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

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#331

Post by ben_w » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #327

ben_w wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kinda my point — in the court of public opinion, nuclear is unable to win. This does actually matter despite the deaths from coal etc. being massively higher by the same measures.

I agree that fossil fuel use should be aggressively reduced. In the past, that would have meant more nuclear. It does not mean more nuclear now. Reducing fossil fuel use has ceased to be an argument for nuclear construction.

Yup, I think we're on the same page on this point.

(Almost a pity we never got to see atomic cruise liners and cargo ships, but nobody wanted them in the ports, so…)

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#332

Post by ben_w » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:44 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #292

pfdietz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common nuke bro story, but it's nonsense. The actual reason is that plutonium has negative value. It costs more to incorporate it in new fuel rods than it would cost to make fuel rods with freshly enriched uranium.

What about the costs of launching the first-cycle spent fuel into the sun or building caves that protect humanity for 10000 years? It's probably worth it to reprocess if only to shorten half life.

Rockets are far too explody to put nuclear waste in space.

Vitrifying the waste and putting it in a cave would be fine if people weren't terrified of the stuff, but they are so it isn't.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#333

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #330

LatteLazy wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The minute someone builds one and has the receipts and waste disposal set up, I am all ears. Really. But every generation of nuclear plant has promised "power too cheap to meter". The last 3 generations all failed to deliver (and have been ruinously expensive). Gen 4 isn't expected to start commercial operations until 2035 I think? This is my key objection to nuclear: I feel it cannot even be assessed because people…

> The minute someone builds one and has the receipts and waste disposal set up, I am all ears. Really. > This is my key objection to nuclear: I feel it cannot even be assessed because people insist on talking in theory. And with tech as complex and power dense etc as this tech, theory is never even close to reality. > But I cant help feeling nuclear fission is as far from an economically viable, reproducible, sustain…

That there exist countries with lots of fission does not mean there's a place for construction of new fission power plants. Existing capital can continue to be operated long after it no longer makes sense to replace it, due to sunk costs.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#334

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #332

unethical_ban wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the costs of launching the first-cycle spent fuel into the sun or building caves that protect humanity for 10000 years? It's probably worth it to reprocess if only to shorten half life.

Rockets are far too explody to put nuclear waste in space. Vitrifying the waste and putting it in a cave would be fine if people weren't terrified of the stuff, but they are so it isn't.

"Explody" can be dealt with by armoring the waste. If the rocket explodes, retrieve the waste and try again.

In the near term, the clear answer is dry casks. They are simple, cheap, and foreclose no other future option. In about 300 years the waste ceases to be self-protecting against amateur diversion, but that's plenty of time for (for example) launch vehicles to space to become very cheap and reliable.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#335

Post by jvanderbot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:11 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #333

jvanderbot wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The minute someone builds one and has the receipts and waste disposal set up, I am all ears. Really. > This is my key objection to nuclear: I feel it cannot even be assessed because people insist on talking in theory. And with tech as complex and power dense etc as this tech, theory is never even close to reality. > But I cant help feeling nuclear fission is as far from an economically viable, reproducible, sustain…

That there exist countries with lots of fission does not mean there's a place for construction of new fission power plants. Existing capital can continue to be operated long after it no longer makes sense to replace it, due to sunk costs.

You're right in principle, but I disagree on the particulars. Not to attempt to convince you, just to explain my rationale: we have proven it works. It is carbon zero (ish). It slots into the grid. The fuel source is not a problem. The byproducts are containable. It can serve as baseload for distributed solar and I guess wind (though wind is a capital disaster for other reasons). And nuclear waste is ugly for 500 years, but can serve other uses in that time, and is not large, in that it could be geographically localized. There are risks to all technology transitions, but the logistics of nuclear seem as easy as or easier than the logistics of massive solar and battery storage. And neither have the potentially catastrophic side effects of climate change so it's a necessity to choose one, the other, or a mix of both. Just let fission play.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#336

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

yawaramin wrote: post #215

Zigurd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting argument and let's stipulate it is correct. In that case, take all the oil capex and spend it on power sources that are least costly, least risky, and come on line fastest. Who thinks nuclear is least costly, least risky, and arrives soonest? Anyone? Bueller?

The problem with those power sources–and this has been pointed out many, many times–is they don't make reliable base load power. The sun doesn't shine at night–no solar power. Winds don't blow on calm days–no wind power. You are forced to build massive battery farms. Batteries require mining chemicals. For the scale we are talking about, you would be strip-mining the earth. You are forced to make incredibly costly up…

The intermittency of renewables adds costs, but these costs are finite and declining. At this point it's likely that going with renewables will be cheaper than going with nuclear, especially as one projects these declines into the next couple of decades (when any nuclear plant started now will have to compete with improved renewable and storage technologies.)

A quote:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

"On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research"

"With every iteration in the research and with every technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels."

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#337

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #265

krupan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big are the areas that solar farms cover compared to that exclusion zone? How big will the exclusion zones of Climate Change be if we keep burning fossil fuels?

Out of curiosity, I decided to do some napkin math on this. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant produced 4.7GWe when it was operational, and its current exclusion zone covers an area of 230 square miles - or 0.0204 GW/mi^2. The US has (according to https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/how-much-land-power-us... ) 102.9GWe of solar capacity covering an area of 965 square miles - or 0.1GW/mi^2. Judging by that, a nucle…

If you look at the value delivered per acre by a solar field, it's massively (orders of magnitude) higher than the value delivered by a farm.

If land cost rules out solar, it also rules out agriculture. I never see the nuke bros saying we shouldn't grow things because it uses too much land, or that we need to go vegan to reduce land use.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#338

Post by Kon5ole » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:18 PM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #328

Kon5ole wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That by itself isn't an issue. Plenty of companies take on debt to invest, for instance. My company intends to take €40bn of new debt in the next decade or so, and our investors don't see it as an issue. But that isn't the case here. When the debt causes you to be bailed out by the government, is is an issue, wouldn't you agree? EDF isn't a car maker that has to invest in a transition to electric cars (or whatever),…

> But that isn't the case here. When the debt causes you to be bailed out by the government, is is an issue, wouldn't you agree? EDF's current situation is an issue. My point, however, is that this is not related to electricity pricing, nuclear or not. > Since the organisation is nationalised, that money will come from the taxpayers. Yes, so what? France's general budget received tens of billions in dividends from ED…

>France's general budget received tens of billions in dividends from EDF in recent years, would you say EDF saved as much for the taxpayer?

Of course, my point is only that it's true to say that EDF sold the power too cheaply, otherwise they would have been profitable and debt-free.

The question that has to be answered is whether nuclear can provide power at a competitive price once all the costs are counted. Currently all the costs are not counted, and we keep discovering that the costs are way higher than any estimates have previously shown.

>> Which decommissioned reactor are you thinking of? >maine Yankee, for instance.

Yankee costs 10 million USD per year still to this day with no end in sight.

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2021/07/19/news/midcoast/arm...

"Securing these remnants of nuclear energy generation is an ongoing task that requires armed guards around the clock and costs Maine Yankee’s owners some $10 million per year, which is being paid for with money from the government."

This means that every year, at least 10 million USD has to retroactively be added to the actual cost of electricity generated by that plant.

Then some day the spent fuel has to be moved, and the current container structure has to be dismantled. Why doesn't that count as being part of the decommissioning costs?

To say that nobody knows what it actually costs is quite fair IMO.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#339

Post by ttfkam » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #315

ttfkam wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we are talking about base load. We have about a football field's worth of spent fuel sitting in casks and pools. That's not per reactor; that's in total in the US since we started running nuclear power stations. In fast neutron reactors, this could power all of the US electrical needs for 150 years without requiring any new sources of uranium (no mines, no seawater extraction, nothing!) AND would eliminate the n…

> We have about a football field's worth of spent fuel sitting in casks and pools. That's not per reactor; that's in total in the US since we started running nuclear power stations Yes I know. Counterintuitively, this makes it politically worse, as people can imagine a football field much more easily than approximately the mass of Mt. Everest in CO2 every 5 years. People :P > Far more compact than batteries, Yes but…

>> A single tornado let alone a hurricane could wipe out gigawatts of solar or wind capacity.

> That sounds like a problem with planning permission or construction if the plants can't cope with wherever they happen to be installed.

It appears you do not live somewhere with extreme weather. How do you plan to protect hundreds or thousands of square meters during events? Is there some kind of new glass? Panels made of unobtainium?

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/06/27/baseball-sized-hail-...

As the Earth heats up, weather events like this will become more common, not less. It's not just a matter of the world's thermostat going up or down, truly destructive natural events already happen in these areas and are poised to become worse.

> There are weather conditions that interfere with safe running of nuclear plants

Yes, BUT those weather conditions will not substantially damage the plant itself, and soon after the extreme weather event is over, it can start delivering power again in short order (provided the power lines were buried and not on poles, but that's indeed a planning issue).

If 80% of the panels in a solar farm have been rendered inoperable due to hail, even after the event is over, you're looking at a long-term outage with the erosion of public goodwill that goes along with that it in regions of the country that are already skeptical of the government's ability to get stuff done.

No, thank you. I want something that can provide base load no matter what.

Re: Nuclear fission fuel is inexhaustible (2022)

#340

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #335

pfdietz wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there exist countries with lots of fission does not mean there's a place for construction of new fission power plants. Existing capital can continue to be operated long after it no longer makes sense to replace it, due to sunk costs.

You're right in principle, but I disagree on the particulars. Not to attempt to convince you, just to explain my rationale: we have proven it works. It is carbon zero (ish). It slots into the grid. The fuel source is not a problem. The byproducts are containable. It can serve as baseload for distributed solar and I guess wind (though wind is a capital disaster for other reasons). And nuclear waste is ugly for 500 yea…

I can stipulate all your claims there and still argue that it doesn't make sense to build more nuclear power plants. You have not made the case for that.