@kravietz
Even if someone cut down the trees in their yard, PV is still one of the best sources of energy:
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/16/mediocrity-is-the-enemy-of-the-solution/
@mithrandir @kravietz
Definitely worth investigating to some extent. Scaling properties on solar are hard to beat, but small self-contained nuclear batteries could be competitive.
@mithrandir @kravietz
Per the link I dropped, problem with NEW nuclear is it takes like 15 years to bring it to completion. So shutting down nuclear prematurely is probably a bad plan, but spinning it up right now is kind of a case of too-little-too-late. New solar deployment is up within a year.
Also scaling properties. Every solar panel built makes building the next one cheaper. True too of reactors but not many of them are (ever) made so scale doesn't happen.
>New solar deployment is up within a year.
Indeed, it is quicker to build the plant, but the plant also takes up more space (with exceptions -- those towers outside Vegas are wonderfully compact, idk how much power they put out though), and you have to build it somewhere where you get sunlight/wind reliably enough that the plant is worth building. For a lot of cities that means the plant has to be far away, which leads to high line loss.
OTOH solar and wind are eminently the best strategy for power in rural and low-density urban areas, where the cost of land is cheaper and also it makes more sense to spread out power production. A small town would probably be better served by nearby solar and wind farms than a faraway nuclear plant.
The article you linked seems to be making an argument that *nothing* besides wind, solar, and waves should be invested in. That just seems shortsighted to me, especially when so many proposed power sources are still in their infancy.
>Every solar panel built makes building the next one cheaper.
Huh? You mean that it's easy to mass produce them, right? There is not an infinite supply of silicon, and the fixed marginal cost of the production process remains the same until you change the production process.
@mithrandir @kravietz
1. "Naive" economies of scale, bigger more efficient factories, better processes.
2. R&D-based economies of scale: more people buy PV, more competition, more R&D investment --> higher efficiency, longer lasting PV made with cheaper materials and processes.
Same story as batteries. It's not govt research that's driving these curves, it's competition.
~
@lain @mithrandir @kravietz
Batteries. Buy a phone, buy a Tesla, push dat curve.
Because PV is actually made mostly of mined resources, as this friendly ad from Australian Mining (!) demonstrates
@kravietz @lain @mithrandir
A PV cell is mined and then runs 10 years. A cm3 of gas is mined and then burned within a couple of hours.
Also I prefer the Australians, they don't try to invade Europe every chance they get.
I don't think anybody supports fossil fuels in this thread, so this argument is irrelevant.
The problem with PV is specifically what you described - it runs 10 years, and then you need a new one.
Per 1 W of energy mining requirements are much higher for PV than other sources.
Then you need a whole lot of them due to low surface power density.
Then you need even more due to low capacity factor.
And then you need storage.
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir probably there is more metal in our car than our solar panel. Way more concrete in the house too. (kindah weird that concrete estimate is so high)
That 10 years is probably a really low estimate. Even when people upgrade their solar cells, the old ones go somewhere, perhaps re-use.. And the metals are still in there.
You can get solar power on roofs *now*, sure energy storage is a problem, but then solar itself was too expensive recently too.
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir the problem materials-wise is not really iron, aluminium or glass, but the rarer metals, of course.
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir like >60% in the netherlands is sort-of pro nuclear.
People made rules about safety, based on risk, and then engineers try to figure out a design, and come out too expensive and taking too long too build.
This is then called "us being too fearful" instead of making specific risk-overestimation claims. Like, i know it's too complicated, i don't know where to find the information. I know we don't know. Don't barge ahead.
That was not the case in France and Germany. Both reactor types were the safest available in the world already, when construction started — in essence, the problem was that design that was already safe had to be changed in the middle.
https://medium.com/@Jorisvandorp/the-hinkley-point-c-case-is-nuclear-energy-expensive-f89b1aa05c27?
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir i mean that foundation takes money from somewhere.. (maybe EDF)
And the articles muckrack produces from the names there.. Like this one https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/juist-door-ver-te-reizen-help-je-de-wereld~be612caa/ nonsense about travel reducing xenophobia.
Not sure about nuclear power is needed. But not into like "fukushima only killed one person" BS (literally a popular "left" Dutch show) when it infact made a huge area unlivable and it's unclear how many die from more radioactive material being round.
@jasper @cjd @lain @mithrandir
> it infact made a huge area unlivable
As result of radiophobia, not as result of actual contamination
> unclear how many die from more radioactive material being round
It is very clear today - none https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/fukushima-meltdown-did-not-damage-health-un-japan
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir dunno, he brings up the linear versus nonlinear model, but he doesn't bring up evidence for that.
Also this "you scared" stuff again, even some victim blaming. Is it just natural awkwardness, he thinking "this is screwing up the stats" or is it rethoric. I can't impugn the witness, apparently.
Even if you think the Gy levels are acceptable, greenpeace worries about the body concentrating elements like Strontium. https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-japan-stateless/2021/03/ff71ab0b-finalfukushima2011-2020_web.pdf
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir The nonlinear would basically require either hits of the same cell before it repairs itself 1s-0.1s.. Radiation levels have to ridiculously high for that.
Or maybe the cell fails to repair itself but multiple hits to get cancer. But then still bringing people closer to getting cancer, so the linear model is more fair. Anyway, i tend to think the linear model is preferred for a reason.
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir like 5.5%/Sievert at 20mSievert/yr, 0.11%/yr here you can see cancer rates https://gis.cdc.gov/Cancer/USCS/DataViz.html
So living at that level you get 60year old cancer-rates automatically..
Modulo that Greenpeace comment, or if a grain of more radioactive material flew in the wind and ended up in you, which could make it much worse.
20mSv/yr=2.3μSv/h, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fukushima_radiation_dose_map_2012-03-15.png
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir also do see incidents, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country a lot of them minor, but also for instance 30m³ of water containing (unenriched)uranium in 2008. And rods getting stuck..
Personally i also blame - as people have been saying! - our society for just not acting on climate change. Like, fucking cars have been getting bigger in the meantime too.
But nuclear is not that safe, i suspect.. Maybe it's needed anyway.
@jasper @cjd @lain @mithrandir
> linear versus nonlinear model
Sorry, but there's plenty of evidence that linear no threshold is false. The best evidence available is the whole biosphere, including humans, which evolved in background radiation levels significantly exceeding today's.
Natural background radiation by far exceeds any artificial sources, and out of artificial sources medicine & air flights by far exceed anything related to nuclear industry.
Details:
@jasper @cjd @lain @mithrandir
If you prefer videos, here's one I linked 4-5x already but nobody even agreed or disagreed with it.
@jasper @cjd @lain @mithrandir
> was it safe before, or did fukushima, show a weakness
EU plants were safe before and after Fukushima, most of even the old ones were operating without any incidents for 60+ years. The new ones are even safer, with tons of duplicated and passive safety features.
> Not sure about nuclear power is needed
It depends. If we want to decarbonize the world, nuclear power *and* renewables is the only scalable way to go.
@kravietz @cjd @lain @mithrandir was it safe before, or did fukushima, show a weakness?
Dunno, if another product says "ok so i am raising my prices, but look it's going to other people" i'd scratch my head. What is it going to subsidize?
GB increased their nuclear weapons cap, which building up expertise & equipment for overlaps.. 😕
Do wonder about the independence of the source here a bit.. see he is one of https://www.ecomodernisme.nl/organisatie/wie-zijn-wij/