why would nuclear energy be a bridge technology? its the best solution until someday we can get a fusion reactor going
the demand of electricity will only go up in the next decades

there is no need to litter our countries with gigantic wind turbines and solar panels (recycling, critical element problems etc)
we have more than enough material to use for conventional reactors (uranium, thorium) and what uneducated and clueless people (those who bought a geiger counter after fukushima) consider dangerous nuclear waste is not waste at all

a bill gates sponsored program is already working on reactors that can use depleted uranium for years without refueling
hydrogen solutions are fine for personal transport and you might as well use a surplus of nuclear power to produce hydrogen

Thorium is not "conventional", in fact, the tech isn't even usable.

Perhaps it could be. But for now Solar is cheaper We just need it as a buffer.

This post was edited by Knoppie on May 27 2019 05:42pm

it is conventional in a sense that we would use classic mining technology to get it and it wouldnt be recycled from nuclear waste
its true though that a so called molten salt reactor looks like the best idea for the use of thorium and thats definitely not conventional (has other advantages though, no fast neutrons, less waste)

the tech is already being used, on a rather small scale

This post was edited by ampoo on May 27 2019 05:49pm

It's an under developed old tech demanding a lot of research to make it viable.

Do you want to pay a lot now for thorium, a financial burden right now for the citizens of your country ?

This post was edited by Knoppie on May 27 2019 05:58pm

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/05/27/eu-plans-satellite-fleet-monitor-co2-every-country/

Lol, incoming CO2 police.

nuclear energy has its drawbacks as well.

due to the gigantic risk involved, nuclear power plants require a much more immaculate infrastructure and meticulous surveillance. the construction costs are a lot higher accordingly. nuclear waste is still a problem, even though the new technologies you mention might reduce it. but the two most crucial drawbacks are the finity of uranium supply, and the reliance on cooling. virtually all reactors these days are built riverside to provide the necessary cooling. during droughts, those rivers might not carry enough water anymore to guarantee that.

just look at the struggles of our industry last summer when the rivers Rhine, Elbe and Danube were on low water due to the month-long lack of proper precipitation. imagine a country which is getting 50+% of its energy from nuclear power, like for example present-day France, and then all those nuclear power plants have to shut down in the middle of a drought.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 27 2019 07:08pm

thorium isnt exactly expensive
i mean, we dont have a problem with the financial burden of the so called "energiewende", which cost us several hundred billion but cant even provide the base load



that is correct

the risk is there, but i would also say that all mentionable nuclear incidents are the result of complete maintenance failure or like fukushima the result of one of the worst earthquakes ever recorded

i dont see that risk for europe

water supply is crucial of course, a solution for emergencies would be by using groundwater like brown coal power plants do

these plants saved our supply during last summers drought :lol"

The Thorium itself might not be expensive, but the plants sure are. And they aren't even operational right now. India had plans for years, started building a breeder reactor in 2004 and it still isn't running. If a govt would elect a Thorium based reactor as a new plant, it'd probably be 10-15 years before construction could even start, let alone the plant would be running. And no govt is going to be spending tens of billions in their election cycle for what could be a good energy source decades away. Simple PWR reactors are already too difficult to realize for most countries. In the Netherlands the govt has given the private sector permission to start plans for a new nuclear reactor. None of the utility companies are interested, because of the immense upfront cost and the risk attached to a nuclear reactor (not just safety, but also the fact that future govts could shut the plant down due to outside pressure, like the Energiewende in DE).

For the energy supply/demand problem that's starting to emerge, hydrogen as storage seems a fairly decent option. Hydrogen as common fuel is ludicrous, with the ridiculous pressure required for any energy density, but on wind turbine islands a hydrogen generating plant for storage could be great at providing baseline power.

In the end some countries will use nuclear to transition, but I don't think it is necessary.

your investment argument is fair, especially that corporations cant be sure whether their investments are safe

the german government has tried to fuck the nuclear power providers, but suffered a huge defeat in court
now we are paying many billions + interest for nothing

however we also regularly get the argument that money shouldnt be a problem and we have to plan for the future

this would be a long term plan, but somehow we rather burn hundreds of billions for subsidies for energy production with questionable efficiency, while endangering the supply

on a sidenote, i would rather have a hydrogen tank than these batteries

I can understand your frustration with the "money shouldn't be a problem" argument. But where utilities do not dare touch nuclear even though they have permission, they are voluntarily investing in other renewables. And it's not like other energy generating sources have not been subsidized in history! Many (nuclear) power plants were funded by large with government money.

On the hydrogen: We're still gonna need those batteries, no question. The hydrogen would simply be used as centralized energy storage, with a well defined security perimeter etc. Hydrogen storage on a consumer level is a huge wasp nest and nono. Not only are you dealing with pressure vessels containing tens to hundreds of bar of Hydrogen, there's also the problem that Hydrogen is way more of a hazard than gasoline or even methane. Fuel load sized pressure vessels in cars are never going to happen. Using renewables to generate hydrogen in a centralized location to offset variance in power generation is a decent solution to the problems that many renewables currently pose.