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Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

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Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#361

Post by m101 »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #343
m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

> the harms from radiation exposure are mostly precisely zero You had me until this. “Mostly precisely”? What does that even mean man?

The reason is that your body has mechanisms to fix the problems of radiation. For example, when you drop a stone in water would you say that you "break the surface of the water"?

Our DNA is very similar - DNA damage occurs naturally. Our body has processes that fix DNA strand breaks. Radiation that occurs because of most exposure that has ever occurred is so minimal that the body's natural defences against radiation damange means that the harm is precisely zero. The body literally repaired itself much like that water surface repairs itself.

Harm does occur however when the rate of radiation exposure exceeds our body's ability to repair itself. However this threshold is well above any threshold we regulate around.

For more information the key words are "dna double strand breaks" and "LNT vs SNT"

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#362

Post by esarbe »

orangecat wrote: post #222
esarbe wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no false information there. Nuclear is complex and so expensive that despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel. It's also slow, with building times up to more than a decade. France tried it. Now their nuclear operator is €50 billion in the negatives, makes about €3 billion per year in profits and has to invest about €150 billion in new reactors, upgrad…

It always amuses me when nuclear power is the one area where the left becomes Very Concerned about excessive government spending. despite 70 years of tinkering and trying it hasn't managed to make a noticeable dent in fossil fuel Except for France which came up with the clever strategy of "not banning it", but that was apparently a mistake and they should have just used fossil fuels? Now their nuclear operator is €50…

I'm not actually that concerned about excessive government spending. I just don't like wasteful spending, and that's what nuclear is.

Wind and PV build up much faster, are orders of magnitudes less complex and provide cheaper electricity.

There is just no reason to build nuclear.

> €50 billion for several decades of clean energy seems like a pretty good deal.

No, that €50 billion is just what EDF is in the reds. The actual cost is much, much higher, of course. French citizens still have to pay for their electricity, after all.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#363

Post by Czarcasm »

chinathrow wrote: post #339
m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

Can you elaborate why waste is not a problem?

In 2015-2016 I did some mechanical engineering work at BWXT, designing nuclear waste containers for the Bruce Power CANDU reactor refurbishment program.

I learned that the spent fuel storage is pretty trivial for a few reasons:

1. The amount of fuel waste produced by a reactor is volumetrically tiny. So it's not too expensive to just have a relatively small guarded yard of sealed storage casks next to the reactor, where the fuel can sit and decay until safe for offsite disposal (typically around 60 years).

2. Safe waste storage containers are relatively easy to make. Most containers only need to be a thick stainless steel inner liner and a stainless steel outer liner filled with a special mixture of concrete. The nuclear waste is dropped in, the lid is bolted shut, then the container can be safely left in a guarded open yard for >100 years. They are safe by virtue of just having ridiculously thick welded stainless steel walls. We designed them to fall off a train going over a bridge, fall 300ft onto solid rock, and not break.

3. Reactor technology keeps getting better at extracting more energy from fuel. So what was "waste" in a past decade, can be put back into a reactor that is better at pulling energy out of the fuel. For this reason, there hasn't actually been much actual "fuel waste" in the history of the nuclear industry. It's all just being stored for future use by better reactors.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#364

Post by m101 »

lemoncucumber wrote: post #356
m101 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, in my own words it's something like this: - nuclear waste, after a period of the order of ~10e2/3 years is only dangerous if ingested. So it's as dangerous as any other poisonous substance after that point. There is no need for radiation shielding from that point. - nuclear waste is very dense and so physical surface storage is cheap, and a solved problem (see: dry storage casks). We can fix leaks if/when they ha…

~10e2/3 is a very unclear what of writing whatever number you're trying to write

100-1000 years order of magnitude. I can't remember exactly, but it's well within our ability to engineer and manage, rather than the signs that try to answer the "how do we communicate danger to later species" types of timelines

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#365

Post by legitster »

chinathrow wrote: post #339
m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

Can you elaborate why waste is not a problem?

They could do what the fossil fuel industry does and just disperse it into the atmosphere until it disappears behind background radiation.

Realistically deep geologic storage is absolutely fine, and even if it's not happening now, all of the waste can be safely stored above ground for hundreds of years.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#366

Post by doodledoodahs »

Czarcasm wrote: post #363
chinathrow wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate why waste is not a problem?

In 2015-2016 I did some mechanical engineering work at BWXT, designing nuclear waste containers for the Bruce Power CANDU reactor refurbishment program. I learned that the spent fuel storage is pretty trivial for a few reasons: 1. The amount of fuel waste produced by a reactor is volumetrically tiny. So it's not too expensive to just have a relatively small guarded yard of sealed storage casks next to the reactor, wh…

What about the waste inherent in decommissioning plants?

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#367

Post by pfdietz »

m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

Yes, we know nuclear is actually super great, because of all the merchant nuclear plants that have been built around the world.

Here is a complete list of those plants:

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#368

Post by jurgenaut23 »

Lots of people in this thread look at this as a pro/anti-nuclear debate. But few people consider the fact that the first election from the said nuclear plant will be produced 25 years from now in the very best case. Plus, nuclear plants have a huge cooling problem during summertime.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#369

Post by lenerdenator »

onraglanroad wrote: post #350
lenerdenator wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China probably fits in the "politically undesirable" category these days. Considering the Europeans are currently hollowing out their industrial base by importing Chinese EVs instead of building their own, I don't see a nuclear reactor being a bridge too far.

European car manufacturers have been given every opportunity and encouragement to build EVs and the phrase "dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century" springs to mind. People are buying BYD because they're better cars, not because they're forced to.

I mean, it's their industrial base. They can do what they want with it.

I can just tell you as a person from the Midwestern US that the whole "we'll get lower prices that justify unemploying a bunch of people" doesn't work out like they said it would, and that empowering a potential geopolitical rival doesn't really help either.

Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants

#370

Post by pfdietz »

SXX wrote: post #349
m101 wrote: post #319

It is depressing reading hacker news threads on nuclear power because of just how misinformed so many people still are. These things are all true, and it's on the reader for not knowing: - nuclear power is expensive by choice. It is not inherent to nuclear power - nuclear waste is not a problem - nuclear energy comes in many forms. Not only high pressure reactors - we are all going to be poorer, and live in a more po…

Biggest problem is that people not aware of how many closed down or not built nuclear power plants been replaced with coal power plants. And coal kills more people in a week than all nuclear incidents killed in all history of humanity. Not even mention that coal power plants release more radioactive materials too.

Which nuclear plants were replaced with coal plants?

If you say "German plants", I'll point out coal consumption for power generation in Germany has gone down since the decision to phase out nuclear.

Coal consumption would likely have gone down even more with nuclear still being used, but that doesn't support your claim as stated.

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