Can Any Country Achieve Net Zero Without Nuclear?

[PeroK]

Wait... 140 Km/h isn't 40 m/s is it? I'm pretty tired, about to go to bed.

Nvm.

It is, approximately. To convert from m/s to km/h, just multiply by 3.6.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Apparently, Iceland is the example of net-zero without nuclear, and without fossil, at least as far as electricity and heating is concerned.

So, Worldometer says something very different - Iceland is #20 in CO2 per capita, and emits more than any European country except Luxembourg and Estonia. How to reconcile these two?

• Net zero electricity is not the same as net zero energy.
• Fraction of net-zero energy is not the same as total amount of energy
• Refining aluminum (a major export) is very, very energy intensive.

That last is important. You can feel good about how little gasoline your hybrid uses, but it took a lot to refine the aluminum parts.

 

[Astronuc]

Refining aluminum (a major export) is very, very energy intensive.

Aluminum or is processed chemically, and aluminum is refined electrically, and the electrical source is not necessarily fossil plants - if there is abundant hydro and geothermal. Apparently, aluminum is the top export of Iceland, slightly ahead of Seafood, which are well ahead of the others, including Iron and Steel.

Fuel for transportation: cars, buses, trucks, ships (fishing trawlers, as well as cargo ships and ferries) and aircraft (e.g., Icelandair).

https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/iceland/tradestats

 

[sbrothy]

France certainly does - they have the largest suite of NPPs of any EU nation - Germany does not anymore. The shutdown all of their NPPs and started decommissioning all and demolishing the oldest. I don't know to what extent the newer plants were mothballed, such that they could bring them back online relatively quickly. The German decision was rather poor, and they became heavily dependent on native coal and Russian oil and gas.

Yeah that's right. I remember they were in the process of dismantling them. One wonders what alternatives they have up thier sleave? Windmills? :P

 

[Vanadium 50]

One wonders what alternatives they have up thier sleave? Windmills? :P

The answer is "Russia".

In retrospect, this might not have been as well thought-out as it might have been.

 

[gmax137]

Search "energiewende"

Maybe our @fresh_42 can chime in on the German program.

 

[fresh_42]

Search "energiewende"

Maybe our @fresh_42 can chime in on the German program.

I better don't. That IS politics and I'm not sure I agree on what is done here. I mean, we decided to go out of nuclear energy after Fukushima because of the possible accidents, and nobody in our densely populated country wants the waste dumped anywhere near their home. But there is always someone living near any place! And which sense does it make to stop using nuclear energy and buy it from France instead? Or how safe is it to deconstruct nuclear power plants while literally, all neighbors do the exact opposite? There is far too much fanatism and ideology and too few facts involved.

I am also under the impression that any energy calculation in which country ever always ignores transportation. Maybe you can run your TV with a windmill in the backyard, but not the container ships on the oceans, the trucks on the road, or the globally recovering airline industry.

 

[glappkaeft]

So one Swedish mile is just over 6 us miles? That is confusing.

Not confusing at all or at least not more confusing than any other countries history of weights and measures. ;)

A mile in Sweden (well from 1665, also called a uniform mile (enhetsmil) based on the older Uppsala mile, since before that the different regions of Sweden used their own regional miles, from about 5-15 km long).

After that 1 Swedish mile = 3 600 rods = 6 000 fathoms = 18 000 eln = 36 000 feet (in Sweden at 0.2969 m slightly shorter than the English foot) = 10 688,4 meter. Other Nordic countries used the same definition but slightly different lengths of feet. In Sweden this mile was kept after introducing SI but rounded to 10 km (a.k.a. new mile - nymil).

SI was invented for a reason...

 

[russ_watters]

The German decision was rather poor, and they became heavily dependent on native coal and Russian oil and gas.

Yeah that's right. I remember they were in the process of dismantling them. One wonders what alternatives they have up thier sleave? Windmills? :P

The answer is "Russia".

In retrospect, this might not have been as well thought-out as it might have been.

I disagree that they didn't think it through. They worked hard for decades on it, both in the logic and implementation. My understanding from talking to a bunch (and what's mentioned by Fresh implies this as well) is that they reconcile the apparent contradiction by considering them completely separate/stand-alone decisions. They aren't, of course, but if you think of them that way it is easier to hold both in your head at the same time without throwing an error.

 

[Rive]

I disagree that they didn't think it through.

Many did. But they went on anyway. That's politics for you.
I had some pips about the thing way back below the Insight of @anorlunda, if you are interested.
The whole thing is a just as a big mess as an artificially orchestrated market-distorting politically driven theory can make.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Yes, wind power was the standard for centuries for shipping. Before that, for even longer, we had slave galleys. Should we return to that as well?

Older does not universally mean better.

 

[Bystander]

Yes, wind power was the standard for centuries for shipping. Before that, for even longer, we had slave galleys. Should we return to that as well?

Older does not universally mean better.

Compare "trade winds" to modern/great circle routes.

 

[Astronuc]

My understanding from talking to a bunch (and what's mentioned by Fresh implies this as well) is that they reconcile the apparent contradiction by considering them completely separate/stand-alone decisions. They aren't, of course, but if you think of them that way it is easier to hold both in your head at the same time without throwing an error.

As I said, their decisions were rather poor.

I worked with the German utilities and the folks with whom I worked were certainly frustrated. Several colleagues got discouraged and left the industry, or in one case, a colleague quit nuclear power and joined an energy trading operation - probably job security more than the salary.

Certainly, some plants had issues, and it probably made sense to close some of the older plants, e.g., Stade and Obrigheim, as they were small plants based on older technology. Some of the BWRs were problematic, but I won't name them. The modern plants, particularly the PWRs, were among the most thermodynamically efficient of NPPs.

Instead, the German government decided to become highly dependent on Russian oil and gas, and Gerhardt Schroeder worked for Rosneft (took a position on the board) and Gazprom (Russia's large oil and gas companies), and Nord Stream; it seems like a conflict of interest.

Some PWRs did have some peculiar technical issues, but those were resolved satisfactorily. They ran the Konvoi plants: Emsland, Isar-2 and Neckarwestheim-2 until 15 April 2023. Ostensibly, they could be brought back online.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx

The German nuclear industry faced headwinds when Siemens (the KWU part) essentially left nuclear and let Framatome takeover. The French then drove the industry, and Vattenfall, started to buy German NPPs, or parts thereof.

Now the emphasis is on renewables.

 

[fresh_42]

As I said, their decisions were rather poor.

This is a perspective that ignores many, many aspects.

Nuclear energy has been a controversial subject in Germany since the seventies, i.e. for over five decades. This has many reasons that would lead too far to elaborate here. It has a lot to do with nuclear weapons, US weapons!, the cold war, ecological awareness, the unsolved question of how to deal with the waste, and probably more that I would find if I'd began to write that book. Good old capitalism would also be an aspect. Nuclear energy capitalized over its entire life circle is quite expensive and not as cheap as it looks like if you only view the balance sheet while it runs. And I only speak of life circles that do not involve hazardous accidents!

It is easy to summarize this thick book by rather poor. Is it justified? I have my doubts.

 

[PeterDonis]

the unsolved question of how to deal with the waste

This question is not unsolved in a technical sense: you just reprocess the waste. That is what France, for example, has been doing for decades.

In some countries, of which the US is one, political factors have prevented this obvious technical solution from being implemented.

 

[PeterDonis]

I only speak of life circles that do not involve hazardous accidents!

Even counting the hazardous accidents, nuclear energy is orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy produced than almost any other source (the only other comparable ones by this measure are wind and solar).

Here is a typical comparison:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/

 

[fresh_42]

This question is not unsolved in a technical sense: you just reprocess the waste. That is what France, for example, has been doing for decades.

In some countries, of which the US is one, political factors have prevented this obvious technical solution from being implemented.

If this were true, why doesn't France buy all the nuclear waste of others and resell it? These procedures still produce waste that has to be dumped somewhere.

(We send them our waste for reprocessing and receive it afterward to be dumped.)

Even counting the hazardous accidents, nuclear energy is orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy produced than almost any other source (the only other comparable ones by this measure are wind and solar).

Here is a typical comparison:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/

I spoke of cheaper, not safer. Safe always depends on the denominator, and on the risk preferences. Flying in an airplane is safe per mile, but that is of little help if you are sitting in one that crashes.

 

[russ_watters]

This question is not unsolved in a technical sense: you just reprocess the waste.

Well, that or just store it in a dry cask literally anywhere. I'd offer-up my backyard for a reasonable lease if I didn't need HOA permission.

Also, the chosen solution of deep geological storage is....fine.... it's just overkill. I'm not sure if they'll ever do it or not, but for now it's more fun to play football with it than do it.

 

[russ_watters]

Even counting the hazardous accidents, nuclear energy is orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy produced than almost any other source (the only other comparable ones by this measure are wind and solar).

Here is a typical comparison:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/

The one that gets me on that is hydro. People always seem to forget just how deadly/destructive hydro can be. Dams fail sometimes and lots of people can die.

 

[PeterDonis]

These procedures still produce waste that has to be dumped somewhere.

Yes, but for much shorter time (on the order of 100 years instead of 10,000 to 100,000 years), and also, as I understand it, the quantity of waste is significantly smaller, so the storage of it does not present a significant problem. Insisting on reliable storage for 10,000 to 100,000 years because no reprocessing was to be done was a key obstacle in the way of nuclear power in the US.

 

[PeterDonis]

The one that gets me on that is hydro. People always seem to forget just how deadly/destructive hydro can be. Dams fail sometimes and lots of people can die.

Occasional accidents (for all power sources, not just hydro) are already taken into account in the comparison I linked to (note that hydro is almost two orders of magnitude worse than wind, solar, and nuclear, and the factor you cite is probably a large contributor to that difference).

 

[fresh_42]

Yes, but for much shorter time (on the order of 100 years instead of 10,000 to 100,000 years), and also, as I understand it, the quantity of waste is significantly smaller, so the storage of it does not present a significant problem. Insisting on reliable storage for 10,000 to 100,000 years because no reprocessing was to be done was a key obstacle in the way of nuclear power in the US.

I don't think it is as short. Considering the demonstrations here when such a delivery comes back from La Hague, and our search for final dumpsters, I cannot believe it is only about 100 years. Here is the reprocessing they had planned in Germany (Wikipedia)

That does not sound like 100 years.

 

[sbrothy]

Yes, wind power was the standard for centuries for shipping. Before that, for even longer, we had slave galleys. Should we return to that as well?

Older does not universally mean better.

No, but the "old methods" you allure to are proven and definitely do work.

I wonder about the ecological impact though...

EDIT: I'm thinking manual matrix. :P

 

[PeterDonis]

I don't think it is as short. Considering the demonstrations here when such a delivery comes back from La Hague, and our search for final dumpsters, I cannot believe it is only about 100 years. Here is the reprocessing they had planned in Germany (Wikipedia)

View attachment 340961

That does not sound like 100 years.

Uranium and plutonium oxides coming from reprocessing, which is what your chart shows, are not stored for long term, they are used as fuel. That's actually the primary purpose of reprocessing from a nuclear fuel cycle standpoint--"spent" fuel from a reactor actually has a good deal of still usable fissile isotopes in it.

The only things that have to be stored long-term are the remaining wastes after the U and Pu oxides are removed to be re-used as fuel. The remaining wastes all have short half-lives and only remain high-level waste requiring special storage for times, as I said, on the order of 100 years.

 

[fresh_42]

Anyway, this is all politics. I tried to tell you the differences between the US and Germany, but you preferred not to believe me. Instead, you find it acceptable to claim that Angela Merkel made a, quote: "rather poor" decision based on your ignorance of the German history and specific situation.

If such a comment had been made about any decision Trump has made, it would had been immediately deleted. But to call out Merkel based on ignorance is alright?

 

[fresh_42]

Uranium and plutonium oxides coming from reprocessing, which is what your chart shows, are not stored for long term, they are used as fuel. That's actually the primary purpose of reprocessing from a nuclear fuel cycle standpoint--"spent" fuel from a reactor actually has a good deal of still usable fissile isotopes in it.

The only things that have to be stored long-term are the remaining wastes after the U and Pu oxides are removed to be re-used as fuel. The remaining wastes all have short half-lives and only remain high-level waste requiring special storage for times, as I said, on the order of 100 years.

Well, France prefers to send it back rather than making new fuel. Why?

 

[PeterDonis]

France prefers to send it back rather than making new fuel. Why?

Probably because they already have sufficient fuel for their own needs.

 

[Rive]

I don't think it is as short.

Given the very nature of the 'half-life' and the various reference values, scales and units, various storage length requirements can be chosen, for very different purposes.

For practical purposes in nuclear industry, in case of properly processed fuel and other radioactive materials the 'on the order of 100 years' is achievable.
Not necessarily convenient, cheap or the best choice, but achievable.

I tried to tell you the differences between the US and Germany

Subjective side, fueling and fueled by politics.
Engineering, physics and math is kind of expected to be the same, I believe.

 

[sbrothy]

Anyway, this is all politics. I tried to tell you the differences between the US and Germany, but you preferred not to believe me. Instead, you find it acceptable to claim that Angela Merkel made a, quote: "rather poor" decision based on your ignorance of the German history and specific situation.

If such a comment had been made about any decision Trump has made, it would had been immediately deleted. But to call out Merkel based on ignorance is alright?

I do not neccesarily agree with poster but wasn't there something about a no-politics rule

EDIT_ this was supposed to stay a thought, but it seems I unconciosly wrote it in.

Not confusing at all or at least not more confusing than any other countries history of weights and measures. ;)

A mile in Sweden (well from 1665, also called a uniform mile (enhetsmil) based on the older Uppsala mile, since before that the different regions of Sweden used their own regional miles, from about 5-15 km long).

After that 1 Swedish mile = 3 600 rods = 6 000 fathoms = 18 000 eln = 36 000 feet (in Sweden at 0.2969 m slightly shorter than the English foot) = 10 688,4 meter. Other Nordic countries used the same definition but slightly different lengths of feet. In Sweden this mile was kept after introducing SI but rounded to 10 km (a.k.a. new mile - nymil).

SI was invented for a reason...

Heh, Now I don't even remember what confused me in the first place. :)

 

[fresh_42]

Probably because they already have sufficient fuel for their own needs.

Not necessarily convenient, cheap or the best choice, but achievable.

I still have my doubts. Following your argumentation would imply that already processed and paid $\mathrm{UO_3}$ and $\mathrm{PuO_2}$ is more expensive than digging up uranium ore in Australia, shipping it to France, and processing it to fuel. That makes no sense to me, sorry, especially as we would probably pay France money to keep our waste. I did not research the details but I believe in functioning markets though.

And if it is cheaper to dump that to re-use then the argument is void anyway.

 

[fresh_42]

I do not neccesarily agree with poster but wasn't there something about a no-politics rule

That was my point. Criticism ("rather poor [decision]") of Merkel without knowledge of the specific German circumstances seems to be ok.

 

[Rive]

...already processed and paid and is more expensive than digging up uranium ore in Australia, shipping it to France, and processing it to fuel...

I know: it's worse than PN junctions or GR, but that's exactly the case right now.

Ps.: take into consideration that post-soviet enriched U also has a really deep impact on the market, and their approach to environmental issues (=> price) is ... erm...

 

[PeterDonis]

Following your argumentation would imply that already processed and paid $\mathrm{UO_3}$ and $\mathrm{PuO_2}$ is more expensive than digging up uranium ore in Australia, shipping it to France, and processing it to fuel.

No, it doesn't. France reprocesses fuel from its own reactors. The fact that it sends back fuel reprocessed from other countries' reactors to those other countries does not mean its only alternative source of fuel is mining.

And if it is cheaper to dump that to re-use then the argument is void anyway.

Not at all. If the fuel doesn't get used right now, that doesn't mean it is "dumped". It just means it gets stored for a while until it is used. That's probably a time frame on the order of years, possibly decades, so even shorter than the other time frames we have discussed in this thread.

 

[Vanadium 50]

There is definitely opposition to nuclear power on moral grounds. There are those who feel it is more moral to lay waste to hundreds of square miles of land, kill hundrreds of thousands of people and displace millions that to use nuclear power. it is more mortal to prop of thugs in more than a few extremely repressive regimes than to use nuclear power. And so on. We won't decide this issue on PF, but we should not deny that it exists nor that it plays an important role in policy and decision making.

How long does nuclear waste last? That's an ill-defined question. Until the last atom has decayed? Until it is less radioactive than medical waste? Until it is less radioactive than the ore it was extracted from? The latter is about 2500 years. However, at this point all the remaining isotopes are long-lived: after half that time, your waste is only slightly more radioactive than the ore, and so on.

In my non-expert opinion, there are really only two isotopes you need to worry about: Cs-137 and Sr-90. Both have half lives around 30 years. So after a century, perhaps 2, there is very little left. At that time, everything with shorter half-lives is gone, and everything with longer half-lives is not all that radioactive.

I would also argue that waste should be reprocessed for medical uses before vitrification or whatever. There is a worldwide shortage of Tc-99m. We should extract the parent Mo-99 as soon as we can.

Note that extracting the remaining unburned fuel makes the waste more radioactive, not less. I think this is positive. You have less volume to dispose of. If you want a higher volume, well, OK, we'll just dissolve it molten glass.

 

[russ_watters]

Anyway, this is all politics. I tried to tell you the differences between the US and Germany, but you preferred not to believe me. Instead, you find it acceptable to claim that Angela Merkel made a, quote: "rather poor" decision based on your ignorance of the German history and specific situation.

The decision was political, and we are fully aware of the political reasons it was made (note: most of those reasons are the same in the US for why nuclear power stalled-out in the '80s). The criticism is technical.

 

[fresh_42]

The decision was political, and we are fully aware of the political reasons it was made. The criticism is technical.

It is not. It is the official US policy reading. E.g., the US opposition to Russian gas is directly connected with the political interests of the US to sell fracking LNG. It is rather naive to call one statement politics which by the way was also rude, and simultaneously censor any alternative opinion which you will as soon as I truly make political comments which I avoided so far.

To call Merkel's decision "rather poor" while having a) your own interest and b) ignoring over 50 years of German history, and then call this "technical" is a flippancy. Do you say it this way? I had to look it up. If "rather poor" is "technical", will I herewith officially be allowed to use this "technical" wording all over the place? I mean, its technical, right?

 

[russ_watters]

It is not. It is the official US policy reading. E.g., the US opposition to Russian gas is directly connected with the political interests of the US to sell fracking LNG.

It's tough to even wrap my head around that. You're claiming a hidden motivation for the criticism is that we're trying to advocate selling American gas? Really? No.

It is rather naive to call one statement politics which by the way was also rude, and simultaneously censor any alternative opinion which you will as soon as I truly make political comments which I avoided so far.

To call Merkel's decision "rather poor" while having a) your own interest and b) ignoring over 50 years of German history, and then call this "technical" is a flippancy. Do you say it this way? I had to look it up.

"rather poor" is an opinion based on the technical merits of the decision, at least for the most part. Yes, allusions were made to Russian gas, but that's an effect that wasn't really part of the decision. The decision was bad for technical reasons before that secondary effect happened.

 

[fresh_42]

The decision was bad for technical reasons before that secondary effect happened.

Sorry, but "rather poor" is an opinion. And a political opinion, too. I only asked why this was allowed. I tried to explain why it was wrong from a German point of view, but you commented basically that I would lie. These are all political statements and opinions. None of it is technical.

And what you cannot wrap your head around is a common point of view over here.

We are getting off-topic. Why do you post this discussion in that thread? (starting with post #185)

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry, but "rather poor" is an opinion. And a political opinion, too.

Here's how it works: you alluded to safety. I guarantee that everyone in this thread already knew that opponents of nuclear power claim safety as a concern and we neither need nor want the "book' of political back-story to that belief/claim. Safety is almost completely a technical issue, and one response was safety statistics showing that by a particular common metric, nuclear power is in fact one of the safest sources of electricity. So again, that's a technical opinion/criticism, not a political one.

 

[fresh_42]

Here's how it works: you alluded to safety. I guarantee that everyone in this thread already knew that opponents of nuclear power claim safety as a concern and we neither need nor want the "book' of political back-story to that belief/claim. Safety is almost completely a technical issue, and one response was safety statistics showing that by a particular common metric, nuclear power is in fact one of the safest sources of electricity. So again, that's a technical opinion/criticism, not a political one.

The wording is not and you justify political comments as "technical" if they are along your own, American opinions, and as "political" if they are not along these lines. I would call this ... but that would immediately be deleted as "politics".

To a risk assessment always belongs the function of costs of a disaster a society accepts to carry versus the benefit it brings and to whom in case these risks are taken. The German society was obviously not prepared to accept that risk. This is a political decision, yes, and only marginally depending on your statistics. I tried to explain that by referencing a five decades old debate and with the comparison of the risk of a commercial flight. It is safer flying than driving to the airport, but in case you are in a plane that crashes, the statistics won't help a lot. So if someone makes his personal decision not to fly because of it, then it is unfair to call it a "rather poor" decision. It isn't poor for that person. The same holds for the German decision to quit nuclear energy. It was right for the German society. To call it "rather poor" is nothing else than an insult.

I only dared to mention that if it was the other way around, and I had called a US decision "rather poor" then I would immediately get attacked and it would be deleted as politics. Heck, even hell broke loose by asking about this discrepancy!

 

[russ_watters]

Thread closed pending moderation -- by someone else beside me.

 

[berkeman]

After an extensive Mentor discussion, this thread will remain closed. It serves as a good illustration of why we try to keep threads from veering into politics.