I changed my mind about nuclear waste • Hacker News Board

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#61

Post by dale_glass » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

willnonya wrote: post #42

jchw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A huge amount of the cost increases are there to make it actually safe.

Windscale could have been cheaper, but some jerk called Cockfort insisted on additional filters just in case -- oh wait, that "Cockfort's folly" turned what could have been a horrifying accident into a merely bad one.

Chernobyl was cheap, but it didn't have a containment building. Modern nuclear is safer, but that cost more money. Nuclear needs emergency cooling to be safe, which costs more money. It needs redundancy, which costs more. And so on.

So what is it exactly what you think needs cutting?

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#62

Post by jollyllama » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:44 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #53

Good news if you haven't heard it, due to tech from the fracking industry the nuclear waste problem is solved: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal

I doubt the safety of fracking. This sounds even more dangerous than the alternatives; if something goes wrong, how can it be fixed, being so deep underground? Yucca Mountain always sounded like the best plan.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#63

Post by snow_mac » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

I wish nuclear power was more widespread in the USA then solar power. In Colorado we get our 67% of our power from Coal and Natural Gas the rest from renewables like wind (26%), solar, hydro and biomass...

The really cool thing about nuclear is that the plant can dial up production of power based on demand. In the summer they can rapidly scale up demand to allow people to cool their houses.

Nuclear is really the environmentally friendly choice. Wind turbines at end of life aren't recyclable nor are solar panels

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#64

Post by stareatgoats » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

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…

> GWPF

The Global Warming Policy Foundation, a British foundation highly critical of the anthropogenic global warming scientific consensus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Warming_Policy_Foun...

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#65

Post by mikeyouse » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

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…

Shellenberger is such a hack it's hard to stomach, it's a shame that he went full throttle into the tedious IDW culture wars rather than doing something useful with his time.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#66

Post by jaywalk » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

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?

The water does not become irradiated: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/101433/why-doesn...

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#67

Post by jchw » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #51

jchw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get what you're saying, but consider a place like Japan. That strategy is probably not viable everywhere.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#68

Post by fragmede » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #39

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?

Does your cup of water become irradiated from having a hot spoon stuck in it? I think the water is mostly safe. At worst the water will have little slivers of radioactive material floating in it but that’s only if something already went wrong, so I imagine it’s cleaned before being discharged. Ultimately you can also cool it down and reuse it, so you might not need all that much water relatively speaking.

My hot spoon isn't made up of uranium and didn't come out of a nuclear reactor, and isn't radioactive, so I'm not sure how that addresses GP's concerns.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#69

Post by willcipriano » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

jollyllama wrote: post #62

willcipriano wrote: post #53

Good news if you haven't heard it, due to tech from the fracking industry the nuclear waste problem is solved: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_borehole_disposal

I doubt the safety of fracking. This sounds even more dangerous than the alternatives; if something goes wrong, how can it be fixed, being so deep underground? Yucca Mountain always sounded like the best plan.

If something goes wrong it's so deep in the earth that it doesn't matter.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#70

Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

aeonik wrote: post #16

I've been a bit of a nuclear nerd for a long time, and somehow the author still shares information that is new to me: I had no idea how quickly high-level waste dissipated, love the plots of the radioactive decay. > The decay of heat and radioactivity over time means that after only forty years, the radioactivity of used fuel has decreased to about one-thousandth of the level at the point when it was unloaded. Less t…

It is somewhat logical. Radiation isn't free and if something radiates a lot, it loses quite a lot of energy while radiating.

Typically: intense radiation is caused by massive presence of isotopes with short half-life, which means that they go away quite quickly.

Even the notorious Elephant's Foot in Chernobyl, made of molten core content, is now much safer than it used to be, to the degree that people are now willing to enter the room and make photos of it [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)