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GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

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Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#41

Post by kurthr »

bobmcnamara wrote: post #37
margalabargala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of dry areas like in the American Southwest which can be projected to not have meaningful water attempt ingress in that time frame. Also, fission reactors make phenomenal sense on aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.

We've already leached too much uranium into the groundwater for many to drink just from the mining alone.

Wait till you find out how much uranium there is in coal ash and how many tons a year are put in the air or dumped into ground water. Both the ash and uranium tailings are in the 50ppm range, but we make 100Mt per year of one of them and basically no uranium tailings in the US. Globally, the ratio is over 1Gt of coal ash and 10-20Mt of uranium tailings.

One is currently a problem, the other isn't.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#42

Post by iamnothere »

bobmcnamara wrote: post #37
margalabargala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of dry areas like in the American Southwest which can be projected to not have meaningful water attempt ingress in that time frame. Also, fission reactors make phenomenal sense on aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.

We've already leached too much uranium into the groundwater for many to drink just from the mining alone.

We’ve also already depleted many aquifers past the point of recovery.

We have too many people to hydrate, too many crops to water in order to feed them, and not enough water. At some point widespread desalination is probably inevitable, but that requires a lot of energy.

Or the public could accept a reduction in their standard of living, but that’s likely not happening without a civil war.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#43

Post by iamnothere »

__float wrote: post #23
zer00eyz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is trying to loosen regulations around nuclear waste disposal And here lies the problem that ever one wants to burry their head in the sand about. Can one, in theory, make safe nuclear reactors. You bet you can. The thing is that you cant leave a bunch of "we will deal with that later" problems laying around. In the case of the US thats spent fuel rods. Should one worry about these, no, but you also don't want them…

What are the fuel constraints the French have that we don't? Is it geographic (we have a lot more unused/undesirable than France, for example), regulatory, etc?

They had access to uranium sourced cheaply from former North African colonies, but now they no longer have that access.

We have ample deposits and (for now) easy access to Canadian deposits. I imagine that there are deals in place to secure that access at an efficient price given the national security angle at play.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#44

Post by CobrastanJorji »

Jtsummers wrote: post #9
dakolli wrote: post #6

A bunch of these nuclear power startups have started reached criticality over the last week. Aalo and Valar (thiel) and now GAO is trying to loosen regulations around nuclear waste disposal.. Makes sense. Weird how we only get green energy when it's necessary for the technocratic class to power their data centers (and when they are small enough to be flown on location for the military, so the military can destroy a n…

> now "doge" (GAO) GAO is not DOGE. For those who don't know the difference between the two, confusing them is about like confusing the President with the Senate. GAO is a Congressional agency, it does not fall under the Executive. Its purpose is in its name, and it does a pretty good job of it. It also cannot, on its own (unlike how DOGE was empowered) effect any change. They can only conduct studies and make recomm…

> GAO is a Congressional agency, it does not fall under the Executive

Ah ah ah, you're describing how things were before Trump v. Slaughter, when the Supreme Court justices ruled that Republican Presidents are allowed to fire the heads of non-executive agencies so long as they are not the Federal Reserve.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#45

Post by jauntywundrkind »

gwerbin wrote: post #38
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presumption of regularity here is a joke. This administration has grifted swindled no-bid awarded and bought out anything they please with reckless abandon, Vought is actively Project 2025 shutting done any and everything not run by the most fanatical political operatives. It's impossible to pretend like any agencies are functioning in any way as normal, are using objective scientific expert based assessments to…

To be fair this was all happening before, just 10x less. And the current minority party was often willing to ignore it when it was their people doing it. So yes it's bad on a generational scale and we might never recover from it, but we also have to admit that we are reaping the fruit of a bipartisan-sown seed.

The previous party left opposition party people in power many times. Which, like, is how the US has worked for a century and a half. It was not a spoils system, in 98% of cases.

This is pure spoils. In a way America has never remotely seen ever before. Utter rankest most foul spoils, nothing but pure politics, with essentially no moderators.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#46

Post by butvacuum »

bobmcnamara wrote: post #37
margalabargala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of dry areas like in the American Southwest which can be projected to not have meaningful water attempt ingress in that time frame. Also, fission reactors make phenomenal sense on aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.

We've already leached too much uranium into the groundwater for many to drink just from the mining alone.

and we've collected enough arsenic from a single mine to kill every human on the planet 300 times over in one spot- what's your point? That because we screwed up one spot we should give up?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#47

Post by margalabargala »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #40
margalabargala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of dry areas like in the American Southwest which can be projected to not have meaningful water attempt ingress in that time frame. Also, fission reactors make phenomenal sense on aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.

Every miner knows most holes fill with water sooner or later. Corollary: Every sailor knows most vessels are sunk sooner or later. Aircraft carriers and Submarines are not civilian infrastructure, and if they sink offshore where no can live... will usually pose less of a problem like buoyant waste barrels popping up later. We are in the age of bargain conflicts, where throwing gold bricks at adversaries makes less se…

Exactly. Most is not all and the ones that don't have striking traits in common ignored only by a fool.

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#49

Post by calvinmorrison »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #31

Sure, but has anyone ever built a container that lasts 30k years, and remains watertight? Thus far, most off-site containment storage sites over 10 years old have failed to stop containment leaks, Radon gas diffusion, or hot-material fires. Fission reactors are a 1950's loss-leader technology, and only make sense for already uninhabitable areas like space. =3

[flagged]

Re: GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup

#50

Post by Joel_Mckay »

kurthr wrote: post #41
bobmcnamara wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already leached too much uranium into the groundwater for many to drink just from the mining alone.

Wait till you find out how much uranium there is in coal ash and how many tons a year are put in the air or dumped into ground water. Both the ash and uranium tailings are in the 50ppm range, but we make 100Mt per year of one of them and basically no uranium tailings in the US. Globally, the ratio is over 1Gt of coal ash and 10-20Mt of uranium tailings. One is currently a problem, the other isn't.

I have a lower opinion of coal, more than any other energy source. From an economics perspective it also costs 4% more than solar now. There is no excuse to bring back 1800's steam technology.

If you grill, use charcoal because it is short-term carbon cycle neutral.

We have one of the largest global coal deposits, but it is also one of the most contaminated natural hot heavy metal sources currently known. Indeed, the natural run off has already closed many water wells for small towns in the area. =3

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