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> The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. It's not t

by bdzr 3y ago

> The strongest argument in favor of nuclear seems to be that it sounds futuristic and it's what we grew up believing would be the future of energy. It's not that it's one of the safest energy sources in existence that works in all weather conditions?

stephenr 3y ago
> that works in all weather conditions? Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. It's one of the safest when compared to coal. How exactly do you accurately calculate the "safety" of something that produces toxic waste with a lifespan in the thousands of years?
- delroth 3y ago
  > Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems, not because of any safety or operational constraints. Many of these limits were set years ago, when the water temperature in rivers was lower, and haven't been increased since - leading to very tight margins. When the grid is stretched, the plant operators usually get a temporary authorization to exceed the environmental limits. Every year this is big news for some reason, even though it amounts to a roughly 0.3% reduction of yearly electricity generation. It only impacts river cooled plants, and only those that don't also have a cooling tower.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    > Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems So what you're saying is, nuke plants can operate in any weather if you give zero fucks about how they affect nature..?
    - spullara 3y ago
      Yes. If you care more about warm water over killing people, carbon emissions and pollution.
      - fodkodrasz 3y ago
        Killing wildlife would be okay? Wow we saved some carbon emission (so it can wasted somewhere else...) and saved some lives (i don't see the connection you are implying), so now we can live in a barren land with plenty energy. We have already done a lot of harm to the environment, we should try to preserve as much as possible of what is left. (And this goes for hydro especially, and somewhat for solar and wind as well, all have environmental impacts, which must be taken into account and sensible compromises need to be made).
        lupusreal 3y ago
        [dead]
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      Nope. This affects all thermal plants, it has nothing to do with nuclear. And as the parent pointed out, it only affects plants where you cheap out and skip building the otherwise required cooling towers. So it’s trivially solvable: build cooling towers.
    - fodkodrasz 3y ago
      They can, if they are designed and built for those weather conditions in mind. Cooling towers are more expensive but could work in the mentioned case.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. No, no they didn't. Most reactors that were shut down that summer were shut down for maintenance after a decade or more of neglect.
  - RNAlfons 3y ago
    So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? I mean, if that claim of negligance would be true which I doubt it is of course...those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades but hey...new ones are planned...maybe in a decade one will even be finished... More details on the problems: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredealing-with-cracking-in-french-nuclear-fleet-10988297/ https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredealing-with-cra...
    - troupo 3y ago
      > So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear > those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades "Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs. Even the countries who "diversified" depend on those with stable electricity production all the time. See example from just today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274335
      - cycomanic 3y ago
        >> So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? > No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear How? Proper maintenance would increase the price of electricity produced by nuclear. > "Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs. Their nuclear reactors are 37 years old on average (they were originally only commissioned to run for 40 years, until an extension in 2012) [1]. They don't have a reactor younger than 21 years old [2]. So I would argue they did not just not diversify, they also neglected to keep up with building nuclear reactors. Their flagship EPR reactor (Flamanville 3) has been been delayed and delayed. Work started in 2007, in 2020 when it was already significantly delayed it was 5 times over budget and it is still not in operation. The current date is early 2024, but that's almost a running gag now. [3] They are also planning to build new reactors which are supposed to come online earliest 2035, but based on what happened with Flamanville, that's completely unrealistic. So in summary decades is very justified. I encourage everyone to read the wikipedia article on Flamanville. You can't make this up. Construction started in 2007 with estimated costs of 3.3 billion euro and completion date of 2012. The last estimate was in 2020 with costs at 19.1 billion and a commissioning date at the end of 2022. Well that didn't happen yet. And somehow we are supposed to throw more money at this completely incompetent industry? [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/03/the-long-road-to-extending-life-of-french-nuclear-reactors_6014297_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/03/the-long... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351839/age-of-nuclear-power-reactors-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351839/age-of-nuclear-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
rtpg 3y ago
It's definitely versatile but it does need access to a lot of water, and a lot of trained staff to run it. PV and wind also have staff constraints, of course, but plenty of smaller scale PV setups are fairly hands-off.
goodpoint 3y ago
No, because it's not.

by bdzr 3y ago

stephenr 3y ago

> that works in all weather conditions? Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. It's one of the safest when compared to coal. How exactly do you accurately calculate the "safety" of something that produces toxic waste with a lifespan in the thousands of years?

delroth 3y ago
> Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems, not because of any safety or operational constraints. Many of these limits were set years ago, when the water temperature in rivers was lower, and haven't been increased since - leading to very tight margins. When the grid is stretched, the plant operators usually get a temporary authorization to exceed the environmental limits. Every year this is big news for some reason, even though it amounts to a roughly 0.3% reduction of yearly electricity generation. It only impacts river cooled plants, and only those that don't also have a cooling tower.
- stephenr 3y ago
  > Because of environmental limits to protect the river ecosystems So what you're saying is, nuke plants can operate in any weather if you give zero fucks about how they affect nature..?
  - spullara 3y ago
    Yes. If you care more about warm water over killing people, carbon emissions and pollution.
    - fodkodrasz 3y ago
      Killing wildlife would be okay? Wow we saved some carbon emission (so it can wasted somewhere else...) and saved some lives (i don't see the connection you are implying), so now we can live in a barren land with plenty energy. We have already done a lot of harm to the environment, we should try to preserve as much as possible of what is left. (And this goes for hydro especially, and somewhat for solar and wind as well, all have environmental impacts, which must be taken into account and sensible compromises need to be made).
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        [dead]
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    Nope. This affects all thermal plants, it has nothing to do with nuclear. And as the parent pointed out, it only affects plants where you cheap out and skip building the otherwise required cooling towers. So it’s trivially solvable: build cooling towers.
  - fodkodrasz 3y ago
    They can, if they are designed and built for those weather conditions in mind. Cooling towers are more expensive but could work in the mentioned case.
troupo 3y ago
> Didn't France very recently have to shut down or limit a bunch of reactors due to <checks notes> the river water being too warm. No, no they didn't. Most reactors that were shut down that summer were shut down for maintenance after a decade or more of neglect.
- RNAlfons 3y ago
  So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? I mean, if that claim of negligance would be true which I doubt it is of course...those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades but hey...new ones are planned...maybe in a decade one will even be finished... More details on the problems: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredealing-with-cracking-in-french-nuclear-fleet-10988297/ https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featuredealing-with-cra...
  - troupo 3y ago
    > So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear > those things grow old and France failed to diversify it's power generation in the last decades "Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs. Even the countries who "diversified" depend on those with stable electricity production all the time. See example from just today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38274335
    - cycomanic 3y ago
      >> So if even THE nuclear nation on this planet "neglects" its reactors, wouldn't that be an argument against nuclear? > No. It would be an argument against anti-nuclear How? Proper maintenance would increase the price of electricity produced by nuclear. > "Decades" implies 20 years or more. Even now France's nuclear provides more energy than anything it has, and France routinely exports energy to Germany who have shattered their nuclear power plants and are now busy burning coal and importing electricity to cover the needs. Their nuclear reactors are 37 years old on average (they were originally only commissioned to run for 40 years, until an extension in 2012) [1]. They don't have a reactor younger than 21 years old [2]. So I would argue they did not just not diversify, they also neglected to keep up with building nuclear reactors. Their flagship EPR reactor (Flamanville 3) has been been delayed and delayed. Work started in 2007, in 2020 when it was already significantly delayed it was 5 times over budget and it is still not in operation. The current date is early 2024, but that's almost a running gag now. [3] They are also planning to build new reactors which are supposed to come online earliest 2035, but based on what happened with Flamanville, that's completely unrealistic. So in summary decades is very justified. I encourage everyone to read the wikipedia article on Flamanville. You can't make this up. Construction started in 2007 with estimated costs of 3.3 billion euro and completion date of 2012. The last estimate was in 2020 with costs at 19.1 billion and a commissioning date at the end of 2022. Well that didn't happen yet. And somehow we are supposed to throw more money at this completely incompetent industry? [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/03/the-long-road-to-extending-life-of-french-nuclear-reactors_6014297_7.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/02/03/the-long... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351839/age-of-nuclear-power-reactors-france/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351839/age-of-nuclear-p... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

rtpg 3y ago

It's definitely versatile but it does need access to a lot of water, and a lot of trained staff to run it. PV and wind also have staff constraints, of course, but plenty of smaller scale PV setups are fairly hands-off.

goodpoint 3y ago

No, because it's not.