Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant • Hacker News Board

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#91

Post by wat10000 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #90

wat10000 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I haven't dealt with radioactive substances beyond what's found in ordinary households. But I'm not a complete ignoramus as you imply. Have you at least done a search on how much non-radioactive waste there is? Spoiler, it is a much, much, much bigger number. I think this is another case where the relatively small number on the nuclear side makes it scarier because it's something you can actually conceive of. No,…

I apologize for my tone. But I live in a former soviet state area with lots of chemical and radioactive waste (uran mining). Also there once was a radioactive cloud over my childhood playground. And some first and second hand stories from miners, doctors, .. and I engage with the topic since many years. So yes, I was of the impression that you said radioactive waste is no big deal and I know that is not true. " But i…

Less toxic stuff is always good. My point is just that the conversation around nuclear waste is weird and it seems like it's due to flaws in human perception, where "tens of thousands of years" feels worse than "forever," and "a 70ft cube" feels bigger than "makes an entire category of food unsafe to eat in large quantities." It's hard to have a good conversation about what kind of energy is best with this backwards thinking being so prevalent.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#92

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #89

leonidasrup wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you talked about the impression of solar energy being simple and nuclear energy being, in comparison with solar, complicated. Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs. The capital costs to build a nuclear power plant are about the same as the total operational costs of the nuclear power plant over it's entire lifetime (60 - 80 year). T…

>> Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs I'm not sure I agree. Firstly, I can get solar panels without building a solar panel factory. Hence the capital cost of a solar farm is cheap. I can't buy a nuclear power plant off the shelf. Equally on the running cost, solar costs pretty much nothing to run. I'd argue that the costs to run a nuclear…

> I can't buy a nuclear power plant off the shelf.

China will build it for you, and has. Not OTS, but still something you write a check and a spec for, and you get it made.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#93

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

nebopolis wrote: post #59

lukan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever dealt with radioactive substances? "We're able to dispose of other highly toxic subst.ances." With this statement I don't think so, so maybe educate yourself about a topic before making objective statements? Chemical toxic substances can be processed into non toxic. They do not radiate through the walls, they do not make other materials also toxic by having it in the same room. Also ... the amount of ra…

There's a single mine (Giant Mine) in Canada that is contaminated with 200k+ tons of arsenic trioxide - which will literally remain poisonous forever since the poison is a stable element not an organic compound. The current plan is to try to keep it frozen because the dust is odorless, tasteless, water soluble, and located just outside of Yellowknife. That's the weight of more than half the amount of nuclear waste ev…

Most of your post is accurate, but:

> Nuclear waste can be reprocessed to reduce its volume, and the more "spicy" it is, inherently the less long lived it is.

That is only true of fission-ready amounts - that is, near-fuel-level radioactive levels that are "hot" with decay particles. Unprompted radioactive decay is the most stable process known to us currently; we base all our best clocks on it.

99.9% of nuclear waste is essentially either "slightly radioactive", or "suspected to be slightly radioactive" - and it won't change for a looong time.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#94

Post by leonidasrup » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

bruce511 wrote: post #89

leonidasrup wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you talked about the impression of solar energy being simple and nuclear energy being, in comparison with solar, complicated. Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs. The capital costs to build a nuclear power plant are about the same as the total operational costs of the nuclear power plant over it's entire lifetime (60 - 80 year). T…

>> Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs I'm not sure I agree. Firstly, I can get solar panels without building a solar panel factory. Hence the capital cost of a solar farm is cheap. I can't buy a nuclear power plant off the shelf. Equally on the running cost, solar costs pretty much nothing to run. I'd argue that the costs to run a nuclear…

How much of your yearly electricity amount can you get from the installed solar panels?

How much do you need get from electric grid, from non-solar power plants?

Try to scale this to a whole country.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#95

Post by imglorp » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #26

imglorp wrote: post #19

Anybody recognize the terminal on the desk? I've asked two LLMs and they were both very wrong. https://i0.wp.com/nickcarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IM...

the logo looks vaguely HP and the layout and logo matches this one https://hpmuseum.net/images/2645A-35.jpg (while i was typing that in, somebody else answered same)

Yup.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250606230458/https://hpmuseum....

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#96

Post by UltraSane » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #62

bruce511 wrote: post #43

The overriding impression I get is that the whole facility is complicated. There are lots of processes in place, and lots of very trained people required to keep it all running. The size and complexity of the control rooms for example, but also the inevitable maintenance and inspection of all the piping etc. Even the details of the cleanup (checking each store foot, grinding surfaces etc.) I've recently been on a tra…

Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive. Nuclear plants are very expensive to turn off and on. Nuclear plants leave you no choice but to leave them running 24x7, even when power that is an order of magnitude cheaper is available most of the time. Proponents call this base load. But technically it's just very expensive power that you can't turn off w…

"Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive."

I love how anti-nuclear types argue against such a basic concept as base load just because it helps THEIR argument. Base load is simply the lowest wattage the grid needs in a time period and does vary a lot but NEVER goes to zero. Wind and solar are a very poor fit for this due to their variability. Batteries can help but are expensive and wind and solar variability is offset using gas turbines.

Data centers always want to run 24/7 and significantly increase base load, which is why the big hyperscalers are all making deals for nuclear power. A nuclear reactor generating power for a data center that needs its entire output 100% of the time is an ideal scenario.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#97

Post by bruce511 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

leonidasrup wrote: post #94

bruce511 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs I'm not sure I agree. Firstly, I can get solar panels without building a solar panel factory. Hence the capital cost of a solar farm is cheap. I can't buy a nuclear power plant off the shelf. Equally on the running cost, solar costs pretty much nothing to run. I'd argue that the costs to run a nuclear…

How much of your yearly electricity amount can you get from the installed solar panels? How much do you need get from electric grid, from non-solar power plants? Try to scale this to a whole country.

Currently I generate about 66% of my annual power requirements with solar alone. If I had even a small 10kw battery I'd be moving that closer to 80%.

But demand for base load is irrelevant to my thesis. My point is that financially it makes no sense. So private capital aren't interested. [1]

So that leaves govt. They could decide (especially in regulated markets) to ignore Financials and build it anyway. Which is great, except govts are typically really bad at large capital projects that span multiple administrations.

[1] private capital cam get involved if the govt signs guaranteed income contracts. It's a model that puts the bad Financials on the govt (hence the people) while the govt avoids the pain of building. This model typically works as well as you might suspect.

Ultimately what we (the customer) want or need is irrelevant. The real world revolves around the money. And the only way to make the money work is to make the customer pay a lot.

The base-load question is solved with better, cheaper, storage. Not expensive power stations.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#98

Post by pstuart » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

leonidasrup wrote: post #87

dTal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you think nuclear facilities are complicate I would suggest to look into facilities used to manufacture polycrystalline silicon for solar panels, or facilities for manufacturing gas turbines used in gas power plants. That's an unfair comparison. We are talking about operational costs, not capital costs. A fair comparison would include nuclear's capital costs, which don't do it any favors - nuclear plants also nee…

I thought you talked about the impression of solar energy being simple and nuclear energy being, in comparison with solar, complicated. Solar power, wind power, hydro power, nuclear power are all heavy on capital costs and light on operational costs. The capital costs to build a nuclear power plant are about the same as the total operational costs of the nuclear power plant over it's entire lifetime (60 - 80 year). T…

My hope was that we could get SMRs in play to replace every coal power plant's furnace with a couple SMRs to leverage the existing infra (turbine/generator/grid hookup) and stop burning coal. Now.

I know the numbers aren't the best for SMRs as far as efficiency or LCOE, but it would give us baseline power and an ability to cut away from fossil fuels for the grid much faster than building bespoke plants (which have a horrible record in the US).

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#99

Post by coryrc » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

leonidasrup wrote: post #79

jillesvangurp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base load is one of those terms that nuclear power proponents love because it turns a negative in a positive. Nuclear plants are very expensive to turn off and on. Nuclear plants leave you no choice but to leave them running 24x7, even when power that is an order of magnitude cheaper is available most of the time. Proponents call this base load. But technically it's just very expensive power that you can't turn off w…

Civilian nuclear plants can be easily regulated between 50% - 100% of maximal output, with power gradients of up to 2% / min. (Submarine nuclear reactors are designed for even faster gradients). In France, because nuclear power plants are the dominating source of electricity, nuclear power plants have to ramp up and down the output on daily basis. https://snetp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SNETP-Factsheet-... When p…

China's coal use alone is more than all energy sources in the USA combined. Something like 70% of all energy, then oil, then about 10% renewable. USA is also near 90% fossil fuel but morally natural gas and oil, coal on the way out while China still opening gigawatts of plants yearly.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#100

Post by sshprotocol » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #42

natnat wrote: post #11

What a depressing outcome. This could have powered hundreds of thousands of households, cheaply, without adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.

Not under LILCO management.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/28/nyregion/the-end-of-lilco...

https://archive.is/P0JM