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blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Energy

#221

Post by aidenn0 »

donttrustatoms wrote: post #111
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…

I am one of the UPower founders. There are two big stories here that most people don't know yet: 1) that a fast reactor can be waste-negative, I.e. transform existing waste to energy. 2) a fast reactor destroys the long lived waste- instead of trying to store waste for a hundred thousand years it's on the order of a hundred. Both of these are critically important for existing waste but also having an emission free en…

What about transport of the waste? Isn't (nearly?) all waste in the US stored on-site?

Re: Energy

#222

Post by abalone »

jddw wrote: post #214
abalone wrote: post #164

> terrestrial-based atomic energy... has major advantages when it comes to cost Are we talking public cost? Because that's all that matters. So far the public cost of nuclear power has been extraordinary, due to accidents and waste. I understand that some of these startups aim to process existing waste in relatively small distributed reactors but what is the public cost of spreading a bunch of "mini" toxic waste site…

First, the reactors are consuming the fuel while deployed, but no waste is stored at the sites. It is stored centrally so there are a few centralized sites that hold the waste for a few hundred years. After which you could make things out of the material and use them around your home without issue. The reactors cannot be deviated for nefarious purposes. And the materials are not less secure. The materials are being c…

To store it centrally, wouldn't you be transporting nuclear waste that is still toxic for hundreds of years all over the place? What if there's an accident during transportation? More reactors = more transportation = more nuclear waste accidents on the highway. Right?

> The reactors cannot be deviated for nefarious purposes.

I'm no nuclear expert but a quick search on Thorium reactors brings up some controversy over its potential for weaponization:

Thorium, when being irradiated for use in reactors, will make uranium-232, which is very dangerous due to the gamma rays it emits. This irradiation process may be able to be altered slightly by removing protactinium-233. The irradiation would then make uranium-233 in lieu of uranium-232, which can be used in nuclear weapons to make thorium into a dual purpose fuel. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Po... which cites http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a11907/is-the... which cites Nature

Re: Energy

#223

Post by thaumasiotes »

mikeash wrote: post #170
throwaway24242 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sry, that is a terrible argument. You are saying that we do not have to worry about nuclear waste, because we currently do not worry about other waste.

I'm saying that nuclear waste is treated with far more paranoia than it deserves, as illustrated by how we dispose of other waste much less carefully, even though it's just as dangerous. And mostly successfully, too. That doesn't mean that it's something to be ignored, or that current methods of waste disposal are perfect, but if we aren't shutting down the entire chemical industry (for example) over this problem the…

Because nuclear waste is a recent problem, and chemical waste is an old problem. Same reason we have driver's licenses; same reason we have the TSA.

Most choices don't get made on the basis of "what would be a better idea?".

Re: Energy

#224

Post by the8472 »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #43
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 enor…

> Power plants fund their own decommissioning

They are supposed to. But here in germany the energy company lobbists basically said - in response to a few new proposed fees levied on coal plants - that anything threatening their revenues would cut into future revenue needed for decommissioning fees. And that's despite being required to have funds set aside for decommissioning.

I suspect some creative accounting going on, moving expected future profits into those funds or whatever.

So if their business models fail - e.g. due to renewables - it might turn out that in practice there never was any money set aside for decommissioning.

There are even talks about splitting off coal and fission plants into some sort of "bad bank" companies.

So I would be very wary of any such promises of things being priced in.

Corporations have again and again proven to be very good at privatizing profits while externalizing costs.

Re: Energy

#225

Post by dredmorbius »

saryant wrote: post #189
3pt14159 wrote: post #155

Probably not. Energy isn't really what is holding the poor back - a lack of stability and security are. If I had to chose one technological improvement to help most people on the planet it would probably be benevolent AI, which could refocus many of our challenges to what is important. Getting people out of poverty and war. Energy is a tiny component of modern civilization.

Energy is the sole basis of modern civilization. We are Hydrocarbon Man.

Por que no los dos?

Yes, abundant energy is behind virtually all past development. What seems to be holding back the next 5 billion, however, is access to what that energy has made available.

Though the question of just how many billions can be provided for ought also be raised.

Re: Energy

#226

Post by dkirtley »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #191

Former fusion startup founder here (Fiat Lux Research, funded by DFJ 1995-2000). I couldn't agree more with Sam about the importance of energy for our civilization. Kudos to him for putting his efforts towards important stuff. I have mixed, but mostly positive feelings about venture capital and energy startups. The fact is, it's a tough space. Large capital requirements, prototyping cycles often measured in years, an…

Thanks FiatLuxDave, I think you are exactly right. Prototype/design cycle time is a huge issue with fusion, fission, and many other energy technologies. No matter how good your idea may be, you have to be able to build, test, iterate, prove, and commercialize it quickly (and ideally, cheaply, but I would argue quickly is even more important). In energy, the physics make everything work better at large scale so it is easy to fall into the "build it bigger" trap.

Re: Energy

#227

Post by nl »

jddw wrote: post #216
nl wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this entirely. I think too many self-declared science-minded people buy into the argument that "nuclear is a good solution" without looking at the numbers or risks. Whilst I understand the costs of fossil fuel use, I think that the distribution of risks associated with nuclear power makes cost estimation a lot more difficult that proponents assume (ie, safe almost always, very rare disasters that cause h…

That's why the reactor can use thorium! There are big benefits. But frankly all advanced reactors are cooled by natural forces so are immune to fuel overheating. The challenge is more that the consequences of accidents are way overestimated. Nobody died from radiation at Fukushima, and no one is going to. The land is not uninhabitable, some bureaucrat who sets limits non-scientifically just says it is. If people actu…

It might be worth noting that you are one of the founders of UPower.

WHO estimates the increased cancer risk of people living inside the Fukushima Prefecture as being up to 70% higher (thyroid cancer for girls exposed as infants)[1]. Numerous other studies indicate increased cancer risk[2].

During the Fukushima meltdown, radiation levels of 3–170 μSv/h (= 17 mrem/hour) were measured within 30 km of the reactor[2]. Safe levels are 5000 mrem/year[3].

As I understand it, many argue that these of cancer risk estimates are high. I'll be happy to change my mind once medical scientist working in the field change theirs.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/28/us-japan-nuclear-c...

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

[3] http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/health-effects/info.h...

Re: Energy

#228

Post by fscherer »

donttrustatoms wrote: post #111
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…

I am one of the UPower founders. There are two big stories here that most people don't know yet: 1) that a fast reactor can be waste-negative, I.e. transform existing waste to energy. 2) a fast reactor destroys the long lived waste- instead of trying to store waste for a hundred thousand years it's on the order of a hundred. Both of these are critically important for existing waste but also having an emission free en…

on twitter, you asked about what people want to see on your website: THIS! especially with more detail and explanations

Re: Energy

#229

Post by rwallace »

ageofwant wrote: post #186
beat wrote: post #20

I suspect solar (including wind/biomass) + batteries is going to trounce fission reactors in the not terribly long term. If you think of finance in terms of latency/bandwidth (a model I use for lots of things), reactors are high latency - they're expensive and take a long time to set up. Meanwhile, solar/wind is heading toward dirt cheap and trivial to set up. Environmental impact is minimal, too. It doesn't require…

While I believe/hope you are right there are use cases for gigawatt energy sources that cannot be met even with pervasive PV deployments. We will not be manufacturing aluminium with solar. We won't be pumping gigga tones of C02 out of the atmosphere and seawater with solar. We won't convert the Ort cloud to habitats with solar. For that we need fusion or fission. No way around it.

Actually, aluminum manufacturing is a perfect use case for solar, because it doesn't mind intermittency. (Or put another way, manufacturing energy intensive stuff is a perfect way to provide the storage that solar needs.)

Re: Energy

#230

Post by spacefight »

jddw wrote: post #199
gordon_freeman wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The similar thing I have heard Elon Musk saying in some interview that it's just a myth that people have to think we will never able to generate enough energy out of solar-panels compared to the nuclear reactors. He said that the amount of land one needs to build a massive nuclear plant and then other things to maintain it and considering the 10-50 miles area enveloped to plant where it is dangerous to live. If you u…

This is completely false. First it is not dangerous to live in those zones, second this is a pretty accurate land comparison - http://www.thingsworsethannuclearpower.com/2012/03/using-too... . Maybe Elon should visit a nuclear plant...

Maybe we can argue that "not dangerous" is simply not true? Chernobyl, Fukushima and many other "smaller" accidents happened.
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