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Activists who embrace nuclear power

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Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#201

Post by FooHentai »

Daniel_sk wrote: post #20
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…

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…

So nuclear has been up and running in mainstream use for what, fifty years at this point? If that waste sticks around for just 10,000 years (optimistic), and assuming no increase in demand over today (which is laughable), your ‘just one football field’ waste site is actually two hundred times bigger.

And that’s raw waste, it doesn’t include containment for each deposit you make.

Not to mention the issues we’re already having today with containment decay around existing waste sites.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#202

Post by jaakl »

If anything can reduce/limit now the climate catastrophe then it is total transformation to clean electric energy which is produced with minimal emissions: housing, transport, industry, everything must go electric. Producing does not need to be renewables, it can be even fossils, it just has to be without GHG emissions. Nothing else matters. These theoretical risks, long-term waste storage etc are at best secondary questions which are totally irrelevant in current situation where we have almost lost that battle. Considering that full electrification requires automatically 3-4 times hike of energy demand any clean enough tech has to be considered and where possible deployed right away. It is simple like that.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#203

Post by throwawayboise »

vkou wrote: post #127
epistasis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare your best estimates of land usage to the amount of land the US uses to grow corn for ethanol. Or compare it to the amount of land used for parking. Or for roads. Or for roofs of buildings. I've never, not once, ever seen a comparison of this sort that sounded the least bit scary. 2. I'm a bit flabbergasted that you think we can scar nuclear production to what we need. We can't even scale nuclear production to…

It's not that nuclear cannot be built. It's that America is incapable of building... Pretty much anything in the 21st century. If the interstate system were to disappear tomorrow, for example, we simply wouldn't be able to rebuild it. It's not because concrete is some arcane technology that isn't cost effective, or doesn't work. It's because we just aren't very good at building things anymore.

New interstates are being built all the time. They are under construction today.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#204

Post by hindsightbias »

airhead969 wrote: post #114
undefined1 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're setting up and attacking a strawman. didn't say all regs are bad. obviously you have to identify which regulations are good and which are not, or those no longer necessary, and find a balance so you don't quash innovation. like the example I gave with Bill Gates nuclear project.

Oh so now some nuclear industry regulations are "bad." Then who knows better than NRC engineers and scientists, legitimately aiming to ensure the industry doesn't die from mass-casualty events, public harm, or unworkable costs? Maybe before throwing shade on something you know nothing about, it's often best to not prove that you're speaking from your tail end. ; ) EDIT: You made a bunch of edits. No, you in particula…

Move fast, break things - if only we could innovate in nuclear energy... It’s telling that all these experts who complain about regulations can’t point to a single one being a problem.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#205

Post by epistasis »

blabitty wrote: post #134
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…

Forgive my nitpick but power generation doesn't generate electrons it pushes existing ones around, very slowly. Highly recommend http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html to anyone interested in discovering how inconsistently electrical concepts are defined and taught.

That was an especially unfortunate typo in a post riddled with typos.

I will stand by my use of electron arbitrage though.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#206

Post by runsWphotons »

theodric wrote: post #195
runsWphotons wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you could see it the other way. A nuclear plant in everyone's backyard might be incentive to put competent people in charge?

Respectfully, i think this is a naïve position, given the Zeitgeist of the last few years

Yes the question mark should be read with hesitancy. I suppose you are right. Too hopeful.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#207

Post by fsflover »

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…

>but all other forms of energy have undercut the cost of nuclear. It's no longer cost competitive

If markets valued the low-CO2 nature of nuclear, they’d be doing better

https://whatisnuclear.com/economics.html

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#208

Post by jfubxyb »

epistasis wrote: post #189
slfnflctd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attaching four hours of storage to a solar generation farm, just enough to get through the duck curve, is now slightly cheaper than coal This completely ignores scenarios of extended cloud cover, cold temperatures and low wind (somewhat like we just saw in Texas) where properly winterized baseline power would be the only way to keep everything up the whole way through. Barring future unknown tech, we will always ne…

If I were in Texas last week, I would have loved to have a home solar system with a battery that let me island from the grid. This is definitely practical and happening even at today's high prices. In a decade, ERCOT will look nothing like it does today. It will have massive amounts of solar and storage, and even more wind. This is replacing gas plants as they age out.

A buddy of mine has solar panels. During the storm they got covered in ice and snow, and generated about 180 watt hours in a 24 hour period

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#209

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

StreamBright wrote: post #52
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 no longer cost competitive If you compare apples to oranges it is not. Once you start to compare apples to apples it is very competitive. What do I mean by this? People like to compare nuclear to wind or solar. There is a fundamental difference. Wind or solar is not controlled by the energy demand while a nuclear power plat's energy production is. This is why you cannot compare them. If you talk about solar o…

It's straightforward accounting to address the issue you mean. Go read Lazard's levelized cost of energy slides. The cost comparison isn't some sort of mystery everyone but you is getting wrong.

Re: Activists who embrace nuclear power

#210

Post by jessaustin »

undefined1 wrote: post #122
airhead969 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh so now some nuclear industry regulations are "bad." Then who knows better than NRC engineers and scientists, legitimately aiming to ensure the industry doesn't die from mass-casualty events, public harm, or unworkable costs? Maybe before throwing shade on something you know nothing about, it's often best to not prove that you're speaking from your tail end. ; ) EDIT: You made a bunch of edits. No, you in particula…

in a time when institutions and experts are failing all around us, I appreciate your optimism. but it's too much like a blind faith and devotion to priests for my tastes. and maybe they are right about every regulation, that's a possibility! but clearly something has gone wrong when we could have had a clean grid powered via nuclear energy by now. so I think it would be wise to question everything in the chain.

You say we could have that, but no other nation has it either. Presumably some nations are better at regulating than we are; what is their excuse?
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