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Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

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Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#91

Post by kovek »

est31 wrote: post #56
noobermin wrote: post #30

I'm pro-nuclear fission (full disclosure, I work on fusion related research, but I don't care about who wins more than I want society to win), but I think talking to any random person in the public who are already skeptical about fusion, to them fission has not had a great track record. Make as many arguments you want to make about fukushima facing a natural disaster, w/e, and how the field has advanced since three-m…

I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't technological issues, it's human issues. E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be bui…

Imagine if we could have a reactor running in a very remote area, accessible by robots. No people would work in the area, only remotely controlled robots would be present. People would come into work in a remote office and have high-bandwidth internet access to the cameras installed on the robots. All the installations would be created with "robot-first" interfaces.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#92

Post by est31 »

avar wrote: post #80
est31 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't technological issues, it's human issues. E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be bui…

What we've got right now is on the order of a million people dying prematurely every year because of the human issue of people worrying too much about concentrated risk (nuclear) and not understanding the diffuse risk (coal). Sure, we can improve fission in various ways, but this sort of skepticism is way riskier in the aggregate as it translates into public policy.

Indeed, coal is even worse than nuclear. So let's have neither but renewables instead :). Compared to europe, the USA is a big country and it is also further in the south which means more sun for solar collectors.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#93

Post by qaq »

throwaway55676 wrote: post #85

Lol, Bill Gates will "voluntarily" contribute money to a project. That money isn't his, such enormous wealth can only be stolen from society. In any case, if congress wants to build something they can tax him, print money, or adjust various levers to change the expense. The pretentions and preening of the rich should be drowned in laughter.

Well it's a good thing you can freely move to North Korea where such atrocities are not possible.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#94

Post by arduanika »

philipkglass wrote: post #51
arduanika wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> much cheaper sources of green energy When people stop bragging about how many more jobs green energy creates than fossil fuels, I'll start believing that renewables are cheaper at scale . > What we need now is a good storage solution Collocate the new nuclear plants with facilities that (at high energy cost) recapture carbon into dense fuels.

When people stop bragging about how many more jobs green energy creates than fossil fuels, I'll start believing that renewables are cheaper at scale. These braggarts haven't calculated the labor intensity per MWh (construction + operation) over the full life cycle of utility scale wind and solar facilities. Utility scale renewables are less labor-intensive than coal or nuclear over the full life cycle. The only reaso…

> Utility scale renewables are less labor-intensive than coal or nuclear over the full life cycle

It's hard to marshal evidence for or against this claim, since as you say, the newest renewable technologies are in the earliest stages of their life cycles. It's also hard to defend or refute claims about the cost of renewables at scale, since they're currently such a small fraction of energy production. Are we looking at economies of scale / diminishing marginal costs? Or, how quickly will we exhaust the geothermal sites, the dam-able rivers, and the rare minerals that go into batteries and solar panels?

Projecting the answers to these questions requires a lot careful modeling, extrapolation, and educated guesses. Given the hopes, fears, and ideologies at play, it's very easy to lie with stats here (or for proponents of any given source, to bend the truth in one direction in the conversation about creating jobs, and in the opposite direction in the conversation about cutting costs). Based on your linked post, it looks like you're digging into this rigorously & honestly, so thanks for that.

> how much labor is required for fuel extraction

Plus transportation. Isn't this way cheaper for nuclear, where way less fuel (in terms of mass) produces way more power? And, isn't there a good deal of extraction that goes into creating a solar panel?

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#95

Post by lsc »

rbg246 wrote: post #38
markdown wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well gee that is great for you but what does the taxpayer get out of it. Green energy anywhere and anytime you need it, not just when the sun shines and the wind blows. The one major problem with nuclear energy is that mining uranium has thus far been an environmental disaster.

The major problem is that it will take twenty years to build a power station - look at Hinkley Point Power station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...

That doesn't seem like an argument against it? I mean, if fission is the best base load (and I'm not saying it is, I don't know) but it takes 20 years to get approval for a fission plant, seems to me like you do some modeling and planning and then you start building.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#96

Post by est31 »

kovek wrote: post #91
est31 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't technological issues, it's human issues. E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be bui…

Imagine if we could have a reactor running in a very remote area, accessible by robots. No people would work in the area, only remotely controlled robots would be present. People would come into work in a remote office and have high-bandwidth internet access to the cameras installed on the robots. All the installations would be created with "robot-first" interfaces.

IIRC the highly radioactive part of a nuclear power plant is already robot-only. It's pretty cool technology. But technology isn't the problem.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#98

Post by arduanika »

est31 wrote: post #56
noobermin wrote: post #30

I'm pro-nuclear fission (full disclosure, I work on fusion related research, but I don't care about who wins more than I want society to win), but I think talking to any random person in the public who are already skeptical about fusion, to them fission has not had a great track record. Make as many arguments you want to make about fukushima facing a natural disaster, w/e, and how the field has advanced since three-m…

I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't technological issues, it's human issues. E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be bui…

> The greatest advances in drawers don't help if you still have ticking time bombs

The greatest advances in drawers don't help if you stop building new nuclear plants. The choice today is not about whether to build more outdated plants; it's about whether to build new modern plants.

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#99

Post by javagram »

kovek wrote: post #91
est31 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of those fission sceptics. The main problems I have with fission isn't technological issues, it's human issues. E.g. in Fukushima, people were forced to move back into their homes, without giving them an option to get compensated instead. Furthermore, engineers pointed out that there were issues with the way Fukushima was built but their concerns were discarded. Human issue again. Fission plants should be bui…

Imagine if we could have a reactor running in a very remote area, accessible by robots. No people would work in the area, only remotely controlled robots would be present. People would come into work in a remote office and have high-bandwidth internet access to the cameras installed on the robots. All the installations would be created with "robot-first" interfaces.

Robots have not proven very successful in nuclear disasters IIRC. Radiation hardening for the computers is an issue, as are manipulators and other things.

Moreover, in a disaster situation like Fukushima, power loss would be an issue. Fukushima was fine in the immediate aftermath (24 hours?) of the disaster until the on-site batteries ran out and backup generators couldn’t start due to damage from flooding. A fully robotic installation would face similar and greater problems after a SCRAM.

It’s an interesting sci-fi idea that might be possible in a hundred years, once we master simpler robots like vacuums and folding laundry!

Re: Bill Gates promises to add his own billions if Congress does nuclear power push

#100

Post by hocuspocus »

eBombzor wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Three serious problems with nuclear, globally: - too slow. Break ground now and you'll be producing energy by 2030. - political instability. Hands up who supports the switch of Iran and Saudi Arabia to nuclear? It would reduce a lot of carbon emissions. Let's not overlook Ukraine either: https://www.neimagazine.com/features/featurenuclear-plants-i... - budget instability: Wylfa has stopped https://www.independent.co.…

Also mining for radioactive materials takes a huge toll on the environment. Also, how are they going to get rid of radioactive waste? There doesn't seem to be a good solution to this at all.

Mining for rare earth elements also takes a huge toll on the environment and kills thousands of people.

There are many reasonable ways to deal with radioactive waste. And even if there weren't, so what? If we stay on the current trajectory regarding fossil fuels, we're all screwed within a generation or two, nuclear waste is the least of my worries.

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