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Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

energyrealityproject.com

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Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#211

Post by david-given »

kuschku wrote: post #157
Eeko wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumping it to the ocean is pretty safe. Seriously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_... However, since people don't easily believe water's a very effective radiation shielding (even if there's an xkcd of it https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ ) and that heavier than water metals kind of tend to stay put at the bottom of the ocean, other means of disposal might be more realistic. Recycling in breed…

Actually, Britain did that. They dumped most of their waste in the channel. Result, 20 years later: The waste did not dilute, the radiation in the channel is damaging the local animals.

The channel's a really dumb place to dump waste. There's a massive difference between a life-rich continental shelf with a complex ecosystem, and the barren abyssal seafloors five miles down. Put the waste there and it will just stay there for millennia.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#212

Post by alfapla »

13thLetter wrote: post #184
jandrese wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are a lot of alternate nuclear reactor designs that look great on paper but have never had the full scale engineering done to see if it is practical. And they look cheap because you don't even know half of the stuff you have to do that makes it expensive. It's like rocket design where you go "just put a bunch of explosives in a tube and go into space, this shouldn't be too expensive or difficult..."

True; many of these dream reactors probably won't work, because that is the nature of things. But the full-scale engineering never gets done because of anti-nuclear propaganda playing on mass public ignorance, so at the rate we're going now we'll never know.

If there's positive buzz about molten salt reactors, the most likely source of that buzz is people who want to get rich selling molten salt reactors.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#213

Post by beat »

RealityVoid wrote: post #174
thomasahle wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, most nuclear power plants even produce less energy than if their area was instead covered by solar panels. Says Musk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-n6xJOFbvA

I seriously doubt that claim.

Run the numbers on it. What's a reasonable expected area for a real-world nuclear power plant? (not the fantasy of the OP, but what real plants usually cover) Reasonable peak and median output long-term for that much solar panel? Throw in some batteries for storage to stabilize the output, and the numbers are pretty compelling.

Then throw in the cost of covering, say, a square mile of land with solar panels versus the cost of building and operating a nuclear plant, even the ridiculous fantasy numbers of the OP. Solar looks pretty good.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#214

Post by vlehto »

RealityVoid wrote: post #174
thomasahle wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, most nuclear power plants even produce less energy than if their area was instead covered by solar panels. Says Musk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-n6xJOFbvA

I seriously doubt that claim.

It would be on right ballpark in Sahara. Assuming that we use current kilometer scale safety zones around power stations.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#215

Post by chc »

beat wrote: post #213
RealityVoid wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously doubt that claim.

Run the numbers on it. What's a reasonable expected area for a real-world nuclear power plant? (not the fantasy of the OP, but what real plants usually cover) Reasonable peak and median output long-term for that much solar panel? Throw in some batteries for storage to stabilize the output, and the numbers are pretty compelling. Then throw in the cost of covering, say, a square mile of land with solar panels versus th…

A sibling commenter already did run the numbers on it, and found nuclear ahead by a factor of 10: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10503382

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#218

Post by hackerboos »

pjc50 wrote: post #100

"We could do it for $1 Trillion with liquid-fueled Molten Salt Reactors, on the same amount of land, but with no water cooling, no risk of meltdowns, and the ability to use our stockpiles of nuclear “waste” as a secondary fuel." This is not a production-ready technology, though. I believe there are lingering problems with corrosion. And the claim that the MSR doesn't require secondary water cooling is odd: what's the…

https://illumin.usc.edu/assets/media/1067/thorium_reactor04....

I think the main idea behind thorium safety is that the radioactive material can be removed without shutting down the plant, which is not possible with Uranium rods.

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