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

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

#71

Post by caymanjim »

carlosdp wrote: post #69
hairytrog wrote: post #59

Spent nuclear fuel, sometimes called waste, is actually a resource that next generation reactors will be able to tap - both for energy and uncommon element feedstock. Just like shale used to be "garbage" until the tech to make it useful was developed, spent fuel will be seen as waste until we can make it useful. Letting this very manageable amount of waste sit in repositories until we get our shit together is utterly…

Don't even centralize it all in one facility, just store it on-site.

That's how most of the power plant waste in the US is "handled" right now, because it's so far been politically impossible to agree on long-term storage and transportation. It's an inferior solution, though. There are security issues, and many points of failure for environmental damage. It's particularly problematic when plants are decommissioned and the waste is still stuck there requiring indefinite security and storage facilities for an otherwise-defunct plant. We'd be better off with all of it in one secure and safe facility, pending a better solution in the future.

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

#73

Post by caymanjim »

gridlockd wrote: post #55
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…

The problem is that people who are anti-nuclear are often also anti-coal and anti-fossil-fuel and anti-everything-that-actually-sustains-current-human-level-of-development. For those people, it has to be "clean renewables", with the speculation being that technology will fix all the issues with it. That ignores that maybe technology can also fix the issues with nuclear - and more readily so.

Funny how they're never anti-using-electricity themselves, though.

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

#74

Post by mort96 »

caymanjim wrote: post #71
carlosdp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even centralize it all in one facility, just store it on-site.

That's how most of the power plant waste in the US is "handled" right now, because it's so far been politically impossible to agree on long-term storage and transportation. It's an inferior solution, though. There are security issues, and many points of failure for environmental damage. It's particularly problematic when plants are decommissioned and the waste is still stuck there requiring indefinite security and st…

How would one transport the waste across the country? I imagine there are some security issues with that too.

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

#75

Post by gridlockd »

jayd16 wrote: post #66
gridlockd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that nuclear works right now and that the risk is overblown, relative to all the other risks we incur. Renewables are not working right now (see Germany) and they aren't necessarily cleaner , considering that all this infrastructure needs to be produced with ordinary industrial processes. Of course it's not an either-or, renewables can make more sense in some places and not so much in others.

>and that the risk is overblown I like nuclear but c'mon. Its clear that its not at an acceptable level of safety. Large scale disasters like Fukushima can't be hand waived away. >Renewables are not working right now (see Germany) What am I supposed to see from Germany? They're the largest electricity exporter in Europe. > considering that all this infrastructure needs to be produced with ordinary industrial processe…

> Its clear that its not at an acceptable level of safety.

I am no nuclear safety inspector, but I would argue that there's large variance in terms of safety in different nuclear installations. Not putting a nuclear plant next to a Tsunami-coast would be a major factor here.

> Large scale disasters like Fukushima can't be hand waived away.

Neither can the Bhopal disaster, yet we continue to engage in large-scale chemical production. It needs to be put into perspective.

> What am I supposed to see from Germany? They're the largest electricity exporter in Europe.

In terms of kilowatts, perhaps, but not economically. Energy prices in Germany are almost double those in France. Germany exports a lot of surplus wind energy, sometimes for negative prices just to keep the powerlines from overloading. Lack of wind needs to be compensated by dirty coal (50% of their energy mix) or import of (likely nuclear) energy from neighboring countries.

Without coal (or nuclear from the neighbors) the system would collapse. There are no means of storing the wind energy in a remotely economical fashion on the horizon and there are no obvious alternatives to wind (at least for Germany).

> Is this not true of nuclear power?

Yes, but nuclear power isn't considered "clean".

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

#76

Post by petre »

jayd16 wrote: post #60
gridlockd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that people who are anti-nuclear are often also anti-coal and anti-fossil-fuel and anti-everything-that-actually-sustains-current-human-level-of-development. For those people, it has to be "clean renewables", with the speculation being that technology will fix all the issues with it. That ignores that maybe technology can also fix the issues with nuclear - and more readily so.

This is really not compelling. If you can't provide any more compelling evidence for nuclear vs clean energy improvements, why not gamble on the currently safer/cleaner bet?

It's not a bet or a gamble. It's always a mix. Renewables other than geothermal and solar-thermal + molten salts cannot currently provide base load power. They have something like 0.2..0.5 capacity factor, meaning that 50 to 80% of the operational lifetimes of the power generation facilities are spent idling. Those two that can provide base load power that are very location specific (volcanic area or desert). So rather than mix coal with renewables it's preferable to mix nuclear with renewables since it's much cleaner.

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

#77

Post by chipsa »

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…

You also have to factor in the capacity factor. Sun isn't shining steadily all the time. You have night-time, notably, but also clouds and fog and smog. Capacity factor is very much location dependant, but all the places with good capacity factors are where people don't want to live either.

It can be as low as 12% [0], so divide your $/MW by the capacity factor to ascertain the true cost: something like $8 million/MW for solar in Swabia.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauingen_Energy_Park

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

#78

Post by Krasnol »

benzofuran wrote: post #41
mimixco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not every nuclear waste producing country has so much space.

Actually most don't.

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

#79

Post by petre »

gridlockd wrote: post #75
jayd16 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and that the risk is overblown I like nuclear but c'mon. Its clear that its not at an acceptable level of safety. Large scale disasters like Fukushima can't be hand waived away. >Renewables are not working right now (see Germany) What am I supposed to see from Germany? They're the largest electricity exporter in Europe. > considering that all this infrastructure needs to be produced with ordinary industrial processe…

> Its clear that its not at an acceptable level of safety. I am no nuclear safety inspector, but I would argue that there's large variance in terms of safety in different nuclear installations. Not putting a nuclear plant next to a Tsunami-coast would be a major factor here. > Large scale disasters like Fukushima can't be hand waived away. Neither can the Bhopal disaster, yet we continue to engage in large-scale chem…

Germany is lucky they're neighbours with France, which has >70% nuclear in its power generation mix. They are planning to reduce this to 50% by 2035 and cap nuclear power in the mix, however it's not very clear what they will replace it with (renewables but no details given).

https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

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

#80

Post by petre »

andor wrote: post #48
godelski wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More like 300 years. Most of what remains of the waste is americium and plutonium which can be reused as nuclear fuel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv-mFSoZOkE

Most of the issues with nuclear waste are proliferation related. That's why it's stored and not given away to let's say Iran.

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