4 ms·

Carbon emissions and climate change were solved decades ago in France with nuclear power. We can adopt the French model and export it worldwide.

legulere 7y ago
France imports electricity in summer when the rivers are too warm for nuclear power and in winter they also start to have problems (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-power-analysis-idUSKBN16K1CX https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-power-ana...).
- perfunctory 7y ago
  "France passed an ambitious energy law in 2015 with a target of cutting the share of nuclear in its electricity mix to 50 percent by 2025 from 75 percent currently, while investing in renewables and efficiency to curb consumption and heat loss." Didn't know that.
anoncake 7y ago
I'll laugh at you blind nuclear supporters when one the French reactors inevitability fails catastrophically. Unless I'm busy dying or evacuating to some place that has spare housing for a few million people. I mean, nuclear is still better than fossils, but it's still a ridiculously stupid idea.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  There is no alternative to nuclear, if you care about cutting CO2 emissions. Wind and solar is necessairly paired with natural gas (or coal) because they cannot power a modern economy by themselves (and there is no battery technology capable of operating at city-scale). So how else are you supposed to cut CO2 emissions?
  - tzs 7y ago
    > and there is no battery technology capable of operating at city-scale Batteries aren't the only way to store energy. Isn't pumped hydraulic able to work at city scale?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - PeterisP 7y ago
      > Isn't pumped hydraulic able to work at city scale? Not really. Pumped hydro is able to work at the scale of a city, but not in the scale of many cities - effective pumped hydro requires very specific locations (a sizeable river with sufficient flow; a comparably high drop, and space for a large reservoirs not only above the dam but also below the dam) which are quite rare. The best spots for it are already used; you can't simply take a normal hydro power dam location and use it effectively for pumped hydro. We could double the current use of pumped hydro; we could triple it; heck, perhaps we might use ten times of current pumped hydro if we're ready to destroy lots of ecosystems by altering major rivers, but it's physically impossible to have enough pumped hydro to cover half of our grid.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        Disused coal mines have a surprisingly high capacity for that. And hydro is not nearly the only storage method aside from batteries.
        macspoofing 7y ago
        - pumped-hydro won't work because there are very few places that have the conditions to enable it. Hydro in general is great, but we've pretty much dammed every river that can be dammed. - batteries won't work because there is no technology today or incoming that can a) store enough to power a city for hours, days, or weeks and b) can even main storage across weeks or months (as would be needed since wind/solar varies seasonally and yearly) So what other storage methods are left?
- dang 7y ago
  Personal attacks and uncivil comments will get you banned here. You've done this elsewhere too—that's not good. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking greater care to follow them on HN? We'd appreciate that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - anoncake 7y ago
    Yes, I will.
    - dang 7y ago
      Thanks!
tamaharbor 7y ago
How much greenhouse gas is produced via the mining, enrichment, and transportation of uranium? Nuclear is NOT carbon free.
cschwarm 7y ago
France had a nationalized energy supply and distribution when it build its nuclear power plants. This was an important factor for their success. Try exporting the nationalization of the energy supply to the U.S.. By the way, they are still driving gasoline cars in France. Obviously, they didn't 'solve' carbon emissions.
- corodra 7y ago
  Actually, more and more municipalities are buying back their grids and making them public. It’s a slow movement but more places see that’s its better to put their utilities in public hands. There are some 30 some odd small cities and counties in the voting process as of earlier this year. I read an article about it... can’t remember where. I think a mix in the chain is really good. Some parts private, some public. The problem is management. Where private does excel better than public is foresight as long as the numbers justify it. Gov doesn’t like admitting problems until they happen. Private will circumvent a problem if the catastrophe is more expensive than the fix. Usually, not always. But no one celebrates a plane landing, except for the passengers. We all just talk about the crashes.
  - m-ee 7y ago
    PG&E seems to contradict the idea that private sector will try to avoid expensive catastrophes
    - corodra 7y ago
      They’re the poster child situation why municipalities “should” convert to public grid. I quote should just because I don’t have a big dog in the fight, but I do somewhat agree. There’s a lot of interesting stories on the subject that should be researched.
HaukeHi 7y ago
France has not solved climate change, because French emissions are very small in global terms. Continued reliance on outdated nuclear technology might not have the same crucial global technology spillovers as investments in other clean energy (including advanced nuclear). Since the best path towards global decarbonization is through global technology spillover into emerging economies, the actors that have the best emissions score may, surprisingly, not be the most effective actors at reducing the global rate of emissions in the future. This has some counterintuitive implications. Consider that Germany has higher carbon emissions than France even though it has invested more heavily in solar than its neighbor, which uses much more nuclear. Should advanced economies like Germany leave their nuclear plants running? Perhaps, but it will not make a very large dent in global emissions because 75% of all future emissions will come from emerging economies, which will not adopt the kind of (non-advanced) nuclear power currently in use in Germany & France. Nuclear only contributes 5% to the world’s energy supply[159] and even in China, where regulation is lax and public opposition to nuclear is not as big an issue for policy-makers, few reactors are currently being built (_six_ in the last 18 months). While advanced nuclear power in some advanced economies might actually reduce nuclear proliferation risk by using up nuclear material, in other countries, nuclear power might increase proliferation risks.[161] It will not be used in many emerging economies.[162] Consider that only 1–5 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are currently plan to have commercial nuclear power and these countries are at least 10 years away from starting construction on nuclear plants.[163] citations here: http://lets-fund.org/clean-energy http://lets-fund.org/clean-energy
- sunkenvicar 7y ago
  Generation 3 nuclear is producing power in France, right now. It is able to solve climate change and carbon emissions globally. The problems you list are psychological, not technical. Gen 3 nuclear buys us time to get to Gen 4 nuclear which will buy us time to get to nuclear fusion. The theoretical work is proven, these more advanced technologies only need engineering solutions.
  - 7952 7y ago
    You can dismiss "psychological" problems all you want, but that won't make them go away.
BlueTemplar 7y ago
Oh yes, such a "great" model : - Overly complex fuel chain that actually makes the waste issue worse. - Inability to keep the know-how for more than a few decades and corruption resulting in the loss of ability to build new reactors without big flaws (note that Japan seems to have the same issue). - Inability of planning ahead for even a few decades resulting in new reactors not being built fast enough to compensate for the planned retirement of old reactors, with the most likely consequence : keeping old reactors running until one of them melts down. - Inability to set up long term waste storage.

legulere 7y ago

France imports electricity in summer when the rivers are too warm for nuclear power and in winter they also start to have problems (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-power-analysis-idUSKBN16K1CX https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-power-ana...).

perfunctory 7y ago
"France passed an ambitious energy law in 2015 with a target of cutting the share of nuclear in its electricity mix to 50 percent by 2025 from 75 percent currently, while investing in renewables and efficiency to curb consumption and heat loss." Didn't know that.

anoncake 7y ago

I'll laugh at you blind nuclear supporters when one the French reactors inevitability fails catastrophically. Unless I'm busy dying or evacuating to some place that has spare housing for a few million people. I mean, nuclear is still better than fossils, but it's still a ridiculously stupid idea.

macspoofing 7y ago
There is no alternative to nuclear, if you care about cutting CO2 emissions. Wind and solar is necessairly paired with natural gas (or coal) because they cannot power a modern economy by themselves (and there is no battery technology capable of operating at city-scale). So how else are you supposed to cut CO2 emissions?
- tzs 7y ago
  > and there is no battery technology capable of operating at city-scale Batteries aren't the only way to store energy. Isn't pumped hydraulic able to work at city scale?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    > Isn't pumped hydraulic able to work at city scale? Not really. Pumped hydro is able to work at the scale of a city, but not in the scale of many cities - effective pumped hydro requires very specific locations (a sizeable river with sufficient flow; a comparably high drop, and space for a large reservoirs not only above the dam but also below the dam) which are quite rare. The best spots for it are already used; you can't simply take a normal hydro power dam location and use it effectively for pumped hydro. We could double the current use of pumped hydro; we could triple it; heck, perhaps we might use ten times of current pumped hydro if we're ready to destroy lots of ecosystems by altering major rivers, but it's physically impossible to have enough pumped hydro to cover half of our grid.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      Disused coal mines have a surprisingly high capacity for that. And hydro is not nearly the only storage method aside from batteries.
      - macspoofing 7y ago
        - pumped-hydro won't work because there are very few places that have the conditions to enable it. Hydro in general is great, but we've pretty much dammed every river that can be dammed. - batteries won't work because there is no technology today or incoming that can a) store enough to power a city for hours, days, or weeks and b) can even main storage across weeks or months (as would be needed since wind/solar varies seasonally and yearly) So what other storage methods are left?
dang 7y ago
Personal attacks and uncivil comments will get you banned here. You've done this elsewhere too—that's not good. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and taking greater care to follow them on HN? We'd appreciate that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- anoncake 7y ago
  Yes, I will.
  - dang 7y ago
    Thanks!

tamaharbor 7y ago

How much greenhouse gas is produced via the mining, enrichment, and transportation of uranium? Nuclear is NOT carbon free.

cschwarm 7y ago

France had a nationalized energy supply and distribution when it build its nuclear power plants. This was an important factor for their success. Try exporting the nationalization of the energy supply to the U.S.. By the way, they are still driving gasoline cars in France. Obviously, they didn't 'solve' carbon emissions.

corodra 7y ago
Actually, more and more municipalities are buying back their grids and making them public. It’s a slow movement but more places see that’s its better to put their utilities in public hands. There are some 30 some odd small cities and counties in the voting process as of earlier this year. I read an article about it... can’t remember where. I think a mix in the chain is really good. Some parts private, some public. The problem is management. Where private does excel better than public is foresight as long as the numbers justify it. Gov doesn’t like admitting problems until they happen. Private will circumvent a problem if the catastrophe is more expensive than the fix. Usually, not always. But no one celebrates a plane landing, except for the passengers. We all just talk about the crashes.
- m-ee 7y ago
  PG&E seems to contradict the idea that private sector will try to avoid expensive catastrophes
  - corodra 7y ago
    They’re the poster child situation why municipalities “should” convert to public grid. I quote should just because I don’t have a big dog in the fight, but I do somewhat agree. There’s a lot of interesting stories on the subject that should be researched.

HaukeHi 7y ago

France has not solved climate change, because French emissions are very small in global terms. Continued reliance on outdated nuclear technology might not have the same crucial global technology spillovers as investments in other clean energy (including advanced nuclear). Since the best path towards global decarbonization is through global technology spillover into emerging economies, the actors that have the best emissions score may, surprisingly, not be the most effective actors at reducing the global rate of emissions in the future. This has some counterintuitive implications. Consider that Germany has higher carbon emissions than France even though it has invested more heavily in solar than its neighbor, which uses much more nuclear. Should advanced economies like Germany leave their nuclear plants running? Perhaps, but it will not make a very large dent in global emissions because 75% of all future emissions will come from emerging economies, which will not adopt the kind of (non-advanced) nuclear power currently in use in Germany & France. Nuclear only contributes 5% to the world’s energy supply[159] and even in China, where regulation is lax and public opposition to nuclear is not as big an issue for policy-makers, few reactors are currently being built (_six_ in the last 18 months). While advanced nuclear power in some advanced economies might actually reduce nuclear proliferation risk by using up nuclear material, in other countries, nuclear power might increase proliferation risks.[161] It will not be used in many emerging economies.[162] Consider that only 1–5 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are currently plan to have commercial nuclear power and these countries are at least 10 years away from starting construction on nuclear plants.[163] citations here: http://lets-fund.org/clean-energy http://lets-fund.org/clean-energy

sunkenvicar 7y ago
Generation 3 nuclear is producing power in France, right now. It is able to solve climate change and carbon emissions globally. The problems you list are psychological, not technical. Gen 3 nuclear buys us time to get to Gen 4 nuclear which will buy us time to get to nuclear fusion. The theoretical work is proven, these more advanced technologies only need engineering solutions.
- 7952 7y ago
  You can dismiss "psychological" problems all you want, but that won't make them go away.

BlueTemplar 7y ago

Oh yes, such a "great" model : - Overly complex fuel chain that actually makes the waste issue worse. - Inability to keep the know-how for more than a few decades and corruption resulting in the loss of ability to build new reactors without big flaws (note that Japan seems to have the same issue). - Inability of planning ahead for even a few decades resulting in new reactors not being built fast enough to compensate for the planned retirement of old reactors, with the most likely consequence : keeping old reactors running until one of them melts down. - Inability to set up long term waste storage.