Fukushima.
Chernobyl.
What happens during a war when someone bombs a nuclear reactor?
Clean doesn't mean safe.
Nuclear energy is clean
401–410 of 709 posts
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#402This 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…
The solar panel argument is very weak, at best. There are some minor challenges with solar. And they are really very minor. Quite different to "don't touch the nuclear waste for the next few million or so years". Nuclear has several problems. The main one of which is simply its cost. It is complex technology that involves dangerous materials that need protective measures against both technical failures and security m…
That's a great comparison of producing, installing, maintaining and recycling, but what about the thing we're building this in the first place? Generating power?
Let's say we shut down a coal power plant, which was 30% of a region's energy mix, and want to replace its output. What's the total cost and environmental impact of doing that with solar vs nuclear? This is the only thing that matters. Even if solar panels are 100x better per-peak-watt, by the time you add all the overprovisioning and storage necessary to cover the baseline during nights and overcast days, the numbers look very very different.
The only question that matters is what solution can cover the need, currently met by fossil fuels. That solution isn't just the generation method, it's everything else we need in order to match not just the baseline and peak output, but the entire curve.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The costs of solar, wind and batteries are dropping exponentially but the costs of nuclear are not improving. So where can I see a cost comparison that factors in the cost of storage ? I've probably seen 20 people say this exact same thing and have never been able to find an actual cost breakdown that supports it.
I have also not been able to find relyable datapoints on the total insurance cost of a nuclear fascility. I'd love to talk to someone in the insurance industry how they calculate this because that'll probably be a decent indicator of the risk involved.
It is not possible to insure a nuclear power plant. The Fukushima cleanup is currently estimated to be somewhere in the range of $200B - $1T. [1]
For US the insurance is capped at $450M per site and $131M per reactor because that's what been decided that the market can bear.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup
[2]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/n...
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#404There 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…
And again, the article does the same mistake they always do: attack wind and solar more than fossil or hydro. Instead of selling nuclear as the ideal companion to solar, it's always a sad try to convince us that we are wrong investing in solar and eolic, and the money should be going to more nuclear. My guess is that utilities are not happy with the decentralization of PV. They like fossils, hydro and nuclear because…
> My guess is that utilities are not happy with the decentralization of PV
This is exactly the problem.
There are plenty of artificial obstacles put to solar in the last years just to deter people to adopt it (the infamous sun tax for example, or the hard bureaucracy). Lately they tried to hire the roofs to put their own solar panels and keep the control over it.
The solution is clear and has been always there for decades, is just that is not the solution that they want
Solar panel prices are subject to regulation capture. They could sink overnight and became much more affordable if politicians have a will.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Renewables are not baseload. If you add batteries to the mix, nuclear is better. Not to mention the quantity of power produced. Nuclear is expensive because it's long term investment. Renewables also cost more in resources (concrete, steel, copper), there are sourced charts about this. Renewables are better than coal and gaz, but not better than nuclear. There's nothing wrong with renewables, but it's not enough to o…
Why aren’t they base load? If every country over provisioned renewables, then you have a transmission problem not a storage problem. The sun does always shine, the wind does always blow.
Cost and geopolitics.
A worldwide grid is absolutely possible from a technical perspective even with boring non-superconducting aluminium and/or copper, it's just that the combined cross section needs to be in the order of 3m^2, which is 17 years of current global output of both metals combined and has a current cost of a few trillion USD: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32198057
(That said, my old linked estimates are over-simplified, that's a single minimal ring, and only works if the 64% resistive losses for current existing HVDC cables over that distance match the possibly lower demand because people do less at night).
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#406Earlier 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…
> Political will aside, finding a place to store this stuff doesn’t seem like a massive problem. How about your backyard?
I don't have a backyard, but if it turned out to be the most effective and safe solution to, let's say, dig a deep borehole under my hypothetical lawn, drop the waste down there and seal it back up, why not?
From what I know of deep geological storage, I wouldn't mind living in a house on top of one of these sites. Since they're usually in the middle of nowhere, it would probably be even safer than living in a polluted city.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#407This 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…
Renewables are not baseload. If you add batteries to the mix, nuclear is better. Not to mention the quantity of power produced. Nuclear is expensive because it's long term investment. Renewables also cost more in resources (concrete, steel, copper), there are sourced charts about this. Renewables are better than coal and gaz, but not better than nuclear. There's nothing wrong with renewables, but it's not enough to o…
If workable (obviously crucial point!), I like the idea of using renewables, e.g. offshore wind farms, to produce hydrogen.
This would solve storage issues, vehicles could be refilled pretty much the way they are now, gas boilers could be swapped for hydrogen, no need for polluting batteries, no major upgrades of electric grid, etc.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Renewables are not baseload. If you add batteries to the mix, nuclear is better. Not to mention the quantity of power produced. Nuclear is expensive because it's long term investment. Renewables also cost more in resources (concrete, steel, copper), there are sourced charts about this. Renewables are better than coal and gaz, but not better than nuclear. There's nothing wrong with renewables, but it's not enough to o…
It doesn't have to be batteries, it can be pump storage plant or similar installations. Problem that those don't work aren't technical. There are often legislative in nature or the infrastructure for energy transportation is inadequate. We don't know how feasibly we can get Uranium. The market is unstable right now because of political problems. The topic is very complex, there are disadvantages with every form of en…
Pumped storage has a carbon impact because of the massive amounts of concrete involved. The EU is looking at hydrogen storage instead, with the idea being that the natural gas distribution and storage network will gradually shift over to hydrogen which is produced from surplus solar and wind.
Ofcourse, you first need surplus solar and wind, and that's what the real problem is. There is still plenty of headroom to build more solar and wind for immediate use before we reach the point where some of the produced energy needs to be stored.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The Germans could not even properly manage one of their test locations (for weak and medium-level radioactive nuclear waste, not for waste from nuclear plants) longer than a few decades. One person who worked there said that after a few years they didn't know anymore what and how much exactly was stored there.
Re: Nuclear energy is clean
#410This 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…
The solar panel argument is very weak, at best. There are some minor challenges with solar. And they are really very minor. Quite different to "don't touch the nuclear waste for the next few million or so years". Nuclear has several problems. The main one of which is simply its cost. It is complex technology that involves dangerous materials that need protective measures against both technical failures and security m…
Wait, there is more.
Nuclear needs water to cool, hot water then goes into rivers. This, until the river becomes too hot for the life in the water, then you cannot use your plant anymore (or you can, at the risk of killing all life in the area).
Also water evaporates when it's hot and vapor is a greenhouse gas even worse than carbon dioxyde. This might sound like a minor problem in the short term but it might be a huge issue in the future.
Also Uranium is sold at a negative ROI right now because of the decline of demand from Japan and Germany since Fukushima. But as those countries roadmap for nuclear changes, and as China is building more plants, the price for Uranium (which is quite inelastic) will increase significantly. Problem is, you don't build a plant for a year or two, you build it only if you intent to use it for decades. The commitment is huge.
I believe nuclear is useful as part of the mix but isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.