7 ms·

The Barakah plant also took over 10 years from start to finish. But even this is irrelevant for my comment: I am going by the official plan in Poland, which is

The Barakah plant also took over 10 years from start to finish. But even this is irrelevant for my comment: I am going by the official plan in Poland, which is 2033. We are in 2023. If you factor in the time nothing positive will happen, it's questionable if nuclear can ever make up for that lost time. The CO2 emitted until the plant is finished will not disappear once it's finished. That damage cannot be reversed. This is especially true now because now is the time to go fast. On top of that, the Polish plant will begin construction 2026, so the build time is planned to be even faster than the UAE plant. I think this is highly unrealistic.

panick21_ 3y ago
Fact is the industrial countries who has gone green the fastest and cheapest is France. Switzerland has some of the oldest nuclear plants in the world and they are still going strong. Yes it takes time to build up an nuclear industry but Poland will also not go from mostly coal to all solar and wind anytime soon. Germany started its transition in the 90s and they are not close 30 years later. Had Germany in the 90s decided to go nuclear they would be green by now and not in an energy crisis. Poland in 10 years can finish a plant a year and 2-3 years after 2 plant a year and 2-3 years after that 3 plants a year. That how turn a full coal to a fully green grid. No need for costly grid rebuild, just nuclear plant in the same places coal plants are now mostly. Edit: And in terms of lost time, if anything not going with nuclear is lost time. By the Koyoto protocol France already had a green grid. We literally had a solution and the anti nuclear movement prevented that solution. Poland as all European countries is sadly moving to slowly. After 40 years of anti nuclear domiance the energy crisis has shifted perseptions and we are now finally getting back into gear. What matters is not how long the first one takes but what the yearly completion rate is. Europe should standardize on single reactor and plan to build 150-200 plants. That can easly be done before 2050 and would have lots of energy left over for green jet fuel as well.
- locallost 3y ago
  You are playing fast and loose with facts mixed in with a lot of wishful thinking so this is a difficult conversation. Cheap is really relative: I've found very little information on the original build out of french nuclear and how much it cost so let's assume it was cheap. Do you factor in the cost of decommissioning and nuclear waste storage? This will cost literally hundreds of billions. And actually for how long? I did find an interview with the recently deceased chairman of the EDF from that time, who claims the plants were designed to last just over 30 years [1]. To paraphrase: the steel used will develop cracks but this is not a real problem because if will happen after the plants' lifetime of just over 30 years. France tried to build replacements 20 years ago with the EPR, but they were unable to finish the prototype in Flamanville, so they are stuck pretending the current plants can be extended infinitely. They are just kicking the bucket down the road, eventually it will come to an end. Switzerland does not have some of the oldest reactors it has the oldest reactor, Beznau, which went online 54 years ago, the others are from late 70s and early 80s. Speaking of cracks, it was reported in 2015 there were a thousand holes near the reactor [2]. The operator denied it, but the plant was shut down for a while and the operator said there were 2.5 billion Francs (roughly dollars) used to increase safety [3]. This should give everyone pause to audacious claims that nuclear plants can run for 80 years no problem, and once you've built them they are cheap to run. In the US, it was lobbied hard to prevent Diablo Canyon from shutting down, and when it was approved, they said: but now we need a billion dollars to be able to even run [4]. Germany's energy transition started just over 20 years ago, not 30 years ago. During this time, the renewable industry was basically invented, the feed-in tariff system was invented, and it's been a huge success worldwide. This year alone around 400GW of solar will be deployed [5], non of that would've happened without Germany's decision. Since the last nuclear plants in Germany were shut down, coal use has been at a historic low. Poland's plan that you are in favor will have Poland end up with 30% coal in 2040, if all goes well. So a bit better than where Germany is basically at now, which is pretty bad for something that will happen 20 years from now at best. Poland's wind energy increased to 10% of the electricity mix in the last decade, so the german energy transition has done more to curb Poland's coal use than anything else thus far. And a lot faster than 20 years. There is no special energy crisis in Germany that did not affect the whole Europe last year. France has pumped in 100 billion euros in the energy sector in the last three years to protect consumers and curb inflation [6], and was one of the first countries to do that. Germany only did it this year and much less (e.g. price caps at 40kw/h but only for 80% of your previous usage to promote saving). The countries are bickering now because Germany has a free market and no state company to pump money into, and it has a problem competing with "electricity" that is heavily subsidized [7]. Those are the facts. The rest on how nuclear plants should be built, how long it will take etc. it's mostly just wishful thinking. You don't know any of that, so there's nothing to comment on. [1] (in french) https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/president-edf-risque-fissure-centrales-nucleaires-marcel-boiteux https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/president-edf-risque-fis... [2] https://lenews.ch/2015/10/13/concerns-raised-about-switzerlands-oldest-nuclear-reactor/ https://lenews.ch/2015/10/13/concerns-raised-about-switzerla... [3] https://www.axpo.com/ba/en/about-us/magazine.detail.html/magazine/energy-market/no-radiation-risk.html https://www.axpo.com/ba/en/about-us/magazine.detail.html/mag... [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-conditional-funding-diablo-canyon-nuclear-power-plant-2022-11-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-conditio... [5] https://about.bnef.com/blog/3q-2023-global-pv-market-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/3q-2023-global-pv-market-outlook... [6] (in french) https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/crise-energetique-l-etat-a-depense-100-milliards-d-euros-en-trois-ans-indique-bruno-le-maire-936140.html https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/crise-energetique-l... [7] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-18/france-and-germany-clash-in-feud-over-europe-s-industrial-crown?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-18/france-an...

panick21_ 3y ago

Fact is the industrial countries who has gone green the fastest and cheapest is France. Switzerland has some of the oldest nuclear plants in the world and they are still going strong. Yes it takes time to build up an nuclear industry but Poland will also not go from mostly coal to all solar and wind anytime soon. Germany started its transition in the 90s and they are not close 30 years later. Had Germany in the 90s decided to go nuclear they would be green by now and not in an energy crisis. Poland in 10 years can finish a plant a year and 2-3 years after 2 plant a year and 2-3 years after that 3 plants a year. That how turn a full coal to a fully green grid. No need for costly grid rebuild, just nuclear plant in the same places coal plants are now mostly. Edit: And in terms of lost time, if anything not going with nuclear is lost time. By the Koyoto protocol France already had a green grid. We literally had a solution and the anti nuclear movement prevented that solution. Poland as all European countries is sadly moving to slowly. After 40 years of anti nuclear domiance the energy crisis has shifted perseptions and we are now finally getting back into gear. What matters is not how long the first one takes but what the yearly completion rate is. Europe should standardize on single reactor and plan to build 150-200 plants. That can easly be done before 2050 and would have lots of energy left over for green jet fuel as well.

locallost 3y ago
You are playing fast and loose with facts mixed in with a lot of wishful thinking so this is a difficult conversation. Cheap is really relative: I've found very little information on the original build out of french nuclear and how much it cost so let's assume it was cheap. Do you factor in the cost of decommissioning and nuclear waste storage? This will cost literally hundreds of billions. And actually for how long? I did find an interview with the recently deceased chairman of the EDF from that time, who claims the plants were designed to last just over 30 years [1]. To paraphrase: the steel used will develop cracks but this is not a real problem because if will happen after the plants' lifetime of just over 30 years. France tried to build replacements 20 years ago with the EPR, but they were unable to finish the prototype in Flamanville, so they are stuck pretending the current plants can be extended infinitely. They are just kicking the bucket down the road, eventually it will come to an end. Switzerland does not have some of the oldest reactors it has the oldest reactor, Beznau, which went online 54 years ago, the others are from late 70s and early 80s. Speaking of cracks, it was reported in 2015 there were a thousand holes near the reactor [2]. The operator denied it, but the plant was shut down for a while and the operator said there were 2.5 billion Francs (roughly dollars) used to increase safety [3]. This should give everyone pause to audacious claims that nuclear plants can run for 80 years no problem, and once you've built them they are cheap to run. In the US, it was lobbied hard to prevent Diablo Canyon from shutting down, and when it was approved, they said: but now we need a billion dollars to be able to even run [4]. Germany's energy transition started just over 20 years ago, not 30 years ago. During this time, the renewable industry was basically invented, the feed-in tariff system was invented, and it's been a huge success worldwide. This year alone around 400GW of solar will be deployed [5], non of that would've happened without Germany's decision. Since the last nuclear plants in Germany were shut down, coal use has been at a historic low. Poland's plan that you are in favor will have Poland end up with 30% coal in 2040, if all goes well. So a bit better than where Germany is basically at now, which is pretty bad for something that will happen 20 years from now at best. Poland's wind energy increased to 10% of the electricity mix in the last decade, so the german energy transition has done more to curb Poland's coal use than anything else thus far. And a lot faster than 20 years. There is no special energy crisis in Germany that did not affect the whole Europe last year. France has pumped in 100 billion euros in the energy sector in the last three years to protect consumers and curb inflation [6], and was one of the first countries to do that. Germany only did it this year and much less (e.g. price caps at 40kw/h but only for 80% of your previous usage to promote saving). The countries are bickering now because Germany has a free market and no state company to pump money into, and it has a problem competing with "electricity" that is heavily subsidized [7]. Those are the facts. The rest on how nuclear plants should be built, how long it will take etc. it's mostly just wishful thinking. You don't know any of that, so there's nothing to comment on. [1] (in french) https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/president-edf-risque-fissure-centrales-nucleaires-marcel-boiteux https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/president-edf-risque-fis... [2] https://lenews.ch/2015/10/13/concerns-raised-about-switzerlands-oldest-nuclear-reactor/ https://lenews.ch/2015/10/13/concerns-raised-about-switzerla... [3] https://www.axpo.com/ba/en/about-us/magazine.detail.html/magazine/energy-market/no-radiation-risk.html https://www.axpo.com/ba/en/about-us/magazine.detail.html/mag... [4] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-conditional-funding-diablo-canyon-nuclear-power-plant-2022-11-21/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-approves-conditio... [5] https://about.bnef.com/blog/3q-2023-global-pv-market-outlook/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/3q-2023-global-pv-market-outlook... [6] (in french) https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/crise-energetique-l-etat-a-depense-100-milliards-d-euros-en-trois-ans-indique-bruno-le-maire-936140.html https://www.latribune.fr/economie/france/crise-energetique-l... [7] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-18/france-and-germany-clash-in-feud-over-europe-s-industrial-crown?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-18/france-an...