Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Argues Nuclear Power Isn't a Climate Solution (theverge.com) 274
"Former heads of nuclear regulatory bodies across Europe and the US put out a statement this week voicing their opposition to nuclear energy as a climate solution," reports The Verge's Justine Calma. The publication spoke with Gregory Jaczko, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to learn more about why some nuclear experts oppose the energy source as a climate fix. Slashdot reader Ol Olsoc shares an excerpt of the interview: Former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko in an interview with the Verge notes: "I think there's been a lot of misinformation about the role that nuclear power can play in any climate strategy. A lot of attention has been put on nuclear as somehow the technology that's going to solve a lot of problems when it comes to dealing with climate change. I just think that's not true. And it's taking the debate and discussion away from the areas that can have a role and that do need focus and attention." He added: "I think it's money that's not well spent. Nuclear has shown time and time again that it cannot deliver on promises about deployment and costs. And that's really the most important factor when it comes to climate." Jaczko goes on to note how many of the nuclear plants when he was chairman were supposed to come online but have experienced delays and exceptional cost overruns. Two of the four new design reactors that were licensed when he was chairman, which were supposed to be starting production in 2016 and 2017, were canceled, "and that involved federal indictments for fraud among the heads of the company running that reactor development." The other two, he says, "continue to be pushed back and now are scheduled to start in 2022 or 2023" with a price tag that's over $30 billion.
Meanwhile (Score:3, Interesting)
The sun is delivering free energy to us daily. Why not take advantage of that?
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It works great during some days, not so great during other days and is really terrible at night, you know, when people may want to turn on the lights. Usually, during the winter the time between sunrise and sunset is rather short, but people want to heat their homes. some of them heat their homes using electricity.
Why not indeed.... (Score:2)
The sun is delivering free energy to us daily. Why not take advantage of that?
The Earth has been blessed with a near magical, abundant source of energy that has over 70,000 times the energy density [energyeducation.ca] of the next best thing.
And it can deliver at night, or in heavy snow, anywhere on earth.
Why not take advantage of that?
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The Earth has been blessed with a near magical, abundant source of energy that has over 70,000 times the energy density [energyeducation.ca] of the next best thing.
...
Why not take advantage of that?
Gold is an excellent conductor but not all of the headphones I have have gold-plated connectors as it is more expensive that alternatives and the alternatives can be good enough. What we need is an energy system that is good enough based on a broad set of criteria, including cost, not the one that's the best on some criteria apart from cost. And it needs to be a systems-based approach.
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What criteria should we use to choose our energy sources?
CO2 emissions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Safety? https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
Raw material needs? https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com] (See Figure 2.)
Energy return on energy invested? https://world-nuclear.org/info... [world-nuclear.org] (See Table 2.)
Cost? https://www.iea.org/reports/pr... [iea.org] (See chart about 1/3rd way in.)
I'm seeing solar power not do well on any metric when compared to other options like hydro, onshore wind, geothermal, or nuclear fission
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I'm seeing solar power not do well on any metric when compared to other options like hydro, onshore wind, geothermal, or nuclear fission. Given that we currently use inefficient single cycle natural gas turbines to back up solar power at night we'd see lower costs and lower CO2 emissions by just using more efficient combined cycle natural gas instead.
I didn't make an argument for or against solar, just noted the limitations of the GPs analysis.
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> Gold is an excellent conductor
Just to make sure you know that while it is good, it is not the best. Conductivity:
1. Silver: 6.30×107
2. Copper 5.96×107
3. Gold 4.11×107
> not all of the headphones I have have gold-plated connectors as it is more expensive
No, main reason is that it is soft metal and it wears quite fast. It is usually used in connections that are not constantly unplugged, like SIM-cards. The advantage is that it is very inert, unlike silver and copper that react with the
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
The sun is delivering free energy to us daily. Why not take advantage of that?
Free? Sure, solar power is as "free" as any other source of energy. Coal energy is free too. All you have to do is dig it up, build a power plant, and burn the coal. See? It's free coal. What makes solar power any more free than coal? It is not free. We have to mine the materials for turning solar power into useful energy, typically with photovoltaic panels or solar thermal systems.
Do you mean solar power is "free" because there's no fuel costs once the power plant is built? How does that make solar power any more "free" than anything else? A big reason not to take advantage of solar power is the raw material, land, and/or labor it takes to get this "free" energy is much higher than other options. Solar power actually isn't that great on CO2 emissions compared to other options. Here's an article by a subject matter expert using data from the US government making these points: https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
I've had people claim that the data in the article I linked to is outdated, biased, or not properly sourced. Okay then, where can I find data that is newer and says anything different? We can see a chart on CO2 emissions using a study from 2020 showing nuclear power produces less CO2 on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A big reason not to use solar power is that the sun sets every night. We can use nuclear power at any time of day. One measure of this reliability of producing power is capacity factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'll see people talk about how we can use energy storage systems with solar power to make up for this phenomenon of the failure of solar power we call "night". They will point out how we can heat up salts to the point of melting with solar thermal systems to run fast responding turbines, much like the "peaker" natural gas turbines we use now. These same people will point out how nuclear power can't match demand, and therefore aren't reliable sources of electricity. What these people can't seem to put together is that nuclear power reactors can heat up salts to the point of melting and run these same turbines.
We are going to use nuclear power because it is just as "free" as solar power. Nuclear power is just as safe, if not safer, than solar power. Nuclear power produces less CO2, takes less land, consumes less raw materials, and requires less labor, all of which translates into lower costs. Any problems of nuclear power in matching supply to demand can be resolved with the same energy storage systems used to keep streetlamps lit during the night from solar power.
Solar power is far from "free". Solar power is actually quite expensive.
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https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
I've had people claim that the data in the article I linked to is outdated, biased, or not properly sourced.
Okay then, where can I find data that is newer and says anything different?
AR5, just as you have been told now multiple times, with page references.
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If you have page references then share them with the class. There's many people reading this and I suspect that they are curious what you are talking about.
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If you have page references then share them with the class. There's many people reading this and I suspect that they are curious what you are talking about.
Again with this nonsense. You asked for new information saying you would then use it. You haven't. Why?
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Not only is nuclear power more expensive it takes too long to develop.
It's also not a global solution. Most countries can't have nuclear power, for various political and security reasons. A plan that only kinda works for a minority of developed nations isn't really a plan.
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Coal is the fuel so you compare that to the sun or wind. The solar panel/wind turbine you compare the polluting coal power plant.
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The sun is delivering free energy to us daily.
The sunlight is free. Turning it into electricity is not.
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The point is that nuclear needs fuel, and it's a problem to get it and to dispose of it.
Solar PV is much more manageable, much cheaper and has a lifetime comparable to or longer than a nuclear plant.
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The point is that nuclear needs fuel, and it's a problem to get it and to dispose of it.
Part of that can be addressed with a breeder reactor.
Re: Meanwhile (Score:5, Informative)
Good thing the panels you showed only make up 5% of the market [energy.gov] and can be recycled [bnl.gov] instead of being dumped in the landfill like your article discussed.
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Re: Meanwhile (Score:3)
Just to be clear, using lead in solder isn't necessarily a bad thing. Alternative solder compositions are notorious for premature compared to lead) failure. In particular, lead is more ductile. When stressed, it tends to bend & stretch. In comparison, RoHS-compliant lead-free solder tends to just break. This is a major reason why things like USB ports & headphone jacks (which depend upon solder for both electronic and mechanical connection) now tend to fail after just a few years. Mechanical stress
Theory vs Reality (Score:5, Informative)
If nuclear were easy to permit and install, and not be fabulously slow and expensive to install, it could be used to combat climate change, per the article.
But, from the summary, "Nuclear has shown time and time again that it cannot deliver on promises about deployment and costs. And that's really the most important factor when it comes to climate."
Interesting perspective, considering the real-world hurdles to installing nuclear power and how they might be an unexpected show-stopper.
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Yeah, it's not like he mentioned anything else holding it back, like frequent corruption and huge cost overruns.
Funny you should mention theory and reality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear has shown time and time again that it cannot deliver on promises about deployment and costs. And that's really the most important factor when it comes to climate.
No. The reality is that CO2 emission is THE MOST IMPORTANT reality.
So right away that means, if you shut down any nuclear reactor that could keep running you've already said you do not care about climate, but something else. That something else is sadly a decades old haters of nuclear energy from a group of people who claimed to care about the planet but pretty near doomed it but stopping a lot of nuclear power plants from being built and thereby causing LOTS of coal plants to be built in past decades that never would have been built otherwise.
Going forward, that's where theory vs. reality really hits - calculate how much time and raw materials it will take to build enough solar panels or wind farms to offset building one nuclear reactor.
And then on top of that, SMRs will be viable for wide deployment in a matter of years - which should be much faster to build, and again since CO2 emissions are all that matter that's the best solution going forward.
After all, if cost were even part of the equation you would not be talking about replacing every gas vehicle with electric within a decade or two, which will come at vast expense. I don't see why it's in any way reasonable to bring up costs when costs have been utterly ignored in all other aspects of proposed climate solutions.
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Or it could be that we only have 5 years of uranium [phys.org] if we power everything with it.
Re: Funny you should mention theory and reality... (Score:3)
That is a ridiculous article. And more over the claim that you could extract so much uranium from seawater in 30 years as to make the cost of extraction uneconomic is ridiculous. If we did extract as much uranium from seawater to power the whole world for 30 years, we would hardly change the concentration of uranium in seawater. Simplistically, if there is 5,700 years worth in seawater (itâ(TM)s really more than that) then 30 years worth is basically reducing the concentration to 99.5% of the current c
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Or it could be that we only have 5 years of uranium if we power everything with it.
Good thing then that we know how to make reactors that use thorium for fuel.
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Nuclear has shown time and time again that it cannot deliver on promises about deployment and costs. And that's really the most important factor when it comes to climate.
No. The reality is that CO2 emission is THE MOST IMPORTANT reality.
Since we, in general, live in capitalist societies then one option to make nuclear more profitable is to introduce a carbon tax. This would also, though, make wind, solar, etc., more profitable, and so in competition nuclear might still be relatively starved of funds, but it might free up some. Funds will only go to nuclear if it can be shown to investment funds that it is sufficiently profitable, and this has generally been lacking. In particular, cost overruns during construction means that an investment
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Look at the new nuclear plants in Europe.
All estimated to take 10 years to build and come online. Current estimate is 20 years after they were delayed. Newly discovered design flaws in China will probably push that back even further.
The cost is also astronomical. Literally, the only more expensive object than the Hinkley C reactor is the International Space Station.
Re:Funny you should mention theory and reality... (Score:5, Interesting)
The reality is that CO2 emission is THE MOST IMPORTANT reality.
And new nuclear has virtually zero to contribute between now and 2030-2035 simply because it will take that long to permit, build, and commission any meaningful new capacity. But let's say we go ahead and build new nuclear. What else should we do in the meantime to ensure we hit 2030-2035 emissions targets and stay on track for 2050? And how do we de-risk those new nuclear plants so they don't end up becoming stranded assets before they're even operational?
calculate how much time and raw materials it will take to build enough solar panels or wind farms to offset building one nuclear reactor.
Well, last year alone about 40 nuclear reactors worth of solar was deployed, and similar the year before that -- and that's after accounting for the difference in capacity factor. Solar farms go up fast, solar rooftops even faster.
SMRs will be viable for wide deployment in a matter of years - which should be much faster to build, and again since CO2 emissions are all that matter that's the best solution going forward.
Yeah, sure, been hearing that since I was a child and the Bilibino plant was commissioned. Still, maybe you're right, but that's certainly not the basket where I would choose to put all of my eggs.
After all, if cost were even part of the equation you would not be talking about replacing every gas vehicle with electric within a decade or two, which will come at vast expense.
Nonsense. The average vehicle stays on the road for something like eight years. A decade or two simply the amount of time it takes for the vehicle fleet to naturally turn over, no incentives or extra costs required.
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Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) is widely considered the authority on this, but all of their stuff is behind a rather expensive paywall. Figures for 2021 are still preliminary, but here's an article [ieefa.org] that talks about BNEF's figures for 2020 and what they expect for 2021. When I said "40 nuclear reactors worth of solar" I just pulled figures from memory and assumed 200 GW of solar installations, that nuclear has an average capacity factor about 5X that of solar, and that the typical nuclear reactor is 1 G
If your statement were true, we'd see it in action (Score:3)
The problem is not the engineering, it is always the politics. Clean cheap nuclear power from thorium reactors has been possible since the 1950’s. It consumes nuclear waste from uranium reactors as a byproduct. The green movement hates it, and the uranium industry is frightened of it because there is a huge sunk cost in the uranium industry which will never be recovered, there is already more uranium than we need. We would be living in a zero carbon economy already if this wierd propaganda war against atomic power had never been created by the Soviet Union. The people who keep repeating this stuff dont know or care about the science. Thorium thorium thorium! Look it up!
Here's the problem, there's MANY variations of politics, many of which have nuclear technology or the money to hire people who have it. If politics was all that's standing in the way, why isn't it living up the hype SOMEWHERE? Why not in a wealthy part of the middle east that would rather export it's oil than burn it? Why not in China? Why not in Europe? Why not in a blue state? why not in a red state? Why not in a totalitarian state? Surely SOME form of gov in the last 50 years could produce this
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Doesn't France get most of its electricity from nuclear power plants?
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Doesn't France get most of its electricity from nuclear power plants?
Electricity in France is more than twice the average price of electricity in America.
Power from France's nukes is four times as expensive as power from America's latest wind turbines.
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Electricity in France is more than twice the average price of electricity in America.
Power from France's nukes is four times as expensive as power from America's latest wind turbines.
It would be nice if we could run a power line from the USA to France so they can get cheap American electricity. Wait, while the windmills in the USA are really far away the windmills in Germany are really close. Maybe France can buy German power?
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
Oh, never mind.
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If politics was all that's standing in the way, why isn't it living up the hype SOMEWHERE?
You mean like in France?
And also Japan, which has realized the best climate solution is to restart nearly all of its reactors.
Why not in China
In fact China has also realized nuclear power is the best path forward - building 150 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years [cnet.com].
The very fact China can plan to build 150 reactors in 15 years tells you that in fact, yes, politics is the thing holding back nuclear power elsewher
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Here's the problem, there's MANY variations of politics, many of which have nuclear technology or the money to hire people who have it. If politics was all that's standing in the way, why isn't it living up the hype SOMEWHERE? Why not in a wealthy part of the middle east that would rather export it's oil than burn it?
You really need to follow the news better.
https://www.nasdaq.com/article... [nasdaq.com]
Why not in China?
https://en.mercopress.com/2019... [mercopress.com]
Why not in Europe?
https://thecorner.eu/news-euro... [thecorner.eu]
Why not in a blue state? why not in a red state?
https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
https://grist.org/climate-ener... [grist.org]
https://www.wyomingnews.com/la... [wyomingnews.com]
https://prescottenews.com/inde... [prescottenews.com]
Why not in a totalitarian state?
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2... [tribune.com.pk]
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The problem is not the engineering, it is always the politics.
In the UK significant subsidies are offered for nuclear power, with 12 permitted sites, and manufacturers have pulled out, citing economic reasons.
Your forgot fluoridation of water (Score:2, Insightful)
The red diaper subversion machine planted in the US still runs fine, long after the mothership is gone.
You forgot to mention how commies have put fluoride in water to sap your precious bodily fluids.
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Bitter (Score:3)
He is probably embittered about nuclear due to something that happened while he was on the NRC. Just like that Robert Malone guy is bitter he doesn't make money from mRNA vaccines.
*Fission* power (Score:4, Insightful)
Time to stop calling it nuclear.
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Not only should we make the distinction between fission and fusion power but we should make a distinction among the many forms of nuclear power.
When the 737 MAX had a safety problem we grounded only the 737 MAX aircraft, not all aircraft. When we saw a known flawed RBMK reactor blow its top in the Soviet Union we should not have stopped building all nuclear reactors. When we saw a BWR reactor crack open in Fukushima we should not have shut down reactors elsewhere. I'll see morons, like Gregory Jaczko, cl
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Rebranding in the hope that nobody notices is usually a sign of desperation due to the product being crappy.
A better title would be (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck Jackoff(I mean Jackzo). He is a fearmonger.
So who oversaw these failed projects again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to admire the obliviousness with which he points out that, when he was in charge, all the projects went poorly.
Two of the four new design reactors that were licensed when he was chairman, which were supposed to be starting production in 2016 and 2017, were canceled, "and that involved federal indictments for fraud among the heads of the company running that reactor development."
Is the suggestion that we need a form of energy which precludes committing fraud???
The other two, he says, "continue to be pushed back and now are scheduled to start in 2022 or 2023" with a price tag that's over $30 billion.
Likewise, NASA's time and cost overruns prove that commercial space launches will never be viable. Oh wait the whole concept of a commercial space industry is to and manage those inefficiencies and scale up to the point of recovering fixed costs.
I wholly agree that building the sporadic nuclear plant every couple decades while people like Jaczko peer over your shoulder is not a climate change solution. The real climate change solution is building tens of thousands of those plants - enough to replace every fossil fuel plant and enough left over energy for recapturing the previous gas emissions. Get back to me on how hard it is to build a new plant after the first hundred new plants go up.
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Nuclear has been failing commercially since the 1960s.
Re:So who oversaw these failed projects again? (Score:4, Informative)
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So on the one hand the problem with nuclear is that the government runs it. I point out that it's mostly commercial, and you claim that the government isn't doing enough to protect it from lawsuits. Can you see the issue here?
In any case, the massively delayed plants in Europe are not being help up by lawsuits.
Rational debate (Score:2, Flamebait)
Of course it isn't (Score:3)
Because no *power generating* solution is a climate solution.
There is this phenomenon which teaches us that every time production efficiency increases (improves), the *demand* for the product *also* increases until it reaches the previous equilibrium.
The position of this equilibrium is dependent on factors mostly unrelated to the efficiency of production. *Almost* by definition, by its very nature, it depends on people's behavior. "Well, duh, *everything* depends on people's behavior". No, not everything. There are invariants in the system. Physical constants, mathematical invariants, biological constants (eg self-preservation and procreation instincts).
Yadda yadda, to cut a long story short, the problem is not how we generate electricity or other fuel types, but also how we *use* it.
The end result of any chain is heat, garbage, or both heat and garbage.
By increasing the efficiency of energy production, the rate of energy consumption *also* increases and consequently, the rate of heat and garbage *also* increase.
Simply put, the combination of overpopulation *and* wasteful behavior is the problem. Not the method of energy production.
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Errm... that's hardly a universal truth. e.g. poor Indians switching from burning cow turds for cooking and switching to electricity reduces wasted heat and reduces garbage in the environment.
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However, once provided with electricity, they will use it not only for cooking, but for everything that is possible.
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Simply put, the combination of overpopulation *and* wasteful behavior is the problem. Not the method of energy production.
There's no overpopulation problem. What makes you think that there is an overpopulation problem?
I saw Elon Musk argue we need more people, and I agree. We need people to think up new ideas, like how to grow food on Mars. We figure that out then not only can we have a sustainable colony on Mars but we will have the technology to feed everyone on Earth no matter how many people there are, we just replicate that Mars food production on Earth. I assume a food shortage concerns you. No worries, we have so m
Of Course They Don't Like It (Score:2)
They were regulators. Their job was to look for everything bad so that they could say no. They can't figure out they don't work there anymore and can look at the bigger picture now.
France (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know whether France has expensive electricity, or how massive the subsidies are, but they've been keeping Europe's lights on while the anti nuclear nitwits freeze. 70% nuclear.
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".. but they've been keeping Europe's lights on .."
That is a very single sided view leaving out the fact that renewable energy is in fact keeping french air-cons running in summer, when the rivers - used to cool the reactors - are so hot that the power output of some reactors needs either be reduced or shut down.
".. how massive the subsidies are .."
The reactors are from old investments - most of the reactors have a similar age and that is the pro as well as the con for France.
The electricity is cheap but th
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There's nothing wrong in my book with a nuclear/solar/wind/ whatever compromise. OK, nukes are less effective on hot days. Solar/wind/nat gas/ whatever will probably work just fine.
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In principle, I could agree with you, but in practice there are two problem with a nuclear / renewables combination:
1. Investments in new nuclear is not cost effective and would bind a lot of resource for a long time before plants come up and those resources are then missing for renewables (which are cost effective). There is also the problem that scaling up nuclear dramatically does not simply mean building more plants, it means building up the industry which takes longer, investing into a closed fuel cycl
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Reality check:
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
While France exports a lot of electricity, it is certainly not something which Europe can rely on as there a frequent power shortages in France for various reasons (including extended unplanned downtime of several plants due to inspections and repairs or heat waves, or very high domestic demand in winter, etc).
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Yes, but what cost? Millions dead because of nuclear accidents. The countryside polluted forever with deadly, invisible radiation. Rivers toxic with nuclear waste... hmm.
The cost is billions dead from global warming. Millions dead versus billions, potentially so many billions dead that we could see the end of humanity. That sounds like nuclear power is preferable to global warming.
Oh, right, Gregory Jaczko just told everyone we solved global warming. If that's not what he said then what does solving global warming look like? Seems to me that renewable energy costing less than fossil fuels and being able to meet all our energy needs by 2030 looks like we solved global wa
Re:France (Score:5, Informative)
France does not have millions dead from nuclear activity, and they have lower rates of deaths related to air polution than their neighboring countries.
Radiation might be invisible to the eye but it is perfectly detectable, there re no reports of french countryside being polluted with radiation nor of their rivers being toxic with nuclear waste.
Less people are dying in heavily nuclear france then in their neighboring countries relying on coal.
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Yes, but what cost? Millions dead because of nuclear accidents. The countryside polluted forever with deadly, invisible radiation. Rivers toxic with nuclear waste... hmm.
Yes. But we were talking about the real world, not the one in your head.
Jaczko (Score:5, Interesting)
Jaczko is an inveterate anti-nook. He's also a flaming asshole.
At one point his reign as NRC chairman became so intolerable for the other commissioners (all of the them, including the other D's) that they publicly accused him of bad faith and abusive management practices while sitting next to him [c-span.org] in a hearing; one of the most awkward things I've ever watched on C-SPAN.
Nuclear is a proven "climate solution" for France. It also delivers a proven "climate solution" for Quebec. It could do the same for US but — like Jaczko — we operate in bad faith.
So feel free to keep trumpeting Jaczko's periodic anti-nook screeds, as you have every few years now. It doesn't matter any more. At least not to me.
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the awkward part seems to start at about 36 min mark
We don't have enough uranium (Score:2)
Not to mention that we have only 5 years of uranium [phys.org] if we powered the world with it. 80 years at the current consumption rate.
Gregory Jaczko says we solved global warming (Score:2)
Can someone tell me what solving global warming looks like? I ask because we have Gregory Jaczko, someone that is supposed to be a subject matter expert, telling us that renewable energy is so abundant, safe, low in CO2 emissions, and inexpensive that we don't need fossil fuels or nuclear power. That sounds like we solved the problem of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming to me.
If we didn't solve global warming then would not nuclear power be preferable to global warming? I hope Jaczko is right bec
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We will do this because it's build those nuclear power reactors or see another 1970s style energy shortage.
Citation required for such an assertion.
Of course it's not. We don't have time (Score:5, Insightful)
We could dedicate 100% of all resources into building just nuclear based power right now, and the world will happily blast through the climate targets set for 2035 and beyond before the very first plant is even started up. Currently the world's western foremost nuclear experts (France and Sweden) are *STILL* trying to get nuclear plants started which were approved for construction at the turn of the century.
Part of the assumptions of the climate targets including a ramping towards them, not blast CO2 into the sky and flip a magical switch in 2035 to go back to pre year XX levels and save the world.
Nuclear may be a long term benefit to base load stabilisation, but it has precisely zero to do with our CO2 goals. That ship has sailed, sunk, been rediscovered, and had James Cameron make a movie about it.
Re: Of course it's not. We don't have time (Score:2)
South Korea has managed to build nuclear plants in as little as 5 years.
The only thing that delays nuclear is NIMBYism and barriers put in from of it by detractors.
Hidden subsidy (Score:2)
A small but significant point about nuclear power is that the full cost of insuring against a catastrophic accident is always passed to the hosting state, because if it wasn't, it would render all plants uneconomic. Of course Chernobyl and Fukushima were the result of implausible combinations of circumstances, which will never happen again. How do you rationally allow for the danger of such an event?
eco activists need to decide (Score:3)
...what is their priority?
If CLIMATE CHANGE is the imminent and critical crisis it's portrayed to be, then we must significantly stop co2 emissions as quickly as possible. That would then mandate using an existing, known tech that generates power without such emissions as broadly as possible.
If, instead, the goal is to primarily chase a bunch of environmental agenda-points from the 1970s, then by all means do so, but don't then pretend that climate change is of such immediate, critical importance.
You can't say both are the MOST important thing; that's just illustrating the incoherence of the entire approach.
Re:Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear power can be inexpensive and profitable. However, after all the fearmongering, mainly to get people to fear what they don't understand, so they can continue to live their lives begging OPEC for shipments of oil, or local coal industries to get toxic metals into the environment.
If you give nuclear power a fraction of the billions of dollars that solar power gets for research, just for a fraction of a percent more efficiency more than the previous generation of bifacial PV cell, you will see actual stuff happen. Thorium reactors, reactors that are intrinsically safe, and the fuel is liquid, so just drops into subcritical holding tanks. Nuclear is not a "can't"... it is a "we rather see people starve, and destroy what environment remains than use an energy source that has the energy density to handle modern energy needs."
Yes, people will then point out solar. However, those snazzy new Teslas are charging at home when the grid is down, and 250kW is a lot of PV area. With California banning IC engines, the need for high density energy is going to be met by two ways: Burn more coal, or go nuclear. And we have already burned up all the good coal, and we are down to the lignite crap which is barely different from peat. So, if we actually want some type of future (and yes, this is something people don't give a care about because they want their nice new car now), we either need to use nuclear, invent nuclear fusion, or go back living in caves with 95-99% of the population dead.
But people don't care. Enjoy your coal plants that power your EV. Eat, drink, and be merry.
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My EV has never been charged by anything but hydro electric or wind... In the 6 years I have driven it.
I suspect there will be fuel cell charging as clean fuels eventually happen.
I may be wrong, I believe I have charged with nuclear at times.
I think the main problem with this article is that the former chairmen suffered from becoming jaded over bureaucracy. People think nuclear is nuclear (or nucular as it is more commonly known). They don't realize that most operational fission
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:2)
Will said.
Only a combination of energy technologies will be realistic.
Wind, solar, nuclear, gas etc.
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You can increase share of more desirable, depending on particular situation, so combination plus set of priorities seems quite right. OTOH, I am bothered, that making energy out of thin air, even if safe, has implications of it returning as a heat waste. Easier you can produce, more the waste.
I would tend to seize energy, that enters the planet, and make best of use out of it. It was quite balanced, it better would stay.
Unfortunately, what is now being done around cryptocurrencies, is very opposite, and des
WTF? [Re:Welcome to the corporatocracy] (Score:3, Interesting)
If you give nuclear power a fraction of the billions of dollars that solar power gets for research, just for a fraction of a percent more efficiency more than the previous generation of bifacial PV cell, you will see actual stuff happen. .
Uh, what the fuck???
Next generation nuclear power gets way more Department of Energy funding than solar research .
Solar gets the headlines, but yes, nuclear gets tons of funding.
Re: WTF? [Re:Welcome to the corporatocracy] (Score:3)
And it has for 70 years. The magic words are "dual use technology".
Many countries that built nuclear reactors have admitted that they did so with an eye to acquiring nuclear weapons. It's probably true of countries which haven't admitted it as well. Can you imagine nuclear energy having the kind of cost efficiency gains solar has had over the last 20 years?
Re:Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
The US Navy is going to keep operating nuclear powered submarines. Not having them would be handing the seas over to America's adversaries. We are going to keep producing nuclear fuel because we are going to keep operating nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers. If the federal government was really concerned about oil spills in Arctic waters then they'd give the US Coast Guard some nuclear powered icebreakers, and set up a program for nuclear powered civilian cargo ships.
Australia decided they needed nuclear powered submarines in their navy, and this will set them up for building the infrastructure to support other nuclear powered vessels. This means they will mine for nuclear fuel. Australia has been mining for nuclear fuel for a very long time, exporting all of it but a teeny tiny bit for a handful of reactors for science experiments and medical isotopes. It's about time they kept that fuel for themselves so they don't have to import fossil fuels.
Like it or not we are going to keep using nuclear power. The issues of profitability of civil nuclear power are largely political. We can fix a lot of these political issues by not appointing people to the NRC who stated publicly that he would never approve another civil nuclear power plant. In other words, Gregory Jaczko was refusing to do his job. He was a political appointment to the NRC with the intention to see an end to civil nuclear power. Do these politicians think that is going to work forever? The federal government is a construct of the states. The federal government has only the authority the states grant it. If there are enough states that want nuclear power, and the federal government refuses to issue licenses, then the states will remove the authority of the federal government to regulate nuclear reactors and license reactors themselves. You think that won't work? Okay, then tell me that the states can't issue licenses for marijuana retail outlets. If the federal government can't enforce marijuana laws then can it keep states from violating federal laws on nuclear reactors? I don't think so.
The official party platform documents of both major political parties in then USA state support for civil nuclear power. Public polling in the USA shows majority support civil nuclear power. The state senate of West Virginia just passed a bill lifting a ban on nuclear power in the state, and the state house of delegates is likely to pass the bill. That's a state with a huge coal industry. Who's going to stop nuclear power now? Gregory Jaczko? I don't think so.
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The US Navy is going to keep operating nuclear powered submarines.
They also have fighter jets. Should everyone have one of those? It's a ridiculous thing to bring up because the requirements of the USN are nothing like the requirements for power provision to ordinary people in homes on land.
The issues of profitability of civil nuclear power are largely political.
No, they really aren't, because even with subsidies and high strike prices it's hard to convince companies to build the things. Unless you mean France, where there was a political decision to build out civil nuclear whatever the cost?
Yet again, I will point out I am in favour of nucle
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:3)
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:3, Insightful)
While there have been recent cases that have recouped costs, there have been extraordinary cases of tea payer bailouts. In Hollywood, Alabama, for instance, taxpayer funded $5 billion in constru
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:5, Interesting)
And let's talk about pollution for a moment. People complain about the cost of managing pollution coming from a nuclear plant, or even the fallot from one of the few significant failures over the years. Those efforts and costs are still absolutely trivial compared to the cost of _cleaning up_ after fossil fuels. Deepwater Horizon alone was $71.4 Billion in cost to BP. And that's for a pretty shabby cleanup, lots of that oil is still contaminating nature. For a single disaster. Of which there are many.
How about if natural gas, oil or coal had to pay for de-contaminating the atmosphere? Collecting all the sulfur, carbon mono- and dioxides, NoXes? That would add quite a few zeroes to the "cleanup" bill.
Fission, and fusion, have a huge advantage of being able to localize and contain all pollution. No other energy source can do that effectively. Windmills are spreading huge amounts of toxins and microplastics into our environment already. And the big wind farms are not profitable either. Plus, they don't provide a stable, or plannable source of electricity.
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Nuclear is a solution that can work today. It's expensive, but it's doable.
Solar and wind don't work as a complete solution, because of night, and calm air. You need to have some kind of backup, which is going to either be natural gas or nuclear.
Hydro works, if you happen to live in a geographically blessed region.
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You think nuclear is expensive, but making synthetic chemical fuel from electricity won't be?
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:3)
Re: Welcome to the corporatocracy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is all oil disinformation.
1) If you take all the nuclear waste that has been produced since the dawn of nuclear energy, it would fit in an area smaller than a football field with 50 more years to spare, safely encased in lead and concrete.
2) Currently in the US we keep all of the waste in a seismically non eventful area, buried under a mountain. There is this misconception about nuclear waste that it will accumulate beyond our ability to safely deal with. Spent fuel rods are actually quite small. Even if they weren't, there are a number of nuclear reactors that can actually recycle spent fuel rods
3) Modern thorium reactor designs can actually be shut down with no risk of meltdown. The Fukishima disaster would not have happened if they were using thorium reactors. A counter attack to this argument is the environmental disaster that a major oil spill can and has caused. Look at what happened to the Gulf of Mexico. Lets also not forget fracking leaks and poisoning of water tables. Oil and natural gas dont exactly hsve a great track record either.
4) Cost is brought up as a common argument against nuclear power. Fair enough, but if you remove the subsidies that oil and natural gas receive as well then that alternative becomes a lot more expensive as well. My final thought on this is about cost externalities. When the affordable cost of fossil fuels is brought up, this argument only holds true when burners of these fuels are not held liable for cleaning up the environmental damage and pollution that these cause. For the lead and carbon in the atmosphere that must be cleaned up, the health issues caused by those subject to this pollution, the oil spills to be cleaned up. The poisoned water supplys from fracking activities, these are all hidden costs that oil, natural gas and coal have put on society at large to deal with. The damage has been estimated to be in the trillions and the future generations are picking up the tab. Cost average this to the price per MCF of natural gas or a barrell of oil and the true cost of fossil fuels will likely make it extremely unattractive compared to not just nuclear, but most other types of renewable power generation.
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Wind and solar are going to be *easy* to clean up and decommission compared to nuclear. The used panels that only produce 70% after 28 years are in hot demand now overseas and on farms.
And in 100 years, there will be no trace of them while the nuclear will continue to glow for 1,000 years.
And no one is going to have to pay 8 million dollars a year to secure windmill waste.
All that said, *YES* we should make solar and wind escrow funds for cleanup and decommissioning now and along the way. Before they bec
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How did it fail? 10% of world energy needs are me by nuclear power apparently, and it's the world's second largest low-carbon energy source after hydroelectricity.
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How did it fail?
The Fukushima cleanup will cost about a trillion USD.
Recent nuke projects, including Vogtle and Hinkley, are decades behind schedule and have massive cost overruns.
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Don't build it on land that have earthquakes and where it can be flooded by a tsunami
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That's as though one say aeroplane travel has failed because plains crash.
It's still 10% of the world's energy needs, hardly a failing technology.
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Actually it is a trillion EUROs - and trillion means in this case, the European meaning of the word trillion, in other words: you have 9 zeros added to the American trillion ...
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Whatever the potential benefits, we'd have to build like 50 plants a year, and we've finished maybe one in the last 20. Meanwhile the earliest plants are aging out.
Define "we". There's been many nuclear power plants built in the last 20 years so whomever "we" are it does not include the entire human population.
In the 1970s the USA built 12 nuclear power plants per year, and that's about 5% of the world population. Building 50 nuclear power plants per year is not only possible for the world to do there's likely a half dozen nations capable of doing that all on their own today.
Whatever you'd like, whyever you wouldn't, it's just not something we can accomplish.
Okay then, if some rando on the internet says so without sources then it must be true.
Meanwhile solar and wind and storage are here now and just get more competitive.
Okay t