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The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in U

The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. Everyone is talking about the gas imports from Russia, while nobody talks about oil imports which are not very different (using todays prices the EU imported around 300 billion euro worth of gas and 62 billion worth of oil in 2021. They are obviously over estimates because I used last year's volumes with todays prices). On top of that many publications talk as if electricity from other sources could easily replace gas, which is also incorrect. Germany which is often criticised generates less than 10% of electricity from gas, similar to France who are the nuclear poster child (that is because gas and nuclear are used for different purposes). Most of the gas in Germany is used for heating and industrial processes. On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. Finally, nobody talks how the situation at the Zaporizhzhia is an illustration of the significant security implications of nuclear. I mean Europe has not been this close to a nuclear disaster in more than 30 years and people arguing we should build more nuclear plants?

willi59549879 4y ago
And how about storage of radioactive garbage? That seems to be conveniently omitted too
- HyperSane 4y ago
  Not a problem. You reprocess the used fuel, which makes clean usable fuel and a tiny amount of nuclear waste. This is then mixed with glass and then buried deep underground.
  - jimbob45 4y ago
    It really helps if you post a picture. Most people unironically picture a barrel of bubbling, glowing green goo when you say “nuclear waste” like something out of The Simpsons. It helps when people don’t have to generate a picture based off of your description[0]. [0]https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/b5hy9b/what_nuclear_waste_looks_like/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/b5hy9b/what_n...
- slavik81 4y ago
  We Solved Nuclear Waste Decades Ago - https://youtu.be/4aUODXeAM-k https://youtu.be/4aUODXeAM-k The safe long-term storage of nuclear waste is not a technical problem. It's a political problem. The public opposes even just doing research into safer storage methods for nuclear waste. In 2016, the Department of Energy test wells for deep borehole disposal were cancelled due to protests. The tests were not even going to involve nuclear material! The opposition feared that the tests might show that the area was geologically appropriate for the safe storage of nuclear waste.
thrown_22 4y ago
> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. Paid by who? People can add two and two to get four. The coming winter in Europe is going to see a lot of governments removed when people start freezing to death.
- otherme123 4y ago
  Do you think europeans live in huts or something? Usually we suffer more deaths in heat waves than any winter. On top of that, any statistic will show you that "europeans" deaths from freezing in cold waves come mainly from... Russia! I trust 100% in my home to keep me alive in the winter without using heat, even if I need to use gloves and double socks. But I've zero fear of freezing to death.
  - samatman 4y ago
    Congratulations on being young and healthy, really speaks well of you that you cheerfully ignore those who aren't.
- phtrivier 4y ago
  200+ died in Texas last year because of electricity grid failure [1] gouvernements can survive such situations if there is a reasonable "scapegoat". In this case, it will be pretty fair to say that any energy shortage is _mostly_ to blame on Russian president. And gouvernements don't stay idle while this happens. For example : French government has been heavily subsidising everyone's energy bill for almost a year [2]; and the most likely situation for this winter is a period of rolling electricity cuts at the peak (probably January ?) [2]. As said elsewhere, "we don't live in huts" ; 2h without electricity per day a couple times a month in December - January would be a massive pain in the ass, and there will be a couple of well-mediatized drama, but it's not going to cause the same massive social unrest as a total blackout, or a 5€/liter of gas at the pump. What I really wonder is whether people will be able find practical ways to reduce their own pressure on the grid. Even if your heating is electrical, once you've turned your thermostat down to 19 and put on an extra sweater, I wonder if any extra step (turning of home lights, switching a screen off here and there) is cumulatively having _enough_ of an impact to make a January night peak more manageable. I'm not entirely ruling out a good surprise ; we might see a wining alliance of the electricity grid engineer, the weather forecaster and the everyday person to detect the peak in advance and adapt just enough. It would help if we could get our nuke plants back on track sooner, but let the workers work. > Every winter, that ever came, has ended [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis [2] https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/09/01/delestage-tournant-sur-l-electricite-coupure-de-gaz-pour-les-entreprises-elisabeth-borne-detaille-les-scenarios-possibles-en-cas-de-penurie-d-energie_6139803_823448.html https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/09/01/delestag... [3] https://youtu.be/Owi_LFlcVGg https://youtu.be/Owi_LFlcVGg
fi358 4y ago
Using electricity for heating is relatively easy. There is no need to use gas for heating and in many countries heating is done mostly without gas.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Including Germany, who peaked around 50% (they use a lot of oil which is bad for climate, but good for fuel diversity). https://energypost.eu/no-energiewende-without-warmewende-making-germanys-heating-emissions-climate-neutral-nearly/ https://energypost.eu/no-energiewende-without-warmewende-mak... > For almost a decade, emission reductions have stagnated. Weird that this phrase comes up so much in relation to German progress on renewables and climate change. > Opportunities missed since 2008 > Indeed, the German government has stumbled in several attempts to put efficient heating on the agenda. In 2019, the interior ministry led by Horst Seehofer cancelled the buildings commission intended to identify ways to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, while in 2017, the German government coalition failed in a first attempt to agree on a building energy law, which would have set new standards for efficiency in buildings. The NGO Environmental Action Germany has compiled a “chronology of failures” in the sector, starting from 2008. > Past success, but still 28m tonnes off target > After years of standstill, the energy used in Germany’s buildings has not fallen nearly as much as targeted. Instead of dropping by 20 percent between 2008 and 2020, final energy consumption had only gone down by 6.9 percent in 2017. Although greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector have fallen by about 44 percent since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011 and studies show the need to significantly ramp up action.
  - AnonCoward42 4y ago
    The thing is that we build on wind energy that is not only unreliable as an energy source, but also adds CO₂ for producing/maintaining/rebuilding and usually also producing SF₆ while running (one if not the most efficient greenhouse gas). I am actually under the impression we actually change just for the sake of change.
    - lbriner 4y ago
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Exactly, nuclear plants in an active war zone are always going to be a liability. Imagine the Ukraine had lots of small nuclear reactors all over the place like nuclear proponents keep insisting is the future. Likely, at least a few of those would have been taking direct hits from artillery or rocket attacks. Explosives and radioactive material can create a big mess. The Russians are using this notion as a very poorly veiled threat. They did it with the Chernobyl plant early in the war and they are doing it with Zaporizhzhia. Gas is a relatively new thing in the electricity market in Germany and there are way more coal plants in Germany than gas plants. Until the Ukrainian war, the plan was to replace coal with gas and eventually renewables. That plan went into the shredder a few months ago. I don't see that happening anymore. It was not a great plan before and now it's obviously a really bad plan to build any new gas plants. Without cheap Russian gas, these plants will never have a positive return on investment. Likewise producing more grey/blue hydrogen using gas seems madness. People lobbying the use of gas for such things now have to deal with a gas market with unreliable suppliers and wild prices. As for heating, Germany has a lot of district heating that is dependent on gas. These setups might be upgraded to other sources of heat but that won't happen overnight. Upgrading buildings to use heat pumps is a long term fix to both save energy and reduce dependence on gas. But it can't be done on short notice either. Getting rid of gas for heating will take many years. So, the short term plan is to import gas from elsewhere via pipes or in LNG form at great cost and use it only for those things that really still require gas. This is expensive and creates a huge economic incentive to do something more economical. So this winter, heating will be prioritized. They'll burn a lot more coal than was planned to reduce the need for gas plants to operate. And when solar/wind fall short, they'll sacrifice some gas reserves via gas peaker plants. I expect a lot of investment will go towards accelerating the rollout of wind/solar and heat pumps to reduce the need to burn gas and energy storage solutions to reduce the need for using peaker plants. The good news is that there are plenty of solutions in the market that with investment can scale up and reduce cost. Nuclear is not part of any plans (other than to get rid of it) that are currently under discussion. The option to keep a few plants open for a bit longer is the exception to this.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  You can take the fuel out before the conflict. Much less dangerous then.
rhn_mk1 4y ago
> I mean Europe has not been this close to a nuclear disaster in more than 30 years and people arguing we should build more nuclear plants? If you consider the climate and consequent human life costs of fossil energy sources, the risk of a nuclear disaster does not look very scary. The Fukushima tsunami killed some 4000 people together with the power plant failure [0], while the heatwave in Germany killed 8000 this year [1]. I did not look at air pollution deaths. It's reasonable to choose lesser evil. [0] http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en03-01.html http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en03-01.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heat_wave#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heat_wave#German...
- ben_w 4y ago
  Situational danger. Fukushima was more spectacular than it was lethal; but neither it nor Chernobyl were in literal (albeit undeclared) war zones during their accidents. I'm not sure how much that might change any given conclusion, but I am sure it changes the calculation.
- AnonCoward42 4y ago
  > If you consider the climate and consequent human life costs of fossil energy sources, the risk of a nuclear disaster does not look very scary. The risks of these are not connected, but add up. It's also a bit weird that people are so sure we can reverse the climate change, while forgetting that we can definitely reduce radioactive emission, but see it as a good trade to have more radioactive pollution.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Radioactive pollution turns out to be a much lesser danger to the environment than CO2 (in the long term). The Chernobyl exclusion zone is currently a haven of biodiversity, while the world overall is going through the largest mass extinction event probably since the dinosaur meteor.
    - AnonCoward42 4y ago
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. Well, they'd not really be doing their jobs if they didn't. If there was an organisation that advocated for renewables, and their PR department didn't tie in an ongoing war in europe with a fossil fuel supplying country to their messaging, you'd think they weren't earning their money and should be replaced with someone who did. It just so happens that other organisations have the same incentives and their organisational goals are not all as positive for human society. The oil and gas industry for example, have used this war to advocate for more drilling and to attack rival technologies like renewables. Which is predictable if a little bit sociopathic.
dmitriid 4y ago
> I mean Europe has not been this close to a nuclear disaster in more than 30 years and people arguing we should build more nuclear plants? Are you saying war is a normal/regular operational situation for an energy plant? Go and look up total number of deaths from either Chernobyl or Fukushima. Hint: nuclear is one of the safest energy sources currently imaginable.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  ...until you consider systemic risk including social unrest, terrorism, nuclear weapon proliferation, centralization of power...
  - wiredfool 4y ago
    I’m drawing a blank on how many wars have been fought over oil.
  - mirko22 4y ago
    We have nuclear weapons for those… Nuclear power doesn’t necessarily ease weapon proliferation, weapons where there first! Wars are dangerous by default, our biggest issue with Ukraine war is definitely not the power plant but the war itself…
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    By 2021 there were 180 operable nuclear power reactors in Europe. 13 out of 27 EU countries have nuclear power. We live under the constant threat of nuclear terrorism and centralisation of power... wait we don't. As with all lists randomly pulled out of someone's behind, yours carries zero meaning.
goodpoint 4y ago
> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. Indeed. Similar articles compare mortality rates or co2 across energy sources under a very narrow set of assumptions, ignoring systemic risks and so on.
mdf 4y ago
> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. I wonder, what's your opinion on these two matters: - the sixth mass extinction - carbon sinks In my opinion as a concerned environmentalist, they are both extremely important and need immediate actions to have even a small chance of being somewhat remedied. Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. And to be clear, there are lots of species that don't just accept any "close enough" environment as their living place. For example, willow tits in Finland are endangered because here they mainly live in old forests that include dead trees – unacceptable for timber and pulp industry. Edit: I want to emphasize that I don't see land use concerns as an attempt to reframe the question, limiting the dimensions the energy sector is thought of. Rather, IMO it's a welcome important additional feature to think of.
- pydry 4y ago
  >Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. It makes sense to consider it but the overriding dominant factor is still cost which is where nuclear power falls flat on its face. That's why you'll almost never see an article submitted to hacker news that discusses it.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  >> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. > I wonder, what's your opinion on these two matters: > - the sixth mass extinction > - carbon sinks > In my opinion as a concerned environmentalist, they are both extremely important and need immediate actions to have even a small chance of being somewhat remedied. Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. I agree that these are important issues to consider, however I disagree that this is important in the context of energy production. Land use by all types of energy production is miniscule compared to agriculture, urbanisation and roads (in another post someone mentioned that the space parking lots occupy in the US is 5 times larger than the area needed to power the whole country with solar). These discussions are essentially aimed to distract from the important goal of reorienting our energy production toward renewables. It is telling that almost all pro-nuclear articles that we have seen recently argue which should put more money into nuclear vs renewables, not arguing about what is the quickest way to turn of coal plants. The reason I suspect is that the companies that run and build large nuclear power plants are to a large degree the same companies that are involved in running fossil fuel plants. Renewables essentially threaten the business model of building large power plants that will run and provide guaranteed profits for decades, while renewables which are much more decentralised threaten their business model.
kleene_op 4y ago
> Finally, nobody talks how the situation at the Zaporizhzhia is an illustration of the significant security implications of nuclear. It's in Putin's interest to entertain fear of nuclear in occidental countries. Him moving troops and shelling around Zaporizhzhia could be construed as his latest plan to prevent us from building more nuclear plants. Anyway the point is moot since Russia is closer to Zaporizhzhia than the EU is and would suffer firsthand from a nuclear incident, so it's not in Putin's interest to actually act on it.
- amelius 4y ago
  These nuclear power plants should have been protected by UN from the start. The amount of foresight from the West is embarrassing.
brutusborn 4y ago
How is land use a red herring? It is the same importance as any other resource required for power production, maybe moreso because it is practically finite.
- pydry 4y ago
  Because it's vastly less important than cost. Solar and wind look bad compared to nuclear power if you only compare land use whereas the opposite is true if you compare costs as well.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    It may be less important, but still an important consideration. In regards to nuclear costs, most comparisons include projects which were plagued by redesign due to regulatory changes. It is likely that reusing designs will reduce costs significantly [0]. In addition, solar and wind must be paired with energy storage. Once this is done, they become uneconomical in most places. There's a reason that Europe, the most pro-solar/wind polity on the planet, has not been able to get energy independence despite their wealth. The costs for a resilient system are just too high. [0] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-p...
    - pydry 4y ago
      >In addition, solar and wind must be paired with energy storage. Once this is done, they become uneconomical in most places Really the only reason solar and wind have taken off is because, unsubsidized, they are cheaper than ALL other forms of energy - even coal (5x cheaper than nuclear). It's cheaper to pair them with gas than to pair them with pumped storage but it's vastly cheaper to pair them with pumped storage than to build a nuclear plant + storage combo. The only times nuclear power has been built was because it was deluged with subsidies and that will never change. >There's a reason that Europe, the most pro-solar/wind polity on the planet, has not been able to get energy independence despite their wealth. That reason is that it only became as cheap as coal about 6-7 years ago and because cost effectively shifting all your energy infrastructure from one form of power to another takes between 20-30 years and because they viewed achieving energy independence 10 years earlier as not important enough to triple their energy bills. The relative cheapness of gas also held up the development of pumped storage. Gas was a cheaper peaker.
lultimouomo 4y ago
> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. I kind of agree, but how else would you describe the discourse around nuclear after Chernobyl and Fukushima? The fact is that energy policy is a highly technical and complicated subject, but it is often debated in a very emotional way.
scythe 4y ago
>On top of that many publications talk as if electricity from other sources could easily replace gas, which is also incorrect. Only storage can replace gas. This is because a tank of gas is energy storage. It contains energy and you're storing it. You need the least amount of storage for nuclear (daily), more for wind (monthly) and still more for solar (semiannual). The storage burden for solar could be reduced by running some energy-intensive processes, like calcining or metal refining, on a seasonal basis. Alternatively, it might be possible to turn nuclear plants on in October and off in April; they have a long startup, but not necessarily months.
poopypoopington 4y ago
How is Russia bombing a nuclear power plant any different from Russia using nuclear weapons. The issue is not the nuclear power plant, it's the mad man willing to cause the end of the world to win his war in Ukraine.
- troyvit 4y ago
  It's literally the difference between bombing a nuclear power plant and using nuclear weapons. If Russia uses a nuclear weapon it uses the yield it wants, where it wants, when it wants, and leaves a pretty distinct footprint behind. If Russia blows up Zaporizhzhia using conventional weapons it creates a totally different set of problems for Europe and comes with some deniability. They could say that Ukraine did it. It also wouldn't necessarily trigger mutual assured destruction. They just have to say, "Oops" and I bet they'd get a way with it aside from a raft of "powerful sanctions."
Scoundreller 4y ago
> Everyone is talking about the gas imports from Russia, while nobody talks about oil imports which are not very different Largely because handling oil is just a lot easier. Storage too. Nat gas is limited to LNG and pipelines and there just aren’t that many spare LNG ships cruising around, while any bulk liquids shipper could convert to carrying oil. And not hard for a port to have spare oil on-load or offload capacity, or to bring more such capacity online. But this is an issue for Russian gas exports too. They’re probably flaring that natural gas that isn’t going to Europe.

willi59549879 4y ago

And how about storage of radioactive garbage? That seems to be conveniently omitted too

HyperSane 4y ago
Not a problem. You reprocess the used fuel, which makes clean usable fuel and a tiny amount of nuclear waste. This is then mixed with glass and then buried deep underground.
- jimbob45 4y ago
  It really helps if you post a picture. Most people unironically picture a barrel of bubbling, glowing green goo when you say “nuclear waste” like something out of The Simpsons. It helps when people don’t have to generate a picture based off of your description[0]. [0]https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/b5hy9b/what_nuclear_waste_looks_like/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearPower/comments/b5hy9b/what_n...
slavik81 4y ago
We Solved Nuclear Waste Decades Ago - https://youtu.be/4aUODXeAM-k https://youtu.be/4aUODXeAM-k The safe long-term storage of nuclear waste is not a technical problem. It's a political problem. The public opposes even just doing research into safer storage methods for nuclear waste. In 2016, the Department of Energy test wells for deep borehole disposal were cancelled due to protests. The tests were not even going to involve nuclear material! The opposition feared that the tests might show that the area was geologically appropriate for the safe storage of nuclear waste.

thrown_22 4y ago

> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. Paid by who? People can add two and two to get four. The coming winter in Europe is going to see a lot of governments removed when people start freezing to death.

otherme123 4y ago
Do you think europeans live in huts or something? Usually we suffer more deaths in heat waves than any winter. On top of that, any statistic will show you that "europeans" deaths from freezing in cold waves come mainly from... Russia! I trust 100% in my home to keep me alive in the winter without using heat, even if I need to use gloves and double socks. But I've zero fear of freezing to death.
- samatman 4y ago
  Congratulations on being young and healthy, really speaks well of you that you cheerfully ignore those who aren't.
phtrivier 4y ago
200+ died in Texas last year because of electricity grid failure [1] gouvernements can survive such situations if there is a reasonable "scapegoat". In this case, it will be pretty fair to say that any energy shortage is _mostly_ to blame on Russian president. And gouvernements don't stay idle while this happens. For example : French government has been heavily subsidising everyone's energy bill for almost a year [2]; and the most likely situation for this winter is a period of rolling electricity cuts at the peak (probably January ?) [2]. As said elsewhere, "we don't live in huts" ; 2h without electricity per day a couple times a month in December - January would be a massive pain in the ass, and there will be a couple of well-mediatized drama, but it's not going to cause the same massive social unrest as a total blackout, or a 5€/liter of gas at the pump. What I really wonder is whether people will be able find practical ways to reduce their own pressure on the grid. Even if your heating is electrical, once you've turned your thermostat down to 19 and put on an extra sweater, I wonder if any extra step (turning of home lights, switching a screen off here and there) is cumulatively having _enough_ of an impact to make a January night peak more manageable. I'm not entirely ruling out a good surprise ; we might see a wining alliance of the electricity grid engineer, the weather forecaster and the everyday person to detect the peak in advance and adapt just enough. It would help if we could get our nuke plants back on track sooner, but let the workers work. > Every winter, that ever came, has ended [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis [2] https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/09/01/delestage-tournant-sur-l-electricite-coupure-de-gaz-pour-les-entreprises-elisabeth-borne-detaille-les-scenarios-possibles-en-cas-de-penurie-d-energie_6139803_823448.html https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/09/01/delestag... [3] https://youtu.be/Owi_LFlcVGg https://youtu.be/Owi_LFlcVGg

fi358 4y ago

Using electricity for heating is relatively easy. There is no need to use gas for heating and in many countries heating is done mostly without gas.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Including Germany, who peaked around 50% (they use a lot of oil which is bad for climate, but good for fuel diversity). https://energypost.eu/no-energiewende-without-warmewende-making-germanys-heating-emissions-climate-neutral-nearly/ https://energypost.eu/no-energiewende-without-warmewende-mak... > For almost a decade, emission reductions have stagnated. Weird that this phrase comes up so much in relation to German progress on renewables and climate change. > Opportunities missed since 2008 > Indeed, the German government has stumbled in several attempts to put efficient heating on the agenda. In 2019, the interior ministry led by Horst Seehofer cancelled the buildings commission intended to identify ways to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint, while in 2017, the German government coalition failed in a first attempt to agree on a building energy law, which would have set new standards for efficiency in buildings. The NGO Environmental Action Germany has compiled a “chronology of failures” in the sector, starting from 2008. > Past success, but still 28m tonnes off target > After years of standstill, the energy used in Germany’s buildings has not fallen nearly as much as targeted. Instead of dropping by 20 percent between 2008 and 2020, final energy consumption had only gone down by 6.9 percent in 2017. Although greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector have fallen by about 44 percent since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011 and studies show the need to significantly ramp up action.
- AnonCoward42 4y ago
  The thing is that we build on wind energy that is not only unreliable as an energy source, but also adds CO₂ for producing/maintaining/rebuilding and usually also producing SF₆ while running (one if not the most efficient greenhouse gas). I am actually under the impression we actually change just for the sake of change.
  - lbriner 4y ago

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Exactly, nuclear plants in an active war zone are always going to be a liability. Imagine the Ukraine had lots of small nuclear reactors all over the place like nuclear proponents keep insisting is the future. Likely, at least a few of those would have been taking direct hits from artillery or rocket attacks. Explosives and radioactive material can create a big mess. The Russians are using this notion as a very poorly veiled threat. They did it with the Chernobyl plant early in the war and they are doing it with Zaporizhzhia. Gas is a relatively new thing in the electricity market in Germany and there are way more coal plants in Germany than gas plants. Until the Ukrainian war, the plan was to replace coal with gas and eventually renewables. That plan went into the shredder a few months ago. I don't see that happening anymore. It was not a great plan before and now it's obviously a really bad plan to build any new gas plants. Without cheap Russian gas, these plants will never have a positive return on investment. Likewise producing more grey/blue hydrogen using gas seems madness. People lobbying the use of gas for such things now have to deal with a gas market with unreliable suppliers and wild prices. As for heating, Germany has a lot of district heating that is dependent on gas. These setups might be upgraded to other sources of heat but that won't happen overnight. Upgrading buildings to use heat pumps is a long term fix to both save energy and reduce dependence on gas. But it can't be done on short notice either. Getting rid of gas for heating will take many years. So, the short term plan is to import gas from elsewhere via pipes or in LNG form at great cost and use it only for those things that really still require gas. This is expensive and creates a huge economic incentive to do something more economical. So this winter, heating will be prioritized. They'll burn a lot more coal than was planned to reduce the need for gas plants to operate. And when solar/wind fall short, they'll sacrifice some gas reserves via gas peaker plants. I expect a lot of investment will go towards accelerating the rollout of wind/solar and heat pumps to reduce the need to burn gas and energy storage solutions to reduce the need for using peaker plants. The good news is that there are plenty of solutions in the market that with investment can scale up and reduce cost. Nuclear is not part of any plans (other than to get rid of it) that are currently under discussion. The option to keep a few plants open for a bit longer is the exception to this.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
You can take the fuel out before the conflict. Much less dangerous then.

rhn_mk1 4y ago

> I mean Europe has not been this close to a nuclear disaster in more than 30 years and people arguing we should build more nuclear plants? If you consider the climate and consequent human life costs of fossil energy sources, the risk of a nuclear disaster does not look very scary. The Fukushima tsunami killed some 4000 people together with the power plant failure [0], while the heatwave in Germany killed 8000 this year [1]. I did not look at air pollution deaths. It's reasonable to choose lesser evil. [0] http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en03-01.html http://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en03-01.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heat_wave#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_European_heat_wave#German...

ben_w 4y ago
Situational danger. Fukushima was more spectacular than it was lethal; but neither it nor Chernobyl were in literal (albeit undeclared) war zones during their accidents. I'm not sure how much that might change any given conclusion, but I am sure it changes the calculation.
AnonCoward42 4y ago
> If you consider the climate and consequent human life costs of fossil energy sources, the risk of a nuclear disaster does not look very scary. The risks of these are not connected, but add up. It's also a bit weird that people are so sure we can reverse the climate change, while forgetting that we can definitely reduce radioactive emission, but see it as a good trade to have more radioactive pollution.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Radioactive pollution turns out to be a much lesser danger to the environment than CO2 (in the long term). The Chernobyl exclusion zone is currently a haven of biodiversity, while the world overall is going through the largest mass extinction event probably since the dinosaur meteor.
  - AnonCoward42 4y ago

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. Well, they'd not really be doing their jobs if they didn't. If there was an organisation that advocated for renewables, and their PR department didn't tie in an ongoing war in europe with a fossil fuel supplying country to their messaging, you'd think they weren't earning their money and should be replaced with someone who did. It just so happens that other organisations have the same incentives and their organisational goals are not all as positive for human society. The oil and gas industry for example, have used this war to advocate for more drilling and to attack rival technologies like renewables. Which is predictable if a little bit sociopathic.

dmitriid 4y ago

> I mean Europe has not been this close to a nuclear disaster in more than 30 years and people arguing we should build more nuclear plants? Are you saying war is a normal/regular operational situation for an energy plant? Go and look up total number of deaths from either Chernobyl or Fukushima. Hint: nuclear is one of the safest energy sources currently imaginable.

goodpoint 4y ago
...until you consider systemic risk including social unrest, terrorism, nuclear weapon proliferation, centralization of power...
- wiredfool 4y ago
  I’m drawing a blank on how many wars have been fought over oil.
- mirko22 4y ago
  We have nuclear weapons for those… Nuclear power doesn’t necessarily ease weapon proliferation, weapons where there first! Wars are dangerous by default, our biggest issue with Ukraine war is definitely not the power plant but the war itself…
- dmitriid 4y ago
  By 2021 there were 180 operable nuclear power reactors in Europe. 13 out of 27 EU countries have nuclear power. We live under the constant threat of nuclear terrorism and centralisation of power... wait we don't. As with all lists randomly pulled out of someone's behind, yours carries zero meaning.

goodpoint 4y ago

> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. Indeed. Similar articles compare mortality rates or co2 across energy sources under a very narrow set of assumptions, ignoring systemic risks and so on.

mdf 4y ago

> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. I wonder, what's your opinion on these two matters: - the sixth mass extinction - carbon sinks In my opinion as a concerned environmentalist, they are both extremely important and need immediate actions to have even a small chance of being somewhat remedied. Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. And to be clear, there are lots of species that don't just accept any "close enough" environment as their living place. For example, willow tits in Finland are endangered because here they mainly live in old forests that include dead trees – unacceptable for timber and pulp industry. Edit: I want to emphasize that I don't see land use concerns as an attempt to reframe the question, limiting the dimensions the energy sector is thought of. Rather, IMO it's a welcome important additional feature to think of.

pydry 4y ago
>Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. It makes sense to consider it but the overriding dominant factor is still cost which is where nuclear power falls flat on its face. That's why you'll almost never see an article submitted to hacker news that discusses it.
cycomanic 4y ago
>> On top of that we see articles (this isn't the first) who try to reframe the question of energy consumption around land use, which is a complete red hering, designed to make nuclear look more advantageous. > I wonder, what's your opinion on these two matters: > - the sixth mass extinction > - carbon sinks > In my opinion as a concerned environmentalist, they are both extremely important and need immediate actions to have even a small chance of being somewhat remedied. Land use is an important facet of how exactly we are destroying the environment and as such it does make sense to consider it as one of the dimensions when planning energy production. I agree that these are important issues to consider, however I disagree that this is important in the context of energy production. Land use by all types of energy production is miniscule compared to agriculture, urbanisation and roads (in another post someone mentioned that the space parking lots occupy in the US is 5 times larger than the area needed to power the whole country with solar). These discussions are essentially aimed to distract from the important goal of reorienting our energy production toward renewables. It is telling that almost all pro-nuclear articles that we have seen recently argue which should put more money into nuclear vs renewables, not arguing about what is the quickest way to turn of coal plants. The reason I suspect is that the companies that run and build large nuclear power plants are to a large degree the same companies that are involved in running fossil fuel plants. Renewables essentially threaten the business model of building large power plants that will run and provide guaranteed profits for decades, while renewables which are much more decentralised threaten their business model.

kleene_op 4y ago

> Finally, nobody talks how the situation at the Zaporizhzhia is an illustration of the significant security implications of nuclear. It's in Putin's interest to entertain fear of nuclear in occidental countries. Him moving troops and shelling around Zaporizhzhia could be construed as his latest plan to prevent us from building more nuclear plants. Anyway the point is moot since Russia is closer to Zaporizhzhia than the EU is and would suffer firsthand from a nuclear incident, so it's not in Putin's interest to actually act on it.

amelius 4y ago
These nuclear power plants should have been protected by UN from the start. The amount of foresight from the West is embarrassing.

brutusborn 4y ago

How is land use a red herring? It is the same importance as any other resource required for power production, maybe moreso because it is practically finite.

pydry 4y ago
Because it's vastly less important than cost. Solar and wind look bad compared to nuclear power if you only compare land use whereas the opposite is true if you compare costs as well.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  It may be less important, but still an important consideration. In regards to nuclear costs, most comparisons include projects which were plagued by redesign due to regulatory changes. It is likely that reusing designs will reduce costs significantly [0]. In addition, solar and wind must be paired with energy storage. Once this is done, they become uneconomical in most places. There's a reason that Europe, the most pro-solar/wind polity on the planet, has not been able to get energy independence despite their wealth. The costs for a resilient system are just too high. [0] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power-construction https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-are-nuclear-p...
  - pydry 4y ago
    >In addition, solar and wind must be paired with energy storage. Once this is done, they become uneconomical in most places Really the only reason solar and wind have taken off is because, unsubsidized, they are cheaper than ALL other forms of energy - even coal (5x cheaper than nuclear). It's cheaper to pair them with gas than to pair them with pumped storage but it's vastly cheaper to pair them with pumped storage than to build a nuclear plant + storage combo. The only times nuclear power has been built was because it was deluged with subsidies and that will never change. >There's a reason that Europe, the most pro-solar/wind polity on the planet, has not been able to get energy independence despite their wealth. That reason is that it only became as cheap as coal about 6-7 years ago and because cost effectively shifting all your energy infrastructure from one form of power to another takes between 20-30 years and because they viewed achieving energy independence 10 years earlier as not important enough to triple their energy bills. The relative cheapness of gas also held up the development of pumped storage. Gas was a cheaper peaker.

lultimouomo 4y ago

> The communications around nuclear at the moment are fascinating. I think we are really witnessing a massive PR campaign trying to take advantage of the war in Ukraine. I kind of agree, but how else would you describe the discourse around nuclear after Chernobyl and Fukushima? The fact is that energy policy is a highly technical and complicated subject, but it is often debated in a very emotional way.

scythe 4y ago

>On top of that many publications talk as if electricity from other sources could easily replace gas, which is also incorrect. Only storage can replace gas. This is because a tank of gas is energy storage. It contains energy and you're storing it. You need the least amount of storage for nuclear (daily), more for wind (monthly) and still more for solar (semiannual). The storage burden for solar could be reduced by running some energy-intensive processes, like calcining or metal refining, on a seasonal basis. Alternatively, it might be possible to turn nuclear plants on in October and off in April; they have a long startup, but not necessarily months.

poopypoopington 4y ago

How is Russia bombing a nuclear power plant any different from Russia using nuclear weapons. The issue is not the nuclear power plant, it's the mad man willing to cause the end of the world to win his war in Ukraine.

troyvit 4y ago
It's literally the difference between bombing a nuclear power plant and using nuclear weapons. If Russia uses a nuclear weapon it uses the yield it wants, where it wants, when it wants, and leaves a pretty distinct footprint behind. If Russia blows up Zaporizhzhia using conventional weapons it creates a totally different set of problems for Europe and comes with some deniability. They could say that Ukraine did it. It also wouldn't necessarily trigger mutual assured destruction. They just have to say, "Oops" and I bet they'd get a way with it aside from a raft of "powerful sanctions."

Scoundreller 4y ago

> Everyone is talking about the gas imports from Russia, while nobody talks about oil imports which are not very different Largely because handling oil is just a lot easier. Storage too. Nat gas is limited to LNG and pipelines and there just aren’t that many spare LNG ships cruising around, while any bulk liquids shipper could convert to carrying oil. And not hard for a port to have spare oil on-load or offload capacity, or to bring more such capacity online. But this is an issue for Russian gas exports too. They’re probably flaring that natural gas that isn’t going to Europe.