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As someone who is also "pro-nuclear" it is upsetting to see this take place. The "anti-nuclear" camp has won, but based on what sort of logical argument? Fear

As someone who is also "pro-nuclear" it is upsetting to see this take place. The "anti-nuclear" camp has won, but based on what sort of logical argument? Fear? what about Chernobyl? It is one thing to be "anti-nuclear" but they failed to provide alternatives. "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. Now millions face rolling blackouts and energy shortages when nuclear could have been providing clean energy. I live within 8KM of a nuclear plant which has been running accident free 24x7 since 1971.

rasz 4y ago
The role of Russian-funded environmental organisations in shaping EU climate policy https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Dramatic Question. Boring but sensible answer: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275-ASW_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127... > Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of oil, gas and coal. Continuous reliance on fossil fuels and delays to clean energy transition benefit Russia. > Following on from this the Commission has put forward an additional proposal to speed up transition to clean energy sources by amending the directives on the Energy Performance of Buildings, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy[3].
Gwypaas 4y ago
Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge part of the transition today. Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is simply not relevant. > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. If land use is what you measure impact based on a much better target is the beef industry. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore
- kennend3 4y ago
  what·a·bout·ism /ˌ(h)wədəˈboudizəm/ noun BRITISH the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue. what does "beef" have to do with converting land to wind farms? perhaps you could respond back with how solar panels are not actually very environmentally friendly? They produce a lot of toxic chemicals to manufacture. Tell us, to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power, how many acres of land must be converted to wind/solar? what is the environmental/social impact of doing this? How much power is produced in a cold / dark winter via solar/wind vs nuclear.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    There's plenty of studies done comparing the footprint of nuclear to solar/wind, generally they show they're more or less equivalent, depending on what you measure and various assumptions built into the study - at least one IPCC study showed nuclear could have a measurably (up to 4x!) lower carbon footprint than solar. At any rate there's certainly no real reason to object to nuclear on environmental grounds (but on economical grounds, terrorism risk, plutonium proliferation, etc., sure, there are downsides that don't really exist with renewables).
- moonchrome 4y ago
  >Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant. Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you like blackouts ?
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Then it's even better to get 3-5x the effect per invested dollar.
    - moonchrome 4y ago
      Yes - amazing - the reason prices are spiking is because supply is unstable and unable to support demand - and will be even more unstable in winter. Great for people selling electricity from renewables (although EU is capping their profit for 'fairness') but sucks for consumers.
tuatoru 4y ago
> "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. Well, let's see. Wind uses negligible land if incorporated onto farms, so I'll assume it's all solar. Nuclear capacity factor (fraction of the time it's operating): 0.9, call it 100%. PV capacity factor 0.2 PV nameplate panel production per square metre 200W PV land coverage fraction (access paths beside PV panels take up space) 0.5 Total land needed for PV to deliver equivalent power: 3 500 000 000 / (200 * 0.2 * 0.5) = 175 000 000 m^2 = 175 km^2. Switzerland's population is 8.5M. Assuming it is 80% urbanised and 20 m^2 per person in cities (less than in Dhaka, 8.9M / 306 km^2): then Switzerland's cities take up 136 km^2. In reality, probably several times this figure. So the land area is probably less than Switzerland's cities. If Switzerland wished to accelerate the development of two-layer PV cells, increasing production per area by 50%, then the bulk of the 3.5GW could be provided by rooftop solar in cities. In reality a mix of wind and PV would be used. Wind is highly compatible with pastoral farming, leaving 90% or more of the land area it "occupies" free for grazing. The real challenge at present would be sourcing enough storage for the daily usage cycle. Now, damage. Covering land with inert PV panels does indeed change the soil ecology, but not irremediably. Remove the panels, and the soil would be back to normal inside a decade. Contrast with coal mines and ash piles, and uranium mines. And, as above, the PV could all be on rooftops, which have already damaged the land. Get rid of the buildings! TLDR: the "LOT of land" is not much, really, and the damage is minimal.
- glenstein 4y ago
  TY for explaining this. I would not have made the point as well as you have, but the "solar + wind is inefficient use of land" argument is an old debunked talking point that has been around for decades. Like you say, wind can be co-located on farms or other areas that are not otherwise economically useful, with minimal environmental obstruction. Something on the order of 99.99% of the acreage occupied by windmills can continue to be used for other purposes. Solar panels can also be efficiently and thoughtfully located. Of course, they can also be located poorly as well but it's not something that's like definitionally baked into the technology, it's a matter of having good policy about siting.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Just stop. We don't even have to consider the unlimited public liability, submitting to geopolitical domination, giving monopoly power over the economy to a handful of fuel prpviders and existential threats anymore because nuclear reactors are so bad that subsidized ones cannot even compete against renewables at high latitudes. For the build price of 1 watt of nuclear plant which will be at best 90% available (but more likely 60-80) you can get a solar/wind mix at retail micro generation prices further from the equator than 90% of the population with zero hours of producing less than 1 watt (much of which is dispatchable too) and 1 additional net watt of variable energy. Allow for the same availability as a nuclear reactor and the price is a fraction. Then for just the running costs of an already built nuclear you can pay the whole thing off before the reactor even opens. Give it five years and the LCOE of solar will be less than the fuel costs. The solution was to stop wasting billions on nuclear and subsidizing fossil fuels and actually invest in renewable tech half a century ago. Solar energy density is such that just covering structures and open paved areas in any region with less than 10k people per km^2 can cover average primary energy (not just electricity). It's far less than cattle grazing land or land used for fuel ethanol to greenwash the auto industry. The land use is a complete non-issue.

rasz 4y ago

The role of Russian-funded environmental organisations in shaping EU climate policy https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Dramatic Question. Boring but sensible answer: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-001275-ASW_EN.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-00127... > Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of oil, gas and coal. Continuous reliance on fossil fuels and delays to clean energy transition benefit Russia. > Following on from this the Commission has put forward an additional proposal to speed up transition to clean energy sources by amending the directives on the Energy Performance of Buildings, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy[3].

Gwypaas 4y ago

Simply cost. If the plants started in the early 2000s would have been delivered on time and budget they would be a huge part of the transition today. Now nuclear costs 3-5x more compared to renewables and is simply not relevant. > "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. If land use is what you measure impact based on a much better target is the beef industry. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-kg-poore

kennend3 4y ago
what·a·bout·ism /ˌ(h)wədəˈboudizəm/ noun BRITISH the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue. what does "beef" have to do with converting land to wind farms? perhaps you could respond back with how solar panels are not actually very environmentally friendly? They produce a lot of toxic chemicals to manufacture. Tell us, to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power, how many acres of land must be converted to wind/solar? what is the environmental/social impact of doing this? How much power is produced in a cold / dark winter via solar/wind vs nuclear.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  There's plenty of studies done comparing the footprint of nuclear to solar/wind, generally they show they're more or less equivalent, depending on what you measure and various assumptions built into the study - at least one IPCC study showed nuclear could have a measurably (up to 4x!) lower carbon footprint than solar. At any rate there's certainly no real reason to object to nuclear on environmental grounds (but on economical grounds, terrorism risk, plutonium proliferation, etc., sure, there are downsides that don't really exist with renewables).
moonchrome 4y ago
>Now nuclear costs 3-5x more and is simply not relevant. Compared to what ? Energy prices have jumped 2-3x in some places so far, and it's not even winter yet. Comparing renewable prices as averages or whatever is fine if you like blackouts ?
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Then it's even better to get 3-5x the effect per invested dollar.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    Yes - amazing - the reason prices are spiking is because supply is unstable and unable to support demand - and will be even more unstable in winter. Great for people selling electricity from renewables (although EU is capping their profit for 'fairness') but sucks for consumers.

tuatoru 4y ago

> "WIND" or "Solar" is not going to replace 3,500 MW of nuclear power without damaging a LOT of land. Well, let's see. Wind uses negligible land if incorporated onto farms, so I'll assume it's all solar. Nuclear capacity factor (fraction of the time it's operating): 0.9, call it 100%. PV capacity factor 0.2 PV nameplate panel production per square metre 200W PV land coverage fraction (access paths beside PV panels take up space) 0.5 Total land needed for PV to deliver equivalent power: 3 500 000 000 / (200 * 0.2 * 0.5) = 175 000 000 m^2 = 175 km^2. Switzerland's population is 8.5M. Assuming it is 80% urbanised and 20 m^2 per person in cities (less than in Dhaka, 8.9M / 306 km^2): then Switzerland's cities take up 136 km^2. In reality, probably several times this figure. So the land area is probably less than Switzerland's cities. If Switzerland wished to accelerate the development of two-layer PV cells, increasing production per area by 50%, then the bulk of the 3.5GW could be provided by rooftop solar in cities. In reality a mix of wind and PV would be used. Wind is highly compatible with pastoral farming, leaving 90% or more of the land area it "occupies" free for grazing. The real challenge at present would be sourcing enough storage for the daily usage cycle. Now, damage. Covering land with inert PV panels does indeed change the soil ecology, but not irremediably. Remove the panels, and the soil would be back to normal inside a decade. Contrast with coal mines and ash piles, and uranium mines. And, as above, the PV could all be on rooftops, which have already damaged the land. Get rid of the buildings! TLDR: the "LOT of land" is not much, really, and the damage is minimal.

glenstein 4y ago
TY for explaining this. I would not have made the point as well as you have, but the "solar + wind is inefficient use of land" argument is an old debunked talking point that has been around for decades. Like you say, wind can be co-located on farms or other areas that are not otherwise economically useful, with minimal environmental obstruction. Something on the order of 99.99% of the acreage occupied by windmills can continue to be used for other purposes. Solar panels can also be efficiently and thoughtfully located. Of course, they can also be located poorly as well but it's not something that's like definitionally baked into the technology, it's a matter of having good policy about siting.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Just stop. We don't even have to consider the unlimited public liability, submitting to geopolitical domination, giving monopoly power over the economy to a handful of fuel prpviders and existential threats anymore because nuclear reactors are so bad that subsidized ones cannot even compete against renewables at high latitudes. For the build price of 1 watt of nuclear plant which will be at best 90% available (but more likely 60-80) you can get a solar/wind mix at retail micro generation prices further from the equator than 90% of the population with zero hours of producing less than 1 watt (much of which is dispatchable too) and 1 additional net watt of variable energy. Allow for the same availability as a nuclear reactor and the price is a fraction. Then for just the running costs of an already built nuclear you can pay the whole thing off before the reactor even opens. Give it five years and the LCOE of solar will be less than the fuel costs. The solution was to stop wasting billions on nuclear and subsidizing fossil fuels and actually invest in renewable tech half a century ago. Solar energy density is such that just covering structures and open paved areas in any region with less than 10k people per km^2 can cover average primary energy (not just electricity). It's far less than cattle grazing land or land used for fuel ethanol to greenwash the auto industry. The land use is a complete non-issue.