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Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

scanalyst.fourmilab.ch

51–60 of 371 posts

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#51
All the analysis like this forget to count the cost of decommissioning the nuclear technology, reactors and fuels. Cost for end of life reactors are an order of magnitude those of contruction, and no safe definitive solution for fuel exist, both payed by -public-.

The technology is not safe, a nuclear incident will span years and affect a wide area, people life, healt, and economic impact are to count in, not easy to calculare, but is not like a plane crash, not at all.

The rise energy consumption in developing countries is driven mainly by the use of -old- technology, this is forced by economic/financial reasons. If all the world, developing or not, will adopt more efficient energy resource -and- use, the numbers will be very different.

Uranium resources extimation will not count the cost of extracting and market pricing evolution, just like fossil fuels, the last drops are the most difficult/costly ones.

Frankly is not a true wide and deep analysis.

One key of green energy is the distributed nature of solar/wind/water sources, less losses for transport, less dipendence on big company, more public control.

Anoter key issue is the adoption of more efficiency on energy use. EG: is worthless to adopt led for public illumination replacing 100w sodium lamp with 100w led, Better to use led to obtain the same illumination result ( or less, is we care to not illuminate the belly of airplanes).

The growing numbers in energy consumption are mainly from the -old- idea: growt = development, but in nature the only things with illimitate growt are entropy ( tax and cancer are a good candidates too)

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#52
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> operation of these facilities will require teams of people recruited, evaluated, and compensated by merit, not metrics of “diversity”, “equity”, or “inclusion” Indeed a gem. Or do you want a nuclear power plant in your neighbourhood managed by people who happen to be the pet-minority-du-jour on Twitter?

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Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#53
post #31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less people died in Fukushima accident than dies yearly because of coal powerplants pumping radioactive materials into atmosphere. If you calculate radioactive materials released per energy produced - nuclear is below coal, even including all the accidents. It's irrational to avoid nuclear powerplants.

Have you seen the economic costs of the cleanup operation though? It's absolutely astronomical (for various reasons). That money is not money going to new nuclear plants or renewables, but going to nowhere. This effects people too. Edit: Really don't get the down vote here. It's costing the Japanese anywhere from $200-$800 billion? (Depending on how you look at it) Is this controversial or something? Is that not a lo…

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Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#54
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> operation of these facilities will require teams of people recruited, evaluated, and compensated by merit, not metrics of “diversity”, “equity”, or “inclusion” Indeed a gem. Or do you want a nuclear power plant in your neighbourhood managed by people who happen to be the pet-minority-du-jour on Twitter?

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Harvard and UNC just lost a civil rights lawsuit because they were openly racist to Asian applicants.

They guised that organized hate as “diversity, inclusion, and equity”.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#55
post #46
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll kill a lot less people than a plane crash.

It could very, very easily kill a thousand times more. That we haven't seen anything like a worst case scenario for a unclear accident does not mean those are impossible.

What do you think that worst case is, and how are you estimating it?

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#56
post #31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less people died in Fukushima accident than dies yearly because of coal powerplants pumping radioactive materials into atmosphere. If you calculate radioactive materials released per energy produced - nuclear is below coal, even including all the accidents. It's irrational to avoid nuclear powerplants.

Have you seen the economic costs of the cleanup operation though? It's absolutely astronomical (for various reasons). That money is not money going to new nuclear plants or renewables, but going to nowhere. This effects people too. Edit: Really don't get the down vote here. It's costing the Japanese anywhere from $200-$800 billion? (Depending on how you look at it) Is this controversial or something? Is that not a lo…

> Edit: Really don't get the down vote here. It's costing the Japanese anywhere from $200-$800 billion?

1) That isn't an astronomical number. It is $2,000-$8,000 per Japanese person. For a freak accident. Put that in $/kWh terms and you might find that nuclear was reasonably cost effective even in one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, let alone under normal conditions.

2) I don't know if it is controversial; although if the people demanding the cleanup are the same lunatics who regulate the industry in the west I want to see what the justification is for spending $100s of billions of dollars.

3) The cleanup cost should be considered. When we multiply probability by cost it will be a short consideration. There is no way it is as bad as what everyone is currently already doing with coal. It is likely that it will also be better than renewables once waste is factored in, just because the volumes of material involved.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#57
post #38

The article has a great flow chart in it that highlights rejected energy and energy services and where the rejected energy comes from. energy here spans the spectrum of electricity generation, heating, industrial usage, transport, etc. Basically more than two thirds of the energy is lost to heat, friction, noise, transmission losses, etc. Most of the losses are coal, gas, and oil. Important to note that the image is…

> Nuclear has a useful role to play. But it is in decline. In the US, absolute nuclear generation has been relatively stagnant over the last 10 years as plant shutdowns have been compensated by uprating other plants[1]. About 2.2 GW are coming online via the Vogtle 3 & 4 units, more updates are coming, and the Palisades unit may restart… so I think you’ll see that number creep up a bit. Existing nuclear is economical…

I suppose we're going to see the nuclear debate play out as an A/B test with the US vs. the countries mentioned. Should be some interesting data eventually.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#58
post #4

Expensive though.

Nu-cu-lar is scary. And it's much cheaper to just tell the working class they can't heat/cool their homes any more, the little people have just got to stop using energy...

I mean they won't be able to afford nuclear...

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#60
post #37

Nuclear is the only optimistic energy solution—I.e. one that could enable continually increasing human prosperity, rather than rationing. Forget simply replacing today’s energy generation. That’s sad. What does the future look like when we have 10 times as energy available? Moreover, technology that will “level up” civilization is almost certainly going to be an outgrowth of nuclear development, or something similarl…

>What does the future look like when we have 10 times as energy available?

What does the future look like when we have 10 times the efficency on energy use? This is the right question/goal.

Denemark (IIRC) has sometimes reached the 100% solar/wind coverage, sure in a sunny day and low demand situation, but 10 years ago this was unthinkable. This appear the true way of prosperity, not the growt of availability/consumption.

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