Ultra Safe Nuclear • Hacker News Board

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#41

Post by crispyporkbites » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #27

nimish wrote: post #18

Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…

>We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! except you know, the solar panels. by the same logic you can you can capture fission power for free, all you need is set up the reactor.

Installing a solar panel can be done today, for a $100. Tomorrow it will be $50, and it’ll keep going down until the market dictates the price.

Nuclear takes years to build and generate output, and the price is going up. It would be foolish to build a nuclear plant today unless you have a specific need for it (small location, little sunlight/wind).

Personally I think that in 20-40 years time most people will get the bulk of their energy from local solar panels, with the grid, backed by a mix of renewables and existing non-renewable sources filling in all the gaps.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#42

Post by nervousDev » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

This reminds me of that guy that "invented" the microwave heater (for people) in the show Silicon Valley.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#43

Post by steeve » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #3

Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.

How many deaths for Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima? Would that number change your mind?

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#44

Post by detritus » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

dangerface wrote: post #6

xibalba wrote: post #3

Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.

> (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind. Do they? I love renewables but for some reason the masses still just don't think you can get enough energy out of sky farts and hippy sun rays. The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant the sun just doesn't feel very powerful. The public knows that nuclear is super powerful. > how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Thr…

> The fact that ALL energy in our solar system comes from the sun is irrelevant

Except human-made nuclear fission energy on Earth, somewhat ironically, given the thread.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#45

Post by rektide » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #7

xibalba wrote: post #3

Assuming nuclear truly can be ultra safe, how do you convince a public that has seen Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima to get on board? Particularly when the "competition" (solar, wind, etc) has such a strong tailwind.

Deaths per joule are the lowest out of any major fuel source except for maybe wind, which is debatable depending on your assumptions about the future.

Except... we don't know what the deaths are. It will take tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years to know what the death toll is from nuclear power. Because humanity is stuck with the waste for hundreds of thousands of years.

We use only tiny amount of the energy available, then have waste to deal with through the ages.

I'm in favor of nuclear, but wow are we ever terrible at innovating & trying to make a respectful, compelling go at it. Kerry shutting down the Integral Fast Reactor keeps coming back to haunt me as one of those strong indicators that America doesn't want to put itself up to the challenge of doing nuclear responsibly.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#46

Post by yabones » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:55 PM UTC

For a more dense read, see the whitepaper[1] from Oak Ridge National Laboratory about FCM fuels, which seems to be one of the key innovations of this reactor type. Instead of using pellets of Uranium oxide directly inside the reactor, this method encapsulates the fuel in a high temperature ceramic material which makes it very unlikely for the reactor to 'melt down' the way that mainstream reactors can.

[1] https://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/Files/Pub42476.pdf

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#47

Post by manfredo » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

merb wrote: post #31

manfredo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not a problem. There's actually very little of it. It occupies a volume the footprint of a football field and 10 yards high [1]. Storing it is pretty foolproof: bury it in an area with no aquifer. The main risk of contamination is getting into the groundwater. If there's no groundwater the risk of contamination is eliminated even if the containers decay over time. And lastly, it doesn't make sense to bur…

1. How long does it need to be kept safe? 2. How to find a storage facility that can keep it safe that long? 3. How to ensure that a facility does not contamine other stuff in X years? 4. if it is recycable why does nobody do it? 5. if it is so easy to store it safe, why does not country have a TRUE final depot? yeah coal is bad, but why compare it to coal in the first place when we want to reduce such things anyway?…

1. Forever. Uranium is a heavy metal, it's toxic regardless of it's radioactivity.

2. The US already has one [1]. Congress stopped it's opening, but it's sitting there built ready to be used. Europe also is constructing a disposal site [2]

3. Like I wrote in my comment, bury it in an area with no groundwater.

4. France does recycle it's nuclear waste.

5. We do, as I pointed out above. And for the second time, this waste is fuel for some of the reactors currently being built.

The reality is that nuclear waste will have minimal if any impact on the rate of uranium contamination. Naturally occurring uranium is responsible for vastly more contamination than nuclear waste. Streams and rivers flowing down from mountains pick up uranium in the sediment and bring it downstream: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uranium-contaminates-drinking-w...

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...

2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_re...

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#48

Post by johnchristopher » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

nimish wrote: post #18

Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…

> Investing in any such generator needs to be for other reasons like land scarcity.

Or maybe time constraints ? Because we can't accommodate our growing energy needs fast enough with renewable only and we need fossil to sustain our civilization until renewable output is high enough to phase out non-renewable ?

Does that make sense ? (I don't know the first thing about the economy and the engineering behind it at all)

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#49

Post by anoncareer0212 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

crispyporkbites wrote: post #41

gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! except you know, the solar panels. by the same logic you can you can capture fission power for free, all you need is set up the reactor.

Installing a solar panel can be done today, for a $100. Tomorrow it will be $50, and it’ll keep going down until the market dictates the price. Nuclear takes years to build and generate output, and the price is going up. It would be foolish to build a nuclear plant today unless you have a specific need for it (small location, little sunlight/wind). Personally I think that in 20-40 years time most people will get the…

The market always dictates the price.

People who make solar panels for a living say yes, the curve has been astronomical and beyond predictions, but, we're closer to a wall than we are halving costs again

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#50

Post by mdorazio » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #29

nimish wrote: post #18

Safety is no longer the reason Nuclear is not worth it. The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! The wind -- caused by solar heating -- also generates free power. The cost of harvesting it is now so low, and will always continue to decline as any technology will, that any fuel-based generation mechanism is going to be rendered uneconomic…

The expensive bit about nuclear is not the fuel. It's making sure that the fuel stays where it is supposed to be. A different design might change the cost of that dramatically.

Not really. It's rather expensive (billions of dollars) to setup a nuclear plant in the first place, even before a single fuel rod shows up. Meanwhile solar is so cheap and easy that you can install panels on your roof yourself.