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Energy

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Energy

#41

Post by nbouscal »

jarvist wrote: post #16
cjensen wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion and Fission systems tend to run 24/7, unlike Wind and Solar. There is far less need to store energy when using the former types of generation.

Fission: Nuclear power stations have relatively low capacity factors (a measurement of how much of time they're actually connected to the grid and producing power). This is typically 70% over the last few decades for Western countries (i.e. a third of the time, a nuclear power station is not producing anything). As well as unintended maintenance shut down periods, most reactor designs require a multi-month shut down…

I think you would like to know that your comment is completely impenetrable to an average intelligent layperson. All the words are reasonably understandable, but I have no idea how they translate into a response to the parent comment. My guess is that you're falling prey to the illusion of transparency [1], though I suppose it's possible that you were only intending your comment to be meaningful to people familiar with the industry jargon.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_transparency

Edit: +1, much clearer what you mean now.

Re: Energy

#42

Post by sskates »

chinathrow wrote: post #39
sskates wrote: post #19

I always wondered why more energy wasn't generated from nuclear. On paper it seems like a great energy source. Kudos to Sam for putting not just his money, but his time where his mouth is. If only the rest of the internet could do the same!

> On paper it seems like a great energy source. On paper the waste issue is still not solved. And the risks are still large (yes I know, coal, gas and oil has it's drawbacks too).

Not sure about waste, can someone else here speak to that? Also deaths per unit energy are incredibly low relative to other sources.

Re: Energy

#43

Post by rwcarlsen »

andy_ppp wrote: post #26

Isn't decommissioning nuclear power plants still basically a huge bill underwritten by the tax payer? I'm not really sure about creating radioactive waste that has such huge half lives... From Wikipedia: Of particular concern in nuclear waste management are two long-lived fission products, Tc-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and I-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent fuel radioactivity after a few tho…

Power plants fund their own decommissioning [1]. And they also (in a way) already pay for disposal - a 1 mill per kWh fee on all energy generated payed to the federal govermnent in exchange for the feds taking responsibility for disposal [2]. This fee has been paid for decades - the industry has no problem supporting that level of disposal cost (and could even afford a higher fee if necessary). There has been an enormous amount of research into ways for dealing with the waste all kinds of disposal, treatments, recycling, etc. The only real blocker has been a lack of political/public will to make any decisions and move forward.

[1] http://www.nrc.gov/waste/decommissioning/finan-assur.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act

Re: Energy

#44

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

falsestprophet wrote: post #29

The 20th century was the century of carbon-based energy. I am confident the 22nd century is going to be the century of atomic energy (i.e. terrestrial atomic generation and energy from sun’s fusion). It's silly to describe solar as atomic energy from sun’s fusion as a distinct category from carbon-based energy, because of course carbon-based energy was formed by capturing solar energy from the sun's fusion.

How is this anything but useless pedantry?

Re: Energy

#45

Post by crystaln »

falsestprophet wrote: post #29

The 20th century was the century of carbon-based energy. I am confident the 22nd century is going to be the century of atomic energy (i.e. terrestrial atomic generation and energy from sun’s fusion). It's silly to describe solar as atomic energy from sun’s fusion as a distinct category from carbon-based energy, because of course carbon-based energy was formed by capturing solar energy from the sun's fusion.

Perhaps we should call it all Big Bang energy.

I agree this is silly. Harnessing the radiant energy of the sun is categorically different from converting wind or carbon into usable energy. Trying to group these into one category seems out of touch with the reality of developing the t technlogies.

Re: Energy

#46

Post by vectorjohn »

falsestprophet wrote: post #29

The 20th century was the century of carbon-based energy. I am confident the 22nd century is going to be the century of atomic energy (i.e. terrestrial atomic generation and energy from sun’s fusion). It's silly to describe solar as atomic energy from sun’s fusion as a distinct category from carbon-based energy, because of course carbon-based energy was formed by capturing solar energy from the sun's fusion.

You could get super pedantic and say it's all gravity based energy, but it stops being a useful way to classify things long before that.

Distinguishing between carbon and atomic is a pretty useful and meaningful distinction, although ultimately not perfectly correct.

Re: Energy

#47

Post by chinathrow »

mikeash wrote: post #34
arenaninja wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the biggest hurdle with nuclear energy was waste management? As in, we've nowhere to put the toxic dump that's produced that will radiate a few tens of thousands of years? Unless that's been solved, in which case consumer education would be a next step

Much of the waste problem can be solved by using reactors designed to use the waste as fuel. This isn't currently done, but there's no big technical reason it couldn't be. For what remains after that, well, there's nothing particularly wrong with sticking it in some extremely sturdy armored containers, sticking the containers in a shed, surrounding the shed with a razor-wire fence, and stationing a couple of guards a…

It's not paranoia, it's a real issue with that waste.

We have no working waste solution as of today.

We have no working long term storage solution as of today.

We have not priced the cost of long term storage/plant decomissioning etc at the full cost into the price of nuclear power - that is for most countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dealing-with-ass...

Re: Energy

#48

Post by andy_ppp »

mikeash wrote: post #38
andy_ppp wrote: post #26

Isn't decommissioning nuclear power plants still basically a huge bill underwritten by the tax payer? I'm not really sure about creating radioactive waste that has such huge half lives... From Wikipedia: Of particular concern in nuclear waste management are two long-lived fission products, Tc-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and I-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent fuel radioactivity after a few tho…

The half life of the immense amount of chemical toxic waste produced by industry each year is essentially infinite. And yet somehow we're mostly content with chucking it in a landfill (albeit ones regulated and built to safely handle it) and calling it good. Drop the dangerous period from "infinity" to "some millions of years" and suddenly people get more worried?

Who says I'm not worried about all the "bad" things(tm)?

To be honest I'm just asking the question that while we can all say "isn't it great how safe nuclear is" we still haven't 100% figured out the waste issue. Fusion... well I'll believe it when it's powering my DeLorean.

Re: Energy

#49

Post by jarvist »

mikeash wrote: post #34
arenaninja wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the biggest hurdle with nuclear energy was waste management? As in, we've nowhere to put the toxic dump that's produced that will radiate a few tens of thousands of years? Unless that's been solved, in which case consumer education would be a next step

Much of the waste problem can be solved by using reactors designed to use the waste as fuel. This isn't currently done, but there's no big technical reason it couldn't be. For what remains after that, well, there's nothing particularly wrong with sticking it in some extremely sturdy armored containers, sticking the containers in a shed, surrounding the shed with a razor-wire fence, and stationing a couple of guards a…

> using reactors designed to use the waste as fuel

What do you mean? The waste is full of nuclear poisons (a technical term, isotopes that stop fission by neutron capture). Reusing it means reprocessing to extract the Plutonium, which is burnable in a reactor (particularly as MOX). The chemistry required for this is pretty messy, and the radioactive environment (fuel from a power station is very 'hot' radioactively speaking) so horrific that you need a fully robotic plant.

This hasn't gone great for the UK, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_Oxide_Reprocessing_Pla...

But we do now have 112 tonnes of Plutonium as a result of our half a century of reprocessing. Which no one knows what to do with, and is an enormous liability.

Re: Energy

#50

Post by Swizec »

mikeash wrote: post #38
andy_ppp wrote: post #26

Isn't decommissioning nuclear power plants still basically a huge bill underwritten by the tax payer? I'm not really sure about creating radioactive waste that has such huge half lives... From Wikipedia: Of particular concern in nuclear waste management are two long-lived fission products, Tc-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and I-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent fuel radioactivity after a few tho…

The half life of the immense amount of chemical toxic waste produced by industry each year is essentially infinite. And yet somehow we're mostly content with chucking it in a landfill (albeit ones regulated and built to safely handle it) and calling it good. Drop the dangerous period from "infinity" to "some millions of years" and suddenly people get more worried?

It suddenly becomes a solvable problem.

If something is infinite, meh, it's infinite, what you gonna do. But if it's a few million years ... whoa, we can reason about that!

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