361–370 of 686 posts
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> Treat nuclear the same way. Don’t ask towns to host nuclear facilities out of the goodness of their hearts. Make it worth their while. The nuclear industry doesn't generate the money for that kind of lubrication; they demand more subsidies and immunities than they already have to build anything as it is.
The Department of Defense doesn’t generate cash, but people love having those bases nearby.
But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…
Isn't that a myth though ? Nuclear plants have planned and unplanned maintenance downtime. They actually have enough of these in my country that it's deemed unreliable or as reliable as wind turbines (depends on who you ask).
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Yeah, then we're on the same page. But one note, I don't think fusion has the same uphill battle that fission does. You mentioned that the fission industry just hasn't been able to properly demonstrate what they can do, but I don't think this is entirely it. We do have to consider the decades worth of campaigning and lobbying by coal and gas that went after nuclear. That these campaigns even infiltrated the biggest g…
Honestly, I think it is more on the climate scientists at this point to be vocal about it. I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's understandable that science-illiterate, climate change-denier types fear fission. The fossil fuel industry has done an excellent job percolating their pro fossil-fuel agenda and fomenting fear of the unknown. This is the unavoidable enemy. The only way to counter this would be for…
Even with the support of greens, government, scientists, etc this is going no where.
Nuclear fission is dead, why trying to revive it? What's the point?
But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…
Honestly, I don't understand why we can't do both. I don't think this has to be framed as a zero sum problem (I think way too many issues are naively framed that way). With reference to the article, the funding levels over the past decade (globally) were roughly $200m/yr. That's really nothing in terms of government money and well within the realm that just the US could sustain such an effort alone. It would be rough…
Um, yes until you factor in failure rates due to incompetence + natural failure. Chernobyl, look it up, massive cost, massive loss of land, death/cancer rate of all exposed nearly 100%.
Until you can solve the "corrupt bureaucrat cuts corners he doesn't understand" problem, and also demonstrate that the failure of a single reactor doesn't cascade and cause every reactor to blow (if you increase the density of reactor distribution a single fallout has the potential to cascade to every reactor).
I remain skeptical about the fuel waste issue being solved, I've heard that a number of times and its not exactly been true, what is usually meant is that the fuel can be re-used somewhat indefinitely, after being repurposed in special containment facilities, not that the spent fuel safety issue is resolved.
And, it won't even solve the climate change issue - even after going 100% electricity and/or renewable fuels, we still have a considerable chemical infrastructure to resolve, and we still have the heat waste issue to resolve (making things electrical doesn't solve energy and chemical expenditure affecting weather patterns, albeit it is better than pumping CO2), an infrastructure which will need to be utilized to create said nuclear reactors.
Climate change will slowly roast us all to death, a nuclear failure will, instantly fry us all to molten pulp, I know which one I prefer.
But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…
> It runs 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. Isn't that a myth though ? Nuclear plants have planned and unplanned maintenance downtime. They actually have enough of these in my country that it's deemed unreliable or as reliable as wind turbines (depends on who you ask).
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> Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) not have the same stigma as fission is kind of weird in my mind. The cost of fission comes doubly from the nuclear proliferation risk and the safety risk, neither of which apply at all to fusion. The levels of radioactive waste produced is at basically the same levels as medical p…
No proliferation risk at all in a tritium fountain full of 14 MeV neutrons? Are you sure you know what you're talking about? These will all be guarded with pseudo military guns guards and gates just like fission, and monitored by the IAEA. As for radiological safety, see point about tritium. And google tritium leak nuclear plant for good measure. Youre right that there is less radioactivity in fusion plants, but mayb…
https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2012/part-ii-ap-impact-tri....
And this is why we should not trust any fission-bearing folk. Or apparently fusion-bearing folk either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_PACER
If containment is your concern (though underground blast effects are decently understood, and blast chambers could be constructed with still strongly net economic/energy positive) - this does not need to be built around any population centers. At a cost of 1.5% efficiency loss per 1000 km, UHV power lines can direct it from a single write-off location anywhere on earth. That single location can likely be scaled to supply well beyond the total current global energy production.
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Honestly, I think it is more on the climate scientists at this point to be vocal about it. I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's understandable that science-illiterate, climate change-denier types fear fission. The fossil fuel industry has done an excellent job percolating their pro fossil-fuel agenda and fomenting fear of the unknown. This is the unavoidable enemy. The only way to counter this would be for…
This conversation seems to me a bit outdated: building a fission reactor takes one or two decades and its kWh is costlier than alternatives. To get something cheaper, we need to wait for the next gen of technology, in one or two decades. Lucky if we can compete with the costs of solar, wind and batteries in a decade. Even with the support of greens, government, scientists, etc this is going no where. Nuclear fission…
building a fission reactor takes one or two decades
and its kWh is costlier than alternatives
Also, talking about kWh cost in the short term is... missing a large portion of the point. Burning fossil fuels is only "cheap" if all the long term damage is ignored. Let's talk about how cheap it is once we start truly paying the price for climate change to the tune of billions of lives and many quadrillions of dollars.
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By expensive, I mean in $/kWh - yes we could build enough nuclear power plants to stop carbon emissions, but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? I've heard this idea that we should "do everything", but I don't get that, why don't we do the best thing as well and as fast as we can?
> but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? First of all, we are investing more in renewables right now than nuclear. Much much more. Second of all, your statement is true for LCOE, but LCOE is an inappropriate metric for systems costs. It does not include the cost of storage, additional transmission lines to reach thousands of distributed wind/solar…
But what happens if you have to stop your power plant in ten years because its (LCOE-estimated) cost is not competitive anymore?
So based on an biased LCOE computation, you sold your coal-based kWh at a third of it's real cost. Bad for the investor, bad for the climate.