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If we had not regulated nuclear out of our system we would be almost completely carbon-free at this point. https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2016/10/26948/ https

by Dig1t 2y ago

If we had not regulated nuclear out of our system we would be almost completely carbon-free at this point. https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2016/10/26948/ https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2016/10/26948/ >Unfortunately, due to a failure to marshal significant public support for the nuclear side of the energy plan and the untimely occurrence of Watergate, the nuclear plans went largely unfulfilled after 1974. What's not said in this article is that the NRC was created soon after this and it basically squashed all future developments. The same thing is happening in Germany, they shut down their nuclear reactors and now they have the highest energy prices in Europe and are reliant on Russia. France is leading the way with nuclear, everyone should copy them.

ZeroGravitas 2y ago
France is leading the way. Their repeated failures to complete nuclear plants on time or budget is probably a big factor in people not considering it a valid alternative. Them phasing out more nuclear than Germany over the last few years is quite a message.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  The problem as always is that if you are only building very few with mostly new people, and if its also a reasonable new reactor, you are gone have cost overruns. Even if you just build a couple of them, as UAE did, you can see how it improves and the unit cost go down. But adopting one reactor as a standard design across all of Europe and building 100s would have lead an incredibly cheap decarbonisation for Europe. Instead you literally had French and German energy minister conspiring to kill nuclear project and French political class fully willing to hand over all the 'we are so green and awesome' marketing to German. Despite France ACTUALLY being green. Germany literally for 20 years market itself as being 'incredibly green' while burning coal at crazy rates, and they will continue for another decade. And the CO2 isn't even the worst part, the coal dust being blown constantly blown all across central Europe is the worst part.
- Dig1t 2y ago
  70% of France’s energy comes from nuclear and it’s all 0 carbon. Maybe “leading the way” was not the right phrase WRT building, but they are an example of how nuclear energy can provide for an entire country with a relatively low number of plants. If we were actually allowed to build things like this in America we could do the same thing for very cheap and new reactor designs could be basically foolproof WRT safety.
jqpabc123 2y ago
... it squashed all future developments What squashed future development was the cost of trying to make nuclear energy cost effective using reactor designs that were inherently unsafe. Newer, inherently safe designs are now in the pipeline. https://newatlas.com/energy/bill-gats-breaks-ground-first-us-gen-4-nuclear-plant/ https://newatlas.com/energy/bill-gats-breaks-ground-first-us...
- Dig1t 2y ago
  They’ve been “in the pipeline” for a LONG time. The technology is not very complicated at all, the barrier to actually building reactors has always been purely regulatory.
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    The barrier to actually building *unsafe* reactors has always been purely regulatory. The light water designs proposed by industry in the past were inherently not safe. Making these designs reasonably safe was expensive. Fukushima is the proof of what happens if this is not done.
    - Dig1t 2y ago
      Fukushima had like one death. The number of deaths due to carbon intensive energy are far far higher. If you believe that global warming is going to make all of humanity extinct soon then it’s something people should support. Generally the way designs get approved in all engineering is by iteration. If you stop letting people build, it becomes basically impossible to improve designs.
      - jqpabc123 2y ago
        If you stop letting people build, it becomes basically impossible to improve designs. The number of companies now promoting new, innovative, inherently safe nuclear reactor designs shows this is not true. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Wyoming-TerraPower-groundbreaking https://www.gatesnotes.com/Wyoming-TerraPower-groundbreaking https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modular-reactor-companies/ https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modul... https://www.inven.ai/company-lists/top-16-nuclear-energy-companies-in-the-us https://www.inven.ai/company-lists/top-16-nuclear-energy-com...
panick21_ 2y ago
NRC, Nuclear Reduction Commision. Its crazy that before the NRC 100s of reactors were built, close to 0. And this isn't an accident. > France is leading the way with nuclear, everyone should copy them. Questionable. Sadly, the generation that build the nuclear fleet is gone, retired. The next generation of French statesmen fully bought in to the anti-nuclear believe and they viewed the nuclear fleet as a burden. But they were so blessed that they were able to treat the nuclear fleet like 'the giving tree'. Doing all sorts of completely idiotic policies. The list is to long to get into here, but a few nice examples are.: - Forcing the operator to sell baseload at incredibly cheap rates to fossil fuel companies and then when they realised that they actually needed it, the operator had to buy it back at market prices. - Forcing them to invest in solar, and intermittent solar in the network actually makes the baseloads economics worse. So basically forcing them to make investments that don't make any economics sense what so ever. - Voting the completely replace nuclear reactors but not actually having any even remotely serious plan to achieve it. Then to argue that plants don't need to be maintained as they are gone shut off anyway. Only to then realise that they had no fucking plan what so ever and that their delusional believe that solar/wind would being showing up out of know-where didn't come true. Only for this to lead to a huge maintenance backlog, taking many plants offline during a large energy crisis in Europe. And French plants are notorious for low operational efficiency, ironically Germany was incredibly good at operating nuclear plants. The US in places is also really good. So yes, France did something brilliant in the 70-80s but the next generation is basically just cursing on those accomplishments. Its beyond sad. Why something like the Superphénix (or use a more standard design) couldn't have been branded 'European Standard Reactor' and a few iteration financed by EU budgets for nations in desperate need like Poland. No but at least they have a whole bunch of highways.

by Dig1t 2y ago

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

France is leading the way. Their repeated failures to complete nuclear plants on time or budget is probably a big factor in people not considering it a valid alternative. Them phasing out more nuclear than Germany over the last few years is quite a message.

panick21_ 2y ago
The problem as always is that if you are only building very few with mostly new people, and if its also a reasonable new reactor, you are gone have cost overruns. Even if you just build a couple of them, as UAE did, you can see how it improves and the unit cost go down. But adopting one reactor as a standard design across all of Europe and building 100s would have lead an incredibly cheap decarbonisation for Europe. Instead you literally had French and German energy minister conspiring to kill nuclear project and French political class fully willing to hand over all the 'we are so green and awesome' marketing to German. Despite France ACTUALLY being green. Germany literally for 20 years market itself as being 'incredibly green' while burning coal at crazy rates, and they will continue for another decade. And the CO2 isn't even the worst part, the coal dust being blown constantly blown all across central Europe is the worst part.
Dig1t 2y ago
70% of France’s energy comes from nuclear and it’s all 0 carbon. Maybe “leading the way” was not the right phrase WRT building, but they are an example of how nuclear energy can provide for an entire country with a relatively low number of plants. If we were actually allowed to build things like this in America we could do the same thing for very cheap and new reactor designs could be basically foolproof WRT safety.

jqpabc123 2y ago

... it squashed all future developments What squashed future development was the cost of trying to make nuclear energy cost effective using reactor designs that were inherently unsafe. Newer, inherently safe designs are now in the pipeline. https://newatlas.com/energy/bill-gats-breaks-ground-first-us-gen-4-nuclear-plant/ https://newatlas.com/energy/bill-gats-breaks-ground-first-us...

Dig1t 2y ago
They’ve been “in the pipeline” for a LONG time. The technology is not very complicated at all, the barrier to actually building reactors has always been purely regulatory.
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  The barrier to actually building *unsafe* reactors has always been purely regulatory. The light water designs proposed by industry in the past were inherently not safe. Making these designs reasonably safe was expensive. Fukushima is the proof of what happens if this is not done.
  - Dig1t 2y ago
    Fukushima had like one death. The number of deaths due to carbon intensive energy are far far higher. If you believe that global warming is going to make all of humanity extinct soon then it’s something people should support. Generally the way designs get approved in all engineering is by iteration. If you stop letting people build, it becomes basically impossible to improve designs.
    - jqpabc123 2y ago
      If you stop letting people build, it becomes basically impossible to improve designs. The number of companies now promoting new, innovative, inherently safe nuclear reactor designs shows this is not true. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Wyoming-TerraPower-groundbreaking https://www.gatesnotes.com/Wyoming-TerraPower-groundbreaking https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modular-reactor-companies/ https://c3newsmag.com/five-of-the-worlds-leading-small-modul... https://www.inven.ai/company-lists/top-16-nuclear-energy-companies-in-the-us https://www.inven.ai/company-lists/top-16-nuclear-energy-com...

panick21_ 2y ago

NRC, Nuclear Reduction Commision. Its crazy that before the NRC 100s of reactors were built, close to 0. And this isn't an accident. > France is leading the way with nuclear, everyone should copy them. Questionable. Sadly, the generation that build the nuclear fleet is gone, retired. The next generation of French statesmen fully bought in to the anti-nuclear believe and they viewed the nuclear fleet as a burden. But they were so blessed that they were able to treat the nuclear fleet like 'the giving tree'. Doing all sorts of completely idiotic policies. The list is to long to get into here, but a few nice examples are.: - Forcing the operator to sell baseload at incredibly cheap rates to fossil fuel companies and then when they realised that they actually needed it, the operator had to buy it back at market prices. - Forcing them to invest in solar, and intermittent solar in the network actually makes the baseloads economics worse. So basically forcing them to make investments that don't make any economics sense what so ever. - Voting the completely replace nuclear reactors but not actually having any even remotely serious plan to achieve it. Then to argue that plants don't need to be maintained as they are gone shut off anyway. Only to then realise that they had no fucking plan what so ever and that their delusional believe that solar/wind would being showing up out of know-where didn't come true. Only for this to lead to a huge maintenance backlog, taking many plants offline during a large energy crisis in Europe. And French plants are notorious for low operational efficiency, ironically Germany was incredibly good at operating nuclear plants. The US in places is also really good. So yes, France did something brilliant in the 70-80s but the next generation is basically just cursing on those accomplishments. Its beyond sad. Why something like the Superphénix (or use a more standard design) couldn't have been branded 'European Standard Reactor' and a few iteration financed by EU budgets for nations in desperate need like Poland. No but at least they have a whole bunch of highways.