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The energy crisis is because of prices, not necessarily because of ressource limits. The ressources are only a tiny amount, the rest is investments. Gas would

The energy crisis is because of prices, not necessarily because of ressource limits. The ressources are only a tiny amount, the rest is investments. Gas would be a huge ecological improvement to coal. Nuclear power is too expensive and much of the costs are externalized. It will only be able to compete if you weight co2 beyond any other influence. I think this is mainly US propaganda to be honest. The pipeline isn't needed for a long time to meet demands.

throwaway894345 5y ago
> Gas would be a huge ecological improvement to coal. Normally I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but we need to ramp down emissions quickly and natural gas doesn’t get us near enough to the goal line. This seems like we need to be going for bust on clean energy, but it will be expensive. > I think this is mainly US propaganda to be honest. How do you figure? My post didn’t have anything positive to say about the US (because for some reason it reduces one’s credibility to acknowledge anything positive that happens in the US), but only that the result seems to be desirable.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  I meant the article and its framing, not your post. We cannot ramp down co2 emission to zero. The co2 balance of building nuclear power plants will only amortize when we already hit 1,5°C warming and it is questionable if it helps at all considering the unknowns about operating periods and other influences. Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, China and India.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > The co2 balance of building nuclear power plants will only amortize when we already hit 1,5°C warming and it is questionable if it helps at all considering the unknowns about operating periods and other influences. This is why it’s sad to decommission existing plants, but I don’t think there’s any legitimate question as to whether nuclear is harmful. It’s a pretty well-understood quantity, but I’m not sure which “factors” you’re describing. > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, China and India. No Germany alone won’t make a dent directly, but it can model leadership. It’s a lot easier for other countries to get on board when someone has paved the way.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      I agree, I think from a technical perspective most of these plants are fine and they could be used for an additional time. Since the last will shut down next year, I would assume the plans are locked in by now. Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables down the road.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        > Since the last will shut down next year, I would assume the plans are locked in by now. Sadly, I assume you're correct. > Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables down the road. To be clear, I would love it if we could power everything off of solar and wind, but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy which means that solar and wind cannot be used for base load generation. Hydro simply doesn't have the capacity. Nuclear is the only clean energy option for base load for the foreseeable future. Hoping for a storage tech breakthrough in the coming decades isn't a plan; we should really be investing in nuclear and storage in case one of those two don't pan out. Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in solving the storage problem.
        cesarb 5y ago
        > but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy Why would we need to store weeks worth of energy? Wouldn't a more realistic amount be just a couple of days, or even less?
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        You have to account for increasingly frequent continent-scale weather patterns which can last for weeks in extreme cases. "Weeks" is a figure I heard a few times in the media, but even "days" is a herculean task considering we're presently at "minutes" or worse. Note also that part of solving for emissions means "electrifying more applications" which means it's not sufficient to store days or weeks of today's energy demands, but rather days or weeks of future energy demands which will be much higher (e.g., today our entire transport industry isn't electrified--in the future our grid will need to supply the energy to move cars and trucks and trains which means the overall demand is much larger and consequently we'll have greater storage demands).
  - dtech 5y ago
    > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small Every nation is saying this, including US pointing to China. China is then saying they use less per capita and started producing CO2 decades after western nations. Congratulations, we're not doing anything collectively. I'm sure that'll excuse us to the inhabitants of earth in 50-100 years.
    - adventured 5y ago
      It doesn't matter what China says, what rationalizations are used. What matters is the total emissions output and the direction. China's emissions are skyrocketing, while already being drastically greater than the US or EU. While the US and EU emissions have been declining gradually. If you have 1.4 billion people, you don't get to have the same (high) per capita emissions output as a nation 1/4 your population size. The world didn't force China to have 1.4b people, it's their responsibility. The fair target isn't parity per capita with the US, it's China being allowed to have no more than 1/4 the per capita emissions of the US. And that's still a terrible number, the US is the drop dead line for where we don't want other large countries going beyond. The problem is China is already double that and heading a lot higher yet. We don't have to urgently care if Estonia were to have the highest per capita output of emissions, they can't destroy the planet with their emissions no matter what they do. China can due to their population. It would be a different context if China's emissions were declining. With regards to China's CO2 emissions for example, how much more dire can it get? https://i.imgur.com/B6W1S3q.jpg https://i.imgur.com/B6W1S3q.jpg
      - soperj 5y ago
        US is the richest nation on earth and is more responsible for the current problem than any other nation on earth. They have the means to reduce their emissions drastically but choose not to.
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        The US should absolutely do more to reduce its emissions, but the actions or inaction of one country doesn't impugn or absolve others. Otherwise any country can and will point to some other country and use some contrived rationale like yours to justify inaction. At the end of the day, we need all countries to meet their emissions targets, otherwise we'll just be pointing fingers at each other while society crumbles around us.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Given the fact that the market with gas is global, that the EU has almost no local sources of gas under its control and that gas availability / price is fluctuating rather heavily, I would try avoiding reliance on gas too. As of today, it isn't any more reliable than wind.
scythe 5y ago
>Nuclear power is too expensive Nuclear plant construction is too expensive, sure. Running existing nuclear plants instead of shutting them down before EoL is not too expensive. What we are talking about in Germany is the latter. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Also, from my sibling comment[0]: > Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in solving the storage problem. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28671870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28671870
himinlomax 5y ago
Nuclear, externalized? that's the exact opposite, as the waste is left in the hands of the users, as opposed to dumped in the atmosphere.
karaterobot 5y ago
Which elements of nuclear are externalized?
- goodpoint 5y ago
  The environmental and economical cost of excavation. Also the environmental and economical cost and waste management.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    The environmental cost of excavation is externalized, but it's negligible compared to that of fossil fuels ("economical cost" is nonsense), but the environmental cost of managing waste very much isn't externalized. At least not in the West (less sure about China, but I'm guessing they do roughly what we do).
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      Sources needed.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        Not sure what you’re looking for specifically, but by far the biggest environmental threat is posed by emissions. Nuclear has the lowest emissions per unit energy of any energy source including the emissions that factor into mining the uranium and building the nuclear facilities, managing the waste, etc. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

throwaway894345 5y ago

> Gas would be a huge ecological improvement to coal. Normally I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but we need to ramp down emissions quickly and natural gas doesn’t get us near enough to the goal line. This seems like we need to be going for bust on clean energy, but it will be expensive. > I think this is mainly US propaganda to be honest. How do you figure? My post didn’t have anything positive to say about the US (because for some reason it reduces one’s credibility to acknowledge anything positive that happens in the US), but only that the result seems to be desirable.

raxxorrax 5y ago
I meant the article and its framing, not your post. We cannot ramp down co2 emission to zero. The co2 balance of building nuclear power plants will only amortize when we already hit 1,5°C warming and it is questionable if it helps at all considering the unknowns about operating periods and other influences. Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, China and India.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > The co2 balance of building nuclear power plants will only amortize when we already hit 1,5°C warming and it is questionable if it helps at all considering the unknowns about operating periods and other influences. This is why it’s sad to decommission existing plants, but I don’t think there’s any legitimate question as to whether nuclear is harmful. It’s a pretty well-understood quantity, but I’m not sure which “factors” you’re describing. > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small, it wouldn't even make a dent. It is still necessary to reduce emissions, but if you zero them all, it would be less than 2% of overall world wide emissions, even if it is on place 6. Not for long though and it will be completely dwarfed by the US, China and India. No Germany alone won’t make a dent directly, but it can model leadership. It’s a lot easier for other countries to get on board when someone has paved the way.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    I agree, I think from a technical perspective most of these plants are fine and they could be used for an additional time. Since the last will shut down next year, I would assume the plans are locked in by now. Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables down the road.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      > Since the last will shut down next year, I would assume the plans are locked in by now. Sadly, I assume you're correct. > Nuclear has some advantages for base loads in some scenarios, but it cannot really compete with renewables down the road. To be clear, I would love it if we could power everything off of solar and wind, but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy which means that solar and wind cannot be used for base load generation. Hydro simply doesn't have the capacity. Nuclear is the only clean energy option for base load for the foreseeable future. Hoping for a storage tech breakthrough in the coming decades isn't a plan; we should really be investing in nuclear and storage in case one of those two don't pan out. Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in solving the storage problem.
      - cesarb 5y ago
        > but we still don't have any scalable technology for storing weeks worth of energy Why would we need to store weeks worth of energy? Wouldn't a more realistic amount be just a couple of days, or even less?
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        You have to account for increasingly frequent continent-scale weather patterns which can last for weeks in extreme cases. "Weeks" is a figure I heard a few times in the media, but even "days" is a herculean task considering we're presently at "minutes" or worse. Note also that part of solving for emissions means "electrifying more applications" which means it's not sufficient to store days or weeks of today's energy demands, but rather days or weeks of future energy demands which will be much higher (e.g., today our entire transport industry isn't electrified--in the future our grid will need to supply the energy to move cars and trucks and trains which means the overall demand is much larger and consequently we'll have greater storage demands).
- dtech 5y ago
  > Overall if we just look at Germany it wouldn't even matter, the nation is too small Every nation is saying this, including US pointing to China. China is then saying they use less per capita and started producing CO2 decades after western nations. Congratulations, we're not doing anything collectively. I'm sure that'll excuse us to the inhabitants of earth in 50-100 years.
  - adventured 5y ago
    It doesn't matter what China says, what rationalizations are used. What matters is the total emissions output and the direction. China's emissions are skyrocketing, while already being drastically greater than the US or EU. While the US and EU emissions have been declining gradually. If you have 1.4 billion people, you don't get to have the same (high) per capita emissions output as a nation 1/4 your population size. The world didn't force China to have 1.4b people, it's their responsibility. The fair target isn't parity per capita with the US, it's China being allowed to have no more than 1/4 the per capita emissions of the US. And that's still a terrible number, the US is the drop dead line for where we don't want other large countries going beyond. The problem is China is already double that and heading a lot higher yet. We don't have to urgently care if Estonia were to have the highest per capita output of emissions, they can't destroy the planet with their emissions no matter what they do. China can due to their population. It would be a different context if China's emissions were declining. With regards to China's CO2 emissions for example, how much more dire can it get? https://i.imgur.com/B6W1S3q.jpg https://i.imgur.com/B6W1S3q.jpg
    - soperj 5y ago
      US is the richest nation on earth and is more responsible for the current problem than any other nation on earth. They have the means to reduce their emissions drastically but choose not to.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        The US should absolutely do more to reduce its emissions, but the actions or inaction of one country doesn't impugn or absolve others. Otherwise any country can and will point to some other country and use some contrived rationale like yours to justify inaction. At the end of the day, we need all countries to meet their emissions targets, otherwise we'll just be pointing fingers at each other while society crumbles around us.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Given the fact that the market with gas is global, that the EU has almost no local sources of gas under its control and that gas availability / price is fluctuating rather heavily, I would try avoiding reliance on gas too. As of today, it isn't any more reliable than wind.

scythe 5y ago

>Nuclear power is too expensive Nuclear plant construction is too expensive, sure. Running existing nuclear plants instead of shutting them down before EoL is not too expensive. What we are talking about in Germany is the latter. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-germanys-nuclear-phase-out https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...

throwaway894345 5y ago
Also, from my sibling comment[0]: > Even today, there are some interesting Small Modular Reactor (SMRs) which allow nuclear plants to be built more quickly, safely, compactly, and efficiently than traditional nuclear plants. We should build some of these and iterate on them while simultaneously investing in solving the storage problem. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28671870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28671870

himinlomax 5y ago

Nuclear, externalized? that's the exact opposite, as the waste is left in the hands of the users, as opposed to dumped in the atmosphere.

karaterobot 5y ago

Which elements of nuclear are externalized?

goodpoint 5y ago
The environmental and economical cost of excavation. Also the environmental and economical cost and waste management.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  The environmental cost of excavation is externalized, but it's negligible compared to that of fossil fuels ("economical cost" is nonsense), but the environmental cost of managing waste very much isn't externalized. At least not in the West (less sure about China, but I'm guessing they do roughly what we do).
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    Sources needed.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Not sure what you’re looking for specifically, but by far the biggest environmental threat is posed by emissions. Nuclear has the lowest emissions per unit energy of any energy source including the emissions that factor into mining the uranium and building the nuclear facilities, managing the waste, etc. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy