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U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#61

Post by ehnto »

yongjik wrote: post #47
colordrops wrote: post #43

I hear things like "we should go full nuclear, modern nuclear reactors are safe" all the time, yet this ignores externalities, unknown unknowns, human incompetence, and the unexpected. Who would expect the ocean to rise over your nuclear waste dome? Have people suggesting this forgotten the allegory of the unsinkable ship the Titanic? Entropy always wins in the end.

Ironically, if we did go full nuclear, the oceans probably wouldn't have risen, saving us from a cracking nuclear dome and an untold number of other hassles. Sure, nuclear power is not 100% safe, but its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100." I'm OK with building, say, solar instead of nuclear. I'm definitely NOT OK with keeping fossil fuel where nuclear is available, while pa…

I can't see why solar isn't now the leading candidate. Nuclear is cool and all, but the simplicity of a butt-tonne of solar in a field can't be overlooked. It's not likely to fail catastrophically, maintenance is modular and low-impact. The skills needed are trades not degrees and if we can get the power output/battery/backup balance right, as a society we have clean, reliable energy indefinitely.

I say that knowing we are barreling toward fantastic solar participation in the grid in many countries, and I feel it's just a matter of time before it becomes the dominant source of our energy, especially as battery solutions come into play. It's also not the end of the world to have some backup gas generators that fire up once in a blue moon. Compared to 100% fossil fuels, the occasional gas turbine firing up on a stormy week would be negligible. Alternatively, novel storage methods such as hydro storage could make even backup energy green.

There are probably cities where it wouldn't work right now, but I can't imagine there being many places where it couldn't work at all.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#62

Post by gtirloni »

colordrops wrote: post #58
gtirloni wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a matter of faith in some group of people ("them"). What's your point? That the whole nuclear industry, full of scientists and engineers can't be trusted with their studies?

All it takes is a single point of failure, one scientist that got the calculations wrong. That's what happened with Meltdown/Spectre vulnerability. An academic paper that many chip manufacturers based their designs on turned out to be flawed, causing a vulnerability across architectures. The nuclear industry isn't any different. Ironically the Meltdown vulnerability could have potentially been used by bad actors to h…

You can say that about anything humans have ever built.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#63

Post by ben_w »

ehnto wrote: post #61
yongjik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, if we did go full nuclear, the oceans probably wouldn't have risen, saving us from a cracking nuclear dome and an untold number of other hassles. Sure, nuclear power is not 100% safe, but its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100." I'm OK with building, say, solar instead of nuclear. I'm definitely NOT OK with keeping fossil fuel where nuclear is available, while pa…

I can't see why solar isn't now the leading candidate. Nuclear is cool and all, but the simplicity of a butt-tonne of solar in a field can't be overlooked. It's not likely to fail catastrophically, maintenance is modular and low-impact. The skills needed are trades not degrees and if we can get the power output/battery/backup balance right, as a society we have clean, reliable energy indefinitely. I say that knowing…

I basically agree, but it’s the current cost of storage (or, equivalently, global high-tension interconnects) that’s keeping it from being a no-brainer. I’m confident solar will take over in the next decade.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#64

Post by gaze »

vixen99 wrote: post #25
gaze wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've sorta reached the conclusion that nuclear energy is the safest form of energy if everyone is well behaved and disciplined about it. On the other hand, given the wrong incentives, you might just stow nuclear waste where it's cheapest and where you can get away with it, and then not be penalized when the containment mechanism you cheaped out on fails... or maybe you just conveniently forget to do maintenance on it…

Humans under what, then? I wonder if you're aware that the socialist economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were not just economic failures; they were also environmental catastrophes. Jeffrey Sachs has commented that the socialist nations had “some of the worst environmental problems in the entire globe.”. Companies can be held to account (failure to do so is another story) but try that with a centra…

"failure to do so is another story" How is that 'another story?' It's THE story.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#65

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ehnto wrote: post #61
yongjik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, if we did go full nuclear, the oceans probably wouldn't have risen, saving us from a cracking nuclear dome and an untold number of other hassles. Sure, nuclear power is not 100% safe, but its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100." I'm OK with building, say, solar instead of nuclear. I'm definitely NOT OK with keeping fossil fuel where nuclear is available, while pa…

I can't see why solar isn't now the leading candidate. Nuclear is cool and all, but the simplicity of a butt-tonne of solar in a field can't be overlooked. It's not likely to fail catastrophically, maintenance is modular and low-impact. The skills needed are trades not degrees and if we can get the power output/battery/backup balance right, as a society we have clean, reliable energy indefinitely. I say that knowing…

Solar and nuclear are complementary technologies. Nuclear produces power at night when solar doesn't, solar produces power during the day when the demand is higher. It significantly reduces the amount of storage batteries you need, which is the primary impediment to using solar exclusively.

Solar is also problematic during winter. We need to replace fossil fuels as a heat source, but when heating with electricity at scale during winter, the demand rises at night meanwhile the days are shorter and solar generates less. Heating New York and Chicago in winter using solar and batteries doesn't have promising economics.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#66

Post by eximius »

sq_ wrote: post #57
asp12357 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its "worst case" pales in comparison to fossil fuel's "guaranteed outcome by 2100." I'm fairly certain nuclear catastrophe is far worse than global warming.

I can’t say I agree with you there. Worst case for nuclear power is highly contaminated local areas ( highly unlikely with modern designs), whereas the worst case for climate change is global environmental collapse.

I'm a nuclear proponent, but this ignores airborne particles and ecological collapse which can propagate and have very broad effects. Those things can be managed, but the 'worst case' of nuclear is not negligible.

Though even poor management of nuclear materials very quickly eliminates the worst cases.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#67

Post by gubbrora »

acct1771 wrote: post #11
jason_zig wrote: post #8

Does anyone else feel helpless when reading stuff like this? Is there anything I can do to make things better in these scenarios?

Tell people around you to stop implicitly trusting centralized power.

People trust centralized power because there is no viable alternative to trusting the centralized power and hoping for the best.

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#68

Post by spraak »

Krasnol wrote: post #32
jason_zig wrote: post #8

Does anyone else feel helpless when reading stuff like this? Is there anything I can do to make things better in these scenarios?

Help stopping that currently wide spread nuclear hype and escort this technology to it's final retirement.

HN caveman hivemind: hooga hooga, nuclear good! GMO feed world!!

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#69

Post by colordrops »

gtirloni wrote: post #62
colordrops wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it takes is a single point of failure, one scientist that got the calculations wrong. That's what happened with Meltdown/Spectre vulnerability. An academic paper that many chip manufacturers based their designs on turned out to be flawed, causing a vulnerability across architectures. The nuclear industry isn't any different. Ironically the Meltdown vulnerability could have potentially been used by bad actors to h…

You can say that about anything humans have ever built.

Exactly, so how is everyone so sure that "modern nuclear reactors" will encounter no problems?

Re: U.S. put nuclear waste under a dome on a Pacific island. Now it’s cracking open

#70

Post by justin66 »

irrational wrote: post #38
acct1771 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell people around you to stop implicitly trusting centralized power.

But whom has the power to clean something like this up except for centralized power?

"The market."

Just kidding.

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