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The maintenance plans weren't bad. "Inspect [x] thoroughly every [y] years": Good. "Take plants offline for repairs immediately if problems on [long list] are s

by Arnt 4y ago

The maintenance plans weren't bad. "Inspect [x] thoroughly every [y] years": Good. "Take plants offline for repairs immediately if problems on [long list] are seen": Good. "Build a few extra plants because some will be down for maintenance": Good. "Arrange for gas-fired power in case lots of plants are down": Good. IMO what's bad is some people's expectations. One of the countries within the power grid is at war. Some people expect that to have no impact on the grid.

mschuster91 4y ago
Ukraine wasn't even on the power grid when the war began, they took IIRC 2-3 months to sever the ties to Russia and integrate the Ukrainian power grid. The problem, at least for the sorry state of electricity prices, isn't that Ukraine was at war... it was/is that the French did an absurdly large bet on nuclear power while at the same time tying at least 40% of heating to resistive heating, but failed to have a backup plan other than "hope the rest of Europe has excess capacity" once it became clear that Flamanville was under massive delays, and on top of that they massively neglected maintenance of their aging nuclear fleet even before Covid hit and prevented maintenance. They also did not plan ahead for climate change-induced massive droughts that led to an almost complete lack of cooling water for the plants. They were essentially closing their eyes to the pile-up of delays at Flamanville and as a result they had a "perfect storm" event in the summer.
- Arnt 4y ago
  The planning started in 2005 and physical work started 2017. It finished months ahead of schedule, but Ukraine would have been connected today even if work had finished on schedule.
- berkes 4y ago
  Which is to be expected when you build a massively centralized, both physical and organisational, power system. And which is my main issue with nuclear power: it isn't distributed, but centralized and heavily dependent on governments and extreme long-term-planning. Which is a recipe for disaster. The chance that Flamaville would be delivered late is about 100%. Reacting to rapid changes like a war (spiking fuel prices or making NG unattainable) always slow, and always late if possible at all. So, aside from all the other arguments against nuclear power, it is slow, expensive, centralized and heavily dependent on governments; it's the closest you'll get to a government-ran electricity production. All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. The entire opposite is solar: heavily distributed, privately owned and immensely fast. Wind is somewhere in-between, cheaper and faster to build than a CHP, but obviously more centralized than solar.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Solar is only the opposite of nuclear if you ignore storage requirements. There is potential for use of distributed battery storage, but we're decades away from being able to build that out economically at scale. Installing some home battery backup or EV reverse charging systems won't be sufficient; we have to be able to keep heavy industry running through multiple days of little sunshine.
    - berkes 4y ago
      I'm not saying one is better than the other, nor am I commenting on it's value for [electricity consumer]. They are opposites on "centralisation" vs "decentralisation". With solar, I, a private citizen, can generate electricity, store it, sell it, expand it, mine bitcoin with it, and so fort. With Nuclear, I'm completely at the whims of a government and a semi-private monopolist. "Free-market-nuts" should therefore hate Nuclear and love solar. Yet the opposite is true. And I find that remarkable.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. That one is actually easy to answer: Most of the European left does not like nuclear because of cost externalization - let's be real: it's not today's rate payers that are going to fund the decades worth of work needed to dismantle the plants (e.g. the AKW Greifswald in Germany has already been taking 30 years with at least 15 more years planned [1]) or to safely store all that nuclear waste for likely hundreds if not thousands of years, it's the tax payers of the future. On top of that come the enormous and un-insurable financial risks of disasters: Chernobyl happened 35 years ago and still you can't eat game or shrooms in Bavaria without running them in front of a Geiger counter (not to mention that Chernobyl is in an active war zone with radiation-releasing disruptions having happened as a part of the war, as are about a dozen other plants that are, to make it worse, even being actively shot at), the cost of the Fukushima cleanup is estimated to run into 200 billion dollars. In contrast, the European right wing loves nuclear precisely because it is so "cheap" on paper with ~13 ct/kWh... it's their usual playbook of conveniently ignoring the above-mentioned externalities. [1] https://www.zeit.de/2021/42/rueckbau-kernkraftwerke-atomausstieg-kkw-greifswald-abriss/komplettansicht https://www.zeit.de/2021/42/rueckbau-kernkraftwerke-atomauss...

by Arnt 4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago

Ukraine wasn't even on the power grid when the war began, they took IIRC 2-3 months to sever the ties to Russia and integrate the Ukrainian power grid. The problem, at least for the sorry state of electricity prices, isn't that Ukraine was at war... it was/is that the French did an absurdly large bet on nuclear power while at the same time tying at least 40% of heating to resistive heating, but failed to have a backup plan other than "hope the rest of Europe has excess capacity" once it became clear that Flamanville was under massive delays, and on top of that they massively neglected maintenance of their aging nuclear fleet even before Covid hit and prevented maintenance. They also did not plan ahead for climate change-induced massive droughts that led to an almost complete lack of cooling water for the plants. They were essentially closing their eyes to the pile-up of delays at Flamanville and as a result they had a "perfect storm" event in the summer.

Arnt 4y ago
The planning started in 2005 and physical work started 2017. It finished months ahead of schedule, but Ukraine would have been connected today even if work had finished on schedule.
berkes 4y ago
Which is to be expected when you build a massively centralized, both physical and organisational, power system. And which is my main issue with nuclear power: it isn't distributed, but centralized and heavily dependent on governments and extreme long-term-planning. Which is a recipe for disaster. The chance that Flamaville would be delivered late is about 100%. Reacting to rapid changes like a war (spiking fuel prices or making NG unattainable) always slow, and always late if possible at all. So, aside from all the other arguments against nuclear power, it is slow, expensive, centralized and heavily dependent on governments; it's the closest you'll get to a government-ran electricity production. All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. The entire opposite is solar: heavily distributed, privately owned and immensely fast. Wind is somewhere in-between, cheaper and faster to build than a CHP, but obviously more centralized than solar.
- nradov 4y ago
  Solar is only the opposite of nuclear if you ignore storage requirements. There is potential for use of distributed battery storage, but we're decades away from being able to build that out economically at scale. Installing some home battery backup or EV reverse charging systems won't be sufficient; we have to be able to keep heavy industry running through multiple days of little sunshine.
  - berkes 4y ago
    I'm not saying one is better than the other, nor am I commenting on it's value for [electricity consumer]. They are opposites on "centralisation" vs "decentralisation". With solar, I, a private citizen, can generate electricity, store it, sell it, expand it, mine bitcoin with it, and so fort. With Nuclear, I'm completely at the whims of a government and a semi-private monopolist. "Free-market-nuts" should therefore hate Nuclear and love solar. Yet the opposite is true. And I find that remarkable.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > All of which make me wonder every time why the European left (pro- government) are against it, but the right (market liberalism) love it. It should be the exact opposite. That one is actually easy to answer: Most of the European left does not like nuclear because of cost externalization - let's be real: it's not today's rate payers that are going to fund the decades worth of work needed to dismantle the plants (e.g. the AKW Greifswald in Germany has already been taking 30 years with at least 15 more years planned [1]) or to safely store all that nuclear waste for likely hundreds if not thousands of years, it's the tax payers of the future. On top of that come the enormous and un-insurable financial risks of disasters: Chernobyl happened 35 years ago and still you can't eat game or shrooms in Bavaria without running them in front of a Geiger counter (not to mention that Chernobyl is in an active war zone with radiation-releasing disruptions having happened as a part of the war, as are about a dozen other plants that are, to make it worse, even being actively shot at), the cost of the Fukushima cleanup is estimated to run into 200 billion dollars. In contrast, the European right wing loves nuclear precisely because it is so "cheap" on paper with ~13 ct/kWh... it's their usual playbook of conveniently ignoring the above-mentioned externalities. [1] https://www.zeit.de/2021/42/rueckbau-kernkraftwerke-atomausstieg-kkw-greifswald-abriss/komplettansicht https://www.zeit.de/2021/42/rueckbau-kernkraftwerke-atomauss...