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Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

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Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#241

Post by pfdietz »

petre wrote: post #202
pjc50 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really two kinds of waste: spent fuel (which can be effectively recycled, leaving only a tiny bit of extremely dangerous lanthanides, actinides, and plutonium), and "lower level" waste. The latter includes pretty much every other part of the reactor building after it's decomissioned. > positive PR campaign The nuclear industry has been at this for decades; at this stage, the PR is part of the problem. My view…

We can build plants with SMRs. These should fix most of the issues of larger plants except maybe decomissioning. It should be easier to decomission 12 x 60 MW modules instead of a single 720 MW utility scale reactor. At least you can transport the smaller modules without dissasembly.

Nuclear power plants got big because operating costs do not scale linearly with reactor size. SMR advocates have not explained why their concepts will not be killed by increased operating cost per kWh.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#242

Post by pfdietz »

AngryData wrote: post #158
Tharkun wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Haven't nuclear waste recycling and safety features gotten really good in the past few decades? I thought you were being snarky at first, but the rest of the comment appears to indicate you're being serious. In Belgium we've been stuck in endless discussions regarding what to do with our nuclear waste. We used to dump it in the sea, which was probably a bad idea. Now it's stored in barrels which are apparently leak…

Part of the problem is the difficulty in building new reactors, which means old and outdated reactor designs remain in operation which cannot utilize or recycle nuclear material because our nuclear knowledge at the time was lacking. If your reactor was built in the 70s or 80s, it was probably designed in the 60s which means 60s era nuclear technology, only 20 years after we first discovered nuclear power in the first…

But, PV has gone through many generations of technology over the years. That's why its cost has gone down by a factor of 300 or so.

If nuclear hasn't iterated as much, that's the fault of nuclear, not the cruel oppressing world. It's a technology that's big and slow to evolve, and that's ultimately lethal.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#243

Post by pfdietz »

politician wrote: post #93
Meandering wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the issues with solar power that gets overlooked. The physical 'stuff' needed to build a large solar farm is far more than a base nuclear plant. After a quick search: Solar Panels Lifespan - ~25 years - Good Grid Battery Lifespan - 5-10 years - ehh.. If we switched to 100% solar, with a majority of the equipment probably manufactured in China, there would be an orders of magnitude more physical product…

Nuclear plant lifespan - 75+ years - Best

In an environment of rapid technological change, a long lifespan has little value. Would you buy a PC because it was promised to last for 75 years?

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#244

Post by [deleted] »

gamegoblin wrote: post #136
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply comparing lifespans is extremely misleading. We need to look at the potential risk associated with waste. Solar panel waste: grind and reuse. Health risk: negligible. Battery waste: empty, disassemble and reuse. Health risk: very moderate. Nuclear waste: highly radioactive for thousands of years. No way to recovery leaks in the environment. Health risk: very high.

> Solar panel waste: grind and reuse. Health risk: negligible. Do you have a source that solar panels can simply be ground up and reused? The article linked in the top level comment implies that recycling solar panels is much harder that one might think, and that solar panels are full of toxic heavy metals that are not "negligible" health risk.

[deleted]

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#245

Post by pfdietz »

nickik wrote: post #238
pfdietz wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market destroyed nuclear, or rather recognized the failure of nuclear. This failure predates the regulations nuclear fans use to try to deflect blame from their energy waifu. Nuclear power was NEVER going to be very cheap. Even in the 1950s, it was recognized that the cost of the common elements of coal and nuclear plants were going to restrict nuclear to being MAYBE 20% cheaper than coal, at best, and that…

> The free market destroyed nuclear, or rather recognized the failure of nuclear. The industry was incredibly young and just starting. Nuclear was actually competing on the free market against coal. Many many more nuclear projects were planed, and nuclear had fastest transition from any energy form to another when it was cut off by regulatory change. Claiming its early development was a failure is totally wrong. > Nu…

Nuclear was "competing" against coal when vendors were lowballing bids (or eating cost overruns themselves on a few fixed-cost contracts before they learned to not do that.)

The first nuclear building boom in the US went disastrously badly on costs. That's ultimately why it ended, not accidents or regulations. The economics just didn't work.

Forbes magazine in Feb 1985 said it well:

"The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale. The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out, and only the blind, or the biased, can now think that most of the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible."

The only places in the world where nuclear has "succeeded" are those where opaque financial systems have cloaked the true cost of the technology.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#246

Post by nickik »

pfdietz wrote: post #245
nickik wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The free market destroyed nuclear, or rather recognized the failure of nuclear. The industry was incredibly young and just starting. Nuclear was actually competing on the free market against coal. Many many more nuclear projects were planed, and nuclear had fastest transition from any energy form to another when it was cut off by regulatory change. Claiming its early development was a failure is totally wrong. > Nu…

Nuclear was "competing" against coal when vendors were lowballing bids (or eating cost overruns themselves on a few fixed-cost contracts before they learned to not do that.) The first nuclear building boom in the US went disastrously badly on costs. That's ultimately why it ended, not accidents or regulations. The economics just didn't work. Forbes magazine in Feb 1985 said it well: "The failure of the U.S. nuclear p…

Before regulation changed, many being built and many more being planned, after regulation changed, no new reactors built in 30 years. The fastest energy transformation in human history, but I'm sure that just because of a managerial errors.

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#247

Post by nickik »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #221
nickik wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What keeps it from widespread adoption isn't that people are scared. Its the regulatory framework that was put into place after the accidents. They have killed the industry and pretty much all progress.

I don't think this is true. Ask people how they feel about nuclear energy. Then ask them how they feel about living near a nuclear plant. Regulations are difficult to navigate but if there is sufficient want and need then they will be navigated. See any government contract work.

I'm sorry but this is just not true. There is a large amount of difference between navigating regulation a software contract or a road compared to a nuclear plant.

Its quite literally impossible to operate a prototype reactor for example. You literally need to build a production version on your first try to even get fissile materials.

To actually being able to regulate something you need to pay the DoE and they don't even give you a timeline. "Hallo I like to build this new reactor, here are the plans", "Thanks now give us 100M$ and 2-4 years and then we will tell you all the things that we required, then you can submit it again (with more money of course)".

Re: Steep decline in nuclear power would threaten energy security and climate goals

#248

Post by pfdietz »

nickik wrote: post #246
pfdietz wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear was "competing" against coal when vendors were lowballing bids (or eating cost overruns themselves on a few fixed-cost contracts before they learned to not do that.) The first nuclear building boom in the US went disastrously badly on costs. That's ultimately why it ended, not accidents or regulations. The economics just didn't work. Forbes magazine in Feb 1985 said it well: "The failure of the U.S. nuclear p…

Before regulation changed, many being built and many more being planned, after regulation changed, no new reactors built in 30 years. The fastest energy transformation in human history, but I'm sure that just because of a managerial errors.

And as I said, the costs of those plants were escalating, even before changes to regulations. BTW, the most impactful regulatory change wasn't even targeted at nuclear at all, although a court ruling was needed to inform the industry and the AEC that the law (NEPA) also applied to nuclear power plants (Calvert Cliffs decision).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvert_Cliffs_Coordinating_Co...

http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2019/01/17/nuclear-plant-construct...

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