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Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

americanaffairsjournal.org

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181–190 of 277 posts

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#181

Post by erentz »

Sporktacular wrote: post #143

"today’s so-called environmentalists" The nuclear industry had decades to fix its economic, safety and environmental issues but sat on its hands instead. If half of the subsidies they received over that time when into research we would have fixed the renewable storage problem a decade ago. There is not and never will be enough uranium on this planet to completely power humanity for more than a few decades. Fission wa…

> There is not and never will be enough uranium on this planet to completely power humanity for more than a few decades.

This source says up to 4 billion years. Nuclear power is sustainable.

https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-10-28-nuclear-energy-is-...

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#182

Post by makeitdouble »

pyuser583 wrote: post #157
makeitdouble wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy stays a bad fit when you factor in that it needs to combine: - sustained political will and capital - high morale (contractors and controllers need to not collude to hide flaws/cut corners/inflate prices) - excelent design and on par execution - excelent risk assesment and long term vision - stable geopolitical situation No country currently has a combination of all the above, all the nuclear plants we…

The US has all of those things for nuclear submarines.

That model works because there is no question of scale or mass production, no external client, not enough civilians involved to put a strong political aspect on it, so virtually no external pressure to do anything about it.

Basically we’d need volunteer based self-sustained communities living in the middle of nowhere to replicate that in a non military setting.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#183

Post by fi358 »

fi358 wrote: post #165
askvictor wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't (isn't?) Finland's grid be connected to places where there is solar?

Perhaps in theory, although transmission losses would be large. But I wouldn't want to be on the mercy of distant countries, perhaps on different continent, for getting energy, especially during winter. And as there are other possibilities than solar energy, I don't see why to go for solar energy instead of the other alternatives.

I am not familiar with the winder conditions in Southern Europe. Is there enough sunlight during winter that it would be feasible to provide a lot of solar energy during wintertime - not just for local use, but to northern Europe as well? It might be that even there is too little sunlight and the solar power would have to come from different continent.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#184

Post by tomatotomato37 »

epistasis wrote: post #168
jwie wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Navy has been training 20 year old kids to operate the things for almost 70 years. I was one of them. Westinghouse and GE build and refuel, and decommission the existing nuclear reactors in the fleet today. It’s hard work, but we have the knowledge and workers to run these things and build them today. We still build nuclear reactors in the states, they’re just on submarines and aircraft carriers. There’s a lac…

Military reactors are different from civilian reactors in at least two ways: 1) military fuel would not be allowed in civilian hands, and 2) military reactors have essentially an infinite budget, and have few economic constraints. The challenges of using military reactors in other settings go far beyond questions of "political will"

I've also heard anecdotal accounts that military reactors are still maintenance nightmares, and their lack of public nuclear accidents is less due to doctrine and more to the fact that these reactors spend their life in a classified military environment floating in international water; AKA easy to cover up

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#185

Post by _hypx »

epistasis wrote: post #40

While this is a compelling tale of culture war in the US, I think that the culture war aspect has little to do with nuclear's failure, if anything at all. I am continually offended as I encounter people with Ehrlich's 1970s Malthusianism, but these are not the folks stopping nuclear. Look to France, which has a huge nuclear fleet. Look at what's happened at Flamanville, with a supportive population. What sort of cult…

Fundamentally, nuclear needs to be subsidized, just like other green energy projects.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#186

Post by grecy »

dctoedt wrote: post #23

Nuclear power is expensive in no small part because of the safeguards needed to try to avert catastrophic accidents. Humans are fallible, and our best intentions can be subverted by inadequate training; fatigue; inattention; laziness; or what we used to call "a loss-of-brain accident." As a result, we can f[oul] up at any stage of design, construction, operation, or maintenance of a nuclear reactor. (Neither Three Mi…

> Former Navy nuclear engineering officer, qualified as [chief] engineer aboard the eight-reactor aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.

I imagine there's tons of stuff you're not allowed to talk about, but have you ever written down any stories in a book or blog or anything like that? I would love to learn more about your career, what you learned, saw, etc. etc. Thanks!

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#187

Post by pyuser583 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #182
pyuser583 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has all of those things for nuclear submarines.

That model works because there is no question of scale or mass production, no external client, not enough civilians involved to put a strong political aspect on it, so virtually no external pressure to do anything about it. Basically we’d need volunteer based self-sustained communities living in the middle of nowhere to replicate that in a non military setting.

The US nuclear naval fleet isn’t a set of islands. The fuel must be mined and delivered.

The nuclear reactor have to be maintained and kept in dry dock, sometimes for years on end.

Nobody is afraid of aircraft carriers, even though they are powered by nuclear reactors.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#188

Post by erentz »

jacquesm wrote: post #61
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #8

> France’s nuclear buildout, beginning in the 1970s, achieved the greatest decarbonization in human history; ... In North America, the mantle belongs to Ontario, whose nuclear plants replaced its coal fleet.1 I am dubious of this claim, but it probably depends on exactly how you define it. But switching from a country to a province immediately sends up red flags.

Ontario and France are not that dissimilar in surface area, though in population they are quite different. I think the author tried to focus on the former when of course it is the latter that should have been primary.

Also the electricity sector is organized around provinces in Canada. So it makes a sensible comparison.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#189

Post by Sporktacular »

Blammar wrote: post #159
Sporktacular wrote: post #143

"today’s so-called environmentalists" The nuclear industry had decades to fix its economic, safety and environmental issues but sat on its hands instead. If half of the subsidies they received over that time when into research we would have fixed the renewable storage problem a decade ago. There is not and never will be enough uranium on this planet to completely power humanity for more than a few decades. Fission wa…

Got a citation for your claim about the U supply? And there are reactor designs that burn much more of the U in the fuel...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142152...

Or Sabine Hossenfelder's explanation https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k?t=365

Current reactors use U235 which is less than 1% of all Uranium on the planet. Don't know about reactors that use other uranium isotopes, but if after 70 years they are still at the design stage, it kind of makes my point. It's just too late to turn that around. The article just overlooks this fundamental problem.

Re: Who killed nuclear energy and how to revive it

#190

Post by jwie »

epistasis wrote: post #168
jwie wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Navy has been training 20 year old kids to operate the things for almost 70 years. I was one of them. Westinghouse and GE build and refuel, and decommission the existing nuclear reactors in the fleet today. It’s hard work, but we have the knowledge and workers to run these things and build them today. We still build nuclear reactors in the states, they’re just on submarines and aircraft carriers. There’s a lac…

Military reactors are different from civilian reactors in at least two ways: 1) military fuel would not be allowed in civilian hands, and 2) military reactors have essentially an infinite budget, and have few economic constraints. The challenges of using military reactors in other settings go far beyond questions of "political will"

The unlimited budget and the fuel comes from political will so I don’t understand your point.
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