this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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[–] flossdaily@lemmy.world 395 points 1 year ago (31 children)

Good!

Anti-nuclear is like anti-GMO and anti-vax: pure ignorance, and fear of that which they don't understand.

Nuclear power is the ONLY form of clean energy that can be scaled up in time to save us from the worst of climate change.

We've had the cure for climate change all along, but fear that we'd do another Chernobyl has scared us away from it.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 103 points 1 year ago (12 children)

imagine how much farther ahead we would be in safety and efficiency if it was made priority 50 years ago.

we still have whole swathes of people who think that because its not perfect now, it cant be perfected ever.

[–] danielbln@lemmy.world 76 points 1 year ago (15 children)

So uh, turns out the energy companies are not exactly the most moral and rule abiding entities, and they love to pay off politicians and cut corners. How does one prevent that, as in the case of fission it has rather dire consequences?

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Since you can apply that logic to everything, how can you ever build anything? Because all consequences are dire on a myopic scale, that is, if your partner dies because a single electrician cheaped out with the wiring in your building and got someone to sign off, "It's not as bad as a nuclear disaster" isn't exactly going to console them much.

At some point, you need to accept that making something illegal and trying to prosecute people has to be enough. For most situations. It's not perfect. Sure. But nothing ever is. And no solution to energy is ever going to be perfect, either.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

An electrician installing faulty wiring doesn't render your home uninhabitable for a few thousand years.

So there's one difference.

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[–] dojan@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (24 children)

I mean it's not the companies operating the facilities we put our trust in, but the outside regulators whose job it is to ensure these facilities are safe and meet a certain standard. As well as the engineers and scientists that design these systems.

Nuclear power isn't 100% safe or risk-free, but it's hella effective and leaps and bounds better than fossil fuels. We can embrace nuclear, renewables and fossil free methods, or just continue burning the world.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (21 children)

The worst nuclear disaster has led to 1,000sq miles of land being unsafe for human inhabitants.

Using fossil fuels for power is destroying of the entire planet.

It's really not that complicated.

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[–] umad_cause_ibad@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (25 children)

Don’t push nuclear power like it’s the only option though.

Where I live we entirely provide energy from hydro power plants and nuclear energy is banned. We use no fossil fuels. We have a 35 year plan for future growth and it doesn’t include any fossil fuels. Nuclear power is just one of the options and it has many hurdles to implement, maintain and decommission.

[–] Astrealix@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (26 children)

Honestly, if you can, hydro is brilliant. Not many places can though — both because of geography and politics. Nuclear is better than a lot of the alternatives and shouldn't be discounted.

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[–] BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While that's true, we still have for example safe air travel, although I'm pretty sure companies would be happy to ship their passengers minced to maximize their profit.

Also, thorium reactors would be a great step forward, unfortunately its byproducts can't be used for nuclear weapons, so their development was pretty slowed down.

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[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Big news worthy accidents are a really good way to ensure strong regulation and oversight. And nuclear is very regulated now so that it has lower death rate than wind power.

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[–] BrokebackHampton@kbin.social 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (26 children)

That is factually false information. There are solid arguments to be made against nuclear energy.

https://isreview.org/issue/77/case-against-nuclear-power/index.html

Even if you discard everything else, this section seems particularly relevant:

The long lead times for construction that invalidate nuclear power as a way of mitigating climate change was a point recognized in 2009 by the body whose mission is to promote the use of nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Nuclear power is not a near-term solution to the challenge of climate change,” writes Sharon Squassoni in the IAEA bulletin. “The need to immediately and dramatically reduce carbon emissions calls for approaches that can be implemented more quickly than building nuclear reactors.”

https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315

Wealer from Berlin's Technical University, along with numerous other energy experts, sees takes a different view.

"The contribution of nuclear energy is viewed too optimistically," he said. "In reality, [power plant] construction times are too long and the costs too high to have a noticeable effect on climate change. It takes too long for nuclear energy to become available."

Mycle Schneider, author of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, agrees.

"Nuclear power plants are about four times as expensive as wind or solar, and take five times as long to build," he said. "When you factor it all in, you're looking at 15-to-20 years of lead time for a new nuclear plant."

He pointed out that the world needed to get greenhouse gases under control within a decade. "And in the next 10 years, nuclear power won't be able to make a significant contribution," added Schneider.

[–] NUMPTY37K@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago (16 children)

Long lead times against nuclear have bee raised for the last 25 years, if we had just got on with it we would have the capacity by now. Just cause the lead time is in years doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

[–] davepleasebehave@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

when is the best time to plant a tree? 30 years ago. When is the second best time? now.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Surely the second best time would have been 29 years ago

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[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 32 points 1 year ago (11 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashiwazaki-Kariwa_Nuclear_Power_Plant

the largest fission plant was literally working 5 years after construction started

fission plants are just more expensive now because we don't make enough of them.

I guess safety standards changed but even wind power kills more people per watt than fission so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Nuclear could've easily worked if people didn't go full nimby in the past few decades

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[–] oce@jlai.lu 18 points 1 year ago

There are solid arguments to be made against both nuclear and renewables (intermittence, impact of electricity storage, amount of raw material, surface area). We can't wait for perfect solutions, we have to work out compromises right now, and it seems nuclear + renewable is the most solid compromise we have for the 2050 target. See this high quality report by the public French electricity transportation company (independent of the energy producers) that studies various scenarios including 100% renewable and mixes of nuclear, renewables, hydrogen and biogas. https://assets.rte-france.com/prod/public/2022-01/Energy%20pathways%202050_Key%20results.pdf

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The daft thing is that even if another Chernobyl happened (unlikely given superior technology and safety standards) it wouldn't be anywhere near as damaging as climate change.

The radiation would only affect a small area of the planet not the whole world, and technically radiation doesn't even cause climate damage. Chernobyl has plenty of trees and plenty of wildlife, it's just unsuitable for human habitation.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

The daft thing is that even if another Chernobyl happened (unlikely given superior technology and safety standards) it wouldn’t be anywhere near as damaging as climate change.

Here's my favorite way to put it: because of trace radioactive elements found in coal ore, coal-fired power plants produce more radioactivity in normal operation than nuclear power plants have in their entire history, including meltdowns. And with coal, it just gets released straight into the environment without any attempt to contain it!

And that's just radioactivity, not all the other emissions of coal plants.

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[–] apollo440@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I totally agree that current nuclear power generation should be left running until we have enough green energy to pick up the slack, because it does provide clean and safe energy. However, I totally disagree on the scalability, for two main reasons:

  1. Current nuclear power generation is non-renewable. It is somewhat unclear how much Uranium is available worldwide (for strategic reasons), but even at current production, supply issues have been known to happen. And it goes without saying that waiting to scale up some novel unproven or inexistent sustainable way of nuclear power production is out of the question, for time and safety reasons. Which brings me to point 2.

  2. We need clean, sustainable energy right now if we want to have any chance of fighting climate change. From start of planning of a new nuclear power plant to first power generation can take 15 or 20 years easily. Currently, about 10% of all electricity worldwide is produced by about 400 nuclear reactors, while around 15 new ones are under construction. So, to make any sort of reasonable impact, we would have to build to the tune of 2000 new reactors, pronto. To do that within 30 years, we'd have to increase our construction capacity 5 to 10 fold. Even if that were possible, which I strongly doubt, I would wager the safety and cost impacts would be totally unjustifiable. And we don't even have 30 years anymore. That is to say nothing of regulatory checks and maintenance that would also have to be increased 5 fold.

So imho nuclear power as a solution to climate change is a non-starter, simply due to logistical and scaling reasons. And that is before we even talk about the very real dangers of nuclear power generation, which are of course not operational, but due to things like proliferation, terrorist attacks, war, and other unforseen disruptions through e.g. climate change, societal or governmental shifts, etc.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It is somewhat unclear how much Uranium is available worldwide (for strategic reasons), but even at current production, supply issues have been known to happen.

Nuclear fission using Uranium is not sustainable. If we expand current nuclear technologies to tackle climate change then we'd likely run out of Uranium by 2100. Nuclear fusion using Thorium might be sustainable, but it's not yet a proven, scalable technology. And all of this is ignoring the long lead times, high costs, regulatory hurdles and nuclear weapon proliferation concerns that nuclear typically presents. It'd be great if nuclear was the magic bullet for climate change, but it just ain't.

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nuclear power is the ONLY form of clean energy that can be scaled up in time to save us from the worst of climate change.

Long term nuclear is great...

But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we're paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.

So we can't just spam build nuke plants right now to fix everything.

30 years ago that would have worked.

[–] Ertebolle@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

But building new plants uses a shit ton of concrete. So we’re paying the carbon cost up front, and it can take years or even decades to break even.

That's not remotely on the same scale, carbon-wise. Global output is like 4 billion tons of concrete per year, a nuclear plant uses like 12 tons per megawatt; an all-in nuclear buildout would use a tiny, tiny fraction of global concrete production and the carbon costs aren't even remotely equivalent.

(also, wind power uses way, way more concrete)

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Building any sort of new power plant uses a shitload of concrete, so that cost isn't as dramatic as this would seem.

I think nuclear is dramatically overstated in terms of short term feasibility, but concrete use is not the reason why.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

do you have a source for this carbon cost? i can't find any figures about even the amount of concrete in a nuclear plant nevermind the co2 cost of that.

I do find a lot of literature that states that the lifecycle co2 cost of nuclear is on part with solar and wind per kwh so i find your assertment about the payback time being decades a little unlikely to say the least.

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[–] MigratingApe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

(What’s with the downvotes?)

Small scale reactors that require almost no maintenance and produce enough power for a single city are the hot topic right now due to what you just mentioned. As a side product, they provide hot water for the city.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

(What’s with the downvotes?)

Lots of people know virtually nothing about nuclear even tho they're avid supporters of it. So when you point out a downside, they get mad.

As a side product, they provide hot water for the city.

Hot water (technically superheated steam) is the main (and only immediate) product of a nuclear reactor...

Trying to directly use secondary coolant as hot potable water just makes zero sense though. It's waaaaay more efficient to move the electricity and then heat different water.

I mean, you're talking about an open loop nuclear system...

No sane engineer would ever do that. A small primary loop leak and your dosing everyone, all to just essentially lose efficiency.

Where did you even see that suggested?

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[–] NoiseColor@startrek.website 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's an oversimplification to the point that it is wrong. Nuclear power is not the only form of clean energy like that at all. It can not be scaled in this situation to save us, because it takes too long to build them.

[–] DauntingFlamingo@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

It takes 6 years on a fast paced build. If we had started when we knew of the problem, we could have avoided some of the problem. It is the only energy source we can scale up in that way, however. Every other energy source takes longer for less yield with current technology.

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[–] iterable@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

I don't know natural disasters and war causing it to screw up also tends to worry people. Last time I checked wind and solar don't create massive damage to the environment when destroyed.

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[–] Sir_Osis_of_Liver@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just like assuming a perfectly spherical cow, or a frictionless surface, you can completely ignore the economics, the massive cost and schedule overages to make nuclear work.

Flamanville-3 in France started construction in 2007, was supposed to be operational in 2012 with a project budget of €3.3B. Construction is still ongoing, the in-service date is now sometime in 2024, and the budget has ballooned to €20B.

Olkiluoto-3 is a similar EPR. Construction started in 2005, was supposed to be in-service in 2010, but finally came online late last year. Costs bloated from €3 to €11B.

Hinkley Point C project is two EPRs. Construction started in 2017, it's already running behind schedule, and the project costs have increased from £16B to somewhere approaching £30B. Start up has been pushed back to 2028 the last I've heard.

It's no different in the US, where the V.C. Summer (2 x AP1000) reactor project was cancelled while under construction after projections put the completed project at somewhere around $23B, up from an estimate of $9B.

A similar set of AP1000s was built at Vogtle in Georgia. Unit 3 only recently came online, with unit 4 expected at the end of the year. Costs went from an initial estimate of $12B to somewhere over $30B.

Note that design, site selection, regulatory approvals, and tendering aren't included in the above. Those add between 5-10 years to the above schedules.

[–] Ertebolle@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Gee, I wonder if the cost might go down if we built more of them, as is the case with, y'know, basically every other complicated thing that humans build.

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[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Nuclear power is the ONLY form of clean energy that can be scaled up in time to save us from the worst of climate change

Except the plants take so long to build they won't be ready until we're at 2°C

[–] Instrument_Data@livellosegreto.it 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It has been fifty years that "oh no they take so long to build, better never start" that by today we would have completely decarbonized energy generation if we started actually building them.

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