Switzerland Votes To Abandon Nuclear Power In Favor of Renewables (bbc.com) 383
Slashdot reader bsolar writes: Swiss voters approved a new energy strategy proposed by the government. Under this new policy no new nuclear power plant will be built and the five existing nuclear power plants will continue operating and will be shut down at the end of their operating life (expected to last about 20-30 years). The plan is to offset the missing nuclear energy production by renewables and lower energy consumption.
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
Though one-third of the country's power comes from nuclear energy, the BBC reports that more than 58% of the voters "backed the move towards greener power sources." One Swiss news site notes that "regions where the country's five nuclear reactors are situated rejected the reform with clear majorities."
Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effective. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the plain and simple truth. Nuclear Fission only looks like it works if it is cross-funded by obscene truckloads of taxpayers money and nobody looks too hard at centralized power cartels (funded by said taxpayers money), reactor runtimes and maintenance costs (also paid by taxpayers mones). Factor in waste handling, storage and the risks of nuclear disasters and the balance sheet goes really deep-red.
The numbers don't add up and the whole concept simply doesn't work. Even the conservatives in Germany have noticed this. Replenishing Plant Wackersdorf - a multi-billion dollar project for the treatment and replenishing of nuclear waste - wasn't closed down by left-wing hippie protesters raising a stink of the better part of a decade, it was closed down by southern Germany state officials doing the math. Some backroom clerk adding up the numbers and seeing in awe and amazement that it wouldn't work, even with the best predictions. Same goes for the most advanced fast breeder at Kalkar - a building estimated more expensive than the Pyramids of Gizeh, inflation factored in.
Now Germany is moving out of nuclear alltogether and for once we're actually ahead of schedule - even with all the fuss about the new powerlines crossing the republic. AFAI understand we've simply decided to front a few extra billion and move those underground, so nobody can complain of them blocking their view. We crossed the 80% renewables a few weeks ago. If Germany can do this - really not a country known for it's sunny days - the rest of the world can do it too.
People have to see the light: Nuclear Fission as we know it is a 60ies techno-romatic pipe-dream. And a dangerous one at that, with a 200 000 year waste problem attached.
IMHO the world should move to decommission classic nuclear fission ASAP. I'm glad the swiss voted in favor of this. I personally don't want to many chernobyls and fukushimas happening before the world finally catches on.
Re:Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effectiv (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with a stop to build new ones, it's insane to turn off the ones that are still running reliably. Because whether you turn them off now or at their end of life, the building along with everything inside is radioactive waste you have to take care of. The damage is already done, the nuclear waste already created. You can as well reap the few benefits you gain out of it before throwing it away.
Or rather, driving it around Europe hoping to find some place to stow it. Maybe Moldova will allow you to dump it there if you throw enough money at them, they sure need it.
Existing Nuclear Fission would be obsolete fast. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree to an extent. Slowly phasing out existing plants where the financial investment was already made could be smarter than simply turning them off and building intermediary coal plants to buffer the transition.
However, there is one thing to observe: Transition, where it is taken on, is happening at rate faster than anyone predicted, simply because setting up a windmill or a solar array is so much less hassle than building an nuclear fission cycle that follows all the required regulations. So we'd have to look very carefull if even existing nuclear cycles are cost effective vis-a-vis contemporary alternatives. Modern day stuff like Elon Musks solar roof and the powerwall basically pay for itself with current energy costs. No need to lug nuclear fuel and waste about anymore. The only infrastucture needed for larger off-shore windparks and desert-bound solar-arrays that isn't in existance are powerlines. And even those are cheaper and less fuss than NF, even if you put them into the ground.
If we de-throne the power cartels and allow for decentralised power we'd see all nuclear plants put into hybernation-mode faster than expected, simply because it's too much hassle to maintain them for regular throughput. I'd expect nuclear plants to simply be repurposed as storage facilities for their own waste.
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You really think the power cartels will be felled? You are aware that you're governed by a party that has "Christian" in its name and is praying to Saint Vattenfall, yes?
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I am not sure you can call that [vattenfall.com] praying.
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Saint Vattenfall
That's how the IPCC sees them too.
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Indeed, which is why it isn't happening anywhere. As reactors hit an age when they need seriously expensive work to continue operating they are being shut down. We haven't seen any relatively new reactors shut down since 1979 when TMI scared everyone enough to shut down the obvious 1960s deathtraps and upgrade everything else.
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Greeny idiots keep parading the peak numbers for renewable generation (now 100500% of the consumption!) but they conveniently forget to mention troughs. For example, this January the renewable production was 10% of the normal due to unusually cold weather with little wind. For about 2 weeks. Had Germany relied o
Re:Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effectiv (Score:5, Insightful)
BS. German built -4 new coal power stations. In other words, they built some new ones but closed more older ones.
Anyway, you are pre-judging their effort. They are due to finish around 2024, when the last nuclear reactors are decommissioned. Until then it's still the transition phase and not indicative of the final outcome. Wait until the full renewable and storage capacity is there, and then compare some temporarily elevated CO2 emissions to permanently lower ones.
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Several new coal power plants are planned and are being constructed: https://www.bdew.de/internet.n... [www.bdew.de]
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Duh. You forgot to mention that the total net amount of power production in 2011 was also quite a bit smaller.
Besides, that doesn't mean there are more coal power plants now than there have been in 2011, it just means that several old inefficient power plants were replaced with a smaller amount of more efficient power plants that produce more power from less coal.
Moreover, look at the government numbers:
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Zah... [destatis.de]
You clearly see that the amount of actually produced (not the total inst
Re:Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effectiv (Score:5, Informative)
German power grid is fine, thank you very much. It is one of most advanced in the world, a (small, for now) part of it even uses high temperature superconductors. Neither natural gas nor coal are expanding, matter of fact one of fairly recently built natural gas power plants was closed only a few years after it went online (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irsching_Power_Station) and there is only one new coal power station planned to be built, in Stade, I think so it can reuse parts of the former infrastructure of a shut down nuclear power plant. Also there are two new blocks planned as extensions for existing coal power plants (Niederaussem, Datteln) but that is it, and even these were meant as a more efficient replacement for older coal power stations that will be shut down en masse this and next year. How can you call it "hastely expanding" with a straight face? The 2020 target is a problem because German cars became a lot larger and heavier in the past 15 years, not because of coal power plants.
By the way, 100500 is a very Russian meme. I do get it, but I think "OVER 9000" is probably more understandable in the rest of the world.
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You are talking out of your arse. RWE in Essen has a high temperature semiconductor cable connecting two substations. It is a part of the power grid in that city, not something in the lab and has been working well for a couple of years by now. Just becase you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/... [rwe.com]
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How expensive do you think is laying conventional lines in a German city? Hint: a lot of money because cables are generally laid underground and Germany is very densely settled. Matter of fact, the current price is ~10 millions for 1 km. See why that superconducting cable suddenly makes sense?
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Actually no, that's not the only point. To achieve a decent efficiency using normal wires the voltage has to be much higher (100 kV instead of 10 kV), that means larger and more expensive transformers. Since 10 kV is the standard voltage of the medium voltage network, the high voltage transformers between the two points aren't needed anymore - that means free space for something else in a densely populated town like Essen. Also the insulation of high voltage wires is very thick and usually several of them a
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they would have had thousands people dead from hypothermia
They may have been in the dark but no one gets cold when the power goes out. What kind of a neanderthal heats their house via electricity anyway?
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What do you mean with "obscene truckloads of taxpayers money"? You mean more than the €40.1 billion Energy tax and the €6.6 billion Electricity tax that taxpayers had to pay in 2016 alone to fund alternative and green energies in Germany?
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Amazing, who might have thought that an incredibly complex project won't hit its target date. Next your going to tell me it'll be over budget, too!
And because it won't hit that date (which is actually in the future, so...) the conclusion is that it is not effective or realistic.
I believe that a lot of very large complex projects did not hit their target dates, yet ended up being both effective and realistic.
If you're just bitching about the target date being unrealistic: well, yes, of course, nevermind then
Re:Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effectiv (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion, what closed the deal on this vote wasn't Fukushima.
We are currently close to shutting one of the five down due to age anyway. I believe it's one of the oldest reactor types in service currently (and I'm talking worldwide). Suddenly the company operating it says "Uh, no, we haven't prepared any funds for decommissioning the plant. That's your job!"
So not only is this whole thing a bit questionable security-wise, unless done absolutely right, it just goes to show that the private entities operating these things do not want or are not able to handle the responsibility involved. So after paying them for power for decades, now we're gonna have to foot the bill for cleaning them up, too.
And THAT pissed a lot of people off, I'm sure.
While I am pro modern nukes, I don't think they make sense in private hands and anyway, I find decentralized power generation to be much more secure in a variety of ways.
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You're right that nuclear power can only exist due to generous subsidies, but the same is really true for fossil fuels too. If anybody had to pay the correct price for coal power, including the capture costs for the CO2 or the compensation to future generations for climate change damages, that form of energy wouldn't be competitive either. And quite possibly even more expensive than honest nuclear power pricing.
And importantly, that doesn't only count for electric power gained from fossil sources, but also
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That's the plain and simple truth. Nuclear Fission only looks like it works if it is cross-funded by obscene truckloads of taxpayers money
That's true now. It wasn't true forty years ago. Oh, nuclear fission was never the "too cheap to meter" dream originally touted, but it actually was extremely economical for a couple of decades. If you'd like to understand what changed, read this [pitt.edu].
Re:Smart move. Nuclear Fission isn't cost-effectiv (Score:5, Insightful)
Production was only 85% momentarily, on a Sunday morning with exceptionally low demand and high wind conditions. Meanwhile, it was also shown how wind and solar production drops to below 4% quite often still. The problem is many talk about 'renewables' and fail to mention that it include burning biomass and hydro, but the only sources that can be added with any significance are the intermittent wind and solar sources. Wind and Solar only generated about 20% of German power in 2016, and they are already running into limits of what the grid can handle without significantly larger investments in transmission systems than what they've already had to do to get to this point.
Proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Proof that democracy doesn't always work. People are morons. There are no "greener sources" than nuclear if you want a decent electricity grid with a reliable base load. All that will happen is what's happened elsewhere - wind, solar, and coal/gas to cover the inevitable large shortfalls as they fluctuate like hell (not to mention their massively lower energy density).
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If only there was some way to store energy, and if only the wind blew at different speeds in different parts of the world, and if only there were more renewable sources of energy than just solar and wind... But I guess those things don't happen in your little world.
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As a rule, no, they don't.
Re: Proof (Score:2)
So you expect to have wind and solar fields big enough to run a continant across the entire continant.... dont you thibk thats a waste of space ? A huge amount of farmland destroyed ? Not to mention just fucking stupid ?
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And how many nuclear accidents of significance have they had? It's retarded. You get rid of infra that's already in place and working perfectly well, waste a shit ton of money on less-reliable (at best) renewables, and all because of Green party doctrine.
Re:Proof (Score:5, Informative)
Er, no... The conservative German government is proposing a mix of renewable energy sources, and energy storage. By the mid 2020s.
So not only are you wrong about the proposal, you are judging it a decade too soon. By that logic the Hinkly Point C nuclear plant is shit, because it has emitted loads of CO2 and produced 0.0Wh of energy.
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China don't just ignore them, they threaten to lock them up, yet nuclear isn't as dirt cheap as you pretend even there.
Maybe a bit more R&D could deliver your dream but things like the AP1000 are the best available now and compare poorly with other forms of electricity generation.
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What does land cost? Nuclear needs far less of it.
Unless it goes "boom", of course.
They can vote all they like (Score:2)
Re:They can vote all they like (Score:5, Funny)
Not to worry, 20-30 years from now we'll finally have Fusion power. And Half Life 3!
Well, one of the two at least.
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Yay, we're gonna have fusion!
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...And Duke Nukem! oh wait, sorry, an old knee-jerk. Got all wrapped up in this nucular stuff.
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We voted to not build new ones. We didn't vote to turn the current ones off. So we get exactly what we voted for. I'm not seeing the problem you seem to be having with this.
Less nuclear means more coal (Score:3, Insightful)
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
"After years of declines, Germanyâ(TM)s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. Thatâ(TM)s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal."
The whole nuclear debate shows that the left can be just as "anti-science" as the right. Because of scaremongering, nuclear power plant construction and development has been hamstrung for decades. It produces less radiation than coal and scales a lot better than solar or wind. For all the money and jobs in solar it still produces a small percentage of power, even in places like Germany (less than 8%). Wind and solar combined only produce only 22% of energy in Germany.
If you believe that global warming is about to end the human race, we should be increasing all our options for non-CO2 polluting energy. Especially if you anticipate a huge need in energy as we shift cars from petrol to electric.
Abandoning nuclear is right when we need it the most is just stupid.
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"The EPA ran the numbers on the Paris agreement and found that even if climate sensitivity was as strong as CAGW’s hypothetical assumptions, and if the US adhered to the conditions of the 'agreement', it would only reduce global warming by around 0.01C by 2030."
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Energy Return on Energy Invested. (Score:2)
Here is a peer reviewed study [stormsmith.nl] on the net energy return of Nuclear Power. Let's just say the outcome isn't positive.
Re:Energy Return on Energy Invested. (Score:4, Informative)
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If someone is a known anti-nuclear figurehead [wikipedia.org] doesn't mean they don't know what they are talking about [zvab.com].
Political/Engineering problem (Score:3)
It's a shame that politics have to enter every decision made.
Not a big change (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true enough, the measure passed (FWIW, I voted against it). It's a stupid, knee-jerk reaction, still a follow-on from Fukushima.
However, in the current European political climate, constructing new nuclear reactors isn't possible anyway. People are too risk averse, there's far too much NIMBY-ness, we *still* don't have a proper solution for long-term waste storage (more NIMBY-ness), fuel-reprocessing barely exists - the whole situation is just impossible. The UK claims they're going to build some new nuclear plants: buy your popcorn now, because it's going to be long show, and most likely they will never happen.
So forbidding new plants from being built here doesn't really matter. And anyway, the law can just as easily be changed back, should the political climate for nuclear improve.
No, the biggest problem with the vote that happened yesterday are subsidies: More subsidies for renewables, more subsidies for renovating old buildings, replacing heating systems, etc.. These subsidies totally distort the market, and there are already people speculating on them, because apparently they will be retroactive. Also, it's kind of hilarious: some of the subsidies are to correct the damage done by previous subsidies. When the nuclear plants were originally built, the government subsidized electrical (resistance) heating systems, because electricity was going to be so cheap. Now, it will pay you to get rid of your electrical heating system and put in something else. And in 20 or 30 years, it will be something else again. Stupid.
The worst aspect of these subsidies is: they are, in the end, just income redistribution. Why does Hans get money from Fred, just because Fred has a new house and Hans bought an old one? Or because Fred invested in a good heating system, and Hans bought a crappy one that he now wants to replace?
Re:Not a big change (Score:4, Insightful)
In the UK it's not the fear of accidents that is the primary objection to new nuclear plants, it's the incredible cost. We have to subsidise ours to an absolutely insane level. Guaranteed prices for energy produced, for the lifetime of the plant, plus the usual free insurance and other incentives.
I don't think people in the UK are more intelligent than the Swiss. In fact, looking at some campaign material for the Swiss vote, it seems that the cost of new nuclear power was the primary objection.
If climate change were as dire as claimed (Score:4, Insightful)
The there would never be a valid excuse for turning off a working nuclear plant.
The incredibly small risk of running the plant would be nothing in the face of the dire risk being claimed for climate change.
Climate change alarmists call out the precautionary principle all the time. What if, what if, what if. To be true to the precautionary principle, the only course of action that should be supported is keeping zero emission plants running.
Goalpost shift to absurdity (Score:2)
Why are you doing it? Are your arguments so weak that you have to resort to fantasy?
Personally I think you would push your agenda far better if you said something about benefits of new plant instead of pretending that reactors at the end of their service life are just as perfect as on day one.
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The barriers to entry for new reactors are absurd to the point of ridiculousness. The regulations are insane.
That's why new reactor designs, which are really necessary never seem to go anywhere.
However, the proposal to shut down plants at the end of their planned service life, ignores the fact that that is only the planned life of the reactor. Many plants, both nuclear and otherwise have a "planned" life that is much shorter than could actually be achieved. Same is true for renewables like wind, which co
Joke=Switzerland buys-in 85% of its electricity... (Score:2, Interesting)
60% of the electricity generated in Switzerland comes from hydro., a bit less than 40% nuke. But this only accounts for about 15% of domestic consumption.
The rest is bought from the Germans (burning lovely polluting brown coal) and the French, who have an abundance of cheap nuke electricity...(about the only country in the world that got its nuclear power generating strategy right)
So, yeah, this is a very "green" decision!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Pleas read the article again. Only 15% of the fuel is produced in Switzerland not the electricity. We don't have uranium mines and the like here.
This statistics include not only electricity but also fuel for cars and machines - we don't have any oil!
From the same page for a study from 2009:
The study also showed that the production in Switzerland (64.6 TWh) is similar to the amount of electricity consumed in the country (63.7 TWh).[12] Overall, Switzerland export 7.6 TWh and import 6.8 TWh; but, in terms of
Foolish. Very foolish. (Score:2)
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So what is going to cover base load? Is geothermal and (ironically not very green) biomass enough to cover it in Switzerland?
I can't believe this gets voted on by the common man in the street, who will be swayed by whatever the media has been reporting. Shouldn't this sort of thing be looked at by people that understand costs, risks and benefits of the current and near future technologies?
I for one will be laughing when they end up importing coal/gas power from neighbouring countries.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
http://theconversation.com/baseload-power-is-a-myth-even-intermittent-renewables-will-work-13210
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much says it all.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much says it all.
Uh ... no. That paragraph says nothing meaningful. Blaming everything on a vast media conspiracy is the second refuge of the scoundrel. The linked article is informative, but it would have been better without the persecution theory.
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It genuinely is a big improvement to go from baseload to peakload.
Peak load generation only runs occasionally and it matters a lot less if it's not very efficient, you want low capital costs.
Also, if it rarely runs you can stockpile biofuels for it from stuff like food waste or sewage.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
So based on a single paper using their computer model, in Australia if they reduce the energy consumption to a bare minimum, increase the energy efficiency of houses and appliances, and they invest about $22 billion every year until 2030 the 100% renewable energy option will be "just" $7-10 billion more expensive that the fossil fuel one. Sounds good to me.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
Keep reading...
Under transparent assumptions, we found that the total annualised cost (including capital, operation, maintenance and fuel where relevant) of the least-cost renewable energy system is $7-10 billion per year higher than that of the âoeefficientâ fossil scenario. For comparison, the subsidies to the production and use of all fossil fuels in Australia are at least $10 billion per year. So, if governments shifted the fossil subsidies to renewable electricity, we could easily pay for the latterâ(TM)s additional costs.
If only you had just got to that last paragraph. Oh well.
So they are saying that if Australia went all-out, they could reach a point where a 100% renewable system costs the same as the current fossil fuel one for a continual investment of about $20bn/year. Of course, that's an extreme example, no-one is suggesting that kind of aggressive timetable and total conversion.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline lied again. The proposition to abandon nuclear power following German policy was voted on last last November, and it went down hard. The current proposition was to not build any new reactors after the current generation ages out after about 2030. The general attitude (I have relatives there) is that given such a comfortably far off year, why not make a symbolic gesture of support for hoping the German program will eventually produce enough clean energy to run the economy?
Before 1970, Switzerland's power mix was 90% hydro; because of nuclear, that fraction has dropped to 56% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Switzerland). So whereas Germany has to produce its baseload by opening new coal plants, Switzerland has all that hydro to fall back on.
Switzerland values the beauty of its countryside, which is exactly why it started building nuclear plants in the lowland rather than new mountain dams in the first place. Switzerland doesn't have any expense of offshore mudflats, and there is no sentiment for festooning the Alps with wind turbines. My personal guess is that by 2030 Switzerland's new renewable energy will be entirely in the form of solar roofing, and that the aged-out nukes will be replaced by new factory-built modular reactors from China.
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Lignite? They're still burning brown coal? (Score:3)
So it's 17% black coal, 25% much-worse-than-coal, 9% gas and 54% sane.
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Germany has built a few new. Oak plants sinc 1990, as it makes its switch from uranium to lignite. They hope that this one will be the last:
https://energytransition.org/2... [energytransition.org]
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Meanwhile, India plans to build 10 new reactors;
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/India_to_build_10_domestic_nuclear_power_reactors_999.html
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India will invest more in solar than nuclear and already has more solar capacity than nuclear. The new nuclear plants are in danger of not being built due to the high cost, GE pulling out of the bidding and Westinghouse going bankrupt.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indi... [indiatimes.com]
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The headline didn't lie: two votes are actually 2 completely separate issues:
The vote from November was about a popular initiative of hard exit from nuclear energy: it was not initiated by the government but by Swiss citizens, which means it was actually an amendment of the Swiss Constitution, including the hard prohibition to use nuclear power plants and hard deadlines about which existing plant had to be decommissioned, some of them as soon as 1 year after th vote. It was quick, simple (complete amended
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So what is going to cover base load?
They will power it all with Cuckoo Clocks of course!
Re: Finally (Score:2)
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The majority of people/voters inside and outside Switzerland are misinformed on both risk from nuclear and of the costs of the alternatives. Most could not accurately describe any of the important facts. This is a populist decision on how to deal with a technical problem.
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Funny how normally - the rightwingers make the exact OPPOSITE argument.
I actually agree that, generally, government should not be a la carte - you pay your taxes, you pay for the whole deal.
But I also understand that there are edge cases. Some things clearly people who don't like it just have to put up with. I want ZERO of my tax dollars to EVER go to the military - but I cannot demand that. A lot of rightwingers don't want any of their taxes going to rehab programs (or food stamps or whatever their issue i
Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, you're so fucking wrong that you aren't even in the same time zone as right. Here's the relevant chart [forbes.com], in case you fail at clicking provided links as bad as you fail at using Google:
Energy Source - Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
Coal – global average - 100,000 (41% global electricity)
Coal – China - 170,000 (75% China’s electricity)
Coal – U.S. - 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)
Oil - 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas - 4,000 (22% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass - 24,000 (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop) - 440 ( 1% global electricity)
Wind - 150 (2% global electricity)
Hydro – global average - 1,400 (16% global electricity)
Hydro – U.S. - 5 (6% U.S. electricity)
Nuclear – global average - 90 (11% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)
Nuclear – U.S. - 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)
Would have loved to format that better, but apparently the lameness filter thinks it's too much whitespace.
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If Switzerland power is nearly all nuclear then going to renewables makes sense. If there are still existing coal or other fossils fuel plants. There could be a risk. If their is a delay in renewable energy deployment, fossel fuel plans are much easier to start up and build.
Nuclear sucks, but carbon pollution is currently the ecological problem that is much higher than what nuclear has.
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We don't have coal plants. We do import power from Germany and France, though, so we will continue to use nuclear and coal power in the future to pad our production holes a bit.
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didnt realise the swiss were stupid.
Yeah, letting people vote is always a bad idea. Democracy is for dummies.
They should be busy bringing back coal, like the more advanced nations are doing.
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Theresa May is planning to reopen the coalmines in the UK.
Thatcher closed them so she wants to do it too.
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That's Corbyn not May. However the reason the coal mines closed in the UK is exactly the same reason that coal mines are closing in the USA. It's cheap natural gas and the hard economics that follows from it folks.
In the UK the natural gas came from the North Sea, in the USA it has come from fracking. In both cases the result was the same, the market for coal dried up so the mines closed.
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The UK, especially Scotland and Wales, hasn't recovered.
It wasn't "hard economics", it was "hard politics" of the fuck you if you are not in banking or real estate variety.
Re:dumb move (Score:5, Funny)
That's right, and let me quote the President of the United States of America in further support of nuclear:
Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.
Wise words, from the president of the most advanced nation on earth! We need nuclear!
Re:dumb move (Score:5, Funny)
Reading that broke the part of my brain that deals with language comprehension.
Re:dumb move (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember the day after this speech came out. All the news was about those poor translators who had to try and either look incompetent or break their ethical responsibility to translate faithfully and make the president make sense.
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I was going to say "Firesign Theater" does it better, but then, I don't know...
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Just for the record, that speech was in Sun City, South Carolina, on July 21. It resembles Groucho Marx on acid.
Just think Europe, he's coming there after Israel. That'll learn ya to inflict all this global warming on the planet. Please...puuleeaase have a head of state tell him the trick is to bang the rocks together. He won't get the joke but you'll be treated to another incoherent monologue on how no one, no one can bang rocks together like he can, he's that smart.
Re: dumb move (Score:2)
Bring back Jimny Carter. He was part of the design team and notably worked inside a nuclear Reactor. Yes you read that right. Inside a live one
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That's right, and let me quote the President of the United States of America in further support of nuclear
Link [youtube.com] for anyone who wonders if that's more comprehensible when spoken, or mis-transcribed to make it less coherent. (Spoiler: No, and no).
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Has that quote been through google translate to Japanese and back?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elhyo-_fR0E
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Not primarily. First, the municipalities the plants pay taxes in obviously like the low tax footprint.
And second we've gotten used to the plants. Simple as that.
Personally, I have wanted current reactors shut down for a long time to be replaced by new, modern ones. Since that had not even a snowball's chance in hell, I still want these old things shut down so here we are.
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Personally, I have wanted current reactors shut down for a long time to be replaced by new, modern ones.
Just out of curiosity, which ones did you have in mind for replacing them?
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Re:They import most energy (Score:5, Insightful)
wind and solar energy are cheaper than other sources of energy (even without subsisdies),
If this is true why is the electricity price in green renewables Germany twice as high as their neighbour France which relies on nuclear power for nearly all of its electricity generation?
It's really weird since Germany actually generates most of its electricity from brown coal and Russian gas which is dirt-cheap.
Counterproductive (Score:2)
So Cordemais with 2.6GW of coal fired base load doesn't exist? Grand'Maison Dam with 1.8GW of hydro neither?
It's counterproductive to use bullshit to push an agenda when reality is impressive enough to do it on it's own.
Re:Counterproductive (Score:5, Interesting)
Which part of "for nearly all" did you miss?
France burns very little coal through the year to generate electricity, unlike its neighbour Germany which burns over 170 milion tonnes of mostly brown coal each year.
As for hydro yes France also gets a chunk of its electricity supply from that source, mostly from the French Pyrenees, assuming it's been raining or snowing sufficiently. They also have a small tidal barrage power station as well as some grid solar in the south of the country and some wind farms.
Right now, as I type this France's electricity demand is about 50GW. Of that 40GW is supplied by nuclear power and about 8GW comes from hydro. They are getting a grand total of 350MW from coal right now, 3GW from gas and 4.1GW from solar plus some power from other generating sources such as biomass and wind.
http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk... [templar.co.uk]
Yes that does add up to more than 50GW. France is exporting 3.5GW to Spain, 2.5GW to Italy, 2GW to Britain and 350MW to Switzerland while importing about 1GW from Germany. It almost always exports more electricity than it imports by a significant amount because it doesn't cost any more to keep the reactors running at full power since the fuel is cheap. Saying that they tend to refuel their reactors during the summer on a staggered basis as demand reduces so some of their nuclear capacity drops out at that time.
France has a higher demand per capita for electricity than most other European countries since their nuclear-generated electricity is cheap and so they use it for heating homes and other buildings and for industrial processes rather than burning lots of imported gas. That's why their carbon load per capita is way lower than virtually any other comparable European nation.
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First, prices in Germany are not twice as high as in France (though they are significantly higher).
EdF tariffs for 2017 are 15.6 euro cents/kWh (there's a standing charge for connection). Off-peak night-time electricity is 12.7 euro cents/kWh. German electricity costs for 2017 are 28.8 euro cents/kWh (I don't know if there are any off-peak rates but given that solar renewable inputs to the grid disappear at night I doubt it).
I'd say that's close to double the French cost. It's also why Germans burn a lot o