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Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #500 on: December 18, 2017, 06:42:39 PM »
If a country has nuclear and if those reactors are safe then it makes CO2 sense to leave them in operation until coal is eliminated  and renewables have placed natural gas levels into a minor role.

But don't underplay the safety issue.  A reactor melting down in a rural area of Japan and its radioactive cloud floating off over the ocean is different from a reactor melting down in a highly populated area. 

Coal provides less than 4% of France's electricity.  It shouldn't take France long to install that much wind and solar.  And then they can get on with closing reactors. 

France needs to close reactors for economic reasons.  Maintenance costs have risen on their reactors giving France a higher wholesale rate for electricity than Germany and Denmark.

wili

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #501 on: December 18, 2017, 09:49:08 PM »
Nicely put, Bob.
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

numerobis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #502 on: December 19, 2017, 02:55:07 AM »
Any time this electricity emissions map is accessed it consistently shows Norway, Sweden and France as green along with the State of Ontario in Canada showing low electricity emissions.

https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map

Odd that Quebec is not on the map. It's almost all hydro, plus a bit of wind. It hasn't had a thermal plant in years -- and that was a nuclear plant.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #503 on: December 19, 2017, 03:25:53 AM »
Paraguay.   Makes, IIRC, 10x more electricity than it uses from hydro.  Exports 90%.

Idaho 90% hydro.  More than 90% renewable.

(Some people so much want to give France CO2-ups for their use of nuclear.  But low carbon  was accidental.  France moved to nuclear because the needed to get off oil and had no source for affordable coal.)

tombond

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #504 on: December 19, 2017, 11:12:51 AM »
Quote
Odd that Quebec is not on the map. It's almost all hydro, plus a bit of wind. It hasn't had a thermal plant in years -- and that was a nuclear plant.

My state Western Australia was not on the map either so I sent an email with the map link to the Western Australian Conservation Council who were delighted and advised me they would pass the map link onto an energy group they liaise with.  About a month later Western Australia was on the map so I assumed they successfully added our State data from the AEMO by clicking on the "adding a territory" link.

http://wa.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Wholesale-Electricity-Market-WEM/Data-dashboard#generation-fuelmix

It would be great if communities from all countries (and States) arranged to add their emissions data to this map to enable the global community to make better decisions with respect to successful emissions reduction. 

This will give us the best chance of success.   

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #505 on: December 22, 2017, 10:27:59 PM »
What could go wrong: Georgia approves nuclear reactor go ahead. I really thought the screwups in construction would kill the project. I suppose there's too much payola on the line.

"Georgia Power estimates the reactors will cost $12.2 billion and won't be finished until 2021 and 2022 ...  The new reactors on the Savannah River near Waynesboro were initially expected to cost the company about $6 billion and be completed this year."

In light of  the revelations of inexcusable sloppiness i posted earlier, these two are a disaster waiting to happen.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/commission-voting-on-georgia-powers-plant-vogtles-future/667115708

sidd



Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #506 on: December 22, 2017, 10:42:23 PM »
The people approving the go ahead for Vogtle will not have to pay for the cost.  That gets shoved off on consumers.

The State of Georgia screwed its own citizens by setting up the system the way they did.

TerryM

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #507 on: December 23, 2017, 07:05:14 AM »
These are the same reactors that brought down Westinghouse, and now possibly Toshiba.


https://seekingalpha.com/article/4104267-ugly-disclosure-scana



Personally I'm more concerned with the Jerry rigged fuel rods Westinghouse is still selling to Ukraine for fueling their Soviet designed reactors. Chernobyl II and Chernobyl III may dwarf the original.


https://nuclear-news.net/2014/05/20/usas-westinghouse-taking-over-nuclear-fuel-supplies-to-ukraine-despite-problems-in-those-fuel-assemblies/


OT - but
It could be a cold winter in Ukraine as a Slovakian court has seized Ukrainian gas for non payments dating back ten years. Slovakia had recently been Ukraine's largest gas supplier as it purchased Russian gas, added their profit, then sold it on to Ukraine.


https://www.rt.com/business/413943-ukraine-gas-slovakia-russia/


Terry


tombond

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #508 on: January 05, 2018, 12:42:58 AM »
Another good year for the climate from nuclear France just 77g/kWh electricity CO2 emissions.

http://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/chiffres-cles-en

Before 1975 French electricity CO2 emissions were about 500g/kWh similar to Germany today.

Between 1975 and 1995 France installed 63GW of nuclear capacity REPLACING most of its fossil fuel capacity and since 1992 has consistently provided electricity with emissions of 100g/kWh or less.

No wonder the climate and James Hansen loves nuclear power!

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #509 on: January 05, 2018, 01:30:22 AM »
France did not build reactors as a way to combat climate change.  France built reactors because they badly needed to get out from under OPEC's thumb.  They had no reasonalbe access coal.  Wind and solar were too expensive at the time.

France would not do the same these days.  In fact, France intends to replace reactors with renewables going forward in order to cut their cost of electricity.

You know all this Tom.  You're just a nuclear pusher who puts nuclear ahead of personal integrity.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #510 on: January 05, 2018, 06:11:27 AM »
"You're just a nuclear pusher who puts nuclear ahead of personal integrity."

I am not a big nuke fan, but i do not think this comment does any good on this forum.

sidd

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #511 on: January 05, 2018, 03:47:36 PM »
"You're just a nuclear pusher who puts nuclear ahead of personal integrity."

I am not a big nuke fan, but i do not think this comment does any good on this forum.

sidd

There is a small number of 'nuclear pushers' who wander around the web posting the same incorrect and misleading statements in support of the nuclear industry.

Numerous people post corrections but the pushers ignore the corrections and continue their efforts to spread misinformation.  I put them in the same category as climate change deniers.

Not pushing back hard against them gives them the ability to spread FUD and lower the reliability of a site. 

Tom posted a very common opening move - describe how France built a lot of reactors in a short period, which is true.  But Tom and his ilk do not go on to explain how France poured resources into that effort in order to eliminate OPEC's control over their electricity grid. 

By sneaking that rapid build into the discussion that opens the door for "we could do the same" without acknowledging how expensive that would be.

BenB

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #512 on: January 05, 2018, 06:34:45 PM »
I totally agree with Bob on this one. There are people who support nuclear power (and I'm far from anti, I just think we have better options now), who are willing to engage in discussion on the benefits and disadvantages of nukes vs other options. They should always be welcome. But there are also people who simply trot out the same soundbites time and time again, and then disappear when their misleading presentation of the facts is challenged. They don't add anything to the discussion.

TerryM

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #513 on: January 05, 2018, 07:23:00 PM »
I'm enamoured of the Micro Nukes sometimes proposed for powering remote Arctic communities. Power plants similar to those used in nuclear submarines or modern icebreakers. An expensive proposition, but powering them now is expensive plus no greenhouse gases with the Micro-Nuke option.
The US had one in Greenland I believe, & I've read that the Russians are exploring the concept.


France did a wonderful thing when they drastically lowered their GHG, regardless of their motivation. It's too bad that the economics are not now working out.


Terry

Sebastian Jones

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #514 on: January 05, 2018, 08:24:43 PM »
I'm enamoured of the Micro Nukes sometimes proposed for powering remote Arctic communities. Power plants similar to those used in nuclear submarines or modern icebreakers. An expensive proposition, but powering them now is expensive plus no greenhouse gases with the Micro-Nuke option.
The US had one in Greenland I believe, & I've read that the Russians are exploring the concept.

Both Yukon and Alaska were approached a few years ago by nuclear boosters who wanted to sell us what they euphemistically called nuclear batteries. These were to be - 1-5 MW reactors containers that would be buried safely underground at our off grid communities where they would provide clean, silent, emission free electricity for 20 years, at the end of this period, they would be removed and replaced.
It turned out that they wanted to install them in the remote north because they were untested and so that if if anything bad happened, damage would be minuscule- that is if you did not live there.
I understand that the Americans have yet to clean up their Greenland nuclear mess.
Needless to say, we all turned down their kind offer.

Iceismylife

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #515 on: January 05, 2018, 09:20:32 PM »
With rising sea level an almost forgone conclusion is anyone talking about scheduling the decommissioning of reactors at risk of inundation?  The longer in advance of scraping you shut them down the better the outcome.

sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #516 on: January 05, 2018, 09:28:25 PM »
" ... pushing back hard against them ..."

Push back as hard as you please against their arguments. Attacking their integrity or other personal denigration is not constructive.

Mr. Bond, thanks for the link to French power generation on rte-france.com

sidd

morganism

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #517 on: January 05, 2018, 10:57:43 PM »
Don't need to go to fission anymore, just need to work on thermo-electric conversion efficiencies. These are being tackled by single attachment point graphene ribbons or benzene chains, for direct DC conversion

Forum dedicated to fusion

http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1669&start=135

http://www.helionenergy.com/

https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/05_KIRTLEY.pdf

thermoelectrics, is a vid from U of AZ, but couldn't find

https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0417/Scientists-find-an-ugly-duckling-to-convert-waste-heat-to-electricity

https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/new-alloy-can-convert-heat-directly-electricity

https://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/u4375905


sidd

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #518 on: January 05, 2018, 11:29:15 PM »
There are 59 nukes (60 Gwatt electric capacity in total) under construction worldwide, with China (19), Russia (7) India(6) leading the pack.

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionReactorsByCountry.aspx

How many of the 59 under construction will actually complete is difficult to tell.  Countries beside the USA seem to have difficulties as well. I  see that Taishan in china seems to have overcome construction troubles and the first EPR there is scheduled to come on this year, (construction began 2009, originally scheduled to come online in 2013)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant
http://world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Taishan-schedule-factors-in-commissioning-tests-0201181.html

It would be interesting to see who are the lenders and what are the financing terms. In the USA, very few lenders want to finance a new nuke. That, more than anything else, seems to be the killing argument against nuclear power expansion in the USA. Construction screwups do not help either.

sidd

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #519 on: January 06, 2018, 12:26:03 AM »
There are 59 nukes (60 Gwatt electric capacity in total) under construction worldwide, with China (19), Russia (7) India(6) leading the pack.

https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/UnderConstructionReactorsByCountry.aspx

How many of the 59 under construction will actually complete is difficult to tell.  Countries beside the USA seem to have difficulties as well. I  see that Taishan in china seems to have overcome construction troubles and the first EPR there is scheduled to come on this year, (construction began 2009, originally scheduled to come online in 2013)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishan_Nuclear_Power_Plant
http://world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Taishan-schedule-factors-in-commissioning-tests-0201181.html

It would be interesting to see who are the lenders and what are the financing terms. In the USA, very few lenders want to finance a new nuke. That, more than anything else, seems to be the killing argument against nuclear power expansion in the USA. Construction screwups do not help either.

sidd

There are many more than 59 reactors scheduled to close by 2025.  (59 includes the now canceled South Carolina reactors, so 57.)

Additionally, the world's reactor fleet is aging out.  The average lifespan for a nuclear reactor is 40 years.  We have yet to see a reactor last 50 years. 

France has discovered significant corrosion problems in some of their reactors which are not yet 40 years old and the cost of maintaining their fleet has risen enough that they are planning on replacing at least one third of their reactors with wind and solar.



We aren't building at replacement level, nothing close to replacement level.  Even China seems that they might have slowed.  They started construction  on only two reactors in 2016 and none in 2017.

silkman

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #520 on: January 06, 2018, 10:29:39 AM »
Quote
I  see that Taishan in china seems to have overcome construction troubles and the first EPR there is scheduled to come on this year, (construction began 2009, originally scheduled to come online in 2013)

They just announced yet another delay pushing things back to later this year for the first of the EPRs  and to 2019 for the second of the pair with a consequent hike in cost.

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2126529/cgn-powers-latest-project-delay-deals-another-blow-chinas-nuclear

If the Chinese are struggling to get this over the line what chance is there of Hinkley Point coming on line before new battery technology makes it an overpriced dinosaur...........?

Sleepy

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #521 on: January 06, 2018, 12:56:42 PM »
It gives me some hope for the future that some world leaders are starting to use scientific evidence and data to drive CO2 emission reduction decision making.   
Quoting Sweden’s Minister for Policy Coordination and Energy, Ibrahim Baylan:
"Energy should be sustainable, secure and affordable for all. Electricity in both the long- and short-term is something the Government of Sweden is making increasingly reliable and as such, we plan to move to 100% renewably generated electricity by 2040. There is an agreement from 80% of the Swedish Parliament to make this target the number 1 goal of the Swedish electricity system."
That would mean that Swedens old and remaining reactors are no longer needed.

At the beginning Sweden wanted to build a bomb, at the oil crisis in the 70's it was hard to say no, to what we then perceived as cheap energy. Then we got scared and had a referendum in the 80's where we voted to successively phase out nuclear and not build any new plants. Then we got stuck with our higher energy consumption thanks to those plants and also learned more about the costs and risks related to maintain them. Now we will try to keep them running towards 2040 thanks to climate change.

History is often forgotten, amazingly enough even recent history and all those years Vattenfall spent trying to produce clean coal. They failed and recently sold everything to Czech EPH, those emissions abroad were on the scale of our entire nation.

Quote
Norway, Sweden and France all use nuclear or hydro or both to head the low carbon emissions league table.
Norway is the world’s seventh largest exporter of emissions.
http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2017/08/The-Skys-Limit-Norway-1.pdf

Sweden should not be used to promote nuclear in the name of climate change mitigation, Norway is not a clean nation because of their hydro. Hydro has a thousand year old history here, thanks to our natural prerequisites in Scandinavia.
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
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Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #522 on: January 12, 2018, 08:15:08 PM »
Eric Holthaus’ article says we should take the nuclear option, because carbon emissions are still increasing:

It’s time to go nuclear in the fight against climate change
http://grist.org/article/its-time-to-go-nuclear-in-the-fight-against-climate-change/


And here are two brief Twitter threads presenting other views:

Dan Lashof:
My feed is blowing up with tweets about nuclear power stimulated by @EricHolthaus’s Grist post. I know better than to wade into these religious wars, but it makes me angry when otherwise smart people say dumb things about nuclear power, so here goes.
https://twitter.com/Dlashof/status/951860070035333120?s=17

Brendan Pierpont:
Eric's piece on nuclear power gets some things right, but relies on some nuclear industry talking points that don't pass muster in my view. Thoughts below. 1/
https://twitter.com/brendanpierpont/status/951885574813581312
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #523 on: January 12, 2018, 10:48:08 PM »
Nuclear is simply too expensive. 

oren

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #524 on: January 12, 2018, 11:59:35 PM »
Nuclear is simply too expensive.
And IMHO too risky to assume a functioning government and infrastructure sufficient to maintain these plants and deal with the radioactive waste in the next 100 years in the face of climate change, SLR, and potential collapse.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #525 on: January 13, 2018, 12:08:41 AM »
Nuclear is simply too expensive.
And IMHO too risky to assume a functioning government and infrastructure sufficient to maintain these plants and deal with the radioactive waste in the next 100 years in the face of climate change, SLR, and potential collapse.

Nuclear is too expensive just in terms of cost of electricity produced.  Add in the external costs of possible disasters and dealing with radioactive waste over tens of thousands of years and the cost becomes enormous.

wili

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #526 on: January 13, 2018, 02:49:46 AM »
Armed raid on nuclear workers' housing raises fears over Brazil's two reactors

This kind of thing will occur more and more frequently with worse and worse outcome as we go further and further down the rabbit whole of societal collapse...

then all the wet dreams of 'clean, free, un-meterable nuke power' will rapidly turn into horrific living nightmares...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/12/brazil-nuclear-reactor-armed
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #527 on: January 13, 2018, 05:34:37 AM »
Nuclear power plants feel like geoengineering to me:  a dangerous experiment, with the outcome not yet determined, likely unforeseen, and often ignored.  “Everything’s OK — so far!”

As compared to a ‘massive solar spill’ being a sunny day. :)
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numerobis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #528 on: January 13, 2018, 05:35:02 AM »
Holthaus is apparently innumerate. He notes a 68% annual growth rate for solar, and that nuclear power currently generates 10x as much power as solar. So by his numbers we’re only about five years from solar producing as much as nuclear currently does.

Where’s the evidence that nuclear power can scale anywhere near that fast? If we started today, in five years we’d have added zero nuclear capacity given how projects currently go.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #529 on: January 13, 2018, 07:09:30 AM »
Let's see how scaling is going in the US and China. 

In the US nuclear got off to a good start that lasted until utilities started to understand that costs were higher than what the nuclear industry said they would be and that prices rose over time.  Nuclear fizzled out.

The price of wind and solar has only recently become cheap so we should expect their curves to rise and move quickly above that of nuclear.




In China both wind and solar are zooming up much faster than has nuclear.



I don't see how anyone could argue that nuclear could scale faster than wind and solar.  Wind and solar don't require highly trained and experienced engineers and construction workers as does nuclear.  Wind and solar farms can be built by pretty much any commercial construction company.  We can start many more new wind and solar farms in a year than start reactor construction and bring them online in less than two years.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #530 on: January 14, 2018, 04:56:38 PM »
”The effort to address climate change can no longer afford to focus exclusively on emissions.”

Thoughtful response to the Holthaus article.

Nuclear Is Not the Answer
Quote
Eric Holthaus has become one the best climate journalists in the country over the past few years, but his most recent article promoting nuclear power demonstrates why the effort to address climate change can no longer afford to focus exclusively on emissions. There are a lot of problems with Holthaus’ article, some of which likely stem from his use of Jesse Jenkins and Michael Shellenberger as sources. Jenkins and Shellenberger have spent their careers promoting techno-salvation and denigrating environmentalism. Their influence is particularly evident in the fact that Holthaus literally starts his article with a conclusion that nuclear power is necessary.

We can’t have a serious discussion about nuclear power without talking about democracy.  Nuclear proponents argue that nuclear power can be done safely and with minimal waste. Even if that is true, it is also certainly true that nuclear power can be done less safely by cutting corners in ways that increase the profits of the corporations who own the plants. And the consequences of cutting those corners can be catastrophic. That’s why it is so critical that if we are going to be embracing extremely high-risk technology, we need a government and regulatory agencies that are not willing to compromise public safety for corporate profits. We don’t have such a system. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Until we end corporate personhood, we don’t have a governing structure that can handle the responsibility of nuclear power.
...
As sea levels rise and predictions for future sea level rise keep increasing, it can’t make sense to be building nuclear power plants near shorelines. But if we build them inland, the increased water shortages caused by climate change will be an ever-increasing problem for nuclear power, which uses more water than any other power source. With a diversified energy system of renewables, we can afford a few mistakes in our planning, experimentation, and development. With nuclear power, we can’t afford a single mistake.
...
http://www.timdechristopher.org/nuclear_is_not_the_answer
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Neven

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #531 on: January 14, 2018, 11:45:39 PM »
Thanks for that, Sig. That was an extremely good summary of why nuclear simply isn't an option (unless it's Gen IV, maybe).

I especially liked this part, which is often overlooked, and one of the reasons I'm not a fan of huge wind parks and or MegaPV in the Sahara:

Quote
Discussions of nuclear power also should not be detached from the crisis of income inequality, a core destabilizing force in our society. Part of the reason that there are such well-funded efforts to promote nuclear power is that it maintains the same basic centralized economic model of the fossil fuel industry. As a limited fuel supply, whoever controls access to the fuel, technology, and capital investments gets to set all the terms. They set all the terms for their workers, for their communities, for the people downstream, and even for regulatory agencies, so they end up with a massive concentration of wealth and political power. That why fossil fuels have led to such extreme levels of wealth inequality. With renewables, because no one controls access to the sun or the wind, the wealth is more likely to flow to those who do the work of harnessing that energy. In contrast, a nuclear power plant is the very definition of “too big to fail.”

It's so great that 'power' has two meanings in the English language.  :)
The enemy is within
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Iceismylife

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #532 on: January 15, 2018, 12:01:09 AM »
Nuclear is simply too expensive.
And IMHO too risky to assume a functioning government and infrastructure sufficient to maintain these plants and deal with the radioactive waste in the next 100 years in the face of climate change, SLR, and potential collapse.

Nuclear is too expensive just in terms of cost of electricity produced.  Add in the external costs of possible disasters and dealing with radioactive waste over tens of thousands of years and the cost becomes enormous.
Any one talking about shutting down reactors in advance of sea level rise?  If we melt all the ice on earth as it looks like we will that is 200 feet of slr.  How many reactors will be under water world wide?  The sooner we shut them down the smaller the problem.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #533 on: January 15, 2018, 02:02:58 AM »
I'm not sure we're looking at enough sea level rise to take out many current reactors in the next 20 or so years.  And, I suspect, well over half of global reactors will be dead of old age 20 years from now.  Take a look at  how old the world's reactors are now....



Some in the nuclear fan club claim that we can use our current reactors for 60 years  but we've never managed to keep one alive for more than 50 years.  Twenty years from now perhaps 2/3rds of today's reactors will have been closed because repair costs have made them noncompetitive or they will  become unsafe to continue to use.

Wind and solar are going to keep falling in price and put more and more economic pressure on existing reactors.  Canada just got a bid for a new wind farm which  will produce electricity at $0.024/kWh.  No subsidies.  (edit $0.025/kWh)

One UK reactor did have to be shut down for a period of time while a seawall was built or raised to protect it from storm surges.  So I guess there may be some reactors which will be impacted by sea level rise over the next 20 years.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2018, 06:05:38 PM by Bob Wallace »

Alexander555

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #534 on: January 15, 2018, 10:35:06 AM »
Some of these windturbines are running now for a couple dozens of years. So they should know what they are up to. Are they good enough the replace the risk from having nuclear power. Even if you know there want be wind all the time. A nuclear installation can destroy a big region for 1000 of years. And not that far from my home they are stockpiling nuclear waste. And that construction probably don't last much longer than a 100 years. That means they will have to rebuild/replace that waste dozens of times in the future. Long after all the nuclear energy is gone. If they don't forget the rebuilt it. Or the people that live there will get a message to leaf their homes as fast as possible at some point.

gerontocrat

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #535 on: January 15, 2018, 12:51:54 PM »
My guess is that a dead nuclear reactor is more of a worry than a well-managed live one (which to me  made Germany's decision to shut it's nuclear reactors and burn coal instead a dumb knee -jerk reaction to the Japanese tsunami).

Dead nuclear reactors are forgotten about over time - as is buried nuclear waste. Modern concrete has a life in ideal conditions of 150? years. In a hot, though dead, nuclear power station - how long before structural decay, and for how many thousands of years will these monuments to hubris be a potential danger?
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Alexander555

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #536 on: January 15, 2018, 01:32:25 PM »
I remember whene i was young they dumbed that nuclear waste in the sea. In a little concrete box.

Bernard

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #537 on: January 15, 2018, 05:26:33 PM »
My guess is that a dead nuclear reactor is more of a worry than a well-managed live one (which to me  made Germany's decision to shut it's nuclear reactors and burn coal instead a dumb knee -jerk reaction to the Japanese tsunami).

Dead nuclear reactors are forgotten about over time - as is buried nuclear waste. Modern concrete has a life in ideal conditions of 150? years. In a hot, though dead, nuclear power station - how long before structural decay, and for how many thousands of years will these monuments to hubris be a potential danger?

Dead nuclear reactors are not old enough to be forgotten. But their "decommissioning" takes way longer than planned, not to say forever. In France, this has not yet been achieved for even small experimental reactors. An infamous example is Brennilis, a 70 MWe (only) plant which ran from 1967 to 1985, and of which decommissioning should have been a "model", according to powers-that-be. 32 years after and a succession of incidents, the operation is not yet finished and its cost has been so far about 20 times the initial assessment.

Other, bigger reactors approaching end of life have seen the decommissioning postponed, but we can expect similar delays and costs.

See in the French Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_nucl%C3%A9aire_de_Brennilis

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #538 on: January 16, 2018, 12:52:54 AM »
This is an interesting pair of graphs, but I would argue that renewables are just now reaching the beginning of the vertical part of an exponential adoption curve, so we can’t presume their future rate of build-out by looking at the past.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #539 on: January 16, 2018, 01:00:41 AM »
This is an interesting pair of graphs, but I would argue that renewables are just now reaching the beginning of the vertical part of an exponential adoption curve, so we can’t presume their future rate of build-out by looking at the past.


Intriguing, but where is China, how is India progressing?
Terry

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #540 on: January 16, 2018, 01:16:56 AM »
This is an interesting pair of graphs, but I would argue that renewables are just now reaching the beginning of the vertical part of an exponential adoption curve, so we can’t presume their future rate of build-out by looking at the past.


Intriguing, but where is China, how is India progressing?
Terry

Good question!  I wonder if that is missing due to lack of information — or an attempt to cook the data?
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #541 on: January 16, 2018, 01:52:52 AM »
Wind and solar are installing faster in China than has nuclear. 

As Sigmetnow points out, this is not a meaningful comparison.  Wind and solar have only recently become cheap which is fueling the acceleration of their growth.

The rate at which France installed nuclear is often held up as an example of how rapidly we could cut coal use.  But what isn't told is that France built a lot of nuclear very rapidly because it was regarded as a necessity for national security.  OPEC had formed and was messing with the world's oil supply.  France used oil for most of their electricity, they had not a lot of hydro and no reasonably accessible coal.  Wind and solar were very expensive back then.  Nuclear was pretty much France's only option and the French government spent whatever it took to build a lot of reactors quickly.

If any country decided that it wanted to quit fossil fuels ASAP the quickest and most affordable route today is now wind and solar.

The graph shows only (selected?) history.  With wind and solar now a small fraction of the cost of nuclear history will not repeat itself.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #542 on: January 16, 2018, 07:53:12 PM »
”The land can’t be used for agriculture, and it’s been suggested people cannot return for 24,000 years.”

Solar power brings Chernobyl powerlines back to life with 1MW installed [Gallery]
Quote
Ukraine’s repurposing of 1GW of electricity transmission infrastructure, located in the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone, has passed a milestone of installing its first solar power plant – a 1MW plant.

It is a special plant because it is located a mere 100 meters away from the world’s largest movable structure – the Chernobyl Sarcophagus – that will seal in nuclear radiation from the still radioactive nuclear material. ...
https://electrek.co/2018/01/16/solar-power-chernobyl-powerlines-ukraine/

Similar to this nuclear wasteland — but with chemical, rather than radiation, hazards — some decommissioned coal power plant locations are being refitted with solar, to take advantage of the existing power transmission lines.
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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #543 on: January 16, 2018, 08:19:06 PM »
This is an interesting pair of graphs, but I would argue that renewables are just now reaching the beginning of the vertical part of an exponential adoption curve, so we can’t presume their future rate of build-out by looking at the past.


Intriguing, but where is China, how is India progressing?
Terry

Good question!  I wonder if that is missing due to lack of information — or an attempt to cook the data?
One should use a bag of salt with numbers from analys.se. It's an "independent" group of specialists with support from the Swedish nuclear power industry. ;)

Edit; adding a small example from one of the papers presented at analys.se, in English:
http://analys.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/climate-impact-closed-reactors-report2016.pdf
Quote
Climate impact of four closed reactors
The announced decisions by Vattenfall and Eon about premature closure of four reactors at
the Swedish nuclear power plants Ringhals and Oskarshamn will result in an increased use of
electricity generated from fossil fuels in neighbouring countries.
Sweden is a net exporter of electricity, adding the preliminary statistics for 2017 below produced by Energiföretagen, who also administers analys.se...

Now look at that graph Sigmetnow added above.
Can you guess which nation in that graph to the right (nuclear) that we are primarily exporting to?
Finland. ->No3 in the nuclear graph.
Now can you guess which nation we primarily import from?
Norway. ->95% Hydro.

See the picture? :)

Here's the final lines from the same paper:
Quote
The export of electricity pushes fossil fuels out of the market, primarily coal, in neighbouring countries. Premature closure of Swedish reactors will reduce the amount of low emission electricity exported to the neighbouring countries. That is bad business for the climate.
And oh, here's the link to the preliminary numbers for 2017 by Energiföretagen, in Swedish.
https://www.energiforetagen.se/pressrum/pressmeddelanden2/2017/december/elfakta-2017-vindkraftsrekord-och-stangd-reaktor/
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 09:24:47 PM by Sleepy »
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #544 on: January 16, 2018, 08:58:07 PM »
Quote
some decommissioned coal power plant locations are being refitted with solar, to take advantage of the existing power transmission lines.

Additionally, brownfields like those created by coal plants require less cleaning if used for something like solar farms than if brought up to residential standards.


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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #545 on: January 16, 2018, 11:58:57 PM »
The rate at which France installed nuclear is often held up as an example of how rapidly we could cut coal use.  But what isn't told is that France built a lot of nuclear very rapidly because it was regarded as a necessity for national security.  OPEC had formed and was messing with the world's oil supply.  France used oil for most of their electricity, they had not a lot of hydro and no reasonably accessible coal.  Wind and solar were very expensive back then.  Nuclear was pretty much France's only option and the French government spent whatever it took to build a lot of reactors quickly.

As a French citizen who has followed this story for near half a century, I beg to differ.  ;D
The nuclear lobby in France, an elite of technocrats graduated from the "Grandes Ecoles", namely Polytechnique, Centrale, Les Mines (the latter being the most important) has simply bypassed in the early 70's the democratic process and political decisions in order to impose the nuclear choice, opening for decades a juicy market to a handful of companies.

[edited] And now that the nuclear park of France is facing the huge challenge of the "decommissionning" we hear that the same companies are on the edge of bankrupcy. But the said bunch of technocrats, children and heirs of the above quoted, coming from the same schools, wil have jumped off the nuclear train, and will now in brand new green suits sell renewable energy, smart grid, homes and cars as the technology of tomorrow, with the same arrogance as their fathers and grandfathers selling the nuclear, and why not let Chinese companies the tedious and costly task of dismantling our nuclear installations?
« Last Edit: January 17, 2018, 12:13:26 AM by Bernard »

Bob Wallace

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #546 on: January 17, 2018, 06:48:35 AM »
You might want to have a word with Wiki -

Quote
As a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, on 6 March 1974 Prime Minister Pierre Messmer unexpectedly announced what became known as the 'Messmer Plan', a huge nuclear power program aimed at generating all of France's electricity from nuclear power.[13] At the time of the oil crisis most of France's electricity came from foreign oil. Nuclear power allowed France to compensate for its lack of indigenous energy resources by applying its strengths in heavy engineering.[14][15] The situation was summarized in a slogan: "In France, we do not have oil, but we have ideas."[16]

Whoever wrote the Wiki piece agrees that the democratic process was bypassed.

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #547 on: January 17, 2018, 11:26:01 AM »
Adding to my previous comment in #543. Decomissioning and costs.
Sweden shut down Oskarshamn 1 last year. O1 is scheduled to be fully decomissioned in 2026. That project started in 1965, first commercial production in 1972.
https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=534
Energy Availability Factor: 62%.
Only a couple of years back OKG stated that they would run O1 until 2032. Now they say they will run the remaining O3 until 2045?

Estimated costs for decomissioning one reactor is 2 billion SEK.
Estimated total costs for Swedish nuclear decomissioning is 141 billion SEK, and counting.

We still do not have an approved waste solution.
Swedish Nuclear Fuel Management AB (SKB) has applied for constructing:
the existing final repository for short-lived low-level waste (SFR)
an encapsulation plant and a final repository for the spent nuclear fuel.

SKB intends to submit an application to build a final repository for long lasting low and intermediate waste by 2030. Applications are reviewed by the Radiation Safety Authority, which will submit its opinion to the government.

If the applications are approved by the government, SKB estimates that the final repository for spent nuclear fuel will be completed around 2030 and the final repository for long-lived low and intermediate waste around 2045. Until a regular final repository is completed, the nuclear fuel from the discontinued reactors will be stored in the central interim storage for spent nuclear fuel (Clab) in Oskarshamn.

That history is almost as long as O1's:
https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/omraden/radioaktivt-avfall/slutforvar/slutforvar-for-anvant-karnbransle/slutforvarets-utveckling-under-40-ar/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #548 on: January 17, 2018, 02:55:28 PM »
“One should use a bag of salt with numbers from analys.se. It's an "independent" group of specialists with support from the Swedish nuclear power industry. ;)

Thanks for the tip.  I thought their graphs looked a little sketchy (it came from a pro-nuke twitterer), but I couldn’t find anything definitive about the group.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Nuclear Power
« Reply #549 on: January 17, 2018, 03:05:30 PM »
Germany’s transition to renewables includes “the first nuclear plant to shut down specifically because of damage caused by ramping.”

German power sector: coal and nuclear down, renewables up in 2017
Quote
Since the first nuclear reactor was shut down in 2003 as a part of Germany’s nuclear phaseout, electricity from renewables has increased almost twice as much as nuclear power has shrunk. Coal power – both from lignite and hard coal – has also dropped. The lights have stayed on.

Power exports also set a record for the fifth year in a row, reaching 53 TWh. Net power exports provide space for dispatchable conventional power generators (coal, gas, and nuclear). Renewable electricity has priority dispatch on the German grid, meaning that clean power is consumed before conventional power. Wind and solar in particular react to the weather, not to demand, so foreign demand cannot increase these sources.

Gas was once again slightly up in 2017 but has grown by more than a quarter since 2013. Hard coal has fallen by just over a quarter during the same time frame. The decrease in lignite is only 8% because renewables are not yet forcing those plants to ramp much.

Nuclear fell by nearly 11% in 2017. One reactor was shut down at the end of December, but that decrease was only slight. A bigger factor was the extended downtime at Brokdorf, a reactor that made history last year by being the first nuclear plant to shut down specifically because of damage caused by ramping. Other reactors, such as France’s Civaux, have also experienced difficulties possibly related to load-following, but ramping was never clearly reported as the cause for any other reactor.
...
https://energytransition.org/2018/01/german-power-sector-coal-and-nuclear-down-renewables-up-in-2017/
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