3 ms·

It's nuclear itself. It's extremely expensive and currently only viable with massive centralized structures. Even commercial small scale nuclear will not work w

by lispm 8y ago

It's nuclear itself. It's extremely expensive and currently only viable with massive centralized structures. Even commercial small scale nuclear will not work without government funding. The usual user is the military, which is currently the only user of small scale nuclear plants -> ships and submarines. Nuclear dies not because of 'eco' organizations, but because we've put zillions into it and now the nuclear landscape we got speaks for itself.

nickik 8y ago
The two things interact. Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. You ask normal people, who don't have a clue about nuclear energy if they support it and 'normal' people will simply say 'no' and the reason is some vague 'dangerous and waste'. Exactly what the messaging from these organisations was for 50 years. In some states, like Australia for example the minister is expressly forbidden by law to even consider a nuclear solution to a environmental or energy problem. In Austria Greenpeace activists surrounded newly build nuclear plant and forced is shutdown (it was replaced by coal but Greenpeace of course doesn't care). In Germany massive anti-war and green movement went strongly anti nuclear and progressively increased pressure against nukes and in a politically opportune moment they managed to shut down the whole industry. In Switzerland we passed a law not even allowing research on nuclear reactors mostly for the same nonsense reasons. You can go back to the original Sierra Club Anti-Nukes, they quite literally had an express strategy to sell one thing 'danger/waste' and they specifically did this to increase regulation in order to make it unprofitable. That is directly stated in their communication. This has been their strategy for 50 years and it has worked on the population and on governments around the world, people are simply misinformed. Of course they could not do it alone, but while they are loud the Oil/Coal lobby is massively against nuclear energy and always has been. You can find that even 40 years ago they cross financed anti-nuclear 'eco' people. The problem with the current landscape is that because of regulation in most countries is basically impossible to bring a new nuclear plant to market. Lots of government money dumped in a few (mostly government) project does not mean that nuclear as a technology is the problem.
- lispm 8y ago
  > Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Germany invested for example into a Thorium-based high-temperature pebble-bed reactor. Guess what? The promised reliability was not there. Even more, the thing was not commercially viable - so the INDUSTRY closed it, not green eco groups. The current public opinion is not the result of green eco fanatics, but because the the nuclear political/industrial/military complex could not demonstrate its commercial viability and because nuclear is fundamentally opposed to a free, decentralized and open society. We've seen the breeder concepts. A disaster. Seen the fate of the breeder in Japan? It was damaged during construction, sitting around for a long time - not because of eco fanatics - because neither government or industry were willing to put more money and work into it. After some time they decided to revive that old reactor - which then had even more problems. Now it will be dismantled. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approved_to_.html http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approv... Don't tell me eco-fanatics were responsible for this failure. Germany invested into its own breeder. Which is now an amusement park in Kalkar. Another failed project which cost zillions of tax payer money. Germany than had a demonstrator for a nuclear storage site (Asse II). Industry and government were handling it. Water leaks into it. It is unstable. Etc. It now costs zillions to fix that. The result of 'build reactors first and care about storage later' is that nuclear material piles up near reactors. Which was one of the reasons for the cost of the Fukushima event: the spent-fuel pools were full and were located high up in the buildings. You probably have see the desperate attempts to cool these pools from the outside which contributed to the damage of the buildings. We had a stream of these failures. Each time the industry and government came with new proposals. More money poured into it and more failures. Technical failures. Economical failures. And gradually the acceptance for new projects was going down - even among the proponents. Siemens then invested zillions into the development of the French next generation reactor. That reactor turned out to be another problematic project and Siemens (a former proponent of nuclear technology) pulled out of that - because it cost them lots of money. The construction problems of these reactors are real (faulty steel, complex software, ...) and not green eco inventions. These reactors are built in France and Finland in nuclear friendly surroundings - yet they have massive cost increases and time delays... for a current update see here: https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d5... The problems costs the industry hundreds of millions and we are not talking about eco propaganda, but real technical problems and delays. Claiming that the failure of the nuclear industry is because of green propaganda, forgets a stream of expensive and failed nuclear projects. In the end the government and industry were not able to demonstrate their capability to handle this complex system - it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown - despite massive needs for their electricity. Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. After Fukushima multiple failures were contributing to the problems - each single one were unthinkable before: full meltdowns, complete loss of outside energy, tsunami flooding the building, failing emergency electricity, failing electricity to cool spend fuel pools, hydrogen explosions in the building, etc. etc. This thing is a total collapse of any promised safety of these. Now don't tell me that this was an old design - it was claimed safe just weeks before the collapse. Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda. This cleanup will cost several hundred billion dollar and will be extremely hard work for three or four decades.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Hinkley C is cheaper than the proposed seven barrage £80 per MW vs £150 estimated for the barage.
- Reason077 8y ago
  Hinkley C is costing £92.50 per MWh in 2012 pounds, rising with inflation. The Severn barage will be more, but it is a “first of type” demonstrator design and it is hoped that costs would be lower for future, larger projects.
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Remind me again how many Severn estuaries we have in the UK.
    - Reason077 8y ago
      Sorry, “thinko” there. I meant to refer to the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, which is promoted as a “pathfinder” project for other, larger lagoons. The Severn barrage is, of course, much larger in scope and there isn’t any near-term proposals to develop it.

by lispm 8y ago

nickik 8y ago

The two things interact. Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. You ask normal people, who don't have a clue about nuclear energy if they support it and 'normal' people will simply say 'no' and the reason is some vague 'dangerous and waste'. Exactly what the messaging from these organisations was for 50 years. In some states, like Australia for example the minister is expressly forbidden by law to even consider a nuclear solution to a environmental or energy problem. In Austria Greenpeace activists surrounded newly build nuclear plant and forced is shutdown (it was replaced by coal but Greenpeace of course doesn't care). In Germany massive anti-war and green movement went strongly anti nuclear and progressively increased pressure against nukes and in a politically opportune moment they managed to shut down the whole industry. In Switzerland we passed a law not even allowing research on nuclear reactors mostly for the same nonsense reasons. You can go back to the original Sierra Club Anti-Nukes, they quite literally had an express strategy to sell one thing 'danger/waste' and they specifically did this to increase regulation in order to make it unprofitable. That is directly stated in their communication. This has been their strategy for 50 years and it has worked on the population and on governments around the world, people are simply misinformed. Of course they could not do it alone, but while they are loud the Oil/Coal lobby is massively against nuclear energy and always has been. You can find that even 40 years ago they cross financed anti-nuclear 'eco' people. The problem with the current landscape is that because of regulation in most countries is basically impossible to bring a new nuclear plant to market. Lots of government money dumped in a few (mostly government) project does not mean that nuclear as a technology is the problem.

lispm 8y ago
> Because of the 'eco' and other organisation successful 'anti-nuke' organisation any improvement or discussion is made extremely difficult. I would say its one of the most successful 'campaigns' the 'eco' people have ever pulled. Nuclear has been sponsored with zillions of government money and lots of pro-nuclear propaganda. We had a discussion about this for two decades. We observed more zillions put into nuclear with ever less return. Germany invested for example into a Thorium-based high-temperature pebble-bed reactor. Guess what? The promised reliability was not there. Even more, the thing was not commercially viable - so the INDUSTRY closed it, not green eco groups. The current public opinion is not the result of green eco fanatics, but because the the nuclear political/industrial/military complex could not demonstrate its commercial viability and because nuclear is fundamentally opposed to a free, decentralized and open society. We've seen the breeder concepts. A disaster. Seen the fate of the breeder in Japan? It was damaged during construction, sitting around for a long time - not because of eco fanatics - because neither government or industry were willing to put more money and work into it. After some time they decided to revive that old reactor - which then had even more problems. Now it will be dismantled. http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approved_to_.html http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/04/30-year_plan_approv... Don't tell me eco-fanatics were responsible for this failure. Germany invested into its own breeder. Which is now an amusement park in Kalkar. Another failed project which cost zillions of tax payer money. Germany than had a demonstrator for a nuclear storage site (Asse II). Industry and government were handling it. Water leaks into it. It is unstable. Etc. It now costs zillions to fix that. The result of 'build reactors first and care about storage later' is that nuclear material piles up near reactors. Which was one of the reasons for the cost of the Fukushima event: the spent-fuel pools were full and were located high up in the buildings. You probably have see the desperate attempts to cool these pools from the outside which contributed to the damage of the buildings. We had a stream of these failures. Each time the industry and government came with new proposals. More money poured into it and more failures. Technical failures. Economical failures. And gradually the acceptance for new projects was going down - even among the proponents. Siemens then invested zillions into the development of the French next generation reactor. That reactor turned out to be another problematic project and Siemens (a former proponent of nuclear technology) pulled out of that - because it cost them lots of money. The construction problems of these reactors are real (faulty steel, complex software, ...) and not green eco inventions. These reactors are built in France and Finland in nuclear friendly surroundings - yet they have massive cost increases and time delays... for a current update see here: https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 https://www.ft.com/content/dda39a0c-256e-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d5... The problems costs the industry hundreds of millions and we are not talking about eco propaganda, but real technical problems and delays. Claiming that the failure of the nuclear industry is because of green propaganda, forgets a stream of expensive and failed nuclear projects. In the end the government and industry were not able to demonstrate their capability to handle this complex system - it was fully exposed in Japan, where the reactors are still mostly shutdown - despite massive needs for their electricity. Building them and in this way in an area of high seismic activity was simply a failure. Before Fukushima its reactors were inspected and rated save. After Fukushima multiple failures were contributing to the problems - each single one were unthinkable before: full meltdowns, complete loss of outside energy, tsunami flooding the building, failing emergency electricity, failing electricity to cool spend fuel pools, hydrogen explosions in the building, etc. etc. This thing is a total collapse of any promised safety of these. Now don't tell me that this was an old design - it was claimed safe just weeks before the collapse. Thus undermines any trust into the industry and government - not green eco propaganda. This cleanup will cost several hundred billion dollar and will be extremely hard work for three or four decades.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Hinkley C is cheaper than the proposed seven barrage £80 per MW vs £150 estimated for the barage.

Reason077 8y ago
Hinkley C is costing £92.50 per MWh in 2012 pounds, rising with inflation. The Severn barage will be more, but it is a “first of type” demonstrator design and it is hoped that costs would be lower for future, larger projects.
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Remind me again how many Severn estuaries we have in the UK.
  - Reason077 8y ago
    Sorry, “thinko” there. I meant to refer to the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, which is promoted as a “pathfinder” project for other, larger lagoons. The Severn barrage is, of course, much larger in scope and there isn’t any near-term proposals to develop it.