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Geopolitics is largely determined by who controls energy resources. We've seen, over and over, how borders between energy producers and consumers are inevitably
by RhysU 2y ago
Geopolitics is largely determined by who controls energy resources. We've seen, over and over, how borders between energy producers and consumers are inevitably messy. Nuclear can be built most places. Sun and wind cannot.
- piva00 2y ago> Nuclear can be built most places. Nukes require lots of cooling, needing access to large amounts of water from water bodies, that's definitely not "most places" by definition.
- doublepg23 2y agoThat’s most places humans live isn’t it?
- piva00 2y agoIf you ever done a tour on a nuclear facility you'd hear about how careful they need to be managing water temperatures in their discharge pools, you don't want a nuke frying off all wildlife on the rivers and/or lakes nearby. You don't want to create massive ponds of still water for cooling, and you definitely don't want to have a nuke potentially discharging contaminated water near population centres (in case something goes wrong and the discharge needs to happen). This limits a lot nuclear facilities placement.
- TobTobXX 2y agoNuclear power plants only really have an effect on the water temperature if they do not have a cooling tower. This makes the plant considerably cheaper, but, as you mentioned, damages the ecosystem. Only in rare cases, such as during revisions or emergencies, they might be unable to cool the condenser using the tower-coolant-loop. Then they might have to warm up the water temporarily. > you definitely don't want to have a nuke potentially discharging contaminated water near population centres (in case something goes wrong and the discharge needs to happen). There is no such failure case that a "discharge needs to happen" for the irradiated water. There is a comparatively tiny amount of deionized and supercleaned water in the reactor that is always cycled around. Even if such a case were to occur (how??), the amount of water would be easy to handle/store.
- sgarland 2y agoI live a few miles from a nuclear plant. I am far more concerned about the coal plants that are also nearby.
- chickenbig 2y ago> you definitely don't want to have a nuke potentially discharging contaminated water near population centres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly... And Brits are not exactly leaping into action about raw sewage discharges into rivers.
- Braini 2y agoDry cooling towers do exist (though I am aware they also have disadvantages).
- cykros 2y agoI mean, classical plants and those based around the regulations that the US currently has on the books thanks to some questionable lobbying in the 60s require large amounts of water, sure. These are hardly the only viable plant designs that exist. Molten Salt, Pebble Bed, and other designs exist. China is currently underway building a molten salt cooled Thorium reactor.
- sgarland 2y agoRussia has had sodium-cooled reactors [0] for some time. America experimented with them at least back to the 1950s, with the USS Seawolf (SSN 575, not SSN 21) having a sodium-cooled reactor (S2G) for her first few years. Russia also had lead-bismuth reactors, at least militarily, with the Alfa-class. [0]: https://www.neimagazine.com/news/mox-use-at-russias-bn-800-reactor-confirms-reliability-of-the-technology-11278025/ https://www.neimagazine.com/news/mox-use-at-russias-bn-800-r...
- mpweiher 2y agoNuclear power plants have been and are bing built in deserts, so no, this is not a hard requirement, just a "nice to have".
- chickenbig 2y ago> Nukes require lots of cooling Two units cooling for every unit of electricity, at least with PWR/BWR. At a 10 degree C rise it requires about 50ml of water (per second) per kW of electrical power. Palo Verde NPP in Arizona happens to be in a rather dry area. It uses treated sewage for cooling and is trying to use rather poor quality groundwater too. https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/02/25/palo-verde-nuclear-water-use/ https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2020/02/25/palo-verde-nuclear...
- anigbrowl 2y agoGeopolitics and nuclear power are not always such a great combination - consider the Russian occupation of the nuclear power plant in Ukraine. I'm not against nuclear power in general, but saying it's a great hedge against political risks involved with wind and solar is quite a stretch.
- RhysU 2y agoThat required a war. Turning off gas to Eastern Europe does not.
- greenthrow 2y agoBullshit. Sun and wind can be built everywhere. They're just more effective some places than others. But they are cheaper than nuclear everywhere.
- viraptor 2y agoLet's stay realistic. You can build as many solar panels as you want in Iceland and you won't get any power from them mid winter. They're not just less effective, they would not be functional for over a month. That's not "everywhere".
- greenthrow 2y agoThere's a reason i said "sun and wind."