KillerMan91
Member
Country that is building record amount of Nuclear plants?
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Germanys Renewable Sources Provide 85% Of Energy For The First Time
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Country that is building record amount of Nuclear plants?
DrROBschiz
Member
you are again arguing for nuclear as it exists now and not the potential that has been squandered away by our inability to push the sciences forward
LWR iterations were never meant to be the standard bearer or the true realization of the potential of Nuclear technology
I would like to see irrationality and fear and more government funding around the world devoted to pushing all options forward but ill have to settle for what China, India, France and certain US research institutions are doing
PdotMichael
Banned
Well, building more than two nuclear plants is record high already. But nuclear energy is not even a keystone in China's energy policy anymore - it was once planned that nuclear tech could tbecome one of China's key export markets, but that's renewable energy now.
There is a baseline of the lowest point of demand, where you can be fairly sure that you will always need at least that much electricity. So in planning generation capacity you can safely use inflexible sources like nuclear and hydro to produce this capacity.
Then there is variation throughout a day in how much electricity demand there is. In Ontario this portion of capacity is provided by gas plants minus whatever amount non-nuclear clean sources are able to provide at the moment.
And this is the trouble with wind and solar. You can't control how much can be produced at any particular moment. With batteries we could smooth out this mismatch between when electricity can be generated and when it is demanded, but batteries are nowhere near good enough yet for that to be feasible.
PdotMichael
Banned
Well, there is no reason to believe the nuclear lobby if the history of nuclear energy is lackluster at best.
DrROBschiz
Member
And the mass production of battery back up is noy my vision of a green future
they require massive amounts of rare earth material and processing to create batteries that are bound by their limited lifespan and costly inefficiencies
at least they can be recycled?
they require massive amounts of rare earth material and processing to create batteries that are bound by their limited lifespan and costly inefficiencies
at least they can be recycled?
DrROBschiz
Member
Ummm what im proposing would leave the current nuclear industry in the cold
Since their entire infrastructue is built on the back of producing solid fuel unranium for reactors and burning it in one of the most inefficient configurations
Next gen nuclear would have more in common with renewables in that it would be like starting over
Their is no lobby. Its just pushing existing tech thats been trapped in the 40s and 50s forward
demosthenes
Member
The end goal should be to get rid of fission. The waste is horrible.
DrROBschiz
Member
the majority of the waste is unspent uranium rods
all made of material than can be consumed and recycled
the reason it isnt is because this industry at its current setup is not economically efficient at doing anything other than just making money selling energy
research reactor designs that can consume unspent fuel and waste have already been designed and proposed but no one is doing it because the old industry cant make money on it
we need new blood but no one wants to tackle the challenge because of the poor prospects, optics and fear mongering. Instead of engineering solutions our governments have turned tail and ran
At least in the case of the US the NRC is entirely commercial viability driven. And saving the planet takes a backseat to making money
the second argument was more against nuclear plants, it doesnt matter if gas is more scalable if it makes us more dependent on russian gas.
Seth Enosh
Member
Unfortunately environmental fear mongering and Fukushima has resulted in the plan to shut down the nuclear reactors without replacing them with safer nuclear plants.
Burning coal and gas instead of carbon free uranium is foolish if the ultimate goal is 100% carbon-free power generation. It's not always windy and sunny.
Burning coal and gas instead of carbon free uranium is foolish if the ultimate goal is 100% carbon-free power generation. It's not always windy and sunny.
Bitch Pudding
Member
If you need a role model for renewable energy, look at Norway. As the country has basically no automotive industry, they are leaders in electric cars as well. German politicians on the other hand will always have to consider the needs of one of their biggest industries.
DrROBschiz
Member
At least solar is more flexible and advancing fast
and its cheap
but i fid it more suited to off grid rollout
i never liked the idea of solar farms but they make sense if the power can be delivered with minimal loss especially if you are throwing them in deserts anyways
Seth Enosh
Member
Solar is advancing much faster than expected (and seems to be getting reasonably cheap when deployed on an industrial scale) but storing the energy for days when renewables aren't generating much power is not a solved problem yet, as I understand it. Hence why coal, gas, or nuclear are still needed to provide baseline power during times when renewables are ineffective.
Nuclear power might also be used to greatly reduce the proportion of electricity needing to be generated by carbon sources, so that the amount of gas needing to be stored and used isn't that great.
If a geopolitical kerfuffle were to come about gas could be imported from elsewhere, albeit at greater cost, and non-essential usage could be cut down to extend how long you can run off gas reserves. It would be inconvenient, but I feel the risk in such situations is manageable and worthwhile for the benefits there would be in the usual situation.
Well the needs of an individual are completely different than the needs of the state, if I had to bet what is being talked about in Sweden (could be wrong) isn't a per house installation, but large installations like this https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/8/14854858/tesla-solar-hawaii-kauai-kiuc-powerpack-battery-generator .
That being said the battery cost really really cannot be dismissed, it is indeed much higher than the cost of the panel, does in fact last less time than the panel (probably more than 5 to 8 years though), not quite sure about how cost effective recycling of lithium batteries would be, it would need to be over provisioned not only for winter time and unexpected bad weather, but also for capacity loss, which would be another issue since you need to control how the batteries are charged and discharged likely resulting in even more over provisioning.
This before taking into account all electronics required for charging, alternating the current for consumption, maintaining certain temperature ranges and so on, and as you said the energy losses that come from all of this, which would require increase the amount of renewable created.
All around as you said the battery technology isn't nowhere near there to be cost effective, and unless we see some significant new development in battery technology the 10% to 15% alleged yearly increase isn't exactly going to really do it anytime soon.
It is all around more realistic in the short to medium term to have a mixture of nuclear fission and renewable with batteries, where nuclear comes online when batteries are running low, to give a high % of days per year of renewable energy, while at the same time not pouring massive amounts of co2 from non renewable power production into the atmosphere.
This assumes that nuclear fusion doesn't come online anytime soon, if it does then all that is left to worry about is:
Putting nuclear fusion power plants on most countries.
Replacing over 1 billion motor vehicles with electric vehicles.
Making production of industrial goods co2 neutral.
Eliminate the co2 generated by food production (1/3 of all co2).
Find a way to solve the pollution caused by all forms of transportation that are unlikely to work electrically anytime soon (boats and planes).
Solve the issue with industries that have to use massive generators to produce their own power because they are off grid, along with get the battery technology up to speed so that really big machines can operate from battery power like cars and hopefully in the near future trucks.
Solve a few more niggling issues.
Alternatively find some cost effective way to scrub the co2 out of the atmosphere and keep with the current moderate transition plan.
Patrick S.
Banned
And fix the potholes in the roads. The roads around my town are as bad as the fucking Panamericana.
What's wrong with our nuclear power plants ? At least they are not ruining your air quality.
Also we've just closed Fessenheim.
Anyway I'm not here to fight. I would love if all western europeans countries went green and closed every nuclear and coal plants even if it means losing jobs and spending massive amounts of taxpayer money. I'm know I'm in the minority but I'm pretty radical on the subject.
Tezzeractor
Member
I'd like to know what it is now. Solar adoption in 2015 and 2016 was pretty high.
The stats for the whole country are at the bottom.
I found that chart here. You might be more interested in this.
It seems the biggest trend has been movement away from coal and towards natural gas, probably mostly driven by gas being cheaper than coal rather than concern for the environment. Which is better than nothing I guess, but yeah, the US really needs to step up its efforts (or at least pursue them seriously in the first place).
The biggest thing that sticks out to me for the US is how little electricity is generated from Hydro. Surely there must be enough Hydro potential in the US to make up far more than 6.5%-ish of their electricity. At the very least Quebec could probably provide enough Hydro power for like, the entirety of New England and upstate New York, as an example. Transporting electricity long distances does mean a lot of it is "wasted" in that it takes more power to provide capacity across longer distances, but if it's being generated cleanly as Hydro is, that's preferable to me over carbon sources that can be closer.
Aztechnology
Member
Tezzeractor
Member
I found that chart here. You might be more interested in this.
It seems the biggest trend has been movement away from coal and towards natural gas, probably mostly driven by gas being cheaper than coal rather than concern for the environment. Which is better than nothing I guess, but yeah, the US really needs to step up its efforts (or at least pursue them seriously in the first place).
So looking like it's doubled putting it over 1%. That sounds pretty pathetic but I guess it's growing fast. That Tesla Solar Roof is out today now, too. Hopefully it'll be considered by new development projects.
Don't get me started, current government don't believe in that shit.
Somewhat misleading title.
For 2015, renewables were only 12-15% of primary energy consumption, which is roughly the same as nuclear.
No idea how they plan to phase out nuclear energy, if they have to double renewable energy just to make up for that.
Edit: Also, how is this a record? Last year, they managed to cover 100% for a day. If anything, they want backwards.
For 2015, renewables were only 12-15% of primary energy consumption, which is roughly the same as nuclear.
No idea how they plan to phase out nuclear energy, if they have to double renewable energy just to make up for that.
Edit: Also, how is this a record? Last year, they managed to cover 100% for a day. If anything, they want backwards.
Muppet of a Man
Member
Excellent post. Someone else with an understanding of what is currently feasible and a solution that would actually work (i.e., advanced nuclear fission technologies like MSRs for baseload power + portfolio of renewables for peak power needs + scaleable grid array battery storage for utilizing renewable power surplus when needed).
If you find a good location in germany for the nuclear waste, or a place that is not hold hostage by an asshole state government, you could let us know. Otherwise I think its not that stupid to go away from nuclear energy.
Total cost calculation usually put nuclear as the most expensive energy option right now. If youd charge producers all related long term costs of nuclear energy they would get out of the business.
Frankfurter
Member
Nuclear is far lower, roughly ~7%.
You are right that people are afraid of nuclear fission, and probably not for the most reasonable reasons, and that puts governments into a position where they tend to stay away from nuclear. The thing is, though, that nuclear simply isn't an attractive option for most anymore. It's too expensive, plain and simply. The new nuclear power plant in the UK is a disaster for the British tax payer. Because they are the one footing the bill. On shore wind is already cheaper, solar is on the verge, off shore wind is probably not too far away.
Captain Smoker
Member
/edit
Although I do agree with the idea that nuclear is a possible greener alternative to coal and gas and it would be a solution to keep up the necessary supply when there is a fallout of renewables, major economic considerations stand in its way.
1) A lot of the current installations are in bad condition (e.g. Belgium). This puts already a high cost on maintaining Nuclear energy.
2) Especially for Europe, building space is becoming much more scarce, especially for large constructions (in Belgium we can't even get through a new Mall project);
3) Following the previous two points, a possibility would be to replace the old infrastructure. But then we come to the cost of dismantling these installations: the whole process of dismantling, decontamination and storing the waste is going to take a lot of time and resources.
4) Even if you find a place to build or you can get as far as dismantling old infrastructure, the building of nuclear facilities is again a process of an incredible amount of time and resources. These projects would be public and private collaboration, thus requiring tax payers money. I would like to point to a Belgian hospital (Gasthuisberg Leuven, for reference) building two bunkers for Protontherapy which will cost an estimated 45 million euro and would take more than 2 years to complete.
5) Given this investment and the way electricity prices are going, this would only become profitable in the long run, whereas this whole industry ... has no certainty whatsoever in the longrun. The technological innovations come way too fast to be willing to start any such endeavor.
Lastly, but more as a sidenote: you guys know that water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas right?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html
Not to downplay the CO2 emissions, but in that sense even nuclear energy is still not the most eco friendly energy source. It's kinda like electric cars: they don't emit CO2 but due to their weight they still make a lot of fine particles.
Lastly, I would simple like innovations to go further. Isn't that the main option to solve this? Something like this: http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/
1) A lot of the current installations are in bad condition (e.g. Belgium). This puts already a high cost on maintaining Nuclear energy.
2) Especially for Europe, building space is becoming much more scarce, especially for large constructions (in Belgium we can't even get through a new Mall project);
3) Following the previous two points, a possibility would be to replace the old infrastructure. But then we come to the cost of dismantling these installations: the whole process of dismantling, decontamination and storing the waste is going to take a lot of time and resources.
4) Even if you find a place to build or you can get as far as dismantling old infrastructure, the building of nuclear facilities is again a process of an incredible amount of time and resources. These projects would be public and private collaboration, thus requiring tax payers money. I would like to point to a Belgian hospital (Gasthuisberg Leuven, for reference) building two bunkers for Protontherapy which will cost an estimated 45 million euro and would take more than 2 years to complete.
5) Given this investment and the way electricity prices are going, this would only become profitable in the long run, whereas this whole industry ... has no certainty whatsoever in the longrun. The technological innovations come way too fast to be willing to start any such endeavor.
Lastly, but more as a sidenote: you guys know that water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas right?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html
Not to downplay the CO2 emissions, but in that sense even nuclear energy is still not the most eco friendly energy source. It's kinda like electric cars: they don't emit CO2 but due to their weight they still make a lot of fine particles.
Lastly, I would simple like innovations to go further. Isn't that the main option to solve this? Something like this: http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/
Nuclear power is not "carbon-free". There's no carbon-free energy right now at all.
Theonik
Member
The reason coal is so prevalent is that its in huge supply in Germany and made domestically whereas Germany needs to import gas. Other smaller countries in the EU are facing the exact same challenge and the regime in Russia is also not helping things. (EU countries used to rely on Russian gas to expand their capacity they can't do that now.)* at peak
The first thing Germany needs to do is cut the goddamn coal. Going coal->gas is a bigger jump than going coal->renewable, and much easier too.
In the U.K. and I'm sure other places, we use water for storing energy and covering peaks in demand. Eg pump water uphill into a storage lake during the day when you have lower demand, and then you can use that to generate hydro electric at night etc
Basically like a battery
From what I've understood, there isn't all that much room for improvement with nuclear. Or at least it would require obscene amounts of money for relatively little improvements, so it's arguably money better spent elsewhere. R&D of renewables is far cheaper and there's still a shitton of room for improvement with most forms of renewables.
: D
Oh, this thread turned into yet another love fest for nuclear energy already. How surprising.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
The stats for the whole country are at the bottom.
Coal hasn't been near 40% of total energy generation for a while.
DrROBschiz
Member
This is so wrong its crazy. Isn't much room for improvement??
I suggest you look again
* at peak
The first thing Germany needs to do is cut the goddamn coal. Going coal->gas is a bigger jump than going coal->renewable, and much easier too.
Coal is disgusting and emits more radiation than nuclear power plants. Too bad that people prefer visible smoke that kills them to the "scary" nuclear power which is unlikely to harm anyone.
It was disappointing to hear a few years back that Germany was phasing out nuclear power...
Nuclear power is to electricity as planes are to transportation. Safe, reliable and feared due to ignorance.
We have one in Belgium too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coo-Trois-Ponts_Hydroelectric_Power_Station
But they might get in trouble: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ants-survived-wwii-bombs-but-maybe-not-merkel
Batteries, just all we need.