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A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#101

Post by theothermkn »

credit_guy wrote: post #63
hunta2097 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great insight. I am fond of the phrase "final generation nuclear". We need 30 years of nuclear fission before we can sustain fusion. I think we're already past the point where some nuclear risk is acceptable. It's not a zero sum game - fossel fuels are already being used with risk. We need to take some (calculated) risks again.

> We need 30 years of nuclear fission before we can sustain fusion. Not sure where that comes from. I don't think we'll have competitive fusion in the next 50 years. Sure, people who talk about ITER draw (quite optimistic) plans for when we'll be able to get more from the fusion reaction than what energy we pump in, but they forget to mention that's not the end of the story. Fusion may be clean, but it's terribly ine…

> The Sun is huge, so overall the amount of generated energy is huge, but on Earth a power plant that has the same power density as the Sun would need to have a volume of 4 billion m3 to be similar to a typical fission power plant (1GW). That's 4 cubes of 1 square kilometers each.

The density, in terms of fusion events per m^3 per second, is orders of magnitude higher for a tokamak than in the Sun. Stars are very inefficient at fusion, as you point out, because the cross section oh H-H fusion is so low. Deuterium-Tritium fusion has a higher cross section, and the conditions we can reach realize a much higher rate of fusion.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#102

Post by toomuchtodo »

thatcat wrote: post #100
toomuchtodo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is nuclear being expensive political? It is fundementally untenable as a commercial enterprise when compared to natural gas, solar, and wind. 90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/…

If flyash disposal, mining, carbon emission, and fracking were equally regulated then these regulations create incentive to R+D nuclear technology, making it more affordable. The results of a rigged race don't prove anything.

That doesn’t address solar and wind being drastically cheaper than nuclear fission. It would be wasteful to continue to poor dollars into fission at this point, versus scaling up renewables and battery manufacturing further.

Whether the race is rigged is irrelevant; the race is over.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#103

Post by fromthestart »

BurningFrog wrote: post #73
jazzyjackson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... what's the over-under on dropping barrels into a volcano? You get a little radioactive steam surely...but eventually turns into radioactive dust... As an aside, ignorant physics question, does the half-life of something decrease with heat? Like does more beta-decay mean it gets to safe levels faster? Maybe a few years in between tectonic plates would do a planet good eh?

The classic answer is to bury extremely long lived waste in a subduction zone at the bottom of the ocean, such as the Mariana Trench. A "subduction zone" is where two tectonic plates collide and fold into the depth of the planet. So anything you bury there would naturally travel deeper into the planet over the eons. I haven't heard any serious arguments against this, but I suspect it's impossible because people think…

I dont think it is so easy. Subduction zones have what are called accretionary prisms, which are basically sediment that is sloughed off the top of the subducting plate. Thus, if you want the nuclear waste to be subducted, you have to bury it deep enough, though I can't say quite how far - given the scale of the crust, I'd say you're looking at something on the order of miles at least. Which is extra challenging considering subduction zones are already under thousands of feet of ocean.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#104

Post by pfdietz »

shanghaiaway wrote: post #92
imtringued wrote: post #14

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

Interesting armchair analysis. Nuclear is both the cheapest and cleanest source of energy.

Nuclear is by no means the cheapest source of energy. That's the big problem it's facing: it has priced itself out of the market.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#105

Post by thatcat »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #102
thatcat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If flyash disposal, mining, carbon emission, and fracking were equally regulated then these regulations create incentive to R+D nuclear technology, making it more affordable. The results of a rigged race don't prove anything.

That doesn’t address solar and wind being drastically cheaper than nuclear fission. It would be wasteful to continue to poor dollars into fission at this point, versus scaling up renewables and battery manufacturing further. Whether the race is rigged is irrelevant; the race is over.

Solar and wind are environmentally dependent sources that aren't possible in all locations or times and are unlikely to work on their own. Even when they are generally available, they don't have the same utility for industry as a constant source like nuclear because of the uncertainty. Since coal and gas will certainly run out, nuclear still may have a future in small scale modular nuclear reactors produced offsite, at scale.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#106

Post by ThomPete »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #102
thatcat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If flyash disposal, mining, carbon emission, and fracking were equally regulated then these regulations create incentive to R+D nuclear technology, making it more affordable. The results of a rigged race don't prove anything.

That doesn’t address solar and wind being drastically cheaper than nuclear fission. It would be wasteful to continue to poor dollars into fission at this point, versus scaling up renewables and battery manufacturing further. Whether the race is rigged is irrelevant; the race is over.

Again, they aren't cheaper when you compare to output.

Just to put things in perspective. Solar can do roughly 50W per m2 at best and I am being generous.

Nuclear does 1000W per m2.

Solar is not even close to being able to deliver stable energy so you would have to factor either coal, nuclear or oil into the mix too to provide stable delivery.

Renewable can't deliver the needed energy not even close. Less than 1% right now and not even close with anything like fuel cell technologies or distributed grid systems which would be very very very expensive.

Nuclear whether you like it or not is cleaner, more stable, cheaper and more scaleable.

You will realize this soon enough.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#107

Post by Spooky23 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #86
ThomPete wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wouldnt be solved already since the political environment is completely against nuclear, so simply false. Solar is a fraction of energysupply and will not even be close to being signifficant whare it really matters which is in transportation.

How is nuclear being expensive political? It is fundementally untenable as a commercial enterprise when compared to natural gas, solar, and wind. 90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/…

You use it as baseload to replace coal. The problem with renewables is the variability, which would lead to overcapacity or other issues as it scales up.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#108

Post by AngryData »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #58
BurningFrog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to remind people that we already live on a radioactive planet. We can build nuclear reactors because radioactive stuff naturally is everywhere. There probably wouldn't be life here without it. So to me the "let's get it off the planet" idea is an overreaction. Radioactive material just need to be handled with common sense.

Hmm... what's the over-under on dropping barrels into a volcano? You get a little radioactive steam surely...but eventually turns into radioactive dust... As an aside, ignorant physics question, does the half-life of something decrease with heat? Like does more beta-decay mean it gets to safe levels faster? Maybe a few years in between tectonic plates would do a planet good eh?

In most cases a faster decay rate does mean the material becomes safer at a faster rate, but consequently produces more radiation in that same time. If it was reprocessed we could reuse the high-output waste over and over until all that was left was the low energy but long half life material, but old regulations based on poorly understood science in the past, public ill-will, and potential international political conflicts could appear as the reprocessing technology is basically the same technology needed to make nuclear or radiation bomb source material.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#109

Post by CodeWriter23 »

maxerickson wrote: post #65
imtringued wrote: post #14

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

Where's the over-capacity to make that thing work going to come from? There's ~12 hour batteries on the grid (pumped storage), but they mostly recharge from coal and nuclear at night.

The 57,600 MWh figure is the peak usage in California on the hottest of summer days. We only need that for roughly 2 hours of one of those days, and we can typically meet that without engaging rotating blackouts. The generation capacity is there. And it’s a lot more efficient to operate plants as needed to recharge storage than to spool them up in response to demand, the Tesla battery farm in Australia has already proven this. The key reason is there is lest waste if you have storage as a buffer.

And think of all the CA plants sitting idle on a day like today, where peak load was 28,000 MW.

http://www.caiso.com/Pages/default.aspx

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#110

Post by justtopost »

intopieces wrote: post #97
tpkj wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...a single component in an energy mix". And that mix relies on the grid? With nuclear or other centralized power source, yes.

From your link, solar doesn't rely on the grid, and in fact it acts independently of it on some islands.

For the network effects and efficencies, solar absolutly needs a grid. If not a grid, you need local storage, another inefficiency.
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