To summarize: it’s being suppressed to keep the fossil industry alive.
Comment on Can somebody please explain why the world hasn't gone nuclear yet?
jagermo@feddit.org 5 days ago
Its a type of energy that gets more expensive
Hard to get insurance, so all costs fall to the states while all profits go to companies
Trash is not solved
A minor error can have a huge environmental impact, especially in densly populated areas like Europe
Plants need cooling, most use rivers and that does not mix well with rising temperatures, and have to be shut down in summer
No public backing
High initial costs, high costs so run, high costs to dismantle
Nuclear plants are not flexible and can’t react to energy availability
Most fuel is produced by less reliable states. Renewable energy is produced in your home country.
No chance of decentralizing the grid, making it a target for single point of failures or attacks (State sponsored or terrorism)
Solar is cheaper, battery parks are cheaper, hydrogen is cheaper, wind is cheaper, hydro is cheaper.
All in all, there are cheaper ways to create and store more energy safely, more decentralized and with less ties to single big companies.
Money is no issue, because if we have billions to throw at one plant, we obviously have enough for a smarter grid with storage options.
Angelusz@lemmy.world 5 days ago
poVoq@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
It’s the opposite, convincing governments to invest in totally uneconomic nuclear reactors that will take 15-20 years to build, ensures that these countries will continue to depend on fossile fuels for the next 15-20 years.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 4 days ago
They do not take that long to build. At all. Besifes, most of the build time is because of red tape, like requiring a plant to be FULLY DESIGNED, reviewed, and approved by multiple bodies before they can even break ground on one in the US.
It is red tape and fear mongering, not an actual feature of nuclear power itself.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
Its the current reality in both the US and Europe. And looking at the various serious construction defects that are surfacing in French reactors that were build at a time when the government waived much of the red tape, these extra precautions save a lot of costs over the life time of the reactor.
Angelusz@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Renewables are best for sure. I guess if the required logistics are not in place to get them online faster, I guess waiting for fusion is better.
I would have thought it could be done faster. Thanks for the info!
naiki@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
hmmmmmmmmmm u do have a point, but i mean lithium is running out and we need a constant influx of power (power grid, no batteries) like with nuclear, we could never afford to use batteries for all the energy in the planet. also i THINK that hydro disturbs the ecosystem (fish n stuff cant get through) but im not sure how true that is considering that they can always just open a gate for fish to pass, like with that online dorbell.
Lemmchen@feddit.org 5 days ago
In Germany we already often have more energy than we can use and wind turbines have to be shut down so the power grid doesn’t get overwhelmed. What we need most right now (here in Germany) is more grid expansion and not necessarily more energy production. Also, not every store of energy has to be lithium batteries.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
In fact, sodium batteries seem to be taking off and the only downside they have compared to lithium batteries is battery density, which isn’t a problem for grid storage.
aupag@feddit.org 1 day ago
Why do you think Lithium is running out? There is enough Lithium that could be mined if there was enough political will (and sometimes price signals).
Besides, we might also use other battery types, such as Redox-Flow for long term storage.
The current “backup” plan is to produce Hydrogen or P2G continuously, store it, and use it in cheap, inefficient gas turbines for the week every few years (without large grid interconnectivity) where there is a prolonged Dunkelflaute.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
We choose to make it so. Constantly adding security features and not financing research. It could have gone done has well if we had pushed for small reactors, helped the EPR more, not shut down the research into plutonium as a fuel…
It is inert and a lot of it has the potential to be a future fuel. “Put it in a hole below the water table” is pretty close to a solution.
It will be hard to be as impactful as coal or thermal engines, which are considered to be responsible for about 48 000 premature deaths yearly here in France. If nuclear energy allowed a country to decarbonate, it could “afford” a Chernobyl per year and still save lives.
That’s simply not true. Every year journalists fall for it but here is a breakdown:
As long as there are liquid rivers, plants will be able to cool down. We will have much more serious problems before this becomes an issue.
It can. As I am writing that, it is 1pm here, we are at 33GW of nuclear production, mostly because there is a lot of solar power and Germany is flooding us with electricity with negative energy. At 4am, we were at 42GW of nuclear. Image
Minerals are fungible, therefore consumers go for the cheapest. It usually means countries where semi-slavery is the norm and environmental regulations are not a thing. They do tend to be shitty countries yes. Non-fossil mineral resources however are found pretty uniformly over the globe (having mountains helps). There are uranium mines in France that we shut down because of labor cost.
That’s the main problem. The above lies have been repeated ad nauseam and local opposition means that opening new nuclear plants is basically impossible. This is a policy and opinion problem mostly.
I am bitter about it. The sane plan was to go full nuclear in the 90s, double the electricity production, get rid of coal and thermal vehicles that way and slowly transition over 40 years into solar as we either get batteries costs down or develop space based solar power.
Now we are getting the transition but it was oil-fueled instead of nuclear-fueled and this choice was made by people misled into believing they defended the environment by fighting nuclear power.
Yes, wind/solar + batteries is the future (though I don’t think these are cost competitive with nuclear yet. Solar alone is, batteries not) but opting out of nuclear was a very costly option for the climate.
Lemmchen@feddit.org 5 days ago
Direct quote from Axpo:
Translation: Excessive warming of the already warm water should be prevented during hot summer periods so as not to put additional strain on flora and fauna
Source: tagesschau.de/…/atomkraftwerke-hitze-kuehlung-abg…
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
Yes, it is not a problem for the power plants, it is a problem for the fauna and it only impacts reactors without cooling towers. And I may add, this is a problem for the fauna caused in big part by the global warming which nuclear plants help prevent.
jagermo@feddit.org 4 days ago
Or, you know, invest in renewables, better international grids and sodium-based storage instead of bring fine with turning part of your country into a wasteland…
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 days ago
It took 40 years to have solar energy and batteries up to the task, and we are not there yet. Yes, it could have been a choice to more massively invest in R&D in these fields, but you still need electricity while you shut down nuclear plants. Don’t do it unless you are ready to replace them with something else than coal. We are not there yet. Germany relies on France’s nuclear capabilities to import electricity at night.