Coal Prices Rising Exponentially

Re:Coal Prices Rising Exponentially by guscost on Monday October 11, 2021 @08:31AM (#28827589)

> After the construction of the unit started in 2005, Areva began constructing EPRs in Flamanville, France, and in Taishan, China. However, as of 2019, the construction of the EPR in France is ten years behind schedule.[35] Taishan 1 in China became the first EPR to start power generation on 29 June 2018,[36] and the second one (Taishan 2) came online in 2019.[37]

Sounds like it has a lot to do with the regulations/regulators.

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Re:Coal Prices Rising Exponentially by E_x_B on Monday October 11, 2021 @09:02AM (#28827836)

It has a lot to do with the regulations and probably more to do with the fact that in Finland they require the regulations actually to be fulfilled. This was written in the contract and Areva-Siemens was aware of the requirements at the time of the signing. They gambled and lost.

Interestingly the City of Helsinki is now considering compact nuclear reactors as a replacement for the energy source required for district heating.

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12098463 (in Finnish only)

Currently they are running on coal which is to be replaced by a bio fuel (wood chips) based power plant by year 2024. Many are not happy about the projected increase of traffic from trucks bringing in the bio fuel. The nuclear option will not happen due to too many diehard Green party voters in Helsinki but it is a sign of the times. Even the Green party in Finland is at least partly supportive to nuclear power.

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Re:Coal Prices Rising Exponentially by guscost on Monday October 11, 2021 @09:18AM (#28827993)

We probably agree that the reactor in Taishan might be less safe than it is designed to be, might have some critical stress parts made of cast pot-metal, and so forth.

Do you believe the regulations/regulators in Europe are acting reasonably? You could try to argue that extreme risk aversion is the better failure mode, but that’s hard to prove in the long term.

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Re:Coal Prices Rising Exponentially by E_x_B on Monday October 11, 2021 @10:04AM (#28828409)

Extreme risk aversion is costly and probably causes on average more damage to the people than operating based on a realistic risk assessment. Problem is the out of proportion fear of ionizing radiation fuelled by the campaigns of the various Green movements.

I am pro nuclear power due to the fact that producing the same amount of energy using coal power causes more loss of human lives. This has been true even when comparing just the real radiation exposure from the fly ash of an operating coal powered plant and the maximum allowed radiation exposure from a nuclear power plant. It is still true when comparing the loss of lives per produced energy when both the Chernobyl accident and the Fukushima accident are accounted for.

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