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I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? Wh

by lispm 8y ago

I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up. 'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work? A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to build, while not being able to be financed on the market (see the UK).

orbifold 8y ago
People have done these calculations. They come out in favor of nuclear in terms of area efficiency and price per kilowatt hour. It is just that politically it is a hard sell in a lot of countries.
- pfdietz 8y ago
  And in the real world, instead of the calculations, nuclear is far behind in price per kWh. Unfortunately for nuclear, the power has to be generated in the real world, not on powerpoint slides.
Amygaz 8y ago
There isn’t a single line in OP’s post that isn’t wrong. He gets the costs wrong, he gets the deployment wrong, he gets efficiencies wrong, he get political stories wrong. If a post is not going to get downvoted, HN should at least have a way to label it as incorrect.
theshrike79 8y ago
Building new nuclear is slow and expensive because we stopped doing it for a looong time. Way too many power plants are from the 80's and before. Maybe they've had a few upgrades, but they're mostly at the end of their lifespan or even over their recommended life.
- lispm 8y ago
  Check the fate of the EPR projects. Just replacing eol reactors in the west will be hard.
vlehto 8y ago
http://withouthotair.com/ http://withouthotair.com/ "A vital tool agains global warming" means that it's our only possibility. It's not about cost, it's about what is physically possible.
- lispm 8y ago
  repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stagnating on a global scale.
  - vlehto 8y ago
    If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these: >How many? As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time. >What timeframe? Now. >Costs? Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change. >Who builds them? Whoever can. >Which models? Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal. >Where do we build them? Doesn't matter. Any location is safer than burning coal. >What effects does it have when? Hope that we might have climate change to stop below 3 degrees.
    - lispm 8y ago
      Just like I thought. You have no idea how to do it, what it is going to cost and what impact it will have. This will convince nobody.
      - vlehto 8y ago
        Are you doubting nuclear or are you doubting climate change?
        8y ago
pytester 8y ago
Yep, Hinkley point is ~£95 per MWh while renewables are ~£45. It makes no sense to complain about how polluting coal plants are in relation to nuclear. It isn't the main source of competition. Germany has been taking both nuclear and coal offline and renewables have been plugging the gap for both for some years now and will likely continue to do so. It boggles my mind that the nuclear industry itself demands that all disaster cleanup costs over $300 million be shouldered by the government yet it is trying to project an image of how it is the "safe" option. If they don't have enough faith in their own safety to raise the cap why should we?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Gondolin 8y ago
  Germany has been taking coal offline after taking nuclear offline; and are replacing coal by gas (so they depend even more on Russia) instead of replacing it by nuclear or renewable. They produce 3x the CO2 of France, despite their commitment against global warming. In an ideal world, renewable would replace everything. We are not yet in this ideal world, and we don't know the time frame to get to it (there are huge technological challenges, while the challenge for nuclear reactor are solved since 50 years. Of course they are still RD to be done on the nuclear side too, like molten salt reactors). Given the economic and human cost of global warming, investing into nuclear too alongside renewable (rather than instead) seems the safer bet. Again, I am not saying that nuclear is a miracle energy that will solve all our problem (fusion would be). Nuclear energy does have a lot of problems. But these problems are trivial which respect to global warming, and we should solve global warming first (which again will involve even more electricity than we produce right now). Focusing on closing nuclear first (like Germany did!) is like worrying about a leak under the sink while the whole house is on fire.
  - lispm 8y ago
    > Germany has been taking coal offline after taking nuclear offline; and are replacing coal by gas (so they depend even more on Russia) instead of replacing it by nuclear or renewable Germany's Energiewende is a many decade long plan with going beyond 80+ renewable energy for electricity in 2050. The Energiewende is not just about CO2 reductions, it is about making renewable energy viable in an industrialized country. This has impact for all of us. Not just in Germany. If the US had a forward looking government and population, we would much further along the way. The energy consumption in the US is twice as high per capita as in Germany and there is no credible energy policy beyond fracking gas. The current US president is a coal lover and he was voted for that into his office. Imagine the amount of research money and infrastructure money the US COULD invest into a new energy systems - instead it wastes money on wars, consumption and trillion dollar deficits. > investing into nuclear too alongside renewable (rather than instead) seems the safer bet That's why it has to go and somebody has to invest to make that viable. Germany is doing exactly that. > Focusing on closing nuclear first (like Germany did!) Germany did focus on renewable energy and the most incompatible industry had to go first. Renewable energy is not about nuclear and renewable side by side - this won't work. Nuclear is a huge state owned monopolistic system. Renewable is market oriented, decentralized, non-monopolistic. The break-up of the old system was inevitable to jump-start the new energy system. It's a complete paradigm shift like going from Mainframe computing to a distributed Internet.
dv_dt 8y ago
A tell is the comparison is always vs coal instead of natural gas or renewables ...

by lispm 8y ago

orbifold 8y ago

People have done these calculations. They come out in favor of nuclear in terms of area efficiency and price per kilowatt hour. It is just that politically it is a hard sell in a lot of countries.

pfdietz 8y ago
And in the real world, instead of the calculations, nuclear is far behind in price per kWh. Unfortunately for nuclear, the power has to be generated in the real world, not on powerpoint slides.

Amygaz 8y ago

There isn’t a single line in OP’s post that isn’t wrong. He gets the costs wrong, he gets the deployment wrong, he gets efficiencies wrong, he get political stories wrong. If a post is not going to get downvoted, HN should at least have a way to label it as incorrect.

theshrike79 8y ago

Building new nuclear is slow and expensive because we stopped doing it for a looong time. Way too many power plants are from the 80's and before. Maybe they've had a few upgrades, but they're mostly at the end of their lifespan or even over their recommended life.

lispm 8y ago
Check the fate of the EPR projects. Just replacing eol reactors in the west will be hard.

vlehto 8y ago

http://withouthotair.com/ http://withouthotair.com/ "A vital tool agains global warming" means that it's our only possibility. It's not about cost, it's about what is physically possible.

lispm 8y ago
repeated appeals were not what I was looking for. where are the numbers which describe the the contribution of nuclear power to control global warming? How many? What timeframe? Costs? Who builds them? Which models? Where do we build them? What effects does it have when? What are possible scenarios? If nuclear proponents want to be taken serious, they need to answer those kinds of questions. Currently nuclear is stagnating on a global scale.
- vlehto 8y ago
  If you take climate change stuff seriously, then the answers are these: >How many? As many as you can build. You run out of engineers and carpenters before you make too many reactors in time. >What timeframe? Now. >Costs? Doesn't matter that much. Easily cheaper than climate change. >Who builds them? Whoever can. >Which models? Hardly matters, any model is safer than burning coal. >Where do we build them? Doesn't matter. Any location is safer than burning coal. >What effects does it have when? Hope that we might have climate change to stop below 3 degrees.
  - lispm 8y ago
    Just like I thought. You have no idea how to do it, what it is going to cost and what impact it will have. This will convince nobody.
    - vlehto 8y ago
      Are you doubting nuclear or are you doubting climate change?
      - 8y ago

pytester 8y ago

Yep, Hinkley point is ~£95 per MWh while renewables are ~£45. It makes no sense to complain about how polluting coal plants are in relation to nuclear. It isn't the main source of competition. Germany has been taking both nuclear and coal offline and renewables have been plugging the gap for both for some years now and will likely continue to do so. It boggles my mind that the nuclear industry itself demands that all disaster cleanup costs over $300 million be shouldered by the government yet it is trying to project an image of how it is the "safe" option. If they don't have enough faith in their own safety to raise the cap why should we?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Gondolin 8y ago
Germany has been taking coal offline after taking nuclear offline; and are replacing coal by gas (so they depend even more on Russia) instead of replacing it by nuclear or renewable. They produce 3x the CO2 of France, despite their commitment against global warming. In an ideal world, renewable would replace everything. We are not yet in this ideal world, and we don't know the time frame to get to it (there are huge technological challenges, while the challenge for nuclear reactor are solved since 50 years. Of course they are still RD to be done on the nuclear side too, like molten salt reactors). Given the economic and human cost of global warming, investing into nuclear too alongside renewable (rather than instead) seems the safer bet. Again, I am not saying that nuclear is a miracle energy that will solve all our problem (fusion would be). Nuclear energy does have a lot of problems. But these problems are trivial which respect to global warming, and we should solve global warming first (which again will involve even more electricity than we produce right now). Focusing on closing nuclear first (like Germany did!) is like worrying about a leak under the sink while the whole house is on fire.
- lispm 8y ago
  > Germany has been taking coal offline after taking nuclear offline; and are replacing coal by gas (so they depend even more on Russia) instead of replacing it by nuclear or renewable Germany's Energiewende is a many decade long plan with going beyond 80+ renewable energy for electricity in 2050. The Energiewende is not just about CO2 reductions, it is about making renewable energy viable in an industrialized country. This has impact for all of us. Not just in Germany. If the US had a forward looking government and population, we would much further along the way. The energy consumption in the US is twice as high per capita as in Germany and there is no credible energy policy beyond fracking gas. The current US president is a coal lover and he was voted for that into his office. Imagine the amount of research money and infrastructure money the US COULD invest into a new energy systems - instead it wastes money on wars, consumption and trillion dollar deficits. > investing into nuclear too alongside renewable (rather than instead) seems the safer bet That's why it has to go and somebody has to invest to make that viable. Germany is doing exactly that. > Focusing on closing nuclear first (like Germany did!) Germany did focus on renewable energy and the most incompatible industry had to go first. Renewable energy is not about nuclear and renewable side by side - this won't work. Nuclear is a huge state owned monopolistic system. Renewable is market oriented, decentralized, non-monopolistic. The break-up of the old system was inevitable to jump-start the new energy system. It's a complete paradigm shift like going from Mainframe computing to a distributed Internet.

dv_dt 8y ago

A tell is the comparison is always vs coal instead of natural gas or renewables ...