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CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

This is the spherical, frictionless cow of policy discussions. Is there a regulatory model that has produced nuclear generation on time/budget in the last two generations? Even with the level of state control in China they can't hit their targets.

Not disagreeing that nuclear power is the only approach to mitigating climate change humans practically have the technology for, or that nationalization of that industry is probably the best way to get it spun up on the scale necessary. It's just not going to be cheap or easy regardless of the political environment.

Again: There is no solution to address climate change that will be cheap. Anybody pretending otherwise is out of their mind, that's the main issue I have with the renewables crowd: Arguing that the cheaper something is means it'll do better ignores that there's a cost to address the damage we've done and there's no way to dig out of the hole on the cheap.

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Pander
Oct 9, 2007

Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.



cat botherer posted:

It's implausible in the current political situation, but it would be entirely possible to build many plants relatively quickly if there is a will to do so. Among other things, you'd need to cut out the contractor graft and the decades of fossil fuel-lobby regs that set nuclear up to fail.

To get back to discendo vox' earlier query, what are some specific regulatory roadblocks that we could simply disentangle with appropriate political or regulatory levers? When I worked at a nuke plant I could only ever find some periphery cost drivers like high energy line break theory and FLEX strategy implementation. Those were added costs to existing plants, not "what would make a new plant extremely expensive".

From what I experienced, a lot of the fiscal pain comes from the QA/QC side. Procuring anything at a nuke plant requires determining what safety level is needed, lining up nuclear quality suppliers, and running counterfeit item verification. Cheap construction items become expensive.

But what's the alternative? Fake UL equipment from low bidders in a nuke plant seems suboptimal. Misalloyed steel in primary containment sounds bad. Where exactly do we move the line between "nuclear is safe because it must be" and "we need to make nuke plants cheaper by lowering their hurdles"?

RE: contractors, Not sure how you reduce "graft" as you put it. Any major manufacturing or utility company will have a system of contractors and subcontractors set up requiring third party validations to avoid "the owner knows a guy who can build this" type corruption. E.g. engineering packages would require a nupic-audited engineering firm to validate their QC processes meet reqs.

I'd like nuke plants to get cheaper, but I don't see a good path forward for standard nuke plants. SMRs might change the game if they can largely be fabricated off site and shipped for assembly in the field. That sort of construction cost reduction doesn't require some hand-wavey "do something" hope that things can just be made cheaper if fossil fuel interests get punched in the nose hard enough.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013
Probation
Can't post for 2 hours!
One item that I recall from an offline discussion was that the weather tolerance requirements for plant zoning are misspecified, because they group together large geographic regions when they develop risk models. I don't recall the specifics, but they do the equivalent of treating the entire southeast as being in the same floodplane because the one way they look at the data is much less specific than current geological data can accurately portray. This results in requiring much more intensive, I think it was earthquake planning, than is realistically necessary even by their own risk metrics.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
Yeah after Fukushima a whole bunch of stupid regulations were passed that weren't really always necessary in the areas they apply to.

AreWeDrunkYet
Jul 8, 2006

CommieGIR posted:

Again: There is no solution to address climate change that will be cheap. Anybody pretending otherwise is out of their mind, that's the main issue I have with the renewables crowd: Arguing that the cheaper something is means it'll do better ignores that there's a cost to address the damage we've done and there's no way to dig out of the hole on the cheap.

We're on the same page here. The response was to a post in the "nuclear is easy, standardize the design and get rid of regulations. bing bang boom, climate crisis averted" vein of thought.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

This is the spherical, frictionless cow of policy discussions. Is there a regulatory model that has produced nuclear generation on time/budget in the last two generations? Even with the level of state control in China they can't hit their targets.

Not disagreeing that nuclear power is the only approach to mitigating climate change humans practically have the technology for, or that nationalization of that industry is probably the best way to get it spun up on the scale necessary. It's just not going to be cheap or easy regardless of the political environment.

I think though its important to consider what China's targets are; if they only brought online say half of the total nuke plants desired for their current 5 year plan; well that half could still be vastly higher than other regions. It would be interesting to see more data on the growth of China's nuke industry.

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

cat botherer posted:

It's implausible in the current political situation, but it would be entirely possible to build many plants relatively quickly if there is a will to do so. Among other things, you'd need to cut out the contractor graft and the decades of fossil fuel-lobby regs that set nuclear up to fail.

again, no mention of the green activist effective resistance to nuclear, it is the fossil fuel industry that is to blame for the public resistance to nuclear and the only mention of resistance even though in the meantime, solar and wind have taken off seemingly relatively immune to the same resistance (until recently in Germany with wind to be fair).

CommieGIR, coal in Australia or Germany does not need a bailout, as was mentioned, coal prices are hilariously profitable at the moment and the restarting the coal plants are not being done to bail out coal, it is being done because nuclear is verboten for green activist and NIMBY reasons and Germany has no other way to get the electricity (well apart from convincing Ukraine that peace under Russia is better than war to allow for the gas taps to be turned back on).

To Panders point, it is regulation around sitting and to permitting but also factors of safety and risk based regulation versus prescriptive based regulation. On the QAQC, that's that sort of thing that gets much cheaper with reliable pipeline of steady work. If you can guarantee 10-30 reactors worth of components every year indefinitely, than you will see the infrastructure including institutional knowledge build up and drive the cost down (which current permitting holdups prevents). Saying that, the spin up of that infrastructure does indeed take time. Just qualifying enough inspectors requires building schools or programs with professors, etc. It was one of the primary reason China cut back its ambition.

On China, they may have disappointed on their stated goals but 43 additional operating reactors in 13 years (2009 (11) to 2022 (54)) is not bad from a relatively cold start and would probably push the needle on the energy generation mix for a few countries around the world (well it was ~3% in an expanding Chinese market anyway).

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
Nuclear is too expensive.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-twitter-energy

"A scorching heat wave is pushing the Texas grid to the brink. Power demand is surging as people crank up air conditioners. But meanwhile, wind speeds have fallen to extremely low levels, and that means the state’s fleet of turbines is at just 8% of their potential output."

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Phanatic posted:

Nuclear is too expensive.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-twitter-energy

"A scorching heat wave is pushing the Texas grid to the brink. Power demand is surging as people crank up air conditioners. But meanwhile, wind speeds have fallen to extremely low levels, and that means the state’s fleet of turbines is at just 8% of their potential output."

The problem is thermal generation, as always.

zoux posted:



The projected demand has now inched down inside of the supply curve so we should be ok today. There is something like 12 gw off line (thermal) today so dunno if it's gonna be back by tomorrow. It's not supposed to be as hot tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1546493403147472896

Phanatic
Mar 13, 2007

Please don't forget that I am an extremely racist idiot who also has terrible opinions about the Culture series.
It's almost like backstopping wind and solar with a power plant technology that hovers around 97% of nameplate capacity is a good idea.

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

Dameius posted:

The problem is thermal generation, as always.

Ok, but if you had a wind grid and this is at night (so you didn't have the thermal problem from probably using old coal plants being operated in load following), currently using 75 GW of demand and 8% of capacity plus 20 % reserve means you need that is evidently needed plus count on 10% of windfarms offline for maintenance gives 75*1.25/8*100/90*100 = ~1,300 GW of installed windfarms. Assume new 8 MW units, you need around 162,000 of them. Assuming 30 year life that means a cheeky 5,400 k wind mills to be installed a year. ~5k if you assumed 100% availability. 4k if you assumed no reserve.

Is 8% a 1 in 10 year event, a 1 in 100 year event, maybe it is not even the worst wind stats for the week? I don't know but when you bake in no hydrocarbon backup and you go full intermittent supply (no gas peaker and assuming hydro is mostly tapped out rather than committing to inundating huge tracts of wonderful vegetation) you gotta think in terms of foreseeable situations and 8% wind capacity at night seems to be that. Will wind get more reliable with more installed (maybe if you spread the geographical area) or less (because the best spots are well and truly taken when you locate windmills 130k through 160k )?

Doing it with batteries to half the wind power installation needed would need like 100 billion dollars worth every how many years a battery lasts?

E) on the nuclear power station cost, how much harder should it be over a coal thermal? The temperature/pressures are not higher in a nuclear plant from what I understand so coal plants should be a good guide for what nuclear should cost without so much resistance.

Electric Wrigglies fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Jul 12, 2022

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

hurr quote is not edit - all credibility lost!

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Electric Wrigglies posted:

Ok, but if you had a wind grid and this is at night (so you didn't have the thermal problem from probably using old coal plants being operated in load following), currently using 75 GW of demand and 8% of capacity plus 20 % reserve means you need that is evidently needed plus count on 10% of windfarms offline for maintenance gives 75*1.25/8*100/90*100 = ~1,300 GW of installed windfarms. Assume new 8 MW units, you need around 162,000 of them. Assuming 30 year life that means a cheeky 5,400 k wind mills to be installed a year. ~5k if you assumed 100% availability. 4k if you assumed no reserve.

Is 8% a 1 in 10 year event, a 1 in 100 year event, maybe it is not even the worst wind stats for the week? I don't know but when you bake in no hydrocarbon backup and you go full intermittent supply (no gas peaker and assuming hydro is mostly tapped out rather than committing to inundating huge tracts of wonderful vegetation) you gotta think in terms of foreseeable situations and 8% wind capacity at night seems to be that. Will wind get more reliable with more installed (maybe if you spread the geographical area) or less (because the best spots are well and truly taken when you locate windmills 130k through 160k )?

Doing it with batteries to half the wind power installation needed would need like 100 billion dollars worth every how many years a battery lasts?

E) on the nuclear power station cost, how much harder should it be over a coal thermal? The temperature/pressures are not higher in a nuclear plant from what I understand so coal plants should be a good guide for what nuclear should cost without so much resistance.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make in relation to what happened. All energy inputs had a forecasted amount of power they were expecting to contribute to the grid yesterday. Wind was providing just about near the forecasted amount meaning it was operating as intended. The big shortfall in power from forecasted levels was the 12GW of coal and gas that failed to produce when it was expected to.

I don't really see the point in discussing a hypothetical all wind Texas grid because one, it wouldn't ever happen and two, I think that'd be a stupid idea.

Phanatic posted:

It's almost like backstopping wind and solar with a power plant technology that hovers around 97% of nameplate capacity is a good idea.

Basically this.

e: also third point I forgot to mention, blaming wind is just the same dumb bullshit Abbott and co. already did last time during the winter storm when the gas infrastructure started freezing because they did gently caress all to prepare for another winter storm after they got hosed the last last time back in 2010 (2011?).

Dameius fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Jul 13, 2022

Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

Dameius posted:


I don't really see the point in discussing a hypothetical all wind Texas grid because one, it wouldn't ever happen and two, I think that'd be a stupid idea.


Without gas, coal or nuclear, what else do you have at night?

Solar thermal (which has storage) has a similar cost profile to nuclear according to that levelised cost presso linked earlier (which means its ruled out on cost grounds, evidently). There is hydro but it is generally ruinous for the ecosystems you install it in so to be avoided in general and I am not sure of the scope for hydro to cover all in Texas anyway. I already mentioned batteries.

Wind is clearly one of the better renewable techs that have been rolled out, it has pretty minimal environmental impact and safety stats not that far behind nuclear (and hopefully improve as institutional knowledge on installing the things improves) and the cost (not considering storage) is great and scalable at the scales utilised to date. The issue is storage and battery tech has not had the orders of magnitude reduction in costs (as much as they have reduced) for wholesale deployment. This is being covered up by building gas peaker plants and extending the life of old coal plants to date but something has to change sooner rather than later.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Electric Wrigglies posted:

Without gas, coal or nuclear, what else do you have at night?

Solar thermal (which has storage) has a similar cost profile to nuclear according to that levelised cost presso linked earlier (which means its ruled out on cost grounds, evidently). There is hydro but it is generally ruinous for the ecosystems you install it in so to be avoided in general and I am not sure of the scope for hydro to cover all in Texas anyway. I already mentioned batteries.

Wind is clearly one of the better renewable techs that have been rolled out, it has pretty minimal environmental impact and safety stats not that far behind nuclear (and hopefully improve as institutional knowledge on installing the things improves) and the cost (not considering storage) is great and scalable at the scales utilised to date. The issue is storage and battery tech has not had the orders of magnitude reduction in costs (as much as they have reduced) for wholesale deployment. This is being covered up by building gas peaker plants and extending the life of old coal plants to date but something has to change sooner rather than later.

We should have as much nuclear as possible intermixed with wind and solar and zero coal and gas. But I'm still confused on how what you're saying connects to the topic at hand, which is the failure of coal and gas power impacting the Texas grid.

Meanwhile today is another day where the Texas power grid has an unexplained by Abbott gap in the power inputs from coal and gas while the other energy sources are matching their forecasted levels:

https://twitter.com/douglewinenergy/status/1547217843871252480?s=20&t=e2_1nJ4qTDTFIVOhuPcG7Q

SpeedFreek
Jan 10, 2008
And Im Lobster Jesus!

Electric Wrigglies posted:

Wind is clearly one of the better renewable techs that have been rolled out, it has pretty minimal environmental impact and safety stats not that far behind nuclear (and hopefully improve as institutional knowledge on installing the things improves)

My experience with renewables only companies is they have no safety culture, you have to explain to them that you don't do it that way because a ton of people died doing that. They care more about the color of permanent marker on your LOTO tag than actually discharging and isolating equipment.

I'm hoping with experience things improve but they have a long way to come to get anywhere close to the level at any nuclear plant I've seen.

cat botherer
Jan 6, 2022

I am interested in most phases of data processing.
I think we've all learned not not count our nuclear chickens before they hatch, but Saskatchewan and Ontario want to install 300 MW GE-Hitachi small modular reactors.

https://www.westerninvestor.com/british-columbia/saskatchewan-ontario-to-roll-out-mini-nuclear-reactors-5568249

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

by Fluffdaddy
So I was playing with the French power generation reports here as I do whenever I need to explain to germany defenders why they're wrong
https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/power-generation-energy-source

But... there seems to be an issue. Nuclear output is like half of what it was in the winter and they're importing a ton instead. Although the total is also way lower, which makes sense if you're not using A/C and don't need as much heating and lighting.





Anyone knows what's up with this? Importing so much right now is not a good look.

MiddleOne
Feb 17, 2011

Isn't it just the heatwave + maintenance?

DTurtle
Apr 10, 2011


mobby_6kl posted:

But... there seems to be an issue. Nuclear output is like half of what it was in the winter and they're importing a ton instead. Although the total is also way lower, which makes sense if you're not using A/C and don't need as much heating and lighting.

Anyone knows what's up with this? Importing so much right now is not a good look.
I posted an article about this before, but it was ignored.

So here have another article from a month ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/business/france-nuclear-power-russia.html
Some excerpts:

quote:

French Nuclear Power Crisis Frustrates Europe’s Push to Quit Russian Energy

Plumes of steam towered above two reactors recently at the Chinon nuclear power plant in the heart of France’s verdant Loire Valley. But the skies above a third reactor there were unusually clear — its operations frozen after the worrisome discovery of cracks in the cooling system.

The partial shutdown isn’t unique: Around half of France’s atomic fleet, the largest in Europe, has been taken offline as a storm of unexpected problems swirls around the nation’s state-backed nuclear power operator, Électricité de France, or EDF.
...
But the industry has tumbled into an unprecedented power crisis as EDF confronts troubles ranging from the mysterious emergence of stress corrosion inside nuclear plants to a hotter climate that is making it harder to cool the aging reactors.
...
But fixing the crisis at EDF won’t be easy.

With 56 reactors, France’s atomic fleet is the biggest after the United States’. A quarter of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear power in about a dozen countries, with France producing more than half the total.

But the French nuclear industry, mostly built in the 1980s, has been plagued for decades by a lack of fresh investment. Experts say it has lost valuable engineering expertise as people retired or moved on, with repercussions for EDF’s ability to maintain the existing power stations — or build ones to replace them.
...
EDF’s recent troubles began mounting just before Russia invaded Ukraine. The company warned last winter that it could no longer produce a steady nuclear power supply, as it struggled to catch up with a two-year backlog in required maintenance for dozens of aging reactors that was put off during coronavirus lockdowns.

Inspections unearthed alarming safety issues — especially corrosion and faulty welding seals on crucial systems used to cool a reactor’s radioactive core. That was the situation at the Chinon atomic plant, one of France’s oldest, which produces 6 percent of EDF’s nuclear power.

EDF is now scouring all its nuclear facilities for such problems. A dozen reactors will stay disconnected for corrosion inspections or repairs that could take months or years. Another 16 remain offline for reviews and upgrades.

Others are having to cut power production because of climate change concerns: Rivers in the south of France, including the Rhône and the Gironde, are warming earlier each year, often reaching temperatures in the spring and summer too warm to cool reactors.

Today, French nuclear production is at its lowest level since 1993, generating less than half the 61.4 gigawatts that the fleet is capable of producing. (EDF also generates electricity with renewable technologies, gas and coal.) Even if some reactors resume in the summer, French nuclear output will be 25 percent lower than usual this winter — with alarming consequences.

“If you have power plants that are operating well below capacity, we will either have to go to blackouts or revert to carbon-emitting energy, which is coal or natural gas,” said Thierry Bros, an energy expert and professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.
...
TLDR: During Coronavirus, maintenance was deferred which now has to be done (taking 16 out of 56 offline). In addition, they found corrosion in one type of reactor, taking another dozen offline. Finally, some reactors can't operate at capacity, because of drought and heat lowering water levels and raising water temperatures enough that piping in additional heat from the reactors would raise water temperatures in the rivers too high.

Since that article the French government has already announced that they will fully nationalize EDF (currently the government holds 80%).

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
drat that's unfortunate timing but hopefully the French refurbish those reactors/upgrade them.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

This is the spherical, frictionless cow of policy discussions. Is there a regulatory model that has produced nuclear generation on time/budget in the last two generations? Even with the level of state control in China they can't hit their targets.

Not disagreeing that nuclear power is the only approach to mitigating climate change humans practically have the technology for, or that nationalization of that industry is probably the best way to get it spun up on the scale necessary. It's just not going to be cheap or easy regardless of the political environment.

"On time/budget", "cheap", and "easy" are constraints that you just added, they weren't present in the post that you responded to. This semi-insulting "spherical, frictionless cow" notion is rooted in a false premise: that the solution to climate change has to be cheap or easy.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

College Slice
I think they're more saying that even if we had the political will, and much more willing to push on ahead through any red tape, there will be a lot of hurdles, not that we shouldn't do it of course.

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

QuarkJets posted:

"On time/budget", "cheap", and "easy" are constraints that you just added, they weren't present in the post that you responded to. This semi-insulting "spherical, frictionless cow" notion is rooted in a false premise: that the solution to climate change has to be cheap or easy.

The implication of the post that AreWeDrunkYet was replying to was that powering the world with nuclear electricity would be fast, cheap, easy, etc. if only the technology were not sabotaged by corporate greed and government corruption.

This is a very common belief in this thread--which is that all of the problems with nuclear electricity are external to the technology. Nuclear energy cannot fail--it can only be failed. This thread should be titled 'The [Nuclear] Energy [Excuse] Generation Megathread'.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
Telling that you don't actually define failure and point to examples

VideoGameVet
May 14, 2005

It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion. It is by the juice of Java that pedaling acquires speed, the teeth acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my bike in motion.

Harold Fjord posted:

Telling that you don't actually define failure and point to examples

Well SONGS.

MightyBigMinus
Jan 26, 2020

silence_kit posted:

This thread should be titled 'The [Nuclear] Energy [Excuse] Generation Megathread'.
i wish i could bribe a mod or something to get like an official two-thread solution where the nukechuds can bleat and derail as much as they want in the nuke thread and the rest of us can talk about the actual industry/technology and its changes in another one... but one of the mods is the worst offender.

mediaphage
Mar 22, 2007

Excuse me, pardon me, sheer perfection coming through

MightyBigMinus posted:

i wish i could bribe a mod or something to get like an official two-thread solution where the nukechuds can bleat and derail as much as they want in the nuke thread and the rest of us can talk about the actual industry/technology and its changes in another one... but one of the mods is the worst offender.

lol nukechud ugh

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
Maybe Germany should just tap all of that martyr energy being produced by anti-nuclear folks getting called out by the actual environmentalists for their failed policies and fossil industry ties.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

silence_kit posted:

The implication of the post that AreWeDrunkYet was replying to was that powering the world with nuclear electricity would be fast, cheap, easy, etc. if only the technology were not sabotaged by corporate greed and government corruption.

This is a very common belief in this thread--which is that all of the problems with nuclear electricity are external to the technology. Nuclear energy cannot fail--it can only be failed. This thread should be titled 'The [Nuclear] Energy [Excuse] Generation Megathread'.

You are not offsetting fossil fuels on the cheap. Wishing for scenarios that have never borne fruit while ignoring ones that obviously have is asinine.

Not a single person here said nuclear power didnt have any problems, but its a known technology, not some future only oriented tech.

MightyBigMinus posted:

i wish i could bribe a mod or something to get like an official two-thread solution where the nukechuds can bleat and derail as much as they want in the nuke thread and the rest of us can talk about the actual industry/technology and its changes in another one... but one of the mods is the worst offender.

I wish you could stop throwing labels around without understanding the context, and be able to reign yourself in enough to realize the pro-nuclear crowd tends to overlap with the pro-renewables crowd.

Its only you that think its some black and white topic that anybody defending or upholding nuclear is a chud and anti-renewables. (which they are most certainly not. )

Theres a vast difference between being anti-renewables and pointing out the lessons that renewables cannot do it alone.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jul 18, 2022

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

silence_kit posted:

The implication of the post that AreWeDrunkYet was replying to was that powering the world with nuclear electricity would be fast, cheap, easy, etc. if only the technology were not sabotaged by corporate greed and government corruption.

This is a very common belief in this thread--which is that all of the problems with nuclear electricity are external to the technology. Nuclear energy cannot fail--it can only be failed. This thread should be titled 'The [Nuclear] Energy [Excuse] Generation Megathread'.

I disagree; the implication was that we could be building a lot more nuclear power if not for sabotage by corporate greed and government corruption. These are the problems that keep new nuclear power plants from being built at the rate necessary to even partly mitigate an ongoing disaster. The narrative that you have put forth here is simply a lie; you are a liar.

slorb
May 14, 2002

QuarkJets posted:

I disagree; the implication was that we could be building a lot more nuclear power if not for sabotage by corporate greed and government corruption. These are the problems that keep new nuclear power plants from being built at the rate necessary to even partly mitigate an ongoing disaster. The narrative that you have put forth here is simply a lie; you are a liar.

What exactly do you mean by "government corruption"?

A corrupt government isn't more likely to kill nuclear projects, megaprojects are highly attractive to corrupt governments because they are so large and have so many contractors that the opportunities for kickbacks are almost Olympics level.

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

slorb posted:

What exactly do you mean by "government corruption"?

A corrupt government isn't more likely to kill nuclear projects, megaprojects are highly attractive to corrupt governments because they are so large and have so many contractors that the opportunities for kickbacks are almost Olympics level.

There is a belief in this thread that nuclear power plants intrinsically are dead simple, cheap, easy to construct, intrinsically 100% safe while removing a lot of the costly safety controls, processes, etc. currently being practiced. The belief is that it is a perfect technology. It is only because of a global conspiracy against nuclear power that nuclear power plants are expensive, slow to build, often run into accidents leading to costly premature shutdowns, etc.

Key actors in this conspiracy theory are:

1) Fossil fuel energy companies, who work to sabotage nuclear electricity technology. Of course, if nuclear really were the perfect technology, it would make a lot of sense for those companies to diversify into nuclear electricity.

2) Environmentalist groups who are well-intended, but oppose nuclear electricity. In the US though, environmentalists don't really matter, and it is hard to believe that they would have enough influence in the American government to stop the implementation of the perfect technology.

3) People working in government nuclear regulatory bodies. They are either working on behalf of the fossil fuel companies or environmentalist groups to sabotage nuclear electricity OR they are just big idiots who don't know what they are doing. SA Forums posters just know that all of the regulations that they put on nuclear electricity are pointless and stupid and needlessly drive up the cost of nuclear electricity. At the same time, SA Forums posters call for nationalization of nuclear power plants and want these supposedly bought-out and/or brain-dead regulators to have even more control over electricity generation.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

silence_kit posted:

There is a belief in this thread that nuclear power plants intrinsically are dead simple, cheap, easy to construct, intrinsically 100% safe while removing a lot of the costly safety controls, processes, etc. currently being practiced. The belief is that it is a perfect technology. It is only because of a global conspiracy against nuclear power that nuclear power plants are expensive, slow to build, often run into accidents leading to costly premature shutdowns, etc.

Key actors in this conspiracy theory are:

1) Fossil fuel energy companies, who work to sabotage nuclear electricity technology. Of course, if nuclear really were the perfect technology, it would make a lot of sense for those companies to diversify into nuclear electricity.

2) Environmentalist groups who are well-intended, but oppose nuclear electricity. In the US though, environmentalists don't really matter, and it is hard to believe that they would have enough influence in the American government to stop the implementation of the perfect technology.

3) People working in government nuclear regulatory bodies. They are either working on behalf of the fossil fuel companies or environmentalist groups to sabotage nuclear electricity OR they are just big idiots who don't know what they are doing. SA Forums posters just know that all of the regulations that they put on nuclear electricity are pointless and stupid and needlessly drive up the cost of nuclear electricity. At the same time, SA Forums posters call for nationalization of nuclear power plants and want these supposedly bought-out and/or brain-dead regulators to have even more control over electricity generation.

1. Why? Fossil fuel energy companies don't want competition, they want dirt cheap energy they have to do little to create. It makes zero sense for them to get into nuclear energy. Hell, they cannot even be bothered to spend their own money on their own infrastructure that makes them money.

2. US Environmentalists were directly behind the closure of multiple plants including Indian Point and received funding from Natural Gas groups to push for it. Well intentioned, sure, but the damage they've done is catastrophic.

MightyBigMinus
Jan 26, 2020

CommieGIR posted:

I wish you could stop throwing labels around without understanding the context, and be able to reign yourself in enough to realize the pro-nuclear crowd tends to overlap with the pro-renewables crowd.
this is flagrantly false, all the pro-nuke crowd does is punch-left and try to make perfect the enemy of good. see below.

quote:

Its only you that think its some black and white topic that anybody defending or upholding nuclear is a chud and anti-renewables. (which they are most certainly not. )
in practice thats exactly what they are. just like the civil-union people were effectively anti-gay-marriage, just like the carbon-capture people are effectively anti-renewable, just like the 'but what about hunters' people are effectively anti-gun-control. just like 'ironic' racism is just racism. being a nuke chud is about being a concern troll, punching left, and preening about what a smart stemlord you are.

quote:

Theres a vast difference between being anti-renewables and pointing out the lessons that renewables cannot do it alone.
a.) not in practice, no there's barely a sliver of a difference. much like carbon capture the goal is always to stall progress with DEBATE.
b.) 'cannot do it alone' lol after you yourself just claimed i was making it 'black and white'

nukes will continue to be 10 - 15% of the US electric grid and 5- 10% of the global energy supply (depending on how china does) for the remainder of the timeline that matters w/r/t climate change (~30y). hydro will continue to be ~5%. gas, hopefully cut with hydrogen, hopefully mostly used as peakers/backup on low-wind nights will continue to make up at least 10%. renewables (+storage&derms) only actually need to solve about 75 - 80% of the problem.

on the timeframe that matters even if we had a major fusion breakthrough today it would barely matter

on the timeframe that matters even if we broke ground on 100 nuke plants today they would barely matter, it would take 1000.

nuclear is very simply a video game fantasy by stemlords that wish they could just pick a spot on the map, right-click -> add nuke plant, and then when they get the popup from the locals going "booo" click the dismiss button. its a childish video game reality mindset. it is wildly incompatible with the financial, economic, political, and technical reality of today.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

cat botherer
Jan 6, 2022

I am interested in most phases of data processing.

MightyBigMinus posted:

this is flagrantly false, all the pro-nuke crowd does is punch-left and try to make perfect the enemy of good. see below.
That's not punching left. That's pointing out this dumb conflation that apparently exists that anti-nuclear == left. It's a bit of a hangover from the hippies and the demented "New Left," along with the anti-science organizations these cultural threads have spawned, such as Green parties, Greenpeace, etc.

I'm a Marxist, for example. I'm almost certainly to your left. Check out the biosphere collapse thread in CSPAM if you want to see more leftists that like nuclear.

quote:

nuclear is very simply a video game fantasy by stemlords that wish they could just pick a spot on the map, right-click -> add nuke plant, and then when they get the popup from the locals going "booo" click the dismiss button. its a childish video game reality mindset. it is wildly incompatible with the financial, economic, political, and technical reality of today.
For the 500th time, do you have a more realistic solution to provide baseload power? This is not going to be easy, but we know it is possible. That is not true of any other possible solution that people have laid out.

cat botherer fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jul 18, 2022

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug

MightyBigMinus posted:

this is flagrantly false, all the pro-nuke crowd does is punch-left and try to make perfect the enemy of good. see below.

No, its not. As a leftist AND Pro-Nuke person, you are straight up making up bad guys. Hence your insistence on calling us Chuds. You are inventing enemies. And as an environmentalist and someone that knows quite a few environmentalists who are both pro-nuke and pro-renewables, you could not not be more wrong.

Maybe you need to take a step back and realize your evangelistic fervor over renewables only is actually more detrimental than acknowledging that renewables only is hurting us more than helping. You invent enemies to rant about and refuse to actually acknowledge the data showing renewables only is faltering.

We need both renewables and reliable baseload, be that hydro where possible or nuclear everywhere else. And again, pointing to how 'cheap' renewables is just shows a poor understanding on the issue we face, we are not digging out of the hole we have dug on the cheap. Period. Capitalism is not saving us from the hole capitalism dug.

CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jul 18, 2022

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
I hate mods and I hate use of mod Powers but please just ban silence kit from the thread. you aren't debating against him ever because he is not actually participating constructively ever, so it's not an abuse.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

silence_kit posted:

There is a belief in this thread that nuclear power plants intrinsically are dead simple, cheap, easy to construct, intrinsically 100% safe while removing a lot of the costly safety controls, processes, etc. currently being practiced. The belief is that it is a perfect technology.

This, for example, is massive and unfalsifiable strawman. Maybe there was one idiot who said something like this but it does not really reflect the thread and it is being brought up in obvious bad faith.

We know that nuclear power produces the fewest deaths per TWH. We know that it has the smallest footprint in every way that matters. Which is why the idiot can't actually criticize it and has to switch to criticizing us.

Harold Fjord fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jul 18, 2022

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Electric Wrigglies
Feb 6, 2015

MightyBigMinus posted:

i wish i could bribe a mod or something to get like an official two-thread solution where the nukechuds can bleat and derail as much as they want in the nuke thread and the rest of us can talk about the actual industry/technology and its changes in another one... but one of the mods is the worst offender.

This just seems like wailing and gnashing of teeth that it is being more and more appreciated that nuclear was the solution ignored and battery tech has not developed in the mean time to replace nuclear. The green movement was wrong on nuclear and continues to be wrong and worse, is still effectively resisting the embracement of a big part of a technically understood solution to the climate emergency (well not that much of an emergency to the green movement if nuclear is too much of a risk).

I am part of a team motivating three solar projects in West Africa (two 30 MW and a smaller 15 MW one), I am excited by the little hydro project in South East Senegal (it really helps support site solar to have hydro in the grid otherwise HFO powered grid), excited by the metro being installed in Abidjan, have seen first hand what an upgrade to life that LED lighting, smartphones, nearby 3G towers and small solar panel does for village huts without running water or reticulated power. I am excited that old mines (with pits, waste dumps and grid connections) can be repurposed as quality combined (wind, solar and pumped hydro) renewable electricity generation sites https://www.power-technology.com/projects/kidston-solar-project-queensland/ that don't disturb new ground and recycle disused assets.

I think all in this thread also understand nuclear has technical and logistical challenges with ramp up. There is a huge task in assembling the number of skilled artisans, designers, inspectors, the heavy foundries and reasonably priced QAQC support vendors at a scale approaching the car industry in complexity if not absolute size that is likely required. Talk of 20 or 30 years being enough to get rid of legacy coal and new build gas peaker plants are laughable. The process of getting rid of them doesn't start in earnest until nuclear is embraced. That's when the 40 to 60 year timeline starts. It coulda been in the 90s and we are half way done but no, owning the Chuds and pinning hope on battery tech (someone else likened it to fusion for renewable fetishists) is more important than the environment.

TL DR, nuclear is likely to be part of the solution as is solar and windpower. This is the energy generation thread and nuclear proponents enjoy talking about wind and solar just like nuclear but the issue holding back nuclear doing its fair share is not technical (as it is with wind and solar) but the opposition of the green movement - as evidenced for the plea from a pretty avowed environmentally interested person to remove nuclear discussion from the energy generation megathread!

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