 x more energy than the F4 test...
the F4 test resulted in a 6 cm deep scratch, so naively multiplying by 40 gives 2.4 m , i.e. substantially more than 70 cm (to see it's not that naive, just consider crashing 40 F4's sequentially, they'll dig deeper and deeper)
Re: Aircraft impacts https://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/pret...
And a dry storage cask is not a transportation cask
In fact, the failures at Fukushima were definitely human caused although it was indeed an extreme natural disaster as well.
Being anxious based on the past failures is not totally justified as the environmental cost and dangers from pollution are much, much greater for existing non-renewable energy sources than nuclear even factoring in Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. The number of fatalities and injuries from those versus their power output makes them safer than coal.
The real problem is that the public conscious is turned against nuclear because of its association with weapons and the decades that environmentalist groups have spent protesting against it, ironically.
Being anxious based on the past failures is not totally justified as the environmental cost and dangers from pollution are much, much greater for existing non-renewable energy sources than nuclear even factoring in Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. The number of fatalities and injuries from those versus their power output makes them safer than coal.
The real problem is that the public conscious is turned against nuclear because of its association with weapons and the decades that environmentalist groups have spent protesting against it, ironically.
Much of what I've read about Fukushima still implicates "human bullshit", with regard to the reactor design, underestimating the maximum tsunami size that should be accounted for, and the physical layout of the facility (particularly the location of the backup generators).
Soviets were corrupt, Japanese were [not familiar with the explanation]. What would be the excuse for the next disaster? What if there are no selfless heroes around next time?
The problem with the current nuclear technology is that one disaster is way too many. The power plants need to fail more gracefully to have the support of the people that are less fascinated by the tech.
When the tsunami hits or experiment goes wrong you should be able the have a huge monetary loss and forget about what happened in a week. Not heroes sacrificing their lives to save the humanity and sarcophagus build with international collaboration. Not a land that is no-go zone for who knows how long.
Yes, nuclear power is fascinating and it’s very neat when it works but it’s too much of a commitment for many people.
And the death per kwh stats are ridiculous. Deaths of terrorist are way lower than most killers. Deaths due to mafia are very low compared to fatty cheese. Deaths due to serial killers are very low compared to kitchen accidents.
The problem with the current nuclear technology is that one disaster is way too many. The power plants need to fail more gracefully to have the support of the people that are less fascinated by the tech.
When the tsunami hits or experiment goes wrong you should be able the have a huge monetary loss and forget about what happened in a week. Not heroes sacrificing their lives to save the humanity and sarcophagus build with international collaboration. Not a land that is no-go zone for who knows how long.
Yes, nuclear power is fascinating and it’s very neat when it works but it’s too much of a commitment for many people.
And the death per kwh stats are ridiculous. Deaths of terrorist are way lower than most killers. Deaths due to mafia are very low compared to fatty cheese. Deaths due to serial killers are very low compared to kitchen accidents.
Fukushima and Czernobyl are reactor types that lack the features to fail gracefully. If you want to see an accident in a reactor that does, read about TMI. Newer reactors like EPRs are even more graceful when failing.
And what would be the excuse when the new reactors fail disastrously? None of the failed ones were considered dangerous before they fail, they were all supposed to be impossible to cause a disaster due to redundancies, passive and active safety mechanisms. They were all supposed to be built perfectly and the people who operate them were supposed to know what they are doing.
Yet, we have Chernobyl and Fukushima.
What happens when the next time 20 million people need to be evacuated? Europe fell to it's knees when 1 million refugees moved, Americans choose their president on premise to build a wall to stop Mexicans.
The risk is simply too great just to have a neat machine running that produces the same stuff that can be produced with other machines.
Yet, we have Chernobyl and Fukushima.
What happens when the next time 20 million people need to be evacuated? Europe fell to it's knees when 1 million refugees moved, Americans choose their president on premise to build a wall to stop Mexicans.
The risk is simply too great just to have a neat machine running that produces the same stuff that can be produced with other machines.
The failed ones were known to be dangerous. Mostly that big problem was kept under radar of the public, oversight failed big time or was complicit. The other big problem is, we keep running old rustbuckets and dubious designs. More than half of the worlds reactors should probably be shut down immediately, and most of the rest is also due for a replacement very very soon.
How do we know that this time is different?
See, the thing that goes wrong doesn’t have to be even a technological one. Fission is a process that spontaneously can go wrong unless harnessed by systems that are built by thousands of people. Anything can go wrong and anyone can screw up. All can happen and the same time as demonstrated by the previous disasters.
You say that the current reactors are very dangerous and should be closed down. Please give me a material by the plant builders and operators that communicates these dangers with the people that might get exposed to a failure.
See, the thing that goes wrong doesn’t have to be even a technological one. Fission is a process that spontaneously can go wrong unless harnessed by systems that are built by thousands of people. Anything can go wrong and anyone can screw up. All can happen and the same time as demonstrated by the previous disasters.
You say that the current reactors are very dangerous and should be closed down. Please give me a material by the plant builders and operators that communicates these dangers with the people that might get exposed to a failure.
Your narrative sounds like you're claiming that we didn't learn from Chernobyl and that Fukushima is proof of that. That's not true, no one is going around claiming that ancient designs are somehow becoming safer and safer. Fukushima was constructed literally before Chernobyl was. Back then generation II reactors took an active approach to safety. Operators might have to take action and power to the plant needed to be always available in order to safely manage some faults. They took the approach of "lets get five redundant diesel generators and have triple redundant control cabling, sensors, and valves" whereas newer Generation IV reactors are passively safe when things go wrong. Even on the AP1000 which was approved by the NRC back in 2005 is passively safe even in a plantwide blackout with a gravity based evaporative cooling system that can last 72 hours before needing an additional source of water to fill it back up. Around 72 hours after shutdown the decay heat should be able to boil a little over a gallon per second of 30C water. All things considered it's pretty trivial to get a gallon per second of water to the reactor within 3 days time. The new SMR from NuScale that just got approved is even better given that the pool the reactor sits in is sized large enough that by the time the water in the pool is gone it'll have reduced to the point where it's cold enough to just air cool the reactor so it's passively safe indefinitely.
Even in the case of Fukushima, I'd like to point out that all things considered, zero people died from acute radiation poisoning and IIRC only one case of lung cancer was likely attributed to exposure from Fukushima. Fukushima was basically a worst case scenario for any Gen II reactor. The only reason Chernobyl was so much worse was because of the incredibly unsafe design out of the USSR. They didn't care, they didn't bother with a containment building at all, had operators blindly following orders from management even more incompetent than the operators were, operated the reactor way outside of the limits that were placed on the reactor by removing all the control rods which was never supposed to be done, etc. You can pin Fukushima on the Nuclear industry, Chernobyl was solely because of the callous indifference and incompetence of the USSR.
Even in the case of Fukushima, I'd like to point out that all things considered, zero people died from acute radiation poisoning and IIRC only one case of lung cancer was likely attributed to exposure from Fukushima. Fukushima was basically a worst case scenario for any Gen II reactor. The only reason Chernobyl was so much worse was because of the incredibly unsafe design out of the USSR. They didn't care, they didn't bother with a containment building at all, had operators blindly following orders from management even more incompetent than the operators were, operated the reactor way outside of the limits that were placed on the reactor by removing all the control rods which was never supposed to be done, etc. You can pin Fukushima on the Nuclear industry, Chernobyl was solely because of the callous indifference and incompetence of the USSR.
Fission can spontaneously go wrong in the same way all the protons in your body could just decide to decay. A reactor is not magic, just physics.
>"And what would be the excuse when the new reactors fail disastrously? "
CANDU reactors are failsafe and have been for 50 years. Fukushima or Chernobyl style disaster in phisically impossible with their heavy-water, unpressurised design.
CANDU reactors are failsafe and have been for 50 years. Fukushima or Chernobyl style disaster in phisically impossible with their heavy-water, unpressurised design.
Even Fukushima was a human problem, they had the warnings, the designs, the technology, the reviews, and the equipment to prevent a meltdown. But newer safety features were never implemented due to political problems and concerns. They knew Tsunamis bigger than the plant was designed for could happen, they knew earthquakes bigger than the plant could handle could happen, they had the technology and knowledge to reduce or eliminate those problems so it wouldn't melt down, they just didn't bother doing any of the work to accomplish it.
And there is no reason to think anybody else would bother, either.
> Nuclear is the future and there is no debate about it - energy density of the fuel is unmatched.
This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Fukushima was largely a human bullshit problem too.
as was the previous reactor disaster; as will be the next one.
I read somewhere that Fukushima's natural disaster wad a "once in 50-years event" which is like saying it's not your fault if you run a particular stop sign every day for 20 years because "the was only a 1% chance of someone coming the other way"
They could have stopped running the stop sign at any point because they knew it was a problem for decades. They just decided it was too inconvenient to stop despite the constant protests of the passengers.
How confident are you to eliminate corruption worldwide? It's human nature, as long as that's the case accidents will happen due to stupidity. No matter how much oversight.
What I think? I think for countries like Elbonia you can say 'here are your solar panels and batteries, have a nice day'. Can't do that with a nuke plant.
Notable I'm starting to see residential HVAC equipment and EV battery chargers that tie directly to solar panels.
Notable I'm starting to see residential HVAC equipment and EV battery chargers that tie directly to solar panels.
(side note: There are portable, assembled small nuclear reactors you can install in remote areas in months time and serve the needs of a small enterprise.)
You have a good point. If you're a small country, like the size of Luxembourg, it doesn't make sense to open a nuclear power plant - you can import and/or go the renewable route.
For industrial powerhouses and large civilizations? Different story.
You have a good point. If you're a small country, like the size of Luxembourg, it doesn't make sense to open a nuclear power plant - you can import and/or go the renewable route.
For industrial powerhouses and large civilizations? Different story.
It' because we can't see it.
It's also unknown to most what reactors actually do. They're basically steam reactors.
Nuclear is the future indeed, the fusion reactor in the sky supplies all the energy we’ll ever need.
Problem with that is you only get a fraction of that output, more precisely, it diminishes with the power of 2 for every unit of distance between here and there.
Wouldn't it be great if humanity put its mind and effort into reliably recreating it right here in our own backyard? It's not easy, it's a process, sacrifices (most of which needless and avoidable) have been made... but in the long run, it will net us immeasurably much more than spraying the planet with large fans and solar panels.
Wouldn't it be great if humanity put its mind and effort into reliably recreating it right here in our own backyard? It's not easy, it's a process, sacrifices (most of which needless and avoidable) have been made... but in the long run, it will net us immeasurably much more than spraying the planet with large fans and solar panels.
Future humans will definitely use it, but it is too ahead of its time. You need a baseline level of average intelligence in the world for it to be widely adopted, we still have a few generations to go.
Clear violation of Betteridge's law.
Betteridge's law of headlines always applies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
We are too anxious about radiation risk. We are too anxious about terrorism. We are too anxious about Covid. We are too anxious about the buzz of a mosquito flying in the room. We are too anxious about completely immaterial risks while ignoring way bigger risks (like damns failing, or common crime, or the health impact of the lockdown and medical treatments, vaccination campaigns being suspended, etc).
Our collective reaction to these risks is completely irrational and disproportionate to the actual danger.
Our collective reaction to these risks is completely irrational and disproportionate to the actual danger.
Is this already the new BBC? The article sounds like propaganda to me.
Without even reading it, "yes".
After you ionize the straw man to death, ask the engineers wtf are we going to do with hazardous waste byproducts for which the current plan is to let sit and rot on site at various plant sites.
When you look at the inevitable destruction that will be wrought on the Columbia river ecosystem by the Hanford site, perhaps it’s worth considering what will happen in the coming years as uneconomical nuclear plants are shut down.
When you look at the inevitable destruction that will be wrought on the Columbia river ecosystem by the Hanford site, perhaps it’s worth considering what will happen in the coming years as uneconomical nuclear plants are shut down.
It’s not like this hasn’t been solved in several ways: France recycles not only their own waste, but waste for other countries. Yucca Mountain was built to store what couldn’t be recycled, but certain people (cough Harry Reid cough) decided that it couldn’t be used after being specifically built for the purpose.
La'Hague in France focuses on reprocessing fuel rods. It produces more contaminated waste, pumps radioactive pollution into the ocean and the air. "reprocessing" is not "recycling".
I don't care much about the radiation. And this is always the wrong argument.
I care about (1) the pollution with 100,000 years of half-life and (2) corruption and (3) Murphy's law.
None of these problems are even closely solved. The only constant is that errors will be made. My previous generation thought that it was OK to put waste into the oceans. Or dump it in Africa.
Some Thorium solutions may work, but they need to be researched and improved. There are some scientists working on transforming nuclear waste, and this is the first thing that needs to be done.
Don't come back until you have done that.
I care about (1) the pollution with 100,000 years of half-life and (2) corruption and (3) Murphy's law.
None of these problems are even closely solved. The only constant is that errors will be made. My previous generation thought that it was OK to put waste into the oceans. Or dump it in Africa.
Some Thorium solutions may work, but they need to be researched and improved. There are some scientists working on transforming nuclear waste, and this is the first thing that needs to be done.
Don't come back until you have done that.
What about fusion reactors? ITER is WIP.
https://www.iter.org/sci/Fusion
https://www.iter.org/sci/Fusion
They are remarkable in that they are likely to be larger, more expensive, more complex, less reliable, and overall less workable than even today's fission power plants.
Has anybody else noticed that this pro-nuclear "news" seems rather orchestrated throughout Europe/"The West"? These pro-nuclear ideas have recently been in the news and hot in politics in at least 4 European countries that I frequent and where I speak the language. All around the same time.
Is this manufacturing consent in action? Who's behind this and why?
There are no new arguments or information that I see for or against nuclear in the past few decades. And all of a sudden now "we" (as in: the main stream media) realize that "maybe nuclear isn't so bad". What is this?
Disclaimer: I personally think nuclear is the least evil of all energy conversion methods that we can currently use. But I have had this opinion for at least 15 years.
Is this manufacturing consent in action? Who's behind this and why?
There are no new arguments or information that I see for or against nuclear in the past few decades. And all of a sudden now "we" (as in: the main stream media) realize that "maybe nuclear isn't so bad". What is this?
Disclaimer: I personally think nuclear is the least evil of all energy conversion methods that we can currently use. But I have had this opinion for at least 15 years.
Nope, haven't noticed that at all. I have yet to meet the first European in real life that's neutral, let alone in favor of, nuclear. I live in a border region between Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. They always bring up the (false) safety argument and when they discover that's an airplane vs cars kind of fear, they start about costs, which is not more than the off-shore wind we're already building. (And someone really ought to tell France.) Somehow they aren't convinced by logic in the end and most would rather shut down nuclear plants in their back yard before the coal plant that causes much greater damages.
I wasn't referring to actual public opinion. What I referred to was the Western mass media (and politicians) slowly but surely turning pro-nuclear in 2020 after decades of successful (as you point out) anti-nuclear propaganda.
I've seen this happening around September 2020 in at least UK, Netherlands and France. I'm in Germany now where I haven't followed the news, but I expect no pro-nuclear propaganda in Germany since they're already set on getting their base load energy production out of Russian gas.
I estimate that turning public opinion around again in the EU to be accepting of nuclear will take at least a few months/years. That's just speculation though.
I've seen this happening around September 2020 in at least UK, Netherlands and France. I'm in Germany now where I haven't followed the news, but I expect no pro-nuclear propaganda in Germany since they're already set on getting their base load energy production out of Russian gas.
I estimate that turning public opinion around again in the EU to be accepting of nuclear will take at least a few months/years. That's just speculation though.
Radiation is good. Without it we would not have mutation and then there would be nothing for natural selection to operate on. Ergo, if you are against radiation you are against evolution.
QED.
Also, I have shares in companies that can build nuclear power stations in your neighborhood.
Also, because I want to keep driving and heating my uninsulated suburban single-family house while I eat beef 3 times a week and I am starting to realize that this might cause the climate destruction that those econuts warble about I might need to get my power from somewhere else.
Next question?
QED.
Also, I have shares in companies that can build nuclear power stations in your neighborhood.
Also, because I want to keep driving and heating my uninsulated suburban single-family house while I eat beef 3 times a week and I am starting to realize that this might cause the climate destruction that those econuts warble about I might need to get my power from somewhere else.
Next question?
In general, due to their more recent construction, suburban homes tend to be better than average at insulation when compared to other single family dwellings. That said, given the levels of snark I'm reading I would guess things like "single family dwelling", "family", or even property ownership itself would probably be pretty hot topics for you.
Yes, exactly. More single home dwellings coupled with nuclear power and a complete absence of "snark". That's the ticket! Have you heard about the growth mindset?
I was actually very ignorant to the not very new ideas that Leftists hold about "abolishing the family", even as far back as Marx (maybe even further). Very disturbing
So is it true that Leftists want to abolish the family, or do users here simply think I'm exaggerating?
Right, let's keep burning coal and gas for electricity, instead of getting clean and immensely plentiful electricity from nuclear.
Exactly. The only thing we can keep doing is consuming more and more energy. And who wants to get that from bombing and subverting nations around the world? Not you... you're nice. Not me... I am woke. So, the only thing to do is to build nuclear power stations everywhere.
What could go wrong? Nothing else ever has!
What could go wrong? Nothing else ever has!
And flying. Don't forget the flying. What the planet needs is more nuclear and more covid.
Do we ignore the risks of fossil fuels far out of proportion to how dangerous they are? Also yes. They kill an absurdly high number of people per TWh; by most estimates coal is several hundred times more dangerous than nuclear.
Does that mean nuclear is just a totally great idea? No; the issue with nuclear is cost. Historically it has been quite expensive, but subsidised in opaque ways. In a zero carbon world, it might make sense for baseline generation even if it's expensive; in the world we live in it needs to compete on price. Can it?
The debate about nuclear is never ending, and yet at the same time, seemingly never focused on anything relevant. How many times do we need to go through the same cycle? "But what about Chernobyl?" "But what about deaths due to coal?"