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This is super good. Again, the point is not Europe in and of itself, but also India and China. The demand for power in India and China is outstripping everyone

This is super good. Again, the point is not Europe in and of itself, but also India and China. The demand for power in India and China is outstripping everyone else. And it is still stuck using coal power. India and China do NOT have land (for renewables) commensurate with the population or energy demand. Also one of the biggest sources of renewable hydro power is a geopolitical flashpoint for India vs China (https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/china-proposed-mega-dam-spells-concern-for-india-1851621-2021-09-10 https://www.indiatoday.in/news-analysis/story/china-proposed...). Almost a hundred soldiers died in an India vs China battle recently around this area. Both India and China have unilaterally rejected COP26 restrictive measures from developed nations... simply because it is not possible to reduce the power demand coming from populations (the size of Europe) being lifted up from poverty. The only answer for the next 50 years is nuclear tech. And France is literally the only game in town right now. So let us pray, this happens sooner than later. You do NOT want coal from 2 BILLION people in the atmosphere.

phicoh 5y ago
Why do you say that China does not have the land for renewables? Population denstity in China (145/km2) is less than for example Germany (232/km2).
ChemSpider 5y ago
Of course China as more than enough land for renewables. Ever heard of the Gobi desert?
- sandGorgon 5y ago
  There are already massive solar array farms in the Gobi desert. You are misunderstanding the growth in power needed. If India and China move towards electric vehicles..... just New Delhi has 12 million cars. Just to compare, London has 2.6 million cars. New York has about 4 million cars. I don't think people grasp what 2 billion people really means.
krrrh 5y ago
I’m no fan of the Chinese regime, but maybe they just concluded that the preening do-nothingness that goes on at these summits isn’t worth getting mixed up with. From last week: “China has reported overnight to be planning 150 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years — more than have been built around the world since 1980 — a signal that uranium production needs to be stepped up, fast and soon.” That’s a reported planned investment of $440B. https://smallcaps.com.au/china-supercharge-uranium-race-150-new-nuclear-reactors/ https://smallcaps.com.au/china-supercharge-uranium-race-150-...
trasz 5y ago
FWIW, China is building nuclear power plants like crazy. And actually doing that as we speak, instead of "planning".
- sandGorgon 5y ago
  It's mostly French tech from what I understand.
kaliszad 5y ago
Actually, it is not so clear nuclear is the solution in Europe (e.g. France) at this point. You still have to mine lots of uranium ore, because compared to coal, you actually only seek a small fraction of it, where with coal you can burn almost all of what you mine. The enrichment facilities have dual use for war and the uranium mostly comes from Russia which is geopolitically problematic (for Europe, somewhat similar to coal/ oil/ gas mostly). With nuclear fission, we basically don't recycle much if at all. You have to take care of the waste. With coal of course, you have ash and all the CO_2 you have to do something about (again in Europe at least) if you don't want to pay too much on emission allowances. The last point, we just don't know how to build nuclear economically anymore. The process is so bureaucratic and slow it becomes infeasible to finance without major interventions. Letting Chinese or Russian companies build it from the standpoint of Europe is a geopolitical challenge and a security risk. All this time and money would be perhaps spent better elsewhere. In Europe, we are not able to build a nuclear powerplant in 15 years, so that is lots of time for research and development and even building something useable. It is very likely, most of the renewable sources will become more economical and nuclear less even less. We might devise a scheme to store energy by e.g. splitting salt (NaOH) into sodium metal, hydrogen and oxygen and later combining sodium with water to NaOH again, while getting hydrogen as a byproduct and lots of electrical current. It is a simple process, we "just" have to scale it and develop it further. The first half of it is well known for 100 years and was used at industrial scale. Currently, we just split NaCl directly to obtain sodium... The second half is described in patents by Lockheed-Martin that are long expired. You can read more in this diagram: https://www.orgpad.com/s/iV3vbi https://www.orgpad.com/s/iV3vbi Btw. Slowakia has a lot of nuclear too and here in Czechia, we have a conversation about building new reactors in Dukovany too. For Czechia, the approach seems to be misguided as you can read here (Google Translated from Czech): https://denikreferendum-cz.translate.goog/clanek/32812-cesky-energeticky-titanik-hlasi-plnou-parou-vpred?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=cs&_x_tr_pto=nui https://denikreferendum-cz.translate.goog/clanek/32812-cesky...
- mFixman 5y ago
  My biggest argument against nuclear is that there are no incentives for decommissioning unsafe plants in the far future. The usual pro-nuclear argument says that nuclear plants are only unsafe if managed incorrectly. However, the West doesn't have the political or economic framework to ensure they will get managed correctly: if you are the leader of the executive of some country, are you going to decomission a plant built 30 years ago that gives the country a lot gW of energy and raise energy prices for everyone, or are you going to risk the very low chance of a serious accident to keep prices down and pass the ball to whomever governs next? If nuclear is the future, we need an effective process of automatic decommissioning that can bypass governments. That process doesn't exist yet.

phicoh 5y ago

Why do you say that China does not have the land for renewables? Population denstity in China (145/km2) is less than for example Germany (232/km2).

ChemSpider 5y ago

Of course China as more than enough land for renewables. Ever heard of the Gobi desert?

sandGorgon 5y ago
There are already massive solar array farms in the Gobi desert. You are misunderstanding the growth in power needed. If India and China move towards electric vehicles..... just New Delhi has 12 million cars. Just to compare, London has 2.6 million cars. New York has about 4 million cars. I don't think people grasp what 2 billion people really means.

krrrh 5y ago

I’m no fan of the Chinese regime, but maybe they just concluded that the preening do-nothingness that goes on at these summits isn’t worth getting mixed up with. From last week: “China has reported overnight to be planning 150 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years — more than have been built around the world since 1980 — a signal that uranium production needs to be stepped up, fast and soon.” That’s a reported planned investment of $440B. https://smallcaps.com.au/china-supercharge-uranium-race-150-new-nuclear-reactors/ https://smallcaps.com.au/china-supercharge-uranium-race-150-...

trasz 5y ago

FWIW, China is building nuclear power plants like crazy. And actually doing that as we speak, instead of "planning".

sandGorgon 5y ago
It's mostly French tech from what I understand.

kaliszad 5y ago

Actually, it is not so clear nuclear is the solution in Europe (e.g. France) at this point. You still have to mine lots of uranium ore, because compared to coal, you actually only seek a small fraction of it, where with coal you can burn almost all of what you mine. The enrichment facilities have dual use for war and the uranium mostly comes from Russia which is geopolitically problematic (for Europe, somewhat similar to coal/ oil/ gas mostly). With nuclear fission, we basically don't recycle much if at all. You have to take care of the waste. With coal of course, you have ash and all the CO_2 you have to do something about (again in Europe at least) if you don't want to pay too much on emission allowances. The last point, we just don't know how to build nuclear economically anymore. The process is so bureaucratic and slow it becomes infeasible to finance without major interventions. Letting Chinese or Russian companies build it from the standpoint of Europe is a geopolitical challenge and a security risk. All this time and money would be perhaps spent better elsewhere. In Europe, we are not able to build a nuclear powerplant in 15 years, so that is lots of time for research and development and even building something useable. It is very likely, most of the renewable sources will become more economical and nuclear less even less. We might devise a scheme to store energy by e.g. splitting salt (NaOH) into sodium metal, hydrogen and oxygen and later combining sodium with water to NaOH again, while getting hydrogen as a byproduct and lots of electrical current. It is a simple process, we "just" have to scale it and develop it further. The first half of it is well known for 100 years and was used at industrial scale. Currently, we just split NaCl directly to obtain sodium... The second half is described in patents by Lockheed-Martin that are long expired. You can read more in this diagram: https://www.orgpad.com/s/iV3vbi https://www.orgpad.com/s/iV3vbi Btw. Slowakia has a lot of nuclear too and here in Czechia, we have a conversation about building new reactors in Dukovany too. For Czechia, the approach seems to be misguided as you can read here (Google Translated from Czech): https://denikreferendum-cz.translate.goog/clanek/32812-cesky-energeticky-titanik-hlasi-plnou-parou-vpred?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=cs&_x_tr_pto=nui https://denikreferendum-cz.translate.goog/clanek/32812-cesky...

mFixman 5y ago
My biggest argument against nuclear is that there are no incentives for decommissioning unsafe plants in the far future. The usual pro-nuclear argument says that nuclear plants are only unsafe if managed incorrectly. However, the West doesn't have the political or economic framework to ensure they will get managed correctly: if you are the leader of the executive of some country, are you going to decomission a plant built 30 years ago that gives the country a lot gW of energy and raise energy prices for everyone, or are you going to risk the very low chance of a serious accident to keep prices down and pass the ball to whomever governs next? If nuclear is the future, we need an effective process of automatic decommissioning that can bypass governments. That process doesn't exist yet.