• YungOnions
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    5 months ago

    OK, so whilst we wait the 7 years for the reactor to be built we should, what? hope that coal and gas stops polluting in the interim? Or should we continue to use the tech that, whilst not perfect, is better than the currently most widely used alternatives?

    Nuclear is expensive, slow to deploy and has a inherent risk that renewables do not:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3

    https://eu.boell.org/en/2021/04/26/7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-not-answer-solve-climate-change

    Plus the ewaste renewables produce can be recycled easily, cheaply and with far less risk than the waste for nuclear. Is the process perfect? No, so lets concentrate on improving the circular economy around recycling panels, turbines etc. Spend the money and effort on improving the tech that is already proven to be cheaper, more effective and ready now.

    • JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net
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      5 months ago

      And seven years seems quite optimistic considering how effectively local governments and committees of concerned NIMBYS have been blocking any new nuclear construction for like, my entire lifetime, at least in the US. Apparently nobody wants a nuclear power plant going up near them and they find a lot of creative ways to jam up the works. I’m not sure we have the time to try to ram dozens of nuclear power plants through those folks while the world is burning.

      • YungOnions
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        5 months ago

        Definitely. That 7 years was just the construction phase. All in the average nuclear plant takes about 14 years to build from planning to switch on.

        • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Lmao no the fuck it doesn’t. From start to finish the time to build has been set by Japan at 3 years. Stop fucking commenting on shit you don’t even try to learn about.

          • YungOnions
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            5 months ago

            Great, but unless you can get Japan to build every Nuclear reactor in the world, that’s a meaningless statistic, isn’t it? The average construction time for a PWR remains 7 years globally:

            https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/42/105/42105221.pdf?r=1&r=1

            This doesn’t account for planning etc etc so the actual time from pre project to switch on is closer to 11 years, which is admittedly 3 years less than my original figure:

            https://www.iaea.org/publications/8759/project-management-in-nuclear-power-plant-construction-guidelines-and-experience

            Also the fastest Nuclear power plant construction in the world is currently held by Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 NPP at 5.41 years, construction start to commercial operation:

            https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/020/30020307.pdf

            That often quoted 3 years doesn’t include inspections, testing etc.

            • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              “a meaningless statistic” goalposts? Gone.

              The time to create nuclear plants is far lower than what you quoted, should have been started a decade ago, and we’re still sitting here fucking debating whether we should start.

              In the most respectful way I can manage, stop bitching about time to build and start now. Encourage the people in charge to do it, now. Stop kicking the can down the road so we can go “damn I guess renewables weren’t enough, we should have made those plants a long time ago.”

              I’m hostile because I’m sick of the same attitude every year. “top expensive, too long, too unsafe” when it makes more power per dollar spent than any other method, is only a few years away even with inspections, and causes less deaths per GW/H including renewables and including the deaths/affected peoples from nuclear disasters.

              There is no more room for debate. Nuclear is and has been the option for decades and anyone saying it isn’t is just helping coal and oil. Full stop.

              • YungOnions
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                5 months ago

                The time to create nuclear plants is far lower than what you quoted

                The average construction time is 7 years. I quoted the International Atomic Energy Agency. I think they know what they’re talking about.

                and we’re still sitting here fucking debating whether we should start.

                That’s fine, I get you’re passionate about nuclear and that’s good, it’s better to be passionate about that than coal or gas. But you’re not going to ‘encourage’ anyone by hurling insults at them, are you?

                Also, your data is out of date. The LCOE of Nuclear is getting more expensive, not less. Wind is now the cheapest:

                https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

                And solar now has the fewest deaths per unit of electricity:

                https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh

                Look, I get that nuclear probably has its place. But you need to understand that renewables are rapidly becoming the option for carbon emission reduction, and that the evidence supports this. They’re doing this so quickly that by the time we start the process of constructing a NPP now, they will be even better by the time the plant goes into operation. Your point about how we should have started earlier is a valid one but, for a multitude of reasons, that isn’t the world we live in. So why spend time and money trying to change the global attitude towards nuclear when we can spend the same time and money building an arguably better solution that is almost unanimously agreed to be more effective right now?