Sweden Makes Regulatory Push To Allow New Nuclear Reactors (reuters.com) 169
Sweden is preparing legislation to allow the construction of more nuclear power stations to boost electricity production in the Nordic country and bolster energy security, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Wednesday. Reuters reports: Kristersson has made expanding nuclear power generation a key goal for his right-wing government, seeking to reverse a process of gradual closures of several reactors in the past couple of decades that has left the country relying more heavily on renewable but sometimes less predictable energy. Sweden's energy mix consists mainly of nuclear, hydro and renewables and while it so far has been less affected by the turmoil surrounding gas supplies due to Russia's standoff with the West, electricity prices have been high and volatile since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
The proposed new legislation, which still needs to be passed by parliament, would allow new reactors to be constructed at additional locations across Sweden and was seen being in place in March next year. The new legislation would scrap existing rules that caps the total number of reactors at ten and prohibits reactor construction in other locations than where they currently exist, opening the door to building smaller reactors that many see as the most cost-effective nuclear option. [...] Sweden currently has six operational reactors, half of what it once had, and temporary closures for maintenance of some of them have contributed to push up electricity prices in the Nordic country in recent months.
The proposed new legislation, which still needs to be passed by parliament, would allow new reactors to be constructed at additional locations across Sweden and was seen being in place in March next year. The new legislation would scrap existing rules that caps the total number of reactors at ten and prohibits reactor construction in other locations than where they currently exist, opening the door to building smaller reactors that many see as the most cost-effective nuclear option. [...] Sweden currently has six operational reactors, half of what it once had, and temporary closures for maintenance of some of them have contributed to push up electricity prices in the Nordic country in recent months.
Waste of time (Score:2, Troll)
This is mostly the right wing politicians trying to appease voters. No new nuclear reactors are likely to be build in Sweden anytime soon.
Re: (Score:2)
There was recently an election in Sweden, the right-wing government that is now installed promised to protect consumers from high energy bills, and they promised to half the cost of fuel. Obviously, this would have created chaos in the current high-inflation environment, as made evident by Liz
Re: (Score:2)
This is mostly the right wing politicians trying to appease voters. No new nuclear reactors are likely to be build in Sweden anytime soon.
Indeed. Nuclear is old, failed and obsolete. Of course, the right-wing assholes always associate "nueclear" with "might" (because contrary to what some liars like to claim of course the only real reason ever for nuclear power was the possibility to make the bomb and no) and will not let go. Of course, they always try to force the sane rest to fund their deranged dreams.
Fortunately, the excessive cost and extreme unreliability of nuclear power (look at France), which comes on top of all the _other_ problems
Re: (Score:3)
Or not. Historically, nuclear power (including TMI (no deaths), Fukushima (1 death), and Chernobyl (a couple hundred deaths, maybe) is cleaner than coal, gas, hydro, solar (yeah, the average number of deaths annually from solar
Re:Waste of time (Score:5, Informative)
Fortunately, the excessive cost and extreme unreliability of nuclear power (look at France), which comes on top of all the _other_ problems it has will prevent new construction except in the countries that need them to maintain their nuclear arsenal (like France and the UK).
This is a perfect example of FUD strategy. Some reactors were indeed shut down in France for **planned** maintenance that had been delayed due to COVID and other external factors. Enough of them have already been restarted so that France is now a net exporter of electricity to neightboring countries (+13000MW at the time of writing, you can check here: https://www.rte-france.com/eco... [rte-france.com]).
Compare that to Germany, which invested heavily in wind power, and has to now heavily rely on coal-burning plants... The average emissions in 2022 for Germany was ~400CO2eq/kwh, whereas France is sitting at ~40CO2eq/kwh. This is taking into account the full lifecycle of all infrastructures by the way, not just the "generation" part.
Get your facts straight, propose solutions.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's far more than maintenance that has been plaguing France's reactors. The majority of them are coming to end of life, having already been extended. They checks that need doing get more and more numerous and disruptive, as the reactor vessels start to fail. Being highly radioactive, they can't be repaired.
France can't build any new reactors either. EDF is already a basket case, which had to be fully naitonalized recently due to the staggering amount of debt it has exceeding the value of its ageing assets.
Re: (Score:2)
It's far more than maintenance that has been plaguing France's reactors. The majority of them are coming to end of life, having already been extended. They checks that need doing get more and more numerous and disruptive, as the reactor vessels start to fail. Being highly radioactive, they can't be repaired.
Most maintenance operations don't happen near radioactive parts at all, I have no idea what you are talking about... Most maintenance at the moment is linked to the PWSCC issue (Primary Water Stress-Corrosion Cracking, some readings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]), which is expected and already well-known. The maintenance operation in France consists of replacing the corroded parts. In North America, which has less stringent security measures, soldering/welding/sleeving is also an accepted solutio
Re: (Score:2)
The old reactor vessels are cracking. They need to be carefully monitored, with equipment to detect microscopic cracks. Obviously there is no way to repair those cracks inside the vessel, as it is highly radioactive and heavily contaminated.
Anyone can pass a directive, doesn't mean it will happen.
Re: (Score:2)
It's far more than maintenance that has been plaguing France's reactors. The majority of them are coming to end of life, having already been extended. They checks that need doing get more and more numerous and disruptive, as the reactor vessels start to fail. Being highly radioactive, they can't be repaired.
France can't build any new reactors either. EDF is already a basket case, which had to be fully naitonalized recently due to the staggering amount of debt it has exceeding the value of its ageing assets. EDF is already mired in other nuclear projects around Europe, all massively delayed and all massively over budget.
Germany is transitioning from a bad place to a good one. Judging them half way through is silly. And in any case, if they had instead decided to build new nuclear plants on the scale they have built new renewables, they would be in an even worse position and years away from that energy coming online, and paying at least 5x as much for it when is ready.
It's because some morons, like the Germans, decided to phase out Nuclear power, so of course the plants haven't been replaced, things was scheduled for EoL, etc.
It's great that EDF was nationalized, all critical energy and infrastructure should be.
Despite all the issues, France runs the cleanest grid in Europe outside of unicorns like Iceland or Norway. Germany spent 20 years on renewable transition but is still half way through according to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Who's in denial? France runs one of the cleanest grids in Europe and is minimally dependent on russian/saudi fossil fuels.
Germany still has one of the dirtiest grids in Western Europe. Literally 4-6 times more CO2 than France in the best case when wind is blowing, much worse when it's not: https://app.electricitymaps.co... [electricitymaps.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You must not be getting any press besides Fox news....
Re: (Score:2)
My facts are straight. You are a lying asshole or an uninformed arrogant asshole. Probably both.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The lack of water problem is not the same for all steam plants, nukes need the water not just for steam but for cooling too and it has to be cool enough to do the job, that was why the French plants had to shut down, the water was too hot coming in Cooling water is not turned into steam, it just goes back into the river, and increases the river temp to problematic levems when its already warm. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Re: (Score:3)
This is a perfect example of FUD strategy. Some reactors were indeed shut down in France for **planned** maintenance that had been delayed due to COVID and other external factors. Enough of them have already been restarted so that France is now a net exporter of electricity to neightboring countries (+13000MW at the time of writing, you can check here: https://www.rte-france.com/eco [rte-france.com]... [rte-france.com]).
France achieves nuclear economy by deciding on a standard design, and then building all of its plants to that design. But because the existing standard is now fifty years old, which is why they are finally getting maintenance problems in the old plants, a new Generation IV standard is being started. The first build of the new generation, at Fessenheim, is going through the usual process of debugging that a new design takes. Once this process is complete, EDF can then have all of its new builds use that desi
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, what a surprise, you forgot to mention French nukes are paid for by massive govt subsidies, without which no private company would build them, a fact nuke nuts always seem to miss, funny that.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, what a surprise, you forgot to mention French nukes are paid for by massive govt subsidies, without which no private company would build them, a fact nuke nuts always seem to miss, funny that.
Remember when everyone used to say that about space programs?
Re: (Score:2)
Compare that to Germany, which invested heavily in wind power, and has to now heavily rely on coal-burning plants...
You're FUDing equally in the other way. Yeah Germany is struggling with a general lack of wind, but that's not at all the cause of them burning coal, a process they started before the wind lull during the past summer. Maybe you want to look up why we're bailing out Uniper (who don't generate wind power), and maybe look into a little minute conflict happening in eastern Europe. When you do so you may find out why Germany (as well as much of the rest of Europe) have kicked their coal plants into overdrive.
Re: (Score:2)
You know you could just look at the data, and it's clear that they had to burn shitloads of coal when there was almost no wind at the beginning of December (brown, teal): https://i.imgur.com/AIxo33P.pn... [imgur.com]
Best case, this would've been gas if they operationalized NS2.
Re:Waste of time (Score:5, Informative)
Some reactors were indeed shut down in France for **planned** maintenance that had been delayed due to COVID and other external factors.
It doesn't matter whether it was planned or not, the point is that nuclear reactors in france have very poor uptime.
Again, this is just FUD and made up facts. If you are actually interested by facts (which is not usually the case of the anti-nuclear religious pundits), you can read about nuclear reactor uptime in RTE yearly reports (for instance: https://bilan-electrique-2020.... [rte-france.com]). Each reactor has a 1 month planned downtime every 12 or 18 month. Compare that to the downtime of solar/wind power, just to have fun (and the fact that you can't pilot those, unless you add a way to store electricity for later use, which in turn generates CO2 emissions, often not factored in the initial costs).
You can also take into account the fact that France nuclear reactor level of security is one of the best in the world, due to the way the ASN (authority in charge of nuclear security) is independant and has complete power about the security procedures to implement. Just saying that to highlight that security has a cost, in terms of maintenance for example, and that if you were to apply the same level of requirements for other power sources (including coal, renewables, etc..), then we wouldn't be even be having this conversation.
Compare that to Germany, which invested heavily in wind power, and has to now heavily rely on coal-burning plants...
You would get a lot less output for your money with nuclear, so they would be relying even more heavily on coal if they had spent that money on nuclear... especially since the nuclear would not even be producing yet given how long it takes to build.
Again, untrue. Germany actively closed existing nuclear infrastructure, which were already built, and replaced them with coal plants and natural gaz plants. Even if you only look at the economic standpoint, this is a facepalm situation. If you now look at the initial goal, which was to lower CO2 emissions and go toward carbon-neutrality... This is actively going against that goal, while making the ignorant masses believe they are.
If you want to talk about the time it takes to build nuclear plant, happy to oblige. For reference, China builds nuclear reactors in ~4-5 years, with the same passive technology used in EDF EPR2 reactors. So no, Tchernobyl cannot happen there, there is not corners cut in terms of security. Does it mean I admire China and want to live in a dictatorship? No, of course not, but occidental countries could be smart and at least try to reduce the 10-15 years of administrative time it takes to actually start building reactors...
Oh, and if you think building wind farms is fast, just look at how long it takes to plan, build and commission an actual wind farm: between 6-8 years at best (https://anonw.com/2022/09/24/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-an-offshore-wind-farm/ , with links to the original sources if you are actually interested). More for in-land wind farms, due again to the administrative recourses that residents and cities can throw at it. Because everyone wants solar/wind farm, but not at their doorstep.
Re: (Score:2)
You can also take into account the fact that France nuclear reactor level of security is one of the best in the world
You forgot to take into account that you need intense security for your nuclear power, making it even more expensive. That is NOT an argument in favor, so thanks for making it. Are you new?
Oh, and if you think building wind farms is fast, just look at how long it takes to plan, build and commission an actual wind farm: between 6-8 years at best
So about a third as long as it takes to build a nuke plant, got it. Keep making those arguments for me.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot to take into account that you need intense security for your nuclear power, making it even more expensive. That is NOT an argument in favor, so thanks for making it.
No you don't. There is a point were intense security, applied to any power generation method is detrimental. Apply that level to coal-based plants, and suddenly everyone wants to build nuclear. Apply that to **anything**, and suddenly that **anything** becomes expensive. Not really difficult to understand, don't you agree?
Are you new?
yes, what does it have to do with the argument?
So about a third as long as it takes to build a nuke plant, got it. Keep making those arguments for me.
Or 2-3 years more than it takes to build a safe-design nuclear plant in China. Keep making those arguments for me.
Also, take into accou
Re: (Score:2)
So about a third as long as it takes to build a nuke plant, got it. Keep making those arguments for me.
Or 2-3 years more than it takes to build a safe-design nuclear plant in China. Keep making those arguments for me.
Swede here. If you think building times in Sweden and China are about the same, I have a bridge to sell you.
Until you check up on the delays of the big infrastructure projects in Sweden, I urge you refrain from posting anything about building times relating to Sweden. You just look silly to anyone that has even the faintest idea of what you are talking about.
In China the government say that something needs to be built and millions of citizens will be displaced (Three Gorges Dam displaced 1,3 million Chinese
Re: (Score:3)
You would get a lot less output for your money with nuclear, so they would be relying even more heavily on coal if they had spent that money on nuclear... especially since the nuclear would not even be producing yet given how long it takes to build.
Germany already had 30% of its electricity generated by nuclear power, so that's the baseline if they didn't shut everything down. Instead we're just now approaching 40% of renewables, after two decades of building it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Nuclear energy is carbon-free and baseload generating. The alternative to nuclear is not solar or wind, but natural gas or coal plants.
Nuclear may have a lot less carbon than coal and gas, but that is completely besides the point. Your comment is marvelously ignorant of the details of swedish energy production. Sweden has a ton of hydro, which provides all the "baseload" and load following capacity needed. In the swedish market, the "stable output" feature of nuclear just doesn't justify the 4x price compared to wind. The only thing nuclear can add in Sweden is excessive cost.
But no need to argue about it. The swedish government has no
Good for them! (Score:3)
Persuading about Nuclear (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The goal is to decarbonise, no ifs or buts and it will be hard, concrete, steel, plastics, the building blocks of our modern world are based upon CO2 intensive production. Wind and solar are intermittent, they provide cheap power on their terms. Nuclear is the Cinderella technology, spurned by those who should be embracing it.
Nuclear in breeder reactors is renewable and only leaves short lived waste, by this I mean that they can make new fissile material from exiting non fissile resources and there is billi
"nuclear, hydro and renewables" (Score:2)
"nuclear, hydro and renewables" Strange formulation from TFS. Hydro IS renewable.
For the rest, good news. But not overly surprising. Support for nuclear energy has always been strong in Sweden.
Re: (Score:3)
Who are they going to get to build it? The only game in Europe is EDF, and they are struggling to finish the ones they have started. Current build time from date of approval is 20 years, by their own estimate.
Can Sweden wait 20 years for more nuclear power?
Or is this not really about power, and rather about maintaining a nuclear deterrent against Russia?
Re: (Score:2)
Who are they going to get to build it? The only game in Europe is EDF, and they are struggling to finish the ones they have started.
Despite that they say they're going to get the french to build them (actually, he literally said they were going to buy them from the french, as if you could just order them up and have them dropped off) and don't seem to have noticed that the french nuclear program is a total shit show with garbage uptimes and exorbitant costs.
Or is this not really about power, and rather about maintaining a nuclear deterrent against Russia?
The PM also said don't believe Russian lies about weapons, so allegedly not.
The best explanation for this situation is that the Swedish PM is invested in nuclear, there's no other go
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, the other classic pro-nuclear argument - decades of public money for your pals in the construction and energy industries!
They need it more than ever now that renewables are democratizing energy.
Re: (Score:3)
Can Sweden wait 20 years for more nuclear power?
Or is this not really about power, and rather about maintaining a nuclear deterrent against Russia?
The best time to start was 20 years ago, the second best is now.
How is a power plant supposed to work as a deterrent? As we've seen russians are more than happy to fuck around with them.
Re: (Score:3)
Sweden had a nuclear weapons programme, but it was abandoned. Like Japan, keeping around the capability to create weapons grade material, and having the technology to quickly build and deploy a bomb, is considered a deterrent.
Re: (Score:2)
It's going to be even less needed now with more explicit NATO protection. They're also likely to declare that nukes won't be positioned on their territory. Seems like that would be a much more straightforward deterrence if they wanted it.
https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Then again, Ukraine was supposed to be protected by other countries and look what happened. I doubt that a conservative government would want to give up nuclear weapons capability.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? What are you referring to?
Re: (Score:2)
Ukraine agreed to give up the old Soviet nuclear weapons on the basis that it would be protected.
Re: (Score:2)
It was just an empty promise to respect territorial integrity but not much more.
Certainly nothing like NATO.
Re: (Score:2)
Ordinary nuclear power plants for power production are nt really suitable for creating weapons material.
Re: (Score:2)
If the Godzilla moose displaces the trolls it could get messy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
More seriously, solar and Sweden in the winter is not a winning combination. If they don't have enough wind, and the hydroelectric is already built out, then what other options are there?
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you dumped it outright into a city's water intake, it'd be peanuts compared to deaths coal causes.
According to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sweden has three fossil fuel power plants, none of them burn coal. The last coal plant was closed in 2020 two years ahead of schedule.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if you dumped it outright into a city's water intake, it'd be peanuts compared to deaths coal causes.
According to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sweden has three fossil fuel power plants, none of them burn coal. The last coal plant was closed in 2020 two years ahead of schedule.
I think he meant coal in general, not necessarily in the Nordic area. Coal is still commonly used, especially in developing countries where they don't bother filtering the emissions at all, unlike in Europe where it's tightly regulated.
I agree that the Swedes are quite forward thinking but have also allowed themselves to be needlessly scared over Nuclear power. The Swedes are very safety conscious and detail oriented, a perfect culture for Nuclear power.
Re: (Score:2)
DAILY traffic deaths exceed the total deaths from Chernobyl, Fukushima, and TMI.
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Any new nuclear plant built in my country will replace aging coal power plants, so I don't see it as a false dichotomy.
Building other power plants doesn't make someone richer?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Building other power plants doesn't make someone richer?
Not as much as nuclear, obviously, since nuclear is the least cost-effective option, and because the cost estimates are always overrun so there is at least one subsequent round of funding. That means more opportunity for graft.
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:4, Insightful)
And what is the cost effective option? My country has no sea access, therefore not much wind, solar works decently only half of the year (when consumption is lower) and hydro opportunities are minimal.
Also no oil or natural gas, that has to be imported. But we do have uranium.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're completely out of touch. One of the reasons for extreme electricity prices as of second half 2022 in Western/Central Europe was the lack of wind, which our neighbor Germany has been betting on.
Wrong bet. They had to substitute the prematurely decommissioned nuclear power plants by burning more coal and nat gas then ever.
Relying on renewables in context of this region means poverty.
Yepp. Not for long though. (Score:2)
In Germany gas is more important for production that heating. That Germany has been offsetting the decommissioning of Nuke-Fission with burning coal is bad. Luckily it's bad enough that even the most numbskulled Germans are starting to notice. The Fridays for Future movement is playing a good part in that, and I hope they continue to do so.
Coal electification is on the way out in Germany, albeight waaaay to slow. As with every aspect of humanities eco-turnaround on the entire planet.
Again: We're decades lat
Re: (Score:2)
The cost increase was mainly from France having only few reactors running becoming an energy importer while previously being an exporter. Energy prices were much higher in France than in Germany. Germany also exported quite a bit of energy in 2022 (26 TWh net exports, and about 15 TWh to France). Since you specifically mention the second half of 2022. Wind power generation in Germany was 45 TWh which indeed less than in 2021 (55 TWh) but this is not comparable in any to the substantial reduction in output i
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:5, Informative)
Right now yes. But read this: https://www.reuters.com/market... [reuters.com]
Peak prices in 2022 were about $0.81/kWh (without taxes and power distribution costs). Thanks to this, fixed energy prices for 2023 are around $0.58/kWh. Companies are already going bankrupt, because you can't compete with such energy expenses.
England or the Mediterranean are not our region. It's too far away.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, so instead of investing in self-sufficiency (we have both uranium and companies that can build nuclear power plants), we should be investing in buying electricity from African dictators?
You do know how that worked out for us with buying Russian nat gas, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The idea that wind blowing at any particular point in time is relevant to this discussion is a dumb one, trivially debunked by looking at the actual wind power generation of countries in the region over the past 6 months.
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: Yepp. Not for long though. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not as much as nuclear, obviously, since nuclear is the least cost-effective option, and because the cost estimates are always overrun so there is at least one subsequent round of funding. That means more opportunity for graft.
I don't know the answer to this question, but how much of the cost of nuclear is due to capital costs and how much is due to ongoing costs? That makes a big difference in deciding whether to decommission existing plants and in estimating the number of years to break even cost-wise. Another big issue is why nuclear costs are so high. As we see in California, environmental considerations can dialed up arbitrarily high or low to effectively kill any project. If coal safety were subject to the same level of
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only way to make nuclear look good is with a false dichotomy, that is, to compare it to coal.
In Germany, which is now transitioning from nuclear to coal, it's a real dichotomy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear looks good compared to pretty much anything other than maybe geothermal but you need to luck into being in the right area for that.
Open vent geothermal is a shit show that also involves radioactive waste. Closed loop geothermal is expensive AF. Wind has less lifecycle CO2 output than nuclear, and literally anything else is cheaper than nuclear. Nuclear takes forever and always costs more than it says, and even if it cost what it said it would still be exorbitantly expensive.
TL;DR: Nuclear is shit and defending it is shitty
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Please ignore any posts that dinkypoo makes about nuclear power. The individual only posts in nuclear threads to spread FUD using outdated, misleading, and fabricate data. The individual knows next to nothing about true state of nuclear power. This lack of knowledge has been proven many times.
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:5, Insightful)
Wind has less lifecycle CO2 output than nuclear
Sweden did research on wind and found that it has about 9% "adequacy rating". It means that if you want to get reliable generation in all cases equal to nameplate capacity, you need to overbuild it by about 11x. See: https://www.svk.se/siteassets/... [www.svk.se]
This makes wind pretty much useless if you want _reliable_ generation.
Re: (Score:2)
Sweden did research on wind and found that it has about 9% "adequacy rating". It means that if you want to get reliable generation in all cases equal to nameplate capacity, you need to overbuild it by about 11x. See: https://www.svk.se/siteassets/... [www.svk.se]
Thanks for referring to an interesting report. I don't know why you referred to a report from 2018, when there's a report from 2022 available:
https://www.svk.se/siteassets/... [www.svk.se]
However, I couldn't find the numbers you're citing in the (2018) report, could cite the section please? Or better, the section in the 2022 report?
According to the 2022 report, (appendix 2), the predicted availability for winter 2022/2023 during the peak load hour is:
- Hydro: only 82% of nameplate rating, due to e.g. water magazine leve
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for referring to an interesting report. I don't know why you referred to a report from 2018, when there's a report from 2022 available:
It's the one that I studied professionally and had in my bookmarks.
So the planning can only assume to use wind for 9% of the peak load, and e.g. hydro and nuclear would have to cover the bulk. But I don't agree with your conclusion (wind is useless for _reliable_ generation). The assumption here is 9% reliable power, which is not nothing.
This makes wind useless if you want to not freeze in winter. Overbuilding by 11x is not going to happen, and no reasonable near-future storage technology is enough to compensate for that.
You need to combine wind with other types of power production, but that's also true for hydro. Further, remember the 82% availability of hydro? When wind does produce more than 9%, it means hydro can reduce its production and thus use less of the stored water. Or use excess electricity to increase the amount of stored water.
It's more complex. Hydro is unavailable mostly during the summer time, when the rivers are low. It's usually completely available during winter time, which is the most problematic season for power generation.
Basically, this all makes nuclear power to be pr
Re: (Score:2)
It's the one that I studied professionally and had in my bookmarks.
Could please site the section in the 2018 report to which you referred for the 9% number? I'm not sure you understand what it means (based on you referring to it as "adequacy rating").
So the planning can only assume to use wind for 9% of the peak load, and e.g. hydro and nuclear would have to cover the bulk. But I don't agree with your conclusion (wind is useless for _reliable_ generation). The assumption here is 9% reliable power, which is not nothing.
This makes wind useless if you want to not freeze in winter. Overbuilding by 11x is not going to happen, and no reasonable near-future storage technology is enough to compensate for that.
*sigh* No, wind power is not useless. Using hydro to store energy has been in use for a long time, it's not in the future. There's no need to assume sweden would _only_ use wind to produce electricity.
You need to combine wind with other types of power production, but that's also true for hydro. Further, remember the 82% availability of hydro? When wind does produce more than 9%, it means hydro can reduce its production and thus use less of the stored water. Or use excess electricity to increase the amount of stored water.
It's more complex. Hydro is unavailable mostly during the summer time, when the rivers are low. It's usually completely available during winter time, which is the most problematic season for power generation.
What are you talking about? Predicted availability for hydro is 75% for the peak load during summer. See table 11 in the 2022
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:4, Insightful)
Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps ... and still far less damaging than coal.
This is the thing about the anti-nuclear brigade. Confidence and conviction bred from ignorance.
Amusingly, they also tend to have hordes of kids.
Are you seriously trying to claim that people who are anti-nuclear are somehow by definition pro-coal? I hope not, because that would be really, really stupid. As far as we are concerned coal is even worse than nuclear just because of the toxic emissions and the carbon footprint. In fact I'd be willing to postpone getting rid of nuclear until after the last coal plant has been shut down.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you seriously trying to claim that people who are anti-nuclear are somehow by definition pro-coal?
No, anti-nuclear people have to reluctantly go to coal when there aren't enough unicorns. This is how at Garzweiler they have Greens fighting other Greens.
Re: (Score:2)
Please don't say "we" like you're representative of a grand monolithic collective that is as reasonable as your own comment here seems to be. I assure you that there are morons on every side of this issue in disappointingly large numbers. I don't know how many times I've been trying to lay out my position on the issue in a polite, thoughtful, and convincing way... and had some idiot "on my side" come into the conversation like a bull in a china shop with belligerent and insulting "arguments" that will do no
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately there is no logical or objective scale on which you can measure which form of energy production is more safe: coal or nuclear.
Both are unsafe, both we do need to get rid of, at least in Germany. I do not really care how americans e.g. produce their power, as long as they move away from coal and other CO2 producing sources. Same for China.
Sweden on the other hand is dangerous close to Germany and I rather wished they would not put money into nukes. But alas: it is their country, not my business
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:4, Insightful)
The pro nuke folk have lost the argument, so they resort to "why do you love coal" instead. A but further down you have e3m4n arguing about energy density, as if Sweden doesn't have plenty of room for renewables. Reminds me of Windborne's old "EROI" arguments, as if it mattered in the slightest.
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is the Pro-Nuke people killed themselves in the arguement by demonstrating a profound lack of ability to actually build the things. I'm higly pro-nuclear as a technology, but as an engineer it is completely clear to me that the technology is not only not competitive with any other way of generating energy but it would be so at original estimates. But we're not achieving the original estimates, we're blowing the budget by a factor of 4x the schedule by a factor of 3x, and more alarming still we're blowing up the companies that have the expertise to build it.
When experts like AREVA go bankrupt and get nationalised by France's EDF, when Westinghouse decides to sell to Toshiba and Toshiba decides fuck this we're out and sells the corpse onto an investment banker I have no good things left to say about an industry around a technology I support. It seems not even the industry itself wants to build nuclear at this point.
Re:Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dumps (Score:5, Insightful)
This is because we stopped building them. No shit that the industrial base disintegrates if no plants are built in 10-15 years.
We know it can be done in reasonable time because it's been done in the 70s-80s.
Re: (Score:2)
We know it can be done in reasonable time because it's been done in the 70s-80s.
Completely agree. To add to your argument, it is still being built in reasonable time in China (and it hurts me to recognize that, given what I think about this regime), with the same fail-safe design used in France reactors.
Bureaucracy and idealogy has overtaken common sense, and it will take a while to find our way back so that we get experts again at building these kinds of projects.
Re: (Score:2)
To add to your argument, it is still being built in reasonable time in China
No it's not. Most Chinese projects have original estimates that are way over what we did in the 70s and 80s, and while they don't blow out by a factor of 3-4x they do blow out by a factor of 2x.
Example: One of the recent Chinese power plants: Taishan. Construction began in 2008. Planned time 46 months. Actual time 88 months. It took China 10 years to get this thing built. But they were oh so quick (sarcasm). So quick in fact that after only 3 years of operation it had to be shutdown for 2 years to repair sh
Re: (Score:2)
The plants from the 70s and 80s had expensive flaws and wouldn't meet modern safety standards. The reason we stopped building them is because it turned out that the assumptions made about safety were wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
We know it can be done in reasonable time because it's been done in the 70s-80s.
And cars are cheaper and faster to build too when we don't include crumple zones or seatbelts. Don't look to a very different past as a judgement of the present or future. Our capabilities of the 70s and 80s are not related at all to what we attempt to build today.
Even the Chinese, masters of throwing resources to get something done quickly and dictators cutting through red tape struggle to get a modern reactor built quickly. We don't build reactors like we did in the 70s and 80s, nor do we want to.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is the Pro-Nuke people killed themselves in the arguement by demonstrating a profound lack of ability to actually build the things.
Russia has built a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh within 6 years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ), the first unit construction started in late 2017 and it's now in the process of being commissioned (it'll take around a year). China is building reactors at about the same pace.
The problem is that you need very niche engineering and industrial capacity to build nuclear power plants. And once it's lost, you have to spend some time regaining it.
Re: (Score:2)
You've let the girl down by being premature. You don't get to make a claim of 6 years until something is finished. In fact it's not 6 years, currently the best guess estimate is 8 years from your own link (2016 ground preparation work, 2024 target operation for first reactor).
Better still I've seen these numbers before. Flamanville 3 in France broke ground in 2007. In 2015 they announced commissioning and completion in 2016. In 2016 it became 2017, in 2017 it bec.... skip ... in 2022 it became 2023.
Similar
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
...and still far less damaging than coal.
Since no one in the EU is advocating more coal plants, and Sweden has none now, a comparison with coal is irrelevant.
The alternative is to invest in renewables + storage.
The bottom line is that power from new EPR/AP1000 nukes is about four times the cost of power from new wind turbines.
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If ... that area is limited,
The area is not limited. There is no shortage of land in northern Sweden.
doesnt it make sense to install a reactor there to get the most energy per sq ft?
No. Optimizing for space rather than cost in a vast wilderness makes no sense at all.
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:5, Insightful)
I see three problems with gathering all nuclear power in the north of Sweden.
Firstly it would degrade one of the big assets of northern Sweden: the (mostly) unspoiled nature. Perhaps you can live with it, but I happen to have this part of the world as my back yard, and do not want it degraded with nuclear power plants. I am not anti-nuclear, I am anti-gathering-the-nuclear-plants-in-one-area.
Then there is the problem of distribution. The way the grid is at the moment, Sweden can't transport more electricity from the north to the south of the country. So if we were to build a lot of power plants (nuclear or otherwise) in the north of the country, in order to get any use of them we would also have to expand the transmission line network. Although it can be done, it is not done over night. I would guess that it would have to be done more or less at the same time as the construction of the power plants.
Thirdly, it would make Sweden needlessly vulnerable in case some aggressive neighbour decided to invade us: just a handful of small bombs in the right places, and the Swedish electricity grid could be completely incapacitated. Ten minutes after an initial strike with cruise missiles and Sweden would be reduced to bartering for everything, because no modern infrastructure (without electricity you can't have internet, and thus no internet-tied payment system) would work.
If Sweden really is to build any more nuclear power plants (and I think we need to), they should be built as close as practically possible to were the power is needed: the southern half (more like third or quarter) of the country, and the major cities.
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly it would degrade one of the big assets of northern Sweden: the (mostly) unspoiled nature.
Sweden would be nuts to build these nukes, but this is a silly objection. They would take up like 0.00001% of the unspoiled nature. The acreage used by a nuke is negligible.
Thermal pollution is a bigger problem, but these would be located on the shore of the Baltic Sea where the thermal pollution would be dissipated.
Thirdly, it would make Sweden needlessly vulnerable in case some aggressive neighbour decided to invade us
We all know which neighbor you mean. The solution is to join NATO. Welcome.
Re: (Score:2)
The area something takes up and the nature it spoils are not the same thing. A power plant and transmisison line may take up a few sqkm of physical space, but would literally ruin thousands of sqkm of pristine nature, because nothing says "nature" more than seeing a cooling tower, or a HV transmission line cutting a gap through the trees.
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dum (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly it would degrade one of the big assets of northern Sweden: the (mostly) unspoiled nature.
Sure you are not confusing nuclear with hydro? The damage done by access roads and construction is tiny in comparison.
If Sweden really is to build any more nuclear power plants (and I think we need to), they should be built as close as practically possible to were the power is needed: the southern half (more like third or quarter) of the country, and the major cities.
You want a buffer of 50km from towns, preferably 100km from major cities. Not hard in Sweden. Chernobyl (not that any modern reactor would be as bad) was 100km from Kyiv centre, and they were OK.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dum (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I do. There were problems with Uranium mining in the 50's and 60's. Thankfully those problems no longer exists. We learned. That's why every argument about uranium mining cites talks about things that happened in the 50's and 60's(because there are no modern examples).
Lucky Uranium is dense. Which means we do not need a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why every argument about uranium mining cites talks about things that happened in the 50's and 60's(because there are no modern examples).
I am talking about the land and effort required, so mentioning the 50s and 60s makes no sense.
Re: (Score:2)
How did you come up with that magical storage number?
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)
Re: Enough remote areas for the nuclear waste dump (Score:2)