3 ms·

> Because nuclear does not make sense. Assuming your three points would be solved, would you be in favour of nuclear power plants? Or what exactly would need t

> Because nuclear does not make sense. Assuming your three points would be solved, would you be in favour of nuclear power plants? Or what exactly would need to change?

mschuster91 4y ago
I would of course not be in favor of nuclear power. A new nuclear plant takes well over a decade to build - it makes way more economical sense to build renewable power plants because they can be ready far faster and pose less danger and waste to our children.
- tjansen 4y ago
  > I would of course not be in favor of nuclear power. Ok, let's say I could convince you that it is possible to store nuclear waste safely, and show you that building up wind power takes at least as long. Could I convince you then?
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    No, because of the financial risks involved in constructing, operating and getting rid of them. The costs associated with Fukushima are estimated to be at least 200 billion dollars [1], Chernobyl 235 billion dollars [2]. Even leaving out disaster scenarios: A modern EPR nuclear power plant is at ~1.6 GW [3] at a cost of 11 billion euros, taking a decade or more to build, and about a billion dollars to tear down [4]. A wind park half the size costs two billion dollars in two to five years [5], has less risks in construction, no risk at all of a catastrophic failure, and assuming 80€/kWh in teardown costs [6] 16 million € for the teardown. That means wind power at a capacity factor of 0.4-0.5 [7] (meaning, you need two of them to achieve the same available capacity to the grid on average) is half as expensive as a nuclear power plant even when ignoring the efficiencies that building at scale brings with it and has virtually no risks attached. Financially, it's absolute irresponsibility to go nuclear. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253929/ [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/chernobyl-disaster https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/chernobyl... [3] https://taz.de/Finnischer-Reaktor-geht-ans-Netz/!5829751/ https://taz.de/Finnischer-Reaktor-geht-ans-Netz/!5829751/ [4] https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/energiewende-die-kosten-sind-immens/8801768-4.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/energiewend... [5] https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-800-mw-vineyard-wind-762018/ https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-800-mw... [6] https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Parlamentarische-Anfragen/2018/19-3619.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=4 https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Parlamentarische-Anfragen/2... [7] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volllaststunde https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volllaststunde
    - tjansen 4y ago
      You can't compare the price of a wind park with the price of a nuclear power plant, because the wind park does not offer base load. A wind park without base load is pretty useless. Base load is far more valuable. So if you say a power plant costs 12 billions, it is a steal compared to a two billion wind park. Most people will rather have electricity 24/7 than occasional electricity for 1/6th the price. Beside that, in another comment you had a long list of things you say is required to make EE feasible. You need to include the price of all these things in your calculation.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > You can't compare the price of a wind park with the price of a nuclear power plant, because the wind park does not offer base load. Agreed that base load is valuable... but why not go and reduce the amount of base load by both directly saving on load (e.g. by insulating houses or getting rid of advertising) and by making the base load that absolutely remains more flexible (e.g. by upgrading to a truly smart grid that can dynamically regulate consumption of loads)? And for what it's worth, you can additionally also go and build even more wind energy. In times of ample wind, the now infinitely cheap electricity can be used in electrolysis to generate hydrogen as a base chemical for the industry and fuel for those very few applications that definitely need a combustion process (e.g. glass and metal foundries).
        tjansen 4y ago
        All these things are not enough. In 2015, there was an hour when wind power only generated 0.2GW. Hydro and biomass will probably never exceed 10GW combined. Even if you radically reduce the electricity needs down to, let's say, 35GW, you would still have a gap of 25GW. You can't build enough wind power to get this on a day without wind. You need another power source.
        tehbeard 4y ago
        The only people who are more "trust us, it's just around the corner" than fusion folks are the renewables only folks and their hair brained schemes to avoid the base load question. Complicating the grid with smarts, given how well that's gone with IoT? We've thrown a low carbon option under the bus because of sloppy Soviet engineering. The coal and gas we are stuck with due to "greens" no nuclear stance has caused more harm to humanity than our sum total nuclear incidents, even counting non power incidents such as orphaned radiotherapy sources or ignoring procedures at irradiation facilities.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dontlaugh 4y ago
  I was with you until here. The waste was never the main problem and contemporary nuclear power plant designs don't share many of the other downsides either.

> Because nuclear does not make sense. Assuming your three points would be solved, would you be in favour of nuclear power plants? Or what exactly would need to change?

mschuster91 4y ago

I would of course not be in favor of nuclear power. A new nuclear plant takes well over a decade to build - it makes way more economical sense to build renewable power plants because they can be ready far faster and pose less danger and waste to our children.

tjansen 4y ago
> I would of course not be in favor of nuclear power. Ok, let's say I could convince you that it is possible to store nuclear waste safely, and show you that building up wind power takes at least as long. Could I convince you then?
- mschuster91 4y ago
  No, because of the financial risks involved in constructing, operating and getting rid of them. The costs associated with Fukushima are estimated to be at least 200 billion dollars [1], Chernobyl 235 billion dollars [2]. Even leaving out disaster scenarios: A modern EPR nuclear power plant is at ~1.6 GW [3] at a cost of 11 billion euros, taking a decade or more to build, and about a billion dollars to tear down [4]. A wind park half the size costs two billion dollars in two to five years [5], has less risks in construction, no risk at all of a catastrophic failure, and assuming 80€/kWh in teardown costs [6] 16 million € for the teardown. That means wind power at a capacity factor of 0.4-0.5 [7] (meaning, you need two of them to achieve the same available capacity to the grid on average) is half as expensive as a nuclear power plant even when ignoring the efficiencies that building at scale brings with it and has virtually no risks attached. Financially, it's absolute irresponsibility to go nuclear. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK253929/ [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/chernobyl-disaster https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/chernobyl... [3] https://taz.de/Finnischer-Reaktor-geht-ans-Netz/!5829751/ https://taz.de/Finnischer-Reaktor-geht-ans-Netz/!5829751/ [4] https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/energiewende-die-kosten-sind-immens/8801768-4.html https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/energie/energiewend... [5] https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-800-mw-vineyard-wind-762018/ https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-800-mw... [6] https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Parlamentarische-Anfragen/2018/19-3619.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=4 https://www.bmwk.de/Redaktion/DE/Parlamentarische-Anfragen/2... [7] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volllaststunde https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volllaststunde
  - tjansen 4y ago
    You can't compare the price of a wind park with the price of a nuclear power plant, because the wind park does not offer base load. A wind park without base load is pretty useless. Base load is far more valuable. So if you say a power plant costs 12 billions, it is a steal compared to a two billion wind park. Most people will rather have electricity 24/7 than occasional electricity for 1/6th the price. Beside that, in another comment you had a long list of things you say is required to make EE feasible. You need to include the price of all these things in your calculation.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > You can't compare the price of a wind park with the price of a nuclear power plant, because the wind park does not offer base load. Agreed that base load is valuable... but why not go and reduce the amount of base load by both directly saving on load (e.g. by insulating houses or getting rid of advertising) and by making the base load that absolutely remains more flexible (e.g. by upgrading to a truly smart grid that can dynamically regulate consumption of loads)? And for what it's worth, you can additionally also go and build even more wind energy. In times of ample wind, the now infinitely cheap electricity can be used in electrolysis to generate hydrogen as a base chemical for the industry and fuel for those very few applications that definitely need a combustion process (e.g. glass and metal foundries).
      - tjansen 4y ago
        All these things are not enough. In 2015, there was an hour when wind power only generated 0.2GW. Hydro and biomass will probably never exceed 10GW combined. Even if you radically reduce the electricity needs down to, let's say, 35GW, you would still have a gap of 25GW. You can't build enough wind power to get this on a day without wind. You need another power source.
      - tehbeard 4y ago
        The only people who are more "trust us, it's just around the corner" than fusion folks are the renewables only folks and their hair brained schemes to avoid the base load question. Complicating the grid with smarts, given how well that's gone with IoT? We've thrown a low carbon option under the bus because of sloppy Soviet engineering. The coal and gas we are stuck with due to "greens" no nuclear stance has caused more harm to humanity than our sum total nuclear incidents, even counting non power incidents such as orphaned radiotherapy sources or ignoring procedures at irradiation facilities.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dontlaugh 4y ago
I was with you until here. The waste was never the main problem and contemporary nuclear power plant designs don't share many of the other downsides either.