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The Nuclear Option

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Re: The Nuclear Option

#71

Post by 205guy »

trimbo wrote: post #5

Sigh. I've been arguing this for so long, and gave up about 5 years ago. I can't think of a more scalable way than fission to combat carbon, yet it won't happen for so many reasons. * There are too many solar and wind success stories to point to. "Why can't NYC be like Scotland with wind power?!" You start to list the reasons and the response is "we can accomplish it if we put our minds to it!". It's an endless cycle…

I sense some cognitive dissonance here. You want that great carbon-free energy provided by nuclear, and you lament all the reasons it won't happen. Except you have no rebuttal to those reasons and almost sound convinced by their soundness yourself.

- Politicians won't back nuclear because of the risk of accident, thus giving legitimacy to the risk and the public's fears.

- There hasn't been adequate research and advancement in the nuclear industry (and other threads mention the lack of applied design research). So previous scientists and industrials have already determined it's too hard/expensive/difficult. Global warming may change that equation, but it won't make up for lost research.

- So people see the exclusion zones and shouldn't be afraid? We currently have 2 molten reactors with no long term solution found. At what point does the fear become irrational?

- Same point as above: lack of advancement, bad designs, and human mistakes, how can any of these be fixed to allay fears and be operational in time?

- Another comment mentions how storage of waste is a question of will, yet we have pools of it all over, and the underground solution doesn't seem reliable either.

All I hear is that nuclear is the perfect solution if it were perfect and people weren't irrational.

Here's a qustion to help cut through the Gordon knot: at what point is it scientifically rational to accept/shun nuclear?

Re: The Nuclear Option

#72

Post by jdm63 »

dv_dt wrote: post #18

Just about every builder and operator of large nuclear fleets of reactors have all outright said or implied by their actions that nuclear is uneconomical vs renewable power options. The massive bulge of capital and scheduling needed points to humans not being able to build a next generation of nuclear plants in time to head off the worst climate change, and renewable energy sources being both faster and cheaper to bu…

Waste disposal is a big issue too. No state wants the waste, so it keeps lying around and leaking at decommissioned sites.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#73

Post by sasavilic »

One thing we always keep forgetting: spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. It has to be kept safe for years and somehow I don't this is really calculated into price of nuclear electricity. But if we had a reactor that wouldn't have issue with highly radioactive waste, then it would be a different story.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#74

Post by atombender »

godelski wrote: post #46
dv_dt wrote: post #18

Just about every builder and operator of large nuclear fleets of reactors have all outright said or implied by their actions that nuclear is uneconomical vs renewable power options. The massive bulge of capital and scheduling needed points to humans not being able to build a next generation of nuclear plants in time to head off the worst climate change, and renewable energy sources being both faster and cheaper to bu…

> France: 44 Billion would be saved by investing in rewables instead of nuclear >link I can't read French so I can't comment on this report. I'm not saying it is wrong or your conclusions are wrong. But I would say that there's an unfortunate thing happening and it is that bad information and research is being done. In fact we don't have to go far back in HN history to find this post > https://news.ycombinator.com/it…

Countries like Sweden and Norway also don't want to build out any new hydro infrastructure at this point -- hydroelectric dams have a considerable ecological impact, something rarely mentioned when renewables are discussed. These countries are famous for their hydropower today, but some of these projects met with considerable protests at the time they were built (such as the Alta-Kautokeino waterway [1] in 1979-1981).

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0016718583...

Re: The Nuclear Option

#75

Post by kijin »

sasavilic wrote: post #73

One thing we always keep forgetting: spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. It has to be kept safe for years and somehow I don't this is really calculated into price of nuclear electricity. But if we had a reactor that wouldn't have issue with highly radioactive waste, then it would be a different story.

Keeping radioactive waste far away from anyone who might be harmed by it, even for thousands of years, is a solved problem. We know how to bury stuff deep underground in a geologically stable region. Or if you prefer, throw it in a subduction zone.

As with most things nuclear-related, the real problem is NIMBY. If a country as large and sparsely populated as the U.S. can't agree on a place to bury nuclear waste, there doesn't seem to be much hope for others like France and Japan.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#76

Post by joey-bob »

sasavilic wrote: post #73

One thing we always keep forgetting: spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. It has to be kept safe for years and somehow I don't this is really calculated into price of nuclear electricity. But if we had a reactor that wouldn't have issue with highly radioactive waste, then it would be a different story.

A large portion of this problem was addressed by the Integral Fast Reactor concept developed in the late 1980s.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#77

Post by gambiting »

sasavilic wrote: post #73

One thing we always keep forgetting: spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. It has to be kept safe for years and somehow I don't this is really calculated into price of nuclear electricity. But if we had a reactor that wouldn't have issue with highly radioactive waste, then it would be a different story.

Please remember that burning coal also leaves behind dangerous and mildly radioactive waste, that's usually not protected in any way or form - it just sits there, washed away by rain and blown away by rain. Where I'm from(Silesia region of Poland) the ash hills are permanent feature of the landscape, and a short trip with a Geiger counter shows easily that they have higher radiation level than background. It's not very dangerous of course, but it's there.

On the other hand, actual nuclear waste is protected fantastically well, and it's not that difficult to store. We always had plans for ultra-long-term storage too, no? Deep underground in salt deposits so it would be protected against earthquakes and underground rivers.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#78

Post by atombender »

trimbo wrote: post #5

Sigh. I've been arguing this for so long, and gave up about 5 years ago. I can't think of a more scalable way than fission to combat carbon, yet it won't happen for so many reasons. * There are too many solar and wind success stories to point to. "Why can't NYC be like Scotland with wind power?!" You start to list the reasons and the response is "we can accomplish it if we put our minds to it!". It's an endless cycle…

There's a new book out, reviewed recently by the New York Times, that wants to change that perception. "A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow" [1] is co-written by an engineer who lays out the case for nuclear power. The authors think that rapid deployment of nuclear power is the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/books/review/bright-futur...

Re: The Nuclear Option

#79

Post by philipkglass »

adrianN wrote: post #56
i_am_proteus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewables will replace the most expensive fossil plants before the cheaper ones, which will make the base load price to compete with pretty hard for nuclear to match.

Right now it looks like the opposite is true. Due to a lack of storage we need more expensive gas plants instead of cheap coal plants that can't follow demand as quickly.

Overnight capital costs are significantly lower for new gas plants than new coal plants. Real capital costs are lower yet since gas plants are faster to complete. Fixed O&M costs are also lower for gas. The shale revolution made fuel for them cheap too. There's no combination of circumstances that presently makes a new coal plant cost-competitive with a new gas plant in the continental US.

See table 1 here:

https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost...

The renewable costs are already badly outdated but AFAICT the relative prices of coal and gas plants are still about right.

Re: The Nuclear Option

#80

Post by sasavilic »

kijin wrote: post #75
sasavilic wrote: post #73

One thing we always keep forgetting: spent nuclear fuel, which is highly radioactive. It has to be kept safe for years and somehow I don't this is really calculated into price of nuclear electricity. But if we had a reactor that wouldn't have issue with highly radioactive waste, then it would be a different story.

Keeping radioactive waste far away from anyone who might be harmed by it, even for thousands of years, is a solved problem. We know how to bury stuff deep underground in a geologically stable region. Or if you prefer, throw it in a subduction zone. As with most things nuclear-related, the real problem is NIMBY. If a country as large and sparsely populated as the U.S. can't agree on a place to bury nuclear waste, ther…

I am not convinced that it is a solved problem. How old are Egyptian pyramids? Yet there is a lot of stuff that we don't know about them. We are confident, that after 20 000 years, people will still know about nuclear waste storage facilities? Think about it: records could be lost, our language will be different. Why are we so sure that somebody will not dig it up?
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