451–460 of 619 posts
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You do. US Navy had zero nuclear accidents so far, simply because one Hyman Rickover was able to convince the government that safety overrides everything else.
Unlike the Air Force which accidentally flew two nukes to the wrong state :). But that’s not nuclear power so I suppose you are correct.
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Well well. My girlfriends oldest brother died in what was a wave of cancer infant deaths that strangely coincides with the fallout of Chernobyl's radioactive cloud. Her other brother came to the world deformed, which again happened to more mothers than hers. In my school class (~30 kids) alone there were 4 kids who had deformations or other mutations that affected their life's negatively (for those who still live: to…
> of course a lot improved after Chernobyl in terms of reactor safety My understanding is that Chernobyl was caused by an experiment that went wrong due to errors in following processes correctly. I would assume that most reactors just make electricity, and outside of smaller reactors used for research they aren't used for experiments. Is that correct?
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I just read the news in the energy market. I think California just ordered a few MwH of battery from Tesla. They seem to be doing a brisk business of selling batteries to grid providers in a market that is entirely supply limited. There are loads of companies working on alternate storage technologies. You are right that there is very little right now. But I'd counter that that is growing rapidly and that that is insp…
For grid stabilization in the UK we already have 28GWh of pumped hydro storage. I'm not an expert in sizing grid infrastructure but I expect we'd need storage of several times that to balance a less dispatchable grid. The sun is always shining somewhere doesn't work for day / night solar production. Transmission losses are of the order of 0.5% per 100km. By the time you transmit power 20,000km there is nothing left.
Do we stress about the risks nuclear power far out of proportion to how safe it is? Yes. Even accounting for the worst accidents, it kills a very low number of people per TWh. Do we ignore the risks of fossil fuels far out of proportion to how dangerous they are? Also yes. They kill an absurdly high number of people per TWh; by most estimates coal is several hundred times more dangerous than nuclear. Does that mean n…
Is it though? It seems countries are quite willing to build new nuclear power plants, but nobody wants them in their backyard.
Do we stress about the risks nuclear power far out of proportion to how safe it is? Yes. Even accounting for the worst accidents, it kills a very low number of people per TWh. Do we ignore the risks of fossil fuels far out of proportion to how dangerous they are? Also yes. They kill an absurdly high number of people per TWh; by most estimates coal is several hundred times more dangerous than nuclear. Does that mean n…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
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Batteries are only the most of expensive of many candidates for energy storage. But, as was demonstrated in Australia, adequate.
One potential alternative to batteries might be to build a couple of towers lifting concrete blocks up and down: https://energyvault.com/#operating-parameters
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Of course the probability is never 0,00%. But it is obvious that the Fukushima accident happened due to geological factors. The same power plant would hum away nicely in Germany to this day, where there is little to no seismic activity and none on the scale of what happened in Fukushima.
Were the builders of Fukushima unaware of the geology of Japan? I would argue that they were aware and still got hit by the risk. I don’t see “well, that specific failure won’t be what gets us in Germany” as especially compelling.
Given the costs involved however, I find it hard to imagine tepco will make the same mistake again in the next 50 years or so.
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Nuclear is only so relatively expensive because it’s the only fuel source that’s forced to pay up for all the externalities up front (and I’m not saying that is a bad thing to require). A nuclear plant can’t be built if the money to make it safe (as per some specification), insure against all health complications while it’s in operation, decommission it, clean up the site, securely dump all spent fuel, and return the…
> securely dump all spent fuel Reminder that Coal and oil energy gets to dump their spent fuel in the atmosphere, and thereby our lungs! The uneven treatment of different energy sources really is fantastic!
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What nuclear waste problem? "Nuclear waste generally is over 90% uranium. Thus, the spent fuel (waste) still contains 90% usable fuel! It can be chemically processed and placed in other reactors to close the fuel cycle. A closed fuel cycle means much less nuclear waste and much more energy extracted from the raw ore. Additionally, this process allows you to convert your waste into chemical forms that are totally immo…
There will be no useful fusion power produced on Earth in this century, at least in a Tokamak. Tokamak fusion is a jobs program for high neutron flux physicists, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. It does not need to produce other results.
Fusion won’t be a major grid player in this century and by extension may be “too late” for meaningful climate change. However, we may be more fucked than people think. Seasonal energy storage (10^14 Wh scale) has no solutions. Where are the low carbon alternatives to base load power production?
The second part is entirely wrong. That only applies to IEF programs in the US. NIF is the weapons program. Most of the money going into fusion energy research is to say “at least we tried” when the energy crisis causes a societal collapse.
Do we stress about the risks nuclear power far out of proportion to how safe it is? Yes. Even accounting for the worst accidents, it kills a very low number of people per TWh. Do we ignore the risks of fossil fuels far out of proportion to how dangerous they are? Also yes. They kill an absurdly high number of people per TWh; by most estimates coal is several hundred times more dangerous than nuclear. Does that mean n…
Correct. The right questions to ask is not 'But what about Chernobyl' (which is unlikely in most countries) but instead: What about decommissioning costs? Fukushima is a good example of costs from a normal accident we can expect from time to time. Costs are at 200b USD and rising, and they still don't have the reactor site under control. Even normal decommissioning is incredibly expensive and usually covered by gover…
I don’t think this has ever been a question. Put them in a shed for 100 years then recycle the metal.