Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment • Hacker News Board

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#311

Post by beefman » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 3:54 AM UTC

iaw wrote: post #289

beefman wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming a very particular kind of nuclear fission machine.

I am unaware of any kind of practical nuclear fission machine that doesn't require a high initial capital investment. Could you link some examples of commercially operating units? It has been a few years since I was in the field but I was unaware of any proven changes to the fundamental economics of the industry.

There's a good chance you can see one at your local university or shipyard. The post to which you're replying doesn't use the terms "proven" or "commercial", so let's not move the goalpost. Then we can talk about YC-funded startup UPower, Fluor-owned corporation NuPower, etc. Studying engineering is also a good way to reduce reliance on examples.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#312

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 4:05 AM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #309

acqq wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is simply not enough uranium for a full build out of 3rd generation nuclear This is really important and is often avoided to be discussed: even if the 10% of all world's energy needs are covered by the nuclear energy at this moment, we know we're using some 70 Ktons of uranium per year. Then to use only nuclear energy we'd need 700 Ktons per year. Currently identified uranium resources total 5.5 Mtons, which…

It's ignored because it doesn't matter. Mineral reserves only count ore that can be extracted economically at current prices; at current prices we have sufficient uranium for well longer than it takes to find and extract more (so there is no economic incentive to look). If usage increased greatly and there was some prospect of greatly increased prices lots (hundreds of times current reserves) of marginal ores become…

No, it does matter.

Price isn't some abstract thing. It's based on cost, and that which you've got to give up to get something. The entire price system of modern civilisation is predicated on a "cost" of energy that's merely an access cost -- how much it takes to prise it from the ground. Not a replacement cost.

So our price system is predicated on widely and directly utilisable energy sources that offer 30:1 to 100:1 return on cost -- or Energy Return on Invested Energy (EROEI). That's actually down from the 100:1 to 400:1 values earlier oil and coal deposits offered. And too: I can burn coal in a stove in my house, and power or heat systems with oil ranging from fingertip size to 80 MW+ ship engines. We can argue about nuclear energy's abundance or practicality, but there's no arguing over its implementation scale: it's complex, large, and cannot directly power hand-tools, remote-controlled or piloted aircraft, and is only just barely viable for marine propulsion in noncommercial uses (the commercial shipping experiments for nuclear were failures).

Nuclear also presents risks at some different scales than we're usually given to discuss. Though arguably fossil fuel's CO2 problem is a similar example ... but that's not exactly going swimmingly at a global or even national political level.

And even if nuclear does address those issues, it still doesn't give you a portable, safe, convenient liquid fuel, which is what most quotidian applications want for. You can make your own liquid hydrocarbons, but that is expensive, raises the energy cost about 80x above what it is today (you return ~50% of your investment instead of multiplying it 40-fold), and hasn't been demonstrated at the scales we've become accustomed to.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#313

Post by cb18 » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 4:23 AM UTC

switchbak wrote: post #278

cb18 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most importantly, IMHO, they completely ignore the learning curve for solar & wind. This is a proven trend, over last decades, appears to be set to continue, and completely changes the discussion. By 'learning curve,' I guess you mean the rapidly increasing efficiency curves these technologies are on, and in the case of solar(maybe wind as well, not sure) exponentially so. I certainly agree with you, this is the most…

Equating nuclear (in all it's forms) and fracking is not particularly helpful. They're very different approaches, with radically different considerations, not to mention that some reactor designs can actually consume existing stockpiles of nuclear waste as fuel. I'm as big a critic of fracking as you're going to find, but being overly emotional and applying the fallacy of equivocation isn't helping anything here - an…

The equivalence raised was to yazriel's point of any considerations of future energy generation methods really need to be taking into account the rapid growth of renewables, and not just rapid, but exponential. Which if your unfamiliar with can be rather unintuitive. For example the human genome project was scheduled/planned for something like 10 years, in the ninth year the project was only 50% complete, but the next year the genome was fully sequenced on schedule because the technology and methods for doing so were proceeding at an exponential pace.

So the basic point is, if the available evidence is saying that it is quite likely that renewables will be covering the large majority of our energy needs rather soon then taking any undue risks, or generating energy in ways that involve long lasting undesirable effects are really the epitome of the kind of short term thinking that has gotten us into the environmental mess we are in, and is really a huge middle finger to our descendants, and that's not very nice.

Really, it could even be argued that as long our observations are telling us what they are now about the future of renewables that any present day expenditures on energy development[0] that aren't renewable focused are a huge middle finger to our descendants, and it is immoral for us to do so.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+exponential

[0]for day to day living for the majority of the planet, there is obviously worthwhile research for space travel and the like.

--- --- --- ---

some reactor designs can actually consume existing stockpiles of nuclear waste as fuel.

Are these in production? What sort of waste/byproduct do they produce? How is it different from conventional nuclear waste? Is it totally inert?

* might be hurting if the appropriate application of modern nuclear technology can actually solve many of our issues*

What issues are you referring to? The fact that much of our current energy production methods are detrimental to the planet as a whole(including us)?

Are you aware that if solar PV continues the growth curve its been on for the past ~20 years, for the next ~10 years, then the amount of solar PV produced energy in 10 years will be equal to the amount of all human produced energy today?

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#314

Post by nicobn » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 4:57 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #312

bcoates wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ignored because it doesn't matter. Mineral reserves only count ore that can be extracted economically at current prices; at current prices we have sufficient uranium for well longer than it takes to find and extract more (so there is no economic incentive to look). If usage increased greatly and there was some prospect of greatly increased prices lots (hundreds of times current reserves) of marginal ores become…

No, it does matter. Price isn't some abstract thing. It's based on cost , and that which you've got to give up to get something. The entire price system of modern civilisation is predicated on a "cost" of energy that's merely an access cost -- how much it takes to prise it from the ground. Not a replacement cost. So our price system is predicated on widely and directly utilisable energy sources that offer 30:1 to 100…

Fuel is a minuscule percentage of the cost of building and operating a nuclear reactor.

The cost of uranium is currently about $90/kg. Citing a previous poster, around 70 MT of uranium is used every year, which comes to about 6.3 G$, which comes to about 2.61 $/TWh. As per the NEI, the cost of nuclear energy is 108 $/TWh. At current prices, uranium accounts for 2.4% of the cost of producing nuclear energy.

Keeping the same profit margins under an increase of one order of magnitude of the price of uranium would mean increasing the price of nuclear energy by roughly 20%.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#315

Post by DaniFong » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 5:03 AM UTC

The numbers here are off by about two orders of magnitude on the cost of pumped hydro storage.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#316

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 5:16 AM UTC

nicobn wrote: post #314

dredmorbius wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it does matter. Price isn't some abstract thing. It's based on cost , and that which you've got to give up to get something. The entire price system of modern civilisation is predicated on a "cost" of energy that's merely an access cost -- how much it takes to prise it from the ground. Not a replacement cost. So our price system is predicated on widely and directly utilisable energy sources that offer 30:1 to 100…

Fuel is a minuscule percentage of the cost of building and operating a nuclear reactor. The cost of uranium is currently about $90/kg. Citing a previous poster, around 70 MT of uranium is used every year, which comes to about 6.3 G$, which comes to about 2.61 $/TWh. As per the NEI, the cost of nuclear energy is 108 $/TWh. At current prices, uranium accounts for 2.4% of the cost of producing nuclear energy. Keeping th…

The cost of everything else about a nuclear reactor is based in hugely understated fossil-fuel subsidised cost basis. That is going to inflate when you don't have those fossil fuels around, particularly for elements for which hydrocarbons are essential inputs or exceptionally difficult to substitute (coking coal for steel, much or all transport, chemical feedstocks, industrial process heating).

But that's less a concern to me than the technological stack and global risk associated with massive (15,000+ reactors) deployment of nuclear technology. Present major incident rate has been about 1 per 100 years of plant operation. How much are we going to cut that down to? 1 per 1,000 years? 1 pere 10,000 years?

Because that's one or more major nuclear accidents per year at a 15,000+ plant scale.

Even getting the rate down to a few per century adds up over sufficient time, and I presume you're in this for the long haul.

Who manages plants and waste processing during major economic disruptions or times of total war between nuclear powered states (which would be, let me check, um, all of them).

The systemic risk side kinda bugs me a bit.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#317

Post by pdkl95 » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 5:28 AM UTC

cb18 wrote: post #313

switchbak wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating nuclear (in all it's forms) and fracking is not particularly helpful. They're very different approaches, with radically different considerations, not to mention that some reactor designs can actually consume existing stockpiles of nuclear waste as fuel. I'm as big a critic of fracking as you're going to find, but being overly emotional and applying the fallacy of equivocation isn't helping anything here - an…

The equivalence raised was to yazriel's point of any considerations of future energy generation methods really need to be taking into account the rapid growth of renewables, and not just rapid, but exponential. Which if your unfamiliar with can be rather unintuitive. For example the human genome project was scheduled/planned for something like 10 years, in the ninth year the project was only 50% complete, but the nex…

Why is it that solar is always sold based on what might be available in a few decades, while nuclear is judged as if 1950s technology was the only option?

Complaining about the supposed problem of nuclear "waste" (really, unused fuel) is the equivalent of someone today complaining that computers were too large to be useful outside of a few labs. Who would want a "computer" when only a handful of labs would be able to afford the high maintenance costs (replacing vacuum tubes is expensive).

> Are these in production?

No, due to the roadblocks put up by anti-nuclear activists and governments that prefer reactors that generate certain isotopes of plutonium.

> What sort of waste/byproduct do they produce?

The entire point of a breeder reactor is to burn through most of the fuel. We currently only use about 3% of the fuel we put in the reactor. Any breeder should only leave a few % of problematic fission-product waste.

This gets even better when you consider that some of that "waste" is actually useful for various purposes. However, even in the case of the old wasteful-1950s-tech reactor, the amount of waste involved is so trivial, it's hard to compare even to "renewable" technology like solar. (making PV cells has it's own waste/pollution problems

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-...

Also, another bonus of using the decay chains of thorium's fission products is that the worst isotopes produced only last on the hundred-year scale, not thousands of years.

> How is it different from conventional nuclear waste?

You're talking a handful of grams per-person-per-year, see above.

The question you should really be asking instead is why every other form of power generation isn't held to the same standards.

> Is it totally inert?

It's far more inert than anything you will find dumped into a coal tailings pond, and I'd rather be near a tiny amount of nuclear power waste than the chemicals used to make PV cells.

> Are you aware that if solar...

Are you aware that most of these "larger" (lol) solar installations are de facto running on natural gas? I'm all for using a variety of technologies, and solar certainly should be an important part of energy generation. Unfortunately, until we find a way to store power quickly and efficiently at the TWh-scale, these unreliable technologies are not viable for base load power.

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#318

Post by BurningFrog » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 5:37 AM UTC

posnet wrote: post #262

yazriel wrote: post #187

The article is completely unprofessional. The tone itself is very one-sided - which is bad enough. However, the factual omissions are ridiculous. Here are a few examples: the area used for wind turbines is large, but it is usually re-usable for agriculture, or increasingly off shore official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of…

> official nuclear death are low - but there is a lot of dispute on the "long tail" of long term deaths from the big nuclear disasters of Ukraine and Japan Fukushima happened too soon, and it will be a long time before the results of that disaster on the healthy of the surrounding people can be properly analysed. Chernobyl on the other hand has been studied extensively and considering the scale of the disaster the to…

Those are very high numbers.

> estimated 2000 caused due to directed exposure to clean up workers at the site itself

The more common numbers you see are under 50.

This Slate article goes over the uncertainty: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#319

Post by _urga » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 5:55 AM UTC

A nuclear researcher from iThemba Labs gave a talk at University of Cape Town shortly after the Fukushima accident.

1. During his talk, he mentioned that nuclear plants are designed to have a very low probability of Chernobyl-scale failure, and that the current rate of Chernobyl-scale failure given the number of nuclear plants in production is roughly 1 every 20 years.

2. He eventually concluded his talk by saying that we should double the number of nuclear plants in production around the world to remove our dependence on coal.

I asked a question at the end of his talk, given point 1. then point 2. would mean 1 Chernobyl every 10 years. He was completely dumbfounded. He had never combined his ideas with simple probability theory. One physics student present then said angrily: "Yes, but we will get better at building nuclear plants."

Re: Why nuclear energy is our best option at the moment

#320

Post by martinald » Wed, Nov 04, 2015, 6:18 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #67

martinald wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make any sense. Wind and Solar PV have to be financed for probably 99% of the upfront cost. All power generation is like that - very capital intensive.

If you can raise $1B/year for 10 years for an energy project, to build nuclear, you'd have to wait roughly 5 years to accumulate enough capital to start construction and then it'd be at very least 5 more years before you got a dime in revenue. If you wanted to deploy solar, you could buy $1B/year off a manufacturing line, start earning revenue from day 1, and start making payments to your investors.

Understand your point - but you can split nuclear into smaller phases too and phase them in.

Solar and wind aren't immune to this either. You don't want to generally build things say 10MW at a time - that would require 100 rounds of planning, regulator approval, engineering design and the like for a big utlity scale solar and wind plant. You generally do it in big chunks too. And there have been big holdups especially in getting grid interconnect.