Nuclear is back on the table for a green future • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#631

Post by User23 » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #501

sanderjd wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What will the rest be?

Kinetic (water gravity, flywheel) or thermal (molten salt baths which can be supplemented with solar thermal). None of these things exist at a large scale except for pumped hydro / water gravity, and that requires very convenient topography and geology to work. Generally, any non-chemical storage system is overpriced (too inefficient) or a maintenance disaster.

Flywheels and molten salt both have pretty gnarly failure modes too. Not Chernobyl bad, but still no fun.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#632

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:42 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #36

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #20

Please can the nuclear industry stop paying PR consultants. We have one use for the nuclear industry - building scientists who can then build nuclear bombs. IMO this is a reasonable use of public funds - the strategic needs of nuclear weapons are not going away. But please please just accept that and move on. Stop getting in a vital public debate. Nuclear fission is a terrible civilian technology - vastly expensive,…

China is going to do it, and you seem to believe the safety profile of nuclear energy technology has been frozen for 50 years. It's extremely strange to think something as broad as the process of nuclear fission can be spoken about as having a universal, never changing risk-profile, regardless of technological advancement. We don't do this for any other technology. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-02/c…

The Chinese nukes will be mothballed long short of their design life, just because they will be unable to compete on cost.

That will save us from an absolute rash of accidents as habitually corrupt administration fails to operate at necessary standards. With some luck, most of those planned will be cancelled before completion as their operating cost is recognized as already undercut.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#633

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:45 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #263

rectang wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamentals of that risk profile haven't changed — you still have high concentration of radioactive materials in a single geographic location. The risk profile for nuclear is unlike that of other technologies. They told us it was safe back then. They tell us its safe today. They will always tell us it's safe. The fundamentals tell us they're wrong.

"The fundamentals" is doing a lot of work there. It's fundamentally unsafe to move at a high velocity in a meat-based body. Does this mean the risk profile of high speed transportation is invariant across technology? The "fundamentals" you speak of boil down to the first principles analysis, based on physics, of the possible states a nuclear energy production system can get into. This is not invariant with regards to…

All failures of nukes thus far have been direct consequences of inadequately competent and scrupulous administration.

Administration and adherence to standards of excellence are not improving.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#634

Post by scyzoryk_xyz » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:45 AM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #91

phil21 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary cost of nuclear is politically driven. I don't know if that matters in a world of actual energy scarcity, I guess we'll be finding out. If you remove liability and the insanity of our current methods of waste storage the costs become outright cheap, especially in an imagined future where there is massive investment into new nuclear infrastructure. By the metrics people use to judge nuclear, hydro would be…

When you say 'primary cost' do you mean construction cost? Again, utility managers will be looking at lifecycle costs, from the cradle (construction) through use (fueling, security, cooling water, maintenance) to the grave (decomissioning). The reason costs are high is not political, it's that the systems involved need to be over-engineered relative to say, a coal-fired power plant, where a breakdown or fire will cre…

A relevant piece of information that could be attached to the San Onofre reactor argument is that we are talking about a 1st generation reactor, from the late 60’s.

Proponents of new nuclear solutions would argue that reactor design, which is today at 4th generation, has greatly evolved and improved in too many ways to count since the late 60’s.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#635

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

synergy20 wrote: post #421

Best news for the day, I'm a firm believer that nuclear is the _only_ way for true green energy on earth at scale. it's a manageable risk(checking out what France is doing) and there is simply no other _true_ alternatives.

Self deception is a terrible scourge. I hope you can overcome it.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#636

Post by trashtester » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #451

trashtester wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVERYTHING around us is contaminated in some way or another. We are constantly bombarded by cosmic radiation with doses far in excess of the expose you will get from eating those mushrooms. Below 100mSv, there is "no evidence" that exposure leads to any elevation of cancer risk. At levels covered by the article, ie 1000Bq/kg / 80000 Bq/mSv = 0.0125 mSv/kg. In other words, you can eat 8 tons of those mush before there…

Arguing that leaked radioactive contamination is less harmful than often assumed does not make habitually leaky nukes seem any more attractive, vs. alternatives that leak nothing hazardous at all, ever.

For someone who understands science, it actually DOES make them more attractive, when they realize that the "contamination" is at concentrations usually associated with homeopathy.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#637

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:52 AM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #135

Historical lifecycle costs for nuclear plants are perhaps not useful for comparison. Newer reactor plans are drastically different.

Not in cost. A very substantial part of opex is maintaining the steam turbines, a cost not matched by any in renewables. Thus, even completely ignoring monstrous capex, fuel and waste handling, indemnity subsidy, and decommissioning costs, nukes cannot compete.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#638

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #473

Everyone arguing over replacing currently energy usage like that will be even close to enough, it won't. Personally im a nuclear fan and I think many of the costs are artificially high by preventing nuclear industry growth and bad legislation that outlaws things like breeder reactors, that said we are going to need wind and solar even with massive nuclear investment just by the total power we need to produce to make…

Fortunately, existing tech is wholly up to the task, even as new tech comes online at a rapid pace.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#639

Post by jillesvangurp » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

Manuel_D wrote: post #512

schiffern wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Global battery production is... Now repeat the same math for global production of new nuclear power plants, in GW/year. While writing your reply about how this isn't the right way to think about the future of nuclear power, realize that those exact same arguments apply to batteries, too.

No, the same arguments do not apply. Lithium ion battery production is essentially a chemical industry. It cannot become cheaper than its input materials. Most of the cobalt produced goes to lithium ion batteries [1]. Eventually, the battery industry hits the ceiling of what extraction industries can supply and shortages are already on the horizon [2]. Nuclear power plants are mostly steel, concrete, and copper. They…

Lithium ion is just one type of battery. There are many including quite a few that don't involve exotic materials. For grid storage, energy density is a lot less important.

Even so, we're on track to produce li on batteries for cars by the twh per year. And most of those will have a second life in grid storage. That's before considering the effects of vehicle to grid storage.

There are no plans for nuclear anywhere close to the same scale. Changing that will require a debate about cost. This article does a great job of avoiding that topic entirely.

Re: Nuclear is back on the table for a green future

#640

Post by ncmncm » Thu, Jun 16, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #295

It's appalling how these conversation on HN are made of people endlessly repeating only a handful of pros and cons. No progress in the conversation and no discussion of more subtle aspects, like centralization of control/power, systemic risk, nuclear proliferation etc.

The most reliable output of the nuke industry has always been dishonesty. It is a big chore countering it everywhere it blooms.