Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#61

Post by downer91 » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 1:53 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #51

zxcdw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a real world problem with real world consequences? It is my understanding that the nuclear waste can be stored safely without too much cost. It is also my understanding that there are ways to re-use the already used fuel rods, effectively 1) making them radiate less 2) getting "leftover" power from already consumed fuel. Psychological footprint fueled by ignorance however... Well, that borders religiousness.…

> Is this a real world problem with real world consequences? Might not be where you live, but there's a real world evacuated zone in Chernobyl, with a 20 mile radius were "even today radiation levels are so high that the workers responsible for rebuilding the sarcophagus are only allowed to work five hours a day for one month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for hu…

But let's get creative about the realities of hazardous radioactive waste storage. It's not an impossible problem to solve, when you think about it pragmatically. It's difficult, expensive, requires material resources, expertise and dedication, but it's not impossible.

The typical and most reliable procedure for managing radioactive waste is vitrification: creating a purified mixture of molten glass and then introducing an evenly distributed non-critical ratio of hot waste material into the glass, and allowing it to harden into a solid glass object. The radioactive glass object is then carted off to a repository, for permanent storage, in accordance with the half life of the waste, which might be centuries or more. Vitrification is a safe way to prevent accidental criticality, so that all the waste stays cool and is easier to shield.

Generally underground storage sites are the most desirable locations for the final resting place of vitrified waste. This provides a simple barrier to the penetrating radiation that the waste may emit.

Security is essential to the storage of radioactive waste, since unaccounted waste means there's some nasty stuff floating around. This adds effort to maintaining a site.

Ventilation is necessary, since ionizing radiation produces an accumulation of fee oxygen and hydrogen by catalyzing moisture in the air. This means offgassing equipment is needed to ventilate the natural accumulation to prevent explosion hazards. This adds complexity to storage.

Degradation of construction is a long term pest, in that the site must be constructed of high quality, durable architectual members, equipped to last centuries, and not collapse within decades. This adds expertise and expense requirements.

Site selection should be a no brainer though. Consider that Ukraine can make some decent income off the tragedy of Chernobyl, given that they have an unusable sector of their territory relegated to the reactor sarcophagus. Yeah, the sarcophagus is impossible to manage above ground, but what about digging underneath it and excavating a massive permanent waste repository, and charging money for depositing waste there? Nobody wants anything to do with Chernobyl. It's a ghost town. Seems like a chance to employ the site as a massive underground waste repository.

Same goes for Fukushima. Take a geological survey of the site, design durable, earthquake-proof architecture for an underground repository, and charge money to dumpwaste there.

After construction completes, your budget mostly comes from staffing qualified nuclear engineers and security personnel. Little else is necessary. A nuclear reactor and research lab can provide power to the site and provide an intellectual basis to attract new staff. Doesn't this sound like a sustainable plan?

In America there has been this massive battle over Yuka Mountain. It's politically hazardous to store waste underneath otherwise uncontaminated land. The protest generally stems from the not-in-my-backyard philosophy. There are tons of superfund sites, that are doomed to contamination for decades because of simple bureacratic laziness. Most of them are pretty close to cities. I think America could probably find sites, but they usually get locked up in legal messiness that blows any deal. I think there are probably places that could accept waste, and there's no rational reason to care, but people fight it anyway, because everyone seems to enjoy irrational litigation as political sport as a sort of clerical version of new-deal make-work contruction projects. But I digress.

There are reasonable ways to confront the challenges of radioactive waste storage. Obstinate people use this objection as an example of an insurmountable challenge simply because they're stubborn.

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#62

Post by justatdotin » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:05 AM UTC

peterpathname wrote: post #55

pflanze wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean with litter, but isn't nuclear waste storage still an unsolved problem?

here in australia, decades of research and policy development have hit upon a world-class solution to the nuclear waste challenge. We're building a road in a semi-arid remote location, on the traditional lands of a small, disemowered, remote indigenous community. At the end of the road, we plan to build a shed with a barbed wire fence. In return for this inconvenience, the local community will see employment opportun…

some 30 years ago, land rights in that region were made conditional on the nuclear ambitions of the time. which is why the locals have had to bear the indignity of a uranium operation on the world heritage listed lands they own. it's called radioactive racism. http://bit.ly/1d73XYz

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#63

Post by XorNot » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:10 AM UTC

peterpathname wrote: post #55

pflanze wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean with litter, but isn't nuclear waste storage still an unsolved problem?

here in australia, decades of research and policy development have hit upon a world-class solution to the nuclear waste challenge. We're building a road in a semi-arid remote location, on the traditional lands of a small, disemowered, remote indigenous community. At the end of the road, we plan to build a shed with a barbed wire fence. In return for this inconvenience, the local community will see employment opportun…

This is just garbage. It doesn't matter where you want to put our nuclear waste disposal facility, some group will invent a story about how they're being exploited to have what they'll paint as "landfill" being put on their land.

Clearly a much better solution is what we do now, where we store all our low and medium grade nuclear waste in random sheds and basements at universities and hospitals all over the country!

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#64

Post by XorNot » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:13 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #45

ChuckMcM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one of the emotions. If you read the article you will read about two reactors that are actually fueled by what we consider waste today. That we don't completely burn the fuel used in a reactor is a 'bug', a misfeature if you will. That was expedient when the initial reactors were being brought online and now is a regulatory pain in the butt. There is nothing in the physics that requires a nuclear reactor comp…

The fact that a reactor is fueled by waste doesn't mean it doesn't create waste or have a waste-disposal aspect. In the case of any nuclear reactor, the vessel and mechanism itself becomes radioactive and must be disposed of (the same process also leads to embrittlement and other issues with the vessel/structure itself). And the resulting fission products are also still radioactive and require disposal, though my und…

As opposed to coal, oil and gas fracking? I sure rest assured that when the local groundwater and aquifiers for my city are too toxic to drink, well at least I'll only be dying of organic and heavy metal poisoning.

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#65

Post by XorNot » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:14 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #32

This is one reason I've started to think fusion might be more promising than advanced fission. The regulatory barriers are so light that high school students build reactors and run them on deuterium fuel just like most of the big projects, and it's perfectly legal. There's quite a lot of work being done on small-scale alternative reactor designs. I wrote up a bunch of them here: http://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/…

Don't worry, "environmentalist" movements have gotten way out in front with opposing the ITER project.

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#66

Post by downer91 » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #52

zxcdw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What relevance does Chernobyl have with modern nuclear power plants? A honest question, because I am under an impression that with modern regulations and reactor designs the chance of a meltdown or less severe nuclear disaster are infitesimally small, granted that 1) regulations are being followed(which they weren't in Chernobyl) 2) safety of operation is being maintained and that the plant itself isn't faulty(which…

> What relevance does Chernobyl have with modern nuclear power plants? The relevance that Chernobyl was too promoted as safe, like "modern power plants" are. Plus the relevance that power plant contractors and governments STILL bullshit people all the way to the bank, with friendly experts paid to downplay the dangers. Just watch the misinformation and lies told by the Japanese officials on the Fukushima distaster in…

  e.g a huge earthquake or a tsunami as 
  in Japan's case, or maybe an attack
  ...
  faith in the human operators

To enumerate some regretably normal human factors:

1. deliberate procedural over-complication in the name of job security (political hazard)

2. disgruntled operator sabotage (political, but maybe that qualifies as an attack?)

3. operator error

4. operator laziness

5. operator incompetance

6. operator experimentation (experimentation was the cause of Chernobyl, after all)

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#67

Post by Intermernet » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:50 AM UTC

ISL wrote: post #43

Intermernet wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my complete lack of knowledge in this field, but would MEMS (or NEMS) mirror arrays be sensitive / accurate enough to measure the gravitational effect on light at the scales you're talking about? I'm surprised to read the statement "over distances smaller than the diameter of a hair, nobody knows if gravity acts" as I thought we were accurately measuring all sorts of interactions at or below that scale (10s of…

My apologies for the terse nature of my summary above. We measure the deflection of light bounced from a mirror attached to a test mass hanging from a very fine wire. That said, the geometry of some of the Texas Instruments DLP MEMS chips has interested some of us for years. The chips are designed to be robust in consumer products, but if they instead designed their mirrors to have very soft springs, we'd be interest…

Thanks for the detailed reply. Good to know it wasn't a completely stupid question!

Sorry, not US, Australian. Although I just checked and QUT in Brisbane are apparently doing some good work in microgravity research.

Time to do some reading!

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#68

Post by downer91 » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 2:51 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #19

stesch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the waste simply vanishes if you really wish for it very hard.

That is one of the emotions. If you read the article you will read about two reactors that are actually fueled by what we consider waste today. That we don't completely burn the fuel used in a reactor is a 'bug', a misfeature if you will. That was expedient when the initial reactors were being brought online and now is a regulatory pain in the butt. There is nothing in the physics that requires a nuclear reactor comp…

Nuclide, not nucleotide.

Nucleotides are the fundamental component of a DNA molecule.

Nuclides are the differentiated nucleuses of the common atomic elements, some of which are regarded as isotopes, of which some isotopes are radioactive

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#69

Post by aestra » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 3:02 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

My daughter was one of the operators of the TRIGA reactor at Reed college. Some of the students joked it was a Fisher-Price My First Reactor reactor :-) at only 250kW its small as reactors go, but also exceptionally interesting. It is very disappointing how constricted the field of nuclear research is, as it is a demonstrably zero carbon footprint energy source. I understand the emotion that nuclear power evokes in p…

People saying nuclear power plants having zero carbon footprint aren't really according for the entire nuclear fuel chain. the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain are building the power plant, uranium mining, and nuclear decommissioning.

I still think nuclear power has its place for example having nuclear reactors on warships let them stay out to sea as long as they have food. They make their own electricity and water from the reactor. Just not for widespread power plants.

I think the future is going to move away from power being generated in one place.

Re: Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore

#70

Post by frenchfred » Sun, Dec 08, 2013, 3:47 AM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #63

peterpathname wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here in australia, decades of research and policy development have hit upon a world-class solution to the nuclear waste challenge. We're building a road in a semi-arid remote location, on the traditional lands of a small, disemowered, remote indigenous community. At the end of the road, we plan to build a shed with a barbed wire fence. In return for this inconvenience, the local community will see employment opportun…

This is just garbage. It doesn't matter where you want to put our nuclear waste disposal facility, some group will invent a story about how they're being exploited to have what they'll paint as "landfill" being put on their land. Clearly a much better solution is what we do now, where we store all our low and medium grade nuclear waste in random sheds and basements at universities and hospitals all over the country!

not an invention: the people whose land is scheduled to store nuclear waste in australia are subject to laws that target them by race, and deny them basic social services (roads, health, housing, community safety) that others take for granted. the people on whose land uranium is mined (or was until this week's accident!) are subject to a specific federal law that compels them to abide the presence of this dirty industry on land they own.

it must be nice for you to live in this imaginary world where institutionalised racism, racialist legislation and the exploitation of indigenous land owners is 'garbage', but unfortunately for the rest of us, its your story that is mere invention.

(pete- throw away acct cos I'm away from my creds)