Comments by "David H" (@DavidHalko) on "Is It Time to Pull the Plug on Nuclear Power?" video.
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Agreed that Battery Technology [largely controlled by Asia] will not be able to supply the needs from simple swings in weather, as experienced in Texas when the windmills & solar panels froze over, for many days.
We saw when the Texas wind & solar froze over, even if the wind & solar did not freeze over, they would not have been able to boost their output to meet the peak demand of heat required… and the Nuclear plants could not peak high enough.
This left the Natural Gas plants, which had incredible peak capabilities, but there was not enough natural gas to supply Mexico & Texas… which resulted in blackouts across Central & North America.
In the end, the US would likely be better off generating Hydrogen (from excessive wind & solar & nuclear), storing H2 in huge storage facilities, having large H2 cracking facilities on-shore & off-shore which could turn on to replenish the H2 reserves in a pinch, and use H2 in already existing turbines which can run on H2.
Hydrogen means every nation with a coastline can make their own batteries (in the form of an H2 tank) and create peak power on demand, without ever running out of Natural Gas.
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[David H] - “Battery technology… not be able to supply the needs from simple swings in weather… experienced in Texas”
@alexstergaard3551 - “That is also not true. It depends on the type of battery chosen to do the task”
Dude, you’re on drugs.
Instead of Natural Gas running 10 gigawatt hours and occasionally peaking at 20 gigawatt hours… the minimum NG energy production was 20 gigawatt hours, then 30 gigawatt hours, then 40 gigawatt hours, then hovering 30 gigawatt hours… while peaking around 50 gigawatt hours for weeks!
The only thing holding down energy consumption were blackouts, an area the size of much of Western Europe, for weeks.
To think that 3x of the largest amount of energy Nuclear could produce will be supplied by batteries, for weeks, in the event of another weather downturn, is delusional.
A typical Redox installation is 1 megawatt, for under a half day. Texas would need about 40,000 installations for a half day, then for 2 weeks, assuming the best opportunity of 12 hours to complete drain, they would need 1,120,000 battery installations. Then, they would need to keep them all charged, somehow.
They will never build & maintain that much battery power, no matter how nice redox-flow batteries are. This is the wrong use case.
Batteries, with their low energy density, can not replace peak generators. Batteries can [and should] smooth out the grid, with unreliable generators like Solar & Wind.
To be honest, H2 is needed in a carbon free future, to perform peak generation roles that only carbon based Natural Gas can fill today, without coal & oil. Ignoring that increases sole dependency on Natural Gas, which is dangerous.
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“Deaths…”
The amount of deaths from Nuclear are MUCH higher, just look at all the dead Russia Soldiers, who dug trenches in the Red Forest of Ukraine.
The deaths due to coal & oil are exaggerated. Many of those deaths could be attributed to smoking tobacco cigarettes & pot joints & water pipes.
Now, fake numbers for deaths by natural are being created.
This being said, we need all the energy & all the diversity (solar, wind, nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, hydrogen, co2 from the air, etc.] & energy delivery options [train, pipeline, truck, ship, etc.] we can get, so supply chains must compete with each other, and to keep oligarchs from holding large numbers of people captive.
Eliminating energy types & delivery types only empowers oligarchs & holds humans captive to evil people.
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@williamsmith1741 - “I am not familiar with what you are talking about”
Executives at the Illinois-based utility Exelon, nuclear energy proponents, contributed at least $227,000 to Obama's campaigns for the United States Senate and for president.
Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, were among Obama's largest fund-raisers.
This is long before 2010, 2009, 2008…
September 2009, White House visitor logs show Exelon CEO John W. Rowe, former chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, visited Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for nearly an hour.
Regulators in October 2009 then sent a letter to Westinghouse, which is designing new nuclear facilities proposed for Georgia and South Carolina, the NRC called for modifications to the shield building -- a steel and concrete structure that would be erected around the reactor to protect it from earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, or even a terrorist attack.
Follow the money… dynamically changing regulation on long term projects is a way to blackmail others & facilitate indirect payments.
The problem is not with regulation in the US, but with political graft. Unfortunately, regulation is a primary mechanism to drive graft in the executive branch. The longer a project runs, the greater the opportunity for political graft to rear it’s ugly head, and hurt the general population since we all pay the bills.
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@williamsmith1741 - “I am not entirely sure what kind of connection you’re trying to draw”
I did not make the connection, the news did.
Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth drew the connection, the news did the investigation.
“a $227k contribution to one candidate”
It was more than just one donation, it was to more than just one election, and it was more than just donations.
ABC reported Chicago-based Exelon EVP Frank M. Clark and Exelon Director John W. Rogers Jr. were among Obama's largest fund-raisers, at the time when Obama was becoming politically established in Chicago.
“where was the regulatory graft here?”
NRC Office of New Reactors Director Michael Johnson had been delivering edicts to Westinghouse about the shield redesign since 2008.
In September 2009, Exelon CEO Rowe, former chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, visited Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, for nearly an hour.
Regulators were continuing to pressure Westinghouse, in October 2009 they sent Westinghouse another written communication regarding modification to the shield design.
In February 2010, President Obama announced this week that he would offer $8 billion in loan guarantees, extolling the safety of the design, while regulators had been arguing for safety changes for years.
In this case, the news was gathering evidence of the link between the President Obama and the undercutting of the regulator authority, at the hands of the nuclear industry individuals sending donations & nuclear industry bundlers. The income made by these bundlers in the industry indirectly funded campaign donations.
“Obama Administration and NRC”
After Chicago’s Obama was funded, Obama, elected, and Obama greased the wheels… Southern Nuclear named Stephen Kuczynski, a former Chicago-based Exelon executive, as its chairman, president and chief executive officer.
Shortly afterwards, Southern Co.'s nuclear subsidiary hired a second former Chicago-based Exelon Corp. executive, Bradley Adams, to its management team as Southern Nuclear's Fleet Operations Support vice president.
Oligarchs in WW2 Germany worked through regulation of government. Oligarchs of the Soviet Union worked through government. Oligarchs in Red Communist China works through government. Today, graft builds political oligarchs via bundlers, regulatory system is manipulated, other friendly funding oligarchs are rewarded. This is how the US oligarchy is built.
“How come the South Carolina project died…?”
The South Carolina nuclear project relied on tax credits and the 2 units had to be finished by 2020 to qualify for $2+ billion in federal tax credits or over 20% of the cost.
There were multiple time over-runs, projected future cost over-runs of 150%, project was canceled, and executives went to prison.
Contrast this to GA Southern Co’s hiring & protecting Obama fellow Chicago-based oligarchs [their organization pumped money into Obama’s coffers] - the rate payer is picking up the tab for massive cost & time overruns. No Justice.
“first early site permits… Vogtle… wasn’t 16 years”
Southern Company filed an early site permit in 2006 with the NRC. Now is 2024. GA plants still not powered up & delivering power in production.
Ok, it is worse… ~18 years
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@williamsmith1741 - ‘“explosive power” for dispersion”
If you are ignorant of how to disperse radioactive materials, without significant explosive capabilities, to poison a region — I do not feel it is wise or necessary to educate you & others on the internet.
I suspect you are well aware, if you have not been copy-pasting your arguments from other internet documents.
‘ What incentive would… have to “not count the numbers?” ‘
International agencies work through national governments. There is not much value for humanity in Eastern Europe, much of the remains of the old Soviet Systems do not really care about Eastern European peoples [especially those who are not ethnic Russians.]
Even during the Soviet times, government officials often lied about numbers reported, from the lowest levels of government, additional lying occurred climbing up the chain, lying again before releasing to other external agencies.
Russians, and later Soviets, were renown for human relocations by cattle car, mass graves, and not counting deaths.
Even Russians invading Ukraine, sending largely Asian fighters, are not bothering to pick up their dead.
Why such a lack of value on human life?
Some of the issue is related to racial beliefs.
Part of it is cultural, dealing with shame.
There are so many reasons.
Even outside scientists of prolific peer reviewed articles have been found to falsify radiation studies [for unknown reasons], such as Anders Pape Møller.
Having been to Eastern European villages & cities, this is not hard to comprehend.
“international conspiracy led by the…”
Your previous posts obsessing over conspiracy theories are unnecessary. These are “straw man arguments”, which are logical fallacies, a passive admission to a bankrupt position.
Since I see nuclear power as a reasonably positive thing, I don’t understand why you felt necessary to go down this rabbit hole of illogical thought.
“Chernobyl cleanup”
Not much was cleaned up, much effort was done with containing.
Many peoples were not evacuated, until years after the incident. Others refused to leave exclusion zones. Governments allowed many to just remain. What happens to those people [who were in or are in exclusion zones] are not always diligently followed, as per previous reasons cited.
Belarus got a huge amount of the nuclear fallout, and they had started resettling people back into various radiation zones.
Even some of the less dangerous contaminants only have a 30 year half-life, and it is now 38 years since the disaster. The death of flora & fauna has been immense, genetic defects in both, and measurement of populations in regions demonstrate the danger of such areas to living things [because attempting living things die or can’t replicate without insignificant genetic defect due to radiation.]
Later rainstorms & wildfires raise radiation rates for a short period of time, every so often, so it is still an ongoing issue.
“radioactive waste largely isn’t an issue”
If it was truly not “an issue”, Nuclear Fuel Lifecycle would not be internationally regulated as tightly, regionally regulated so tightly, there would be far less perceived risk, and nuclear electrical energy would cost next to nothing in this day & age.
The problem is: people are not honest about the risks & benefits.
Disassociating radioactive materials from spent fuel, effectively atomizing it, mixing it with soil, and returning it to the ground it came from, is a cute mental exercise, but a disingenuous way of dealing with the risks, and falls into the realm of dishonesty since such disposal techniques are not actively being seriously considered.
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Carbon in the atmosphere will effectively drive the democratization of energy, since anyone can harvest it, anywhere around the world, with very little effort.
Today, we have:
- machines to suck it out of the atmosphere, which can create liquid fuel for escrowing & easy consumption
- silicon based devices, to create liquid fuel for escrowing & easy consumption
- many different catalyst processes, to create liquid fuel from the air for escrow & easy consumption
The problem is, everyone can do it, literally everywhere, which means no one can control it… and this could start the process of actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere to solve global warming, but it is not really about solving global warming.
Drilling can be controlled by a few nations, Solar is controlled by a few nations in The East, Wind turbines are controlled by a few nations.
Until people finally realize that the problem is really about control of energy [which everyone needs], people who want to profit & control [weaponize] energy will continually to fight over shutting down various energy sectors to remove the competition, instead of dealing with the CO2 issue head-on by harvesting it.
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@antonmorozov5193 - “can’t use fresh water”
Actually, you are more correct in that statement than you think. Electrolysis does not require freshwater, but a salt is needed to transfer ions, so salt water is a good place to go, and we have LOTS of salt water.
“we are going to need a lot of H2… need desalination”
Nuclear requires LOTS of fresh water. H2 production has unlimited salt water to draw from.
Off-shore wind cracks salt water allows H2 to pump to shore via water pressure, nearly being a passive system. Recycling used hydrogen is consuming freshwater. Nuclear requires a huge supply chain that is expensive & complex, and creates nuclear waste for everything the radiation touches.
“problem of water vapor”
There are Solar Panels which produce H2 directly from sunlight using the water vapor in the air, which does not require electrolysis. Nuclear creates an immense amount of water vapor from the cooling towers.
“so it seems that the best way is to switch to…”
Hydrogen, since it solves all the problems of Nuclear.
Also, Hydrogen solves the problem of oil & gas, since there is a never ending supply, recycling easy as oil & gas does.
Also, Hydrogen solves the problems of Solar & Wind, where their energy output is erratic in nature, and H2 provides the natural ability to store until needed, and storage can occur at point of use or anywhere along the way, in inexpensive tanks. Solar & Wind require expensive tanks (ie batteries) to hold temporary energy for peak usage.
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@antonmorozov5193 - “electrolysis does not require freshwater… where can I read about this?”
hydrogen production by chlorine-free hybrid seawater splitting
The secret is low voltage
“Nuclear…. Water… returned to the river downstream”
Steam from cooling towers
“H2 will consume the water”
As stated before, off-shore hydrogen production via wind, on-shore solar to hydrogen production without water (using water vapor in air.)
“Production of H2 from solar/wind”
search:
Offshore Hydrogen
Also, hydrogen is being produced at hydroelectric dams
A sampling of articles & dates
2021-03-02 - Hydroelectric H2 in NY
2021-09-20 - Solar H2 in Fresno, CA
2021-06-10 - Solar H2 in Camden, GA
2022-10-14 - Solar H2 in Kingslsnd GA
2022-10-21 - A new large-scale project was announced in March 2022 by the US startup Green Hydrogen International called the Hydrogen City.
2023-01-09 - 900 megawatt wind & 400 megawatt solar to produce 1.4 gigawatts for Austin, TX for 200,000 kg of H2 produced per day
Green H2 production is petty massive right now, plants in GA are already online, plants in California will take years to come online due to their heavy regulatory restrictions
Right before the Russian invasion, Ukraine was entering into agreements with Europe to supply hydrogen…. Russia just blew the dam next to the nuclear power plant, that was a great Blue Hydrogen plan.
“large scale storage”
I have not investigated this topic thoroughly, but I will since you brought it up.
Today, Ukraine was the largest storage provider in Europe for natural gas. It was projected to be so for Hydrogen.
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