5 ms·

> We need a massive buildout of wind and solar and nuclear.

by zakk 7y ago

merb 7y ago
in germany we do not have a long term storage solution that can safely withstand over 1000s of years for nuclear waste. also capitalisem will always makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe.
- Luc 7y ago
  You don’t have warehouses in Germany?
- techrich 7y ago
  If the contract to build the plant is let correctly, then it can be made to be safe. When something is outsourced and it does not work, most of the time the person letting the contract has done a shit job.
  - merb 7y ago
    well we germans do not have a good track of making buildings correctly and safe in the recent past. it either took twice as long and was twice as expensive or it was a complete mess. and this was with things that needs to be less safe than a nuclear power plant. germany lost a lot of knowledge in the construction space thats why I highly doubt that we can make a safe nuclear power plant that might produce less garbadge. also corporate entities grown in power in germany and they try to safe as much money as possible.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zakk 7y ago
  > in germany we do not have a long term storage solution that can safely withstand over 1000s of years for nuclear waste. A much simpler problem to solve as compared to other challenges due to climate change. You can build a storage big enough to contain all radioactive waste from current and future nuclear power plants probably in less than one year.
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    And yet, not a single facility like that exists anywhere. In the US, Frace, Germany, and every other country with nuclear waste, attempts to built long-term storage have been stalled for decades.
    - zakk 7y ago
      > And yet, not a single facility like that exists anywhere That's factually wrong. There are several deep geological repositories currently in operation.
      - merb 7y ago
        yeah in germany there is one, it will not withstand the time. the second one is still under construction. we had two others which also needed to be closed.
      - IAmEveryone 7y ago
        No, there are none. Not a single operational long-term storage facility for highly radioactive waste. The US plan is Yukka Mountain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...) proposed in 1987 and not yet open. Germany has a similar story with Gorleben (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben_salt_dome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben_salt_dome), which was proposed in 1973 and also isn't actually operational. The prototype, also in an old salt mine, nicely showed how difficult these projects actually are when brine flooded the storage area, corroded the containers, and mixed with the contained polonium, cesium, etc. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m... for the full overview. It's full of great sentences like: > Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, although there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions
        zakk 7y ago
        > No, there are none. According to Wikipedia there are many currently in operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository#Repository_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository#Rep... Is Wikipedia wrong?
- roenxi 7y ago
  > also capitalisem will always makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe. Literally half the bad nuclear disasters happened under communism, the opposite of capitalism. Due 100% to gross mismanagement. That was Chernobyl. The half that happened under capitalism (Fukushima) was a mild incident compared to the catastrophic natural disaster that triggered it. Capitalists, funny to say, go to extraordinary lengths to protect their very expensive capital. They want safe nuclear power more than anyone.
  - firethief 7y ago
    > Capitalists, funny to say, go to extraordinary lengths to protect their very expensive capital. They want safe nuclear power more than anyone. Are you serious? The price of the reactor is an insubstantial part of the potential cost of a nuclear accident.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      > Are you serious? The price of the reactor is an insubstantial part of the potential cost of a nuclear accident. I don't really follow your complaint. Yes. I don't see how the cost of the accident is relevant to the incentives a plant operator works under; the odds of an accident are lower than the odds of being hit by a car (and the effects of a car impact are worse, because someone/several somebodies will likely be dead instead of mass inconvenience as is typical in the capitalist half of all nuclear accidents). So that isn't a major risk as the engineers see it and probably won't affect any individuals behavior as much as the fact that if someone owns an expensive thing they look after it because they are not stupid. If someone owns an asset that cost >$100 million dollars to obtain they are not going to skimp on maintenance costs in a way that risks it breaking down. Owners who can afford to buy infrastructure are going to keep it in good condition. If you think it is worth owning something that expensive then it is worth keeping it maintained. Capitalists have a lot of problems, but they are good at maintaining capital. The idea that capitalism can't maintain capital is absurd - what type of capitalist lets their capital decay? They would cease to be capitalist by virtue of having no capital. Doing a good job of maintaining capital is one of the core tenants of capitalism as practiced. The idea that capitalism will "makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe" is so wrong that it just needs to be called out. Nuclear is a great example of this because - as mentioned - under capitalism the disasters have been much tamer and required more to trigger them than under an alternative system such as communism.
- elbasti 7y ago
  We don't need thousands of years of storage. We need 200, before we boil ourselves to death (metaphorically speaking).
  - cheerlessbog 7y ago
    Its hard for me to understand why these nuclear waste repositories have to operate safely for 10,000 years. That's a heavy bar to meet. In 200 years we will likely have technology that would solve the next 1000 years with ease. If the concern is that technological progress may cease, and we bequeath a radioactive hole on a developmentally regressed world - well, climate change is your best bet for achieving that. Let's compromise on the 10,000 years to try to avoid it.
    - 08-15 7y ago
      The dangerous fission products have a half life of about 30 years, so they need confinement for maybe 500 years. Concrete can do that easily. But when the fake environmentalists discovered nuclear power as their new cause around 1980, and realized that The Waste Issue[TM] is their killer argument, they noticed that they had to blow up the time scale. So for political reasons, it was decided that other components, such as plutonium with a half life of 24000 years, are even more harmful. And just like that, a manageable 500-year-problem became an insurmountable million-year-problem that requires the invention of a new religion, and artists coming up with fields of spikey structures, and geologists to come up with formations stable forever, and lots more of careers to be made managing a problem that doesn't exist.
arpa 7y ago
The hate for nuclear is just ridiculous on HN
- Mirioron 7y ago
  It makes me wonder whether they want a solution to the problem at all. Europe is north enough that in some countries you can probably get rather long streaks of time where solar just won't work. If you only have 6-7 hours of daylight and they are likely to include lots of clouds and snowfall then I don't see how solar is going to be a replacement for anything. Wind might be, but wind requires an extraordinary amount of area to cover an entire country reliably.
- az-5 7y ago
  Hate for nuclear on HN? You got it backwards. Any anti-nuclear comment here is downvoted into oblivion. NUCLEAR IS SAFE. FUKUSMIMA? FUD fud fud...
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    Yes, we tend to follow the science here, rather than parrot any political party.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  Funny, I always feel like HN has a fetish for nuclear energy as if renewables had not advanced in the last twenty years. It’s as if nuclear tech featured prominently in the science fiction of people’s youth, and they remain emotionally attached to it.

> We need a massive buildout of wind and solar and nuclear.

by zakk 7y ago

> We need a massive buildout of wind and solar and nuclear.

merb 7y ago

in germany we do not have a long term storage solution that can safely withstand over 1000s of years for nuclear waste. also capitalisem will always makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe.

Luc 7y ago
You don’t have warehouses in Germany?
techrich 7y ago
If the contract to build the plant is let correctly, then it can be made to be safe. When something is outsourced and it does not work, most of the time the person letting the contract has done a shit job.
- merb 7y ago
  well we germans do not have a good track of making buildings correctly and safe in the recent past. it either took twice as long and was twice as expensive or it was a complete mess. and this was with things that needs to be less safe than a nuclear power plant. germany lost a lot of knowledge in the construction space thats why I highly doubt that we can make a safe nuclear power plant that might produce less garbadge. also corporate entities grown in power in germany and they try to safe as much money as possible.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zakk 7y ago
> in germany we do not have a long term storage solution that can safely withstand over 1000s of years for nuclear waste. A much simpler problem to solve as compared to other challenges due to climate change. You can build a storage big enough to contain all radioactive waste from current and future nuclear power plants probably in less than one year.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  And yet, not a single facility like that exists anywhere. In the US, Frace, Germany, and every other country with nuclear waste, attempts to built long-term storage have been stalled for decades.
  - zakk 7y ago
    > And yet, not a single facility like that exists anywhere That's factually wrong. There are several deep geological repositories currently in operation.
    - merb 7y ago
      yeah in germany there is one, it will not withstand the time. the second one is still under construction. we had two others which also needed to be closed.
    - IAmEveryone 7y ago
      No, there are none. Not a single operational long-term storage facility for highly radioactive waste. The US plan is Yukka Mountain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...) proposed in 1987 and not yet open. Germany has a similar story with Gorleben (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben_salt_dome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorleben_salt_dome), which was proposed in 1973 and also isn't actually operational. The prototype, also in an old salt mine, nicely showed how difficult these projects actually are when brine flooded the storage area, corroded the containers, and mixed with the contained polonium, cesium, etc. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m... for the full overview. It's full of great sentences like: > Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, although there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions
      - zakk 7y ago
        > No, there are none. According to Wikipedia there are many currently in operation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository#Repository_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_geological_repository#Rep... Is Wikipedia wrong?
roenxi 7y ago
> also capitalisem will always makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe. Literally half the bad nuclear disasters happened under communism, the opposite of capitalism. Due 100% to gross mismanagement. That was Chernobyl. The half that happened under capitalism (Fukushima) was a mild incident compared to the catastrophic natural disaster that triggered it. Capitalists, funny to say, go to extraordinary lengths to protect their very expensive capital. They want safe nuclear power more than anyone.
- firethief 7y ago
  > Capitalists, funny to say, go to extraordinary lengths to protect their very expensive capital. They want safe nuclear power more than anyone. Are you serious? The price of the reactor is an insubstantial part of the potential cost of a nuclear accident.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    > Are you serious? The price of the reactor is an insubstantial part of the potential cost of a nuclear accident. I don't really follow your complaint. Yes. I don't see how the cost of the accident is relevant to the incentives a plant operator works under; the odds of an accident are lower than the odds of being hit by a car (and the effects of a car impact are worse, because someone/several somebodies will likely be dead instead of mass inconvenience as is typical in the capitalist half of all nuclear accidents). So that isn't a major risk as the engineers see it and probably won't affect any individuals behavior as much as the fact that if someone owns an expensive thing they look after it because they are not stupid. If someone owns an asset that cost >$100 million dollars to obtain they are not going to skimp on maintenance costs in a way that risks it breaking down. Owners who can afford to buy infrastructure are going to keep it in good condition. If you think it is worth owning something that expensive then it is worth keeping it maintained. Capitalists have a lot of problems, but they are good at maintaining capital. The idea that capitalism can't maintain capital is absurd - what type of capitalist lets their capital decay? They would cease to be capitalist by virtue of having no capital. Doing a good job of maintaining capital is one of the core tenants of capitalism as practiced. The idea that capitalism will "makes the safest nuclear power plant unsafe" is so wrong that it just needs to be called out. Nuclear is a great example of this because - as mentioned - under capitalism the disasters have been much tamer and required more to trigger them than under an alternative system such as communism.
elbasti 7y ago
We don't need thousands of years of storage. We need 200, before we boil ourselves to death (metaphorically speaking).
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  Its hard for me to understand why these nuclear waste repositories have to operate safely for 10,000 years. That's a heavy bar to meet. In 200 years we will likely have technology that would solve the next 1000 years with ease. If the concern is that technological progress may cease, and we bequeath a radioactive hole on a developmentally regressed world - well, climate change is your best bet for achieving that. Let's compromise on the 10,000 years to try to avoid it.
  - 08-15 7y ago
    The dangerous fission products have a half life of about 30 years, so they need confinement for maybe 500 years. Concrete can do that easily. But when the fake environmentalists discovered nuclear power as their new cause around 1980, and realized that The Waste Issue[TM] is their killer argument, they noticed that they had to blow up the time scale. So for political reasons, it was decided that other components, such as plutonium with a half life of 24000 years, are even more harmful. And just like that, a manageable 500-year-problem became an insurmountable million-year-problem that requires the invention of a new religion, and artists coming up with fields of spikey structures, and geologists to come up with formations stable forever, and lots more of careers to be made managing a problem that doesn't exist.

arpa 7y ago

The hate for nuclear is just ridiculous on HN

Mirioron 7y ago
It makes me wonder whether they want a solution to the problem at all. Europe is north enough that in some countries you can probably get rather long streaks of time where solar just won't work. If you only have 6-7 hours of daylight and they are likely to include lots of clouds and snowfall then I don't see how solar is going to be a replacement for anything. Wind might be, but wind requires an extraordinary amount of area to cover an entire country reliably.
az-5 7y ago
Hate for nuclear on HN? You got it backwards. Any anti-nuclear comment here is downvoted into oblivion. NUCLEAR IS SAFE. FUKUSMIMA? FUD fud fud...
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  Yes, we tend to follow the science here, rather than parrot any political party.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
Funny, I always feel like HN has a fetish for nuclear energy as if renewables had not advanced in the last twenty years. It’s as if nuclear tech featured prominently in the science fiction of people’s youth, and they remain emotionally attached to it.