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The New Atomic Age We Need

nytimes.com

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Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#181

Post by drjesusphd »

pilom wrote: post #13
T-A wrote: post #8

> We already know that today’s energy sources cannot sustain a future we want to live in. Is this really true? In Lazard's 2014 comparison of total cost per MWh, both wind and solar beat coal and nuclear [1]. Costs have fallen so much that it's becoming hard to justify continued subsidies [2]. [1] http://energyinnovation.org/2015/02/07/levelized-cost-of-ene... [2] http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/us-energy-…

The problem is scale. Here is a really good analysis of renewable resources in the UK: http://www.withouthotair.com/ Conclusion: The UK doesn't receive enough sunlight or have enough wind/waves/tidal pools/land to grow food, power cars (of any kind) and meet other energy needs. The UK can never get all of their energy carbon free without nuclear or importing power. The US is in a better place because of solar in the…

I love that book. It really opened my eyes to how big the energy problem is.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#182

Post by pdonis »

olau wrote: post #133
merpnderp wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This times one hundred. Nuclear in the West is far more expensive than places like China and Vietnam not because western plants are better or safer but because they face incredible legal and regulatory hurdles designed to appease people's irrational fears.

I call bullshit on that. Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. The reason we haven't had more disasters than we've currently had is precisely because people working in the field take this stuff deeply seriously. And they need to. What's killing nuclear isn't environmentalists, it's that this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known.

> Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly.

Safety in general is not to be taken lightly. But we should assess the relative safety of different technologies fairly. We don't do that with nuclear; we hold it to standards far higher than the ones we enforce for other technologies, even though those other technologies have killed orders of magnitude more people. That is not rational.

> this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known.

This could be said of any technology. But again, we hold nuclear to far higher standards than we do other technologies that have failure scenarios which have already killed orders of magnitude more people.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#183

Post by [deleted] »

hguant wrote: post #159
olau wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call bullshit on that. Nuclear safety is not to be taken lightly. The reason we haven't had more disasters than we've currently had is precisely because people working in the field take this stuff deeply seriously. And they need to. What's killing nuclear isn't environmentalists, it's that this stuff is hard, really hard, and it's getting harder over time as more failure scenarios are known.

We haven't really had any disasters, compared to the damage coal and oil do to our environment, and also compared to the semi-regular industrial accidents that happen in the coal/oil industry. Three Mile Island - how many fatalities? Fukushima - who died? Chernobyl - there should be a Godwin's law about this. Meanwhile, life expectancy is down, coal fired plants are quite literally poisoning our atmosphere, and oil e…

[deleted]

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#184

Post by DHJSH »

Retric wrote: post #60
pilom wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is scale. Here is a really good analysis of renewable resources in the UK: http://www.withouthotair.com/ Conclusion: The UK doesn't receive enough sunlight or have enough wind/waves/tidal pools/land to grow food, power cars (of any kind) and meet other energy needs. The UK can never get all of their energy carbon free without nuclear or importing power. The US is in a better place because of solar in the…

BS, solar is not great in the UK, but your comparing electric generation at 2009 efficiency levels with powering cars, heating using resistance heating etc. (Heat pumps break 100% nominal efficiency by extracting heat from outside air.) It's also perfectly reasonable for the UK to continue to import significant amounts of energy in one form or another and or increase efficiency levels. EX: We can manufacture 40+% eff…

> EX: We can manufacture 40+% efficient solar cells, sure there expensive,

20% is the theoretical max for photovoltaics.

And it's "they're expensive."

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#185

Post by pdonis »

chefkoch wrote: post #127
pdonis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is fission even (economically) competitive? Remember that he's talking about a new generation of reactor designs. Also remember that a key driver of the high cost of nuclear energy is lawsuits based on irrational overestimates of the risk of nuclear energy compared to other energy sources. Coal has killed orders of magnitude more people than nuclear, yet nobody ever brings a NIMBY lawsuit to prevent a coal plant fr…

> Also remember that a key driver of the high cost of nuclear energy is lawsuits based on irrational overestimates of the risk of nuclear energy compared to other energy sources. Do you have a source for this as the new EPR reactor in finland is aboud three times as expensive as planned? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

> the new EPR reactor in finland

I was actually talking about nuclear energy in US; I'm not familiar with the legal regimes in other countries to know how much of an impact lawsuits have been. France, at least, has been getting the majority of their electricity from nuclear reactors for several decades now, so clearly it is possible to have a saner legal environment.

> is aboud three times as expensive as planned

How experienced is this construction company at building nuclear reactors?

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#186

Post by Klinky »

Estragon wrote: post #179
Klinky wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scaling down power generation when demand is low is not something nuclear is good at. Battery or energy storage systems that could store excess power from the grid would help any sort of power generation technique become more efficient and reliable. There is a lot of hand waiving and fudging the numbers when it comes to the cost of nuclear. One-off proprietary designs, using proprietary fuel systems, using proprietar…

> Scaling down power generation when demand is low is not something nuclear is good at. Isn't that what control rods do?

They control the reaction within the reactor, and in newer reactors can be used to regulate load. France & Germany do have a load following system in place for their nuclear reactors. It's not a simple matter of turning off a reactor, as this is a large maintenance task. Various mechanisms and regulations have been developed to handle load following for a Nuclear plant. There are still negatives to doing this, such as reduced efficiency, additional operator training, and additional wear on control, fuel and the plant. Positives likely outweigh the negatives, but the reactor must be designed to do load following and regulations need to be in place to ensure it is done safely. It is another thing to consider when talking about the cost of nuclear.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#187

Post by ilaksh »

That equation changes when you move to a sustainable society.

Much smaller residential plots in suburban/rural areas, cut out commuting by 60 plus percent by using Skype etc. Move to much smaller single passenger electric vehicles (300 pounds instead of 3000).

Switch to high-tech (or low tech) efficient ultra-local food production, like potato bags on every roof, a tilapia farm on every corner. Solar on every roof, transparent VAWT on every roof. Solar roadways. Ground-source heat pump and net zero airtight ventilated homes. Wide deployment of residential energy storage.

We can literally make society 5-10 times more efficient.

https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#188

Post by indifferentalex »

As much as the causes at Chernobyl can be attributed to the poor quality of the systems installed and of incorrect safety procedures, it shows that bad things can indeed happen, simply saying that they were caused by incompetence doesn't prove nuclear power is safe. Likewise stating that "fewer than 50" died at Chernobyl, while possibly true (referring to the immediate area), is a severe understatement of the crisis. All european countries were forced to react, radioactive dust sent up into the air by the fires was carried across the continent and whole crops had to be destroyed. The low figure of consequential deaths is thanks to a large and costly effort to prevent further problems. Much like Fukushima. This article is reverse fear mongering and it is just as wrong, nuclear energy is without a doubt an incredible resource and the pros objectively outway the cons compared to fossil fuels, and the claim that the gap left open by insufficient adoption of renewable energy can be closed by nuclear in the meantime is a valid one, downplaying the dangers of nuclear however is not the correct way to move forward.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#189

Post by foobarian »

another-one-off wrote: post #169
bjt wrote: post #167

While I agree with the basic argument that we are hurting ourselves with an irrational aversion to nuclear power, some of Thiel's arguments seem weak or overreaching. The worst, in my estimation, is this: > Critics often point to the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as an even more terrifying warning against nuclear power, but that accident was a direct result of both a faulty design and the operators’ incompet…

It is an apples to oranges comparison, but wouldn't the honest comparison would come out about the same? My memory is that nuclear emissions from a coal fired station are comparable to a nuclear station, and nuclear doesn't produce smoke. So nuclear should still come out 13,000 people/year ahead.

The problem with the coal vs. nuclear pollution impact is the liability structure. With a coal death, there is no easily identifiable responsible entity. With a nuclear accident, there would be a line around the courthouse: irradiated and condemned properties, cleanup costs, claimed deaths, etc. This cost translates to insurance and regulatory overhead.

It just sucks that coal impact is so anonymized by all pumping into a shared atmosphere. Unless there can be a successful class action against the whole industry that won't change.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#190

Post by greglindahl »

thebmax wrote: post #168
mightybyte wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries aren't the only solution here. Any kind of efficient energy storage will work. For example LightSail Energy has been working on compressed air storage for several years now.

I'm all for innovation in storage and think there might be a breakthrough at some point. But this goes to the heart of it. Right now a fully renewable grid that matches what we currently have is not financially viable. Not saying it won't become so at some point but it's a high hurdle. All things considered having close to 100% reliable electricity in every home in America for less than ~$100/month is hard to compete…

That totally makes sense -- although renewable energy and energy storage have been making huge strides recently, let's assume that no further improvements will happen.
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