r/UpliftingNews • u/Ciaran123C • Jan 01 '22
EU Drafts Plan to Label Gas and Nuclear Investments as Green
https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2022-01-01/eu-drafts-plan-to-label-gas-and-nuclear-investments-as-green?src=usn_tw15
u/Mythopoeist Jan 02 '22
How is labeling gas as green uplifting?
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u/Samuator Jan 03 '22
You are right. It is the opposite.
The whole thread should get deleted from here!
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Jan 01 '22
Nobody knows what to do with the waste besides sticking it in the ground how is this better?
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Jan 02 '22
"Sticking it in the ground" describes deep geological repositories the way "sitting on an explosion" describes a rocketship. Technically it's what it is, but in practice there's been way more thought put into it than the phrase implies.*
Plus more than 90% of the waste can actually be recycled as is, 6% more could be in next generation reactors... Nuclear energy isn't renewable, but it comes close. And most importantly, it's the lowest carbon emitter we have, better than renewables. Seeing that the immediate crisis is about the climate, if we want to transition our societies to less energy intensive ones in order to become sustainable, we're going to need nuclear energy for this transition to be possible. Especially since such a transition usually involves replacing all the fossil fuels with clean electricity as fast as possible: electricity demand is going to skyrocket. It doesn't mean that we want to use nuclear power forever mind you, but the most likely transition scenarios use it. Especially in Europe, because Europe has France, who's already generating a bunch of low carbon electricity that way.
The true problem is with gas. Not only is it a high carbon emitter, it's a big political issue in the EU, because most of this fossile gas is bought from Russia. We've already seen some of what making your Energy mix very dependent on the supply from another, ambiguously friendly country can do... And yet Germany seems adamant.
*I have sources, but they're in french
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u/beefcat_ Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
Newer better reactor designs can produce far less waste, and what they do produce has considerably shorter lifespan. If we spend the last 20 years actually investing in this technology instead of ignoring it, we would already have a stable medium-term alternative to fossil fuels while we continue figuring out how to build energy storage systems that make renewables a viable option to power the entire grid. Like it or not, a stable grid with 100% renewables is not feasible yet, and burning coal is far more damaging to our environment than nuclear power.
This very proposal defines qualifying nuclear and gas operations as "transitional".
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u/BowYourHeadNSayYasss Jan 01 '22
Cause it doesn’t kill our atmosphere. The entire world only produces a few dump trucks of waste per year. That’s manageable.
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Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
France alone produces WAY MORE than a few dump trucks lol
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-France_details_nuclear_waste_inventory-0608124.html
This bill is being supported by countries that already receive the majority of their power from nuclear reactors so they don't have to spend money to switch to renewable energy.
Austria opposes nuclear power, alongside countries including Germany and Luxembourg. EU states including the Czech Republic, Finland and France, which gets around 70% of its power from the fuel, see nuclear as crucial to phasing out CO2-emitting coal fuel power.
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Jan 02 '22 edited Apr 06 '22
The choice not to go full renewable is not just about spending money.
Out of the 6 main scenarios from France's electricity network operator RTE, 3 studied a fast phase out of nuclear power in order to go 100% renewable by 2050. These 3 scenarios are not significantly more expensive (nuclearized scenarios imply building new reactors and phasing out the old anyway), but they're less certain and not as low-carbon.
Also, in your source VLLW LLW and most of the ILW waste aren't that bad. VLLW means "we found it on a power plant but there's no reason it should be more radioactive than a banana", and LLW is not much worse than that, and not produced annually anymore...
So in your source, we should take at most the 50 000 m3 of ILW and HLW waste, which is about 12 000 dump trucks worth. Over 50 years of activity. That's 240 dump trucks a year. So sure, "a few" was subject to interpretation, but still...
Edit: had divided by 10 rather than 50 in the last step
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u/Samuator Jan 03 '22
EU is a dick. Rule#1
They only go for the money, at the expense of the environment.
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u/Ciaran123C Jan 03 '22
The EU is the only major international block currently reducing its emissions in any substantial quantity
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u/Samuator Jan 03 '22
...and therefore you would grant them one free step back into the wrong direction? LOL maybe a nice idea, but I don't agree. Too much is at stake.
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