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Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

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Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#71

Post by StreamBright »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #34
734129837261 wrote: post #3

Not sure what to make of this article. Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest way of generating energy for both humankind and nature. Chernobyl was ancient and outdated, which caused issues. And Fukushima had to withstand an earthquake and tsunami. And even then the radiation only killed 1 person. Even wind-turbines cause more damage by killing many, many birds. They aren't as reliable and they certainly cau…

Wind turbines kill a negligible number of birds compared to other threats. https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-scienc... It's not actually known definitively how many people Fukushima killed, but it is known definitively that the final economic costs wildly outweighed the "cheap" energy it produced. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/12/1301/pdf Nuclear is not clean. There is still no solution to nucl…

>> Nuclear is not clean. There is still no solution to nuclear waste, which makes it impossible to cost the TOC of nuclear.

Totally.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

"According to U.S. NCRP reports, population exposure from 1000-MWe power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal power plants, 100 times as great as nuclear power plants (4.8 person-rem/year). The exposure from the complete nuclear fuel cycle from mining to waste disposal is 136 person-rem/year; the corresponding value for coal use from mining to waste disposal is "probably unknown".[24]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Coal

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#72

Post by coldtea »

andbberger wrote: post #18
ysleepy wrote: post #6

Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here. The first obvious omissions that come to mind are: 1. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time. 2. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people, since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a bit overconfident. Nuclear in general: H…

Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole. [1] Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations? I am, and will continue to be blown away that the world found out how to make rocks so spicy they can power our civil…

>Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole.

Yeah, too bad it doesn't work in practice.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#73

Post by macspoofing »

andbberger wrote: post #18
ysleepy wrote: post #6

Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here. The first obvious omissions that come to mind are: 1. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time. 2. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people, since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a bit overconfident. Nuclear in general: H…

Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole. [1] Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations? I am, and will continue to be blown away that the world found out how to make rocks so spicy they can power our civil…

>Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations?

Agreed. The reality is there is nothing like nuclear energy. We lost (and continue losing) decades of nuclear development and deployment due to the anti-nuke movement (environmental or otherwise). This resulted in hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 emitted that otherwise wouldn't have been emitted (imagine if the developed world invested in nuclear to the same level as France in the 70s) - emissions that would have bought us more decades to tackle climate change.

But physics are physics. Nuclear will come back because you cannot beat the energy density of nuclear in a world which requires more and more power, with a growing population and living standards, and is dealing with the double environmental whammy of global warming and your generic environmental collapse. Things like wind and solar need huge surface areas to operate in, and require environmentally disastrous mining as well as huge swaths of landfill once decommissioned ... and need fossil fuel base load to be viable.

I watched a YouTube video recently that compared nuclear-powered and diesel-powered aircraft carriers [1]. The diesel-powered carrier needs to refuel every few weeks, while nuclear-powered carrier needs to refuel every 20 years. That is just insanity. Living in the modern world, we have an intuitive understanding how often things need to recharged and/or refueled, and nuclear just breaks your mind.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObTKRHkIkgI&t=493s

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#74

Post by fuoqi »

ysleepy wrote: post #12
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about showing me a sound final (100k yr) storage for nuclear waste, built and ready, before you operate any more nuclear reactors? "Nuclear waste" is an artificial problem. It is possible to build reactors that use the "nuclear waste" from existing reactors as fuel, which destroys it forever. We haven't done this primarily because people keep refusing to build new reactors that do this until we figure out what…

In the same sense that we will all be saved by CO2 capturing devices? These kinds of reactors (Travelling Wave Reactor etc.) you mention are vapourware and have been for quite some time. And I highly doubt the "which destroys it forever" part, - really, no waste at all, magic you say? This is just more of "Future Tech will solve this" externalization of problems.

>These kinds of reactors you mention are vapourware and have been for quite some time.

Depends on a country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor)

>The reactor uses nitride uranium-plutonium fuel, is a breeder reactor and can burn long-term radioactive waste.

I think existing BN reactors can also be used in the same way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor

Yes, it's not 100% ready technology (e.g. there are problems with fuel fabrication), but I would call it last stages of development.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#76

Post by qayxc »

macspoofing wrote: post #73
andbberger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole. [1] Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations? I am, and will continue to be blown away that the world found out how to make rocks so spicy they can power our civil…

>Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations? Agreed. The reality is there is nothing like nuclear energy. We lost (and continue losing) decades of nuclear development and deployment due to the anti-nuke movement (environmental or otherwise). This resulted in hundreds o…

> The diesel-powered carrier needs to refuel every few weeks, while nuclear-powered carrier needs to refuel every 20 years.

True, but while refuelling only takes hours, ROH operations on a naval reactor are usually scheduled to last 46 months [edit] and cost several billion dollars [/edit].

That's just insanity :D

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#77

Post by qayxc »

fuoqi wrote: post #74
ysleepy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same sense that we will all be saved by CO2 capturing devices? These kinds of reactors (Travelling Wave Reactor etc.) you mention are vapourware and have been for quite some time. And I highly doubt the "which destroys it forever" part, - really, no waste at all, magic you say? This is just more of "Future Tech will solve this" externalization of problems.

>These kinds of reactors you mention are vapourware and have been for quite some time. Depends on a country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) >The reactor uses nitride uranium-plutonium fuel, is a breeder reactor and can burn long-term radioactive waste. I think existing BN reactors can also be used in the same way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor Yes, it's not 100% ready technology (e.g. th…

The BN-800 reactor was an engineering nightmare, though.

Those things had more downtime due to technical issues than operation time. The issues were indeed so severe, that the follow-up project (BN-1200) required a redesign and was put on hold indefinitely...

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#78

Post by qayxc »

gwbennett wrote: post #4

The US Navy has trained thousands of 18-25 year old men and women to operate hundreds of reactors around the world safety for over 60 years. I was one of them. I have not been an operator for many years, but the latest reactor designs are amazingly safe and reliable. The world needs more safe, clean, cheap and reliable power. Nuclear power is one of the answers.

Keep in mind that these reactors are only that safe because they're operated in an environment that's very different from your typical utility company.

RCOH procedures alone would make civil use prohibitively expensive.

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#79

Post by fuoqi »

qayxc wrote: post #77
fuoqi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These kinds of reactors you mention are vapourware and have been for quite some time. Depends on a country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) >The reactor uses nitride uranium-plutonium fuel, is a breeder reactor and can burn long-term radioactive waste. I think existing BN reactors can also be used in the same way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor Yes, it's not 100% ready technology (e.g. th…

The BN-800 reactor was an engineering nightmare, though. Those things had more downtime due to technical issues than operation time. The issues were indeed so severe, that the follow-up project (BN-1200) required a redesign and was put on hold indefinitely...

IIRC most issues were caused by problems and delays with fuel fabrication, mentioned in my post. And changes in fuel fabrication is one of the main reasons for postponing BN-1200 construction (i.e. it does not make sense to build a reactor, while fuel production line is not ready).

Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear

#80

Post by apple4ever »

carlosdp wrote: post #24
ysleepy wrote: post #6

Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here. The first obvious omissions that come to mind are: 1. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time. 2. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people, since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a bit overconfident. Nuclear in general: H…

Yea nuclear waste isn't actually a problem, even barring newer reactor designs that re-use nuclear fuel. I was surprised when I learned this since it's always coached as the biggest issue with nuclear as a power source. It's solid waste (not radioactive sludge like in many movies/shows), and requires very simple storage containers, which you can just keep on site or bury, no problem. > In fact, the U.S. has produced…

Wow I didn't realize it was that little waste. I also knew it was small, but that is minuscule all things considered.
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