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Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

energyrealityproject.com

351–360 of 393 posts

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

#351
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Full scale engineering, free of the liberal treehugging you decry, happens in China, India, Russia, and elsewhere. You'd think we'd be seeing better results than we are.

China literally just got started and betting pretty big too so hell yeah we're going to see results in the next 10 years.

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

#352
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a reminder that energy use and electricity use are not the same thing --- about 2/3 of all energy is used for heating and transport, and electricity can't be used for that. (Because it's too hard to store, and because the electrical grid simply can't transport that much.) Sure, solving renewable energy is a really valuable thing to do, but it's still only solving 1/3 of the problem.

> 2/3 of all energy is used for heating and transport, and electricity can't be used for that Well, here in the Netherlands, the majority of the trains will soon (2018) be powered by 100% wind energy. 50% since this year. So it's categorically (and I would think obviously) incorrect to say "you can't use electricity for transport". http://www.ns.nl/over-ns/campagnes/maatschappelijk-betrokken... Heating is another que…

> Heating is another question entirely.

It's actually a comparatively easy problem to solve. Have a large boiler, heat that with electricity while you have an abundance of energy and keep it moderately well insulated. Drawing the heat off that is simple.

Storing electricity for usage as electricity is the primary problem.

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

#353
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of Ukraine and Japan Fukushima happened too soon, and it will be a long time before the results of that disaster on the healthy of the surrounding people can be properly analysed. Chernobyl on the other hand has been studied extensively and considering the scale of the disaster the to…

Those are very high numbers. > estimated 2000 caused due to directed exposure to clean up workers at the site itself The more common numbers you see are under 50. This Slate article goes over the uncertainty: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...

If you look at the work that these guys had to do, particularly on the roof and under the reactor to prevent the core from leaking out, then the number 50 is hard to believe.

These two wikipedia pages are worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Human_impac...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidator_(Chernobyl)

You can see videos of the work that they had to do.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bio+robot+chern...

Also the linear no threshold model is quite questionable when you consider how dosages are measured in an emergency situation, and that different isotopes attack different parts of the body in non uniform fashion. i.e. Skin contact versus ingestion or inhalation.

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

#354

The article is completely unprofessional. The tone itself is very one-sided - which is bad enough. However, the factual omissions are ridiculous. Here are a few examples: the area used for wind turbines is large, but it is usually re-usable for agriculture, or increasingly off shore official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of…

I concur, this read as some sort of PR propaganda push according to an agenda.

it fails to take into account what actually happens with costs running several times the initial estimates, overdue decommission with no money to pay for it. Look at Olkiluoto 3 in Finland, a first of its kind third gen nuclear plant: building start in late 2005 for 3 billions euros with a starting operational date in 2009. delayed to 2011, then 2012, 2013 and 2014. now it is 2018 with a cost a little under 9 billions.

Then we also have past example of 4th gen reactor, superphenix in France, initial cost under a billion euros, actual building cost and maintenance around 12 billions + 2.5 billions for decommission. building started in 1982, operational in 1984 with an actual load under 10% until a first incident forces to stop it for 2 years, restarts and manage a 11% load early 1989 until another incident forces to purge 400 tons of liquid sodium and stop the plant again, then it restart again in 1994 with a load of 0.1% of the nominal capacity than a change of mission from producing electricity to experimental lab then same year another incident which stops it again for half a year, after a one year hiatus it is restarted and gets its best year of production over 30% load in 1996 and then is stopped for decennial maintenance and decision is made to cut the loss and stop it definitively.

These are not "run numbers" but real world examples of dealing with experimental nuclear plants, which is something else than mass deployment over a whole country as primary source of energy.

Putting unreasonable expectations on nuclear plants as this article does is a recipe for major disaster and public disappointment, this is not helping the nuclear energy production nor the energy issue itself.

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

#355
Well once again an article that fails to address that the energy production issue could be addressed with controlling our energy wants instead of mindlessly using more and more combined with local self-production instead of centralized giant production plants and transportation.

Let's not forget that nuclear plants are basically huge and optimized steam dynamos and that a breakthrough in producing electricity would be a game changer.

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The barren abyssal seafloors are life rich with a complex ecosystem for what we know of it and in matters of ocean we know pretty much nothing.

Also the cost to get there is quite high and there's no reason to think radioactivity would stay there.

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

#357
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to downvote you but accidentally clicked on the button and can't go back. However, I do disagree with your point. I'm pro-nuclear to the degree that it's economical, and found the article to be somewhat insipid due to grandparent's reasons. Just as there are plenty of people that are irrationally anti-nuclear, being irrationally pro-nuclear is no better at all.

What qualifies as "irrationally" pro-nuclear seems to depend on what time horizon you are using, the same as whether or not it seems rational to dump money into NASA.

it is rational to dump money into NASA, ask Neil Degrasse Tyson for an explanation of the economic repercussion.

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

#358
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course that does make sense. To build a wind mill and to distribute the costs is a totally different kind of economic endeavor than to build and finance a nuclear power plant, which can only be profitable with state subventions anyway.

Which grid-scale wind or solar projects are profitable without being subsidized by the government? I'm not aware of any.

Wanted to make the point that you don't have to have grid-scale projects if you distribute it. One windmill at a time, each with its own financement, investors and profitability. I admit that was not clear.

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

#359

The article is completely unprofessional. The tone itself is very one-sided - which is bad enough. However, the factual omissions are ridiculous. Here are a few examples: the area used for wind turbines is large, but it is usually re-usable for agriculture, or increasingly off shore official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of…

Could you clarify the "huge problem of load-following" for nuclear power plants? My understanding is that it's mostly a licensing issue rather than a technical issue, and in practice hasn't had a big impact on CF[1] [1] https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/29-2/nea-news-29-2-lo... "Most of the currently operating Generation II nuclear reactors were designed to have strong manoeuvring capabilities. Nuclear power pla…

There are also physical limitations with load following. In a fission reactor you're dealing with a steady state of influx of fission products (by the primary nuclear reaction) and the delayed decay of those products. In fact a large portion of the heat generated by a fission reactor comes from the delayed decay of the fission products. Furthermore some of the fission products are very efficient neutron catchers; notably Xe135 which is so efficient in catching neutrons, that its buildup in a reactor is called "xenon poisoning"; the accumulation of neutron catchers in a fission reaction is called "neutron poisoning".

What this comes down to is, when you ramp down a fission reactor, there's some internal inertia in its internal workings, that will actively prevent it for some time from being able to ramped up in a safely manner. The quicker the shutdown, the larger the amount of neutron poisoning and the longer you have to wait before ramping it up again. This leaves you with a nice second order differential equation coupling the power output modulation factor with the period of that power modulation.

The period of the power modulation is 24h, following the daily load swings, so for a given reactor that gives you only so much load following capacity to stay within safe margins.

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

#360
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That dam failed when 1 year's worth of rain fell over 24 hours if it had not been there a lot of people would have died anyway. On net Dams have saved far more than 170,000 lives in china alone. Flood control is more or less a necessity in the modern world adding energy generation on top of that is a minimal risk. ex: From 1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_China_floods loss of 4150 people, and 180 million peopl…

I get that it's important to be objective, to look soberly at costs and benefits. But 'only' 26,000 direct deaths? Oh, that's fine then.

Yes, poor word choice. I was comparing 26,000 from a failure in 1975 to 4,150 in 1998 even with lot's of flood control.

Even with lot's of flood control floods still kill some people. But, dams prevent many floods, reduce severity, and generally give significant warning time when there not going to be enough. So, most deaths are from small rivers that feed major ones instead of major rivers overflowing.

Without them, things would be far worse.

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