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I changed my mind about nuclear waste

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Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#51

Post by mikeyouse »

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.

Honestly, given the trajectory of nuclear costs compare to battery costs - it's going to make far more sense to build power lines to places that don't have renewable potential.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#52

Post by smn1234 »

db48x wrote: post #22
supermatt wrote: post #10

Can nuclear waste undergo fusion to turn it back into whatever it was before by using energy from renewables, thereby acting as a form of energy storage?

No, that would cost more energy than we extracted from it. However, what we call “spent fuel” isn’t fully used up. It can no longer be used in a normal reactor, but reactors can be build which can continue extracting energy from it. In fact, only about 2% of the usable energy has been extracted from the fuel by the time we start calling it waste. Most of the high–level waste from today’s reactors is really just fuel…

this is fascinating and unexpected. Do you have more literature on this ?

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#54

Post by nickelcitymario »

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…

While these are reasons to be suspicious, they do not counter a single point she made in her article. Her logic and her facts were solid.

If they're not, I'd love to see a take down of that. But I see no problem with anything she wrote, I remain convinced nuclear is the only rational energy source left, and all this fear mongering about nuclear is causing us to slowly kill ourselves.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#55

Post by patapong »

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.

At what price difference does this become a non-issue? I.e. if wind and solar are 10x cheaper than nuclear, can we have a stable grid by overprovisioning like crazy and building distributed networks, coupled with limited storage in the form of pumped hydro and batteries?

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#56

Post by 0xDEF »

sergiotapia wrote: post #38

Is nuclear demonization just political attempts to destabilize the west and prevent us from prosperity that comes from cheap clean energy? Why are US politicians not allowing building more nuclear and driving prices down? Are the democrats or the republicans pro-nuclear? I will vote for whoever is more pro nuclear.

>Is nuclear demonization just political attempts to destabilize the west and prevent us from prosperity that comes from cheap clean energy?

The anti-nuclear movement in Western Europe was funded and trained by the Soviet Union.

However I doubt that is the reason the US failed to embrace nuclear energy. The problem in the US is that the fossil fuel industry is employing more people and paying more to lobbyists than the nuclear energy industry.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#58

Post by rndmize »

While it's good the author has gained a better understanding of nuclear waste, I feel that they're almost repeating their mistakes in their discussion of renewable waste. I'm fairly sure that everything they listed - solar panels, turbines, batteries - can be recycled; the question generally is whether its cost-effective to do so. (Another important question is probably on whether we want to spend the money on developing recycling methods for these types of things in the first place).

I'm increasingly of the opinion that if we want effective recycling solutions for stuff like this, one of the biggest steps we could take is strong right-to-repair laws. There should be a push for designing things in such a way that they are easy to disassemble, part out, and replace pieces of. Not only does this make things easier to fix and extend their lifespan, but it also would make them easier to disassemble for recycling/waste purposes.

Requiring manufacturers to release documentation (design, components, most common failure modes, common repairs) on their products at some point after they no longer manufacture them is probably a harder sell but would be pretty nice - trawling old forums to figure out how to repair my 12-year-old subwoofer is a pain and unreliable, and having manufacturers responsible for hosting that information would make it more consistently available.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#59

Post by j0hnyl »

uoaei wrote: post #46
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, conside…

Do you have any good source of reading on this? Most of my layman googling seems to suggest otherwise.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#60

Post by acdha »

glitchc wrote: post #17
pflenker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s condescending to claim that environmentalists are guided mainly by emotions and people who share your view are guided by science. The problems surrounding nuclear waste is not as clear cut as the article suggests.

The fact that you feel personally attacked by my statement suggests that your beliefs are well, beliefs, and not necessarily grounded in fact. I recommend you read "The Wizard and The Prophet" as it chronicles the dawn of the environmentalist movement in an engaging and insightful way. That environmentalism was largely funded by wealthy folks, most of whom had only a rudimentary understanding of science, should be a…

Consider that your emotional desire to feel smug and contrarian are being quite effectively manipulated by the wealthy industries funding the people whose ideas you’re repeating.

Environmentalism has a long history of scientists sounding alarms which turned out to be accurate, and your uninformed assertion otherwise is doing your credibility no service here.

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