131–140 of 182 posts
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Citation?
First graphic. That said, that assumes we only use USA-style LWR/PWRs that depend on natural U-235 to operate, I think, given that the numbers I've seen for reactors operating on unenriched uranium point to more like 50 years as super low-end estimate.
To be sustainable, nuclear also needs to be sustainable economically. There's a cost problem with nuclear that often gets swept under the carpet by its proponents. But it's actually a big reason for its current lack of popularity. Nuclear proponents instead love to emphasize how safe nuclear can be and how great of a safety track record it has. And with some caveats (e.g. the Fukushima mess was pretty bad) they are n…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223761273_The_costs...
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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.
People try to debate nuclear rationally, but I think there is a sharp divide in temperament in our culture. Some people want the solution to our energy woes to be perpetual austerity, lowering consumption and being eternally vigilant against anything that might produce more energy. The other temperament sees creating more energy as a good thing. It doesn't have the "closed world" assumption. It's remarkable that the…
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With the proposed scale of kilotons of Uranium per year, this comes still to hundreds of billions of tons of seawater every year. Now consider that only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of seawater is easily accessible. There's a reason why we don't do this for gold. There is about 1/50th the amount of gold in the ocean, but it's also more than a thousand times more valuable, but it's nowhere near econimcal. The scope of…
> Now consider that only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of seawater is easily accessible. Not saying it’s an economically realistic idea, but on the topic of availability of seawater it seems like you’d just need to set up your pumping station in a location with a persistent oceanic current, filter upstream and discharge downstream, and you’d be set for thousands of years. The Straight of Gibraltar seems like a good can…
To be sustainable, nuclear also needs to be sustainable economically. There's a cost problem with nuclear that often gets swept under the carpet by its proponents. But it's actually a big reason for its current lack of popularity. Nuclear proponents instead love to emphasize how safe nuclear can be and how great of a safety track record it has. And with some caveats (e.g. the Fukushima mess was pretty bad) they are n…
Still more expensive than renewables though, so only the best option if they didn't exist.
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Reliable solar power for $40/MWh: https://www.energy-storage.news/developer-8minute-says-more-...
And it requires the exclusive use of very favourable terrain (for solar, which isn't available in many places) to provide what, 1/5th of what same sized nuclear facility could do (and that's me underplaying the capacity of the nuclear facility, it's even worse if you go for what's possible)
And yes, solar farms are bigger than nuclear plants. That might be a problem in Singapore, but a few hundred square miles of solar farms is not a big deal in a country with 3.5 million square miles.
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Plus, you know, storing the waste for thousands of years without a good place to do so. Payed for by the public.
A lot of the fuel can be recycled and doesn't need to be stored for thousands of years. Storing the remainder underground is mostly a one-off cost except for some monitoring. It's a solved problem and only public misconceptions about tectonics and radioactivity are holding it back.
But is it, actually? The amount of nuclear waste in interim storage speaks against it.
> It's a solved problem
It is certainly not. For example in Germany there's only one terminal storage facility, and it's already showing problems, less than half a century in. And we thought/hoped it could last for tens of thousands of years.
Maybe a case could be made that in ideal conditions, technical solutions exist, but I'm not aware of any actually viable solutions. (Note that a solution isn't viable from a public relations POV, it's NOT an actually viable solution).
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And it requires the exclusive use of very favourable terrain (for solar, which isn't available in many places) to provide what, 1/5th of what same sized nuclear facility could do (and that's me underplaying the capacity of the nuclear facility, it's even worse if you go for what's possible)
Location doesn't make as much difference as you would think. Arizona gets about 3 times as much sun as Boston does, but a cloudy day in Arizona isn't significantly different than a cloudy day in Boston. And if you size your solar to support cloudy days... And yes, solar farms are bigger than nuclear plants. That might be a problem in Singapore, but a few hundred square miles of solar farms is not a big deal in a coun…
Now consider that Boston is on similar distance from North pole as Spain, and not everywhere has huge swaths of unused land conveniently stripped of natives.
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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.
What are you going to make the batteries from - lithium? That comes with its own host of terrible impacts that people seem to be keen to brush under the carpet.
There are a good half dozen viable methods of extracting lithium. Some are substantially cleaner than others, which are the ones we should use.