10 ms·

Nuclear is one of a number of alternatives that needs to be seriously considered but due to the long timelines and high costs of nuclear it is also one of the b

by shirro 5y ago

Nuclear is one of a number of alternatives that needs to be seriously considered but due to the long timelines and high costs of nuclear it is also one of the best stalling tactics for the fossil fuel industry seeking to extend the life of their assets. Possible increased adoption of nuclear in the future is not a reason to avoid setting sunset dates for emitting technologies now and commence transition to whatever low emission technologies are the most available and affordable right now.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
We can't afford to wait or not to hedge our bets. Nuclear is a hell of a hedge since we know it works. We know the French model works really well, but for some reason we, the country with the most heavily armed forces in the world, can't "protect" it. BS, moneyed interests and tree huggers are keeping us from fixing the problem until fusion comes along or uber cheap battery density 100x better than what we have currently comes along.
- santjego 5y ago
  I can't imagine any type of plant I'd like built in a mad rush less than a nuclear power one. I am not against it, but it is not a magic bullet, either.
- Krasnol 5y ago
  > We know the French model works really well It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. It's so fantastic that every summer they have to buy dirty coal energy from Germany because their rivers get too hot and every winter because...it's too cold and their ageing fleet is breaking down all the time. The success is so staggering that they plan to reduce their fleet by 50% until 2030 and replace that with renewable energy. Hooray... --------------------- Edit: since the Astro-Turf reached me and I can't reply anymore due to downvotes, here are the answers to Bayart: > I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. Why do you try to lie about something everybody can google. This is the first result for "France river hot": https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwave-idUSKCN1UK0HR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwa... > Pretty much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades and losing the associated skill-set and industrial base. Weird because EPR didn't stop building. They just stopped building in France so this can't be right. Also: the reactors currently still under construction started construction when all the people from the peak construction times where still there. They still can't manage to build on budget or on time. Not even close. ---------------- @corban1: Only because Germany doesn't hide their subsidies doesn't mean that the French taxpayer is not paying for their ageing fleet (or overpriced projects abroad) with their taxes... Also the fact that coal is an important job motor in troubled regions of Germany which is why it's still there (but is being phased out completely soon).
  - chelical 5y ago
    This didn't age well lol. Macron just announced they're going up build more nuclear reactors to meet their emissions targets.
  - corban1 5y ago
    France €0.1765 per kWh 57.3 gCO2/KWh (2019) | Germany €0.3159 (+76.9%) per kWh 468 (+816%) gCO2/KWh (2019) Seems the success is very clearly visible both environmentally and economically? [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity-outlook-of-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2-emissions-per-kilowatt-hour-of-electricity-in https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2...
    - gefhfff 5y ago
      Correlation is not causation
      - mlyle 5y ago
        ??? we're talking about the economic cost and carbon output of energy vs. how it is generated. Do you think there's some other common factor that explains France using lots of nuclear power and having a low carbon footprint and energy costs?
        cinntaile 5y ago
        Household energy prices don't really tell us much about the production costs though.
        gefhfff 5y ago
        I think there are may be factors for Germany having high energy prices.
  - 5y ago
- naasking 5y ago
  Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. We need different nuclear reactors, fast reactors or thorium that use uranium more efficiently to stave this off, but they're more dangerous and still experimental, respectively. I think we're better off using that nuclear money into building lots of grid storage for renewables.
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    Or we could just use breeder reactors.
  - blibble 5y ago
    the UK has enough civil plutonium (extracted from waste) for several hundred years, without digging anything up
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. This is a little pessimistic: these numbers rely on current proven reserves without reprocessing. Of course, if you want to use a bunch more uranium, prices will go up and the number of proven reserves will increase. This won't necessarily take a massive price swing-- heck, even at current prices new reserves will continue to be found. > Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. Fuel is a negligible portion of the cost of nuclear. You could triple the cost of fuel without materially impacting the operating costs of a reactor, and the overall costs of nuclear energy are not dominated by operating costs, but instead capital costs. And, we're leaving out that reprocessing fuel is possible and proven (though there are proliferation concerns0.
  - coryrc 5y ago
    You don't spend money proving new reserves when you have eighty years worth.
  - 5y ago
- shirro 5y ago
  Hedging bets is fine but there is a lot of money and influence using nuclear to muddy the climate debate and reframe the the issue as nuclear power vs greens/environmentalists. People should be aware of how the debate is being manipulated by fossil fuel apologists/lobbyists. The moment people blame things on tree huggers they have fallen into the trap. Tree huggers are not the problem. The problem is carbon emissions. Tree huggers aren't stopping nuclear. They barely have any political power or representation. Nuclear's problems are the huge capital costs and the nimby attitude of the general public. Nuclear is a clear win in countries like France with the capability and commitment. Climate change is a global problem and it doesn't matter where the nuclear reactors are as long as global emissions are reducing. Countries that can increase nuclear should. Those that can't may find it harder but they will have to innovate more and move faster.
  - portpecos 5y ago
    >The moment people blame things on tree huggers https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazines/antinuclear-movement https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazin... The late 1960s through 1980s saw a shift in the antinuclear movement toward protesting the development of nuclear power as an energy source. The antinuclear movement succeeded in virtually halting the governments' development of nuclear power.
    - another_story 5y ago
      How does one manage to stop nuclear energy but not fossil fuel use? These are arguably the same sorts of groups, with probably a large overlap. How did they have such power in one area, but not in another? If there is lack of lobbyist or industry pressure pushing for it, then we have to wonder why? Nuclear isn't cost effective as a business is the likely answer, and under our current system that drives most of the decisions.
      - buitreVirtual 5y ago
        I think people freak out much more easily when imagining a Hiroshima or Chernobyl or Fukushima in their home towns than when trying to picture the slow but unrelenting worsening of climate conditions over time caused by fossil burning, even though the former is local and unlikely and the latter is global and certain.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Yeah, we are unable to make a good product that is actually safe and to show a real sensible solution to deal with the residues, but lets undust again the stupid narrative of the big bad tree huggers. Yawn. Please cut the BS an don't blame other people for your own failures that are incredible expensive for everybody and erase the benefits. It seems that in their strange world every citizen is either pro-nuclear or a hippie living in a caravan. This is not how they will sell it.
q1w2 5y ago
I find it interesting that people who advocate we make major policy changes to avert a climate disaster refuse to entertain making minor policy changes to reduce the cost and timeline of nuclear power plant construction. China builds literally dozens of 1GW plants simultaneously for a fraction of the price, and in a fraction of the time, using western nuclear companies. The time and cost limitation are entirely avoidable if we make sensible policy changes. 1. We need to issue an executive order opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. This one facility can hold ALL the nuclear waste we will make even if we move to 100% nuclear power. 2. We need to immunize nuclear plants from environmental lobby lawsuits which constantly delay projects and multiply costs. These two changes ALONE will make nuclear plant construction attractive again in the US. Remember that large capital cost finance for profitable projects is not a problem. It's literally what Wall Street was built for. We wouldn't even need to fund the plants with gov't money.
- Bayart 5y ago
  Policy makers already have to battle deeply entrenched cultural attitudes towards nuclear technology. They can't be seen as lowering the safety measures for it too.
sfifs 5y ago
Nuclear is socially and therefore politically non-viable because (1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech (2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents over all else (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy) People instinctively get this now. Fukushima was especially a bad shakeup because "if even the Japanese can't do safety right, why would we trust the dumb nerds we went to school with to be able to do so". We should move on and focus on other clean energy tech, scaling up storage tech and stop wasting time and energy debating fission. And Maybe figure out a rebranding for "nuclear fusion" whenever it works (hopefully within my lifetime) assuming it's safety profile is better.
- throwoutway 5y ago
  > (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy) Then perhaps the US Navy and their US Navy Corps of Engineers need to be tasked with building & maintaining a system of land-based reactors
  - sfifs 5y ago
    Yes in retrospect this was definitely a missed opportunity to not put Rickover's org in charge of civillian reactors. But then the problwm outside US would persist. However trust is now lost, will be very difficult ro regain
    - acidburnNSA 5y ago
      Rickover was in charge of developing Shippingport, the USA's first terrestrial nuclear power plant. After that, it was largely necessary to pass things over to the private sector because of capitalism.
  - CapricornNoble 5y ago
    I said the same a few months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28219660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28219660 ). Maybe if we keep repeating this the idea can gain some traction.
ThrustVectoring 5y ago
The US regulatory scheme (among others) guarantees that nuclear power is expensive. ALARA - As Low As Reasonably Achievable. In practice, this means that if nuclear power is cheaper than alternatives, regulators can demand that more "reasonably achievable" steps are taken to reduce exposure to radiation.

by shirro 5y ago

stjohnswarts 5y ago

We can't afford to wait or not to hedge our bets. Nuclear is a hell of a hedge since we know it works. We know the French model works really well, but for some reason we, the country with the most heavily armed forces in the world, can't "protect" it. BS, moneyed interests and tree huggers are keeping us from fixing the problem until fusion comes along or uber cheap battery density 100x better than what we have currently comes along.

santjego 5y ago
I can't imagine any type of plant I'd like built in a mad rush less than a nuclear power one. I am not against it, but it is not a magic bullet, either.
Krasnol 5y ago
> We know the French model works really well It works so "well" that the French taxpayer will have to pay the UK so they can deliver their guaranteed energy prices the over-due and over budget reactor they desperately try to finish will generate. It's so fantastic that every summer they have to buy dirty coal energy from Germany because their rivers get too hot and every winter because...it's too cold and their ageing fleet is breaking down all the time. The success is so staggering that they plan to reduce their fleet by 50% until 2030 and replace that with renewable energy. Hooray... --------------------- Edit: since the Astro-Turf reached me and I can't reply anymore due to downvotes, here are the answers to Bayart: > I don't down where you get that broadly France relies on German coal in the summer and winter. Why do you try to lie about something everybody can google. This is the first result for "France river hot": https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwave-idUSKCN1UK0HR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwa... > Pretty much the entirety of the problems we've had with the EPR program has to do stopping building nuclear power plants for decades and losing the associated skill-set and industrial base. Weird because EPR didn't stop building. They just stopped building in France so this can't be right. Also: the reactors currently still under construction started construction when all the people from the peak construction times where still there. They still can't manage to build on budget or on time. Not even close. ---------------- @corban1: Only because Germany doesn't hide their subsidies doesn't mean that the French taxpayer is not paying for their ageing fleet (or overpriced projects abroad) with their taxes... Also the fact that coal is an important job motor in troubled regions of Germany which is why it's still there (but is being phased out completely soon).
- chelical 5y ago
  This didn't age well lol. Macron just announced they're going up build more nuclear reactors to meet their emissions targets.
- corban1 5y ago
  France €0.1765 per kWh 57.3 gCO2/KWh (2019) | Germany €0.3159 (+76.9%) per kWh 468 (+816%) gCO2/KWh (2019) Seems the success is very clearly visible both environmentally and economically? [0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity-outlook-of-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1190067/carbon-intensity... [2] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2-emissions-per-kilowatt-hour-of-electricity-in https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/press/pressinformation/co2...
  - gefhfff 5y ago
    Correlation is not causation
    - mlyle 5y ago
      ??? we're talking about the economic cost and carbon output of energy vs. how it is generated. Do you think there's some other common factor that explains France using lots of nuclear power and having a low carbon footprint and energy costs?
      - cinntaile 5y ago
        Household energy prices don't really tell us much about the production costs though.
      - gefhfff 5y ago
        I think there are may be factors for Germany having high energy prices.
- 5y ago
naasking 5y ago
Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. We need different nuclear reactors, fast reactors or thorium that use uranium more efficiently to stave this off, but they're more dangerous and still experimental, respectively. I think we're better off using that nuclear money into building lots of grid storage for renewables.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  Or we could just use breeder reactors.
- blibble 5y ago
  the UK has enough civil plutonium (extracted from waste) for several hundred years, without digging anything up
- mlyle 5y ago
  > Easily processed uranium will last us 80 years at current consumption rates. If you start building current nuclear reactor designs everywhere, we'll run out of it in less than 40 years. This is a little pessimistic: these numbers rely on current proven reserves without reprocessing. Of course, if you want to use a bunch more uranium, prices will go up and the number of proven reserves will increase. This won't necessarily take a massive price swing-- heck, even at current prices new reserves will continue to be found. > Then the price will skyrocket, and nuclear is already more expensive than renewables. Fuel is a negligible portion of the cost of nuclear. You could triple the cost of fuel without materially impacting the operating costs of a reactor, and the overall costs of nuclear energy are not dominated by operating costs, but instead capital costs. And, we're leaving out that reprocessing fuel is possible and proven (though there are proliferation concerns0.
- coryrc 5y ago
  You don't spend money proving new reserves when you have eighty years worth.
- 5y ago
shirro 5y ago
Hedging bets is fine but there is a lot of money and influence using nuclear to muddy the climate debate and reframe the the issue as nuclear power vs greens/environmentalists. People should be aware of how the debate is being manipulated by fossil fuel apologists/lobbyists. The moment people blame things on tree huggers they have fallen into the trap. Tree huggers are not the problem. The problem is carbon emissions. Tree huggers aren't stopping nuclear. They barely have any political power or representation. Nuclear's problems are the huge capital costs and the nimby attitude of the general public. Nuclear is a clear win in countries like France with the capability and commitment. Climate change is a global problem and it doesn't matter where the nuclear reactors are as long as global emissions are reducing. Countries that can increase nuclear should. Those that can't may find it harder but they will have to innovate more and move faster.
- portpecos 5y ago
  >The moment people blame things on tree huggers https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazines/antinuclear-movement https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/educational-magazin... The late 1960s through 1980s saw a shift in the antinuclear movement toward protesting the development of nuclear power as an energy source. The antinuclear movement succeeded in virtually halting the governments' development of nuclear power.
  - another_story 5y ago
    How does one manage to stop nuclear energy but not fossil fuel use? These are arguably the same sorts of groups, with probably a large overlap. How did they have such power in one area, but not in another? If there is lack of lobbyist or industry pressure pushing for it, then we have to wonder why? Nuclear isn't cost effective as a business is the likely answer, and under our current system that drives most of the decisions.
    - buitreVirtual 5y ago
      I think people freak out much more easily when imagining a Hiroshima or Chernobyl or Fukushima in their home towns than when trying to picture the slow but unrelenting worsening of climate conditions over time caused by fossil burning, even though the former is local and unlikely and the latter is global and certain.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 5y ago
Yeah, we are unable to make a good product that is actually safe and to show a real sensible solution to deal with the residues, but lets undust again the stupid narrative of the big bad tree huggers. Yawn. Please cut the BS an don't blame other people for your own failures that are incredible expensive for everybody and erase the benefits. It seems that in their strange world every citizen is either pro-nuclear or a hippie living in a caravan. This is not how they will sell it.

q1w2 5y ago

I find it interesting that people who advocate we make major policy changes to avert a climate disaster refuse to entertain making minor policy changes to reduce the cost and timeline of nuclear power plant construction. China builds literally dozens of 1GW plants simultaneously for a fraction of the price, and in a fraction of the time, using western nuclear companies. The time and cost limitation are entirely avoidable if we make sensible policy changes. 1. We need to issue an executive order opening the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. This one facility can hold ALL the nuclear waste we will make even if we move to 100% nuclear power. 2. We need to immunize nuclear plants from environmental lobby lawsuits which constantly delay projects and multiply costs. These two changes ALONE will make nuclear plant construction attractive again in the US. Remember that large capital cost finance for profitable projects is not a problem. It's literally what Wall Street was built for. We wouldn't even need to fund the plants with gov't money.

Bayart 5y ago
Policy makers already have to battle deeply entrenched cultural attitudes towards nuclear technology. They can't be seen as lowering the safety measures for it too.

sfifs 5y ago

Nuclear is socially and therefore politically non-viable because (1) When nuclear accidents happen, they suddenly overturn the lives of a LOT of commoners all at once as opposed to slow and creeping and often "statistically determined" impact of other energy tech (2) technocrats have consistently failed to demonstrate the ability to create organisations that over the long term prioritize safety and the ability to prevent accidents over all else (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy) People instinctively get this now. Fukushima was especially a bad shakeup because "if even the Japanese can't do safety right, why would we trust the dumb nerds we went to school with to be able to do so". We should move on and focus on other clean energy tech, scaling up storage tech and stop wasting time and energy debating fission. And Maybe figure out a rebranding for "nuclear fusion" whenever it works (hopefully within my lifetime) assuming it's safety profile is better.

throwoutway 5y ago
> (maybe with the exception of US Naval Reactors org - but who knows given the secracy) Then perhaps the US Navy and their US Navy Corps of Engineers need to be tasked with building & maintaining a system of land-based reactors
- sfifs 5y ago
  Yes in retrospect this was definitely a missed opportunity to not put Rickover's org in charge of civillian reactors. But then the problwm outside US would persist. However trust is now lost, will be very difficult ro regain
  - acidburnNSA 5y ago
    Rickover was in charge of developing Shippingport, the USA's first terrestrial nuclear power plant. After that, it was largely necessary to pass things over to the private sector because of capitalism.
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  I said the same a few months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28219660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28219660 ). Maybe if we keep repeating this the idea can gain some traction.

ThrustVectoring 5y ago

The US regulatory scheme (among others) guarantees that nuclear power is expensive. ALARA - As Low As Reasonably Achievable. In practice, this means that if nuclear power is cheaper than alternatives, regulators can demand that more "reasonably achievable" steps are taken to reduce exposure to radiation.