A new generation of environmentalists is learning to love atomic power • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 4:56 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #16

mimixco wrote: post #2

No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extra…

> we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Sure we do: reprocess it, like every country except the US that uses nuclear power does. The only reason the US doesn't is stupid politics.

Not really true. Reprocessing is expensive and mining and enriching new uranium is just cheaper. It's a economic issue. France recycles their fuel once but they still only get 2% of the total energy out of the resource that's mined.

Another super-reasonable thing to do with nuclear waste is burying it in large salt deposits or deep crystalline bedrock. Both are actually totally reasonable and practical solutions. People just go nuts though when you talk about it.

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

#92

Post by shanghaiaway » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 4:57 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #14

With a new projected cost of 25 billion USD the cost overruns of the Vogtle Plant are worse than I thought. There is a reason why nuclear is losing to natural gas and coal. It's too damn expensive and takes too long. If this money was instead spent on building more storage capacity we'd have solved our energy problems a long time ago and even if we started today we'd be done long before the nuclear plant is online. T…

Interesting armchair analysis. Nuclear is both the cheapest and cleanest source of energy.

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

#93

Post by ben-schaaf » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

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?

I'd consider them equally as silly, considering we're actually capable of launching rockets into space yet the closest we've gotten with a space gun is a measly 180km apogee @ 3.6km/s[0]. The original question was why we don't send our nuclear waste into space. We can't send our nuclear waste into space using a rail gun because we can't currently send anything into space with a rail gun.

Otherwise here's a good discussion on the viability of space guns: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2370/what-technolo....

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP

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

#94

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:24 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #41

nickik wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The byproducts (generally leaking radioactive waste) The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true. While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything. Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable. > Third, th…

> The idea that nuclear waste 'leaks' anything is absurd and defiantly not generally true. While of course the output is toxic, its also highly controlled and does not come into contact with anything. Its long lasting but it also contains lots of useful stuff that, if we continue to use nuclear power and other nuclear byproducts will turn very valuable. While I view nuclear power relatively favorably, this is an extr…

Hanford waste is radionuclides dissolved in acid to get pure plutonium out. It leaks. It's from the Cold War nuclear weapons program. [1]

Commercial nuclear waste is solid ceramic Uranium/fission product-oxide. It does not leak.

[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/hanford.html

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

#95

Post by njarboe » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:26 AM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #84

v_lisivka wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In fact we don't bury it today or for the past 60 years. No problems with that solution yet.

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

#96

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:31 AM UTC

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/…

> How is nuclear being expensive political?

Super-expensive safety regulations are often based on the linear no-threshold model of biological dose response. There is more and more data showing that this is illogical at very low doses. Changing that is highly political.

The large 3-shift security staff at nuclear power plants is based on political concerns.

The contractor and financing models in play in the US to build nukes causes lots of misalignment, and contracts end up suing each other over trivialities rather than building the plant like the Koreans do or French did (in the 1970s). That's nearly political.

Anti-nuclear intervenors watch over plant plans and try to delay at all costs. Totally political.

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

#97

Post by intopieces » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:32 AM UTC

tpkj wrote: post #51

intopieces wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear doesn’t perpetuate complete dependence, because it has never been intended to be the sole provider of energy to its customers. Even the most ardent nuclear cheerleaders pose it as a single component in an energy mix.

"...a single component in an energy mix". And that mix relies on the grid? With nuclear or other centralized power source, yes.

From your link, solar doesn't rely on the grid, and in fact it acts independently of it on some islands.

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

#98

Post by acidburnNSA » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:39 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #48

mimixco wrote: post #2

No. Nuclear power creates the most dangerous waste known to mankind and we have no way of mitigating or eliminating it. Nuclear isn't cost effective on an ongoing operating basis (compared with natural gas). When you add the costs of closing and "cleaning up" a plant site, which run into the billions of dollars for each plant, nuclear just doesn't make sense. Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extra…

> Nuclear is far from "carbon neutral." The process of extracting uranium from the earth uses tremendous amounts of heavy equipment Numbers. Show numbers. Without numbers you have said NOTHING.

The numbers are clear. Nuclear lifecycle is 11 gCO2-eq/kWh, less than almost anything and on par with wind.

The idea that uranium mining requires tremendous amounts of anything compared to the alternatives is ludicrous simply by the physical fact that there are 938 MW*days of energy in every kilogram of natural uranium. That's 2 million times more energy per mass than any chemical fuel, and that results in a very small mining requirement compared to anything else to power humanity at world-scale.

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

#99

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:47 AM UTC

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…

For #1, insurance relies on the law of large numbers. If you expect an average of less than one event per whatever time, it stops being insurance and becomes either gambling or just an escrow account.

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

#100

Post by thatcat » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 5:47 AM UTC

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/…

If flyash disposal, mining, carbon emission, and fracking were equally regulated then these regulations create incentive to R+D nuclear technology, making it more affordable. The results of a rigged race don't prove anything.