3 ms·

"Critical to moving coal"? Perhaps moving less coal would be a good thing.

jeroenhd 8y ago
With the shutdown of nuclear reactors, Germany is starting to rely more and more on coal plants to provide a stable source of power that isn't dependent on weather patterns (sun for solar panels, rainfall for hydro electric).
- lucb1e 8y ago
  In Germany, someone invited me to lunch in a place that, upon walking in, had one of those stickers "close $some_reactor" with a nuclear danger logo on it. I almost told them I didn't want to eat there. I'm not sure what to do about it. Should I summarize the reasons they are stupid and put those flyers in their mailboxes, or would that only get their backs up? Of course I'd not call it stupid in such a flyer but more in the style of Without Hot Air: 'our energy demands are X because this and that; solar is Y Watts per m² so we need Y/X/$size of them, which would be equivalent to $some_state; of wind turbines we would need ... etc. Meanwhile, $this is what is happening to our climate, which by $year will be $that. With nuclear, we could reduce our output to $amount CO2 while producing X amount of nuclear waste. The waste can be stored $there and this buys us a few hundred years to figure things out for the long term. We need nuclear as a stop-gap. Don't support short-term popular voices that will kill us in the long term." Does anyone have experience reasoning with anti-nuclears?
  - aurelwu 8y ago
    There are just way more economic solutions than new nuclear power stations (and the old ones really start to have a lot of issues and have a lot of downtime). Look at Wylfa Newydd, Hinkley Point C, Flamanville 3, Olkiluoto 3 and then you will see that without even starting to include the massive costs of decomissioning and storage there are just way more economic solutions to reduce co2 emissions. When it comes to demolition take a look at Greifswald Nuclear Power Plant [0], which was decommissioned in 1990 and they are not even close to being finished with demolition - after 30 Years, and apparently there are 1000 Workers employed on or at the site. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant
    - lucb1e 8y ago
      Is there a study or some other resource of someone who looked at all these cases and calculated a cost, then compared them to these "other, more economical solutions to reduce CO2"? And are those "show hn" style prototypes, or is there anything that actually makes a difference that shows up on national statistics (of a country of your choice)? You make it sound as if there is no reason to go for nuclear at all, while that's not what I hear from others. Edit: by the way, I did not downvote you (one cannot downvote direct replies) and don't know why you are. Maybe it's because you never mentioned what those economical options are, so your post does not really add much to the subthread without further information?
      - aurelwu 8y ago
        it's not the newest one (but prices for renewables have improved since and Hinkley Point C got more expensive) but here is one study which partially looks at it: https://web.archive.org/web/20160602073630/https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2014/low-carbon-technologies/Agora_Analysis_Decarbonisationtechnologies_web_final.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160602073630/https://www.agora... I'm from germany so most studies I know are in german so sorry for being a bit sparse on english sources and I guess german is of no use to you, If I find the time I'll try to find some more.
ddebernardy 8y ago
Indeed, but Germany unfortunately relies on coal for a large chunk (around 40% [1]) of its electricity production, and it's phasing out nuclear. [1]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-2/assessment-4 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...

With the shutdown of nuclear reactors, Germany is starting to rely more and more on coal plants to provide a stable source of power that isn't dependent on weather patterns (sun for solar panels, rainfall for hydro electric).

lucb1e 8y ago
In Germany, someone invited me to lunch in a place that, upon walking in, had one of those stickers "close $some_reactor" with a nuclear danger logo on it. I almost told them I didn't want to eat there. I'm not sure what to do about it. Should I summarize the reasons they are stupid and put those flyers in their mailboxes, or would that only get their backs up? Of course I'd not call it stupid in such a flyer but more in the style of Without Hot Air: 'our energy demands are X because this and that; solar is Y Watts per m² so we need Y/X/$size of them, which would be equivalent to $some_state; of wind turbines we would need ... etc. Meanwhile, $this is what is happening to our climate, which by $year will be $that. With nuclear, we could reduce our output to $amount CO2 while producing X amount of nuclear waste. The waste can be stored $there and this buys us a few hundred years to figure things out for the long term. We need nuclear as a stop-gap. Don't support short-term popular voices that will kill us in the long term." Does anyone have experience reasoning with anti-nuclears?
- aurelwu 8y ago
  There are just way more economic solutions than new nuclear power stations (and the old ones really start to have a lot of issues and have a lot of downtime). Look at Wylfa Newydd, Hinkley Point C, Flamanville 3, Olkiluoto 3 and then you will see that without even starting to include the massive costs of decomissioning and storage there are just way more economic solutions to reduce co2 emissions. When it comes to demolition take a look at Greifswald Nuclear Power Plant [0], which was decommissioned in 1990 and they are not even close to being finished with demolition - after 30 Years, and apparently there are 1000 Workers employed on or at the site. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greifswald_Nuclear_Power_Plant
  - lucb1e 8y ago
    Is there a study or some other resource of someone who looked at all these cases and calculated a cost, then compared them to these "other, more economical solutions to reduce CO2"? And are those "show hn" style prototypes, or is there anything that actually makes a difference that shows up on national statistics (of a country of your choice)? You make it sound as if there is no reason to go for nuclear at all, while that's not what I hear from others. Edit: by the way, I did not downvote you (one cannot downvote direct replies) and don't know why you are. Maybe it's because you never mentioned what those economical options are, so your post does not really add much to the subthread without further information?
    - aurelwu 8y ago
      it's not the newest one (but prices for renewables have improved since and Hinkley Point C got more expensive) but here is one study which partially looks at it: https://web.archive.org/web/20160602073630/https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin/Projekte/2014/low-carbon-technologies/Agora_Analysis_Decarbonisationtechnologies_web_final.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160602073630/https://www.agora... I'm from germany so most studies I know are in german so sorry for being a bit sparse on english sources and I guess german is of no use to you, If I find the time I'll try to find some more.

ddebernardy 8y ago

Indeed, but Germany unfortunately relies on coal for a large chunk (around 40% [1]) of its electricity production, and it's phasing out nuclear. [1]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-2/assessment-4 https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...