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Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

bbc.com

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Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#361

Post by panick21_ »

pintxo wrote: post #296
panick21_ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were sea launch platforms its perfectly acceptable I would thin. And governments don't need insurance.

How is a sea launch going to help with a late first stage, or 2nd stage malfunction leading to RUD?

Nuclear waste falling into the sea isn't optimal but it also isn't a huge issue. Nuclear waste falling onto a city or exploding on the launch pad would be an issue.

The 2nd stage flight can be planned not to go over populated land.

But anyways, I don't think its a good solution but it would be possible.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#362

Post by eternauta3k »

DennisP wrote: post #104
gtvwill wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less common side of the argument a friend presented to me. We shouldn't use nuclear in mainstream use cases now because we don't harness enough of its power. We're basically depleting a future fuel supply before we even know how to use it properly. It has more value to us in the future when utilization is at higher %. Personally not sure which side of the fence I sit on. It definitely has benefits now, but we also ha…

All we have to do is keep the spent fuel around, and feed it into fast reactors later. Besides that, seawater extraction of uranium is already just five times more expensive than mining. With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical. Uranium mining today is a small portion of nuclear cost. With fast reactors fueled by s…

> With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical

What fraction of the cost of nuclear comes from the uranium costs?

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#363

Post by alexvoda »

panick21_ wrote: post #101

I just don't like this, a huge amount of money spent for nothing. This fuel can be managed just fine above ground. Yes maybe ever couple 100 years you might have to move it, who cares. If your society isn't capable managing nuclear waste then nobody will care anymore anyway. Also, this is not 'waste' there are interesting and unique materials there that might be relevant in the next 100+ years. Not to mention that th…

This is a natural solution for Finland because the country is full of bunkers of all shapes and sizes. They do bunkers at scale. It also has the benefit that in case of war with a nearby historically aggressive neighbour, the enemy can not bomb the repository to create a radiological disaster.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#364

Post by DennisP »

eternauta3k wrote: post #362
DennisP wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All we have to do is keep the spent fuel around, and feed it into fast reactors later. Besides that, seawater extraction of uranium is already just five times more expensive than mining. With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical. Uranium mining today is a small portion of nuclear cost. With fast reactors fueled by s…

> With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical What fraction of the cost of nuclear comes from the uranium costs?

"Economics of new nuclear plants are heavily influenced by their capital cost, which accounts for at least 60% of their LCOE"[1] and "fuel costs account for about 28% of a nuclear plant's operating expenses."[2] So 28% of 40% gives about 10%.

A lot of that fuel cost is probably fabrication and enrichment, which aren't trivial. But let's say it's the raw ore cost, in which case five times raises total cost by 40% for conventional reactors.

But fast reactors use 1% as much uranium ore as conventional reactors, so it'd be 1% of 10%, times five means seawater extraction for fast reactor fuel would account for about half a percent of the cost of power.

[1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#365

Post by smaudet »

panick21_ wrote: post #221
smaudet wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reality is in terms of safety there were 1000s of things happening in the 70s that damaged far more people then some nuclear waste management." Eh, no. You are making my point for me. All the "nuclear is safe and sustainable" propoganda hinges on getting a series of highly complex reactors all built and interoperating (well), and even then I am not clear that all the fuel is re-used, or that the "unspent" portio…

So many things wrong here. Even if you don't build any 'highly complex reactors' as you call them nuclear waste is safe. Reduction of waste threw a reusable fuel cycle would reduce the amount of waste considerably but it isn't actually a necessary condition. Geological storage is unproven and costs billions, but that you seem to ok with. That also involves a lot of steps and a lot of things that can go wrong. > porti…

So many unfounded assertions.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#366

Post by smaudet »

panick21_ wrote: post #223
smaudet wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The idea that our primary worry should be that maybe in 300 years countries will be unable to handle this simple technical task that the US figured out in 1960s is bananas." I suggest you open a history book. It is quite likely the same countries that exist today do not exist in the future and the same knowledge does not either. Furthermore it is not necessarily about being unable to understand some physics and proc…

The most likely scenario is that at some point next 300 years we figure out advanced fission or fusion and if we do so burning that waste up isn't that big a deal. If the danger were a nuclear explosion destroying a city, then you would have point. But its not, the danger is maybe a slightly leaking cask could maybe lead to slightly higher cancer rates in a certain area. > So you must store 1000 more times the fuel f…

Yeah, it is pretty terrible. For one reactor, you would have a point. For many reactors, it is x1000 time cost.

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#367

Post by smaudet »

panick21_ wrote: post #222
smaudet wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A thief is mostly just scifi nonsense." Yes, militaries, secret services and terrorists don't exist. Russia/China/USA don't exist and wouldn't find it incredibly convenient to cause major damage to each other by "leaking" these stockpiles. Added benefit, it only would kill those exposed and leave machinery untouched. Nobody would ever steal stuff like this. /S

The old 'what if evil terrorist' nonsense. Terrorist would hurt 1000x more people buy destroying the rails along a high speed train route. Stealing nuclear waste is incredibly hard and borderline useless. And Russia and China don't need to attack civilian nuclear waste, if they want to nuke you they can just do that. Do you actually really believe a general in Russia is sitting around thinking 'mhh we can make the ci…

"The old 'what if evil terrorist' nonsense."

The old nothing bad ever happens nonsense.

Have you heard about the Ukraine conflict or does your lack of coherent points include a lack of knowlegde of current events?

Then there are the frequent insecurities, missing nuclear materials, and other fun new conflicts brewing...

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#368

Post by pdonis »

pfdietz wrote: post #113
pdonis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carter's order isn't what killed reprocessing in the US; cold hard economics did. No, "cold, hard economics" would say, if you are correct that it's not even cost effective to do any reprocessing now, that the spent fuel should be stored for 100 years or so and then reprocessed, when it's economically cost effective. But US policy has been that spent fuel has to be stored in a facility that's good for 100,000 years…

You do raise a good question: why was there this idea that burying waste now was a good idea? I can think of two reasons: First, it may have been thought that opposition to nuclear energy is due to waste, and that burying it would remove the opposition. I consider this ill-founded, both because those predisposed to oppose nuclear use waste only as one of many arguments, and because the actual objective argument (econ…

> why was there this idea that burying waste now was a good idea?

I've already answered that: nobody actually thought it was a good idea. It was imposed as a policy because the actual (though of course not publicly admitted) purpose of the policy was to kill nuclear power by imposing unreasonable requirements on it. (It's possible, I suppose, that the Cold War rationale you give played a role, but I don't think it's very likely; that objective could have been met without requiring anything like 100,000 year storage.)

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#369

Post by pdonis »

pfdietz wrote: post #115
pdonis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a waste of money to do it right now If you're allowed to store the current waste in a facility that's only good for 100 years or so, then yes. But not if you're required to store any waste you don't reprocess for 100,000 years.

Where does that requirement come from, though? If society is going to collapse in 100 years, I suggest the money be better spent preparing for the consequences of that, not worrying about whether the documentation on dry casks will satisfy some licensing requirement.

> Where does that requirement come from, though?

I've answered that already in another subthread we're having.

> If society is going to collapse in 100 years

Where was that kind of thinking involved in this at all?

Re: Finland's plan to bury spent nuclear fuel for 100k years

#370

Post by panick21_ »

smaudet wrote: post #367
panick21_ wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old 'what if evil terrorist' nonsense. Terrorist would hurt 1000x more people buy destroying the rails along a high speed train route. Stealing nuclear waste is incredibly hard and borderline useless. And Russia and China don't need to attack civilian nuclear waste, if they want to nuke you they can just do that. Do you actually really believe a general in Russia is sitting around thinking 'mhh we can make the ci…

"The old 'what if evil terrorist' nonsense." The old nothing bad ever happens nonsense. Have you heard about the Ukraine conflict or does your lack of coherent points include a lack of knowlegde of current events? Then there are the frequent insecurities, missing nuclear materials, and other fun new conflicts brewing...

> The old nothing bad ever happens nonsense.

Exact that not what I said. What I said to make a rational assessment of danger.

Yes things happen, how likely are their and at what risk level.

And if you do that for civilian nuclear waste you can conclude that the danger is very low and even if something happens the overwhelming probability is that it is a very low risk thing.

I have actually been to the Ukraine during the conflict? Have you? And I work with Ukrainians that have displaced family. Just saying 'what about Ukraine' is not an argument.

> Then there are the frequent insecurities, missing nuclear materials, and other fun new conflicts brewing...

Yeah what if the Russians capture the civilian nuclear waste that was originally produced in the Soviet union. The Russians could be building nuclear weapons. What then, oh the humanity.

> missing nuclear materials

When the terrorist show up and steal 12m high concert blocks only to then make an inefficient dirty bomb. I much prefer terrorist to try that then doing something that's actually effective, like derailing trains of flying planes into buildings.

> and other fun new conflicts brewing

Ok but you know what, most of the time, most nations that have civilian nuclear waste are not at war. And terrorism isn't what George Bush apparently made you believe.

And even if war or terror happen, civilian nuclear waste is incredibly low risk.

Your argument essentially boils down to 'sometimes something happens' therefore no risk of anything bad ever happening is acceptable. Of course the same argument could be made against pretty much every other human built infrastructure.

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