Is Nuclear Energy Green Energy? 10 EU Countries Call On Brussels To Add It To the List (euronews.com) 386
"A group of ten EU countries, led by France, have asked the European Commission to recognize nuclear power as a low-carbon energy source that should be part of the bloc's decades-long transition towards climate neutrality," reports EuroNews. While greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear plants are "comparable" to those released by hydropower and wind, critics argue that the resulting radioactive waste is harmful to human health and the environment. "Despite the urgency to combat climate change, member states are still unable to reach a consensus on whether nuclear constitutes a green or dirty energy source," adds EuroNews. From the report: Tapping into Europe's ongoing energy crunch, the countries make the case for nuclear energy as a "key affordable, stable and independent energy source" that could protect EU consumers from being "exposed to the volatility of prices." The letter, which was initiated by France, has been sent to the Commission with the signature of nine other EU countries, most of which already count nuclear as part of their national energy mix: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania. Nuclear plants generate over 26% of the electricity produced in the European Union.
[...]
Despite the urgency to combat climate change, member states are still unable to reach a consensus on whether nuclear constitutes a green or dirty energy source. The Commission has postponed the crucial decision to let countries conclude the debate. On the one side, Germany, which plans to shut down all its reactors by 2022, is leading the anti-nuclear cause, together with Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain. "We are concerned that including nuclear power in the taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness," they wrote in July.
On the other side, France, which obtains over 70% of its electricity from nuclear stations, is fighting to label nuclear as sustainable under the taxonomy. As shown by the new letter, Paris has the backing of several Eastern states, which have already earmarked millions for nuclear projects. "While renewable energy sources play a key role for our energy transition, they cannot produce enough low-carbon electricity to meet our needs, at a sufficient and a constant level," the letter says, describing nuclear power as a "safe and innovative" sector with the potential of sustaining one million high-qualified jobs "in the near future".
A report (PDF) from the Commission's research unit released earlier this year indicates Brussels could eventually side with the pro-nuclear team. The paper says greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear plants are "comparable" to those released by hydropower and wind, an assessment shared by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United States Department of Energy. Critics, however, argue the resulting radioactive waste is harmful to human health and the environment. "Nuclear power is incredibly expensive, hazardous and slow to build," says Greenpeace. Detractors are concerned about potentially disastrous nuclear accidents, similar to those of Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima in 2011, which are still deeply rooted in the collective imagination.
[...]
Despite the urgency to combat climate change, member states are still unable to reach a consensus on whether nuclear constitutes a green or dirty energy source. The Commission has postponed the crucial decision to let countries conclude the debate. On the one side, Germany, which plans to shut down all its reactors by 2022, is leading the anti-nuclear cause, together with Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain. "We are concerned that including nuclear power in the taxonomy would permanently damage its integrity, credibility and therefore its usefulness," they wrote in July.
On the other side, France, which obtains over 70% of its electricity from nuclear stations, is fighting to label nuclear as sustainable under the taxonomy. As shown by the new letter, Paris has the backing of several Eastern states, which have already earmarked millions for nuclear projects. "While renewable energy sources play a key role for our energy transition, they cannot produce enough low-carbon electricity to meet our needs, at a sufficient and a constant level," the letter says, describing nuclear power as a "safe and innovative" sector with the potential of sustaining one million high-qualified jobs "in the near future".
A report (PDF) from the Commission's research unit released earlier this year indicates Brussels could eventually side with the pro-nuclear team. The paper says greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear plants are "comparable" to those released by hydropower and wind, an assessment shared by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United States Department of Energy. Critics, however, argue the resulting radioactive waste is harmful to human health and the environment. "Nuclear power is incredibly expensive, hazardous and slow to build," says Greenpeace. Detractors are concerned about potentially disastrous nuclear accidents, similar to those of Chernobyl in 1986 or Fukushima in 2011, which are still deeply rooted in the collective imagination.
duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if you think CO2 is the worst thing ever, then yes nuclear is one obvious part of the solution.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope.
Nuclear is just posing a huge delay for renewables, because politics :
https://cleantechnica.com/2020... [cleantechnica.com]
And it's also very bad for environment. Long term bad.
Irrelevent (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the article you linked to had a valid point (which I don't think it does, given how few nuclear reacrtors were actually put into service compared with those planned) it simply doesn't matter.
That is all living in the past, pointing fingers at what was. But none of that matters NOW compared to CO2 emission, that is the only number that matters to the environmental movement.
It simply doesn't matter that there may be some amount of nuclear waste, because that is not CO2. What does matter is that keeping all existing power plants open emits no extra CO2 at all, for a tremendous amount of power generated that would otherwise mostly come from fossil fuels.
If you don't keep every nuclear plant alive and plan to start building more now, here's what will happen - people will start to see more and more power failures or outright power rationing where they don't have power for days at a time (California and China are already there). They will blame the green movement and undercut all further CO2 reduction efforts. You really do not want an angry populace...
Lastly on a side note nuclear waste is dangerous but also heavily localized to a small area, where the emissions from any fossil fuel plant are much more vast - and with coal plants, still contain some radioactivity.
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Reliability (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear is just posing a huge delay for renewables, because politics
No, nuclear is a carbon-free way to provide reliable power so that on a calm night in a drought you still have power. Future battery technology may eventually allow renewables to become as reliable on the scale we need but we have nuclear technology now. So do we sit on our hands for a decade or more creating more CO2 with coal and gas power stations, hoping that battery technology will one day get better or do we build nuclear power stations now and avoid polluting while we wait?
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Concrete is concrete, it is used everywhere whether it is a million stanchions for solar panels, pedestals for windmills, dams or containment buildings for nuclear plants, the numbers wash out
It is hard to use more concrete than what is used for dams, dams also do considerable damage to the wildlife and are facing zero power output as water levels fall
Nuclear is the soundest, safest, least carbon emitting baseline power source in existence, I would go so far as to say that the green party and the US green peace group have done more to cause climate change due to their opposition to nuclear power than any other group save the fossil fuel industry
and you can't even stop your yammering and realize it
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Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
Nuclear plants are tied to dated legislation and rules around nuclear proliferation. This prohibits some plant designs which produce far less waste and require much less refueling.
"Toxic nuclear waste" is an emotionally loaded term. It's residual radioactive material which we DO have the means to minimize or "burn" up...but we don't. Instead we put it in casks and put it in storage for...ever. If you look at the quantity of nuclear waste even from the inefficient plant designs in use, it's far far far less than the actual toxic chemicals and compounds released by fossil fuel plants.
Next gen reactor designs are also more efficient and produce less waste. Talk to me about subsidies after you review how much the fossil fuel industry gets...or solar/renewable.
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as opposed to those imbeciles who fail to understand the weaknesses of the US power grid, the inability of variable power sources to meet consumer power loads or he effects of inadequate power in a power hungry world
Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
I don't usually respond to AC but ... Stating something and then dancing around it doesn't make it true.
Baseload power refers to the overall minimum power requirements. This absolutely does exist unless you happen to live in a region without 24/7 power.
Heavy industry, particularly things like refineries and semiconductor plants require huge amounts of power and cannot easily be switched on and off. High rise commercial buildings have significant power requirements around HVAC which still runs at a reduced rate outside of business hours. Plus, of course, the average off-peak demand from residential.
Baseload is cheap(er) because it's a steady state and you can build/'tune' a plant for efficiency. That's typically not conducive to rapid changes in demand since you have huge thermal mass (and physical mass) to contend with. Peaker plants are much less efficient but able to rapidly adjust to demand, hence the greater cost.
TL;DR your post is just nonsense. Show yourself out.
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Heave industry requires the same power all the time? Seems unlikely.
Because you're not only ignorant but stupid.
Silicon ingot growth for semiconductor wafers takes up to a full month to complete, requiring continuous power the entire time. Semiconductor plants have processes which require weeks to complete, requiring continuous power the entire time. Metal foundries have processes which take weeks, again requiring continuous power the entire time. Even glass factories have processes which take days, requiring heat continuously the entire time. They usually use natural g
Re:duh (Score:5, Interesting)
>Now that we know how to build affordable grid sized electricity storage
We do, do we? Can you point to a single concrete example then where say, solar + enough storage to power everything through a week-long storm has been installed for *remotely* as cheaply as equivalent fossil generating capacity alone?
No. You can't. Not unless you've discovered something I've been eagerly awaiting. Sadly storage against such worst-case scenarios is both absolutely essential, and costs many times as much as the associated generating capacity, making renewables far more expensive in practice.
That's not to say there aren't some interesting options. For example there's several groups working on thermal batteries - all of which are obviously terribly faced with the same horrible inefficiencies as any heat engine, but with a bit of extra cleverness you could probably design such a system to allow supplemental heating with fossil fuels during the worst-case renewable blackouts, drastically reducing the total storage needed to only "normal" demands, while still eliminating fuel use under normal conditions - burning fossil fuels for a few weeks every few years during the worst lulls in renewable generation. But so long as you have to do that with separate power plants, you have to add all the maintenance and standby costs of those mostly-inactive power plants to the cost of renewables.
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>When it's used it has to be stored for the long term.
Malicious mind at work. "We block recycling nuclear fuel because of proliferation risks. Also, nuclear fuel is not reusable."
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Is there any nuclear fuel reuse programme that has proven commercially viable?
Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
The BN600 and BN800 reactors in Russia.
And energy generation must prove economical, but not commercially. Private investors do not care if the people and the economy get the energy they need. They care about short term returns. There are things the private sector does well and other more suitable for the public sector. The countries who have a decarbonated energy grid have said grid founded by the public sector. And they use mostly hydroelectric and nuclear energy to great success.
The "energy as a market" stance of the EU is very dangerous and shortsighted.
China is investing heavily in nuclear energy. If it were not economical, they wouldn't do it. No links, i must go to work.
P.S. You seem to spend an awful lot of time on slashdot.
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Is there any solar PV recycling that has proven to be commercially viable?
Every energy source has a waste problem, it's that nuclear fission has a much smaller problem.
Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear power needs fuel. That fuel gets mined, and then refined and transported. When it's used it has to be stored for the long term.
Every energy source produces waste, it just turns out that nuclear power produces the least. Anything radioactive decays away by definition but toxic heavy metals stay toxic forever. Solar PV waste needs to be recycled or stored "long term", as in forever, just like any other waste. If you haven't guessed it then I'll just flat out inform you I am not a fan of solar power.
Lifetime CO2 emissions per TWh generated are higher for nuclear than for wind and solar PV.
I'd like to know where you got that. Don't tell me to "Google it" or "do your own research" because the question is not what the numbers are, the question is where YOU found that.
I don't have numbers to hand for geothermal and hydro.
Have you tried Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Geothermal and hydro produces less CO2 than solar but more than nuclear fission. Solar is bad on producing waste, capacity factor, EROEI, land use, labor needed, raw material use (which is highly correlated to waste production), and lastly no that great on CO2 emissions. Not a fan.
There are plenty of wonderful new reactor designs that improve the fuel cycle, but none of them are proven to work at commercial scale. In fact most are proven not to work, which is why investors aren't throwing money at them like they are with renewable energy.
Solar power wasn't that great either not so long ago. Then people lobbied the government to fund some research, and they did. Turns out that solar power still sucks so not a great example. What I heard from a discussion panel on nuclear fission power was that investors are reluctant to put money into nuclear power because the government has a habit of pulling licenses for BS reasons. Get some sane regulations, and sane regulators, and maybe we can get better nuclear power without government subsidies.
Re:duh (Score:4, Insightful)
You always carefully cherry pick metrics. "Nuclear produces less waste". I can't even be bothered to check if it's true or not, because it doesn't matter. The waste nuclear produces is, wait for it, nuclear waste. It's not the same as having some spare turbine blades you don't know what to do with.
For reference about 85% of a wind turbine can be recycled or reused. How much of a nuclear plant and the waste it produces can be recycled or reused? I don't mean theoretically in a magical thorium reactor, I mean today right now on a commercial scale.
Here's a source that shows GHG emissions for nuclear to be around double those for solar PV, and 3x those for solar thermal: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13... [nrel.gov]
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Don't forget mine tailings from mining the uranium as well as all the toxic by products of processing it into usable fuel. Those are basically "waste" from operating nuclear power plants.
Even so, I don't think it should be off the table as a medium-term solution. We should at least not be actively shuttering plants that are operating safely. For every plant you shut down that is capacity that has to be made up, and more often than not, it is made up with a carbon-emitting replacement. Even if you buil
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You always carefully cherry pick metrics.
I didn't pick the metrics, you did, I was responding to your comments. Go ahead and pick the metrics we should care about and then show me how nuclear power fails at them.
There's a push to get nuclear power on an level field with renewable energy because nuclear power does so well on the metrics that matter. Nuclear power may not be best at every metric when compared to any given renewable energy source. but it makes up for failures on metrics by scoring better on others.
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You mean like the transuranic elements (including plutonium), and the U-238 that makes up the bulk of nuclear fuel? Those are toxic heavy metals, too.
Solar PV "waste" is principally silicon (the cells), aluminum (the structure) and glass (more silicon). Oh, and copper wire. The dopants in the cells are pretty lo
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While it is true that anything radioactive decays, this can take thousands of years.
The longer the half-life the lower the rate of radiation produced. Also, not every kind of radiation is equal, some forms are more dangerous than others.
Short half-life isotopes are not much of a concern as they decay away quickly. Long half-life isotopes are not much of a concern as they are effectively inert. There are a few medium half-life isotopes that concern us and so need to be contained for decades, and 300 years is a commonly repeated length of time for this. We build structures that are expec
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"There are plenty of wonderful new reactor designs that improve the fuel cycle, but none of them are proven to work at commercial s
Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
Concrete is one of the most CO2 intensive industries we have, comparable only to steel.
Mining, refining, and transporting fuel is also carbon intensive
You state this backwards; wind and solar both require vastly greater amounts of steel and concrete (and other resources) to produce a similar amount of energy. Lifecycle concrete and steel use for wind is 2925 and 1046 tons/TWh respectively. For solar, the amounts are 924 and 1023 tons/TWh. Compare to a PWR at the high end, which uses 401 and 59 tons/TWh respectively. Nuclear uses < 6% of the steel as compared to wind and solar. Solar uses more than twice the concrete, and wind uses > 17 times the concrete of PWR nuclear. Every single one of those cute windmills has an enormous concrete foundation. Citations are given on the relevant slides [environmen...ogress.org].
And it's just not comparable to solar or wind.
You're right about that; nuclear energy is orders of magnitude more resource efficient. (1 for material resources, and 2 for land) Anyone claiming otherwise is hopelessly ignorant or conscience-free; since you repeat the lie even now, you must be the latter.
Moreover, molten salt based nuclear will drastically reduce the amount of concrete and steel needed over PWR technology, as they operate at atmospheric pressure and don't need a ridiculously huge concrete containment to handle a potential phase change in the water coolant.
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Re:duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd suggest that you use the subjunctive mood for that, rather than the more indicative future tense. In other words: you are claiming the future savings as a definite. But given that there aren't even demonstrator plants existing today, and barely more than paper designs, it's more appropriate to call those savings "hoped for" or "likely".
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This "mining argument" can be applied to ANY construction project, right down to wind turbines. As we electrify trucks and mining equipment and start to produce steel without emitting environmental carbon, this argument fades away. It fades away equally for all construction and mining.
Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
radioactivity.
that sh*t kills
Fossils are radioactive, too (Score:5, Insightful)
radioactivity.
Yes, radioactivity is dangerous. And it is present as traces amount in lots of underground resources. Including in fossil fuels.
(I won't go on a tangent about radon build-ups in the basement of building in alpine countries such as CH, AT, etc.)
Except that fossil fuels need to be burned in such mind boggling quantities that all those "tiny traces" add up.
And as they are continuously dumped in the environment, they end up contributing to the rise of background radiation.
Fossil fuel end up contributing to the radioactivity-related death. Except that is not in the form of a largely mediatized single event like a nuclear incident, but as a small increase of cancer incidence in a region, so nobody in the general public pays attention to it, only specialists do.
Contrast this with nuclear plants. Yes, there have been a couple of incidents over the history of nuclear energy.
But those exceptions aside, it is one of the most strongly controlled source of radioactive waste (the other tighly controlled one being medical uses). Countries that rely a lot on nuclear like FR do practice waste sorting. At the end, only the waste that is both high-activity and long-lived is really problematic and that is a surprisingly small amount. Specially surprising in the mind of the general public who is not used to the tiny scale of fuel consumption of nuclear vs. fossil.
Or in short: radioactivity isn't such a big problem once you put things in perspective, but it makes nice attention-grabbing titles in the news.
Re:duh (Score:4, Informative)
If concrete is the problem with nuclear, wind is out. It's base requires far more concrete per power generated that nuclear.
Re:duh (Score:5, Informative)
Just in case you are willing to read what experts have to say about it:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/u... [world-nuclear.org]
TLDR:
Based on the studies reviewed, the following observations can be made:
Greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power plants are among the lowest of any electricity generation
method and on a lifecycle basis are comparable to wind, hydro-electricity and biomass.
Lifecycle emissions of natural gas generation are 15 times greater then nuclear.
Lifecycle emissions of coal generation are 30 times greater then nuclear.
There is strong agreement in the published studies on life cycle GHG intensities for each generation
method. However, the data demonstrates the sensitivity of lifecycle analysis to assumptions for each
electricity generation source.
The range of results is influenced by the primary assumptions made in the lifecycle analysis. For
instance, assuming either gaseous diffusion or gas centrifuge enrichment has a bearing on the life
cycle results for nuclear.
YES (Score:5, Insightful)
It is greener than solar or even wind, that's for sure. All the pollution that solar panel creation consumes. And wind power, huge areas of land, wasted. Not to mention all the manufacturing pollution making all those turbines. Yes building a nuclear power plant causes pollution too but, per gigawatt generated, it is less polluting than solar or wind.
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Recycle waste.
Run multiple formats of reactor to cook down stuff into far more short-lived substances.
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Recycle waste
There is very little profit from recycling spent fuel. It would need to be a heavily subsidized industry. So, go for it, but you'll need to have Congressional backing for very long (multi-President) spans in order to make that a reality. Something to keep in mind for that idea.
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Yes, yes, because the technology is in its infancy, and for political reasons not being developed.
Like all technology it will mature and improve when used and developed, and the profit will increase.
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The waste problem already exists, and it's not going to go away by doing nothing. Some government money to research a profitable recycling system is a one time cost that can be paid back many times over with jobs and taxable income. The other option is the government keeps paying for storing it. So, either way this costs the government money. Put some of that money into research and at some point the money pit turns into a revenue source.
Maybe we never find a profitable way to recycle this waste, even s
Modern reactor designs have lower level waste (Score:5, Informative)
Except for the 96000 years of guarding mid level wastes that no one is paying for.
Modern reactor designs have lower level waste, time scales of a few hundred years, and they can consume your "96K year" waste as fuel.
96000 years? (Re:YES) (Score:2)
What isotopes are we supposed to be guarding for 96000 years? You don't even know, do you? That's an oddly specific number, I'd like to know where it came from.
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It is a reference to plutonium, which even though not used in nuclear power plants, is a favorite to scare people with since it makes them think about nuclear weapons. I remember seeing those numbers on anti-nuclear t-shirts in the 70's and thinking they were imbeciles
per google: ... 96,000 years is equal to 96000 624000 =6 hal
A half life is the number of years it takes for a radioactive substance to decay to half its original mass or weight. In 12,000 years, it has only had time to decay 12 of its 12 life.
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> It is a reference to plutonium
It's a reference to Technetium-99 [wikipedia.org] because it poses a severe environmental threat. Being radioactive is just shit icing on the shit cake.
Everyone focuses on the radioactive part of nuclear waste, and conveniently forget that they are also chemically toxic as well. Indeed much of the problem with handling nuclear materials is how easily the stuff gets around.
=Smidge=
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It's a reference to Technetium-99 because it poses a severe environmental threat. Being radioactive is just shit icing on the shit cake.
The half-life of Tc-99 is 211,100 years, how do people get 96000 years from that? The Pu-239 argument makes more sense. It makes more sense but is still not logical. Elements with that long of a half-life pose very little radiation hazard. Also, Pu-239 is not waste, it is fuel. Burying this and allowing it to decay away makes no sense. It is far too valuable as fuel to just toss in a hole and walk away from it.
Everyone focuses on the radioactive part of nuclear waste, and conveniently forget that they are also chemically toxic as well. Indeed much of the problem with handling nuclear materials is how easily the stuff gets around.
How easily it gets around? It's in a fuel rod, not an ash heap. I don't believe people "co
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Except for the 96000 years of guarding mid level wastes that no one is paying for.
After about 500 years, the waste is collectively no more radioactive than the ore from which it was mined.
Also, newer MSRs can burn much of the "waste".
Re: YES (Score:3, Informative)
Except, we know how to reduce the quantity by 95%+ and reduce the danger to 300 years.
And, we don't actually have to actively guard it even 20 years. We just bury it half a mile deep into bedrock and fill it in. It would cost tens of millions of dollars, a year of time, and the best mining equipment and engineers on earth. Security just stops by every few months and looks for hundreds of workers and massive equipment
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Spent fuel contains 95% of the original energy. Guarding it for eons would be a complete waste of a valuable resource. Store it in Yucca Mountain until China starts sellling its new reactor designs overseas.
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Citations badly needed. Or even some back-of-the-envelope math.
Because everything you said sounds suspect at best, if not completely backwards at worst.
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Citations badly needed.
That's a great idea, how about you go find some for us?
I'm seeing a trend on Slashdot. Anything that is supportive of wind or solar power must not be questioned. Anything that is supportive of nuclear fission power must have sources. When anything supportive of nuclear power has a source cited then the source is to be called biased, not trustworthy, or too out of date to be reflective of today. But a source that gives data on wind and solar power shall not be given. Only "do your own research" and "Goo
Re:YES (Score:5, Informative)
I do have references that nuclear is less polluting that solar or wind:
Solar requires 15x more materials than nuclear: https://thumbor.forbes.com/thu... [forbes.com]
Here's another source:
https://www.iaea.org/sites/def... [iaea.org]
https://pittnews.com/article/1... [pittnews.com]
Here is an article with numerous sources: https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
Re:YES (Score:5, Informative)
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Wind and solar actually need less backup than nuclear. If a nuclear plant goes offline suddenly you lose 1000MW or more, so need at least that much on standby. If a wind turbine goes offline you use tens of megawatts maximum.
Sorry to burst your solar and wind bubble but what you have written is bullshit. Nuclear definitely needs less backup than solar because nuclear capacity factor is around 90%, wind around 30% and solar around 20%. That clearly means you need more backup for solar and wind. Moreover nuclear outage can planned in advance typically. The planning situation is worse with solar and wind. Notice this is not about one wind turbine or one nuclear power plant. In aggregate, over the state and continent levels, this i
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Citations badly needed. Or even some back-of-the-envelope math.
Because everything you said sounds suspect at best, if not completely backwards at worst.
Here's a link to some information on the high level reactor waste https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm... [nrc.gov]
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OK. Here are some:
Solar requires 15x more materials than nuclear: https://thumbor.forbes.com/thu... [forbes.com]
Here's another:
https://www.iaea.org/sites/def... [iaea.org]
https://pittnews.com/article/1... [pittnews.com]
Here is an article with numerous sources: https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
We really do need more nuclear power (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't love nuclear power, but we're in a crisis here and we can't afford not to use it. In the first place we probably can't bring enough wind and solar capacity online to replace fossil fuels - and if we can do it, we can't make it happen soon enough. In the second place, we'll probably need a lot more power once we stop living in denial and realize that massive carbon capture is the only thing that will save our sorry asses. Sufficiently fast, large-scale carbon capture will likely require much more energy than wind and solar alone can provide.
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I posit that you don't like BADLY RUN or "least cost" nuclear power.
If people aren't fiddling with reactor experiments, and don't cheap out on the geoengineering, reactors have an excellent safety rating.
What's more, modern reactor designs are even more safe than that.
The reason the costs in nuclear are so high is the punitive regulatory environment that has been created.
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I have long observed the peculiar double-think of many nuclear power enthusiasts who boast about its safety while denouncing the safety standards that make it so.
Re: We really do need more nuclear power (Score:2)
Regulations are not the cause of the cost. Hysterical litigation and the risk of that litigation by nuke haters who oppose nuclear at any cost that drag the construction start out for decades drive up the cost. We need to follow the navy model and develop standard designs that can be built almost anywhere, permit them once, and bulldoze the litigation into the junkyard where it belongs.
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Can we bulldoze the protesters that cost us money and lives for the last 50 years of holding up nuclear power into the junk heap too?
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Re:We really do need more nuclear power (Score:5, Informative)
I have long observed the peculiar double-think of many nuclear power enthusiasts who boast about its safety while denouncing the safety standards that make it so.
That's not double think. The problem with nuclear power is how the safety standards are written and designed. The process industry has over 100 years of experience showing that prescriptive standards are worse for safety than performance based standards while also costing more to implement and being dangerously unsafe in some scenarios. This is a rut that nuclear is stuck in since the 70s as the industry failed to move on. In addition the standards themselves while prescriptive have an incredible overhead baked into them leading to insane cost of implementation. I can give you two examples of this:
1) We had a project in Spain to upgrade an old obsolete relay based safety system to a Nuclear 1E certified PLC (the chemical industry had ripped out relay based safety systems decades earlier). We approached the vendor got the quote, couple of hundred K for the system. ... But wait the 1E certification was quoted. Back to the vendor, and suddenly an extra zero appeared on the quote. This was (and I can't stress this enough) 100% identical hardware in the quote, it just came with the world's most expensive piece of paper. That project took us 8 years. EIGHT YEARS. And hilariously just after we finished and commissioned this safety PLC I moved on to a Bayer plant where my immediate next project was to rip out the exact system I just installed in Spain because as the vendor put it "version 9 was obsolete".
The overhead due to the safety standards literally resulted in a project taking so long that the equipment was obsolete on startup. That is not "safe".
2) The other great example is from Lucas Heights in Australia. We got a lovely demonstration of how they met their standard required SIL4 performance criteria. It was amazing how they hooked these systems together spreading transmitters out to different chassis each interconnected with fibre to provide electrical isolation in case of a power fault, 3 transmitters, 3 systems, 3 power suppliers, 3 outputs, holding magnets energised that kept the control rods in place. Then came my question and the punchline: "What is your major accident scenario? What risk are you mitigating with this system?" And the answer: Nothing. It's a 20MW open pool reactor. If you loose all cooling you can potentially generate enough gamma radiation to make the building unsafe to be in, but the local fire department would simply douse the reactor down from outside with water and we'll be fine.
Yep. Prescriptive standards. OPAL is a NUKULAR REACTOR and therefor needs to follow a prescriptive standard to install a safety system designed for a risk scenario so massive even the oil and gas industry wouldn't touch it, yet in this case the reactor is so small you can't kill anyone (and fun fact, Australia's prime minster dropped his pen into the reactor while it was running).
Prescriptive standards are dangerous since the design of safety is decoupled from the risk.
Standards which take too long to implement are dangerous since the breed a culture of keeping decrepit old shit running long pas its use by date.
Now given how safety nuclear already is, imagine if they adopted modern safety standards as well.
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The process industry has over 100 years of experience showing that prescriptive standards are worse for safety than performance based standards while also costing more to implement and being dangerously unsafe in some scenarios.
The aviation industry disagrees.
The reason that extra zero appeared is because the potential consequences of a chemical plant accident vs a nuclear plant accident are also an order of magnitude bigger.
Remember that the government is giving the nuclear industry free unlimited insurance and liability protection, so naturally it expects high standards.
Re:We really do need more nuclear power (Score:5, Interesting)
The aviation industry disagrees.
No it doesn't. The aviation is a great example of performance based standards and not prescriptive based standards. The performance is given and the actual implementation is left up to the designers. It is why airbus and Boeing planes are fundamentally differently controlled. It's why some planes have 2 engines, some 3, some 4. It's why innovation is actually still a thing and we're not flying on planes using 1970s era hydraulic levers.
The reason that extra zero appeared is because the potential consequences of a chemical plant accident vs a nuclear plant accident are also an order of magnitude bigger.
Nope. As I said in the second part of my example the consequence is not at all considered and there are "nuclear" applications which require this expensive solution despite having effectively no ability to cause an issue for anyone (see basically all research or medical isotope reactors). The zero appeared due to the cost overhead generated by a piece of paper. The actual hardware was sold without any consideration at all to the consequence or any liability to the vendor.
Remember that the government is giving the nuclear industry free unlimited insurance and liability protection, so naturally it expects high standards.
No one is questioning the quality of the standards. What is being questioned is the prescriptive nature of them and the overhead of their application. I forgot to mention in my original post in the Spain example, the nuclear safety system involved only 6 safety loops. The project immediately after at Bayer involved over 130 spread across multiple units of the plant, and with the same sized team was completed in 9 months rather than 8 years. It was not in any way remotely "less safe" than what we did at the nuclear plant. It was however orders of magnitude cheaper and faster.
You want high standards, look to the chemical industry (or the aviation sector). The nuclear industry is stuck in the 70s and not in a good way.
anti-nukers are like anti-vaxers (Score:5, Interesting)
anti-nukers fear the localized radiation from nuke waste more than the globe-destroying consequences of global warming
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The problem is the anti-nukers are actually damn good at marketing. We have iodine tablets at home. Some anti-nuke activists mailed them out to everyone who lived within 150km of a nuclear reactor with the warning on them saying you're living that close to a reactor and to take them if the reactor goes all Chernobyl on us.
That's the kind of FUD that major companies could only dream of spreading. It's insanely effective at instilling fear.
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This is ridiculous.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's anything that shows the hypocrisy of the "Green" push, it's this nonsense.
I mean, on one hand, climate change from us burning fossil fuels is supposedly SO bad, we're going to destroy the entire planet if we don't make drastic changes now (or to hear many of the people speak, it had to be done yesterday already). They're elated about manufacturing as many batteries as possible for electric vehicles and power storage to allow wind or solar farms to produce steady 24/7 electricity that they're otherwise incapable of doing. Never mind the human rights violations involved in obtaining materials like the cobalt in them, or the fact that very few plans are even solidly in place to recycle all of these battery packs down the road But nuclear? No! That has zero emissions, ability to produce 24/7 energy regardless of the weather situation (sunlight or wind present or absent), and can produce large enough amounts of power to make a single plant a meaningful contributor to the power needs of an entire city. BUT, because of fear of radiation -- it's a "dirty" option! (Face-Palm)
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Threatened? (Re:This is ridiculous....) (Score:2)
UNLESS a political sacred cow is threatened.
Just wait, you'll have some morons with pickets demanding that "threatened sacred cows" be listed on the endangered species list. They will demand the land they graze be a nature preserve. I just hope to see this happen so I can correct the record... and tell them that sacred cows are marine mammals, they don't graze on land.
Fission power/energy (Score:2)
Since these articles are promoting operational nuclear they are referring to fission only. Fusion will make the green category easy.
They need to stop using the general "nuclear" term because fission and fusion are so dramatically different from each other. Otherwise one might get the impression there is intentional sleight-of-hand being attempted.
Does it solve the problem? (Score:2)
If the problem is reducing carbon emissions, the answer is an unqualified YES. It's not perfect. It raises other issues. But if reducing carbon emissions really is the goal, nuclear must be part of the solution. It's available now. It generates reliable, industrial-scale power. It works. It buys us time.
If nuclear isn't the answer maybe the goal is something other than reducing carbon emissions.
...laura
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If nuclear isn't the answer maybe the goal is something other than reducing carbon emissions.
It appears to me that the goal is to get credit for solving the problem. If the opposing political party wants nuclear power then they can't support nuclear power. The goals of a political party is to oppose the other party so people have a reason to choose one or the other. If both sides agree then that's an issue that just disappears. They can't let global warming disappear as a political issue because that gets people to vote.
The problem is that evidence it building that without nuclear power global
But... But... (Score:2)
But nobody wants nukes!
At least some AC likes to post on how "nobody wants nukes!" France wants "nukes", as do other EU nations. Maybe not everyone wants nuclear power but I'm seeing enough people want it that we will see many more nuclear power reactors built. One complaint about nuclear power is the cost, but part of the cost is from rules and legislation that make it more expensive. Classify nuclear power as "green energy" and it gets a lot of little perks in law that will lower costs. Economy of sc
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One complaint about nuclear power is the cost, but part of the cost is from rules and legislation that make it more expensive.
One advantage people claim about nuclear power is safety, but part of the safety is from rules and legislation that make it more safe.
How much safety are you willing to trade for reduced costs?
greenpeace is not clean (Score:2)
They are on the board of greenpeace energy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ), pretty hypocritical...
Green technology? Not really. (Score:2)
Is Nuclear a *clean* technology? Yes.
Is it renewable? No.
Is it sustainable? No, not in the long run.
If your definition of Green energy is limited to "emissions-free" then yes Nuclear is awesome, however were we to triple the amount of Nuclear power plants in the world the fuel would only last 100 years or so. Nuclear is at best a stop-gap measure and at worst an already stranded technology.
https://youtu.be/udJJ7n_Ryjg [youtu.be]
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Yeah, cause that nuclear waste is sooo clean. --.--
Jeez, there are people in North Korea that are less brainwashed than some Americans.
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Nuclear waste isn't particularly healthy, no. But there is a process in place to contain and process the waste. So yes, it is clean, because the only waste it produce is contained. It's like saying that toilets aren't clean because they handle human waste. The waste is contained and disposed of in a non-harmful way (usually), which makes them clean.
And the fact that failure to keep tabs on the waste allows terrorists to build dirty bombs, well... That is just a guarantee to make sure the waste is processed
Yeah, that very "green" ... nuclear waste .. --.-- (Score:2)
Nuclear is not even freaking competitive anymore! Even with the massive subsidies they got when Germany switched their plants off and gave them a multiple of what those plants were still worth.
There's a massive fusion reactor in the sky, sending down more energy for free, than we will ever need. To take directly or via wind. Literally nobody but a very specific always-backwards crowd of militant psychopath-retards wants fission plants for anything but deep space travel.
Not even the most right-wing EU citize
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Dirty source?
You DO understand what's involved in the production of wind turbines, solar panels, and the like right?
We don't simply collect unicorn piss and fairy farts and "et voila!".
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New reactors, clean energy, consume nuclear waste (Score:5, Informative)
But it's a dirty energy source. See how these ten countries (especially France) feel if accepting fission power as a clean energy source is contingent upon their managing and safely disposing of the nuclear waste fully inside their own EU borders instead of shipping it off to a small country in Africa or South America.
Modern reactor designs do not generate that sort of waste. As a matter of fact some modern designs can consume the old reactor's waste as fuel. New nuclear reactors are how we get rid of old nuclear waste.
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As a matter of fact, some modern designs can consume the old reactor's waste as fuel.
Nitpick: While MSRs can consume waste and are very promising, none are yet in commercial operation.
TMSR-LF1 [wikipedia.org]
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As a matter of fact, some modern designs can consume the old reactor's waste as fuel.
Nitpick: While MSRs can consume waste and are very promising, none are yet in commercial operation.
TMSR-LF1 [wikipedia.org]
True, but if we are going to build a new reactor ...
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True, but if we are going to build a new reactor ...
We could team up with India. They are further along than we are.
China is even closer to commercialization, but politics excludes a partnership.
MSRs are a much better near-term bet than fusion. It is silly how starved they are for research dollars.
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It is silly how starved they are for research dollars.
1990s politics, political payback to "environmentalists".
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Fun fact, outside of the immediate areas in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine there has been no measurable increase in radiation-induced adverse health effects in
other European countries due to Chernobyl
https://www.europarl.europa.eu... [europa.eu]
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Re:Yes, it's low-carbon... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if you lose an argument on the facts of nuclear power, just pretend it is the same thing as nuclear weapons...
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Re:Yes, it's low-carbon... (Score:5, Informative)
The Kyshtym disaster, sometimes referred to as the Mayak disaster or Ozyorsk disaster in newer sources, was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium production site for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel reprocessing plant located in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozyorsk) in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
fyi processing weapons grade plutonium is in no way like a civilian nuclear power station
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The Kyshtym was the result of weapons waste. It took place in 1957 before there was a single commercial reactor in the USSR. How could used fuel caused kyshtym when it did not exist yet? As I explained to another idiot -- weapons != energy.
Note there was a test reactor prior to Kyshtym, called Obninsk. It was a tiny reactor and none of its used fuel was moved to Kyshtym.
AQ fails unless opponents hands tied behind back (Score:2)
I have a better idea. Put 1 marine in a cage with 2 AQ fanatics. NO WEAPONS. After you sew the Marine's head back on, you can ask him if he is 2:1 tougher than people defending their homes.
Its already been tried. AQ fanatics did no better hand to hand than they did with firearms. AQ literally needs their opponents hands tied behind their back.
Re:It's green (Score:5, Interesting)
By that logic we should level all the houses in Florida because the US government (not sure what you mean by gummint) usually bails out insurance companies that insure homes in Florida after a hurricane
But then you are just throwing whatever and seeing what sticks, it is what people do when they are emotionally attached to an idea and can't face the cognitive dissonance of having believed bullshit
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Its energy efficiency when producing electricity is roughly 23%. the rest of the energy going into heating the environment. Not the best of ideas when we want to reverse global warming.
This is just silly on so many levels.
Nuclear fission only exists because it's cross-funded by tax money.
Then end the solar subsidies so nuclear power has a chance to compete. Nuclear power plant operators will flat out tell legislators that with the government guaranteeing a profit to wind and solar the spot price of electricity can go negative and wind and solar still makes a profit. Nuclear power doesn't have a chance in this market. Fossil fuel operators can at least shutdown their plants for months at a time, saving on fuel and labor, when demand drops. If a nuclea
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> Then end the solar subsidies so nuclear power has a chance to compete
Total BS. Current estimates are that over the history of these technologies in the USA, nuclear has received about 85 billion, fossil fuels 60 billion, and all renewables combined 34 billion.
It is true that the yearly budget is going to renewables now, due largely to PTCs, but it will be *years* before the totals catch up. And that continues to pale in comparison to the subsidies still going to fossil fuels, which, depending on how yo