My yoga instructor says apple cider works better than vaccines and its all natural!
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The majority of France’s nuclear power plants isnt active because they are old as fuck. The rivers dont carry enough water anymore for cooling but yeah during a time when Europe is facing one of the worst droughts its a good idea to focus on nuclear power. Its also not very clear where we would get the custom made fuel elements not to mention that a lot of this kind of fuel comes from Russia as well. Oh and the energy companies already said “nope we dont want to expand the usuage”. So good luck to force them and finding the manpower.
As much as some people see rejecting nuclear power as a religion the other side is up to par in downplaying the risks and the infrastructure needed to run nuclear power safely.
They are old because environmental zealots have prevented new builds. The second largest producer of plant-grade uranium is in the province next to me. Fuel is easily and redly available. New builds focus on coastal locations that can use sea water. Finally, none of your concerns have any meaning without the “compared to what”. Skipping the last part is why so much of the environmental movement has trouble getting serious perch at the policy table.
Also a little research shows me France’s plants are still active. Just produces less during periods of water stress.
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I could say the same for the other side having prevented building wind turbines, solar or a power grid to get offshore wind energy down to the southern parts of Germany. And nobody wants waste being stored next to him. There is an eternal fight for the final repository option in Germany.
France: 56 unzuverlässige Reaktoren: Frankreich - Atomnation mit Stromproblem - n-tv.de
unfortunately its in German so I try to translate some points for you:
- 56 reactors in 18 nuclear power plants
- produced 80% of the energy needed in France of about 439 TWh in 2005
- this year they expect it to be around 295-315 TWh - because regularly about half of the reactor capacity isnt available
- average age: 37 years
- in 2020 the combined downtime was about 6465 days, thats about 115 days each reactor is down, that was 44% more than expected
- to save money they stopped storing spare parts 15 years ago
- most of these reactors are standardized, what was once cost effective is now becoming a boomerang because if there is a design fault all of them have it
- France switched from exporteur to energy importeur because of the downtime
- the weather related downtime was 166 days between 2015 and 2020 because of heat waves and droughts
I’m surprised that the sargassum problem doesn’t get much play in the media. Caribbean, Florida Atlantic and Mexican beaches are basically ruined now from April - Sept and it keeps getting worse.
nuclear energy waste is the biggest misunderstood item in the world. It’s mainly clothes and tools that was worn by people who did work somewhat near the core. It’s not very harmful unless you breathe the particles in and then they get stuck in your lungs and increase your chance of cancer in 10-25 years. The half lives are also only a few hundred years or less. Everyone thinks of the 100k year super radioactive stuff when they think of nuclear waste, but that shit is the core and gets buried with the plant when it’s decommissioned, not transported anywhere.
Also the fuel rods.
As an aside. I think it’s kind of cool that they have to keep them in big pools of water for 10 years so they dont heat up and melt from all the low level fission.
Nuclear fears are massively overblown. But they shouldn’t be completely dismissed. The fact that nuclear power stations can never get insurance on the open market and rely on government bailouts for any catastrophes is pretty telling. Talk about private profits and public costs/risks.
My own view is that the biggest missed opportunity was nuclear over the last 30 years. It’s going to become less and less relevant over the next 30 years, because it doesnt work well in a 70% plus renewables grid, and that’s where we are all going because that shit is cheap cheap cheap and getting cheaper.
Did a quick search and didn’t see it mentioned
The Arctic Sea Ice Forum
Is a great place for climate info data and analysis. It focuses mainly on Arctic ice but has lots of subforums, on Antarctic ice, CO2 data, etc. It’s heavily moderated btw.
Every year they have a arctic ice melt thread which is pretty exciting: The 2022 melting season - Arctic sea ice - Arctic Sea Ice : Forum
Doesn’t look like this year’s melt will set a record, but one summer it’s just going to go “poof” and then we’re off to the races
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The fuel rods are buried with the plant. They never leave or are moved anywhere.
I think we may be speaking at cross purposes. Do you mean the control rods?
A quick google would confirm for you that spent fuel is transported all the time.
Maybe for some plants, most plants have them stored within the plant itself once cooled. Also, the fuel rods last a decent amount of time so its not like it’s high volume.
Spent fuel rods last too long to keep them with the plant. When a plant gets decommissioned which eventually has to happen the fuel rods and other long term radioactive parts should be moved and stored somewhere safe. Not having a good solution for this is what stopped most countries from building new plants.
We’re not talking about trainloads of waste, they get encased in concrete and stored on site for years with long term solutions not really a high priority since there’s usually enough space on site and the plants don’t last 100 years.
We are talking about waste that is dangerous for a lot longer than concrete encasing lasts. Keeping it on site for 100 years is just pushing a problem to the next generation and a lot of governments made the call that this is not acceptable.
104f/40c forecasts for the UK where there is little to no air conditioning. Completely insane.
Yeah, we’re fucked.
Reminds me of Seattle last year. Greatest number of days of 90+ weather ever recorded in one year.
We are still in the very earliest stages of drastic climate change. It’s boggling how many people who even acknowledge it’s happening still think it’s going to mostly effect other people in some other place.
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I think it’s accelerating faster than the models predict too which is frankly terrifying. I have spent the last decade or so(contributing to climate change) traveling all over and it’s striking to me how in almost every other country people talk about how climate change is fucking up their way of life. Whether it is growing coffee in Colombia, vinyards in France and just about everything else i have seen. I’m in the DR right now and the beaches are wrecked with nasty seaweed that wasn’t a problem in 2011 the last time i was here.
What is striking about it is in the US we aren’t even really having those conversations yet even as we run out of water and endure hotter and hotter temps and more extreme weather that are obviously observable even in our short lifetimes.
I’m not that old (40) but i spent my entire summers outdoors playing sports and riding my bike rarely caring much about the heat in Kansas. I can’t imagine that now.
If it makes you feel better. The beach seaweed is probably a different large scale man made environmental catastrophe. From pumping trillions of tons of sewage and chemical fertilizer into the ocean for 50 years.
Climate change is the largest. But we are doing a good job fucking up the planet in a bunch of other novel ways.
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