281–290 of 679 posts
Apart from the waste. We really don't know what to do about it other than bury it and leave it for a few tens to hundreds of generations in the future to deal with with the hope that they will know what to do. So it's the safest option. But only for now. We might just be dooming our descendants to deal with the mess and they might be in a worse state than we are now.
We should shoot the waste into to sun.
People are scared of nuclear energy for the same reason that they're scared of taking an airplane. Even though it's technically and statistically very safe, the perceived risk appears much greater. In particular in both cases when something goes wrong it tends to go extremely wrong and you're completely helpless to stop it. In contrast getting in a car accident or slowly suffocating in coal power plant emissions seem…
New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown. LFRs include an electrically cooled salt plug that seals a holding tank. If power fails, the molten salt melts the plug, and the fuel safely drains into the tank. I particularly like ThorCon's concept, where the reactor is underground. Another plus of this reactor type is that water cooling isn't needed, so siting is much more flexible. Note that t…
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New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown. LFRs include an electrically cooled salt plug that seals a holding tank. If power fails, the molten salt melts the plug, and the fuel safely drains into the tank. I particularly like ThorCon's concept, where the reactor is underground. Another plus of this reactor type is that water cooling isn't needed, so siting is much more flexible. Note that t…
Do these designs also completely eliminate the possibility that human error or outright negligence could cause a catastrophic failure? Because those were almost always major factors in nuclear accidents.
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Natural gas kills 4,000 people per PWh generated. Fukushima killed zero immediately, and might kill 100-200 eventually through increased cancer incidences. Fukushima made a few hundred square kilometers briefly unsafe, and some tens of square kilometers temporarily uninhabitable. (Or really, inhabitable but slightly unhealthy.) Fossil fuels are wrecking the entire planet. It's interesting that Fukushima seems to be a…
You're ignoring the suicide missions, the betrayed promises of the electric company, the endless coverage on the news, the anxiety and fear, and the government blatently lying about the health consequences. You're ignoring the long term consequences of habitability, of raw fish being a vital food source and the nuclear core having melt straight into the ocean. You're ignoring the media censorship. And that many of th…
You're worried about contamination of fish? Coal power has contaminated fish throughout all the world's oceans with dangerous levels of mercury. You've probably seen warnings for children and pregnant women to be careful about the fish they eat and not to eat fish more than a couple of times a week. Coal is responsible for about half of that. Compare this to fears about potential contamination of some fish near Fukushima, and I'll take nuclear any day of the week and twice on Sunday if that's the choice.
I constantly hear about the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. I don't recall hearing anything about the non-nuclear consequences of the earthquake after a few months. Is it offensive to state what I see?
I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…
What do you mean "politicization"? Please saw the movie the China syndrome and then 3 mile island happened. Then people were very afraid. These were real possibilities. Does anyone want to live near a nuclear power plant? Do you? I sure as hell would not. How can you twist fear of a disaster in "politicization"? You are also looking thru the lens of our current situation. Very little was being discussed about the ris…
Actually, yes! Statistically it's safer than living next to a coal-fired plant.
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Of course you also need to count that. But accounting for extraction and refining adds something like 20% to fossil fuel emissions, whereas it's claimed to vastly increase total nuclear emissions.
Sure, but this is a percents vs quantities problem. If nuclear has almost zero emissions in power production even the smallest increase will look like a massive increase percentage wise. It still may compare very favorably to fossil fuels for lifecycle emissions.
That leaves the problem of the mining and manufacture, which is still centralized. This problem can be solved with GM organisms. We engineer fungi and bacteria to grow on roofs and generate electricity. They'd use CO2 in the growing process too. We can grow batteries in a similar way. Bacteria, yeast and viruses can do anything. They're the ultimate nanotech, we just need to learn how to program them.
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briefly unsafe What crack are you smoking? How about you move to Chernobyl and check in with the local population. Oh, that's right. No one can live there anymore....
A good chunk of the area evacuated for Fukushima was later cleared and the residents allowed to return. See here: http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/Evacuation... I guess understanding the situation means I'm smoking crack?
Here's another example. A beach that had a quarter million visitors a year had to be shut down, and was recently reopened thanks to "tide embankment construction". That's seven years of not being able to go to the beach because of nuclear, and now they're told it's safe because the water is blocked. Japan is still living with the disaster. For locals, the consequences of the incident continue to shape their lives. Statistics will not change anyone's mind.
I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…
What do you mean "politicization"? Please saw the movie the China syndrome and then 3 mile island happened. Then people were very afraid. These were real possibilities. Does anyone want to live near a nuclear power plant? Do you? I sure as hell would not. How can you twist fear of a disaster in "politicization"? You are also looking thru the lens of our current situation. Very little was being discussed about the ris…
If Th-based processes were chosen, that cannot easily generate Pu, nuclear proliferation won't be such a hazard. It would have far-reaching political consequences. E.g. USA is strictly against the Iran's nuclear program specifically because it might help produce bomb-grade fissile material.
235U-based processes are also pretty inefficient: about 1% of the nuclear material is burned when the (very active) fuel needs another cycle of refinement. Known Th-bases processes produce somehow less-active waste, and can burn more of the fuel before refinement is necessary.
A number of new, quite a bit safer, nuclear projects aimed to burn 235U and the current stockpiles of nuclear waste exist. But due to the fear-mongering, and likely due to relatively low coal and oil prices, they have little chance to be implemented, at least, in a reasonably short term.
No, I won't mind living near a well-maintained nuclear plant. In fact, I lived ~90km from one for 20+ years. I would be much less happy to live next to a major coal-burning plant, since it produces rather noticeable levels of radioactive contamination during normal operation [1].
I wonder how much nuclear suffers from PR. Clearly statistics are not really effective at changing opinions. But what would happen if popular Elon Musk/Steve Jobs type of public figure get into the lobby game with a nuclear company? Could that swing perception either way?