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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#161

Post by [deleted] »

aet wrote: post #121
anonporridge wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few good arguments against nuclear, especially large installations that produce a huge percentage of a region's power. Even if you can design it in such a way that an external attack is very unlikely to cause a meltdown, it's a juicy and easy target for an adversary to cripple your electricity production. A few dozen well placed missiles might be all you need to take an entire nation that's heavily…

Few? Here is another: mining “Many Navajo people have died of kidney failure and cancer, conditions linked to uranium contamination. And new research from the CDC shows uranium in babies born now.” https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/4735472...

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#162

Post by rkhassen9 »

Only clean if you don't count the 24,000 years half life of the waste. Funny how 'waste'does not sound like a very clean word.

What is clean is living in a way that doesn't consume so much energy. Can implement right now with no longterm repercussion, just a bit of short term pain of self control. Kind of like taking care of our own bodies.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#163

Post by yawaramin »

kuhewa wrote: post #130
yawaramin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whose health? Any actual data?

This is in dollars, but 10% of healthcare spending in the US equates to a good amount of health I reckon https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201...

I was asking about the GP's assertion about health impact of nuclear.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#164

Post by devonkim »

jmyeet wrote: post #26

Ok, so another pro-nuclear puff piece. Why do I say that? Because it talks about nuclear waste without ever mentioning the other kind: fuel processing waste. Nuclear fuel needs to be enriched. Enriching is simply upping the percentage of U-235 (the rest is mostly U-238). Civilian reactors tend to have relatively low enrichment rates. So-called weapons grade is enriched to a very high percentage and requires different…

FWIW, South Korea is quite corrupt as a system (all its presidents have gone to jail following their term minus one who was jailed already by a previous administration) yet is able to operate its nuclear reactors fine at high safety levels. It doesn’t have the kind of earthquake risks that Japan does but it does have plenty of typhoons / hurricanes hit that could impact structural integrity of its infrastructure quite regularly. This is a country where one of its largest malls collapsed killing many people while its executives hid the problems and tried to flee the country.

There are not many data points in terms of number of countries using nuclear nor do I think it’s a panacea or anything for our problems, but from a realistic standpoint we need as many solutions other than fossil fuels on the table right now as a species if we’re to tackle the climate crisis with the gravity it deserves, and nuclear can buy some more options especially if we start deploying small modular reactors that can quickly shutdown fossil fuel power plants. As it stands, aging nuclear power plants tend to be replaced not with another, modern plant but with fossil fuel based plants to meet similar performance and logistical characteristics.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#165

Post by joak »

There is this idea that nuclear is not being deployed because people have a wrong perception of risks.

However, the main reason is the economy. The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. We can blame regulation and the hypothetically wrong public perception about safety, but the reality is that costs cannot go down easily because of the innovation dynamics:

1. It takes several years to build a nuclear reactor. Hence, innovations take a decade to reach the market. Learning curve has to be slow.

2. A nuclear reactor cannot be shipped, it has to be build on site. This makes manufacturing automation, economies of scale and competition hard. In other words: you cannot have factories in China, or elsewhere, shipping cheap nuclear reactors all over the planet.

A change in regulation might lower the costs, but it's not going to improve much the innovation dynamics.

In conclusion, all this talking is mostly irrelevant: nuclear reactors are simply not going to be built because they are not competitive. And things are getting worse by the day because the alternatives have a better innovation cycle.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#166

Post by kitkat_new »

credit_guy wrote: post #151
epistasis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time to start nuclear to address climate change was the mid-2000s. And we did start four reactors, with many more planned! However they are all construction failures, and the two at Summer were actually even abandoned half completed, it was so bad. And executives our going to jail for their lies during the construction process. That's what I mean when I say nobody knows how to build it. We will likely never…

> and we have other options that we didn't have 20 years ago. We do, but those options are not enough. If they were, the Democrats in Washington would not have turned pro-nuclear. They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sense (or at least not in the next 30 years). Nuclear reactor construction is current…

> They saw the numbers. You can store electricity from day to night, but not from Summer to Winter. Months-long electricity storage will never make economic sense (or at least not in the next 30 years).

where's your crystal ball?

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#167

Post by _Algernon_ »

jcfrei wrote: post #146
purerandomness wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain?

Is this a serious concern? That there will be some kind of civilization in 10000 years that: 1) has lost all records of current generations 2) doesn't know about nuclear waste disposal sites and radioactivity 3) is still advanced enough to dig several hundred meters into hard rock 4) for no discernible reason digs up the entire waste disposal site and then what? contaminates their excavation crew?

>has lost all records of current generations

Doesn't seem impossible. Just see how much trouble we have understanding writing systems from 8000 BCE.

You only need a few generation of lost ability to read/write for solid documentation of nuclear waste and radioactivity to turn into myth at best. This does not seem unlikely over a duration of 10000y. Such a myth may be just enough for people to seek out a dangerous place without understanding the danger.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#168

Post by kitkat_new »

crmd wrote: post #47

The most interesting thing in the article for me was that the 250 reactors needed to power Europe would produce 1.3 cubic kilometers of nuclear waste per year. That’s actually way more waste volume than I assumed. I wonder what the figure is for the United States.

there isn't enough uranium for that

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#169

Post by [deleted] »

epistasis wrote: post #3

> But the amount of concrete and steel for sun and wind is striking. This has to do with the low energy density of these two. No, it's not striking at all, and this is just as BS argument as the people arguing that nuclear isn't clean. As far as the energy density, include all the steel and concrete used outside of the reaction chamber, and you will find that nuclear and solar are pretty much on the same order of mag…

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#170

Post by p1esk »

stefan_ wrote: post #42
p1esk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

radioactive waste stays much longer radioactive than being dangerous If it’s radioactive it’s dangerous. The article points out that radioactive waste doesn’t stay radioactive for very long, contrary to what is commonly believed.

Radioactive sources have all kinds of applications in industry and medicine. If you have been to the dentist, you have probably been near one. They are dangerous in the same sense that a falling brick is dangerous.

I’m sorry, are you questioning the fact that exposure to strong gamma radiation would kill you? What are you talking about?
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