Activists who embrace nuclear power • Hacker News Board

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#71

Post by StreamBright » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

rpiguyshy wrote: post #9

i just dont buy it. hypothetically, there is a nuclear power plant design that is perfectly safe in that it will never melt down. but there is no nuclear power plant that produces no waste. as long as you are producing waste, you are depending on bumbling bureaucrats to properly dispose of that waste and manage the waste often for extremely long periods of time. its just not an ideal situation. the government cant ev…

>> meanwhile, solar is safe to set up, safe to operate, and there is no radioactive waste to manage

Only some giant amount (only 300x compare to nuclear) of non-radioactive waste that ends up in poor countries. Do you care about that?

https://www.solarpowerinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2...

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die...

https://www.technocracy.news/solar-energy-produces-300-times...

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#72

Post by throwaway894345 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

afterburner wrote: post #37

biren34 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm squarely of the opposite opinion. There are 2 main concerns I think "only renewables" solutions miss: 1. Impact on land usage. The sheer amount of land required to provide 3-4x global use is impractical and has major environmental consequences. It's not free to pave over large areas with solar panels or make huge swaths of air unsafe for birds. 2. Cost of storage is usually projected using current prices with som…

You're worried about birds? Better raze all buildings and kill all the cats. Wind turbine bird deaths are negligible. https://www.evwind.es/2020/10/01/the-realities-of-bird-and-b... You know you can set up solar panels on roofs, and in the desert, right?

Desert solar is certainly going to be part of the story, but I can’t imagine that we can feasibly power the whole country with desert solar alone, and I don’t think residential solar will be a significant contributor because you lose the efficiencies of scale afforded by acres and acres of collocated, homogeneous, ground-level panels for construction, maintenance, and operation. Consider even the overhead of dealing with thousands of individual property owners rather than a single land owner (if that—the utility may own the land for a solar farm outright).

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#73

Post by balfirevic » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #31

flaque wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that larger investment in nuclear won’t yield reduced costs, just as larger investments in solar did.

According to the IEA we are spending more on nuclear power research than any other category. (More than wind and solar combined.) More money won't magically give us better nuclear technology. If renewables keep getting better we're going to have to start some serious conversations about cutting nuclear funding in a few years, we're investing too much money with basically zero return on investment. https://www.iea.org…

> According to the IEA we are spending more on nuclear power research than any other category.

Does that include fusion research?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#74

Post by dalbasal » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #8

Articles like this miss the main point and instead focus on culture war material. There are plenty of sites that would happily accept more nuclear being built, but all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of nuclear. It's no longer cost competitive, and places like China that adopt a "let's try everything and see what works best" approach have heavily pulled back on nuclear. The issues aren't safety, waste, a…

It's hard to put your finger on the true "main point." Energy, especially nuclear energy has always been fraught, politically and technically.

Your point is definitely poignant currently. Renewables are looking like a good bet atm.

A fundamental point is that nuclear energy has a lot of potential, ultimately. The debate will always be about investing in nuclear now. Long term, it's hard to imagine nuclear energy doesn't have a place.

In fact, it's surprising that nuclear energy hasn't been a bigger gamechanger. That's my last point. Nuclear energy has been, historically, somewhere between "eh" and disappointing. Applicable where natural gas is inconvenient.

The fact that most nuclear plants them are nuclear powered steam engines... something not right. Generally, nuclear is promising. Particularly, the options available to a region that needs power just aren't that attractive.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#75

Post by throwaway894345 » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

afterburner wrote: post #68

vlovich123 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deserts are not ecosystems devoid of all life. Here’s a life long anti-nuclear activist talking about how his direct experience in this space evolved as he started looking into the data more: https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shellenberger_why_i_change...

You know deserts are BIG, right?

Can you please contribute something other than snark?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#76

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

reedjosh wrote: post #19

rpiguyshy wrote: post #9

i just dont buy it. hypothetically, there is a nuclear power plant design that is perfectly safe in that it will never melt down. but there is no nuclear power plant that produces no waste. as long as you are producing waste, you are depending on bumbling bureaucrats to properly dispose of that waste and manage the waste often for extremely long periods of time. its just not an ideal situation. the government cant ev…

Solar requires energy storage. It is not on demand. Wind and solar must be backed by an on demand source as we don't have sufficiently cost effective storage methods. Options are then basically hydroelectric, natural gas, petroleum, coal, or nuclear. Nuclear is the cleanest if you can't put a dam somewhere.

[deleted]

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#77

Post by StreamBright » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #59

Daniel_sk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with radioactive waste is more of a political and emotional problem than a real one. The amount of waste is rather small and it's not like it will irradiate you from a kilometre away :-). It can be stored in safe containers and buried in stable geological sites or even stored temporarily for many years in storage houses and maybe later re-used in types of reactors that will be able to recycle the spent fuel…

The issue for me is not quantity but time. 1000-10,000 (or even much longer) years for decay is an incredible amount of time for the human race. Written language only appeared ~5500 years ago. Let’s say ancient Rome 2,000 years ago made and stored a substance that kills everyone exposed to it, would we expect that substance to still be intact and unblemished right now?

You are talking about worst case scenario.

There are nuclear reactor types specifically built for getting rid of high half-time traditional nuclear waste.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/destroying-nuclear-wa...

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#78

Post by rpiguyshy » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

reedjosh wrote: post #33

rpiguyshy wrote: post #9

i just dont buy it. hypothetically, there is a nuclear power plant design that is perfectly safe in that it will never melt down. but there is no nuclear power plant that produces no waste. as long as you are producing waste, you are depending on bumbling bureaucrats to properly dispose of that waste and manage the waste often for extremely long periods of time. its just not an ideal situation. the government cant ev…

> bumbling bureaucrats Sounds like a government problem, not a nuclear problem.

exactly. fission is great if its run by smart, motivated people. unfortunately, the government is not always populated by the kind of people who are up to the task. and they are not always structured in a way that allows them to work optimally. its a big, complicated system. to have total confidence in it is foolish. its like any other huge, complicated and convoluted machine... you should be skeptical of it, not blindly faithful in its ability to do things like manage nuclear waste. maybe someone comes back at me saying that the government already does things like manages the nuclear arsenal, wages war, etc. my response is that you should be worried, we should try to reduce all of that as much as possible.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#79

Post by afterburner » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

reedjosh wrote: post #34

sjg007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries should be refurbish-able and definitely recyclable.

And definitely energy intensive to recycle.

Are you under the impression decommissioning a nuclear reactor is a simple and tidy task?

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#80

Post by Daniel_sk » Sun, Feb 21, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #59

Daniel_sk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with radioactive waste is more of a political and emotional problem than a real one. The amount of waste is rather small and it's not like it will irradiate you from a kilometre away :-). It can be stored in safe containers and buried in stable geological sites or even stored temporarily for many years in storage houses and maybe later re-used in types of reactors that will be able to recycle the spent fuel…

The issue for me is not quantity but time. 1000-10,000 (or even much longer) years for decay is an incredible amount of time for the human race. Written language only appeared ~5500 years ago. Let’s say ancient Rome 2,000 years ago made and stored a substance that kills everyone exposed to it, would we expect that substance to still be intact and unblemished right now?

Well, there are vast amounts of highly toxic oil that we yet have to extract from below the surface - if something of that leaks by accident then it will poison and kill everything it will touch and it has been there since the dinosaurs died :-). Radioactive waste is solid waste and the amount is small - even if someone would dig it up, it would be only a local danger and it could maybe kill a reduced number of humans, but it will not be a global catastrophe. We are probably producing more highly toxic and poisonous waste that is not radioactive but it will also last hundreds if not thousands of years (e.g. toxic heavy metals) and kill many more people. Tens of thousands of people die every year from industrial pollution. How many people die from stored nuclear waste? Zero? (and even in worst case when a future civilisation digs up the nuclear waste - we are not speaking about hundreds of thousands like in case of industrial pollution).