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Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

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Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#71

Post by fsflover »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #54
fsflover wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you care about a thousand-year problem but forget about the 50-year problem (climate change).

50 year problem? Climate change is an 8 year problem. That's the main reason that nuclear is infeasible, we can't do it in 8 years. We should have started building 100s of nuclear reactors 20 years ago. Doing it now is too late. Wind & solar + batteries can be built much quicker.

So you suggest to do nothing? Don't start with renewables, they aren't providing enough power and stability in the next 8 years.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#72

Post by jcfrei »

p_l wrote: post #59
karaterobot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal, Denmark and Austria recently issued a statement objecting to nuclear being classified as an environmentally sustainable source of power. But, that statement was being issued by an EU commision. So, it sounds to me like Europe is not a bloc on this issue. Source: https://www.dw.com/en/eu-states-split-on-classifying-nuclear...

German greens are doing a lot to push against it, indeed.

They have to because a large part of their voting base consists of older members who joined the greens back in the 60s, 70s and 80s because they were the first to spread FUD and mobilize against nuclear power plants.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#73

Post by cedilla »

bshoemaker wrote: post #42
cedilla wrote: post #27

Nuclear energy is sustainable only with technology we don't have yet. All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades. And the sea water plan relies on technology that has been shown to be theoretically possible but not yet shown to be remotely feasible. At the proposed scale of kilotons per year, this would require filtering hu…

I do not understand why this comment is getting votes. The doomer perspective alone should be disqualifying... While we can't completely prevent any climate change, we have already significantly bent the curve and our efforts now are important - 2 degrees warming vs. 4 degrees is incredibly material. More on this: https://nyti.ms/3Egq7tV

I think climate change is solvable, but we need solutions we can implement now. Proven solutions exist. Scaling up nuclear is not a solution. It is too slow and requires too much manpower.

Nuclear had its chance, and it failed to deliver. It's a failed technology. It didn't work out, and it was never as cheap or as reliable as people wish it was.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#74

Post by oceanplexian »

cedilla wrote: post #27

Nuclear energy is sustainable only with technology we don't have yet. All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades. And the sea water plan relies on technology that has been shown to be theoretically possible but not yet shown to be remotely feasible. At the proposed scale of kilotons per year, this would require filtering hu…

Is there another form of energy generations with "no risk of accidents"? I've read some statistics that say nuclear energy is already safer than all other forms of energy generation per kWh. As for proliferation risk I think it's becoming a moot point as countries like Iran, North Korea, etc., are already making their own highly enriched nuclear materials and can give it to whoever they want.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#75

Post by Ottolay »

If only the world would have followed Sweden and France [1] and largely de-carbonized their electrical grid by the 90s using primarily nuclear, we would be in a much better situation when it comes to global warming.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France#/...

It's 30 years later and countries which push renewables heavily like Germany still have over 40% of their electricity produced from carbon producing sources. [2]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:...

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#76

Post by p_l »

cedilla wrote: post #27

Nuclear energy is sustainable only with technology we don't have yet. All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades. And the sea water plan relies on technology that has been shown to be theoretically possible but not yet shown to be remotely feasible. At the proposed scale of kilotons per year, this would require filtering hu…

A lot of the time it's because they are stuck in the same point for the last 10 years - "no funding for finishing 95% done tech because non-existant future storage tech will make renewables reliable"

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#77

Post by belorn »

cedilla wrote: post #27

Nuclear energy is sustainable only with technology we don't have yet. All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades. And the sea water plan relies on technology that has been shown to be theoretically possible but not yet shown to be remotely feasible. At the proposed scale of kilotons per year, this would require filtering hu…

If its too late to build nuclear, it is far too late to continue burn fossil fuel. They need to shutdown now with the coal, oil and gas staying in the ground and the one that we have already gathered need to be put back into the earth where it shall remain.

Until we first agree to shut fossil fuels down, talk about fossil fuels alternatives being "too late" is advocacy to continue burning fossil fuel.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#78

Post by notreallyserio »

cedilla wrote: post #27

Nuclear energy is sustainable only with technology we don't have yet. All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades. And the sea water plan relies on technology that has been shown to be theoretically possible but not yet shown to be remotely feasible. At the proposed scale of kilotons per year, this would require filtering hu…

Indeed, and to your last point I propose a challenge: over the next 30 years, we build as much nuclear and solar+wind as we can and see which generates more kWh at the end. My money is on the latter, but either way we all win.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#79

Post by throwaway5752 »

p_l wrote: post #47
throwaway5752 wrote: post #6

1) there are no working thorium reactors 2) breeder reactors are hazardous 3) uranium seawater extraction doesn't exist 4) if uranium seawater extraction were made to work it would use enormous amounts of energy not reflected in this. The depressing truth is this shows that current uranium oxide reserves and nuclear tech could supply global energy needs for only 6 years.

1) Because we got rid of them for being annoying 2) Untrue. There are even breeder reactors with passive safety and very nice safety records, waylaid only by funding and partially by geopolitics (ok, coolant is expensive as hell, but that's because we don't mine enough bismuth) 3 & 4) Won't cover, not my area The thing is, where are you picking up ridiculous 6 years amount? Because it sounds like very, very cherry-pi…

"The thing is, where are you picking up ridiculous 6 years amount? Because it sounds like very, very cherry-picked value."

That's directly from the linked article, except I rounded 5.7 years up to 6.

Re: Nuclear energy is long-term sustainable

#80

Post by p_l »

Tepix wrote: post #65
BitwiseFool wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"But the problem nuclear is that either way, it's far too late." Sadly I see no other viable alternative. Wind and Solar are seemingly clean but require a ton of resources, have a massive footprint, and just don't scale with on-demand needs during bad weather. >"All the affordable reactor designs with no risk of accidents or proliferation are just 10 years away like they have been for four decades." No risk of accid…

What's the massive footprint you talk about? If we put enough solar panels to provide electricity for all humans into the Sahara desert, it only covers a small area.

And you would cause untold destruction to amazon rainforests, among other things.

No, you can't just pave desert with panels and magically solve power generation without ugly environmental consequences, that doesn't work even in computer games.

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