The New Atomic Age We Need • Hacker News Board

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#191

Post by nl » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 3:21 AM UTC

thebmax wrote: post #165

chadgeidel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with your fundamental premise, but "would require an equal amount of backup power" sounds like hyperbole. I haven't read any proposal for "100% replacement" that doesn't take into account energy storage solutions. I think it's perfectly reasonable to question those solutions, but an equal amount of traditional power generation as backup seems excessive.

Case in point is a very cloudy day with no wind. Depending on where it is demand could be very high if it's cold out and heaters are running full blast. You will essentially need a full load supply to come from somewhere or you'll get rolling blackouts. Some regions can compensate with importing or hydro but otherwise you would have to power up the coal and gas. Batteries could maybe work in the future but again this…

Flow batteries dramatically change the cost calculations for energy storage, and are here now.

Additionally, most areas are increasingly moving towards decentralised generation which changes the calculations too.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#192

Post by mikepurvis » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 3:48 AM UTC

Klinky wrote: post #175

thebmax wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…

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…

As a species, we have been generating electricity by nuclear fission for 60 years, and in the process, have produced hundreds of thousands of tons of extraordinarily toxic waste. In all that time, no one has found a final resting place for it. Only one serious DGR has even begun construction— and that's Onkalo (Finland), set to begin receiving waste in 2020, should things go to plan.

All that spent fuel is just sitting on the surface at hundreds of sites worldwide, in pools, dependent on a power supply and ongoing maintenance to the pumps which circulate cooling waters. If those pumps malfunction, or the power supply ceases, the water will boil off, and the wastes will be released into the biosphere. If the US electrical grid ever fails, fossil fuels will have to be trucked to these sites, forever. As long as the grid never fails in the next, oh, few ten to hundred thousand years, we should be all good. How confident are we in the political and economic stability of the US, for millennia to come?

Is it not immensely immoral to be generating power this way, and handing the problem to our distant descendants to deal with? How are they supposed to pay these costs, when we were apparently unable to, despite enjoying the front end benefits of cheap power? Can you imagine if instead of building pyramids in the desert, the ancient Egyptians had left behind a monster that required ongoing babysitting even today, to prevent unleashing catastrophe on the planet?

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#193

Post by thebmax » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 4:32 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #190

thebmax wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not questioning whether innovation can and will occur. Question is whether the innovations to be developed can compete with what is the present reality which is ~10cents/kWh price that we currently pay for power.

All things considered that is pretty cheap and even a minor improvement on price won't change the sunk costs of current infrastructure. The service of getting electricity is pretty cheap around the country and any replacement will have to be substantially cheaper. 'Better' doesn't count for much here because its just electricity and without government mandates people generally don't really care where it comes from.

Idealists like to say that we 'should' be getting power from somewhere else or in a different way. These idealists tend to ignore the market reality that our current situation isn't that bad for almost everyone.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#194

Post by jensen123 » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 8:57 AM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #187

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, t…

I love this idea of tiny houses and 1-person vehicles!

I'm currently living in an apartment and using public transportation, which of course is what many environmentalists are recommending. However, this is not a good solution because of the noise from neighbors. I'm currently tempted to move to a house and get a car, but of course, that is not good for the environment.

The tiny house and tiny car idea solves this!

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#195

Post by jensen123 » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 9:10 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #101

jensen123 wrote: post #85

He does not mention bombs. I'm certainly no expert here, but I think I read in the book An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore a long time ago, that if you have the ability to build a nuclear power plant, then building a bomb is not very hard. I'm not terribly keen on living in a world where most of the countries in Africa, the Middle East etc. are able to build nuclear bombs.

Having nuclear reactors doesn't mean your country can build them. For most countries it would almost certainly be cheaper to just import them from whoever offers you the best deal. Countries with nuclear reactor export industries include China, Russia, France, and South Korea, so there's some decent competition here.

You are probably correct that it would be cheaper to purchase nuclear power plants from others, rather than developing yourself. I'm thinking though - maybe many countries would be reluctant to rely on foreigners for something this essential.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#196

Post by pdkl95 » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 10:22 AM UTC

thebmax wrote: post #193

greglindahl wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not questioning whether innovation can and will occur. Question is whether the innovations to be developed can compete with what is the present reality which is ~10cents/kWh price that we currently pay for power. All things considered that is pretty cheap and even a minor improvement on price won't change the sunk costs of current infrastructure. The service of getting electricity is pretty cheap around the country a…

> cheap

This is the big problem that a lot of these discussions tend to ignore. Not only does our market tend to always pick the cheapest options, the real challenge is the developing world that is going to massively increase their power needs in the next few decades. This well have significant benefits for the world in general if we can pull it off. Unfortunately, given the economic realities of these areas that means coal unless we can provide a cheaper option. Unless some breakthrough happens with storage, that means nuclear.

> Idealists

It's easy to be an idealist when your lifestyle already benefits from massive amounts of cheap energy. As Hans Rosling[1] puts it,

    When I lecture to environmentally concerned students, they tell me "No! Everybody
    in the world cannot have cars and washing machines!" ... Then I ask my students,
    "over the last two years, how many of you doesn't use a car," and some of them 
    proudly raise their hands and say, "I don't use a car". Then I put the really tough
    question, "how many of you hand wash your jeans and your bedsheets, and no-one
    raises their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.
    [...]
    Until they have the same energy consumption per-person, they shouldn't give advice
    to others on what to do and what not to do.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#197

Post by pdkl95 » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 10:49 AM UTC

lappa wrote: post #170

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…

A bit more than 50 >The risk projections suggest that by now Chernobyl may have caused about 1000 cases of thyroid cancer and 4000 cases of other cancers in Europe, representing about 0.01% of all incident cancers since the accident. Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlun…

These claims are from a well-known anti-nuclear organization (Union Of Concerned Scientists).

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#198

Post by lappa » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 12:29 PM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #197

lappa wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit more than 50 >The risk projections suggest that by now Chernobyl may have caused about 1000 cases of thyroid cancer and 4000 cases of other cancers in Europe, representing about 0.01% of all incident cancers since the accident. Models predict that by 2065 about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlun…

These claims are from a well-known anti-nuclear organization (Union Of Concerned Scientists).

I wasn't aware, thanks for the info!

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#199

Post by DennisP » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #137

thebmax wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself. A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is conside…

I don't think you framed it correctly. What matters is always matching the consumption curve. Due to high capital costs, that's really expensive to do with nuclear plants (that's why people talk about baseload, i.e. constant output). So you'd have to solve the same problem in an all-nuclear world - maybe the magnitude would be different, but's essentially the same problem. You could even say that the 'why don't we al…

That's why I think nuclear and solar are a good combination: nuclear baseload and solar for extra daytime demand. It won't match consumption perfectly, but it'll do better than either technology alone.

Re: The New Atomic Age We Need

#200

Post by DennisP » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 2:47 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #192

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…

As a species, we have been generating electricity by nuclear fission for 60 years, and in the process, have produced hundreds of thousands of tons of extraordinarily toxic waste. In all that time, no one has found a final resting place for it. Only one serious DGR has even begun construction— and that's Onkalo (Finland), set to begin receiving waste in 2020, should things go to plan. All that spent fuel is just sitti…

The more radioactive something is, the shorter the half-life. High-level nuclear waste from spent fuel rods has three components:

- U-238: less radioactive than uranium ore, makes up most of the waste. Only a problem because of all the other stuff that's mixed in with it.

- Transuranics, mainly plutonium: radioactive for millennia. About 3% of the waste.

- Fission products: the broken-up atoms. The most troublesome are radioactive for decades. About 1% of the waste. Since they have fairly short half-lives, they're the most radioactive.

So it's the fission products which make lots of decay heat and have to be kept cool, but that heat production goes away fairly quickly. It's the transuranics that have to be stored for millennia, but they don't need cooling; since they have long half-lives they don't generate much heat.

However, the U-238 and transuranics could be used as a fuel in more advanced reactors, either fast reactors or molten salt reactors. So actually we only need to store that waste until the more advanced reactors become available.

In the article Thiel advocates pursuing new reactor types, including those that can eliminate long-term waste. If we do that, we'll end up with less long-term waste than we have right now.