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Nuclear is unique due to its physics advantage in being able to run 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. A good nuclear fleet doesn't need backup or stor

Nuclear is unique due to its physics advantage in being able to run 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. A good nuclear fleet doesn't need backup or storage. Nuclear plants can follow load to the tune of 2-5% full power per minute, rain or shine, without depending on regional weather or seasonal rainfall. Furthermore we know the overall risk profile after operating them for 70 years. The numbers are in and they're excellent. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy It's wild to want to not use this.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Nuclear isn't running 24/7. In theory maybe, but that hasn't worked out in practice. Quite severely not, for some countries.
- realusername 4y ago
  Even on the worst year of nuclear for France, the renewables still have a worse output than that. This month it's been ~10% of the installed capacity for wind turbines and 3% of the installed capacity for solar. I don't know why it's not on the news either, there's seems to be a massive bias in reporting where nuclear is expected to have a 100% uptime but renewables nobody cares, whatever it produces is ok even single digits is fine.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    I can tell you why: For nuclear you calculate with a near 100% uptime, for renewables there was always variability calculated. You people talk like nobody knew the sun don't shine all day or that wind isn't entirely predictable. Yeah, people know, including the engineers who plan and build such projects...
    - realusername 4y ago
      I'm going to say some hard truth here that nobody really plans for it (as seen as what's happening in Europe this month) and the companies really don't care as long as the renewables are sold, it's not even counted in the price per kwh either.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Bullshit, it's in all the plans. You are completely misconstrueing European energy policy. Of course renewables don't replace all the fossil fuels right now. This may happen eventually with storage technology, but nobody is planning with that. Of course the slack is taken up by burning fossil fuel which reduces the overall replacement factor by a certain amount. That was the plan all along, not some evil bait-and-switch. Nobody ever calculated or promised those energy sources producing all the time. You are either completely ignorant or purposefully lying.
        realusername 4y ago
        You're wrong here and it's even written on paper, there's even a date being set, 2038 for phasing out coal. So yes people do plan for phasing out fossil fuels thanks to renewables, despite having no technology which exist which can achieve that.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Phasing out coal does not mean phasing out all fossil fuels. Isn't that obvious to you or are you intentionally lying and trying to mislead? 2038 is quite a few years in the future. Your blanket statement of "there is no technology which can achieve that" is just not plausible. Of course, when you conflate coal with fossil fuels, if you confuse short-term and long-term plans however you please, you can find a lot of inconsistencies to attack.
        realusername 4y ago
        There's something called climate change, I already ruled out all the other unusable fossil fuel options yes. > 2038 is quite a few years in the future. Your blanket statement of "there is no technology which can achieve that" is just not plausible. We're betting on technology which doesn't exist (and might never exist for all that we know), what could go wrong here?
bayesian_horse 4y ago
Thinking we know the future risk profile of nuclear power from their past history is a dangerous fallacy. Apart from the obvious "black swan" problems with that fallacy, so far nobody actually tried to cause incidents intentionally. And expanding nuclear power means scaling up access to nuclear material rapidly and massively. Including in countries with less stable prospects. The "past risk profile" is worth nothing in that context.
- realusername 4y ago
  Nobody is saying those countries have to maintain their infrastructure, they can outsource it to countries which have good nuclear industries
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    That idea is so far from practical reality it isn't even funny.
    - realusername 4y ago
      That's already what happens for gas and petrol anyways
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Not true. Development countries are massively expanding their energy usage. You can handwave around and say they are outsourcing whatever, but in reality, it is much safer to help them transition to renewables or even leave them on fossil fuels rather than give them access to nuclear technology and nuclear material and build nuclear plants were bad shit can happen. Come to think of it, with the lifespan of a nuclear plant, or worse the nuclear waste, there aren't a lot of regions left you would trust to stay completely safe from war, civil war and political upheaval.
        realusername 4y ago
GekkePrutser 4y ago
> The numbers are in and they're excellent. Those numbers could have changed a lot this year if Russian shelling at Zaporizhzhia had worked out a bit differently. And this was a military adversary that wasn't explicitly trying to cause nuclear damage here. The next one might go all out or try something as a false flag. Those 70 years have been in relative peaceful times. And they don't include the 200 years of cleanup we've externalised to the future. We just learned a very painful lesson what externalisation to the future can lead to with global warming.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

Nuclear isn't running 24/7. In theory maybe, but that hasn't worked out in practice. Quite severely not, for some countries.

realusername 4y ago
Even on the worst year of nuclear for France, the renewables still have a worse output than that. This month it's been ~10% of the installed capacity for wind turbines and 3% of the installed capacity for solar. I don't know why it's not on the news either, there's seems to be a massive bias in reporting where nuclear is expected to have a 100% uptime but renewables nobody cares, whatever it produces is ok even single digits is fine.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  I can tell you why: For nuclear you calculate with a near 100% uptime, for renewables there was always variability calculated. You people talk like nobody knew the sun don't shine all day or that wind isn't entirely predictable. Yeah, people know, including the engineers who plan and build such projects...
  - realusername 4y ago
    I'm going to say some hard truth here that nobody really plans for it (as seen as what's happening in Europe this month) and the companies really don't care as long as the renewables are sold, it's not even counted in the price per kwh either.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Bullshit, it's in all the plans. You are completely misconstrueing European energy policy. Of course renewables don't replace all the fossil fuels right now. This may happen eventually with storage technology, but nobody is planning with that. Of course the slack is taken up by burning fossil fuel which reduces the overall replacement factor by a certain amount. That was the plan all along, not some evil bait-and-switch. Nobody ever calculated or promised those energy sources producing all the time. You are either completely ignorant or purposefully lying.
      - realusername 4y ago
        You're wrong here and it's even written on paper, there's even a date being set, 2038 for phasing out coal. So yes people do plan for phasing out fossil fuels thanks to renewables, despite having no technology which exist which can achieve that.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Phasing out coal does not mean phasing out all fossil fuels. Isn't that obvious to you or are you intentionally lying and trying to mislead? 2038 is quite a few years in the future. Your blanket statement of "there is no technology which can achieve that" is just not plausible. Of course, when you conflate coal with fossil fuels, if you confuse short-term and long-term plans however you please, you can find a lot of inconsistencies to attack.
        realusername 4y ago
        There's something called climate change, I already ruled out all the other unusable fossil fuel options yes. > 2038 is quite a few years in the future. Your blanket statement of "there is no technology which can achieve that" is just not plausible. We're betting on technology which doesn't exist (and might never exist for all that we know), what could go wrong here?

bayesian_horse 4y ago

Thinking we know the future risk profile of nuclear power from their past history is a dangerous fallacy. Apart from the obvious "black swan" problems with that fallacy, so far nobody actually tried to cause incidents intentionally. And expanding nuclear power means scaling up access to nuclear material rapidly and massively. Including in countries with less stable prospects. The "past risk profile" is worth nothing in that context.

realusername 4y ago
Nobody is saying those countries have to maintain their infrastructure, they can outsource it to countries which have good nuclear industries
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  That idea is so far from practical reality it isn't even funny.
  - realusername 4y ago
    That's already what happens for gas and petrol anyways
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Not true. Development countries are massively expanding their energy usage. You can handwave around and say they are outsourcing whatever, but in reality, it is much safer to help them transition to renewables or even leave them on fossil fuels rather than give them access to nuclear technology and nuclear material and build nuclear plants were bad shit can happen. Come to think of it, with the lifespan of a nuclear plant, or worse the nuclear waste, there aren't a lot of regions left you would trust to stay completely safe from war, civil war and political upheaval.
      - realusername 4y ago

GekkePrutser 4y ago

> The numbers are in and they're excellent. Those numbers could have changed a lot this year if Russian shelling at Zaporizhzhia had worked out a bit differently. And this was a military adversary that wasn't explicitly trying to cause nuclear damage here. The next one might go all out or try something as a false flag. Those 70 years have been in relative peaceful times. And they don't include the 200 years of cleanup we've externalised to the future. We just learned a very painful lesson what externalisation to the future can lead to with global warming.