Hacker News Reader

Comment by arunharidas | Hacker News Reader

Greta is not pro-nukes. Most of the environment activists are not.

Danish TV had a documentary about the nuclear opposition in the country in the 60s and 70s. One of the most interesting lines is pretty much a throwaway line by one of the former activists. The interviewer remarks that it's a little strange to be anti-nuclear, when the alternative is burning fossil fuel and the activist interjects with "But we didn't believe/understand that the alternative was coal and oil, we thought it would be solar and wind". That was never going to work, nuclear power was available as an option, wind turbines and solar cells where never going to be able to fulfill the energy requirement at the time, certainly not at a price the country could afford.

To me that really highlighted the naivety of many environmental activists. They mean well and we need them, but they so often fail to look at the problems holistically and zooms in on single issues.

That's very fair. I think it extends to people who care about energy in general though, not just environmentalists. For example on the Internet, there is always a highly vocal pro-nuclear camp to be found. Some of them -- but not all by all means -- will often claim that nuclear is the "One True Solution" to clean energy.

I think at the end of the day it comes down to tribalism, sadly. People choose their "side" and pitch in to defend its merits and attack the other "side"'s deficiencies. As with many things, there isn't a whole lot of room left for holistic approaches.

I'm personally not a huge fan of nuclear because I'm a pragmatist, and I think most people are pragmatists at the end of the day, being human. And pragmatists don't make good operators of nuclear power plants. But I definitely don't think any existing nuclear plants should be closed. They should be (safely) continued to run as long as possible to provide the clean energy we desperately need while other safer (and often cheaper) renewables+storages ramp up.

Keeping existing plants running is the sensible approach in my mind. We can't build new nuclear power to reduce CO2 emission, it's much to late for that. We want drastic reductions in 5 - 6 years, the first nuclear power plant won't be ready for another 10, 15, 20 years. If we wanted to go nuclear we should have started in 2000. Right now we start reducing consumption, build wind turbines like crazy and close the coal and oil fired power plants first, then gas and nuclear last.

Speak for your own country because others have built huge numbers of nuclear plants with an average of 4 years for completion. The anti-nuke sentiment from the environmental movement is the only reason the U.S. isn't entirely energy independent. That attitude has probably done more to contribute to climate change than anything else, ironically.

This might become a discussion about the definition of pragmatism, but I find the most pragmatic solution is to simply ban the use of fossil fuel in the energy grid. Remove the easy, cheap and extremely harmful substance, and people will be forced to find a working solution. If that happen to be nuclear then that is that. If that happen to be renewables + some yet to be developed technology to address grid variability, then lets do that. I have no horse in that race except that hydropower need to get their very old infrastructure fixed so that we don't make eels and other species extinct, and water constructions on the ocean need to be a bit careful around nature reserves and places like the baltic ocean. Ocean based wind farms like to build on shallows for economical reasons, and those places have a tendency to be nurseries for fish and other animals.

What I really can't stand is the use of fossil fuels in the grid when there is known and effective alternatives, and it gives a bad taste in the mouth that tax money intended for grid stability is used on fossil fuels.

> nuclear is the "One True Solution" to clean energy

Not to be that guy but it sort of is. Comparing nuclear power to renewables is a lot like comparing a truck to an electric scooter. Sure, both can transport you to your destination and both work equally well in many scenarios, maybe the scooter even has advantages in some places but when it comes to handling the entirety of possible scenarios the truck is the clear choice. That doesn't mean you can't have a truck and a scooter and use each where appropriate, it's just that you'll probably use the truck a lot more.

Countries like France went all-in on nuclear - didn't change much really. Theoretical nuclear is risk free and low carbon but actual nuclear (that was available in the 60s/70s) is neither.

Well, nuclear power is literally the reason why in this map: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map France is almost constantly green, while Germany, Poland, and most of the US, are just different shades of brown...

In France about 63% of the final energy is produced thanks to fossil fuel.

A new nuclear reactor is being built since 2007, it should have launched a new set of reactors, and this WIP is a disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

> In France about 63% of the final energy is produced thanks to fossil fuel

have you go a source for that? the parent comment seems to contradict that fact

Dude is bringing petrol and heating oil/gas into the discussion in addition to electricity - while ignoring that the EV transition is also greener for France than for the rest of Europe/US which runs their EVs with fossil-generated electricity.

Emissions are to be reduced. All of them, not only those related to gridpower generation.

To do so electrifying usages is key.

This in turn imply that more electricity has to be generated.

Each and every nation in the EU27 moves towards this, and France (while chanting 'my electricity is low-carbon, yay!' and neglecting that doesn't do anything about the remaining 63% of final energy consumed in France obtained by burning fossil fuels) is the red lantern: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2022/11/25/ren...

Final energy in France, by source: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89nergie_en_France#%C3%89n...

And that 63% is far lower than any country/region at that latitude that doesn't have lucky geography for hydro power. And that 63% can be easily reduced in France by introducing heatpumps and EVs, but the same is not true in the UK/Germany/Poland without building metric arseloads of zero-carbon power plants.

> 63% is far lower

Nope. We have to take into account consumption-based CO₂ emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?...

> that 63% can be easily reduced in France by introducing heatpumps and EVs

Nope, as it is only possible by generating more gridpower, and France tries to do so using nuclear since 2007... in vain as the sole and only nuclear reactor being built in France (which should have started a new batch in 2012) is the 'Flamanville-3' EPR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan...

> the same is not true in the UK/Germany/Poland without building metric arseloads of zero-carbon power plants.

There is no 'zero-carbon plants', only 'low-carbon plants'.

They all do so, much more efficiently than France (where electricity is already low-carbon but where the plan to pump up more nuclear is stuck) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-low-car...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-renewables?...

She said the Atomausstieg was a mistake: https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Closing-nuclear-in-G...

> Greta is not pro-nukes. Most of the environment activists are not.

And we're reaping the "benefits" of the same people in the 70s campaigning against all forms of nuclear back then. So we built oil, gas, and coal power stations to meet our energy needs instead. slow applause for the activists

The road to hell and all that...

To the surprise of no one that has looked behind the curtain to see “the only solution” is always you need to pay us more taxes and keep us in power.

That comment is hilarious considering that nuclear has recent several multiples of the subsidies that renewables received and is still much more expensive. And we are not even counting the military (the nuclear industry would likely be in a much worse state if it wasn't for the militaries demand for nuclear engineers and scientists and financing much of the R&D).

Ok, so the argument is that we know we went nuts regulating it to oblivion, and this is a fault in the technology and not ourselves - then you go to admit that it is a massive tactical and technological advantage we need?

Ok, strange flex but this about what I have come to expect from this “debate”.

Nuclear is not so expensive because of regulation that's another myth. Considering the scale and possible impact wind and solar often have much more regulations (just look at Bavaria where the ruling party essentially blocked all new wind installations by creating requirements that reduced potential sites to nearly 0). A nuclear power plant is essentially a thermal plant plus the nuclear part so how would it be cheaper than a coal plant?

I'm not disputing your claims, but as a suggestion:

> A nuclear power plant is essentially a thermal plant plus the nuclear part so how would it be cheaper than a coal plant?

Fuel costs?

I was talking capital costs, not operational costs. My point is, to build a nuclear power plant you essentially need to build a thermal power plant first and then add things for the nuclear part (which is arguably more complicated/safety critical than for e.g. a coal plant).

So the whole argument for economics of scale doesn't work, thermal power plants have not reduced dramatically in price over the last decades despite lots of them being build. Half of your plant not really reducing much in price, will limit the benefits you can get even if the other half sees massive cost reductions.

> I was talking capital costs, not operational costs.

Ok, but surely the only cost that matters is the lifetime cost? (Including whatever cleanup is needed for both nuclear and whichever fossil and/or renewable+storage combination it is compared against).

> Half of your plant not really reducing much in price, will limit the benefits you can get even if the other half sees massive cost reductions.

Sure, absolutely. But coal is pretty expensive over the course of a year, so it can look like a good opportunity (if only for the reality hadn't turned out so fragile and, when it goes wrong, severe).

Nuclear is arguably only safe due to those regulations. The case of falsified certificates in Korea shows that you need plenty of margins to account for some of the regulations not being followed properly, even in a first world country.

Maybe there is 20% too many regulations. That could be the case. But having 20% too many regulations is far preferable than 20% too few.

Even if you are staunchly pro-nuclear you should want regulations that reduces the chance for even a minor accident to almost exactly 0%, because even a minor accident will cause fear that’ll set nuclear back by two decades. Maybe that fear is irrational. Tough luck. Humans are irrational. Most of them would rather be slowly poisoned by coal and die a couple years early, than living with the thought of maybe having to suddenly have to abandon their home and established life like in Fukushima.

> But having 20% too many regulations is far preferable than 20% too few.

The problem is when that extra 20% regulation makes the technology so expensive the world chooses to keep burning coal, oil and gas thus poisoning and killing millions through pollution and endangering life on the entire planet through Climate Change.

Right now nuclear is so frozen and so useful that I'd take the change of a (PR) disaster and (slowly, carefully, partially) deregulate: it can't get much worse than already is.

seems that wind isn't profitable without massive subsidies either

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/11/14/wind-farm-or...

Do you want to know a fun fact? Nuclear is even more sensitive to material prices, inflation and interest rates than off-shore wind.

If off-shore wind companies are struggling then nuclear projects are deep deep in the red.

Energy subsidizes in Europe looks different. Wind/Solar are the single biggest recipient of subsidies and receive about as much as the combined total of all other subsidies in the energy sector. They get far more per watt produced than anything else, mostly going to grid connections, building, deconstruction, and price guaranties. (The yearly report is produced and published by the European commission at ec.europa.eu)

Nuclear get subsidies in term of research, building, deconstruction, waste storage and price guaranties. Around 70% goes to the single fusion research project called ITER (international research, non-military).

Hydro receives an increasing amount of subsidies for repair and modernization. Dam repair and flooding protection is expensive and with climate change there is even bigger need for fixing Europe old hydro power dams. They are also in general non-compliant with the European environmental regulations (several species are going extinct), but that is not a subsidies issues directly. Fixing the dams so they allow for fish to pass is however a subsidies issue, but as far the budget to fix that has yet to be allocated and the costs are estimated to be exceedingly high.

And last we have fossil fuel subsidies. A large portion of the "reserve energy" plan in eu in order to address increased gird variability is based on keeping a large number of fossil fuel plants on stand-by, paid through subsidies. Then there is subsidies on extracting the fuel itself, subsidies on trading fuel, and subsidies on storage of the fuel, and transportation of the fuel. This is not accounting for the environmental cost from burning fossil fuels, which some see as a form of subsidies.

Subsidies-like part not included are insurance against nuclear accidents, insurance against floods from dam failures, and insurance against forest fires. It is also not accounting for land usage nor damage to wildlife.

> Energy subsidizes in Europe looks different. Wind/Solar are the single biggest recipient of subsidies and receive about as much as the combined total of all other subsidies in the energy sector. They get far more per watt produced than anything else, mostly going to grid connections, building, deconstruction, and price guaranties. (The yearly report is produced and published by the European commission at ec.europa.eu)

So we should cut off subsidies agreed on 10 years ago during renewables learning curve to make it even? The renewable subsidies for new builds today are miniscule in Europe, which is what we are making the decisions based on.

How many Hinkley Point Cs costing ~€0.15/kWh to the consumers, very similar to energy crisis prices, should we fund just so you can stop complaining about past history for renewables?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

There is no single solution to reduce the massive amount of energy subsidizes. We could however start to demand a bit more efficiency and targeted approach that more align with political will of the citizens that pays the taxes.

To put down to facts, Europe paid 172 billions in 2021 on energy subsidies. This is 54% increase since 2015. 76 billions went to renewables. Between 2019 and 2020 the amount going to renewables increased by 7%, while between 2020 and 2021 it decreased by 3%. The second largest recipient of subsidies was fossil fuel energy with 50 billions. Subsidies for nuclear has remain mostly stable since 2015, sitting at around 4 billions, but with Germany closing several plants last year it has now increased to 7 billions. (The report do not consider R&D to be subsidies, so ITER is not included).

We should not try to make things "even". We should cut fossil fuel subsidies and decommission the fossil fuel plants that operate as reserve energy. The cost of high variability in the grid should not be carried through tax money. Market forces can't be applied correctly when taxes are being funneled to fix a problem caused by using high variability energy production.

Subsidies to renewables are slowly being reduced. It is no longer a given that grid connections will be given out for free and paid by taxes. Both nuclear and renewables should also carry their own weight and not have price guaranties. Companies that need those should have the cost baked into the energy price.

A solution that is acknowledged by the European report but often overlooked is energy usage reduction and increased efficiencies.

The report for those wanted to read it: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

Do you have any idea by how much installed renewable capacity increased during the periods you mentioned? Hint, way, way more than the subsidies...

"Firmed" renewables are cheaper than nuclear today. [1] Any nuclear project started today will finish ~2040 and then not recoup the investment until ~2070. If nuclear is uncompetitive today, how do you think it will fare against 30 years of renewable development?

Lets also remove the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act [2] with equivalents across the world so the nuclear industry has to bear the true insurance cost.

[1]: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-of-e...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...

> so the nuclear industry has to bear the true insurance cost

How expensive is a resounding "No" by insurers?

What exactly is made better by paying more to insurance cos? Beyond a point insurance is just a drain on productivity.

Nuclear accidents, flooding and forest fires are three areas where insurance do not cover the cost. Fossil fuel usage are also exempted from paying insurance regarding climate change and health costs associated with pollution. Wind power are mostly exempted from paying damages when hurting endangered wildlife.

I would not be completely against demanding that all commercial activity in the energy sector must cover every negative effect on society and the environment. It would in effect ban all fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro. Would be a fair price to pay for getting rid of fossil fuels.

> Wind/Solar are the single biggest recipient of subsidies

According to the IEA: "EU electricity consumers are expected to save an estimated EUR 100 billion during 2021-2023 thanks to additional electricity generation from newly installed solar PV and wind capacity"

https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-j...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com