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A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#31

Post by skybrian »

thatcat wrote: post #17
imtringued wrote: post #14

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

Your cost analysis neglects replacement, disposal costs for batteries, long term costs of carbon emission, and coal flyash disposal. The only reason nuclear is losing to gas and coal is because the externalities of the mess they make are dumped on the public, whereas nuclear pollution and waste processing is heavily regulated.

Doesn't nuclear power have subsized costs as well? I'm thinking of the Price-Anderson Act.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#32

Post by Eric_WVGG »

beaconstudios wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries can be recycled, nuclear waste is stockpiled with no permanent disposal or recycling plan in sight. Solar and wind, unsubsidized, with storage, are already cheaper than nuclear. Those costs will continue to plummet, especially as EV battery demand ramps (rapidly expanding battery manufacturing capacity). Nuclear lost because it’s too expensive, and has its own externalities to ignore (decommissioning, waste…

this might sound silly (and it probably is), but I don't understand why we don't build a hulking great cannon and shoot our nuclear waste into space.

because a misfire would result in a fine mist of nuclear fallout spread over the entire planet

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#33

Post by eseehausen »

beaconstudios wrote: post #30
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries can be recycled, nuclear waste is stockpiled with no permanent disposal or recycling plan in sight. Solar and wind, unsubsidized, with storage, are already cheaper than nuclear. Those costs will continue to plummet, especially as EV battery demand ramps (rapidly expanding battery manufacturing capacity). Nuclear lost because it’s too expensive, and has its own externalities to ignore (decommissioning, waste…

this might sound silly (and it probably is), but I don't understand why we don't build a hulking great cannon and shoot our nuclear waste into space.

Because we already know how to store it for thousands of years with minimal leakage without creating a contraption that could lead to nuclear waste raining down on our heads.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#34

Post by beachy »

hunta2097 wrote: post #18
mikestew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…

Great insight. I am fond of the phrase "final generation nuclear". We need 30 years of nuclear fission before we can sustain fusion. I think we're already past the point where some nuclear risk is acceptable. It's not a zero sum game - fossel fuels are already being used with risk. We need to take some (calculated) risks again.

Agree, and maybe we should start installing more, smaller, less safe nuclear reactors (hence cheaper and more widespread), to the point where people are ok with the occasional failure and even with occasional loss of life resulting.

The vastly greater dangers of environmental collapse from global warning are so relatively long term that people can't make sensible risk analyses about them, hence the terror around nuclear and the nonchalance around reducing carbon emissions which are far more threatening.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#35

Post by intopieces »

tpkj wrote: post #19

Another factor to consider with nuclear is how it perpetuates complete dependence upon the grid, a single point of failure model. Perspective articulated here by Sunnova CEO John Berger. https://youtu.be/6Dx0U2y-YgU?t=2922

Nuclear doesn’t perpetuate complete dependence, because it has never been intended to be the sole provider of energy to its customers. Even the most ardent nuclear cheerleaders pose it as a single component in an energy mix.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#36

Post by beaconstudios »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #32
beaconstudios wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this might sound silly (and it probably is), but I don't understand why we don't build a hulking great cannon and shoot our nuclear waste into space.

because a misfire would result in a fine mist of nuclear fallout spread over the entire planet

hmm, I guess that's not ideal.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#37

Post by wbl »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #20
imtringued wrote: post #14

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

The missing link is to build up solar capacity to refill your battery. To refill the battery you need to generate 57600MWh each day. Assuming that we get 12 hours of sunlight per day at 50% efficiency, you that comes down to 2 (efficiency factor) * 57600MWh / (12 hours / day) = 9600 MWh solar installation. At $1 / Watt, 9600 MWh solar installation comes down to $9.6 billion. Assuming my math is correct, this seems pr…

The winter vs. summer amount can be far more, and then you have heating costs to provide power for.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#38

Post by Johnny555 »

v_lisivka wrote: post #27
mikestew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…

We can build one CO2 capture factory in Nevada desert to capture excessive CO2 and bury it there. I see no difference.

It seems easier to not produce the CO2 in the first place than to produce it then run another industrial process to remove it... which in turn uses even more electricity.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#39

Post by crdoconnor »

lucb1e wrote: post #28

I see so many people against nuclear but I wonder if they read books such as Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air. As I understand it, either we kill ourselves fast, or we use this as a stop-gap until we can figure it out for real. With newer reactors being much better, maybe another generation (helped by more implementations) will even be good enough not to have to be a stop-gap solution.

Three questions that I have never had satisfactorily answered by nuclear advocates:

* If nuclear is that safe, why don't we eliminate or at least, significantly raise the nuclear liability cap? The nuclear industry keeps trying to sell us (this article included) on the idea that disasters are now close to impossible. It'd be an easier sell if they voluntarily increased their liability, to, say $150-400 billion and found private insurers willing to take a risk on their safety, no?

* Did you personally consider Japan's nuclear plants unsafe before Fukushima? (as far as I can tell it took most of us by surprise)

* If the strike price for Hinkley point electricity is 1.5x-2x renewable strike price today (never mind in 10 years when renewable prices have plunged again), what exactly was so great about building a "next gen" nuclear plant?

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#40

Post by saagarjha »

v_lisivka wrote: post #27
mikestew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…

We can build one CO2 capture factory in Nevada desert to capture excessive CO2 and bury it there. I see no difference.

The amount of CO2 is orders of magnitude more than the amount of radioactive waste; you cannot just build “one factory in Nevada” and sequester all the carbon dioxide produced.
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