@Emil You know, in a sane world, moving a handful of effectively harmless concrete blocks around wouldn't be newsworthy.
But even in our world, I think that the message should focus more on how little that actually is, how it is all there is, and how obviously it can be successfully done.
Leave some burns on fear-mongers while you're at it.
@Emil OK, it's a start. Once regulatory and economic processes are in place, there will be an option to become much more ambitious here, depending on how other plans turn out. Good.
@Emil This sounds like a sensible, level-headed approach. #Australia, take note!
@breadsmasher @Emil Yellowcake is not very dangerous, but it's not safe to eat either.
@Lats @ajsadauskas @australianpolitics
Well, right now there is much more derailing of nuclear in the hope of solving storage than derailing solar+wind in the hope of re-enacting a nuclear buildup (like in France, Japan, Germany (1970s-80s), Ontario, China, India…) going on.
Get both on the road, they do not much compete for resources. It will be faster than only one.
@Lats @ajsadauskas @australianpolitics The problem as I see it is that solar+wind+storage alone will not get you there ever. It will go up to 40% solar+wind, then maybe 10—30% with storage+solar+wind (depending on your technooptimism). And then you start replacing everything built every 20 to 30 years. Buys time, but not sustainable.
What you say is true: you need to build up the entire nuclear industry. International cooperation for bootstrapping will be important. Better get started.
@planet @clojure That link seems broken, even if it has a real date. But this one seems to work: https://xtdb.com/blog/dev-diary-feb-24
@ajsadauskas @australianpolitics
What would »grid scale solar & storage« cost, and how long would it take?
This is the competition:
- Nuclear power plants
- Storage of the same scale, filled by solar of the same scale
No one in the whole world has ever built (2). There is no mature industry, and no technology even matching the only grid scale storage we have so far (pumped hydro).
For (1), there are several international players with established designs.
I wouldn't stop either one.
@Emil From a pure technical view, it is almost always more reassuring to use the »original«. And that is all this one argues.
But there are other considerations, such as political security for Europe. And diversification of supply is practically always a win for the consumer.
I think Europe should pay a research grant or something like that to whoever develops replacement fuel units.
@Emil This sentence somehow seems wrong: »They are highly radioactive and have long half-lives.«
Halflife and decay rate (and thus radiation intensity) are inversely proportional to each other, and there is the halflife gap in fission products above Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 quite clearly separating »high radioactivity/short halflife« and »low radioactivity/long halflife«.
@Sweetshark @Emil @Diplomjodler
It's almost funny to watch anti-nuclear rhethoric over the years. In the beginning it was »it's unsafe, you're just doing it for profit«, then »it's dirty, you're just doing it for profit«, and now that those points don't hold up, it's »it's unprofitable, you're just doing it for, uhmm…«.
@Sweetshark @Emil @Diplomjodler
Regulations are necessary. But regulations can be implemented in ways that do not create arbitrary month-long delays for simple and standard engineering questions. Or you can do what Trittin described.
The problem is that the Greens /still/ have not cleaned up their priorities. Habeck last year was unable to affirm in an interview the direct question whether coal is worse for the environment than nuclear.
The competition is not between nuclear and volatiles.
The competition is between nuclear and whatever else could provide the remaining 60% of live electricity demand /after/ the volatiles have hit their limit. And heat.
People hope and handwave a lot about storage, but that's a large project for tech that doesn't exist yet.
And then there is the comparison between the lifetime energy output of 1 kg of e. g. a Li battery and 1 kg of U fuel assembly…
@circuitfarmer @Emil You are laughing, but that actually seems to be what's in the head of Habeck etc. There is a TV interview from last year where this became explicitly apparent. And it's confirmed in his actions. 🤡
This seems like a good view into the mind of an anti-nuclear zealot: that /they/ are the vox populi and there /obviously/ cannot be a genuine public opinion against them.
@Emil I think you shouldn't auto-boost every reply.
@FarraigePlaisteach @Emil @flossdaily @MotoAsh That is not an explanation, it is an assortment of claims without any attempt to prove them.
The DIW is a pseudo-scientific institution giving out PhDs for anti-nuclear propaganda.
If there are only non-technical, non-engineering obstacles for a solution, then it is our task to remove them, not throw up our hands in fatalism.
To qualify that »none(*)«:
- Nuclear power /is/ sustainable, but I guess you don't mean that
- Physical resources demand (i. e. material) is significantly lower for nuclear power than for e. g. solar or wind plus storage
- Solar and wind often have no output; then you need to get 100% of live demand from other sources, such as storage or backup plants. Batteries don't exist at that scale at all (there is some hope that they might get there in 10 to 20 years, but still R&D).
- No. France temporarily reduced some outputs to go easy on water temperatures according to regulations. This affected 0.05% of their annual output (one twentieth of a percent).
- Current median is 7 years (see image), running it is very cheap (most of the costs are in building it), for disposal look at Finland (it's not a real challenge)
- Currently none(*) without fossil backup of the same capacity, unless you have place for pumped hydro (also of the same capacity).