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Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

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Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#221

Post by nl »

gridlockd wrote: post #62
jayd16 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really not compelling. If you can't provide any more compelling evidence for nuclear vs clean energy improvements, why not gamble on the currently safer/cleaner bet?

My impression is that nuclear works right now and that the risk is overblown, relative to all the other risks we incur. Renewables are not working right now (see Germany) and they aren't necessarily cleaner , considering that all this infrastructure needs to be produced with ordinary industrial processes. Of course it's not an either-or, renewables can make more sense in some places and not so much in others.

My impression is that nuclear works right now and that the risk is overblown, relative to all the other risks we incur.

The peer reviewed study I posted right here said the risks are underestimated.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#222

Post by nl »

kyberias wrote: post #67
hairytrog wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of agree. There's been 4 catasrpohpic reactor meltdowns and there are ~400 reactors. That's a 1% failure rate. That's really bad. That's the status quo, which does not mandate continued low safety and lack of economic advantage. That's why there is R&D. Today what you say is true - great. Tomorrow, who knows. High energy density and human ingenuity could make genIV a reality.

What were the meltdowns?

The International Nuclear Event Scale[1] is probably more useful than "meltdown".

Anything at level 5 ("3 Mile Island") and above is pretty serious.

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

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#223

Post by [deleted] »

Krasnol wrote: post #206
magicalhippo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just running the numbers here. As per your Wikipedia article, current technology limits the borehole to 50 cm. That gets us 500 to 1000 m^3 worth of storage per borehole, assuming the lower 1km to 2km is used for storage. From this[1] page, as far as I understand, on a global scale the current amount of nuclear waste in need of such storage is 482000 m^3. So roughly 500-1000 boreholes to store the current waste inven…

It costs something around 1000€ for a 6m well. Without the paperwork. But this is your usually drilling equipment for those depths.

[deleted]

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#224

Post by gridlockd »

Krasnol wrote: post #167
gridlockd wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't read the clearly partisan sources uncritically, they are generally misleading. "The north German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein are already operating on 100% net renewable energy, mostly wind. The ‘net’ indicates trading with each other and their neighbours. They do not rely on baseload power stations. " These rather sparsely populated states combined make up for only 4.5 million of Ger…

> It is also completely misleading to say that these states are 100% "net renewable". They're part of the national grid. Perhaps they're the places where disproportionately many wind turbines are deployed (e.g. on the coast). They are at the coast and it's not misleading since they produce much more and even have to turn off turbines. The nationwide peaks are also impressive: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy_pie.h…

> They are at the coast and it's not misleading since they produce much more and even have to turn off turbines.

It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it.

> Because of politics, money and lobbying. There are jobs in the coal industry especially in the east germany where Fascism is getting powerful.

That still doesn't add up. Just because you want to keep coal jobs alive doesn't mean you have to burn it at home. You can just export it, coal is valuable. The only reason you need subsidies is because extraction is too expensive when done by German labor.

> Wind turbines have to be turned off because the sparse power lines infrastructure is clogged with dirty power.

That's an "interesting" way to frame the high volatility of wind energy against the low volatility of other methods, when having to buffer that volatility is the main problem.

> As you have seen, the reasons why renewables are not even further and even more relevant are beyond the technically related reasons.

I haven't "seen" anything. No numbers, no calculations. I'm sure there's some impact of coal lobbying, but that can't be what prevents the development of alternatives. Germany has blown an incredible amount of subsidies into wind energy, so now you're telling me there's none left to solve its problems because of coal?

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#225

Post by godelski »

gridlockd wrote: post #57
andor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point of the OP was that pollution and long-term storage are not priced in. Try coming up with a price for safely storing nuclear waste for the next few thousand years.

> Try coming up with a price for safely storing nuclear waste for the next few thousand years. Quoting the article: " Environmental group Greenpeace estimates that there’s a global stockpile of about 250,000 tons of toxic spent fuel spread across 14 countries, based on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Of that, 22,000 cubic meters—roughly equivalent to a three-meter tall building covering an area the…

> "Environmental group Greenpeace"

Let's be honest here, Greenpeace is an environmental group the same way PETA is an animal rights group.

One thing I think a lot of people forget is that many of the same problems that nuclear has are issues with other power sources. For example, coal also has radioactive waste. To put it into perspective, an average coal plant produces 5-10 tonnes of Uranium and Thorium ash per year.[0] Let alone the 400tonns of coal ash. I should also note that ash is more dangerous.

I'm not trying to say here that these aren't concerns. But I'm trying to say that when people mention these things that it always feels either uninformed or disingenuous. There is an issue of scale, so if the concern is about radioactive contaminants then we should be prioritizing the one that is producing more.

> That's really not a lot.

Which shows an understanding of scale (which is difficult). For reference, total waste per person from most nuclear powered countries is about a liter bottle per year, which only ~3% is high level waste[1] (~30ml, magnitudes less waste.

[0] https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta...

[1] Only shows UK, but it is relatively similar waste levels across most countries. https://nuclearpoweringvision2020.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/h...

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#226

Post by petre »

toyg wrote: post #133
joering2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very easily these days [1] Its been done since days of nuclear plants. And no - there are no security issues, since as the name indicates, its a “waste”; you can’t make a bomb out of it and spreading it would not be as efficient as some type of gas that you would have easier access to. I imagine actually officials would love just to give away that nuclear waste to ISIS, preferrably deliver it to them for further hand…

Depleted uranium is used in artillery munitions by the US since the early '90s. It is, allegedly, a cause of increased cancer rates in NATO personnel and others involved in conflicts were the US deployed heavy artillery. If you cannot think of security issues around nuclear waste, you have no business discussing nuclear waste and you are doing your "cause" a disservice.

Uranium is also toxic. The personnel that used DU ammo has mainly lung diseases due to Uranium dust. Metal toxicity has nothing to do with radioactivity.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#227

Post by petre »

saagarjha wrote: post #106
jayalpha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, other atoms? Depending where you start from and how do it. Here is an example: http://www.ipodphysics.com/resources/trans90.jpg

That's my question: I don't know which way they're moving.

It depends on the decay mode. Through beta decay they usually go up (eg. Cs135 › Ba135) one spot in the periodic table (straight line in the diagram). Through alpha decay they go down as shown in the diagram. What the diagram represents is natural decay of Uranium which isn't "waste". The long lived fission products in the GP link are more or less of an issue.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#228

Post by Krasnol »

gridlockd wrote: post #224
Krasnol wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is also completely misleading to say that these states are 100% "net renewable". They're part of the national grid. Perhaps they're the places where disproportionately many wind turbines are deployed (e.g. on the coast). They are at the coast and it's not misleading since they produce much more and even have to turn off turbines. The nationwide peaks are also impressive: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy_pie.h…

> They are at the coast and it's not misleading since they produce much more and even have to turn off turbines. It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it. > Because of politics, money and lobbying. There are jobs in the coal industry especially in the east germany where Fascism is getting powerful. That still doesn't add up. Just because you want to keep coal jobs…

> It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it.

...which is the reason why they have to turn off turbines. And the reason why they keep this coal running is because nobody want's to kill jobs when there are elections incoming and the right wing party is on the run in the region.

> You can just export it, coal is valuable.

No, it's not. It's already heavy subsidized and coal in Poland or even further east is so cheap, it's still cheaper if you carry it through half of Europe. Most of the mines in Germany has been closed down because of this even before the environmental movement got popular. How do you not know this?

> That's an "interesting" way to frame the high volatility of wind energy against the low volatility of other methods, when having to buffer that volatility is the main problem.

No it's not. If I have cheap renewable energy but can't transfer it because I have to pay for coal, it's clogging the infrastructure. So just what I wrote.

> I haven't "seen" anything. No numbers, no calculations.

It's not like those are the 90s. You didn't even know how cheap coal is. Maybe you should invest some time googling. The information is out there.

> that can't be what prevents the development of alternatives. Germany has blown an incredible amount of subsidies into wind energy, so now you're telling me there's none left to solve its problems because of coal?

What are you talking about? https://www.energy-charts.de/ren_share.htm?source=ren-share&... This is the development of alternatives and it's not stopping or anything like that. Coal power plants are being turned off and there is already a deadline for them all. There is not even theoretical space for nuclear there.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#229

Post by kyberias »

jayd16 wrote: post #70
kyberias wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima was caused by an earthquake that directly caused much more damage than the reactor blowing up.

Whats your point exactly? Earthquakes and other natural disasters will continue to happen. Until catastrophic failure can be eliminated or the scope of the damage can be reduced, nuclear power will not be considered safe. Saying "ok that happened but it won't happen again" is simply not acceptable.

The cost of nuclear disaster in Fukushima was only a small part of the total cost. There were zero deaths caused by the accident but about 20 000 deaths from the whole disaster.

Re: Zapping Nuclear Waste in Minutes Is Nobel Winner’s Holy Grail Quest

#230

Post by petre »

Krasnol wrote: post #228
gridlockd wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are at the coast and it's not misleading since they produce much more and even have to turn off turbines. It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it. > Because of politics, money and lobbying. There are jobs in the coal industry especially in the east germany where Fascism is getting powerful. That still doesn't add up. Just because you want to keep coal jobs…

> It is clearly misleading to point at an island of green energy when there's coal all around it. ...which is the reason why they have to turn off turbines. And the reason why they keep this coal running is because nobody want's to kill jobs when there are elections incoming and the right wing party is on the run in the region. > You can just export it, coal is valuable. No, it's not. It's already heavy subsidized an…

Come on, coal is not clogging your infrastructure. Coal plants can be fired at will (3 hrs hot stratup, 6% of full load per minute ramp up) when there's demand. Gas turbine fired plants are event better in this regard (quicker startup and/or ramp up). There's no point in firing up coal plants if you already have renrewable electricity in the infrastructure. Which means that they're only fired when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. 40% nuclear in the mix would definitely fix that. Just look at France's power mix. They have legally capped the nuclear power in the mix based on the premise that they'll go from >70% nuclear now to about 50% in 2035 and replace the rest with renewables. It looks like a much more sensible option. Germany uses something like 47% coal and 13% gas [2]. It's energy mix is much more dirtier, even though half of it is renewables.

1. https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/close/france-s-ov...

2. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

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