8 ms·

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

andromeduck 10y ago
It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.
- imglorp 10y ago
  Furthermore, China is also investigating Thorium tech. This might be the bigger news long term.
  - morsch 10y ago
    Built upon the technology of Germany's AVR[1]. We're still cleaning up that mess. "The total AVR decommissioning costs are expected to be in the order of 1.5 – 2.5 billion €, all public funds, ie to exceed its construction costs by far." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
    - imglorp 10y ago
      That sounds like a mess but it was a U/Th, pebble bed mess. Hopefully Th molten salt method works out better.
- morsch 10y ago
  France is doing so well that during last November's cold snap they were considering cutting power to industry and rolling power outages for the population because too many of their ancient, brittle nuclear power plants were out of commission and the import capacity from neighbouring countries was at its limit. http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-idUSL8N1D92V1 http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-id... (Reuters claims that there wasn't enough spare capacity in Germany; in fact the transfer capacity of ~2 GW was the limiting factor; http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860 http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860) For what it's worth, I think the temperatures improved before the more drastic measures had to be implemented. And of course people are free to argue that taking those French plants down for review was an overreaction by an overly critical nuclear regulation regime.
  - maxfurman 10y ago
    Seems to me like the problem there stems from the French government skimping on maintenance, rather than their decision to use nuclear plants in the first place.
- drdrey 10y ago
  FWIW, 2 of the 5 major candidates to the French presidential election (Hamon and Mélenchon) are calling for the end of nuclear power in France.
cookiecaper 10y ago
I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write this off, there are some very tragic photo essays from Pripyat and Fukushima that can make this impact feel very real. Do you want to risk that happening to your area?
- massysett 10y ago
  Fossil fuels simply dump the pollutants into the atmosphere, killing people without a paper trail.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants build up gradually and can be controlled. You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. And nuclear power generation also emits a very dangerous pollutant: nuclear waste.
    - Griffinsauce 10y ago
      > You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. No, you get kicked out of life when you get diagnosed with cancer.
    - Nrsolis 10y ago
      I think you have a different definition of the word "emit" than I do. Nuclear waste is stable, does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools, and can be reprocessed if required. All existing spent nuclear fuel in the united states is stored on-site. It's been that way since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, particulate and greenhouse gas (including CO2) emissions from coal-fired plants migrate with the wind, often polluting areas far from the plant. I don't see how you can compare the two. It's true that spent fuel is very toxic but every single attempt to deal with this issue has been stymied with rampant NIMBYism and non-science based fear mongering. You can control the operational risks associated with nuclear power. Doing so with fossil fueled plants is not nearly as easy.
stephenr 10y ago
The huge risks (both financial type and "boom" type) with building and supporting nuclear reactors seems like pretty solid evidence that they are not "one of the best alternatives".
- hackuser 10y ago
  "best" is relative; what is better, that can scale up sufficiently to meet the world's energy demand? Perhaps renewables can scale up, but last I heard that wasn't realistic on the time scale humanity needs. Does anyone have good information on that question?
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > what is better, that can scale up sufficiently The article specifically mentions that pretty much every major builder of nuclear plants outside of China are in trouble and/or downsizing/restructuring in big ways. So, tell me again how "nuclear can scale up"?
    - maxfurman 10y ago
      Nuclear generates a lot more kilowatt-hours per square-foot than renewables, especially in places that aren't very sunny or windy. I am not advocating for a 100% nuclear grid, but I don't see how we can get rid of coal without a decent number of nuclear plants.
      - lutorm 10y ago
        Not a relevant metric. If there's one thing the world has plenty of, it's area.
        maxfurman 10y ago
        It's very relevant, because a) we need to reserve enough area for people to live, and for growing the food we need, and hopefully for a few parks as well, and b) transmission and storage of electricity across long distances is not trivial. It isn't feasible to, for example, cover the entire surface area of Africa with solar panels and use that energy to power the rest of the world.
CodeWriter23 10y ago
This narrative holds only so long as one completely disregards the potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima. The simple fact of the matter is no technology exists to adequately and safely address the worst-case failure scenarios. We would do better to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst reversing deforestation during a transition to solar than to build even one more nuclear plant.
- kodfodrasz 10y ago
  The Fukushima incident is very far from potentially extinction level. You provide no numbers just do the usual empty nuke-bashing. Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. I guess when it will turn out that pumping more CO2 wasn't the best idea it will also be nuclear industry's fault.
  - faet 10y ago
    >Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. In case people are curious about this claim the reason Germany's "renewable energy" releases so much CO2 is because a large portion of their 'renewable energy' is burning wood. Burning wood isn't "net neutral" until trees live over 100 years. Until then, it's worse than coal. http://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/PFPI-Biomass-is-the-New-Coal-April-2-2014.pdf http://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/PFPI-Biomass-... Most tree farms don't let trees grow 100 years either. >Based on consumption trends in our region, using wood to generate power here or to make fuel pellets for power generation in Europe is projected to produce higher levels of atmospheric carbon(300%) than fossil fuels for 35 to 50 years. After that time, carbon levels will begin to fall as regrowing forests absorb CO2 from previous combustion, but it is likely too late to avoid irreversible effects on the climate system. https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/biomass-energy-in-the-south https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/bioma...
    - Tepix 10y ago
      > a large portion of their [Germanys] 'renewable energy' is burning wood. citation needed.
Zigurd 10y ago
> Nuclear power, while not perfect... If I had a nickel for every time. Nuclear power has no excuses. The cost of accidents is astronomical and uninsurable. That's not a regulatory cost unless you think a risk of that magnitude should "go naked" in some free-market fantasy of handling uninsurable risks. It sure would be nice if there was a grid-scale power source that emitted no CO2. But it's not anyone else's fault but the nuclear industry that we don't have such a thing.
Chathamization 10y ago
Every time I've look into it seems like this isn't the case. Nuclear plants are simply too expensive, have too many production bottlenecks, and take too long to construct (too name but a few issues). No serious analysis I've seen of how we meet emissions goals has ever placed a big emphasis on nuclear power. Probably one of the biggest parts of meeting the goals will be increased energy efficiency, but a lot of nuclear advocates I've seen seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's all about 100% carbon free electricity generation (something that's not going to happen either way).
- graeme 10y ago
  Why do you think efficiency would solve things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox I think only having power sources cheaper than carbon will fix it. Which could potentially include sources cheaper because a carbon tax forces carbon prices to include their externalities.
  - Chathamization 10y ago
    Studies show that efficiency initiatives can reduce emissions[1][2]. It's not going to solve everything, but as I said, it's going to be a major component, as will alternative energy sources like wind and solar (you won't be able to get 100% wind and solar, but you don't have to). Any serious analysis of ways to fight global warming looks at a variety of different actions. They don't pretend that there's a single component ("Have all electricity generation done by [X Type Power Plant]") that solves everything. This is one of the things I've noticed about a lot of nuclear advocacy. Though there's often appeals to science and reason, the main driver appears to be an emotional one. There's the claim that the real interest is in combating global warming, but many advocates have shown no interest in learning about the best ways to combat global warming. Their interest seems to start and stop with advocacy for their preferred solution, whether or not it's even a good solution to the problem. [1] https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/tracking_emissions.pdf https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publicatio... [2] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents/ee_and_carbon.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents...

andromeduck 10y ago

It's okay China and France are still doing wepl I think. China especially seems quite bullish on nuclear so I guess there's still hope. Korea, India and Canada are still doing okay too.

imglorp 10y ago
Furthermore, China is also investigating Thorium tech. This might be the bigger news long term.
- morsch 10y ago
  Built upon the technology of Germany's AVR[1]. We're still cleaning up that mess. "The total AVR decommissioning costs are expected to be in the order of 1.5 – 2.5 billion €, all public funds, ie to exceed its construction costs by far." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor
  - imglorp 10y ago
    That sounds like a mess but it was a U/Th, pebble bed mess. Hopefully Th molten salt method works out better.
morsch 10y ago
France is doing so well that during last November's cold snap they were considering cutting power to industry and rolling power outages for the population because too many of their ancient, brittle nuclear power plants were out of commission and the import capacity from neighbouring countries was at its limit. http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-idUSL8N1D92V1 http://www.reuters.com/article/france-power-winteroutlook-id... (Reuters claims that there wasn't enough spare capacity in Germany; in fact the transfer capacity of ~2 GW was the limiting factor; http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860 http://www.iwr.de/news.php?id=32860) For what it's worth, I think the temperatures improved before the more drastic measures had to be implemented. And of course people are free to argue that taking those French plants down for review was an overreaction by an overly critical nuclear regulation regime.
- maxfurman 10y ago
  Seems to me like the problem there stems from the French government skimping on maintenance, rather than their decision to use nuclear plants in the first place.
drdrey 10y ago
FWIW, 2 of the 5 major candidates to the French presidential election (Hamon and Mélenchon) are calling for the end of nuclear power in France.

cookiecaper 10y ago

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write this off, there are some very tragic photo essays from Pripyat and Fukushima that can make this impact feel very real. Do you want to risk that happening to your area?

massysett 10y ago
Fossil fuels simply dump the pollutants into the atmosphere, killing people without a paper trail.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants build up gradually and can be controlled. You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. And nuclear power generation also emits a very dangerous pollutant: nuclear waste.
  - Griffinsauce 10y ago
    > You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. No, you get kicked out of life when you get diagnosed with cancer.
  - Nrsolis 10y ago
    I think you have a different definition of the word "emit" than I do. Nuclear waste is stable, does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools, and can be reprocessed if required. All existing spent nuclear fuel in the united states is stored on-site. It's been that way since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, particulate and greenhouse gas (including CO2) emissions from coal-fired plants migrate with the wind, often polluting areas far from the plant. I don't see how you can compare the two. It's true that spent fuel is very toxic but every single attempt to deal with this issue has been stymied with rampant NIMBYism and non-science based fear mongering. You can control the operational risks associated with nuclear power. Doing so with fossil fueled plants is not nearly as easy.

stephenr 10y ago

The huge risks (both financial type and "boom" type) with building and supporting nuclear reactors seems like pretty solid evidence that they are not "one of the best alternatives".

hackuser 10y ago
"best" is relative; what is better, that can scale up sufficiently to meet the world's energy demand? Perhaps renewables can scale up, but last I heard that wasn't realistic on the time scale humanity needs. Does anyone have good information on that question?
- stephenr 10y ago
  > what is better, that can scale up sufficiently The article specifically mentions that pretty much every major builder of nuclear plants outside of China are in trouble and/or downsizing/restructuring in big ways. So, tell me again how "nuclear can scale up"?
  - maxfurman 10y ago
    Nuclear generates a lot more kilowatt-hours per square-foot than renewables, especially in places that aren't very sunny or windy. I am not advocating for a 100% nuclear grid, but I don't see how we can get rid of coal without a decent number of nuclear plants.
    - lutorm 10y ago
      Not a relevant metric. If there's one thing the world has plenty of, it's area.
      - maxfurman 10y ago
        It's very relevant, because a) we need to reserve enough area for people to live, and for growing the food we need, and hopefully for a few parks as well, and b) transmission and storage of electricity across long distances is not trivial. It isn't feasible to, for example, cover the entire surface area of Africa with solar panels and use that energy to power the rest of the world.

CodeWriter23 10y ago

This narrative holds only so long as one completely disregards the potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima. The simple fact of the matter is no technology exists to adequately and safely address the worst-case failure scenarios. We would do better to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst reversing deforestation during a transition to solar than to build even one more nuclear plant.

kodfodrasz 10y ago
The Fukushima incident is very far from potentially extinction level. You provide no numbers just do the usual empty nuke-bashing. Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. I guess when it will turn out that pumping more CO2 wasn't the best idea it will also be nuclear industry's fault.
- faet 10y ago
  >Germany does what you described. They are so green they emit more CO2 since they went green. In case people are curious about this claim the reason Germany's "renewable energy" releases so much CO2 is because a large portion of their 'renewable energy' is burning wood. Burning wood isn't "net neutral" until trees live over 100 years. Until then, it's worse than coal. http://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/PFPI-Biomass-is-the-New-Coal-April-2-2014.pdf http://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/PFPI-Biomass-... Most tree farms don't let trees grow 100 years either. >Based on consumption trends in our region, using wood to generate power here or to make fuel pellets for power generation in Europe is projected to produce higher levels of atmospheric carbon(300%) than fossil fuels for 35 to 50 years. After that time, carbon levels will begin to fall as regrowing forests absorb CO2 from previous combustion, but it is likely too late to avoid irreversible effects on the climate system. https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/biomass-energy-in-the-south https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/bioma...
  - Tepix 10y ago
    > a large portion of their [Germanys] 'renewable energy' is burning wood. citation needed.

Zigurd 10y ago

> Nuclear power, while not perfect... If I had a nickel for every time. Nuclear power has no excuses. The cost of accidents is astronomical and uninsurable. That's not a regulatory cost unless you think a risk of that magnitude should "go naked" in some free-market fantasy of handling uninsurable risks. It sure would be nice if there was a grid-scale power source that emitted no CO2. But it's not anyone else's fault but the nuclear industry that we don't have such a thing.

Chathamization 10y ago

Every time I've look into it seems like this isn't the case. Nuclear plants are simply too expensive, have too many production bottlenecks, and take too long to construct (too name but a few issues). No serious analysis I've seen of how we meet emissions goals has ever placed a big emphasis on nuclear power. Probably one of the biggest parts of meeting the goals will be increased energy efficiency, but a lot of nuclear advocates I've seen seem to be under the mistaken impression that it's all about 100% carbon free electricity generation (something that's not going to happen either way).

graeme 10y ago
Why do you think efficiency would solve things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox I think only having power sources cheaper than carbon will fix it. Which could potentially include sources cheaper because a carbon tax forces carbon prices to include their externalities.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  Studies show that efficiency initiatives can reduce emissions[1][2]. It's not going to solve everything, but as I said, it's going to be a major component, as will alternative energy sources like wind and solar (you won't be able to get 100% wind and solar, but you don't have to). Any serious analysis of ways to fight global warming looks at a variety of different actions. They don't pretend that there's a single component ("Have all electricity generation done by [X Type Power Plant]") that solves everything. This is one of the things I've noticed about a lot of nuclear advocacy. Though there's often appeals to science and reason, the main driver appears to be an emotional one. There's the claim that the real interest is in combating global warming, but many advocates have shown no interest in learning about the best ways to combat global warming. Their interest seems to start and stop with advocacy for their preferred solution, whether or not it's even a good solution to the problem. [1] https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/tracking_emissions.pdf https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publicatio... [2] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents/ee_and_carbon.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents...