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I changed my mind about nuclear waste

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Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#41

Post by uoaei »

glitchc wrote: post #11
FullyFunctional wrote: post #2

I don’t think nuclear is evil, but Rosie’s look at the financials suggests there are better options: https://youtu.be/quI_8xYSWYE

Her analysis is fundamentally flawed. For a stable energy source, it cannot be solar alone or wind alone. Rather it needs to be solar plus battery and wind plus battery. Let's factor in the costs of producing maintaining and environmentally disposing of those batteries and let's see how the numbers shake out, ceteris paribus of course.

Interesting point. One other very important point is what those batteries will be made of. Using lithium is really only necessary for batteries that move with the devices they power, because it's so light. For stationary energy storage, lithium is overkill and you may be able to use heavier storage solutions (sodium instead of lithium, sand batteries storing thermal energy, etc.) for installations.

There's also still the real possibility that we develop suitable supercapacitors with graphene or other extremely cheap materials. I don't know what the process is for recycling graphene but considering it's pure carbon I doubt it will be much trouble. I know supercapacitors are not batteries but the advancements in one can definitely help cross-pollinate advancements in the other.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#42

Post by willnonya »

jchw wrote: post #7
FullyFunctional wrote: post #2

I don’t think nuclear is evil, but Rosie’s look at the financials suggests there are better options: https://youtu.be/quI_8xYSWYE

Disclaimer: I did not watch the video linked. For what it's worth, I do agree, but I think we'll probably need to have (subsidized) nuclear as part of the solution anyways, especially in places where we don't have ample room for wind/solar/battery storage.

It would be irononic for the government to subsidize something that they've significantly contributed to increasing the cost of.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#43

Post by idlewords »

yellow_lead wrote: post #27

The author says the waste isn't liquid, but also says that spent fuel rods are cooled in pools for several years. Does the water not become irradiated in that time?

You need a high intensity neutron flux to make water radioactive, which spent fuel doesn't provide. The kinds of radiation you find in a cooling pond won't activate water, so all you have to worry about is stuff potentially dissolving into it.

Here's a paper on how water gets activated when it cools a nuclear core (which does have massive numbers of neutrons zipping around): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2019.103042

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#45

Post by leemelone »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #18

The author, who gives every appearance of being funded by the industry, founded an activist group that claims: > Aim for 50% nuclear at least, as per the science. Which suggests a pretty cavalier attitude to "the science". edit: I take it back, she's in cahoots with Shellenberger and GWPF so it's the fossil fuel industry that she's supporting. I thought the timing was mysteriously exact for both her and Shellenberger…

I would like to see a MASSIVE increase in the amount of nuclear power in use around the world. AND, I appreciate calling out conflicts of interest, astroturfing, and artificial "viral" information campaigns.

Thank you for outing the author.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#46

Post by uoaei »

legitster wrote: post #31

I'm all for fighting the good fight on this, but I'm also a realist: consumer sentiment isn't going to change much. People on the extremes will still fight to the nails on MSG, Flouride in water, GMO, etc. But the median person doesn't really care where their power comes from when they hit a switch so long as it's cheap. If we want any serious progress on Nuclear you need regulators with authority to ignore organized…

Virtually no one who is critical of nuclear thinks that "it's scary" is the best, or even a good, reason for not having nuclear. But loads of analysis have been done on the financials of different energy generation methods and shows very clearly that, except for those contracted to build and maintain the thing, no one sees a real benefit. It simply doesn't pan out to plan and build new nuclear reactors today, considering what we could do with that money (solar, wind) over the 10 years it takes from groundbreaking to first day online for nuclear facilities.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #18

The author, who gives every appearance of being funded by the industry, founded an activist group that claims: > Aim for 50% nuclear at least, as per the science. Which suggests a pretty cavalier attitude to "the science". edit: I take it back, she's in cahoots with Shellenberger and GWPF so it's the fossil fuel industry that she's supporting. I thought the timing was mysteriously exact for both her and Shellenberger…

[deleted]

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#48

Post by dale_glass »

glitchc wrote: post #11
FullyFunctional wrote: post #2

I don’t think nuclear is evil, but Rosie’s look at the financials suggests there are better options: https://youtu.be/quI_8xYSWYE

Her analysis is fundamentally flawed. For a stable energy source, it cannot be solar alone or wind alone. Rather it needs to be solar plus battery and wind plus battery. Let's factor in the costs of producing maintaining and environmentally disposing of those batteries and let's see how the numbers shake out, ceteris paribus of course.

Unfortunately nuclear doesn't appear to be a viable supplement.

Suppose a grid with just nuclear and solar. Nuclear may be overall very stable, but solar is still not, and so you still need storage. The only difference is how much of it you need.

But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Solar is much, much cheaper and therefore any economically minded person would build solar if they had a choice, and would just not enter the business space at all if they couldn't.

The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. The idea was that nuclear is cheap but unwieldy, and can be supplemented with small amounts of more flexible but more expensive sources for when it can't adjust fast enough. But that just hasn't panned out.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#49

Post by Aeolun »

I like how he says there is no radiation leaking out of those dry casks.

That sounds like obvious nonsense to me. There’s radiation, it’s just not significant.

It’s like saying an x-ray has no radiation when you compare it to a CT scan.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#50

Post by helf »

the fearmongering and all around nuclear is deeply ingrained in the public consciousness. It will be hard to kill it. Sadly. There are all sorts of designs that are awesome but havent been put to wide use because its insanely expensive to even get permits for a nuclear plant (if it is even possible) not to mention the insane costs to actual build one. Economies of scale never took hold due to a couple of incidents (of OLD designs and OLD installations for the most part) being flung everywhere. And then you'd have prominent scientists, even, getting vocal about being against nuclear. For whatever fucking reason.

Irks the hell out of me.

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