235

Swedish government removes nuclear power promise from website (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml to c/world@lemmy.world

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] DrAnthony@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago

You can bank on energy consumption rising year over year for the next lifetime or so. We have completely run out of low hanging fruit in terms of cutting back like moving from incandescent to LED lighting, installing heat pumps to replace resistive heaters...ect. Solar, wind and other green sources ARE very much the future (assuming we want to have a future at all), but their variable output doesn't mesh super well with how electrical grids are handled today. Batteries and other storage options are no where near ready and may never be for grid scale. This is where nuclear shines, that steady trickle over many, many decades as a bridge to a future with a redesigned distribution network and other technologies we can't even conceive of yet. The thing is it's a long term play, there's a massive upfront cost and the people involved the project today may not even be alive or seeking any sort of political office in 20 years when it's completely validated. Even if these plants can't get online fast enough to meet the peak demands in the near-term, there's nothing stopping them from scaling out solar and/or wind farms to pick up the slack.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago

You're thinking too small with LED lights and heat pumps.

Overall energy consumption still has a long way to drop if we continue to electrify transport. Oil is consumed very inefficiently in internal combustion engines and electric motors are far more efficient. That's even before you account for the energy consumption of refining and transporting oil, all of which would vanish. Even if you just took oil out of the ground and pumped it into a furnace to generate electricity, then use that electricy to move everyone around, we'd drop our consumption significantly.

The setup with have now is desperately inefficient.

[-] DrAnthony@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I guess I could have stated the form of energy I was talking about a little more clearly. That's actually mostly in agreement to what I was referring to though, as we move from fossil fuel powered transport to EVs, we'll see that demand shift and drive electrical consumption up dramatically (even if the total joules of energy required decreases from a physics perspective). Yes, internal combustion is inherently very, very inefficient but it just takes HEAPS of energy to move 3,000+ pounds (1,350+ kg) of anything and all of that will be coming from the mains rather than an oil rig. That's why we (not just Sweden, all of us humans) need to increase our electrical generation capacity and modernize our distribution networks.

[+] doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[deleted]

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

For all of the base-load talk, this is the real reason people are pushing nuclear.

The projects always go over budget. They always go way over time, too. Both of these things are good for the banks who loan out the billions to build new plants. And they know that if the company goes bankrupt the government will subsidize it.

Nuclear is just not economical enough to be part of a sustainable energy system.

[-] lysol@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

During the time when Sweden built the current nuclear reactors, some where built in just a few years. Sweden had experienced people back then that knew how to build them. We don't have that anymore. Pretty much no one has.

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

We also had less examples of issues we need to be prepared for.

One thing people always get wrong is that they assume Fukushima wasn't build to withstand tsunamis and how stupid that supposedly was. But it was built to withstand tsunamis. Up to 9 meters of height, which was 50% more than the largest one they had on record. And it's not like they had other projects to look for to figure out that a 50% margin of safety was too little for this. Turns out, it was. So now, you want to build at least 100% margin of error in tsunami areas, something you couldn't have known before.

And that's just one example from one rather specific type of engineering during a construction process that isn't even specific to nuclear power. And as accidents happen (see for example Admiral Cloudberg's excellent air crash investigation series!) we figure out more and more things we need to engineer against to prevent this in the future. As a result, what we build nowadays is orders of magnitude safer than what we did in the past. But it also means that building it has become a huge obstacle, if for no other reason than the sheer number of things you need to be aware of, abide by and track during construction and planning.

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Fukushima was not a failure of engineering or proper safety measures with construction. It failed because they were old plants that hadn't been maintained properly and were in disrepair.

So no, the margin of safety was not too little. The "lesson" learned from the Fukushima Daichi reactor flooding was about proper maintenance and funding.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That's the fundamental problem with nuclear energy. Where there are corners, they will be cut.

[-] wahming 12 points 1 year ago

Nuclear is just not economical enough to be part of a sustainable energy system.

It's chicken and egg. We have no experience building nuclear on budget because nuclear is too expensive.

[-] SamB@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah well.. Nuclear is too expensive and now I heard another rethoric on how renewables are not making enough profit to be worth it for the big companies. We’re going in circles before these people admit that coal and gas won’t be replaced by anything.

load more comments (5 replies)

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

The right choice. Nuclear would be a great solution if we went all in 40 years ago. But we didnt and now we need a solution as soon as possible, not in 15 years to build a plant or in 25 years when it breaks even, now.

It takes just 6 months to build a 50 MW wind farm https://www.edfenergy.com/energywise/all-you-need-to-know-about-wind-power#:~:text=Wind%20farms%20can%20be%20built,last%20between%2020%E2%80%9325%20years.

Sweden uses 130 TW/h per year (130000000000 KW/h) as of 2020 https://www.iea.org/countries/sweden

and about 25% of that is fossil fuels. as of 2017 https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SWE/sweden/fossil-fuel-consumption

So they would need to replace 32500000000 KW/h per year to get off fossil fuels

But KW/h/y is dumb so lets just make it KW/h

3710045

Then make it MW (yes I know I converted from TW to KW to MW.) so

3710 MW needed to replace fossil fuels.

So they would need 74 50MW wind farms to match that.

If they wanted to do that in 10 years to be faster than building a single nuclear plant, they would only need to be building 4 farms concurrently.

[-] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

and about 25% of that is fossil fuels.

Sweden uses essentially no fossil fuels in the grid - it's basically hydro, nuclear and wind for all of it. The small amount of fossil fuels used is stuff like burning plastics, and one oil plant that is turned on once in a blue moon when there's an energy crisis. It's national news when they turn that one on, and it's considered a huge failure every time it happens.

The real figure for fossil versus non-fossil energy in Sweden is 2% fossil versus 98% non-fossil, with hydro being the primary energy source (35-45%), followed by nuclear (30%) and then wind (20%). Source, in Swedish: https://www.energiforetagen.se/energifakta/elsystemet/produktion/

[-] OriginalUsername@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A few errors

130TWh is the final electricity consumption, not the generation. Since Sweden is a big net exporter of electricity, there is a big difference
I'm not sure what macrotrends refers to by "Fossil fuel consumption", but it's pobably referring to raw energy rather than electricity (which doesnt consider conversion efficiency)
In reality, sweden uses almost no fossil fuels in its electricity mix, and that is in large part due to nuclear
KWh and KW, not KW and KW/h
In your calculations you failed to account for capacity factors. Wind plants have average capacity factors of about 42% in sweden, so the capacity would need to be over double the consumption, even ignoring the variability of consumption and production

Nevertheless, I do agree that Sweden doesn't need more nuclear. It already generates some of the cleanest electricity in the world and I'd imagine fossil fuels are really only used for peak load.

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the corrections!

[-] smollittlefrog@lemdro.id 5 points 1 year ago

But KW/h/y is dumb so lets just make it KW/h

It's kW, not KW/h.

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

explain?

[-] smollittlefrog@lemdro.id 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

32500000000 KW/h per year

That's 32500000000 kWh/y
= 32500000000 * k * W * h / y
= 32500000000 * k * W * h / (365 * 24 * h)
= 32500000000 * k * W * h / 8760 / h
= 32500000000 / 8760 * k * W * h / h
= 3710046 * k * W * 1
= 3710046 kW

(You actually corrected yourself later when converting to mW.)

[-] SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Since watt is joule per second, kwh per year is one kilojoule per second per hour per year.

Electricians have played us like fools

[-] ammonium@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

kWh is kilojoule per second times 3600 seconds or 3600 kilojoule. kWh/y is 3600 joule per year or 3600 kilojoule / (24*3600*365) ~0.1W

[-] SaakoPaahtaa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Even more cursed

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

...... exactly as I intended

[-] goostaf@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

A kW/h would imply that the power changes by that amount every hour, while a kWh is the amount of energy spent in an hour

[-] gmtom@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah, lol, I blame Friday morning fatigue.

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean let's be honest here, there's no way they did this because of an underlying police change.

I suspect they rather looked at other western countries trying to build large-scale projects and noticed how absurd the idea of building one nuclear reactor without a 15y++ delay was, nevermind 10 of them. Quietly drop it before someone checks whether it's even doable. 😅

Source: Am German, we are experts on letting our complicated building projects run completely overbudget and take multiple times as long as projected.

[-] bouh@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

That's a so stupid take it's hilarious. It'd be a nice world if ecofanatics were spending half their energy against coal instead of fighting nuclear.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Being against coal and gas, I want the fastest solution that displaces coal and gas. That's wind and solar in most locations. It's not nuclear. Nuclear takes a long time to build, and while you build it you're still burning coal and gas. Recent experience is that you take the original schedule / budget and multiply by 2 to 3, so that's even more time you're still burning coal.

Granted, if you already have nuclear, don't decommission it, but don't build more either.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] zephyreks@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Sweden realized they couldn't join NATO if they invited Chinese expertise to help build a nuclear power plant.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

"Chinese expertise" building reactors like the ones in Finland, France and the UK?

I don't think it's a problem for those NATO members.
By the way those projects have gone, I'm not sure if expertise is the right word.

[-] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Good. This entire thing was beyond stupidity.

[-] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 2 points 1 year ago

BOOOOO

this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023

235 points (96.8% liked)

World News

38943 readers

1899 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

quinten@lemmy.world

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world