- cross-posted to:
- collapse@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- collapse@lemmy.zip
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Nuclear energy isn’t a solution to anything. Solar and Windmills are much better, there really isn’t any argument for nuclear energy (if you want to teach me a better one, why don’t we start by building a nuclear repository in your region?).
Nuclear energy is the most energy dense form of power generation on the planet, and nothing else comes close. When fuel rods are “expended” taken out of a reactor after their 2 year cycle for the first time ~95% of the energy still remains in the rod. Chemical reprocessing can filter out the decay products and put the fissionable or fertile materials back into production.
Additionally, nuclear is one of the safest sources of power production on the planet. Disasters have occurred at places like Chornobyl, fukushima, and three mile island. And there’s a reason we don’t build reactors like that anymore. Every time an incident has occurred the rules for this power generation have been updated to ensure that such an incident can’t happen again.
As far as building a nuclear repository in my region? We are. We are are standing in the beginning of the next golden age of nuclear power.
While wind and solar are good to have for redundancy and diversity of power generation, they cannot change their generation ability easily at any point of day, during any weather conditions, regardless of external factors.
Nuclear’s global share fell from 17.5% (1996) to ~9% (2024) and is flat outside China. That’s not a golden age. Of the 63 reactors under construction worldwide, all but four are backed by China or Russia. No country has an operating repository yet, not even Finland. France had more than half its fleet down in 2022 from corrosion, and had to throttle reactors again this year from heat. And unlike renewables — ~40% of German renewable capacity is literally owned by private citizens and farmers through energy co-ops — nuclear requires the kind of capital and secrecy that only states or utilities can provide. 19 EU reactors are still fully fuel-dependent on Russia’s Rosatom right now, which bundles its reactor exports with political influence programs. That’s not a coincidence, it’s structural.
“why don’t we start by building a nuclear repository in your region” really isn’t the own you think it is? Like sure? I genuinely do not think that would be a problem for my life at all
Your personal comfort isn’t consent, a repository binds an entire region for a timescale (100,000 years) that outlasts every democratic institution we have. Nobody alive can consent on behalf of the thousands of generations that timeline covers. The reason siting takes decades everywhere is precisely that “I personally wouldn’t mind” isn’t how legitimate consent works. You need actual buy-in from residents, municipalities, parliaments, not one guy’s shrug.
But I was told nuclear would always work, regardless of weather!
Well, at least it sounds like solar would be a great complement. Again.
Not sure if joking or just ignorance? Both?
- The nuclear capacity losses are because of environmental regulations, not because of inherent issues with nuclear.
- Regulations restrict discharge of cooled water above 30°C into waterways, and they are responsible for the riverway temperature downstream of them. Since the waterways are warmer during a heat wave and the nuclear plant is responsible for the temperature of that waterway, they cannot discharge as much warm water into that waterway.
- Solar doesn’t work at night, and sufficiently scalable energy storage technology doesn’t yet exist.
- Solar loses considerable capacity as ambient temperature increases. At 40°C ambient, you’re talking about a 15% or higher reduction in efficiency. Which would be HIGHER than the ~12% reduction in nuclear capacity Europe hmis seeing
Guys, guys, it’s not an OR, it’s an AND.
We need both nuclear AND renewables.
Oh of course, I’m not arguing against solar. Just arguing against dumb takes.
- The nuclear capacity losses are because of environmental regulations, not because of inherent issues with nuclear.
Call me cynical but I do think an outlet called oil price dot com may not be entirely impartial when they report on this. That is not to say what they wrote here is wrong; I wouldn’t know. It just has a touch of pot and kettle about it.
Since the power networks are linked and European countries import and export electricity, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that next to renewables power from gas stepped in to fill the nuclear gap. And the price for natural gas is often linked to a certain other commodity price.
Several nuclear reactors had to shut down because there was not enough water for cooling.
From euronews:
an environmental protection requirement to avoid discharging excessively hot water into rivers already warming because of the heatwave
That twists it to “protecting nature raises your electricity bill” where it’s just that that the plant, when built, did not take into account water levels could drop this low. As if they assumed climate change wouldn’t be this influential or something.
It is not twisting it. It is exactly like that. The problem is not the water level. The nuclear power plant can work in these condition. The hot water discharge would raise the temperature too much on top of existing higher temperatures in the river for the flora and fauna to survive. We are doing this to protect nature. There is no twisting here.
Reactors in France are shut down not because of lack of water, but as an ecological precaution because the effects of warming up rivers even more is not well known (even if it seems to have not much more impact than the heat wave in itself )
And even with these reactors shut down, France still exported 5-10GW of power at the time.
So yeah let’s not propagate the anti-nuclear propaganda trying to paint the situation as “nuclear can’t handle global warming and will cause blackouts”, when in reality it’s just us having so much decarbonated electricity that we can afford to produce less as an ecological precaution.
Mate, I can literally walk across the Rhine where I live. Nuclear doesn’t work without cooling.
Nuclear sucks and the fossil fuel industry wants you to think it doesn’t.
But it is a consistent problem, because the hotter water is the less oxygen it holds by a lot, so fish frequently die if the water gets too hot.
In France, sure. In Hungary the water level actually dropped below the intake valves so they physically couldn’t pump enough water into the reactor.
