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An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

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Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#51

Post by rich_sasha »

fuoqi wrote: post #43
rich_sasha wrote: post #22

So... it’s a massive problem that there is no storage for nuclear waste (mostly agree) but not even worth mentioning there is no energy storage for renewables? Coming from a cold, dark country with long and cloudy winters and no oceanic coast, it drives me mad when people point at the Med or California and say “look how cheap solar and wind is”.

Lack of storage in the US is a purely political issue, not a technical one. Other countries are either successfully building such storage (Finland) or invest into fuel recycling and breeder technologies (France and Russia), which significantly reduce amount of waste which has to be stored and its long-term danger.

Yes, hence the “mostly”. For a variety of blocking reasons though, this is an unresolved (if not unresolvable) problem.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#52

Post by aksss »

armada651 wrote: post #49
lousken wrote: post #42

why is nuclear waste such a big problem? in terms of m^3 the amount is rather small, and I feel like we're not discussing what's gonna happen with old solar panels. Is there a way to recycle them / how good is it? The article doesn't mention it. As for the nuclear storage problem, from my point of view it seems more like the biggest problem is that people don't want it near them even though it's stored hundreds of me…

Ironically many countries are considering underground storage of CO2 to combat climate change.

Is carbon sequestration even remotely realistic though (beyond PoC, and at scale)?

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#53

Post by rich_sasha »

grawprog wrote: post #40

One thing I never really see brought into the nuclear energy equation that's fairly environmentally bad is uranium mining. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/longstaff1/ >Uranium mining facilities produce tailings that generally are disposed of in near surface impoundments close to the mine. These tailings pose serious environmental and health risks in the form of Randon emission, windblown dust dispersal a…

Is there an argument to be made about volumes? Eg let’s say it is 5x worse than mining coal, but you need 100x less of it, is it net less bad?

I clearly made up the numbers, just curious.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#54

Post by mchusma »

scythe wrote: post #41
stadia42 wrote: post #2

Note: I do not know if this argument against nuclear energy is valid. I'm submitting it in the hope that HN comments will help evaluate it.

His argument is highly contingent on a single premise: nuclear power is very expensive to build, making it uneconomical. However, it's extremely difficult to determine how much of this expense is necessary vs. due to over-regulation or lack of innovation. It's easy to say that some regulations on nuclear power are probably unnecessary (cf. widespread nuclear paranoia); it's much harder to say which . It's easy to say…

Agree that his premise is entirely an economic one. From first principles, nuclear energys's marginal cost is very inexpensive (similar to renewables).

What's basically needed to bring the cost of nuclear down is scale, investing more in production. This is why new approaches to mass producing small scale reactors is so interesting. It should allow nuclear to get competitive with renewables, and having a diverse energy base is definitely a good thing.

Also, fusion holds the most hope for massively decreasing the cost of energy. It's a game changer, and it's close. It's possible that fusion allows things like mass carbon capture, powering reforestation efforts, and more.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#56

Post by [deleted] »

lousken wrote: post #42

why is nuclear waste such a big problem? in terms of m^3 the amount is rather small, and I feel like we're not discussing what's gonna happen with old solar panels. Is there a way to recycle them / how good is it? The article doesn't mention it. As for the nuclear storage problem, from my point of view it seems more like the biggest problem is that people don't want it near them even though it's stored hundreds of me…

[deleted]

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#57

Post by grawprog »

rich_sasha wrote: post #53
grawprog wrote: post #40

One thing I never really see brought into the nuclear energy equation that's fairly environmentally bad is uranium mining. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/longstaff1/ >Uranium mining facilities produce tailings that generally are disposed of in near surface impoundments close to the mine. These tailings pose serious environmental and health risks in the form of Randon emission, windblown dust dispersal a…

Is there an argument to be made about volumes? Eg let’s say it is 5x worse than mining coal, but you need 100x less of it, is it net less bad? I clearly made up the numbers, just curious.

I'm not sure how directly comparable they are. How do you compare radioactive and chemical contamination to the kind of contamination from coal mines?

Pollution isn't always a thing you can measure on a scale from bad to less bad. There's long term systemic effects from the countless contaminants released by industries around the world we barely have any idea about.

I realize economic models, and fairly frighteningly, increasingly ecological models require easy to work with numbers that can be compared and contrasted to analyse cost vs benefit, but the real world does not work that way.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#58

Post by ic0n0cl4st »

lousken wrote: post #42

why is nuclear waste such a big problem? in terms of m^3 the amount is rather small, and I feel like we're not discussing what's gonna happen with old solar panels. Is there a way to recycle them / how good is it? The article doesn't mention it. As for the nuclear storage problem, from my point of view it seems more like the biggest problem is that people don't want it near them even though it's stored hundreds of me…

When one plant’s worth of solar panel waste is improperly discarded, does it ruin potable water supplies, airable land and the health of entire regions? Does that area become a no-man’s land for decades /centuries, even after spending many billions to try and rectify the damage?

There is absolutely no comparison to long term storage of nuclear waste and discarded solar panels.

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#59

Post by 2trill2spill »

Wow, what a simplistic look at nuclear vs renewables. They don't even begin to look into the "hidden" costs of renewable energy. They fail to mention or include the costs of new transmissions lines, bringing new mines onboard, building grid storage, etc.

If we forgo nuclear power the only other currently viable carbon free, stable, energy source is hydro power, which has huge environmental costs and immense public resentment/push back. For example look at the James bay hydro project[1]. 11,500 km2 of land flooded, intense protest from the Cree and other first nations as well as conservation groups, increases in mercury levels in fish populations, etc. Expanding hydro power enough to handle base load energy use is unlikely, due to the above costs and push back.

So if we can't expand hydro or nuclear then we have to go all in on wind and solar plus grid storage. We could use pumped hydro but that brings about many of the same costs/problems as hydro power. That leaves us with over building wind and solar, and adding huge amounts of transmission lines and batteries to account for the variability. Add in the switch from ICE cars to electric and the amount of new metals needed is going to be immense.

I've also noticed that every time a new transmission line or mine is purposed in the United States their is immense push back from environmental and conservation groups, and from the public as a whole. For examples of this look at the fight over adding new transmissions lines in southern Wisconsin[2] or the intense opposition to mining the Duluth complex[3] in northern Minnesota[4]. The Duluth complex is the largest untapped copper and nickel resource in the world and Polymet has been trying to get permits for well over a decade to mine. Copper and nickel are greatly needed for renewable energy and batteries, and it could still be another 4 or 5 years if it ever happens.

Not using nuclear energy is just going to massively exacerbate the transmission line and mining problems as well as increase the prices of renewable energy. Wind and solar is "cheap" because we don't factor in the added transmission lines, and natural gas peaker planets needed to currently make it happen. Also many of the groups pushing for wind and solar + batteries also happen to be against adding additional mines and transmission lines required to make it happen, and honestly you cant really blame them, mines can pollute local water supplies and transmission lines are ugly.

All and all a balanced approach is probably the cheapest and most viable path forward, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, grid storage all working together on the grid.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_Project

[2]: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/cardina...

[3]: http://www.miningminnesota.com/duluth-complex/

[4]: https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/06/polymet-copper-nickel-...

Re: An argument that nuclear power makes the climate crisis worse

#60

Post by Swenrekcah »

grawprog wrote: post #57
rich_sasha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an argument to be made about volumes? Eg let’s say it is 5x worse than mining coal, but you need 100x less of it, is it net less bad? I clearly made up the numbers, just curious.

I'm not sure how directly comparable they are. How do you compare radioactive and chemical contamination to the kind of contamination from coal mines? Pollution isn't always a thing you can measure on a scale from bad to less bad. There's long term systemic effects from the countless contaminants released by industries around the world we barely have any idea about. I realize economic models, and fairly frighteningly…

Using this comment to remind people that coal plants do produce radioactive exhaust: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
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