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Ultra Safe Nuclear

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Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#501

Post by godelski »

jka wrote: post #436
godelski wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have been wondering whether much of the evident pro-nuclear lobbying recently (it seems apparent on many threads here related to energy generation) I think you are misunderstanding the selection bias. We're on HN, the selection bias here is that people tend to be more tech savvy and more informed. We have nuclear scientists here. You typically see acidburnNSA commenting in all these posts. I myself did radiation sh…

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. There's definitely more tech-savvy on HN than many other places, but there's also a certain element of desire to find innovative and exciting solutions, especially when they alter or disrupt some existing industry. Simultaneously - and partly thanks to that skew - I think this is an influential forum and the likelihood for discussions and radical ideas that are shared here to shape re…

To quench your concerns a bit, I should mention that the reason nuclear has such a high safety record is because it is one of the most regulated industries, as it should be. When we consider radiation dosage levels, safe is magnitudes below what we've measured to be dangerous. Most of us that have worked in or adjacent to this technology are actually happy with this. There is real improvement that needs to be made in regulation though, because there is such a thing as too cautious (i.e. making a small reactor have the same insurance liability as a large reactor. Another example I've seen is "Hey, we did all the sims and testing, x method is better and safer and cheaper" and get responds back "x is untested in practice, we will keep doing y because it is proven." So the industry is a bit slow moving). But there are many that aren't in the industry that do not understand the nuances are try to push more. But I assure you that they don't have the ears of regulators. These are the people screaming about Thorium on Reddit that don't know a proton from an alpha particle. Every scientist I know in the field is much more risk adverse than I see in other fields. Quite frankly, for good reason. The reason for the "knows the most, fears the least" comment is because after you've studied this stuff for years, seen safety practices, understand the levels of added safety, you realize that accidents are difficult because so much thought has gone into preventing them. So armchair scientists are saying "why don't we advance like we do in other tech" but actual scientists are saying "Hey, it is time we use the decades of simulation science and knowledge in practice." The difference is subtle, but distinct. You'll find that scientists are different from your average software engineer.

I want to also say that if I see the industry moving away from its high safety principles I will gladly fight against it.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#502

Post by cmehdy »

pfdietz wrote: post #493
cmehdy wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[1] Aeons ago means litteraly nothing. You can contemplate gradual improvements to the EROI, but they don't change by an order of magnitude despite the metric truckton of money we've been throwing at the problem. The order of magnitude does not change, the output doesn't really significantly shift either. [2] Land area occupied by renewables doesn't make it INFEASIBLE, can you stop putting it words into my mouth I di…

EROI of renewables is just fine, and getting even better. Attempts to argue it's not have been thoroughly debunked. About land area: you said this "I'm making the claim because it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time." If land area (which…

There is enough surface to put PV panels in many places, and the reason why I don't just say land is because enthusiasts will also consider rooftops (which aren't optimal in terms of tech and output as you surely know - the significant farms do require requisitioning actual land and it isn't insignificant in itself[0]). But there isn't enough surface for PV to preclude the usage of nuclear, which is what I've been saying all along. Reminder for the n-th time that it's not a XOR when it comes to using all the sources alternatives to fossil fuels, it's an OR in many places and an AND in some. I've been saying repeatedly that the OR wins in favour of nuclear for energy throughput, not that the OR precludes from having them and there isn't and AND in other places.

You haven't impeached anything by saying he lied about rare minerals, since earlier generations of PV did require those. You just brushed off the person because it's harder to brush off the argument.

The IPCC reports (btw if you had read the page you'd see the 2020 one is inbound so you've got to use the previous ones) have over decades highlighted the unpredictability of changes regarding habitability of places (i.e. typically related to RCP scenarios) and changes in weather patterns. The very same things that I've been mentioning multiple times as being factors that influence the ability to have steady renewables.

Let's take a look at that one[1] ("aeons ago" to you, as if the world magically changed since).

P5 Changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhousegases (GHGs) and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation al-ter the energy balance of the climate system.

P13 phenomenon and directions of trends, just take the most likely ones and explain to me how your PV panels will handle those better than a nuclear power plant where the power production gives no qualms about rain, cloud cover and temperature (since they're literally built to handle terrorist attacks)

P13 again "Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impactsthat are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rateand magnitude of the climate change.", please do enlighten me about how well you can predict that your PVs are going to give you any steady power output at any given location over the duration of their existence

The rest of the IPCC reports tend to indicate shifts in patterns that we can barely predict, yet somehow again you feel entirely comfortable without a proof that PV can stand the changes in {cloud cover, fires (how's it holding up for the PV in California these days huh?), weather patterns, changes in irradiation, maintenance cost[note to not install them in deserts[5]]}.

It also hasn't escaped your mind that in a decent part of the world on the RCP scenarios we're headed towards we will encounter increasing amounts of deadly days - making those lands practically not habitable (and surprise surprise, those places happen to be exactly where sunlight would be most intense)[2]. Side note: climate refugees will go to places where infrastructures are, and those power needs will therefore increase. This is a time where the combination of nuclear and renewables can be a fantastic thing, but once again you're daydreaming if you think that solar (and wind) can carry that without nuclear.

Again, you ought to know that I have not once said that PV shouldn't be developed, but that I have said multiple times that nuclear is what enables steady controllability and necessary power output at metrics comparable to current days energy needs. You've been keen on trying to find a fault in every single sentence I've said without ever trying to refute that, why is it you think? Perhaps because you also acknowledge that very same thing? There's no point in you trying to advocate for solar using that same report because I AM ON BOARD.

However you bring forward literally nothing that shows that PV is controllable (as it is not and that is basically its biggest problem[2] - and yes that's physics and not spherical cows), that PV+storage isn't a smoke screen (quite literally - it reduces the fossil-fuel related emissions by 6 but is about 20 times more than nuclear due to the storage). I'll also stop waiting on a real refutal of [4](yes, again) because apparently anything that upsets you isn't worth proving wrong.

So yes, physics about spherical cows (i.e. imagining you get the solar output you design your farm for at any fraction in steady way without being forced to move, with a magically predictable climate and weather, and without involving more CO2 emissions for both moving the infrastructure - new land usage - as well as the significant waste due to the panels change that comes in within a couple decades), that physics about spherical cows does not hold up.

Solar (and wind) will be formidable sources to support a world that goes without fossil fuels, and in some localized spots it can even be the key element. For the world, it won't be nearly enough.

And if you are happy handwaving it all away, just do your own parallel benefit-to-cost analysis[6] then.

[0] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-solar...

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4_syr_full...

[2] https://www.carbonbrief.org/billions-face-deadly-threshold-h...

[3] https://energycentral.com/c/ec/look-wind-and-solar-part-2-th...

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/08...

[5] https://sinovoltaics.com/technology/solar-panels-deserts-par...

[6] https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi...

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#503

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #481
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked, and what I've found tells me that you make a false claim. Your lack of sources is just as telling. Solar and wind power have their merits, but they are not the ultimate solution to clean power problem.

> I looked, and what I've found tells me that you make a false claim. Your lack of sources is just as telling. God... so frustrating dealing with dumbasses that don't know even the most basic shit about energy production and cost. Not sure if you are just trolling. But here goes. Here are costs by different sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source Costs will vary between country. But here…

Your own sources, if you dig into them, conveniently split generation costs (of which Lazard's cited report says that wind and solar generation is competitive only when subsidized by the US government) with storage costs. If you factor storage costs into the equation, your economy would look way different. Lazard has a report on storage costs too.

I'm withdrawing from further discussion due to your petty manner to use insults instead of arguments.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#504

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #482
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt you will be entirely without sunshine for 4 days straight. Come to Russia, some place like Yekaterinburg. Or Saint-Petersburg, where the sun can be unseen for months.

Repeating myself for the 3rd time: There are other options beside solar power, so why keep harping on this? In fact Denmark gets about 65% of their power from wind. The UK also gets a lot of their power form wind. For many norther countries, wind power has quite a lot of potential.

> In fact Denmark gets about 65% of their power from wind.

Not true. Just 47% [1], and Denmark is a country with the most favorable conditions for wind generation. Statistics are easy to manipulate if you allow yourself to add 15 percent here, subtract 15% there..

Also, Denmark relies on Sweden (who utilize nuclear power a lot) and Norway to provide power when renewables are not providing enough power

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-denmark-wi...

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#506

Post by ChuckMcM »

marcosdumay wrote: post #456
ChuckMcM wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't my understanding, would love to learn more about how you come to that conclusion. (Ideally based on an idea like the one in the article vs just your run of the mill designed in 1950 power plant :-))

Are they changing any relevant part of the power generator compared to a 1950 plant? Are they at a minimum heating the steam into a higher temperature than what a modern coal plant do? (Are they using water? Because coal works on the limits of what you can do with water already.) This article seems to have no detail at all, but all the information there seems to be about the reactor. Guess what, you won't build a nuc…

Lots actually, the way it is fueled, completely different (as in you don't re-fuel it you replace it) so all of the re-fueling infrastructure is not needed. They replace water (low pressure or high pressure) with helium which gives them two benefits, one it carries more heat and two it doesn't become a high explosive[1] when exposed to extreme temperature. Another benefit of helium is that if it leaks from the system, it carries no fission byproducts(like Cesium) in solution and has no radioactive isotopes with half lives of more than a second. 6-Helium has a half life of .8 seconds and emits a beta particle.

So pretty much all different :-)

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#507

Post by lightgreen »

flor1s wrote: post #395
lightgreen wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those technologies are some of the cheapest sources of energy available today? No they are not. They only work well at small percentage of generation when you have enough hydropower backup (effectively, batteries): generate from solar during day, and generate from hydro at night (or use fossil fuel backup). > solar In California large amount of electricity is consumed by air conditioners (4%). And they work very we…

> They only work well at small percentage of generation when you have enough hydropower backup What do you see as a small percentage? A country like The Netherlands is generating between 10% and 50% renewable energy without significant storage capacity (it's summer so a lot of that energy comes from solar, but in winter the yields from wind will be higher), and we are one of the worst countries in the EU when it come…

> A country like The Netherlands is generating between 10% and 50% renewable energy without significant storage capacity

Quoting wikipedia:

Renewable energy sources, such as biomass, wind power and solar power, produce 12% of the total electricity.

This is a small percentage.

> I thought the need for storage is mostly a problem if you want to reach a high percentage of generation using renewables.

This is correct. If we want to generate only small percentage using renewables, we can simply have excessive fossil power plants and turn them off when renewables work.

> energy storage also seems beneficial if you want to build a nuclear infrastructure

Barely. Nuclear can work at full power constantly, and can be easily slowed down and then sped up any time.

Of course if we had extremely cheap batteries we could make nuclear work full power all the time and save excessive electricity. So far we don't even have moderately expensive batteries.

> I don't think subsidies are really a problem.

It is not a problem. It partially explains why renewables are "cheap" and nuclear is "expensive".

> Weren't the nuclear power infrastructures of France and Ukraine mostly build using state subsidies?

I don't know about France. It seems to be a government monopoly, so there are very different rules when it works this way.

In Ukraine because of very sad state of economy, they seem to not build any nuclear power plants for a long time.

> Also, nuclear energy might be regulated too much, but I'm not sure how much can be saved without hurting safety.

As pointed many times in this thread, historically, including the worst nuclear disaster Chernobyl, nuclear is much safer than any other electricity generation method (including renewables). If something need to be regulated for safety, it is anything except nuclear.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#508

Post by steeve »

pfdietz wrote: post #354
steeve wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind and solar are very diffuse forms of energy, so harvesting them is hard and costly both in money, and most importantly for the biosphere. For instance, the universe radiates 3K of heat, which we could harvest and use. We don't because it's too diffuse. And I'm not talking about the intermittency problem.

And yet, the cost of a kWh from renewables is less than from nuclear, for all the supposed advantage of nuclear's energy density. This should tell you that energy density is not actually a good metric.

Comparing a source controllable uninterrupted source of energy with an unreliable intermittent one doesn't make sense. Having power when you need it is very valuable. And in the case of renewables, you'd need to account for storage, after which the prices explode.

What would you say if you could only turn on AC in the 3 months of winter?

But there is another ugly side with regards to price (which are heavily subsidised): it is mostly cheap because offer far exceeds demand when power is available, because when it's sunny, it's sunny everywhere nearby so there's nobody wants to buy. Peak demand are at 7-8pm on during week days in winter. Good luck with solar or wind.

On a bigger scale, see Denmark (invested heavily on wind) vs Norway (almost entirely hydro). When wind is up, Denmark, which _has_ to sell this energy, sells it to Norway, which will buy it at the effective operating cost of hydro, which is ~$0. And when there is demand, Norway will happily sell it to Denmark at a normal price. In effect, Denmark pays twice.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#509

Post by scoopertrooper »

croutonwagon wrote: post #340
scoopertrooper wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty crazy to assume that we wouldn't be around in a millennia, two, or three. No other civilisation has been truly global, no other civilization has achieved so much in terms of mastery of nature and technological advancement. So unless the carrying capacity of earth suddenly collapses to the point that it's impossible to maintain organised society for several hundred years, then I think we'll be alright. If…

Well. We also have the capacity to destroy all life on earth many times over. When the carrying capacity of earth does collapse it will likely be sudden. Food insecurity will do it quick. We are only like 6 meals away from total chaos at the best of times.

A nuclear holocaust would render the problem of some cancer ridden nomadic humanoid type creature stumbling upon a nuclear waste dump fairly moot.

It's still exceptionally unlikely that such an event would take place, given that humanity managed to stagger through the cold war without such an incident occurring. There are no longer any grand ideologies fighting it out for global supremacy. Most countries look fairly similar in terms of economic systems.

A global blight is exceptionally unlikely, the current free trade regime will enable the mitigation of localised shortages as the climate changes and the carrying capacity of the earth reduces precipitously. This will enable humanity to find technological solutions to these challenges as they become more pressing.

The two primary constraints on humanity presently are energy and fresh water abundance. There are a number of promising candidate technologies to address the problems of energy abundances including: advances of hydrogen electrolysis, nuclear power (as mentioned), fusion, wind, and photovoltaics. Increasing energy abundance will partly address the problem of scarcity of fresh water by making desalination cheaper, but there have been a number of advances in material science that have also shown great promise in this area.

If you combine these advances with novel approaches to farming, such as vertical farming, then the carrying capacity of earth could increase by several orders of magnitude!

This is not even to mention the numerous proposals to at least delay the onset of global heating through climate engineering. This delay would give humanity time to adjust to the new conditions. They could even possibly be used to mitigate the problems caused by previous pollution subsequent to a switch to renewable energy while the earth heals as it gradually expels the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

People running around today, panicking over a supposed coming apocalypse, remind me of Malthus. You cannot look at the current technological conditions as a fixed factor when evaluating the carrying capacity of the earth. It completely ignores the fact that the planet is inhabited by the most ingenious creatures in the solar system.

Re: Ultra Safe Nuclear

#510

Post by socialdemocrat »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #503
socialdemocrat wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I looked, and what I've found tells me that you make a false claim. Your lack of sources is just as telling. God... so frustrating dealing with dumbasses that don't know even the most basic shit about energy production and cost. Not sure if you are just trolling. But here goes. Here are costs by different sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source Costs will vary between country. But here…

Your own sources, if you dig into them, conveniently split generation costs (of which Lazard's cited report says that wind and solar generation is competitive only when subsidized by the US government ) with storage costs. If you factor storage costs into the equation, your economy would look way different. Lazard has a report on storage costs too. I'm withdrawing from further discussion due to your petty manner to u…

Insults are there because you said I made false claims and lacked sources. That is basically calling me a liar.

The sources was easy to look up. Claiming storage costs must be included is moving the goalpost.

Gas power plant plus wind is e.g. a perfectly valid choice which cause significant CO2 reductions, and which is entirely cost competitive. Biomass is another viable choice.

Many places hydro plus wind and solar is a viable choice.

For many using you EV will provide you with storage for a very low cost. With Tesla’s million mile battery, there is minimal cost to using EV battery cycles to power your house when the sun doesn’t shine.

Point is, there are tons options and choices and so claiming wind and solar must be paired with storage is disingenuous.

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