5 ms·

> It's widely accepted By whom? The benefit of nuclear power is that it is low on CO2 emissions (unlike fossil fuels) and can produce sufficient amount of powe

by oytis 5y ago

> It's widely accepted By whom? The benefit of nuclear power is that it is low on CO2 emissions (unlike fossil fuels) and can produce sufficient amount of power for an industrial society (unlike renewables)

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
No one important, just every government in the world. I agree on your first point (and posted some stats that back it up) but not on your second. Just stop for a moment and ponder, who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Have you noticed that the thing that links nuclear boosters is their opinion on renewables being useless?
- oytis 5y ago
  > who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Do you mean that renewables (wind, solar, what else?) can't produce enough energy for the industry is just an opinion not a fact? I'm happy to see the data that would refute it.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    I'm not sure what fact you're claiming is just my opinion, but I'll happily look up reliable sources for you if you have a specific question.
    - oytis 5y ago
      The fact that currently available renewable energy technologies can't produce enough energy for currently existing industrial societies.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Okay so we agree on that fact. I think we need to build lots more renewables, and every government in the world has plans to do so, which is a good thing. It seems a weird stance to take though, since existing nuclear also can't do that and would similarly need built out. Are you sure you're trying to support nuclear? Because that sounds like an argument for the fossil fuel status quo.
        oytis 5y ago
        I mean technologies, not capacities. Yes, we'll need to build more nuclear plants to cover the needs of the society, but the technology used would be roughly the same. But the same trick will not work with renewables to my best knowledge. We can't realistically place enough wind turbines or solar panels, say, in Germany or in France to cover their energy consumption.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Oh, right I misunderstood. So no, we don't agree on that then. Renewables and related tech is more than capable of powering a modern civilization. In fact it's better at doing that than any other option, including a nuclear heavy mix. Ironically, the bits that I'm most fuzzy about renewables working well for (because they're not the low hanging fruit that we can immediately do) would also need to be done to move to a mostly nuclear powered civilization since it's basically about electrification of fossil-carbon-based process. You don't hear much talk about it because absolutely no-one, especially the people who bang on about it on internet forums, thinks there's any chance at all of nuclear being a potential replacement for all fossil fuels, so it would be a waste of time to even draw up such plans. Luckily, you can just take all the renewable plans drawn up by the actual governments for their actual plans and then just scale up the nuclear element and scale down the renewables to get some idea if it would work. And it would work, at much greater cost in money, carbon, time and blood than doing it with renewables. Which people seem to know on some level, but argue about trivialities and gotchas as if they didn't. If you have any specific concern about what renewables can't do, I'll happily provide some sources to show why you're misinformed, and why a heavily nuclear grid will hit the same issues at a greater cost.
- Aachen 5y ago
  > who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Idk, Europe? Since we're buying those solar panels from China it can't possibly be China right? (Or just say what you mean so we don't have to guess at it)
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    I was suggesting that the people you see around online who claim very vocally to like nuclear power, actually can't help but undermine their own message because they feel the need to bash reneweables at the end of their comments. They almost certainly get their news via a fossil-fuel funded media-political complex that has a long and very well-documented history of lying about climate change, its causes and its solutions. And the propaganda has worked. Even when they think they're defending nuclear power and being rational most of their talking points don't even make sense except from the point of view of maintaining the fossil fuel status quo. It's all very weird and fascinating.
throwaway210222 5y ago
Just a comment, another benefit of this kind of molten-salt reactor is that it is very hot: ~650°C c.f. ~150°C for steam. So not only does it theoretically produce electricity better using e.g. CO2 in the Brayton cycle, but the heat can be used - possible in conjunction with a turbo air heater - to use for industrial heat. There are a lot of very lucrative industrial processes that need high temperatures.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  Modern steam turbines use pressurised steam at about 600 - 650°C, so the 650°C is not by accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine#Thermodynamics_of_steam_turbines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine#Thermodynamics_o...
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    > so the 650°C is not by accident. Yip, above that temperature metal alloys start corroding quickly.
natmaka 5y ago
The challenge for renewables isn't to produce an aggregated sufficient amount of power, but production intermittency. In Europe wind alone has many times the capacity (see https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id/49312 https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id... ) Production intermittency will solved thanks to continent-scale deployment, storage, smartgrid...

by oytis 5y ago

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

No one important, just every government in the world. I agree on your first point (and posted some stats that back it up) but not on your second. Just stop for a moment and ponder, who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Have you noticed that the thing that links nuclear boosters is their opinion on renewables being useless?

oytis 5y ago
> who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Do you mean that renewables (wind, solar, what else?) can't produce enough energy for the industry is just an opinion not a fact? I'm happy to see the data that would refute it.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I'm not sure what fact you're claiming is just my opinion, but I'll happily look up reliable sources for you if you have a specific question.
  - oytis 5y ago
    The fact that currently available renewable energy technologies can't produce enough energy for currently existing industrial societies.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Okay so we agree on that fact. I think we need to build lots more renewables, and every government in the world has plans to do so, which is a good thing. It seems a weird stance to take though, since existing nuclear also can't do that and would similarly need built out. Are you sure you're trying to support nuclear? Because that sounds like an argument for the fossil fuel status quo.
      - oytis 5y ago
        I mean technologies, not capacities. Yes, we'll need to build more nuclear plants to cover the needs of the society, but the technology used would be roughly the same. But the same trick will not work with renewables to my best knowledge. We can't realistically place enough wind turbines or solar panels, say, in Germany or in France to cover their energy consumption.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Oh, right I misunderstood. So no, we don't agree on that then. Renewables and related tech is more than capable of powering a modern civilization. In fact it's better at doing that than any other option, including a nuclear heavy mix. Ironically, the bits that I'm most fuzzy about renewables working well for (because they're not the low hanging fruit that we can immediately do) would also need to be done to move to a mostly nuclear powered civilization since it's basically about electrification of fossil-carbon-based process. You don't hear much talk about it because absolutely no-one, especially the people who bang on about it on internet forums, thinks there's any chance at all of nuclear being a potential replacement for all fossil fuels, so it would be a waste of time to even draw up such plans. Luckily, you can just take all the renewable plans drawn up by the actual governments for their actual plans and then just scale up the nuclear element and scale down the renewables to get some idea if it would work. And it would work, at much greater cost in money, carbon, time and blood than doing it with renewables. Which people seem to know on some level, but argue about trivialities and gotchas as if they didn't. If you have any specific concern about what renewables can't do, I'll happily provide some sources to show why you're misinformed, and why a heavily nuclear grid will hit the same issues at a greater cost.
Aachen 5y ago
> who has a strong financial motive to spread the idea that renewable energy (and carbon fees and all that other stuff) is not a good solution. Idk, Europe? Since we're buying those solar panels from China it can't possibly be China right? (Or just say what you mean so we don't have to guess at it)
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I was suggesting that the people you see around online who claim very vocally to like nuclear power, actually can't help but undermine their own message because they feel the need to bash reneweables at the end of their comments. They almost certainly get their news via a fossil-fuel funded media-political complex that has a long and very well-documented history of lying about climate change, its causes and its solutions. And the propaganda has worked. Even when they think they're defending nuclear power and being rational most of their talking points don't even make sense except from the point of view of maintaining the fossil fuel status quo. It's all very weird and fascinating.

throwaway210222 5y ago

Just a comment, another benefit of this kind of molten-salt reactor is that it is very hot: ~650°C c.f. ~150°C for steam. So not only does it theoretically produce electricity better using e.g. CO2 in the Brayton cycle, but the heat can be used - possible in conjunction with a turbo air heater - to use for industrial heat. There are a lot of very lucrative industrial processes that need high temperatures.

tuatoru 5y ago
Modern steam turbines use pressurised steam at about 600 - 650°C, so the 650°C is not by accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine#Thermodynamics_of_steam_turbines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine#Thermodynamics_o...
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > so the 650°C is not by accident. Yip, above that temperature metal alloys start corroding quickly.

natmaka 5y ago

The challenge for renewables isn't to produce an aggregated sufficient amount of power, but production intermittency. In Europe wind alone has many times the capacity (see https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id/49312 https://www.sussex.ac.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/id... ) Production intermittency will solved thanks to continent-scale deployment, storage, smartgrid...