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I can't stress enough how absolutely unwatchable this looks. People will side with climate change after this.
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@no-quarter said in Climate Change:
I can't stress enough how absolutely unwatchable this looks. People will side with climate change after this.
this poster alone has made me go outside, turn the ute on, and just leave it running until it's time to go home
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James Corden is enough for me although the fat fluffybunny looks to have shed a couple of kilos at least. Is there some rule in America that late night talk show hosts have to be completely unfunny fuckheads ? ( I don’t recognise the one with the massive forehead on the left though )
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@no-quarter said in Climate Change:
I can't stress enough how absolutely unwatchable this looks. People will side with climate change after this.
Wonder how many times they'll mention China being the largest problem here.
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@tim always amazed that, despite 70 years in business, nuclear has never gotten cheaper or easier.
The supporters like to talk up political opposition, NIMBYs, and the harsh regulations that nuclear face over other types of generation, but they can't ever answer the simple question: why is a longstanding, well understood technology not following the same cost curve as almost every other technology in energy or otherwise.
Why don't we have Thorium reactors? Or at least some form of widespread deployment of a Gen IV with all the safety and high yield? They've been working on it for 20 years ffs...
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@nta said in Climate Change:
@tim always amazed that, despite 70 years in business, nuclear has never gotten cheaper or easier.
The supporters like to talk up political opposition, NIMBYs, and the harsh regulations that nuclear face over other types of generation, but they can't ever answer the simple question: why is a longstanding, well understood technology not following the same cost curve as almost every other technology in energy or otherwise.
Why don't we have Thorium reactors? Or at least some form of widespread deployment of a Gen IV with all the safety and high yield? They've been working on it for 20 years ffs...
Not wanting to dis you Nick but I'm thinking because they don't work well enough to be be cost efficient? Coz if they were corporations would be in to them?
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@nta I think it's because they stopped building nuclear reactors for a long time, and lost the expert knowledge and trained leadership and staff to build them. France had a great record of cheap and safe nuclear power, but stopped building reactors for decades.
Enormous obstacles have been put in the path of new reactors, and dismissing them is asinine, but the great pause in construction is a unique challenge for a mega scale industry.
A tragic indictment on western society.
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@booboo said in Climate Change:
@nta said in Climate Change:
@tim always amazed that, despite 70 years in business, nuclear has never gotten cheaper or easier.
The supporters like to talk up political opposition, NIMBYs, and the harsh regulations that nuclear face over other types of generation, but they can't ever answer the simple question: why is a longstanding, well understood technology not following the same cost curve as almost every other technology in energy or otherwise.
Why don't we have Thorium reactors? Or at least some form of widespread deployment of a Gen IV with all the safety and high yield? They've been working on it for 20 years ffs...
Not wanting to dis you Nick but I'm thinking because they don't work well enough to be be cost efficient? Coz if they were corporations would be in to them?
Well it is mainly the capital cost, and the promise that they'll deliver cheap energy or 80 years (yet to be anywhere near proven). Getting finance for something that might not deliver a single kWh for a decade is a big ask.
Part of it is lack of standardisation - if everyone just agreed on a particular design and capacity it would make manufacturing a lot easier.
France sort of did that back when they built their fleet in the 70s in light of the oil threat, but that thinking seems to have fallen by the wayside.
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are supposed to be the future, but it'll be at least 2 decades before they're economic. I'd love to see them get a go, tho.
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@tim said in Climate Change:
@nta I think it's because they stopped building nuclear reactors for a long time, and lost the expert knowledge and trained leadership and staff to build them. France had a great record of cheap and safe nuclear power, but stopped building reactors for decades.
Enormous obstacles have been put in the path of new reactors, and dismissing them is asinine, but the great pause in construction is a unique challenge for a mega scale industry.
A tragic indictment on western society.
I agree in the main, but ultimately it is just an engineering challlenge.
Like space travel, the industry generally operates on cost-plus so making it cheaper or more efficient isn't in the builder's interests when demand is low.
Nuclear needs a SpaceX style shakeup to transform the industry. Hopefully SMRs start getting regulatory approval at speed to be that kind of change.
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@nta said in Climate Change:
@tim always amazed that, despite 70 years in business, nuclear has never gotten cheaper or easier.
The supporters like to talk up political opposition, NIMBYs, and the harsh regulations that nuclear face over other types of generation, but they can't ever answer the simple question: why is a longstanding, well understood technology not following the same cost curve as almost every other technology in energy or otherwise.
Why don't we have Thorium reactors? Or at least some form of widespread deployment of a Gen IV with all the safety and high yield? They've been working on it for 20 years ffs...
You list some of the reasons and then wonder why? Are you creating your own straw man or would you like to actually know?
Making reactors is relatively simple until you decide to make new designs. France's experience in the 1970s-80s showed the benefit of proven designs, economies of scale. For those reasons we'd see the same outcome if we invested in a fleet of them now. The first ones would be expensive, the resulting ones would be increasingly cheaper and the dependency, cleanliness, safety and cheapness of each MWh these reactors produced would be a god send.
Bob Carr, shit NSW premier and shitter foreign minister actually wrote that nuclear is so bad it doesn't attract any investors in Australia. No shit dickhead - it's specifically prevented in legislation. What moron would invest? Meanwhile other countries that care about dependable cheap electricity are rolling the fuckers out.
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@nta The thing is that there is no tolerance for mistakes, little opportunity for pilot plants, and new regulations that have required new designs. So there is a massive loss of knowledge at the level of engineering practice, combined with requirement for new designs, and no tolerance for mistakes or experimental trials. Very difficult situation.
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@tim https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/
Interesting article summarising a study of the US experience.
Standardisation is not necessarily cheaper (which surprised me), and many cost overruns seem to be due to poor project management. Safety isn't the whole story, either.
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@tim said in Climate Change:
@nta Cost of finance between (then) governments and (now) companies is likely an important and overlooked factor.
Interest rates are at an all-time low BUT not for 50+ year loans. Capital cost makes the interest payments utterly shit house tho.
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@dogmeat said in Climate Change:
You can't build a hydro plant in NZ because of compliance costs. What chance nuclear?
No new hydro in the South Island will likely mean NZ's emissions will increase. Are there many more sites suitable for geothermal?
Here's California's solution:
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@antipodean Top Energy has the only plant that I am aware of outside of the Taupo / Kawerau field. It opened two years ago at Ngawha near Kaikohe. It's about 50MW with an expansion already underway that will take it to 80. There is about 350MW of capacity being built / planned for the Taupo area.
With hydro a dead duck there is again talk of a tidal bore either in the Kaipara or Cook Strait. I'd think the former would run into a lot of objections and the latter would have engineering issues.
Wind farms continue to crop up everywhere but are expensive and the government has talked a lot about a pumped hydro solution. We even have a couple of very low generation solar farms - in Taranaki of all places - with plans for a larger one in the Far North.
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@dogmeat said in Climate Change:
@antipodean Top Energy has the only plant that I am aware of outside of the Taupo / Kawerau field. It opened two years ago at Ngawha near Kaikohe. It's about 50MW with an expansion already underway that will take it to 80. There is about 350MW of capacity being built / planned for the Taupo area.
Another of those should account for the draw the NI takes from the SI. Ending reliance on coal and gas is an order of magnitude more difficult.
Given the lack of success in Kiwibuild, I'd not have much hope in a government lead initiative to raise the energy efficiency of existing homes either.
Over the ditch we're doubling down on bad policy by providing interest free loans for those who can afford to get battery storage, an EV or solar. Although I'm opposed to it as a policy measure, I'm not completely stupid so as to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Climate Change