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Japan has 34 000km (21 126 miles) of coastline. They import about 90% of its energy requirements. This includes nuclear fuel. So this is far away from "perfect

Japan has 34 000km (21 126 miles) of coastline. They import about 90% of its energy requirements. This includes nuclear fuel. So this is far away from "perfect" if you can get wind and sun without having to import it.

vkou 2y ago
> This includes nuclear fuel. Nuclear fuel is both relatively plentiful, and can be sourced from a multitude of countries, both Eastern, Western, and, most importantly, unaligned. A lot of countries have economically viable (for power generation) uranium reserves, but do not exploit them because global prices for it are so low. It differs significantly from oil in this respect.
- Krasnol 2y ago
  This is so weird because despite being so plentiful, the EU has still to throw money at Russia for all kinds of stuff related to nuclear energy. Imagine that: we have all kinds of sanctions on Russia here in the EU. The tone is aggressive. There is fear of a Russian invasion into EU countries, and we still have to get that stuff from Russia. So it seems not to be such an easy solution. It gets even worse for poor countries which jumped on the Rosatom train being fully dependent on Rosatom tech, fuel, personal. Even if it wouldn't be for that, it's far away from the availability of sun or wind. Here is a nice read on the topic: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/04/16/russia-is-earning-billions-selling-nuclear-fuel-to-the-west/ https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/04/16/russia-is-earning-b...
  - Moldoteck 2y ago
    not all eu, just some countries. And those(some that want it) are gradually replacing ru enriched fuel with the one from westinghouse. France and US are boosting local enrichment facilities to replace the russian ones. You'll basically have the same problems with renewables if china would ban export to eu/us
    - Krasnol 2y ago
      Those are all things that take a looong time and cost a hell lot of money, which could be turned into electricity in 2 years if you'd spend that taxpayer money into renewable technology. The war will be probably over before those countries dependent on Russia will become self-sufficient. This is desperate, keeping alive an outdated technology. France slept on the change and now has to do everything to keep the show running. > You'll basically have the same problems with renewables if china would ban export to eu/us The solution would only include scaling up existing technology which is already there. Technology which doesn't require safety measures compared to nuclear. Technology which isn't that expensive. It would actually be fabulous if they'd do that because maybe countries like Germany could regrow their potential in this sector. They used to be on the front of it before the Merkel goverment killed a whole sector. So yeah...it's not even close.
      - Moldoteck 2y ago
        scaling is expensive. France too, for enrichment is doing scaling of what they already did, just like Germany (I'm referring to german enrichment plant) :) Nuclear is not an outdated tech, why do you say that? Especially the ap1000 reactor. France slept on building more nuclear and was on path to ditch it, reversed only recently, that's why they are where they are, still - in much better shape than Germany in this regard
        Krasnol 2y ago
        Westinghouse went bankrupt over that new reactor, and wasn't it supposed to be more cost-effective? Nuclear has peaked, and its share knows only one way. Down [1]. It neither has become in any way more significant better nor has it become cheaper or faster to build. Meanwhile, renewables, got better, cheaper and faster to build. Nuclear is tech from the past. We needed it once. Now it's clogging up the grids, wasting taxpayer money and leaving waste behind for generations to care about. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source
        2y ago
slt2021 2y ago
nuclear fuel: nuclear rods can last about 3-7 years, lets say 5 on avg. 150 rods per 1 GW reactor. so its like one or two rail cars of fuel - extremely compact footprint. how calculate yourself how much fossil fuel you need to power 1 GW power plant for half a decade, and how much CO2 emissions will you generate? How many rail cars of coal Germany will need to generate 1 GW 24/7/365 for 5 years reliably ? it is just unfair comparison, nuclear is several orders magnitude better in all aspects compared to fossil fuel and renewable - just due to physics of the process. Nuclear is capturing strong and weak forces, while combustion is capturing electromagnetic force with piss poor thermal efficiency and losses abound. The only reason countries fumble nuclear energy is because they dont invest enough into new designs and constructions and still employ old design plants. If there was as much investment into new nuclear plants as it was in renewable tech - we would have solved many of our energy needs long long time ago.
- 7952 2y ago
  So for nuclear power to be successful you just have to change human nature and politics to secure long term investment. And do so in countries that cannot even figure out how to properly fund education.
  - slt2021 2y ago
    the fact that we allowed non-technical people with liberal arts education, who have no concept of physics and energy, to make nuclear a political issue is a big failure. Plus oil rich countries lobbying LNG as a greener alternative for nuclear is another fail
    - 7952 2y ago
      But it is not within your gift to control human nature or suppress politics. Or at least I hope its not. A good design/proposal/plan considers human factors. And energy production is not some science experiment where you can control all the baseline conditions. It exists within a complex mix of economy, environment, social system, manufacturing etc. There is no scientific method for navigating that. And your industry will probably ignore it if there was. Politics is all we have for deciding complex interrelated questions.
natmaka 2y ago
... Japan: no real nuclear 'restart', less and less fossil fuel, more and more renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewables-nuclear-line?time=2006..latest&country=~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...

vkou 2y ago

> This includes nuclear fuel. Nuclear fuel is both relatively plentiful, and can be sourced from a multitude of countries, both Eastern, Western, and, most importantly, unaligned. A lot of countries have economically viable (for power generation) uranium reserves, but do not exploit them because global prices for it are so low. It differs significantly from oil in this respect.

Krasnol 2y ago
This is so weird because despite being so plentiful, the EU has still to throw money at Russia for all kinds of stuff related to nuclear energy. Imagine that: we have all kinds of sanctions on Russia here in the EU. The tone is aggressive. There is fear of a Russian invasion into EU countries, and we still have to get that stuff from Russia. So it seems not to be such an easy solution. It gets even worse for poor countries which jumped on the Rosatom train being fully dependent on Rosatom tech, fuel, personal. Even if it wouldn't be for that, it's far away from the availability of sun or wind. Here is a nice read on the topic: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/04/16/russia-is-earning-billions-selling-nuclear-fuel-to-the-west/ https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/04/16/russia-is-earning-b...
- Moldoteck 2y ago
  not all eu, just some countries. And those(some that want it) are gradually replacing ru enriched fuel with the one from westinghouse. France and US are boosting local enrichment facilities to replace the russian ones. You'll basically have the same problems with renewables if china would ban export to eu/us
  - Krasnol 2y ago
    Those are all things that take a looong time and cost a hell lot of money, which could be turned into electricity in 2 years if you'd spend that taxpayer money into renewable technology. The war will be probably over before those countries dependent on Russia will become self-sufficient. This is desperate, keeping alive an outdated technology. France slept on the change and now has to do everything to keep the show running. > You'll basically have the same problems with renewables if china would ban export to eu/us The solution would only include scaling up existing technology which is already there. Technology which doesn't require safety measures compared to nuclear. Technology which isn't that expensive. It would actually be fabulous if they'd do that because maybe countries like Germany could regrow their potential in this sector. They used to be on the front of it before the Merkel goverment killed a whole sector. So yeah...it's not even close.
    - Moldoteck 2y ago
      scaling is expensive. France too, for enrichment is doing scaling of what they already did, just like Germany (I'm referring to german enrichment plant) :) Nuclear is not an outdated tech, why do you say that? Especially the ap1000 reactor. France slept on building more nuclear and was on path to ditch it, reversed only recently, that's why they are where they are, still - in much better shape than Germany in this regard
      - Krasnol 2y ago
        Westinghouse went bankrupt over that new reactor, and wasn't it supposed to be more cost-effective? Nuclear has peaked, and its share knows only one way. Down [1]. It neither has become in any way more significant better nor has it become cheaper or faster to build. Meanwhile, renewables, got better, cheaper and faster to build. Nuclear is tech from the past. We needed it once. Now it's clogging up the grids, wasting taxpayer money and leaving waste behind for generations to care about. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source
        2y ago

slt2021 2y ago

nuclear fuel: nuclear rods can last about 3-7 years, lets say 5 on avg. 150 rods per 1 GW reactor. so its like one or two rail cars of fuel - extremely compact footprint. how calculate yourself how much fossil fuel you need to power 1 GW power plant for half a decade, and how much CO2 emissions will you generate? How many rail cars of coal Germany will need to generate 1 GW 24/7/365 for 5 years reliably ? it is just unfair comparison, nuclear is several orders magnitude better in all aspects compared to fossil fuel and renewable - just due to physics of the process. Nuclear is capturing strong and weak forces, while combustion is capturing electromagnetic force with piss poor thermal efficiency and losses abound. The only reason countries fumble nuclear energy is because they dont invest enough into new designs and constructions and still employ old design plants. If there was as much investment into new nuclear plants as it was in renewable tech - we would have solved many of our energy needs long long time ago.

7952 2y ago
So for nuclear power to be successful you just have to change human nature and politics to secure long term investment. And do so in countries that cannot even figure out how to properly fund education.
- slt2021 2y ago
  the fact that we allowed non-technical people with liberal arts education, who have no concept of physics and energy, to make nuclear a political issue is a big failure. Plus oil rich countries lobbying LNG as a greener alternative for nuclear is another fail
  - 7952 2y ago
    But it is not within your gift to control human nature or suppress politics. Or at least I hope its not. A good design/proposal/plan considers human factors. And energy production is not some science experiment where you can control all the baseline conditions. It exists within a complex mix of economy, environment, social system, manufacturing etc. There is no scientific method for navigating that. And your industry will probably ignore it if there was. Politics is all we have for deciding complex interrelated questions.

natmaka 2y ago

... Japan: no real nuclear 'restart', less and less fossil fuel, more and more renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewables-nuclear-line?time=2006..latest&country=~JPN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...