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100 kW for a few hundred thousand years is basically the best sales pitch for nuclear power I've ever heard. Even of "just" heat output.
Its impressive the amount of clean, cheap energy that's been locked away because of fearmongering tales from well before many were even alive.
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We all have access to Grok and other AI models, and we will ask it if we want it's bullshit hallucinations. There is no point polluting HN with this trash.
Anyone can look it up, yet I was the only one who did.
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We all have access to Grok and other AI models, and we will ask it if we want it's bullshit hallucinations. There is no point polluting HN with this trash.
Is it wrong?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100 kW for a few hundred thousand years is basically the best sales pitch for nuclear power I've ever heard. Even of "just" heat output.
Its impressive the amount of clean, cheap energy that's been locked away because of fearmongering tales from well before many were even alive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but when we want to store something in the range of million years, it is a bit early to say that 30 years are sufficient as a ultimate proof that nothing leaks. Now I believe it can be done safely, but only if monitored all the time with good care. But that is expensive and humans tend to skimp.
You don't need nuclear waste to be stored for millions of years, after a hundred or so anything of exceptional danger has decayed and what is left will be such a low level of radiation that common clay bricks are just as much of a risk. The "hotter" a nuclear material is, the faster it decays, and materials that remain radioactive for thousands of years are not especially radioactive.
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Its impressive the amount of clean, cheap energy that's been locked away because of fearmongering tales from well before many were even alive.
Cheap until it isn't. I wonder what has been the actual cost per kWh of nuclear power in Japan once factored in the price of Fukushima's disaster (between 200 and 600 billion dollars).
Even if it were, in the time limit safety increases, such costs decrease, more so with more development.
More broadly, nuclear looks expensive not because it's unproductive — but because standard asset pricing discounts its most valuable feature: time. Dense, stable power for centuries gives a low net present value due to long-duration-use and high up front cost, but this more a flaw in how future value is discounted in common economic models that punish rather than reward long life.
Richard Rhodes brought this up in an interview. He made it a point for critics who say nuclear waste can't be safely disposed of through burial. Well, we have pretty good natural evidence that nuclear fission products can remain buried and undisturbed for a pretty long time!
Except for Finland nobody has actually created a long term geologic disposal site. Like so many problems, the issue is dominated by political coordination, not physical limits.
Fun aside - Oklo is also the name of a successful YC company that makes a passively-safe nuclear reactor - https://www.oklo.com
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The primary transportation risk is that spent fuel contains cesium metal, which is reactive with air and water, so if you expose it to air you get a fire. It seems like a pretty obvious solution to this would be to purposely do the reaction under controlled conditions before transporting it, so then you're transporting stable cesium compounds instead of elemental cesium metal.
The cesium in spent fuel is not in the form of cesium metal. The cesium there is already oxidized to the +1 oxidation state, as it is in cesium salts.
> Cesium will be the primary radionuclide released in a nuclear waste accident because it is present in what is called the fuel-clad gap. This gap is the space between the fuel pellets and the inside wall of the metal tube that contains the fuel. This “gap cesium” can be released in any event where the cladding is breached. Cesium is a highly reactive metal and even a small break in the seal will release significant amounts of it. Cesium burns spontaneously in air, and will explode when exposed to water.
Obviously the "highly reactive" applies to elemental cesium and is meant to imply that a collision would be a serious problem because exposing it to air would cause a big fire and release a plume of radioactive material. If that isn't the case then it seems like the thesis of the paper is rubbish?
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Cheap until it isn't. I wonder what has been the actual cost per kWh of nuclear power in Japan once factored in the price of Fukushima's disaster (between 200 and 600 billion dollars).
The cost you cite sounds more like the cost of the earthquake and tsunami, rather than the Daiichi reactor meltdown cost. Even if it were, in the time limit safety increases, such costs decrease, more so with more development. More broadly, nuclear looks expensive not because it's unproductive — but because standard asset pricing discounts its most valuable feature: time. Dense, stable power for centuries gives a low…
If you’re arguing the chosen discount rate is too high in some models, we can have a productive discussion about that.
If you’re arguing the methodology is wrong, you’ll need to explain more before I understand your point of view, or perhaps you’ll be interested in lending me $1M today and I’ll pay you $100/day for the next 55 years, by which time you’ll have more than doubled your money.