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Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

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Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#301

Post by natmaka »

renaudg wrote: post #263
natmaka wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear that this is a specifically nuclear issue An evacuation triggered by a nuclear major accident seems specific to nuclear to me, in the sense: if, instead of this nuclear plant, some field occupied by wind turbines or solar panels were build, there would be no need to evacuate. > Had an area been evacuated due to earthquakes making the ground unstable No human being can control nor counter this sort of…

> We can decide to build wind/solar instead of nuclear reactors. That's what Germany did, but such intermittent renewables can't power an industry-heavy country by themselves for obvious reasons (e.g. the sun tends to set at night) No matter how much renewables capacity you want to install, you always need a controllable and reliable source for the baseload : that will be either coal, gas, hydro or nuclear. Only two…

> - They don't want nuclear because politics.

No. Because Fukushima. At the end of 2010 Germany enacted a law extending the operating life of nuclear reactors. Then Fukushima happened and all political parties in Germany closed nuclear reactors: https://x.com/HannoKlausmeier/status/1784158942823690561

> sold by a Greenpeace-affiliated

Facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Planet_Energy

> The only other solution left is coal,

Facts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41768679

Yes, coal is a disaster. Nuclear risks (major accident, waste, proliferation...) is a potential disaster.

> deaths in neighbouring countries, every year

True, and quite sad. No nation yells because each is a culprit: emissions caused by France's fossil fuels (transportation, industry...) is far superior to those of the German gridpower system. We can agree that all this is a catastrophic state of affairs. Germany's nuclear phaseout is a drop in the sea and wasn't conducted due to some whim.

> Nuclear is like air travel : spectacular when it fails, but much safer

The amount of victims of past accident is controversial, therefore this is controversial.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#302

Post by natmaka »

belorn wrote: post #237
natmaka wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key difference is that an evacuation triggered by a major nuclear accident could have been avoided (typically: by building renewables instead of a nuclear plant). > Was the evacuation poorly executed in Japan? This is a matter of debate. During the Fukushima nuclear accident information was scarce and volatile, specialists said that evacuating up to Tokyo may prove necessary (this was revealed by Kan Naoto, then Ja…

The Oroville Dam crisis could have been avoided if the power plant did proper maintenance on the dam, and the power plant management was found as being the primary cause of the accident. Dams are in general man made and maintain multiple nuclear bombs in terms of energy in potential, which need to be handled with care. The crisis had as much to do with the weather as Fukushima had to do with earthquakes. Much of the…

The Oroville Dam didn't collapse and the crisis didn't make a single victim

Is there a debate about those raw facts?

https://damfailures.org/case-study/oroville-dam-california-2...

> handled with care > proper planning and prevention

I agree. Everyone can fail. Letting very dangerous tiny material undetectable without a complex equipment and active for years getting out then be dispersed on huge areas by wind/rain/... is a nuclear exclusive. Moreover the most risky type of renewables (dams) has more inertia (it cannot trigger an accident in mere minutes, it is more robust). As we now have industrial renewables there is no reason to deploy nuclear anymore.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#303

Post by Dalewyn »

natmaka wrote: post #298
Dalewyn wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Characterizing the failure of politicians as a failure of nuclear power is the error in logic I am talking about.

Refusing to understand that everyone (politician or not) can fail and that if we now can replace something dangerous in case of failure (nuclear) by something new which isn't (renewables), we should do so... is the error in logic I am talking about.

You're essentially arguing that kitchen knives should be banned because a small handful of psychos will murder someone with them.

That isn't how this works.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#304

Post by locallost »

zdragnar wrote: post #273
locallost wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels last a lot more than 20-25 years. There is a guarantee you will still get 80% of the capacity after this time, but the panels will continue to work after that just fine.

Assuming they aren't hit by hail, or large branches, manufacturing defect in an onboard micro inverter, or any other reason, yes, solar panels don't just die at the year 20 mark. Instead, they supply 1/5 less power than they were originally rated for, which means the system needs to be expanded or replaced to do what it was provisioned to do.

Your original claim they last only 20-25 years was false. I'm glad you at least became aware of that.

This next round of criticism is also weak, it seems to me you just have an axe to grind.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#305

Post by slt2021 »

natmaka wrote: post #292
slt2021 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If a nation cannot buy uranium (scarce resources, embargo...) not an issue at all, Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan, bunch of other nations mine and sell uranium. Whenever there are big mountain ranges, there is uranium. and it is cheap as a commodity

Current uranium reserves are sufficient, under current obtention conditions, for slightly over 130 years of supply. Nuclear now produces, worldwide, less than 10% of electricity (which is less than 2.2% of total final energy). Double the reactor fleet and each new one will only produce under current conditions for 60 years (in other words it will probably be quite difficult to finance). Canada and Australia pertain t…

this is not an issue at all, Ukraine is at war with Russia, yet Russia continues to pump natural gas through Ukraine to Europe and even pays $$$ to Ukraine for transit (!!!!)

When it comes to commodity trading - $$$ trumps everything.

uranium reserves are plentiful, given that you dont need a lot of Uranium to recharge the plant

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-global-uranium-rese...

the most importantly: for Uranium producer there is zero reason to withhold uranium. Like what are you gonna do by stockpiling radioactive rock ??? You just gonna lose your customer to another country. Isn't it better to get rid of radioactive rock and get $$$ instead?

even OPEC cannot agree to maintain oil production to keep price stable, there is absolutely ZERO chance someone can cause trouble on uranium market

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#306

Post by philipkglass »

klyrs wrote: post #286
philipkglass wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "super duper radioactive material" you're so afraid of is what's left of the fuel. It's full of energy. This precious fuel is so full of energy that it gets very hot ("decay heat"). Fresh reactor fuel is even more full of potential energy but it doesn't get hot because uranium 235 and 238 have very long half lives. Fuel that has been used in a reactor gets hot primarily due to fission products (lighter elements f…

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't that "used pizza box" fuel more or less ideal for a breeder reactor?

It could be reprocessed for use in a breeder reactor, but breeders are not attractive at present or foreseeable uranium prices. They make the expensive part of nuclear power (capital costs) even more expensive to save money on the part that doesn't cost much at all (making fuel from mined uranium). If nuclear power expanded drastically then breeders might be more affordable than exploiting really marginal uranium sources, but otherwise they make the economics of nuclear power worse.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#307

Post by natmaka »

slt2021 wrote: post #305
natmaka wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current uranium reserves are sufficient, under current obtention conditions, for slightly over 130 years of supply. Nuclear now produces, worldwide, less than 10% of electricity (which is less than 2.2% of total final energy). Double the reactor fleet and each new one will only produce under current conditions for 60 years (in other words it will probably be quite difficult to finance). Canada and Australia pertain t…

this is not an issue at all, Ukraine is at war with Russia, yet Russia continues to pump natural gas through Ukraine to Europe and even pays $$$ to Ukraine for transit (!!!!) When it comes to commodity trading - $$$ trumps everything. uranium reserves are plentiful, given that you dont need a lot of Uranium to recharge the plant https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-global-uranium-rese... the most importantly: for…

> Ukraine is at war with Russia

This single fact shows, according to you, that no embargo can ever happen in the future. I abandon this "conclusion" to you.

Uranium reserves are to be considered in current conditions, all reserves are not immediately available nor equivalent (ore grade...).

> there is zero reason to withhold uranium

There will be more and more reasons to do so if it becomes scarce and needed by superpowers.

> even OPEC

Because the superpowers are at ease with the current situation (shale oil plays a major role here). Oil already triggered wars.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#308

Post by littlestymaar »

bamboozled wrote: post #284
littlestymaar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What technologies are Japanese companies developing here, Do you think the technology already exists off the shelf already? > does the tax payer get any of that privately held revenue back in return? Japan's taxpayers also happen to be Japanese people employed in these companies, so they get their share of that revenues. And the price doesn't even account for the taxes that are paid back to the government directly.

Japanese wages are notorious for being lower that a lot of the developed world and there is a problem with stagnant wage growth. I don't think there is any need to try justify a screw up on this level as being good. Fukushima was a disaster, economically and for the image of nuclear globally.

Nobody said otherwise, you are desperately moving the goalpost here.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#309

Post by natmaka »

vlovich123 wrote: post #300
natmaka wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the renewables case they’re needed for transportation AND grid. Indeed. So? There are more and more vehicles, and the average amount of electricity they store (reflected by their autonomy) grows. One of the reasons is well-known: https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline > no forward movement This isn't true, many experiments are running ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid#Research ) Even EDF,…

The drawbacks section is pretty damming that this is unlikely to work: > JB Straubel, then chief technology officer of Tesla Inc, discounted V2G, claiming that battery wear outweighs economic benefit.[87] A 2017 study found decreasing capacity,[88][89] and a 2012 hybrid-EV study found minor benefit.[90] A 2015 study[91] found that economic analyses favorable to V2G failed to include many of the less obvious costs ass…

> Tesla

... didn't at the time (circa 2015) like V2G because it competed with its Powerwall project. This is a completely obsolete consideration: https://zecar.com/reviews/2024-tesla-model-y-bidirectional-c...

> decreasing capacity

This is true. However this is to put in perspective with the financial impact: batteries are (from a technical viewpoint) more and more able to cope with this and charging during cheap electricity times then partially discharging when electricity is expensive will reduce the overall cost of the vehicle.

> A 2015 study

Obsolete.

Re: Fukushima Reactor: TEPCO robot aims to extract nuclear fuel

#310

Post by natmaka »

Dalewyn wrote: post #303
natmaka wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to understand that everyone (politician or not) can fail and that if we now can replace something dangerous in case of failure (nuclear) by something new which isn't (renewables), we should do so... is the error in logic I am talking about.

You're essentially arguing that kitchen knives should be banned because a small handful of psychos will murder someone with them. That isn't how this works.

No, because we have ne replacement for kitchen knives.

We have a replacement for nuclear: renewables.

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