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It's self created... Nuclear is a great option; unfortunately renewables need a high amount of storage capacity AND expensive other minerals AND space AND part

It's self created... Nuclear is a great option; unfortunately renewables need a high amount of storage capacity AND expensive other minerals AND space AND particular environments. That being said, renewables are great if you can set them up. For instance, I'm building a hydroelectric & solar system on my farm. That does not mean I think it's for everywhere. Nuclear, Coal and Natural Gas are going to be necessary for northern climates and many regions due to environmental factors.

mschuster91 5y ago
> Nuclear is a great option It's not, for a multitude of reasons: - New ordinary reactor projects (EPR) are ridiculously overrunning timelines and budgets, they are putting Berlin's infamous BER airport to shame - New revolutionary concepts (MSR) are at the moment vaporware, not to mention the unsolved proliferation issues - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage - Most of Africa and South America are politically too unstable to do anything involving nuclear. Last thing unstable narco countries or war zones need is to worry about terrorists snatching up nuclear material and building dirty bombs - Most of the world's uranium production comes from dictatorships and has intense environmental concerns surrounding it, making it an ethically questionable fuel source - Even our existing nuclear plants are plagued with mismanagement, cost-cutting and accidents (see e.g. the infamous Sellafield plant in UK), not to mention they are extremely old. Many have been placed in geologically questionable areas, further increasing the risk of a repeat of a Fukushima-style incident.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage You mean if you exclude places like northern Scandinavia, Greenland and Svalbard?
  - qayxc 5y ago
    Greenland hardly counts as "Europe" - that's mostly an historical curiosity. And Svalbard - sure! - let's dump our garbage in one of the few remaining somewhat pristine Arctic islands. Brilliant! As for other places in northern Scandinavia, ask the natives whether they're cool (pun not intended) with becoming the dumping ground for the rest of the continent.
  - cm2187 5y ago
    And you don't need a remote place to store nuclear material. You need a stable geological stratum.
qayxc 5y ago
It takes at least a decade to build a modern nuclear power plant from planning to regular operation. A modern reactor block has a net capacity of about 1.3 GW. Last year, 1.4 GW net have been installed in just wind power in Germany. Sure that's not a good comparison, since both over-provisioning and storage have to be accounted for, but it just goes to show how quickly alternatives can be scaled up (side note, the newly installed capacity in 2017 was 5.3 GW). The problem with nuclear power is logistics and time. There's only so many specialists for planning and building nuclear facilities plus most countries simply cannot afford to have more than dozen or so under construction at any given time. The countries that'd benefit the most from cheap and reliable electricity ae incidentally countries that can neither afford nor operate nuclear power for various reasons. That's not just political instability and lack of expertise, but also geography. You need stable ground and cooling, so dry regions with seasonal flooding are off the table. Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity.
- cm2187 5y ago
  > Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity. That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy.
  - qayxc 5y ago
    > That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. Capable of doesn't equal safe and economical, though, which is why France's reactors are capped at 2.3%. This still doesn't affect the minimum load of about 45% either (the safe range is ~37% to 83%). > France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. No it isn't. Some reactors are being operated in load following mode. Not all and not most. > In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy. This "energy debacle" affects France just as well because it's not about electricity (except for very few countries like Romania) and primarily about heating and industry. The amount of natural gas consumed by France amounted to about 1743512 TJ compared to 1436443 TJ in gross electricity production using nuclear power in 2019 [1]. So France is using more natural gas (in terms of energy) than electricity generated from nuclear power, so much for that misinformed bit. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-HB-20-001-EN-N.pdf/bf891880-1e3e-b4ba-0061-19810ebf2c64?t=1594715608000 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-... pg.96ff

mschuster91 5y ago

> Nuclear is a great option It's not, for a multitude of reasons: - New ordinary reactor projects (EPR) are ridiculously overrunning timelines and budgets, they are putting Berlin's infamous BER airport to shame - New revolutionary concepts (MSR) are at the moment vaporware, not to mention the unsolved proliferation issues - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage - Most of Africa and South America are politically too unstable to do anything involving nuclear. Last thing unstable narco countries or war zones need is to worry about terrorists snatching up nuclear material and building dirty bombs - Most of the world's uranium production comes from dictatorships and has intense environmental concerns surrounding it, making it an ethically questionable fuel source - Even our existing nuclear plants are plagued with mismanagement, cost-cutting and accidents (see e.g. the infamous Sellafield plant in UK), not to mention they are extremely old. Many have been placed in geologically questionable areas, further increasing the risk of a repeat of a Fukushima-style incident.

Jensson 5y ago
> - Europe (unlike the US, Australia and Russia) doesn't have remote places to safely dump all the nuclear garbage You mean if you exclude places like northern Scandinavia, Greenland and Svalbard?
- qayxc 5y ago
  Greenland hardly counts as "Europe" - that's mostly an historical curiosity. And Svalbard - sure! - let's dump our garbage in one of the few remaining somewhat pristine Arctic islands. Brilliant! As for other places in northern Scandinavia, ask the natives whether they're cool (pun not intended) with becoming the dumping ground for the rest of the continent.
- cm2187 5y ago
  And you don't need a remote place to store nuclear material. You need a stable geological stratum.

qayxc 5y ago

It takes at least a decade to build a modern nuclear power plant from planning to regular operation. A modern reactor block has a net capacity of about 1.3 GW. Last year, 1.4 GW net have been installed in just wind power in Germany. Sure that's not a good comparison, since both over-provisioning and storage have to be accounted for, but it just goes to show how quickly alternatives can be scaled up (side note, the newly installed capacity in 2017 was 5.3 GW). The problem with nuclear power is logistics and time. There's only so many specialists for planning and building nuclear facilities plus most countries simply cannot afford to have more than dozen or so under construction at any given time. The countries that'd benefit the most from cheap and reliable electricity ae incidentally countries that can neither afford nor operate nuclear power for various reasons. That's not just political instability and lack of expertise, but also geography. You need stable ground and cooling, so dry regions with seasonal flooding are off the table. Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity.

cm2187 5y ago
> Not to mention the enormous amount of additional infrastructure, from substations to stable grids. Oh, and nuclear reactors are crap at load following so unless you have substantial baseload (e.g. heavy industry), you'd need somewhere to dump excess electricity. That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy.
- qayxc 5y ago
  > That's not true. Modern nuclear power plants can move at 5% of full load per minute up and down. Capable of doesn't equal safe and economical, though, which is why France's reactors are capped at 2.3%. This still doesn't affect the minimum load of about 45% either (the safe range is ~37% to 83%). > France is doing load following country wide with its nuclear reactors. No it isn't. Some reactors are being operated in load following mode. Not all and not most. > In fact the French must be laughing at this energy debacle with their 75% share of nuclear energy. This "energy debacle" affects France just as well because it's not about electricity (except for very few countries like Romania) and primarily about heating and industry. The amount of natural gas consumed by France amounted to about 1743512 TJ compared to 1436443 TJ in gross electricity production using nuclear power in 2019 [1]. So France is using more natural gas (in terms of energy) than electricity generated from nuclear power, so much for that misinformed bit. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-HB-20-001-EN-N.pdf/bf891880-1e3e-b4ba-0061-19810ebf2c64?t=1594715608000 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11099022/KS-... pg.96ff