Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#241

Post by robertlagrant » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:43 PM UTC

three14 wrote: post #229

MostlyStable wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do those cost estimates include the absolutely insane over-engineering for safety that has been forced on the nuclear power industry and _only_ the nuclear power industry? I'd be shocked if a single other power generation method didn't double in price if it was forced to meet the same standards as nuclear. I guarantee you that the coal plants in Germany are killing more people every year than every single one of thei…

Not to pick on you, but every time this discussion happens on HN, someone argues that the nuclear power industry is burdened by far more red tape than other industries (probably true) and that if we simply reduce the red tape, we could profitably build new nuclear plants (probably true) and they would still be safe (probably not true). This isn't an engineering problem. This is a social problem. Suppose you offer to…

> And in the real world, that's not a bad thing

It is a bad thing if the increased cost / pollution kills more people either directly or indirectly.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#242

Post by skissane » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

yawaramin wrote: post #208

skissane wrote: post #144

> Many different units are used to discuss large quantities of energy. The graph above uses “quads”, or quadrillion (10^15) British Thermal Units. The SI unit of energy is the joule, and a comparable quantity is the exajoule (EJ), Why use “quads” instead of exajoules? I really don’t understand the use of non-SI units in cases like this, it seems like pointless obscurantism. Using something like terawatt-hours, well t…

It's explained in the post. It makes the total amount be roughly 100 quads, which makes it easy to estimate all the numbers in the graphic as percentages.

Given an exajoule and a quad are close in value, you’d get roughly the same result with exajoules instead.

Also, the fact that total US energy consumption is currently roughly 100 quads is only a passing coincidence - it would not have been true in the past and will not be true in the future. It is weird to justify choice of unit on the basis of a temporary coincidence in the data

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#243

Post by opo » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

rewmie wrote: post #232

opo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an aside, I'm pro- wind, hydro, geothermal, solar, and nuclear. (I'm also very pro-smart-design which obviates the need for created energy.) I think many of the people who aren't anti-nuclear, would agree with all that. >However I only really see nuclear proponents (and those of fossil fuels) attacking renewables. I rarely see that here. What I tend to see are people who don't like the idea of nuclear power makin…

> (...) consumer roof-top solar is that it is the most expensive form of power ever created (...) Care to show the basis of your personal assertion? It's an extraordinary and unbelievable claim.

This is not my assertion and has been covered in discussions on this web site for a long time.

>Rooftop solar photovoltaic installations on residential buildings have the highest unsubsidized levelized costs of energy generation in the United States. If not for federal and state subsidies, rooftop solar PV would come with a price tag between 147 and 221 U.S. dollars per megawatt hour.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-leveliz...

The latest report from Lazard on LCOE also gives similar numbers:

https://www.lazard.com/media/typdgxmm/lazards-lcoeplus-april...

It would be extraordinary if these one-off rooftop solar photovoltaic installations would be low cost. They are more dangerous to install than ground based solar farms and much more costly - the real question is why are they so heavily subsidized? It really is sort of a reverse Robinhood scenario where less well off consumers subsidize their wealthier neighbors.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#244

Post by aeternum » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:48 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #91

roenxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Core meltdown and containment failure in (or near and upwind of) a megacity would be the obvious one. Another exciting option: unnoticed containment failure of waste storage, which contaminates huge amounts of groundwater over weeks and months before the contaminated water starts reaching a densely populated area. And don't tell me these things can't happen outside the Soviet Union. Greed and complacenty can always f…

Nuclear radiation is much harder to hide compared to other forms of contamination.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#245

Post by massifist » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

yawaramin wrote: post #212

zokier wrote: post #7

If humans were perfect then all problems are trivial. In cryptography there is the idea of misuse resistance, and the same line of thinking applies to other fields where things are expected to be used at scale. Wind and solar are pretty much idiot-proof, and their low density means that the risks are spread out also. As someone who is in principle pro-nuclear but has been following the process of OL3, I am pretty pes…

If you apply this logic universally then we basically can't have a modern human civilization, because airplanes, steelmaking, chemical manufacturing, and many other heavy industrial applications will also be considered too dangerous. This is exactly tackled in the post: > Fear-mongers may be expected to gin up opposition to any human future which does not involve half-naked pithecanthropoids digging for grubs with du…

That's a little short-sighted. Wouldn't that pose a danger to the grubs?

> Why won't anyone think of the GRUBS!!

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#246

Post by khuey » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

throwaway5959 wrote: post #240

pyrale wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The French managed to. I guess they have super-human engineering prowess. As a french Engineer, I can confirm this. For work inquiries, please reach me at pyrale@oversized.ego > The trick is that they keep building the same obsolete US-based design In fact, we don't keep building them. The last N4 reactor was delivered in 2003. Since then, aside from the failed joint-venture with Germany that is the EPR, France ess…

Why does it seem we can’t build complicated things like we used to? The same seems to be true here in the US as well.

Mostly because we prioritize other things over actually getting stuff built for a reasonable budget.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#247

Post by sidewndr46 » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:53 PM UTC

mcpackieh wrote: post #133

sidewndr46 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a safety thing? To shutdown a natural gas plant you just close some valves feeding the facility, or at worse introduce something into the combustion path that halts combustion. Nuclear fission obviously can be moderated, but not in such a sharp and safe manner.

I think you're confusing a few concepts here. Thermal-spectrum (slow neutron) nuclear reactors are much easier to control than fast reactors because they have much slower reaction times. But this isn't particularly relevant because thermal-spectrum supercritical water reactors are possible; supercritical water reactor doesn't implies fast reactor. Let's put fast reactors aside. In thermal-spectrum reactors, the moder…

I think what I was trying to convey was you can always undergo the scram action on a nuclear reactor to halt it. The problem with this is in some cases, this mean restarting the reactor costs more than the value of the electricity it will generate before refueling.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#248

Post by FredPret » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #135

hedora wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French managed to. I guess they have super-human engineering prowess. The trick is that they keep building the same obsolete US-based design instead of re-inventing the entire thing from scratch for each plant. Imagine how much more accessible computers would be if you could just copy the operating system from one "printed" circuit board to another, instead of hand-wiring all the transistors, then hand coding pro…

The French have discovered that they vastly underestimated end-of-life costs. And the power having been sold and used at a price that did not fund those costs, they are well and truly screwed.

Even if they did, having sold the power for less than it cost would've stimulated investment in the economy that can pay for that now.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#249

Post by fsflover » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

three14 wrote: post #229

MostlyStable wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do those cost estimates include the absolutely insane over-engineering for safety that has been forced on the nuclear power industry and _only_ the nuclear power industry? I'd be shocked if a single other power generation method didn't double in price if it was forced to meet the same standards as nuclear. I guarantee you that the coal plants in Germany are killing more people every year than every single one of thei…

Not to pick on you, but every time this discussion happens on HN, someone argues that the nuclear power industry is burdened by far more red tape than other industries (probably true) and that if we simply reduce the red tape, we could profitably build new nuclear plants (probably true) and they would still be safe (probably not true). This isn't an engineering problem. This is a social problem. Suppose you offer to…

> and they would still be safe (probably not true)

Why do you think it's not true? Just look at the existing statistics that includes old designs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_plant#/media/Fil...

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#250

Post by Kon5ole » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #150

Zigurd wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French have discovered that they vastly underestimated end-of-life costs. And the power having been sold and used at a price that did not fund those costs, they are well and truly screwed.

> And the power having been sold and used at a price that did not fund those costs, they are well and truly screwed. I don't know where you read that, but that's nowhere in actual reasonable sources. Actual serious sources [1] report funding is being set aside for dismantling, which may be significantly eased by the fact that these reactor are actually going to serve for longer than expected. [1], in french: https://…

>>> And the power having been sold and used at a price that did not fund those costs, they are well and truly screwed. >I don't know where you read that, but that's nowhere in actual reasonable sources.

We know for a fact that France nationalized EDF last year and the debt is at currently 65 bn euros and growing. Since the company has been nationalized, the taxpayers are on the hook.

I wouldn't personally go so far as to say they're "screwed" but it's a documented economic fact that nuclear power in France has been sold at a loss, and still is.

Note that this debt is already real, whereas the cost of decommissioning and storing waste for hundreds of years is guesswork no matter which source you use. Operations in France are proven not to cover costs even before we get to that!