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A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

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Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#81

Post by ThomPete »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #79
ThomPete wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uranium can be reused so that pretty much solves that. Its not too expensive its very cheap, its the regulation around that makes it expensive which can be solved too.

If it was easy to solve, it’d be solved already. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, and for those reasons it’s likely it won’t be done. It’s already cheaper to build new solar plants and wind farms than continue to run an existing coal plant (which itself is cheaper to run than nuclear).

No it wouldnt be solved already since the political environment is completely against nuclear, so simply false. Solar is a fraction of energysupply and will not even be close to being signifficant whare it really matters which is in transportation.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#82

Post by acidburnNSA »

chongli wrote: post #59
ben-schaaf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know others have addressed the dangers of this, but I had a little fun looking at the logistics. The UK alone produces 2Mt of radioactive waste[0] per year, ~9% is of "intermediate" level. Just sending those 18Mt into LEO would take 129,000 Saturn V launches per year. That's about one launch every 4 minutes. And LEO is not where we want to send anything. Lets assume a Trans-Lunar Injection is enough, bringing that…

Launching waste into space with a rocket is a silly idea. We don't really care if the waste gets damaged as long as it doesn't break up and make a mess. Why not build a giant railgun to launch it?

It's cheaper and safer to store it in deep crystalline bedrock. I guess if we geologists can't convince we the people of that maybe the railgun idea would work, especially if you could hit the sun where the fast fusion neutrons would consume the hell out of it.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#83

Post by acidburnNSA »

ouid wrote: post #13

Just a nitpick, neutrons aren't blasted into the nuclei of fissile isotopes. The faster a neutron is going, the less likely it is to cause fission. You want slow neutrons.

Depends what you're going for. If you have the fissile concentration to support it a fast-neutron chain reaction has lots of benefits: more neutrons per absorption in fuel leads to the ability to breed fuel for millennia or alternatively get lots more energy out of nuclear waste. Fission product poisons don't affect fast neutrons that much so you can get way more energy out of the fuel in fast reactors.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#84

Post by pfdietz »

v_lisivka wrote: post #60
mikestew wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we do that today? Well, there’s your difference.

The problem with CO2 is that we can do it tomorrow, or, even better, somebody else will do that instead of us. With radioactive waste, we _must_ bury it today.

Why must we bury radioactive waste today? Sealing spent fuel in dry casks is an eminently practical approach.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#85

Post by acidburnNSA »

crdoconnor wrote: post #39
lucb1e wrote: post #28

I see so many people against nuclear but I wonder if they read books such as Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air. As I understand it, either we kill ourselves fast, or we use this as a stop-gap until we can figure it out for real. With newer reactors being much better, maybe another generation (helped by more implementations) will even be good enough not to have to be a stop-gap solution.

Three questions that I have never had satisfactorily answered by nuclear advocates: * If nuclear is that safe, why don't we eliminate or at least, significantly raise the nuclear liability cap? The nuclear industry keeps trying to sell us (this article included) on the idea that disasters are now close to impossible. It'd be an easier sell if they voluntarily increased their liability, to, say $150-400 billion and fo…

Pro nuke here advocating for advanced reactors. I agree that we should get rid of Price Anderson.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#86

Post by toomuchtodo »

ThomPete wrote: post #81
toomuchtodo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was easy to solve, it’d be solved already. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap, and for those reasons it’s likely it won’t be done. It’s already cheaper to build new solar plants and wind farms than continue to run an existing coal plant (which itself is cheaper to run than nuclear).

No it wouldnt be solved already since the political environment is completely against nuclear, so simply false. Solar is a fraction of energysupply and will not even be close to being signifficant whare it really matters which is in transportation.

How is nuclear being expensive political? It is fundementally untenable as a commercial enterprise when compared to natural gas, solar, and wind.

90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31192

“Nearly all nuclear plants now in use began operation between 1970 and 1990. These plants would require a subsequent license renewal before 2050 to operate beyond the 60-year period covered by their original 40-year operating license and the 20-year license extension that nearly 90% of plants currently operating have either already received or have applied for. The AEO2017 Reference case projections do not envision a large amount of new nuclear capacity additions. By 2050, only four reactors currently under construction and some uprates at existing plants are projected to come online.”

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#87

Post by ThomPete »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #86
ThomPete wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wouldnt be solved already since the political environment is completely against nuclear, so simply false. Solar is a fraction of energysupply and will not even be close to being signifficant whare it really matters which is in transportation.

How is nuclear being expensive political? It is fundementally untenable as a commercial enterprise when compared to natural gas, solar, and wind. 90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/…

Because of the safety concerns.

Again it doesent matter how much come online it matters if it replaces fossile or nuclear in any significant way, it doesent, its unreliable.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#88

Post by acidburnNSA »

pvaldes wrote: post #76
mikestew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…

> CO2 is the most dangerous waste > the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me Not. It doesn't work like that. CO2 is not even waste in the strict sense of the term; is basic for our survival. If you wipe all CO2 from the air, humankind will go extinct in a hurry because all plants would die really fast. All what we eat started as a CO2 molecule being captured by a plant somewhere. T…

2 soda cans are produced by a US citizen getting 100% of their primary energy from nuclear fuel in a full lifetime. It's toxic but it's tiny. It's very VERY reasonable to bury it in deep crystalline bedrock and be done with it. That's a reasonable technical solution to a legitimate problem.

The problem of global warming from CO2 emission is much harder than nuclear waste, even if we increased nuclear generate 100-fold.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#89

Post by acidburnNSA »

saagarjha wrote: post #40
v_lisivka wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can build one CO2 capture factory in Nevada desert to capture excessive CO2 and bury it there. I see no difference.

The amount of CO2 is orders of magnitude more than the amount of radioactive waste; you cannot just build “one factory in Nevada” and sequester all the carbon dioxide produced.

Six orders of magnitude, to be precise. Nuclear fuel has 2 million times more energy per mass than any chemical fuel or storage system.

Re: A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power

#90

Post by mikestew »

pvaldes wrote: post #76
mikestew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind From what I've been reading, seems CO2 tops that list. One can bury nuclear waste in the Nevada desert, keep everyone a few hundred miles away, and it'll be fine. From what I learned in high school chemistry class, a gas wants to expand to fill its container, so the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me. The process of…

> CO2 is the most dangerous waste > the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me Not. It doesn't work like that. CO2 is not even waste in the strict sense of the term; is basic for our survival. If you wipe all CO2 from the air, humankind will go extinct in a hurry because all plants would die really fast. All what we eat started as a CO2 molecule being captured by a plant somewhere. T…

And we could say that CO2 is a signifiant danger for the climate

Uhh, that’s exactly what I was saying. Maybe too subtle? I wasn’t suggesting that we’d choke on it.

there are much worse molecules in this sense.

And therefore CO2 shouldn’t be a concern? Where are you going with this?

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