5 ms·

I checked out their program, but they were anti nuclear power, so there was no way to vote for those fools.

chaoskanzlerin 2y ago
An approach I've had to EU elections is that tiny, single-seat parties often do invaluable opposition work through parliamentary requests and access to internal documents. It's why it's sad to see Pirates lose their representation, even though their program isn't great.
Kelteseth 2y ago
Renewables + batteries scale way faster and cheaper than nuclear these days.
- 76SlashDolphin 2y ago
  Battery plants at the scale of conventional nuclear power plants are very few so it's not as proven as a technology. Ideally we should build both since we don't want the EU to be dependent on a single material for its base load (i.e. lithium or uranium).
  - danhor 2y ago
    I really doubt that battery plants for longer duration storage will be lithium based, something redox-flox based will be the future. But with batteries (especially grid scale, where energy and power density matter much less) there are a multitude of feasible options, some more, some less economic, which means in case of material shortages we can switch in the medium term. I also think hydroelectric storage is an underappreciated opportunity, which, if there is a serious issue with chemical battery supplies, could be reasonably quickly expanded. It's also silly to use batteries as base load, as is the concept of base load in general in combination of cheap, but non-dispatchable, renwables, which is one of the things that hurts the economics of nuclear plants.
- himinlomax 2y ago
  Nuclear is cheaper than renewables+storage. Europe routinely has periods of 2 weeks with little to no wind across the continent (<10% capacity usage on wind power) during winter, when solar production is abysmal. You'd need batteries to store MONTHS of production, and build massive amounts of solar and wind power plants that would all overproduce at the same time and thus not be profitable in the slightest when they're at capacity.
  - pineaux 2y ago
    I dont necessarily disagree with you, but there is the safety concerns that need to be addressed for the nuclear energy option to become more acceptable. A nuclear powerplant must be able to explode and not kill a lot of people and render a large piece of the earth uninhabitable. If you solve that for me, then I will wholeheartedly agree with everything you just said.
- p_l 2y ago
  Right now renewables scale with gas turbines. Yes, there is some investment in batteries, but due to how the market is structured, they are either equivalent of local large scale UPS, or mainly operate grid frequency stabilization while fossil fuel plants spin up or down (some of the "spin down" support can be also done with modern wind turbines, as they can operate as "sinks" on energy). Unless we reset the way energy market operates in EU to prioritize dispatchable-but-fossil-free[1], I think we won't see neither proper nuclear resurgence, nor appropriate battery build up. [1] My personal idea is that we should promote and prioritize sources that offer stable and dispatchable power without emissions. Such conditions would be fulfilled both by nuclear and renewables combined with energy storage, promoting build up of energy storage.
  - boxed 2y ago
    You're not up to date anymore I'm afraid. Two-three years ago your comment would be correct, but things change FAST in this area. Grid-level battery has changed a lot. Look at this graph: https://archive.ph/Vj2py https://archive.ph/Vj2py
    - lioeters 2y ago
      That's a great link about what's happening with grid-scale battery storage ("giant batteries the size of shipping containers"), supporting solar and wind power replace other source of energy in states like California, Arizona, Texas, Florida.
      - p_l 2y ago
        Sorry, should have been more specific about location (thought it was implied from topic of discussion regarding EU Parliament). But as it is now, that's not something that is happening in EU, as far as I know. Some of the more recent projects turned out to have a tendency to go on fire. As for USA, I have no idea how well it works out, as USA seems to have wildly different market setup than EU. My usual sources show under 1% for California.
- andersa 2y ago
  I'm not aware of anyone having a solution for "batteries" at the required scale. We'd need several TWh of storage, there could be a month without wind. The only reason nuclear scales so slowly is because of the bureaucracy.
  - boxed 2y ago
    There can't be a month without wind. That's just not how any of this works.
    - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
      Actually there can be a year without a wind - see low winds in Europe in 2021
      - boxed 2y ago
        "Low" is a far cry from "no".
      - kvemkon 2y ago
        There actually have been many months without more than half of nuclear reactors in France in 2022 - beginning 2023. And in France there are not enough different energy sources to compensate. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... Taking down such reactors is a periodically routine for maintenance. The question is only how fast you can bring them up again (especially in case of serious repair needs).
        TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
        But that can be easily rectified by building cooling towers, instead of using river for cooling. What are you going to do with wind not blowing?
        2y ago
- alexey-salmin 2y ago
  Right, this must be the reason why Germany is back to coal these days after decades of heavy investing in renewables.
vaylian 2y ago
Why would it be foolish to be against nuclear power?
- 76SlashDolphin 2y ago
  Because it's the greenest and safest form of base load power we have right now. It may be more expensive but the loss of human capital vs burning coal and the reliability vs renewables makes it more valuable, and that's on top of diversifying Europe's fuel sources which is a good thing.
  - pineaux 2y ago
    If you compare it to transportation it is a bit like flying: its the safest way and it has many other upsides, but when it goes wrong it's usually catastrophic. With nuclear power even more so. When a nuclear accident happens a large area can be rendered uninhabitable for a period longer than the written history of the world. And it is a question of "when", not one of "if". Mistakes, boeing-like profit-maximizing strategies, terrorism, war. A heavy explosive on a nuclear power plant effectively creates a dirty bomb. I think these arguments shouldn't be wiped under the rug.
    - damsalor 2y ago
      Always wondered why nuclear plants are not built in uninhabitated regions to mitigate risk
      - Krutonium 2y ago
        They usually don't start inhabited, but then the people building and working at it want to live closer, which pulls in the support roles of stores, which bring more people, etc etc etc. If you build somthing in the middle of nowhere, and employ people there, the somthing will create a local population.
      - soco 2y ago
        There are not that many big enough inhabited places left in Europe. And if you build them in Siberia, you're back to square one - dependency on the current tyrant in charge.
shafyy 2y ago
Let's please not start this nuclear discussion again. All arguments have been said and are clear on both sides and these discussions on HN don't lead anywhere.
- account42 2y ago
  Apparrently not enough has been said if the viewpoints differ so wildly.
tgv 2y ago
"Then I checked out the Green Party, but they were against it too. Then I checked out the Social Democrats, and they didn't speak out about open source. Then I check the other parties, and did not vote." You can't expect to agree on all issues with a party. Weigh their programs (and voting history; I cannot stress enough how a party's history is a much better indication than their program) according to your views, and pick the top one. Otherwise your vote is lost to some party you probably share even less with.
- rdsubhas 2y ago
  > Then I checked out the Social Democrats, and they didn't speak out about open source. "Not speaking out" is not against. But being anti-nuclear is clearly a stand against. Any party can't have binary decisions on everything, and that's fine, this means business as usual on an issue by issue basis. But where they _do_ have a binary stand, it matters. I do agree with the parent comment though, in today's day and age needing huge coal free electrification targets in short timeframes to save the planet, being explicitly anti-nuclear power is a clear red flag, and doubly makes no sense for a digital technological party to have this stand.
  - account42 2y ago
    > and doubly makes no sense for a digital technological party to have this stand I sometimes wonder if these politics taking over fringe parties are deliberate attempts to destroy them. Because yeah it doesn't make sense that they would make that part of their program.
account42 2y ago
Exactly. If I wanted to vote for green politics there are existing options. I don't.

An approach I've had to EU elections is that tiny, single-seat parties often do invaluable opposition work through parliamentary requests and access to internal documents. It's why it's sad to see Pirates lose their representation, even though their program isn't great.

Kelteseth 2y ago

Renewables + batteries scale way faster and cheaper than nuclear these days.

76SlashDolphin 2y ago
Battery plants at the scale of conventional nuclear power plants are very few so it's not as proven as a technology. Ideally we should build both since we don't want the EU to be dependent on a single material for its base load (i.e. lithium or uranium).
- danhor 2y ago
  I really doubt that battery plants for longer duration storage will be lithium based, something redox-flox based will be the future. But with batteries (especially grid scale, where energy and power density matter much less) there are a multitude of feasible options, some more, some less economic, which means in case of material shortages we can switch in the medium term. I also think hydroelectric storage is an underappreciated opportunity, which, if there is a serious issue with chemical battery supplies, could be reasonably quickly expanded. It's also silly to use batteries as base load, as is the concept of base load in general in combination of cheap, but non-dispatchable, renwables, which is one of the things that hurts the economics of nuclear plants.
himinlomax 2y ago
Nuclear is cheaper than renewables+storage. Europe routinely has periods of 2 weeks with little to no wind across the continent (<10% capacity usage on wind power) during winter, when solar production is abysmal. You'd need batteries to store MONTHS of production, and build massive amounts of solar and wind power plants that would all overproduce at the same time and thus not be profitable in the slightest when they're at capacity.
- pineaux 2y ago
  I dont necessarily disagree with you, but there is the safety concerns that need to be addressed for the nuclear energy option to become more acceptable. A nuclear powerplant must be able to explode and not kill a lot of people and render a large piece of the earth uninhabitable. If you solve that for me, then I will wholeheartedly agree with everything you just said.
p_l 2y ago
Right now renewables scale with gas turbines. Yes, there is some investment in batteries, but due to how the market is structured, they are either equivalent of local large scale UPS, or mainly operate grid frequency stabilization while fossil fuel plants spin up or down (some of the "spin down" support can be also done with modern wind turbines, as they can operate as "sinks" on energy). Unless we reset the way energy market operates in EU to prioritize dispatchable-but-fossil-free[1], I think we won't see neither proper nuclear resurgence, nor appropriate battery build up. [1] My personal idea is that we should promote and prioritize sources that offer stable and dispatchable power without emissions. Such conditions would be fulfilled both by nuclear and renewables combined with energy storage, promoting build up of energy storage.
- boxed 2y ago
  You're not up to date anymore I'm afraid. Two-three years ago your comment would be correct, but things change FAST in this area. Grid-level battery has changed a lot. Look at this graph: https://archive.ph/Vj2py https://archive.ph/Vj2py
  - lioeters 2y ago
    That's a great link about what's happening with grid-scale battery storage ("giant batteries the size of shipping containers"), supporting solar and wind power replace other source of energy in states like California, Arizona, Texas, Florida.
    - p_l 2y ago
      Sorry, should have been more specific about location (thought it was implied from topic of discussion regarding EU Parliament). But as it is now, that's not something that is happening in EU, as far as I know. Some of the more recent projects turned out to have a tendency to go on fire. As for USA, I have no idea how well it works out, as USA seems to have wildly different market setup than EU. My usual sources show under 1% for California.
andersa 2y ago
I'm not aware of anyone having a solution for "batteries" at the required scale. We'd need several TWh of storage, there could be a month without wind. The only reason nuclear scales so slowly is because of the bureaucracy.
- boxed 2y ago
  There can't be a month without wind. That's just not how any of this works.
  - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
    Actually there can be a year without a wind - see low winds in Europe in 2021
    - boxed 2y ago
      "Low" is a far cry from "no".
    - kvemkon 2y ago
      There actually have been many months without more than half of nuclear reactors in France in 2022 - beginning 2023. And in France there are not enough different energy sources to compensate. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-shutdown-of-nuclear-reactors-over-corrosion-amid-rising-energy-prices https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-... Taking down such reactors is a periodically routine for maintenance. The question is only how fast you can bring them up again (especially in case of serious repair needs).
      - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
        But that can be easily rectified by building cooling towers, instead of using river for cooling. What are you going to do with wind not blowing?
        2y ago
alexey-salmin 2y ago
Right, this must be the reason why Germany is back to coal these days after decades of heavy investing in renewables.

vaylian 2y ago

Why would it be foolish to be against nuclear power?

76SlashDolphin 2y ago
Because it's the greenest and safest form of base load power we have right now. It may be more expensive but the loss of human capital vs burning coal and the reliability vs renewables makes it more valuable, and that's on top of diversifying Europe's fuel sources which is a good thing.
- pineaux 2y ago
  If you compare it to transportation it is a bit like flying: its the safest way and it has many other upsides, but when it goes wrong it's usually catastrophic. With nuclear power even more so. When a nuclear accident happens a large area can be rendered uninhabitable for a period longer than the written history of the world. And it is a question of "when", not one of "if". Mistakes, boeing-like profit-maximizing strategies, terrorism, war. A heavy explosive on a nuclear power plant effectively creates a dirty bomb. I think these arguments shouldn't be wiped under the rug.
  - damsalor 2y ago
    Always wondered why nuclear plants are not built in uninhabitated regions to mitigate risk
    - Krutonium 2y ago
      They usually don't start inhabited, but then the people building and working at it want to live closer, which pulls in the support roles of stores, which bring more people, etc etc etc. If you build somthing in the middle of nowhere, and employ people there, the somthing will create a local population.
    - soco 2y ago
      There are not that many big enough inhabited places left in Europe. And if you build them in Siberia, you're back to square one - dependency on the current tyrant in charge.

shafyy 2y ago

Let's please not start this nuclear discussion again. All arguments have been said and are clear on both sides and these discussions on HN don't lead anywhere.

account42 2y ago
Apparrently not enough has been said if the viewpoints differ so wildly.

tgv 2y ago

"Then I checked out the Green Party, but they were against it too. Then I checked out the Social Democrats, and they didn't speak out about open source. Then I check the other parties, and did not vote." You can't expect to agree on all issues with a party. Weigh their programs (and voting history; I cannot stress enough how a party's history is a much better indication than their program) according to your views, and pick the top one. Otherwise your vote is lost to some party you probably share even less with.

rdsubhas 2y ago
> Then I checked out the Social Democrats, and they didn't speak out about open source. "Not speaking out" is not against. But being anti-nuclear is clearly a stand against. Any party can't have binary decisions on everything, and that's fine, this means business as usual on an issue by issue basis. But where they _do_ have a binary stand, it matters. I do agree with the parent comment though, in today's day and age needing huge coal free electrification targets in short timeframes to save the planet, being explicitly anti-nuclear power is a clear red flag, and doubly makes no sense for a digital technological party to have this stand.
- account42 2y ago
  > and doubly makes no sense for a digital technological party to have this stand I sometimes wonder if these politics taking over fringe parties are deliberate attempts to destroy them. Because yeah it doesn't make sense that they would make that part of their program.

account42 2y ago

Exactly. If I wanted to vote for green politics there are existing options. I don't.