Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 237 posts

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#41

Post by benzofuran »

mimixco wrote: post #35
nickik wrote: post #30

Or we could just use that valuable fuel and put it into nuclear reactors to make energy and other useful stuff. But that seem to be a totally crazy idea.

Reprocessing is its own nightmare and, I think, only France tries to do it. All of these processes (the "uranium cycle") are terribly polluting in their waste outputs and dangerous places for the people who have to work there and live near them.

It's like the US doesn't already have a number of remote areas like Hanford, Oak Ridge, Idaho Falls, the Savannah River Site, Rocky Flats, etc. that are already set up (and somewhat contaminated already) for handling this sort of material and process. In reality it's a political nightmare, not a pollution one.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#42

Post by zaroth »

mimixco wrote: post #29
arcticbull wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally on HN, unlike other comment zones on the Internet, it's on people making claims to back them up with sources. Ideally if you have something controversial or interesting you provide links and resources, so we can all learn, instead of farming out the work of backing up your opinion to each reader.

This is a start... https://nuclear-news.net/category/1-nuclear-issues/business-...

I found a story about a new nuke plant in Georgia [1] which they seem like they are regretting building.

It's a $25 billion project which is several years late now. [2]

They are building two new generators which should each produce 1,215 MW of power. So that's ~$10 million per MW. Solar by comparison is about $1 million per MW, although a 1,215 MW solar installation would cover about 10 sq km.

I have to assume that solar, without any waste to process or high security requirements or chance of a meltdown, also has lower operating costs.

[1] - https://www.ajc.com/business/georgia-power-parent-after-vogt...

[2] - https://www.power-eng.com/articles/2018/08/vogtle-cost-upgra...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#43

Post by baylisscg »

mimixco wrote: post #35
nickik wrote: post #30

Or we could just use that valuable fuel and put it into nuclear reactors to make energy and other useful stuff. But that seem to be a totally crazy idea.

Reprocessing is its own nightmare and, I think, only France tries to do it. All of these processes (the "uranium cycle") are terribly polluting in their waste outputs and dangerous places for the people who have to work there and live near them.

The UK still has a site too but yes there's only a handful globally. The former site at Dounreay in Scotland used to leak particles on a regular basis which were all kinds of bad news for anything living that came into contact with them or perhaps one kind of bad news: horrible death.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#44

Post by godelski »

graeme wrote: post #10
mimixco wrote: post #8

Nuclear energy has its advocates—it spews little by way of emissions and is produced relatively cheaply. Nuclear is anything but cheap. It's a net negative energy source, meaning the the electricity costs more to produce than it can be sold for. This is why the industry requires massive subsidies to stay alive. (If I recall correctly, the last round of subsidy in the US was over $50 billion.) Nuclear power also requi…

Got a source? I'd read the EROI of nuclear is quite high.

I have a counter source[0]:

France is highly powered by nuclear and is on the cheaper side of European cost of electricity. Not the cheapest, but cheaper than the average and especially so for being a major country.

Part of the reason France does so well is that 17% of its energy comes from recycled nuclear waste. That's not 17% of nuclear power is from waste, that's 17% of TOTAL power is just from waste.

[0] https://1-stromvergleich.com/electricity-prices-europe/

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#45

Post by dang »

chmaynard wrote: post #2

This is another of many "silver bullet" proposals to reverse the environmental damage caused by Western civilization. Most of they won't work and will have unintended consequences. As always, prevention is the best cure.

Maybe so, but can you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN, especially about grand divisive topics? It leads to much less specific and much less interesting discussion.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#46

Post by roenxi »

mimixco wrote: post #35
nickik wrote: post #30

Or we could just use that valuable fuel and put it into nuclear reactors to make energy and other useful stuff. But that seem to be a totally crazy idea.

Reprocessing is its own nightmare and, I think, only France tries to do it. All of these processes (the "uranium cycle") are terribly polluting in their waste outputs and dangerous places for the people who have to work there and live near them.

France's power is cheap by European standard [0]. So there isn't an economic issue.

Going by order-of-magnitude of input materials, if it is an environmental nightmare it is still going to be better than the mining process for raw materials going in to solar panels and whatever else. AFAIK they all use rare earths that get mined in China and refined with some horrible process. Pure volumes of solar panels suggest the incidental environmental damage will be worse from, eg, trampled grass and land disturbed.

So it isn't an environmental or an economic nightmare relative to the alternatives. In what sense is it a nightmare? It seems to be working for France.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#47

Post by nl »

Your periodic reminder that - despite the propaganda campaign run by nuclear advocates to make it seem like being anti-nuclear is to be anti-science - nuclear power remains massively expensive and even less safe than people think.

Here's the most comprehensive peer-reviewed survey around:

We summarize the results of a recent statistical analysis of 216 nuclear energy accidents and incidents (events). The dataset is twice as large as the previous best available. We employ cost in US dollars as a severity measure to facilitate the comparison of different types and sizes of events, a method more complete and consistent that the industry-standard approach. Despite significant reforms following past disasters, we estimate that, with 388 reactors in operation, there is a 50% chance that a Fukushima event (or more costly) occurs every 60–150 years. We also find that the average cost of events per year is around the cost of the construction of a new plant. This dire outlook necessitates post-Fukushima reforms that will truly minimize extreme nuclear power risks. Nuclear power accidents are decreasing in frequency, but increasing in severity.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#48

Post by andor »

godelski wrote: post #44
graeme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source? I'd read the EROI of nuclear is quite high.

I have a counter source[0]: France is highly powered by nuclear and is on the cheaper side of European cost of electricity. Not the cheapest, but cheaper than the average and especially so for being a major country. Part of the reason France does so well is that 17% of its energy comes from recycled nuclear waste. That's not 17% of nuclear power is from waste, that's 17% of TOTAL power is just from waste. [0] https:/…

I think the point of the OP was that pollution and long-term storage are not priced in.

Try coming up with a price for safely storing nuclear waste for the next few thousand years.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#49

Post by selectodude »

zaroth wrote: post #42
mimixco wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a start... https://nuclear-news.net/category/1-nuclear-issues/business-...

I found a story about a new nuke plant in Georgia [1] which they seem like they are regretting building. It's a $25 billion project which is several years late now. [2] They are building two new generators which should each produce 1,215 MW of power. So that's ~$10 million per MW. Solar by comparison is about $1 million per MW, although a 1,215 MW solar installation would cover about 10 sq km. I have to assume that s…

1215 MW during the day when it’s sunny. Not 24/7/365. What is the carbon footprint of enough energy storage to handle that?

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#50

Post by Consultant32452 »

nl wrote: post #47

Your periodic reminder that - despite the propaganda campaign run by nuclear advocates to make it seem like being anti-nuclear is to be anti-science - nuclear power remains massively expensive and even less safe than people think. Here's the most comprehensive peer-reviewed survey around: We summarize the results of a recent statistical analysis of 216 nuclear energy accidents and incidents (events). The dataset is t…

How many Fukushimas will we (society) accept every 150 years in order to stop climate change? That's really the only question that matters.
Post reply on HN