4 ms·

That is a shockingly biased and simplistic comparison. Sort of like deciding on the answer and picking a few “facts” to support it.

by mbruce 7y ago

blue1 7y ago
So what is missing/wrong in the article? (btw, I submitted not because I agree with it – I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter – but because I thought HN could add some interesting comment on it)
- lawn 7y ago
  Even if we presume all points are true, they fail to bring up any of the positive points of nuclear power and they don't have anything to compare it to. How does it compare to say wind power? How expensive and slow is to build up an equivalent wind power farm? A proper comparison needs to take a look at positive and negative of all possible solutions. For example that "clean" hydropower has massive consequences for the nearby environment. Or that we cannot be 100% reliant on wind and solar power, since they are unreliable (there might not be any wind for example). Which means we need to have other alternatives (hint: not use coal as a fallback!).
  - perfunctory 7y ago
    > How does it compare to say wind power? How expensive and slow is to build up an equivalent wind power farm? From the article: "Utility-scale wind and solar farms, on the other hand, take on average only 2 to 5 years, from the planning phase to operation. Rooftop solar PV projects are down to only a 6-month timeline"
    - arpa 7y ago
      That's hardly equivalent.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  1. Long Time Lag Between Planning and Operation I guess we should stop doing everything that takes long based on this. How do you define long? Compare to what? 2. Cost Nuclear energy is the cheapest source of energy once you take into consideration all the aspects of an energy grid. This is why Germany is buying energy from France instead of building renewables only. 3. Weapons Proliferation Risk Most nuclear power plants do not consume or produce plutonium. 4. Meltdown Risk Passive safety systems are the norm. The safety requirement to any new nuclear power plant is to have a potentially life threatening accident with 10^-6 probability. Meltdown is not a realistic scenario of non-Chernobyl type power plants (90% of power plants). 5. Mining Lung Cancer Risk So does mining coal. We can make mining much more safe. 6. Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution I guess producing a wing mill does not need to use any energy and the production does not have the same impact as producing a nuclear power plant. Not sure if the author understand that this applies to anything produced. In fact producing renewable power plants probably produces much more CO2 than a nuclear power plant because of energy density. He fails to mention that. 7. Waste Risk This is actually a solved issue, there are special nuclear power plants that sole purpose is to "burn away" nuclear waste by producing elements with less half time. "To recap, new nuclear power costs about 5 times more than onshore wind power per kWh (between 2.3 to 7.4 times depending upon location and integration issues)." This is extremely stupid observation. Leaving out crucial facts (like having base and peak power plants) and comparing apples to oranges.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    >Nuclear energy is the cheapest source of energy once you take into consideration all the aspects of an energy grid. This is why Germany is buying energy from France instead of building renewables only. This is the funniest thing I have read all day. Seriously I can't stop laughing. Ok let's be serious. It has more to do with the incompetence of the government parties than with the technologies involved. The renewable percentage grew to 47% from 40% in 2018. The reason is that we are being cooked alive by the hot weather, not because the government is acting intelligently. That 7% increase is effectively a 40GWh increase which is 4 times the amount Germany is importing from France. There is no shortage of energy, just a total lack of political willpower to do anything. Even without France, Germany could just turn off one of it's coal plants and use more of it's gas plants to solve the intermittency issue because gas plants produce half as much CO2 as coal plants. Sure it makes sense to keep the old plants running because that way we can turn off coal earlier and decommission the nuclear plants only when they reach their maximum lifespan. But it's too late now. Nuclear power clearly is no longer the answer to decarbonizing Germany's electricity market.
StreamBright 7y ago
It is actually full of lies. Cost as the problem of nuclear energy? 1 KWH produced by nuclear power is roughly 3-4 times cheaper than produced by renewables. This is excluding the impact of renewables on the grid. Weapons Proliferation Risk??? Most of the nuclear power plants do not use or produce plutonium at all. Nuclear weapons are produced in very specific facilities that have a huge energy consumption. This article is a classical propaganda to avoid the unavoidable use nuclear power for clear energy. Humanity needs these energy sources that we can use in space and on Earth to have a relatively small plant that produces a lot of energy without CO2. Yes there are challenges but we did not stop using fire because it produces smoke. We made burning safe over the last 400.000 years now we should make nuclear energy safe.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  In the UK the contract for hinkley c nuclear station was signed at something like £90/GWh, which everyone seems unhappy with (CFO of edf resigned saying it would bankrupt them, while opponents are saying it's too expensive). Meanwhile we have new offshore wind going in at £50/GWh If cost of nuclear isn't a problem can you contextualize those figures? Is it a fair comparison, net of subsidies etc? I'd like to know.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    You cannot talk about energy like that. What is the chance that 1 GWH is going to be produced? With a nuclear power plant you can have guaranteed energy, with renewables there is a chance that you get energy. You continously need to balance consumption and production. You can only control non-renewables. This is why building wind farms require the same amount of production is built using gas turbines for the worst case scenario. The £50/GWh vs £90/GWh is for the happy path best case scenario. I hope it makes sense.
    - sideshowb 7y ago
      is the £50 not based on annual average days with sufficient wind to generate (which I presume has fairly low uncertainty, though if it's not generating when you want then either storage or transport is needed)

That is a shockingly biased and simplistic comparison. Sort of like deciding on the answer and picking a few “facts” to support it.

by mbruce 7y ago

That is a shockingly biased and simplistic comparison. Sort of like deciding on the answer and picking a few “facts” to support it.

blue1 7y ago

So what is missing/wrong in the article? (btw, I submitted not because I agree with it – I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter – but because I thought HN could add some interesting comment on it)

lawn 7y ago
Even if we presume all points are true, they fail to bring up any of the positive points of nuclear power and they don't have anything to compare it to. How does it compare to say wind power? How expensive and slow is to build up an equivalent wind power farm? A proper comparison needs to take a look at positive and negative of all possible solutions. For example that "clean" hydropower has massive consequences for the nearby environment. Or that we cannot be 100% reliant on wind and solar power, since they are unreliable (there might not be any wind for example). Which means we need to have other alternatives (hint: not use coal as a fallback!).
- perfunctory 7y ago
  > How does it compare to say wind power? How expensive and slow is to build up an equivalent wind power farm? From the article: "Utility-scale wind and solar farms, on the other hand, take on average only 2 to 5 years, from the planning phase to operation. Rooftop solar PV projects are down to only a 6-month timeline"
  - arpa 7y ago
    That's hardly equivalent.
StreamBright 7y ago
1. Long Time Lag Between Planning and Operation I guess we should stop doing everything that takes long based on this. How do you define long? Compare to what? 2. Cost Nuclear energy is the cheapest source of energy once you take into consideration all the aspects of an energy grid. This is why Germany is buying energy from France instead of building renewables only. 3. Weapons Proliferation Risk Most nuclear power plants do not consume or produce plutonium. 4. Meltdown Risk Passive safety systems are the norm. The safety requirement to any new nuclear power plant is to have a potentially life threatening accident with 10^-6 probability. Meltdown is not a realistic scenario of non-Chernobyl type power plants (90% of power plants). 5. Mining Lung Cancer Risk So does mining coal. We can make mining much more safe. 6. Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution I guess producing a wing mill does not need to use any energy and the production does not have the same impact as producing a nuclear power plant. Not sure if the author understand that this applies to anything produced. In fact producing renewable power plants probably produces much more CO2 than a nuclear power plant because of energy density. He fails to mention that. 7. Waste Risk This is actually a solved issue, there are special nuclear power plants that sole purpose is to "burn away" nuclear waste by producing elements with less half time. "To recap, new nuclear power costs about 5 times more than onshore wind power per kWh (between 2.3 to 7.4 times depending upon location and integration issues)." This is extremely stupid observation. Leaving out crucial facts (like having base and peak power plants) and comparing apples to oranges.
- imtringued 7y ago
  >Nuclear energy is the cheapest source of energy once you take into consideration all the aspects of an energy grid. This is why Germany is buying energy from France instead of building renewables only. This is the funniest thing I have read all day. Seriously I can't stop laughing. Ok let's be serious. It has more to do with the incompetence of the government parties than with the technologies involved. The renewable percentage grew to 47% from 40% in 2018. The reason is that we are being cooked alive by the hot weather, not because the government is acting intelligently. That 7% increase is effectively a 40GWh increase which is 4 times the amount Germany is importing from France. There is no shortage of energy, just a total lack of political willpower to do anything. Even without France, Germany could just turn off one of it's coal plants and use more of it's gas plants to solve the intermittency issue because gas plants produce half as much CO2 as coal plants. Sure it makes sense to keep the old plants running because that way we can turn off coal earlier and decommission the nuclear plants only when they reach their maximum lifespan. But it's too late now. Nuclear power clearly is no longer the answer to decarbonizing Germany's electricity market.

StreamBright 7y ago

It is actually full of lies. Cost as the problem of nuclear energy? 1 KWH produced by nuclear power is roughly 3-4 times cheaper than produced by renewables. This is excluding the impact of renewables on the grid. Weapons Proliferation Risk??? Most of the nuclear power plants do not use or produce plutonium at all. Nuclear weapons are produced in very specific facilities that have a huge energy consumption. This article is a classical propaganda to avoid the unavoidable use nuclear power for clear energy. Humanity needs these energy sources that we can use in space and on Earth to have a relatively small plant that produces a lot of energy without CO2. Yes there are challenges but we did not stop using fire because it produces smoke. We made burning safe over the last 400.000 years now we should make nuclear energy safe.

sideshowb 7y ago
In the UK the contract for hinkley c nuclear station was signed at something like £90/GWh, which everyone seems unhappy with (CFO of edf resigned saying it would bankrupt them, while opponents are saying it's too expensive). Meanwhile we have new offshore wind going in at £50/GWh If cost of nuclear isn't a problem can you contextualize those figures? Is it a fair comparison, net of subsidies etc? I'd like to know.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  You cannot talk about energy like that. What is the chance that 1 GWH is going to be produced? With a nuclear power plant you can have guaranteed energy, with renewables there is a chance that you get energy. You continously need to balance consumption and production. You can only control non-renewables. This is why building wind farms require the same amount of production is built using gas turbines for the worst case scenario. The £50/GWh vs £90/GWh is for the happy path best case scenario. I hope it makes sense.
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    is the £50 not based on annual average days with sufficient wind to generate (which I presume has fairly low uncertainty, though if it's not generating when you want then either storage or transport is needed)