Nuclear energy is clean • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#341

Post by otikik » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:38 AM UTC

Flankk wrote: post #314

otikik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large amounts of low radioactive waste that is safe to discard in 1 year. The highly radioactive waste that lasts thousands of years is actually quite small.

> The U.S. produces as much as 160,000 cubic feet (4,530 cubic meters) of radioactive material from its nuclear power plants annually. [1] > The Energy Department has a backlog of nuclear waste clean up responsibilities, with material dating back to World War II. [2] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-let... [2] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2022/05/ener...

> 160,000 cubic feet (4,530 cubic meters)

Much of which stops being radioactive in the first year,

> The Energy Department has a backlog of nuclear waste clean up responsibilities, with material dating back to World War II.

Which is to be expected given that a (tiny) part of the waste is long term.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#342

Post by JanisErdmanis » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:41 AM UTC

kitkat_new wrote: post #171

tedk-42 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many years have France been safely operating their Nuclear plants? Germany too? You speak of a Chernobyl exclusion zone, but I don't see anyone living where they've put up large scale solar farms or next to wind turbines. You're right about humans not managing long term consequences well. From lead poisoning 40 years ago to 20 years from now when we have to deal with the waste of solar left behind (perhaps toxic…

> We need nuclear now. No nonsense blockers. Build more plants and replace the coal, oil and gas base load stations we're running now to try slow the rate of carbon we're throwing into the sky. you can't get it now. You have to wait at least 10 years to get a plant up & running. solar and wind - doesnt take even a year

Thus the best time for nuclear to be built was 10 years ago!

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#343

Post by stjohnswarts » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:45 AM UTC

joak wrote: post #324

dron57 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewable energy is great, but sun and wind are intermittent. Grids cannot base themselves on renewable energy without some sort of impractical battery storage scheme or major advancements in creating renewable Green Hydrogen for fuel cells.

Solar and wind have these economic properties: - the marginal cost of energy is zero (once the investment made producing a kWh is free) - fix costs are almost zero For the nuclear energy we have the following: - the marginal cost of energy is low (the cost of the uranium mostly) - the fix costs are incredibly high (wether the reactor produce or not, the payroll is the same, the maintenance cost are the same, etc...)…

No one is going to build 10x as many wind turbines as they need to make sure the grid is still up. It's not going to happen unless someone comes up with grid scale storage that can power the entire electric grid for at least 12 hours and in a lot of places 16 hours when the sun/wind isn't available. Nuclear is the only reasonable option we have.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#344

Post by qikInNdOutReply » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #308

m2fkxy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What large scale energy storage systems are in operation today, or even ready to be rolled out? I quote myself under another of your comment: > Why does Germany performs abysmally wrt. electrical production carbon intensity despite having enough wind/solar installed capacity to cover their consumption?

Germany does not do absymmally. It could actually do much better if not for the coal and nuclear lobby trying to slow down the move towards renewables over the last 20 years. Talking about the regulation argument which people bring up for nuclear. The amount of regulations needed to follow for wind are insane in Germany. Essentially even if you want to put a small (5-10kW) turbine in rural yard you have to become a m…

And that does not even cover the sabotage to storage installation. My brother got solar on the roof of his farm, but is not allowed to use it in the living building, because its a "seperate" household (50 m) away. This years winter, with not enough gas, these companies will cease to be and the state can put an end to those "cornered" market shenanigans.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#345

Post by stjohnswarts » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

bad_alloc wrote: post #9

We saw another downside of nuclear power in Ukraine: When Russian troops attacked towards Enerhodar and there was shelling in the area the safety of the reactor could not be guaranteed. In the end, containment can be guaranteed w.r.t to internal accidents but no facility can ever be safe from outside issues like war, natural disaster or politics. Solar has less single points of failure and if it fails not much happen…

Balancing that against the future of the planet, I know which one I'll choose; nuclear all day long.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#346

Post by arinlen » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:56 AM UTC

jaredklewis wrote: post #326

cycomanic wrote: post #289

This article perfectly exemplifies the arguments in discussions. Lets just concentrate on the waste discussion. The article says heavy metals in solar panels are a problem (I kind of agree, although the way it is described makes it out like we are talking about huge amounts, in reality the lead in solar panels is largely from soldering so very small amounts. Orders of magnitude more are being used for other applicati…

I agree with some of your criticism of the article, but I disagree that nuclear waste is a problem. Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year. To put that in perspective, the strategic oil reserve is 100 million cubic meters. A single aircraft carrier is 2 million cubic meters. Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem lik…

> Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year.

And all those extra 5k cubic meters per year of nuclear waste needs to be stored for around a million years until they are again safe.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#347

Post by smartmic » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 6:59 AM UTC

jaredklewis wrote: post #326

cycomanic wrote: post #289

This article perfectly exemplifies the arguments in discussions. Lets just concentrate on the waste discussion. The article says heavy metals in solar panels are a problem (I kind of agree, although the way it is described makes it out like we are talking about huge amounts, in reality the lead in solar panels is largely from soldering so very small amounts. Orders of magnitude more are being used for other applicati…

I agree with some of your criticism of the article, but I disagree that nuclear waste is a problem. Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year. To put that in perspective, the strategic oil reserve is 100 million cubic meters. A single aircraft carrier is 2 million cubic meters. Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem lik…

You just considered one axis of the waste properties. It must also be in the equation that the waste will remain radioactive and toxic for thousands of years, far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing. Also, the effects (spatial, biological) if the waste is released for whatever reason (which we may not even know now). So the debt we transfer to future generations goes far, too far, beyond just a question what space is required for the waste.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#348

Post by funklute » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 7:11 AM UTC

smartmic wrote: post #347

jaredklewis wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of your criticism of the article, but I disagree that nuclear waste is a problem. Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year. To put that in perspective, the strategic oil reserve is 100 million cubic meters. A single aircraft carrier is 2 million cubic meters. Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem lik…

You just considered one axis of the waste properties. It must also be in the equation that the waste will remain radioactive and toxic for thousands of years, far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing. Also, the effects (spatial, biological) if the waste is released for whatever reason (which we may not even know now). So the debt we transfer to future generations goes far, too…

> far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing

This is just hyperbole though. All the other arguments aside, it's perfectly possible for humans to plan, and make risk estimates, beyond a human life span.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#349

Post by raverbashing » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 7:11 AM UTC

smartmic wrote: post #347

jaredklewis wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with some of your criticism of the article, but I disagree that nuclear waste is a problem. Yes, we have to store it somewhere. But all US plants combined make ~5k cubic meters of nuclear waste a year. To put that in perspective, the strategic oil reserve is 100 million cubic meters. A single aircraft carrier is 2 million cubic meters. Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem lik…

You just considered one axis of the waste properties. It must also be in the equation that the waste will remain radioactive and toxic for thousands of years, far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing. Also, the effects (spatial, biological) if the waste is released for whatever reason (which we may not even know now). So the debt we transfer to future generations goes far, too…

We're making the Earth unhinhabitable for millions of people already with climate change

I think a small pile of hot rubbish well hidden is the least of our problems

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#350

Post by raverbashing » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 7:13 AM UTC

joak wrote: post #165

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 dyn…

While I agree with the issue of costs, nuclear reactors being slow to build and having to be built on site is a technological problem, not a fundamental limitation

Why can't we have nuclear sub technology for civilian use?