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Maybe dismantling the nuclear industry was a bad idea? Particularly when the politician who oversaw it is now working for Rosneft: https://www.theguardian.com

Maybe dismantling the nuclear industry was a bad idea? Particularly when the politician who oversaw it is now working for Rosneft: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/13/russia.germany https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/13/russia.germany If anything, I really hope this spurs Europe to build out widespread modular nuclear power plants across the continent.

epistasis 5y ago
We'd obviously be in a far better position climate wise if a lot of electricity generation in the 80s forward had been from nuclear rather than fossil fuels, and if we do not prematurely shut down nuclear reactors. (Though I think this mostly happening in Germany and Japan only? In the US our nuclear fleet is aged, and there are few life-extensions that make economic sense when compared with the current cost of renewables firmed with storage.) However, I think the picture of how rosy a nuclear future could be was oversold, even in the last century. Construction performance in the 1970s was abysmal. Even the most successful deployment, in France, stopped short of its initial plans, and did not fully decarbonize the grid. Starting new deployments of modular reactors means talking about new construction modes, modes that we have no idea at all if they will be effective or cost efficient. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now. Nuclear is not a technology that we can depend upon to save us now. Which is not to say that we shouldn't try, it's just that we need to have backup plans in case Nuclear can't be built.
- dTal 5y ago
  >. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now I'm sure I read this argument at least 10 years ago...
  - epistasis 5y ago
    We started construction of the next generation of nuclear around ~2008, and it was a gamble that has failed miserably. In the US, VC Summer was a disaster that was abandoned after many billions were wasted. Vogtle chugs along, with continual cost increases and delays, with no end in sight. At $30B estimated for Vogtle's two reactors, it is clear that no US utility will be foolish enough to embark down this path again. Europe is in the same boat with the EPR's construction failures, and it is quite clear that their gamble did not pay off. Which is why people are talking about modular nuclear reactors now, rather than large GW reactors. The industry had rejected modular reactors in the past as inherently more expensive than large GW reactors, but the difficult of constructing GW scale reactors has led them to try something smaller. Will modular reactors succeed? Who knows! We will see. But it is definitely a gamble.
    - belorn 5y ago
      How does that nuclear project stack up to an other major energy project in 2010, the keystone pipeline. How much did people pay for that and what did we get in return in terms of $ per energy produced and pollution.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        I don't know much about the Keystone pipeline, but I don't think it can be directly compared. It's more like transmission than generation. And an oil pipeline use is to reduce costs of bringing oil from a particular area to market. It doesn't necessarily have benefits that translate to the entire market, unless the change is so big as to move the entire market. And I don't think Keystone was that big, but couldn't say. Also oil is not generally used at all in our electrical grid. Far to inefficient, and far more useful as fuel for vehicles. Further, VC Summer has delivered zero benefit to people, despite it costing the average utility bill an extra $20/month last I heard. Keystone has had several phases complete, so there has been oil delivered to markets.
        belorn 5y ago
        It is not a perfect comparison, but there are some related aspect to it. The company behind keystone pipe line is the energy company TC Energy, and I think a lot of the natural gas that they burn do comes from the oil refineries and oil fields. Through the aspect I wanted to bring up is that an energy company spent tens of billions on just transporting fossil fuel from one point to an other. Since it is the customer that pays for it in the end, I suspect most would prefer that their money went somewhere which does not contribute to global warming. If I were a customer of TC Energy, I rather would have seen a failed nuclear plant than a failed pipeline for fossil fuels.
- R0b0t1 5y ago
  No idea if it will be cost effective? Are you insane? The enthalpy of nuclear fission is an order of magnitude, at least, over chemical fuels. It's all red tape. There's not technical challenges in old designs. New designs are better but not necessary.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    The cost of nuclear is not connected to enthalpy. It's from transferring heat to make steam.
    - R0b0t1 5y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_of_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_of_reactio...
      - epistasis 5y ago
        It's a simple concept, but it has nothing to do with the theoretical or practical costs of a nuclear reactor for boiling water to turn a mechanical steam turbine.
        R0b0t1 5y ago
        It is the first step (without going into nuclear physics) in calculating how much energy is released. You take the enthalpy of the fission reaction, joules per gram input, and that dictates everything after. In fission reactions you get (iirc) giga or megajoules per g instead of kilojoules per g.
        beckingz 5y ago
        We agree that nuclear power is a better power source than fossil fuels on pure technical comparison. Your opening comment implied that nuclear power would be strictly cheaper because of the higher enthalpy. If all costs were equal, you would be correct. All costs are not equal.

epistasis 5y ago

We'd obviously be in a far better position climate wise if a lot of electricity generation in the 80s forward had been from nuclear rather than fossil fuels, and if we do not prematurely shut down nuclear reactors. (Though I think this mostly happening in Germany and Japan only? In the US our nuclear fleet is aged, and there are few life-extensions that make economic sense when compared with the current cost of renewables firmed with storage.) However, I think the picture of how rosy a nuclear future could be was oversold, even in the last century. Construction performance in the 1970s was abysmal. Even the most successful deployment, in France, stopped short of its initial plans, and did not fully decarbonize the grid. Starting new deployments of modular reactors means talking about new construction modes, modes that we have no idea at all if they will be effective or cost efficient. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now. Nuclear is not a technology that we can depend upon to save us now. Which is not to say that we shouldn't try, it's just that we need to have backup plans in case Nuclear can't be built.

dTal 5y ago
>. It's a huge gamble, that even if it pays off, won't start paying off until 10-30 years from now I'm sure I read this argument at least 10 years ago...
- epistasis 5y ago
  We started construction of the next generation of nuclear around ~2008, and it was a gamble that has failed miserably. In the US, VC Summer was a disaster that was abandoned after many billions were wasted. Vogtle chugs along, with continual cost increases and delays, with no end in sight. At $30B estimated for Vogtle's two reactors, it is clear that no US utility will be foolish enough to embark down this path again. Europe is in the same boat with the EPR's construction failures, and it is quite clear that their gamble did not pay off. Which is why people are talking about modular nuclear reactors now, rather than large GW reactors. The industry had rejected modular reactors in the past as inherently more expensive than large GW reactors, but the difficult of constructing GW scale reactors has led them to try something smaller. Will modular reactors succeed? Who knows! We will see. But it is definitely a gamble.
  - belorn 5y ago
    How does that nuclear project stack up to an other major energy project in 2010, the keystone pipeline. How much did people pay for that and what did we get in return in terms of $ per energy produced and pollution.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      I don't know much about the Keystone pipeline, but I don't think it can be directly compared. It's more like transmission than generation. And an oil pipeline use is to reduce costs of bringing oil from a particular area to market. It doesn't necessarily have benefits that translate to the entire market, unless the change is so big as to move the entire market. And I don't think Keystone was that big, but couldn't say. Also oil is not generally used at all in our electrical grid. Far to inefficient, and far more useful as fuel for vehicles. Further, VC Summer has delivered zero benefit to people, despite it costing the average utility bill an extra $20/month last I heard. Keystone has had several phases complete, so there has been oil delivered to markets.
      - belorn 5y ago
        It is not a perfect comparison, but there are some related aspect to it. The company behind keystone pipe line is the energy company TC Energy, and I think a lot of the natural gas that they burn do comes from the oil refineries and oil fields. Through the aspect I wanted to bring up is that an energy company spent tens of billions on just transporting fossil fuel from one point to an other. Since it is the customer that pays for it in the end, I suspect most would prefer that their money went somewhere which does not contribute to global warming. If I were a customer of TC Energy, I rather would have seen a failed nuclear plant than a failed pipeline for fossil fuels.
R0b0t1 5y ago
No idea if it will be cost effective? Are you insane? The enthalpy of nuclear fission is an order of magnitude, at least, over chemical fuels. It's all red tape. There's not technical challenges in old designs. New designs are better but not necessary.
- epistasis 5y ago
  The cost of nuclear is not connected to enthalpy. It's from transferring heat to make steam.
  - R0b0t1 5y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_of_reaction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_enthalpy_of_reactio...
    - epistasis 5y ago
      It's a simple concept, but it has nothing to do with the theoretical or practical costs of a nuclear reactor for boiling water to turn a mechanical steam turbine.
      - R0b0t1 5y ago
        It is the first step (without going into nuclear physics) in calculating how much energy is released. You take the enthalpy of the fission reaction, joules per gram input, and that dictates everything after. In fission reactions you get (iirc) giga or megajoules per g instead of kilojoules per g.
        beckingz 5y ago
        We agree that nuclear power is a better power source than fossil fuels on pure technical comparison. Your opening comment implied that nuclear power would be strictly cheaper because of the higher enthalpy. If all costs were equal, you would be correct. All costs are not equal.