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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

#151

Post by mimixco »

bildung wrote: post #86
roenxi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> France's power is cheap by European standard [0]. Because France heavily subsidized its nuclear infrastructure. They also have a big problem right now because most plants are old and have to be decomissioned, and building new plants is not economical.[0] Energy from nuclear power plants is pretty expensive sans subsidies, not just in France. Just as an example of the live cycle costs: An old plant in my country is…

Ah, yes, decommissioning, that dirty little word no one in the nuclear industry likes to talk about. Decommissioning can take decades and cost billions, usually passed on the ratepayers. These costs are never mentioned when the industry discusses its economics.

I'm also getting kind of tired of the "solar pollutes, too" argument. Yes, solar pollutes. So does making PC processors. But neither of those activities create radioactive materials which can poison people from a distance and persist in our environment for thousands of years. There is simply no comparison between poisonous heavy metals and radioactive nucleotides.

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

#152

Post by mimixco »

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.

Hanford and Rocky Flats are two of the most polluted places on Earth. Hanford has polluted the Columbia River, a tragedy in itself.

Nuclear is like the insolent child who refuses to clean up his room. There isn't any cleanup, really. The waste keeps piling up (usually in something that looks like a swimming pool). It must be attended to by humans for decades or centuries. And the uranium cycle leaves its dirty underwear all over our planet.

There is nothing eco about nuclear.

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

#153

Post by mimixco »

garmaine wrote: post #40
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.

What nightmare? Reprocessing is a net cleanup compared with letting the waste sit. I have some nuclear engineering background and honestly I don’t know what you’re referring to.

Reprocessing isn't clean. It creates its own waste which is worse than the spent fuel you started out with. Reprocessing plants (like every part of the uranium cycle) are dangerous places to work and live near.

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

#154

Post by mimixco »

saagarjha wrote: post #54
mimixco wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radioactive materials are dangerous because their subatomic makeup is unstable, meaning they emit dangerous particles as the atom degrades from the inside. So it would seem that, in order to fix that, you'd have to re-populate the innards of the atom with enough protons to make it stable again. It's worth noting that transmutation is definitely possible. The alchemists of old would be thrilled to know that we can, in…

I know how radioactivity and transmutation works; my problem is that I don't actually know how this problem is being "solved".

Neither does the guy who proposed it, lol!

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

#155

Post by mimixco »

tlocke wrote: post #111
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…

A big problem with nuclear is expense. The figures from France are misleading because the state and the power companies are deeply entangled financially. A clearer view is possible in the UK because they have market system, and subsidies tend to be more transparent. The message from the UK is that nuclear power is not financially viable, and no nuclear power stations would be built without government subsidy. The sub…

^^ This

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

#156

Post by petre »

Krasnol wrote: post #140
petre wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yeah they are so lucky...the happiness regarding old and breaking nuclear reactors (Fessenheim & Cattenom) just behind the border is overwhelming. Cattenom is especially great for Luxembourg as it's the only country on this planet which is threatened in it's entirety by a nuclear disaster from a single nuclear reactor.

Fessenheim is going to be closed down after Flamanville 3 comes online. Germany's alternatives to French nuclear power are either coal and power outage. Germany still imports more electricity from France than it exports:

https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm

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

#157

Post by mimixco »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #36
mimixco wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Carbon-free" is a standard industry lie. Uranium mining and processing produces massive amounts of carbon and pollutes the earth with tailings. The nuclear industry externalizes their costs so that they don't ever hit the balance sheet. What is "insurance for global warming?" That isn't even a thing. But government insurance for nuclear plants is very much a thing.

> "Carbon-free" is a standard industry lie. Wrong. Here is an IPCC meta-analysis reference from a consensus of scientists showing that it's very low, 12 gCO2-eq/kWh, on par with wind. Solar is 40. Natural gas is 490 [1]. See Table A.III.2 | Emissions of selected electricity supply technologies. Think about it. There is 2,000,000x more energy in a kg of uranium than in a kg of coal or gas or oil or lithium. A single t…

You don't get to claim "carbon free" when the uranium cycle uses heavy equipment (dozers, loaders, trucks, trains, etc) that use fossil fuels. So please stop spreading that falsehood.

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

#158

Post by anoncareer0212 »

threeseed wrote: post #149
gwright wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your analysis, have you included the required base-load generation systems required when renewables aren't generating (night time, no wind) or the required storage systems (which actually don't exist) to time shift the energy supply?

Actually the storage systems do exist. There are batteries, hydro etc. And many of the bids for power projects are including batteries as well.

In your analysis, have you included the required base-load generation systems required when renewables aren't generating (night time, no wind) or the required storage systems to time shift the energy supply?

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

#159

Post by Blackthorn »

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…

Spent fuel is only a part of it though. There is also tubes, piping, tools... Basically, components that are used for maintenance and are now effectively useless.

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

#160

Post by gridlockd »

Tepix wrote: post #92
gridlockd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 has 48.6% renewables so far this year and 19.5% coal (source https://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Windraeder-liefern-so-viel-St... )

I must've mixed up coal with "fossil fuel including natural gas", which had a share of close to 50% in 2018, of which coal made up 35%:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...

Your figure of 19,5% only accounts for lignite, not hard coal.

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