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I changed my mind about nuclear waste

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Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#131

Post by anonymouskimmer »

remorses wrote: post #94
denderson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one problem with Nuclear power that was never talked about before the Ukraine War: War itself. More specifically, war in the area that is powered by nuclear. Damage to reactors, power plant workers fleeing, damage to nuclear waste containers, and more.

Radioactive material is not something you can only find in nuclear plants (you can get same levels of radioactive materials in hospitals for example), there are also much easier ways to cause worse disasters (think about destroying a dam for example)

A destroyed dam is temporary damage. There are going to be eventually gravely ill Russian soldiers last year because they ignored the warnings in the Chernobyl exclusion area.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/world/europe/ukraine-cher...

> In a particularly ill-advised action, a Russian soldier from a chemical, biological and nuclear protection unit picked up a source of cobalt-60 at one waste storage site with his bare hands, exposing himself to so much radiation in a few seconds that it went off the scales of a Geiger counter, Mr. Simyonov said. It was not clear what happened to the man, he said.

> But in invisible hot spots, some covering an acre or two, some just a few square yards, radiation can soar to thousands of times normal ambient levels.

> A soldier in such a spot would be exposed every hour to what experts consider a safe limit for an entire year, said Mr. Chareyron, the nuclear expert. The most dangerous isotopes in the soil are Cesium 137, Strontium 90 and various isotopes of plutonium. Days or weeks spent in these areas bring a high risk of causing cancer, he said.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#132

Post by twblalock »

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…

Do you really expect anyone involved in this to be unaffiliated with some kind of group?

This is just an ad hominem attack that does nothing to rebut the arguments.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#133

Post by jabl »

lanstin wrote: post #98
nickelcitymario wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we had started a serious decarbonization 20 yeats ago, sure, but solar is now so cheap and easy that it will be harder for large scale nuclear to ramp up in time to matter. Maybe those container nuclear plants and maybe the last 20% of base capacit by 2040. But slowing solar in deference to nuclear would prolong the era of high atmospheric carbon.

How about we stop this ridiculous nuclear vs. renewables culture war, while fossil fuels are laughing all the way to the bank? Yes, we should build more solar (and even as a 'nuke bro', seeing solar prices drop at the rate they have is one of the genuinely positive news in the otherwise pretty dystopic climate change discourse), we should build more nuclear, we should build wind, we should build more hydro (though not that much potential left), we should build transmission, we should build storage.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#134

Post by idlewords »

LarryMullins wrote: post #106
fragmede wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your hot spoon is in fact radioactive, emitting thermal radiation. Thermal radiation doesn't make things it hits radioactive. Neither does your microwave oven or even gamma radiation. Radioactivity can be induced in things by neutron radiation, but not EM radiation. It is safe to eat food which has been irradiated with gamma radiation, and chances are you have many times before (it is fairly common for dried spices a…

Things that emit thermal radiation are not radioactive. An easy way to conceptualize it for stuff here on Earth is that radioactivity involves stuff flying out of the nucleus of an atom, while other forms of radiation do not.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#135

Post by dale_glass »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #100
dale_glass wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 choi…

> But nuclear has a terrible problem: it's not really economical. Against what honest option? If fossil fuel plants had to charge to cover the deaths from pollution they'd be blistering expensive. It could just as easily be said that nuclear power is the only source we can truly afford. > The business model of nuclear is just broken in modern times. Right, because it's not really a business. Power is infrastructure.

> Against what honest option? If fossil fuel plants had to charge to cover the deaths from pollution they'd be blistering expensive.

Solar, wind, natural gas, geothermal, thermal solar, hydro.

> Right, because it's not really a business. Power is infrastructure.

An infrastructure that underlies way too many things. Say we subsidize nuclear with taxes. But everyone uses electricity. So what does it matter whether the nuclear plant gets $50 from me from my power bill, or $50 I have paid in taxes?

In the end, it has to be paid for, and that means that if you go with an expensive power source people and industries will have a reason to move somewhere cheaper.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#136

Post by anigbrowl »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #54
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.

https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/how-to-cr...

Nuclear should be a part of decarbonization, and you can search my comment history here to see I've said so for a long time. But the breezy 'I was misinformed!' tone of this article is PR because it dismisses rather than engages with criticisms of the nuclear industry.

For contrast, consider that British Nuclear Fuels used the Irish Sea as a dumping ground for nuclear waste through the 1970s, becoming a significant bone of contention between the UK and the Republic of Ireland: https://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2012/11/filedownload31607en....

Though practices have since changed and risks appear to have been mitigated, the substack article just ignores the uncomfortable reality of past abuses which should inform policy assessments. When someone tells a just-so story, even if you agree with it - in fact, especially then - you should question whether it's purpose is to educate or to manipulate.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#137

Post by sampo »

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…

> Extinction rebellion have a page on her

You accuse someone to have a "cavalier attitude to science" and "being in cahoots with" parties you allege are suspicious and then you proceed to use Extinction Rebellion as a source? You should worry more how cavalier Extinction Rebellion are, and who they are in cahoots with.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#138

Post by Eisenstein »

somethoughts wrote: post #108
denderson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one problem with Nuclear power that was never talked about before the Ukraine War: War itself. More specifically, war in the area that is powered by nuclear. Damage to reactors, power plant workers fleeing, damage to nuclear waste containers, and more.

As an add on to that - if nuclear energy did start becoming mass produced in the developed world where some modicum of safety/regulation around waste can be assumed, once all of the necessary reactors are built out to supply first world energy needs, at best, those same private developers/contractors will start lobbying efforts in more questionable parts of the world to build these things. Then it be framed as an equ…

I think this is rather a silly thing to be concerned about given the consequences of the world either running out of cheap energy or continuing to dump huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. I will roll the dice on your crystal ball being defective rather than the alternative.

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#139

Post by whatshisface »

LarryMullins wrote: post #125
whatshisface wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The radioactivity accidents that are picked up by environmental sensors tend to be very large-scale. The little, nasty ones, like the mining source that was lost in Australia, tend to disappear.

Minuscule tritium emissions are detected around nuclear power plants all the time, far below the level at which anybody should be concerned. There was even a case where alarms were sounded when a power plant worker was found to be radioactive due to radon in his home, which triggered detectors at work. The general chemical industry doesn't operate with anything even remotely close to this degree of care.

That's a gas, making it the easiest possible case. I think a more plausible threat are the decaying temporary storage containers that a lot of low-grade waste is sitting in because nobody can find a permanent location for it. (Yes, that's largely due to political reasons, but political reasons are real!)

Re: I changed my mind about nuclear waste

#140

Post by ZeroGravitas »

archgoon wrote: post #21
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…

The author gave a fairly detailed account of how nuclear waste is processed and its general safety. Which claims do you take issue with? As it stands, I have learned considerably more from her post.

Hopefully you didn't learn too many false things, like e.g. her claim:

> I also learned that batteries cannot be recycled.

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