There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

A nuclear plant’s closure was hailed as a green win. Then emissions went up

Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation

When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.

But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.

Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.

Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.

somethingchameleon ,

If you ever see someone shilling solar over nuclear, it’s because they are useful idiots succumbing to propaganda.

You can sell solar to any moron, which is why there are so many dipshits on these forums shilling it without understanding it.

psychothumbs ,

Hard to imagine how anyone who’s concerned about climate change could see shutting down a carbon-free energy source as a “green win”.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

There’s a legitimate argument that we can’t grow our way out of climate change, and the real solution to our emissions problem is degrowth and descaling of our obscene rates of consumption. In that sense, had they been closing the plant with the expectation of drastically reducing energy demand, it might have made sense.

Its not as though nuclear energy produces no waste, just extremely low levels of CO2 waste. But if you’re just going to replace energy demand (and continue to grow energy supply) with new coal/gas consumption, who are you fooling except yourselves?

AeonFelis ,

In that sense, had they been closing the plant with the expectation of drastically reducing energy demand, it might have made sense.

I really hate this kind of reasoning. Even if we do manage to reduce our energy consumption, closing the nuclear plant would still be more harmful to the environment because we could have closed fossil fuel plants instead. Unless, of course, we’d manage to reduce energy consumption so much that we wouldn’t need any non-renewable energy sources - which I don’t think is very realistic assumption. Certainly not realistic enough to make such a gamble on.

The only way closing the nuclear plant would have been beneficial to the environment would be if the act of closing it would have caused a reduction in our energy consumption that is greater than the energy the plant itself was producing (minus some extra energy from fossil fuel plants that take up its “emission budget” to increase their own energy production). Which is also quite unrealistic. I actually think it makes more sense that it achieved the opposite effect, since closing the plant took up activists’ effort and environmental publicity, which could have been used to push for reducing consumption instead.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Even if we do manage to reduce our energy consumption, closing the nuclear plant would still be more harmful to the environment because we could have closed fossil fuel plants instead

At some point you have to acknowledge nuclear power (particularly from planes dating back to the 60s/70s) as their own waste problem.

And you can try to address this waste with more modern clean up techniques. Or you can decommission these old plants. But just waiting for derelict facilities to crumble, on the ground that “Nuclear Good / FF Bad” means another generation of Fukushima like events that drive people further from nuclear as a long term solution.

iopq ,

That’s not a legitimate argument because the West combined emits less CO2 than just China. The economy of the West is growing, but emitting less carbon because of more green power sources, one of which being nuclear

spiderplant , (edited )

A lot of that is still the Wests carbon, just because our products and materials are now coming from China doesn’t mean we are absolved from the responsibility of those emissions. This is why reduce was meant to be the biggest part of reduce, reuse, recycle, and this means degrowth.

Also the economy of the West is shrinking because of the depletion of easy to access fossil fuesl, despite renewables.

Another interesting article about one of the most polluting sectors, the steel industry. It explains that green power sources might mean more fossil fuels not less and it also talks about why China can’t adopt clean steel production to the same level we can.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

the West combined emits less CO2 than just China.

Not even remotely true, per capita.

iopq ,

Because a lot of Chinese people still do sustenance farming. They don’t add to carbon, they actually might be carbon negative since they grow crops

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Because a lot of Chinese people still do sustenance farming.

That hasn’t been true in decades.

iopq ,

I’ve met them in Yunnan last year, lmao, you have no idea, you’ve never been to China so shut the fuck the up

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

you’ve never been to China

It’s funny to hear folks call you a Wumao “never even been to China” in such short order.

It takes a lot of time and money to travel the world. But I’m sure you have an abundance of both, right? I certainly don’t, which is why I post Chinese Propaganda for a living.

iopq ,

You should not comment on things you don’t have basic knowledge of

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Uh huh

somethingchameleon ,

Blame solarbros and their useful idiots.

There’s a SHIT TON of propaganda surrounding solar because average people can get duped into buying it.

It’s a lot harder to rip people off with other forms of energy because communities need to make a collective decision to use them.

Any moron can get suckered into buying solar, which is why you see so many scumbags and useful idiots shilling it on forums

psychothumbs ,

I don’t think I can agree with you there. Solar power is an incredibly valuable technology, in many ways more so than nuclear. If we were replacing this nuclear energy with increased solar I’d have no complaint. The problem is solar is already growing as fast as it can with or without shutting down any nuclear plants, so what it’s actually replaced with as discussed in this article is fossil fuels. Hopefully the solar curve can catch up eventually and shut down those fossil fuels as well, but it’s ridiculous to ditch nuclear before then.

somethingchameleon ,

If we were replacing this nuclear energy with increased solar I’d have no complaint.

We got one, boys.

Learn how the power grid works before commenting further.

Here’s a video to get you started: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1BMWczn7JM

psychothumbs ,

Wow you are unpleasant

TheObviousSolution ,

Radioactive waste emissions went up? That’s pretty odd.

Smokeless7048 ,

No really, coal has pretty high nuclear emissions, but these are vented into the enviroment, instead of controlled and contained.

TheObviousSolution , (edited )

That’s why they cordoned off half of 19th century Europe, they used coal stoves and had become an irradiated wasteland.

splonglo ,

The people who wanted it shut down talked about local safety issues like groundwater contamination. Green advocates generally understand that nuclear is better for CO2 and it’s dumb to shut them down. Feel like the article is muddying the issue by using ‘green’ to mean multiple things.

mcc ,

YOU understands it is dumb to shut them down. You are not necessarily the average green advocate. The average anything advocate / activists these days are usually much dumber than the general concerned citizens.

splonglo ,

I’d argue that impressions like that are given by somewhat misleading articles like this.

Nurgle ,

Headline and quoted blurb do seem to omit the fact that NY will be tapping into Canadian hydro in 2027 as well as some wind projects.

ILikeBoobies ,

environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.

That doesn’t sound right, it’s fossil fuel simps that are anti-nuclear

More likely they wanted it to be updated

FarFarAway ,

After Fukushima there was a pretty widespread movement to get rid of nuclear power.

They probably definitely wanted it closed. To bad they didn’t guess the likely alternatives that would take its place, an push for that too…

Gradually_Adjusting ,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.ca avatar

Literal power vacuum

Blackmist ,

There does seem to be a portion of green types who are anti nuclear. You only heard those voices on the issue because the fossil fuel people knew they would benefit anyway.

Renewables are great but you take them when you can make them. Batteries to store it seen to be more expensive than anyone is willing to pay. Nuclear is expensive and only worth running at full throttle. The gaps are filled by fossil fuels which can be fired up very quickly.

Fuck biomass, that’s just chopping down trees to burn them. The fuck is green about that?

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Environmentalists have only come around to nuclear in the last half-decade or so. For a long time after 3MI and Chernobyl, nuclear was the devil.

ILikeBoobies ,

Must be a regional thing

My whole life nuclear was pushed

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

There was a genuine split on the issue in environmentalist communities. The Sierra Club, for instance, has pretty much always been an advocate for nuclear when it replaces coal. The WWF has also advocated nuclear as a means of reduced mining and drilling.

But both of these endorsements are predicated on long-term waste mitigation and clean-up of industrial sites. The Yucca Mountain waste deposit site that never got built, for instance. Or modernized thorium recyclers to handle the byproducts of traditional uranium waste that the US declined to develop or deploy.

They also almost universally disapprove of the manufacture of plutonium, both because it contributes to higher levels of plant waste and because the plutonium becomes fissile material capable of ending all life on earth.

So it isn’t just “environmentalists came around on this lately”. Its a whole host of modernizations and waste management actions that NEVER GET BUILT and are then used to prod environmentalist groups into protest.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Environmentalists are always and forever the prime movers in national politics, don’t you know? Cause they’ve got billions of dollars at their disposal and an enormous base of employees to draw on for electoral activism and lots of friendly former-environmentalists in positions of elected / appointed authority.

Who can forget the wise worlds of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he warned us all of the threat of the Environmentalist Industrial Complex?

the_crotch ,

One of the biggest environmental groups in the world is vehemently anti nuclear

www.greenpeace.org/usa/…/nuclear/

skulkingaround ,

As someone who was vehemently pro nuclear, unfortunately we missed the boat. The time to invest heavy in nuclear was 50 years ago and instead we did the opposite. Renewables have caught up and nuclear is so far behind that it makes zero sense to build any new reactors when we can just build out more renewable power gen and battery storage for less money and without the whole nuclear waste handling problem.

ILikeBoobies ,

Battery tech isn’t there yet, the production and sourcing isn’t green enough and the assurances aren’t there

skulkingaround ,

A few years ago you would be right but we’re just about there, especially once sodium ion batteries become more mature which is definitely going to be a “next few years” thing, not a speculative maybe it’ll happen someday thing. There’s also ways to store power other than chemical batteries, like pumped storage hydro.

exhaust_fan ,

Best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago. Second best time is now.

skulkingaround ,

Sure, if we could snap our fingers and have a bunch of nuclear plants it would make sense. But the tech is all ancient, and the regulatory structure is oppressive. It will take decades to build out the amount of nuclear capacity we need and cost inordinate amounts of money, and we’ve already passed the tipping point where renewables are the better choice.

Just as an example, it took us 14 years to build a single reactor in the Vogtle plant costing over $30 billion dollars. We’d need massive reforms to the regulations and supply chain for building reactors to bring those numbers down and that just won’t happen fast enough.

Even China, who is the world leader in nuclear power these days is slowing down building of new reactors in favor of renewables, and they do not have the regulations and supply issues we have in the USA.

exhaust_fan ,

Please don’t be so defeatist.

skulkingaround ,

I wouldn’t call it defeatist, nuclear should never be more than a stopgap to 100% renewables. if anything, it’s awesome that we’ve gotten far enough with renewables that switching to them entirely is now a viable proposition. It sucks that we spent so much time dependent on fossil fuels when we could’ve been using nuclear, but the past is the past and the future is bright.

I will say, small modular reactors might have a place in the energy mix. They would be fantastic for more isolated grids where stability is difficult to achieve with 100% renewable energy. Think small island nations or remote areas. Also would be good for emergency and disaster recovery scenarios. We (as in the USA) also already have the supply chain to build them somewhat efficiently since we use them on our aircraft carriers. Just needs some tweaking to work well on land and for the regulations to loosen up to make it economically feasible.

somethingchameleon ,

Eh. No shortage of useful idiots on these forums saying solar should replace nuclear.

They just don’t understand how the power grid works.

roguetrick ,

Their 40 year license with the nuclear regulatory commission ran out and they felt that getting it relicensed was too expensive. Yeah a bunch of folks were hyperbolic about it, but holding a 40 year old reactor to modern standards isn’t bad either. It’s still economics that is holding nuclear back.

derf82 ,

Their 40 year license with the nuclear regulatory commission ran out and they felt that getting it relicensed was too expensive.

No, they applied for a 20-year renewal but faced pushback from the state of New York and were forced to close in a legal settlement.

www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47776

Indian Point’s owner-operator, Entergy, retired Units 2 and 3 before their operating licenses expired as part of a settlement agreement with New York State. Entergy had been seeking a 20-year license renewal for both reactor units since 2007. However, New York challenged the renewals, citing environmental and safety concerns resulting from the plant’s nearness to New York City.

Baalf ,

Lol, anti-environment propaganda. Also, it’s really hard for me to accept nuclear energy as a source, considering how dangerous it can be, and because of the fact that ANTI-environmentalists are pushing for it so hard.

Dagwood222 ,

But wind turbines kill birds!

Fossil fuel advocates always have a reason to fight for their paymasters.

RatBin ,

I may not like nuclear, but if we want to decarbonise we need some more of it. Maybe before phasing out older and unsafe plants, we can start to build a new one in its place? I don’t know this is not my field

Zink ,

Yeah, on one hand nuclear energy is very safe, runs 24/7, and doesn’t belch greenhouse gases and poisons into the air. But on the other hand, it’s expensive, takes a long time to build, and many people are irrationally afraid of it.

Unfortunately, I think the real-world decisions are going to be dictated 99% by economics. But that can turn back into a good thing as green/renewable energy gets cheaper and cheaper.

afraid_of_zombies ,

and many people are irrationally afraid of it.

I wish we had some place where all the anti-nuclear, flat earthers, theists, anti-GMO, vaxxers, etc. could live and pray in peace…far away from the rest of us.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

The cheaper renewable energy gets the less economic sense a nuclear power plant makes. If you design a multi-billion-dollar plant for an expected electricity price and that price drops in half before the plant is completed now it won’t make a profit for twice as long.

Zink ,

For sure. If renewables are already significantly cheaper, and that’s because the cost has been falling and falling, how much cheaper will they be in another decade?

For nuclear, maybe the only hope is if SMRs ever take off and benefit from some economies of scale. If you can just order a handful of modular reactors from the factory and be selling electricity within a year, that changes the whole dynamic.

Unfortunately I think the latest I read about it is that SMRs are currently more expensive per watt than the traditional nuclear plants, and they’re focusing on remote areas and industrial heat and stuff like that. If that’s correct, we might need a solar-like rapidly dropping price for them to compete for mainstream grid power use.

gmtom ,

I beg you Lemmy, dont be like a redditor that just reads the purposefully inflammatory headlines and gets mad over it. Always assume a headline is supposed to get a specific emotional response from you and read the article.

For this one the environmental concerns people had were not about carbon emissions, they were about groundwater contamination

It faced a constant barrage of criticism over safety concerns, however, particularly around the leaking of radioactive material into groundwater and for harm caused to fish when the river’s water was used for cooling.

The plant as well as NYs other plants that face a lot of criticism were built in the 60s long before much of the modern saftey measures and building techniques that make Modern reactors so safe. And thats why they were decommissioned, they were almost 60 years old and way past their initial life span. Not because of “Dumb environmental activists think taking nuclear power offline will decrease carbon emissions” like whoever wrote this headline is trying to get you to assume.

You are not immune to propaganda.

jose1324 ,

THANK YOU ffs

derf82 ,

Modern is a misnomer. Most of our plants are 30+ years old. After 3 Mile Island, nuclear development ground to a halt in the US. No new nuclear power began development after 1979 except 2 new reactors at the existing Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia that were approved in 2009.

And only one reactor at Indian Point came online in the 60s. Units 2 and 3 came online 12 and 14 years after unit one. And unit 1 was decommissioned in 1974 as it is, shortly after unit 2 came online.

In any case, why not fix the issue rather than just shutting the plant?

And that does not make the headline “inflammatory.” It is accurate. People just assume that nuclear will be magically replaced by renewables. But you can’t just do that. You can draw a direct line from the closure of Indian Point to the construction of 3 natural gas turbine plants.

Three natural gas-fired power plants have been introduced over the past three years to help support the electric supply needed by New York City that Indian Point had been providing: Bayonne Energy Center II (120 MW), CPV Valley Energy Center (678 MW), and Cricket Valley Energy Center (1,020 MW).

gmtom ,

In any case, why not fix the issue rather than just shutting the plant?

Because just patching up an old faulty nuclear power plant thats past its expected service life is a recipe for disaster. Hence why we have service lifetimes for these things in the first place?

And that does not make the headline “inflammatory.” It is accurate

It absolutely is inflammatory. Its specifically trying to conflate environmental concerns of polluted groundwater with carbon emissions, to make it seem like the people who voiced those concerns are idiots.

derf82 ,

thats past its expected service life

Citation needed. It received a 40-year permit to start because that was the max permit issued.

Lots of things last well past their “expected service life.” That is why there is the word EXPECTED. The problem was in the spent fuel pools. They could build brand new ones.

Tell me, what was the expected service life of the Brooklyn Bridge? Should people avoid it because continuing to use it is “a recipe for disaster?”

The fact is, intensive inspections would have been required for another permit to continue operating.

Listen, if you think we should build newer and better nuclear power plants, I am right with you. But until that happens, we cannot just flush what we have down the toilet.

Should we build wind and solar? Absolutely. But we also need green power that works when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, and that is what Indian Point gave the state of NY for decades.

It absolutely is inflammatory. Its specifically trying to conflate environmental concerns of polluted groundwater with carbon emissions, to make it seem like the people who voiced those concerns are idiots.

It cites a “green win.” The groundwater issue is absolutely a green issue.

But even then, those pushing to close it down claimed it would be replaced by green energy. The National Resourced Defence Council claimed that “Indian Point Is Closing, but Clean Energy Is Here to Stay.” The claimed that “because of New York’s landmark 2019 climate legislation and years of clean energy planning and investments by the state, New York is better positioned today than ever to achieve its ambitious climate and clean energy goals without this risky plant.”

So, yes, it was absolutely advertised as a climate win that the NY would easily replace it with renewable energy, even when those 3 gas turbine plants were being bought online.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

In any case, why not fix the issue rather than just shutting the plant?

Because the bean counters counted the beans and found that it wouldn’t be profitable.

Zetta ,

The plant should have been closed for updating and modernization, not just closed permanently.

Nuclear is the only way we will get to carbon neutral emissions anytime soon.

gmtom ,

You cant really just keep “modernising” ancient reactor designs forever. Eventually you’ll need to close them down and build something else.

And realistically it makes way way more sense to build Wind power than nuclear to get us to carbon neutral. We can build a 50mw wind farm in 6 months.

For comparison Hinkley Point C in the UK was announces in 2010 and is currently expected to be commissioned by 2029.

That means if we built wind instead we would have built 1900MW of capacity in the time it would have taken to build the NPP and by the time the reactors would generate power for the first time the wind farms would already have generated 17 GW/years of power. If we stopped building more wind farms when the NPP completed it would take the reactor 14 more years just to catch up to the wind farms. And if we continue to build wind farms nuclear literally never catches up as total wind capacity would overtake the capacity of the NPP by year 13.

Yes you can make arguments about the uptime of wind, but I think ive made my point. And thats not even factoring in the cost/MW of capacity.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

This is a great point about renewables: A partially finished solar or wind power installation can produce some power and start recouping costs. A nuclear plant doesn’t start bringing in income until it’s completely finished, so all those billions tied up in design and construction are a liability for a lot longer.

Zetta ,

You didn’t factor in that nuclear only takes forever because we haven’t done it in a long time and have lost all of the knowledge and skilled builders that know how to do it. If we properly pursued new nuclear plants in the US on a federal and state level it would absolutely be the best option.

I know you touched on it but the battery storage needed to make wind reliable would be enormous.

I’m a firm believer nuclear and renewables are what we need to be spending our time and money, not one or the other but both.

gmtom ,

You didn’t factor in that nuclear only takes forever because we haven’t done it in a long time and have lost all of the knowledge and skilled builders that know how to do it.

I didn’t, because its not true.

France has been building new reactors consistently since they started in the 50s and yet their latest reactor Flamamville 3 has been under construction since 2007.

The only people that can do Nuclear quickly are China through a combination of lesser safety standards, their totalitarian government, and the massive scale at which they are building them.

know you touched on it but the battery storage needed to make wind reliable would be enormous.

You don’t need batteries to make windows viable, there are lots of solutions, the most obvious being to just overbuild it.

I’m a firm believer nuclear and renewables are what we need to be spending our time and money, not one or the other but both

I’m not, nuclear just doesn’t make sense to build right now, nuclesr is a medium tern solution to a long term problem that needs immediate solutions.

You get way way more MWs per $ with wind. Wind farms can be built in 6 months and start generating power immediately. Even the fastest NPPs can’t compete. Wind farms can be built anywhere because they take no workers to operate and requite much less lightly skilled workers to maintain and no water to oeprate (so arent affected by droughts). They are less hindered by planning regulations, nimbys and protest groups, can be built onshore or offshore and also don’t have the chance to make an area uninhabitable for generations.

The only advantages nuclear has is a smaller footprint which is mitigated by wind being dispersed and stable output. Which is something that can be compensated for in wind.

CancerMancer ,

Besides the text of the article, there is the issue that environmentalist fear-mongering about nuclear energy caused extreme hesitance to build a new plant and that has lead directly to greenhouse gas emissions increases.

Indeed, we are not immune to propaganda.

gmtom ,

Well when you consider that reactors at the time werent as safe as they are now, and that we had several high profile nuclear reactor failures at around the same time, that were all pretty narrowly stopped from becoming even worse disasters and all those reactors were “Perfectly safe” until they werent and also just how deeply awful the effects of radiation is. Do you think its actually “fear mongering” or reasonable concern? I suppose the difference depends mostly on which side of the argument you are on.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

Environmentalists can’t stop oil and gas companies from drilling and fracking and spilling and polluting. If nuclear was profitable environmentalists wouldn’t be able to stop it either.

The only reason we have so many nuclear plants is because the government subsidized them because they produce material that can be used in weapons. Just the reactor on its own isn’t profitable for decades, which is too long for a company to wait for a return even in the good old days before profits needed to grow every quarter.

derf82 ,

Well, nuclear can be profitable. It’s just that fossil fuels are more profitable.

But this is also where the government needs to step in. There should be a carbon tax to account for the climate change externality. Also, clean sources of power including nuclear should be subsidized.

Keep in mind that while environmentalists maybe can’t stop it, some of them happily join a coalition with NIMBYs and indeed, fossil fuel companies to stop nuclear.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

Even if the government did start heavily subsidizing nuclear, it will take a decade for new plants to come online. In the meantime, hundreds of gigawatts of renewables will come online, and storage and efficiency technologies will improve immensely. Like I said in another comment, if renewable power lowers the price of electricity, the nuclear plant will take even longer to be profitable.

derf82 ,

We can keep the existing plants we have going. And even in the future, I believe there is space for nuclear. It is still far more consistent at generating power.

And I doubt renewables will make power cheaper.

Listen, the companies building gas turbine generators are not stupid. They know they will run for decades. Renewable energy, while good, just cannot meet increasing demands for power on its own.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

And I doubt renewables will make power cheaper.

Except it already has. It’s cheaper (hence a lower electricity price) to build new wind or solar than it is to continue operating a coal power plant. And because they’re renewable the only real costs are the initial construction and some fairly easy maintenance. Without the fuel costs the real price of electricity will go down over time. A rooftop solar system will pay for itself after 7-10 years and from then on the electricity is essentially free.

Meanwhile, when Vogtle 3 came online last year electricity prices in Georgia went because they passed along the cost of construction to customers.

Plus, building a nuclear power plant takes decades. Vogtle 3 started planning in 2006, and took a decade to build and didn’t come online until last year. In the meantime the price of solar dropped by 75%, and we’ve added 38 GW of solar capacity. Wind went down in price about 25% and added 130 GW of capacity.

So I’d rather wait a decade to tear down the gas turbine generators - or power them with biofuel somehow - than wait for a nuclear plant to come online.

derf82 ,

I’ve checked and rechecked my power bill. Definitely not cheaper.

I live in the Great Lakes, where essentially it is cloudy 90% of the time from October-April. My home has a relative roof that faces east and west, not south. Rooftop solar does not pay for itself here so easily. And that is besides the regulations the power companies have placed on it, essentially eliminating even net metering and only giving you pennies for excess power production.

The planet can’t wait a decade while we build out renewables. We have to keep what nuclear we have going at least.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

I guess the regulatory environment in PA is nicer, because I can buy 100% renewable electricity for around 3¢/kWh cheaper here than the standard price for dirty energy from the utility. I don’t have rooftop solar either and can’t because of a big tree, but I still benefit from more renewables.

But I agree that if we’re going to have nuclear be a significant component of greenhouse gas reductions we’re going to have to keep the ones we have. Mostly because new ones won’t produce anything but carbon emissions for 10 years while they’re being built, while solar and wind will start producing power even before the projects are finished.

P.S. The fact that we don’t have offshore wind on the Great Lakes is a waste of good cold air.

derf82 ,

The Great Lakes presents a difficult problem for offshore wind. Since it is fresh water and not salt water, you have to deal with far more ice. Ice beats the shit out of anything left on the lake. Though, with climate change going the way it is, maybe it won’t be a problem at all.

Yeah, here in Ohio things are run by Republicans. The party of small government wants to block most renewable development in the state. And renewable energy is certainly no cheaper here. They have also helped utilities more to more fixed cost billing that makes solar (and also electrifying in place of natural gas) not economically feasible for many.

And I’m not sure picking a supplier that promises renewables, anyway. It’s not like you get to pick and choose the electrons that come to your home. You get whatever is on the grid.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

There was a pretty big scandal about companies promising 100% renewable and not giving it a few years back, so they cracked down on that and I’m confident that I’m at least paying for renewable electrons to get put onto the grid.

PA does a lot of things bad (cough PennDOT cough) but it does a good job of electricity supply and is pushing renewables hard.

n3m37h ,

Canada’s CANDU reactors were built in the 60’s and are providing Ontario 60-80% of its power.

Shitty design and build are the main problem. Not the age

roguetrick ,

I don’t know if heavy water plants leaking tritium in their wastewater should be used as a good standard for the longevity of old reactor designs.

n3m37h ,
nutsack ,

why the fuck do people still think nulcear energy is bad for the environment? it scales easily enough to displace coal and gas and petrol.

Baalf ,

Well, considering the ones clammoring for it, specifically, are ANTI-environmentalists, forgive me if I have a hard time trusting a source of energy that’s proven to be catastrophic for most life in the past. I get it: people are talking about how totally safe it is now, but again. It’s specifically ANTI-environmentalists saying this and pushing for nuclear. I’ll wait for people with genuine compassion for the environment and not contrarians to accept it before I do.

derf82 ,

considering the ones clammoring for it, specifically, are ANTI-environmentalists

That is pure fiction

forgive me if I have a hard time trusting a source of energy that’s proven to be catastrophic for most life in the past.

Nuclear power, EVEN COUNTING CHERNOBYL, 3 MILE ISLAND, AND FUKUSHIMA, is safer than coal, oil, natural gas, and even wind and hydropower.

ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/…/abstract

jpreston2005 ,
Sizzler ,

Why is it the people who can’t even spell nuclear always forget about the waste.

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

ItsMeSpez ,

The reason waste isn’t being brought up is because modern designs do not produce nearly as much waste, and much safer waste, than previous technologies. Breeder reactors are able to produce more fissile material than they consume, and produce only waste products that have short half lives (less than 100 years). This is a long time from human perspectives, but it means that we do not have to design functionally indefinite storage for these materials any longer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

Sizzler ,

Fascinating, In your first link it mentions hundreds of years which is itself is a great improvement. But it also cautions of a lot of people’s fears.

“Nuclear engineer David Lochbaum cautions, “the problem with new reactors and accidents is twofold: scenarios arise that are impossible to plan for in simulations; and humans make mistakes”.[49] As one director of a U.S. research laboratory put it, “fabrication, construction, operation, and maintenance of new reactors will face a steep learning curve: advanced technologies will have a heightened risk of accidents and mistakes. The technology may be proven, but people are not”.”

afraid_of_zombies ,

Jane Fonda was easy on the eyes, made a movie about how bad nuclear power is.

nutsack ,

looks like shit to me

RubberElectrons ,
@RubberElectrons@lemmy.world avatar

I took a tour of this plant, having lived about 20mi south of it, little city called NYC. One issue this particular plant kept getting called out on, but couldn’t remediate (???) was low amounts of tritium leaking into the groundwater.

Even after installing a large network of sensors around the plant, they still could not identify the source, after several years… As an engineer, that’s the kind of ‘small’ detail which tickles the Spidey senses, indicating something more serious is afoot, organizationally.

mihies ,

Germany enters the chat.

loudWaterEnjoyer ,
@loudWaterEnjoyer@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Not quite

theonyltruemupf ,

Germany’s electric energy emissions steadily went down despite exiting nuclear power because Germany actually invests in renewables.

varnia ,

Analysis of current situation without nuclear power (English translated)

Teppichbrand ,

Here, let the german Deputy of the Federal Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection tell you about nuclear energy. Starts at 24:56.
My English isn’t good enough to translate it all in detail, but these are the basics:
Germany shut down all nuclear power plants but 3, which will shut down soon. So we will be nuclear free in the future, no going back from there. Then he talks about the nuclear power plants in France, which are all ailing and will be extremely expensive to repair (at least 1 billion euros per power plant). They are only still working because they belong to the state, otherwise they would have been insolvent long ago. A newly planned nuclear power plant is already so expensive to plan that most investors have backed out. If this power plant is ever built, it will supply the most expensive electricity ever produced in Europe.

mihies ,

You sure, though? "Not least as a result of the energy crisis, greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector rose by 11 million tonnes of CO₂equivalent or 4.5 percent in 2022. This was due to the increased use of coal. "
Which is not surprising due to volatility of renewables and closing last nuclear power plants. They also import a lot from ... France AFAIK.

theonyltruemupf ,

No nuclear plants were shut down in 2022. Emissions rose because gas was expensive and more coal was burned as a result. The downward trend has since resumed.

In 2023, Germany imported about 12 TWh from France which is about 2% of the total power consumption. Germany tends to export more energy than it imports. Imports and exports are a very normal thing because of the European power grid.

France has its own set of problems with all their nuclear power, namely very high (tax funded) maintenance costs and lack of cooling water in the dry summers.

mihies ,

Import/export is of course a very normal thing. However I bet those imports were mostly during winter and exports during summer. Again, it's not a problem of averages, it's a problem of peaks happening mostly during winter. If there is a windless day during winter, Germany would either have to import a lot of energy or burn tons of coal and gas.
Of course France's nuclear power plants are not without issues, but look at the CO2/pollution emission map for Europe.

KillingTimeItself ,

lets take bets. Was it scheduled decommissioning? i.e. EOL shutdown If so this entire article is kind of redundant. (it still serves a point in bringing awareness but it’s still funny)

derf82 ,

Was it scheduled decommissioning? i.e. EOL shutdown If so this entire article is kind of redundant.

The operators of the plant applied for a 20-year license renewal. New York challenged that renewal due to “environmental and safety concerns.” As such, the plant was forced to shut down.

So, no this was not an EOL shutdown.

www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=29772

geissi ,

If they had to apply for a renewal, then their old license ran out.
That is exactly what EOL is.

derf82 ,

So when my driver’s license expires after 8 years, my driving ability has reached EOL, and I should not be able to renew. Sound logic there.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Other plants have been granted license renewals and are operating just fine.

geissi ,

I never claimed that the license couldn’t be renewed nor that it wouldn’t be running fine.
The license period had a pre-determined END and it’s LIFEtime has not been extended.
Surely the very existence of a time limit to the license must mean that the option to not renew it after a certain time has been anticipated when the license was originally issued.

And for all that it does not matter, whether that was the correct decision or not, whether other plants had their licenses renewed orwhether these other plants are operating just fine.

derf82 ,

You sounded like you were claiming that. Do you realize there is a difference between the end of a LICENCE and the end of something’s functional life? You were claiming that because the LICENCE was only good for 40 years (the longest license the feds issued) that it was somehow the end of the PLANT’S useful life.

As I said elsewhere, they applied for a 20-year renewal, NY sued, and the high costs of fighting for the renewal led them to settle and shut it down. But NONE of that means that the plant was some falling apart scrapheap that needed closed, which is what I took from what you said.

geissi ,

there is a difference between the end of a LICENCE and the end of something’s functional life?

This may be somewhat pedantic but the plant’s functional life ended when the license ran out.
The planned/ hoped for EoL may have been longer but if there was a 40 year license then the end of that license is also the end of the initially licensed lifetime. Otherwise they could have just issued a 50 or 60 year license.
That doesn’t mean lifetimes cannot be extended, many plants run longer than initially planned.
But not renewing a license is hardly a premature shutdown,

But NONE of that means that the plant was some falling apart scrapheap that needed closed

As already stated, I didn’t make any argument about its functionality and it has no bearing to my argument.
That said, other have claimed that the plant was apparently leaking, which does sound like an argument against renewal.

derf82 ,

You are being intentionally obtuse. Thank for helping climate change to kill us.

KillingTimeItself ,

i meant planned EOL, as most of frances reactors are quickly approaching.

megopie ,

The term environmentalist has so much stupid baggage tied to it.

I’m tired of having to share labels with people who refuse to do anything other than small superficial personal choices. Folks who will baulk at the suggestion of a carbon tax, their energy bills going up, more nuclear plants being built near them or, subsidies and infrastructure for low income people who are seriously hurt by such changes.

This is a systemic problem that requires systemic changes that will fundamentally alter things we take for granted right now. It’s going to suck and it’s going to be hard, there is no easy simple way out.

CancerMancer ,

Oh my favourite are the environmentalists pushing for EVs as if replacing an existing car with an EV is somehow greener. It’s good to push new sales to EVs but it’s bad to get people to drop still functioning cars for an EV. Then there is the power grid issue which is going to be a minor social and economic disaster at this point because seemingly no one is ready for it.

Before some knob assumes anything this is not a pro-ICE comment and I actually own an EV, this is someone urging society to think actions through before committing to them. A lot of unintended consequences have come of the various steps done to push EVs.

Ideally we work to remove the need to own a vehicle in the first place.

megopie ,

My favorite are people out here advocating for battery/hydrogen buses and trains, like we have overhead/third-rail electrification! IT IS A SOLVED TECHNOLOGY! It is older than internal combustion engines, for pete’s sake!

shapptastic ,

I don’t think anyone in NY expected anything except natural gas plants to replace Indian Point at least for the short term. Its a lot simpler to build a few combined cycle and peaker units in the short term than to find property in the NYC metro that can meet peak load using renewables and battery storage. Longer term, several gigawatts of off-shore wind, enough transmission build out for upstate/Canadian hydro, some battery storage (although im not convinced we’ll build out nearly enough), and very rarely used peaker plants will get us close enough to zero carbon emissions.

KillingTimeItself ,

honestly, gas turbine plants are wild. GE literally makes a set that’ll run on highly pure oil straight from the middle east. Shit’s wild.

afraid_of_zombies ,

I don’t think anyone in NY expected anything except natural gas plants to replace Indian Point at least for the short term.

Odd the protestors anti-science types that I talked to at the time seemed to think we were going to get renewables to replace it. They must have all been from outside of NY state. All of them. Over months.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines