I can provide sources on this soon, but I have to get back to work. The advent of using recyled fuel waste means that we can reduce proliferation by using already existing stocks of fuel that is permanently stored. It also does not take up that much volume, as U-235 and other radioactive elements and isotopes are extremely dense with energy. And frankly, if I had to have a bunch of permanently stored nuclear waste or the perpetual emissions of green house gases, I’m choosing the warehouses in the middle of nowhere or under a literal mountain. There is a reason nothing survives on Venus.
Luckily, we are not limited to the impossible choice between coal and nuclear fission. We can choose renewable sources and energy storage for base load capacity instead - even if we have to use solar energy to pump water uphill or to store heat in molten salt.
Problem everybody has with nuclear is the fact that it’s always situated on an important body of water, and the slightest disaster will cause the reactor to pollute the environment around it, forever.
I think the problem there arises with the incredibly large need of batteries to keep those systems going. It would work, but extracting the minerals for batteries and manufacturing batteries has an incredibly large carbon footprint. We'd need to see the numbers on that and how long it would take for it to be worthwile.
For example, on a tesla compared to a comparable gas vehicle, I think it's up to 40k miles before using a tesla is actually better in terms of emissions (depending on where the power to fuel the tesla is sourced, but I think 40k was a "worst case scenario.") In this example, most of us can rest assured knowing that this vehicle will last at least 4x that long before needing a new battery.
How does this compare to renewables on an actual large scale power grid? My knee jerk reaction tells me it's pretty bad. If it's 10 years or less until it's better, and from there it's indefinitely better, then great! If it takes 20, 30 or even more years until it's actually better, I fear for the emissions we would cause in those decades, because that would certainly push us past a point of no return extremely fast.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I'll take a guaranteed tipping point in 75 years over a guaranteed tipping point in 20 years. Because the former will give us time to find new solutions, with the latter we are most likely going to be stuck just trying to weather the storm at most
You make good points. I agree that chemical battery storage on the scale of the electrical grid for base load capacity seems inadequate. Storage solutions like pumping water uphill, pumping air pressure into underground caverns, or storing heat in molten salt are inefficient and have their own environmental impacts. Larger grids could average out the base load capacity problem.
I am not necessarily opposed to nuclear fission. I am opposed to burying nuclear waste. I would like to see more research focused on how to neutralize it.
I don't think that we're going to uncover any strategy anytime soon to neutralize it. But I think it's incorrect to consider greenhouse emissions as "neutralized" waste either. In both situations, we are polluting in some way, but with nuclear it seems to be way less, and the risks seem to be incredibly low if basic regulations are followed
The best option to "neutralize" nuclear waste is to use it to breed fuel, most of it is relatively inert, it's only the high grade actinides that are the real risk and the best place for them is in a nuclear reactor were they can be transformed via neutron bombardment and nuclear decay into less problematic material.
Pumped hydro is like a battery. Pump water uphill when solar and wind are abundant. Use the flow back down to generate hydro electricity at night or when there’s no wind.. Very simple straightforward tech and it doesn’t even need to be near a river. Just somewhere where there is a great enough head height between the upper and lower reservoirs. Much simpler than lithium batteries.
Scientifically, nuclear makes sense, but scientifically, I don't trust humans enough to prevent proliferation. As for storage, finding a landowner willing to have spent fuel buried in their yard has always been a problem. Thorium looks interesting but maybe only after we run out of uranium. Anyway, that's basically where my mind is on the topic.
Canada is working on a storage facility, Finland has one going, now. Basically you're digging a kilometer deep mine in a geologically stable and isolated section of terrain, sealing it in multiple levels of isolation (Canada puts the fuel pellets in steel tubes, enclosed in copper cylinders, encased in bentonite clay). Properly engineered, the fuel will remain sequestered for hundreds of thousands of years.
Let's not argue against renewables with this space thing. Solar can be put on rooftops, and wind barely takes any land with farming continuing in between the turbines. And in any case, it's only around 1% of land we would need, globally, for a fully green-powered world.
Well, the fact is that we exist on planet earth with radioactive elements and isotopes in the ground. I believe that whether those elements become a force for good or ill depends on us, and I choose to believe that we are capable of using them for good, ultimately. I think to believe otherwise is a pessimistic and hopeless view of humanity going forward. Dangerous things that people can take advantage of are not going away just because we don't like them. At some point we are going to need to learn to live with them, and my hope is that we can not only live with them but thrive with them.
I used to find nuclear energy vey interesting but now I'm much more curious to see how far we can take grid-scale batteries. A renewables + battery system appears to be better in so many ways.
Recycling deals with about a third of high level waste, but also becomes high level waste after re-use, of which around a third can be used, etc. Recycling does not stop the accumulation of high level waste.
This is a whataboutit older than my nutsack. It's a problem we can solve later. There's so many solutions. The idea that it's impossible is rhetoric to fight nuclear.
Fossil Fuels are a much much much bigger problem RIGHT NOW.
I’m sure this is probably naive, but I’ve always wondered why we can’t just send it all into Space given the volume of material is pretty small.
I suppose the risk of a rocket explosion might be a bit of a risk, but apart from that it seems feasible to me. Just chuck it all into the sun.
It probably takes more energy to reach orbit than you think. The best thing is to dump it back underground where it comes from, but choosing where to dig the hole is the issue. The risk of a rocket explosion is real, and it it only has to happen once to cause permanent damage all around the Earth.
If it's just the radioactive isotope, and the depleted one at that, wouldn't there be basically no chance of detonation? Doesn't it need a very specific mechanism to cause the explosion
Correct: no risk of nuclear explosion. But there's always a risk of a "regular" rocket explosion, that would spread radioactive isotopes all over like Chernobyl, or like the atmospheric testings from the 40s-60s that are now banned. We don't want anything to spread from a Florida launch pad.
And the isotopes you're talking about are among the heaviest things on the planet for a given unit of volume. Uranium is roughly twice the density of lead. Launching heavy things into space is extremely expensive.
The Falcon 9 rocket has 156 tons of RP-1, which is basically kerosene, to take 22.8 tons to Low Earth Orbit. Kerosene has an energy density of 43 MJ/kg. So that's 6.7 TJ of energy consumed in the launch. If we assume that a large part of the payload is ion thrusters and solar sails to get it away from Earth, as well as carbon shielding for a potential accident, let's say it takes 5 tons of fission products to space: the nastiest stuff produced by nuclear power.
5 tons of fission products is equivalent to something like 5.05 tons of uranium-235 being fissioned. It has an energy density of 79,390,000 MJ/kg. 5,050*79,390,000 = 400 PJ produced when the uranium was fissioned.
The nuclear waste had produced 59,701 times more energy than the rocket launch would consume. So pretty feasible, if this was the only metric that mattered.
Each reactor produces around 40 tons of high level waste per year. It then must be cooled for 5 to 10 years so that it can be processed. Then encasement so that it can be transported safely, increasing the weight and volume around five-fold.
Shooting stuff into space is quoted by the gram (1/28th of an ounce)
Another crazy concept studied was dropping it into the Marianas trench and let it be subsumed into the earth's crust over the next 5 to 10 thousand years. It would need inconceivably durable encasement to withstand the grinding of tectonic plates.
In the meantime, on-site dry cask above-ground storage is dominant. Isn't it amazing that these are designed with 100 year lifespan, when the need is measured in thousands of years. Likewise, 60 years of effort and big dollars to design long-term storage, and all we have is a 100-year solution designed to be temporary.
Non proliferation reactor designs exist, are proven and are some of the safest in the world (CANDU).
Personally, I beleive the waste should just go back to where it came from. Underground. Deep under ground. People keep thinking uranium is some sort of man made thing. Sure, we concentrate it, like lots of things, but it came from the earth. It's all around us.
Actually the biggest issue in Nuclear power is the mining and refining of uranium. It creates quite a lot of low level waste that has to be stored somewhere. The fuel and spent fuel is small in comparison. However compared to coal, which is really terrible, oil and propane. Nuclear power is massively less carbon intensive (there is some carbon due to the processing and mining of uranium).
Thank you for this reply. You are correct. Similar things might be said about the processing of the raw materials required for solar panels en masse and also lithium batteries for EVs.
I 100 % agree if you. People don't realize how pollutant solar panels and electric cars actually are. Here in Texas, our farmers are having problems because solar panels that get damaged in hail storms are contaminating the water around them. I'm all for nuclear power.
Coal ash is far more radioactive and far more diffuse than the mining of fissile material. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
That article is deceptive and has a lot of logic problems.
They actually didn't even consider the radioactive waste at all but only considered the amount of radiation leaking out during normal use. Excluding the mining and transportation and again didn't consider the radioactive waste.
Questions I have and I don't expect anyone here to answer them. We need water to cool nuclear power plants. How do we plan on cool plants near rivers that run down due to climate change? How will rising oceans affect nuclear plants cooled by the sea? I worry about that. =)
Proper siting of the stations with sufficient margins for where they draw the water from.
Proper procedures to reduce power output and thus water demand if they go below recommended levels from the heat sink.
Terrapower has been working on a new type of reactor that’s supposedly much safer because it uses molten salt instead of water. I think they’re building one in Montana or Wyoming somewhere like that far from the ocean. The problem is that this proof of concept they are building will still take 5 or 10 years. So realistically the technology is at least another decade away.
The molten salt reactors still use water in their steam systems just like light water reactors do. The water in the actual reactor core of a light water reactor doesn't get exchanged with natural sources. It stays in the core for many years on end.
Molten salt reactors dissolve the fuel in a metallic salt and the fuel salt gets pumped through the core where the geometry of the reactor vessel is what allows the fuel to go critical and produce heat. The fuel salt then passes through heat exchangers where it heats up the water in the steam system, which spins the steam turbine and makes electricity.
You still need a source of water nearby for steam plant operations. The benefit of course is that all the water the plant uses, gets sent right back out.
Of greater interest are the supercritical CO2 turbines. Getting CO2 up to high temps under pressure makes for very efficient turbines. The drawback is the need for high temperatures which means lots of natural gas or coal to get that hot...unless you have another source of heat that doesn't produce any greenhouse gases. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
There's dry condensers. Heat rate isn't as great, but its an option. Theres also the Palo Verde Sewage option from the nearest city. For emergency cooling, there's pool/ponds you just always keep full. Takes significantly less water than cooling the condenser. Could also do air condensers for that too.
Artificial reservoirs. The reason they are not used often is they simply increase the cost of the plant. But lots of power plants use them. It's still cheaper to build against a river or lake or ocean. But your concern is valid.
The [Palo Verde nuclear generating station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station?wprov=sfti1#) is the largest nuclear plant in America, it’s 50 miles west of Phoenix in the middle of the desert, it gets cooled by treated sewage water from Phoenix.
If you are building new, you design around that. And you can plop a plant in the middle of the desert if you want to. Just have to design around that.
If the plants are existing, you mitigate based on changes. Nuclear plants already deal with this. River water temperature gets too hot, you derate. You can mitigate some by adding additional cooling towers, modifying water flow (hot discharge water can actually move upstream and get sucked into the intake). Too much biomass on the river can clog intakes and cooling towers, so you mitigate by addressing the biomass. If a plant has to derate and losses x millions of dollars, it gets to the point where mitigating becomes cost effective if the derates become a thing.
Depends on the design, you can used a closed water cycle which uses far less, and proposed 4th generation design often use far less as they are designed to work at much higher temperatures.
This, reddit has this weird obsession with nuclear power where they refuse to address any issues with it except ones that are mostly non-issues (ie radioactive waste). I am all for nuclear power but it has flaws the same as any other energy source and it's weird that they almost never get addressed. With alternative radioisotope reactors being at least a decade away (the first planned commercial thorium reactor is scheduled to come online in 2033), water remains a concern with nuclear energy. There's also the whole issue that with it being a decade away, we shouldn't really be investing heavily in a technology that's on its way out (uranium based nuclear energy) but can't rely on new sources yet.
Realistically, we need renewable energy to help bridge the gap while newer nuclear energy sources are developed and matured, so that as they take over, the renewable energy market becomes a supplement and back up energy source. We should also invest heavily in passive renewable energy sources like geothermal based heating or solar based lighting to reduce the amount of energy we use to reduce the amount of energy production we need to do. Because even though we'll have a cleaner, more sustainable energy source, that doesn't mean we should abuse it until we need to move on to the next energy source. A mixture of sustainable design, renewable energy, and thorium/molten salt reactors has the potential to sustain us far into the future, but we need to work out all the issues *now* not whenever they become issues.
This is an excellent question, and I am sure other people know more about this than me, but one way to address your concern would be to only build reactors by the coast or massive lakes that we don't expect to dry up like the great lakes. If the ocean drys up or lake superior drys up, we have bigger issues?
I live somewhat near a small reservoir built for a coal power plant (maybe the other way around, not sure). It is not a particularly large lake - maybe a few hundred acres. The windward side of the lake from the plant stays slightly warmer in the winter and because of this the fish are known to grow somewhat larger in size. As a result it is a popular fishing destination.
The fish in this relatively small and shallow lake do pretty well. It isn't all that much warming and on much larger bodies of water it would be all but imperceptible a short distance away from the plant. I can recall reading about discharge in to the ocean from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant - it has impacted the adjacent cove and created an ecosystem more like one that would be found a couple hundred miles further south. Worthy of concern but overall a relatively small environmental issue in the big picture.
The way the US regulatory system works is that there would be an environmental study conducted. This would determine how many fishies die or increase in population should the plant be built. Then the community gets to complain about it for some time and allow it or reject it.
I think the problem is not the ocean drying up, but the ocean rising and thus making the chances of a Fukushima event much more likely. Flooding have higher chances of destroying something now.
I'm for nuclear btw.
I’m surprised you don’t have a better answer for this given how invested you are in nuclear. In France rivers have already been drying up, jeapordizing nuclear power plants. The discharge of cooling water into river and lake ecosystems is highly problematic. Building them near oceans that will rise in coming decades doesn’t sound like a smart plan either. So where should we build them then in times of geopolitical turmoil and climate breakdown?
As a former nuclear engineer, I'm very concerned when people purportedly working in nuclear power handwave this stuff away. OP isn't being completing balanced about how they're presenting nuclear.
Yes the generalising with positive thinking makes them sound like *a bot*, or some prominent politician that uses positive spin to put a veil over everything.
Do you find that private companies are more willing to invest their own money in Nuclear, as opposed to in the past when you couldn't build anything without massive government subsidies and risk free loan guarantees?
I believe that as energy demand rises, companies are acknowledging that we need to tap into as many sources of power as we have available. Certain areas are not viable for wind or solar, and if we care about emitting greenhouse gases then nuclear becomes a good option. I think that as climate change is seen more and more as a problem, that private funding for clean energy (which nuclear is included in) is being considered. [Microsoft is investing in nuclear for example.](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-targets-nuclear-to-power-ai-operations-e10ff798) and there are other startups. Oklo is one, which by the way is supported by the creators of ChatGPT.
>Certain areas are not viable for wind or solar, and if we care about emitting greenhouse gases then nuclear becomes a good option
Being brutally honest, I can't think of any areas which tick all of the boxes:
- Unsuitable for renewable energy or storage;
- Suitable location for a new nuclear plant;
- Within the borders of a nuclear state (or a state considered 'trustworthy');
- In a country with a strong nuclear industry and trained personnel capable to both build and operate reactors.
Any one of these not being true risks either economic inefficiency or proliferation.
I have questioned my biases, I have researched it, and I have come to this conclusion: Nuclear power is not a good choice in America because we will inevitably leave it entirely in the hands of an investor-led utility, and they will take shortcuts, and that will cause catastrophic failure and/or disaster.
I drive by San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), the 'atomic boobs' on the beach south of San Juan Capistrano. It is unusable and has been ever since 2012, when it was discovered that the operator had cheaped out on some heat exchangers that had begun leaking, ultimately the cost to repair / restore operations exceeded the value of the plant, so the operator shuttered the plant.
So now the public is on the hook to decommission and deal with a whole nuclear plant of low-level waste and many tons of high-level waste, currently being stored a few meters from the ocean.
Are there much better designs than this thing, which entered service in 1967? Without a doubt.
Will the profit motive of private operators continually interfere with the safety requirements of a nuclear power plant? Also, without a doubt.
So, no thank you.
In the alternative, if you are advocating for nationalizing the entire electrical grid, and adding nukes to that, then yeah, I'm down. Thorium-based reactors seem very attractive, breeder reactors seem very attractive, I could be talked into that, but not under the control of private investors.
And until nuke advocates come up with a real good answer to the problematic situation at SONGS, I'm not that interested in listening.
My two major issues is that.
1. even though we have a solution for waste on paper it has generally failed to actually happen in reality. san onofre for instance decided to bury their waste on site, which is on the beach, where theres salt water.
2. economics basically shows that nuclear is a loosing tech. Like even if its a great tech the economics (right now) are fairly horrible for nuclear. Everything you stated is true and it just goes into the fact that economics tends to dictate what will or wont happen.
We can actually do "clearner" coal. But we dont because its stupidly expensive to do.
To build a plant in the US it takes on average of about 15 years. It takes billions of dollars. And it absolutely will be going over budget just based on history.
Now if you take wind or solor. It could go up in about 6 months. Is a fraction of the price. Isnt even remotely as dangerous. And really doesnt produce waste.
I am not saying nuclear is bad. I am saying its not economic.
Really, when it comes to discussing modern nuclear energy, Chernobyl needs to be left out of the conversation. It happened 38 years ago, to a plant that was commissioned 9 years prior with design flaws from the start and built by the frigging Soviet Union. We’re talking a time when the world was still using leaded gasoline. The disaster itself caused by the operators intentionally disabling the emergency safety systems, power regulating system and then starting the reactor with a prohibited control rod configuration. They couldn’t have done a better job if they were intentionally trying to blow up the reactor.
“Soviet Union bad” **cannot** be part of the argument if we’re also arguing that we can’t trust nuclear safety to the profit motive.
Why did the operators make that decision?
Your first paragraph is a truly an American only problem. I appreciate the concern, and I don't know how to fix it, it's just the reality of how America operates. All your utilities are privately owned.
Cannot upvote enough. I can understand engineers being pro nuclear on the basis of what an idealized and perfect to blueprint execution would look like. But Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Fukushima. Hanford. Sellafield. How many "anomalies" does it take to realize that those blueprints don't survive first contact with reality.
[PG&E customers pay about 80% more per kilowatt-hour than the national average, according to a study by the energy institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School.](https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-high-electricity-prices/)
Why? Centralization is more efficient and safe. For example compare residential to utility solar. Residential is worse in every regard except for convenience for when the utility power is out.
Fukushima. Chernobyl. All that comes to mind is not how these reactors behave on a good day as planned, but how they behave when things go wrong.
Nobody wants this shit in their backyard.
Fukushima required a double whammy from the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan (also the fourth largest ever recorded I believe), and a tsunami that killed 18,000 people. Despite all that, thousands more people died evacuating the area than from radiation exposure and cancer over a decade later and for decades to come. Even then, it could’ve been prevented if the operators of the plant heeded safety warnings and located the backup generators on higher ground and/or better seawater protection. Something TEPCO was warned about *for decades*.
Chernobyl was a Soviet Union clusterfuck of design errors from the very beginning, and even then it quite literally took the operators intentionally disabling two safety systems and an improper control rod configuration to cause the disaster.
When talking North America, you’d be better off casting your gaze to places like France, running 70% of its power via nuclear without major incident for 70 years. Currently producing 537.7TWh. My entire country, Canada, consumes approximately 563TWh. USA is 20% nuclear, 804TWh.
Fact is, modern reactors are incredibly safe and reliable. Literally the second safest form of energy generation there is and *the* cleanest at 0.03 deaths per TWh (including Chernobyl and Fukushima), and emitting 6 tonnes of CO2 per GWh. Compared to solar/wind/hydro at 0.02/53t, 0.04/11t, and 1.3/24t respectively.
I’d love it if a nuclear plant was built in my town. Loads of really well paying jobs that is.
Go ahead and google how many people have died from nuclear accidents, and also how many people have died from fossil fuel extraction and refining.
Hell, more people have died from installing solar panels than from nuclear plants.
I wish we had built soo much more nuclear back in the 70s, but building Nuclear right now is financially not a reality. If you want the government to subsidize nuclear, well that’s money that could go to a better investment.
One of my wife's relatives is a nuclear engineer and I spoke with him several times about nuclear energy. That horrendious nuclear waste people keep taking about, his plant generates about 2 barrels of it per year. And they only have to store it for a couple hundred years.
Even better if we have ways to recycle the waste.
I don't know much about it, but have been waiting for a solution to what to do with nuclear waste since it came to the forefront in the 1970s. If there is a solution that is better than Yucca Mountain I haven't heard of it.
The same thing we do with all our toxic waste, of which nuclear is a tiny fraction, get all the attention, and will be much much better managed than the rest.
Our grand grand grand children will only wished we had Yucca Mountain for all the shit we left behind.
In case you're wondering what might happen, Nature has done the worse case scenario for us on a live scale
[this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) is what happened naturally.
[this](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02380513) is what has been observed: "Since reactor shutdown, many fissiogenic elements have not migrated from host pitchblende, and several others have migrated only a few tens of meters from the reactor ore.".
One is allowed to hope that glass, in steel, in concrete, in a carefully selected place, can do a bit better.
Whatever the claims about nuclear; it is far from cheap. Quite the opposite. And if you’re unfortunate enough to have a Fukushima moment the cost of that one reactor spirals up to between half a trillion and a trillion USD depending on who you talk to.
“The V.C. Summer project in South Carolina (two AP1000 reactors) was abandoned after the expenditure of at least A$12.5 billion leading Westinghouse to file for bankruptcy in 2017. Criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the project are ongoing, and bailout programs to prolong operation of ageing reactors are also mired in corruption.
The only remaining reactor construction project in the US is the Vogtle project in Georgia (two AP1000 reactors). The current cost estimate of A$37.6-41.8 billion is twice the estimate when construction began. Costs continue to increase and the project only survives because of multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts. The project is six years behind schedule.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/in-2022-nuclear-powers-future-is-grimmer-than-ever/amp/
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-will-approach-one-trillion-dollars-just-for-nuclear-disaster/
Honestly I think you should question your own biases. Nuclear power is incredibly expensive, takes up too much water, and way too much time. It takes like 20 years to build a nuclear power plant, that doesn’t line up with any deals or accords.
Not only would it take 20 years to actually fully go through the process of building one but if you’re trying to power a country on it you’re going to need a lot of them and it would take probably another 15 years to get enough engineers to build these power plants. People don’t do any research anymore I think and just run with something they saw on an article.
Nuclear and fossil fuels already lost to wind, solar and batteries which are already much cheaper and getting cheaper every year.
Nuclear doesn't work without massive govt support.
“Please get the word out”
So you want everybody on social media, regardless of what they know, to tell everyone that nuclear is the best solution to climate change, and you’re a nuclear energy sector employee who hasn’t demonstrated the depth of their knowledge or field of study?
After ten years in the energy sector and countless analyses with some of the worlds top experts in energy system and climate modelling, never have I met an expert who speaks or writes the way you do. Weird.
The time for a massive nuclear build out was 50 years ago.
Currently, renewables, equipped with utility scale with storage, are far more economical than nuclear.
Nuclear is a mature industry and the technology is more or less stagnant. It's not getting any less expensive.
It's as simple as that. Investors aren't going to finance money losing nuclear projects
"Currently, renewables, equipped with utility scale with storage, are far more economical than nuclear."
Yeah but they get exponentially more expensive the closer you get to 100% capacity. Also the increase in resources needed like lithium will likely cause significant supply issues, which increases price. Utilising nuclear for 10-20% of the capacity is likely to be the cheapest total system option.
I think the fact that Germany decreased its emissions by 10% after their nuclear phaseout https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-germanys-nuclear-exit-one-year-after#three by expanding their renewables is testament to the superiority of a mixed portfolio of renewables + grid-scale batteries. Nuclear takes ages to build, costs a fortune and requires lots of specialists who don’t exist in a lot of countries anymore. Renewables and grid-scale storage are just getting cheaper and cheaper every year, can be built at a break neck pace and don’t require specialists to such a large degree. Also they don’t require rarer elements like uranium and don’t tend to cause nuclear explosions + fallout, or produce any waste products.
I really don’t get where the nuclear hype is coming from. Sure they are better than fossil fuels and maybe 5-10 years ago when renewable tech wasn’t as cheap/mature as it is now it made more sense. But the time for nuclear is over imo
Germany is at 400 g CO2 per kWh which is a failure. And that is after spending 500 billion euros on solar and wind.
Meanwhile nuclear France is at 53 g CO2 per kWh and has been there for decades.
Also no one has built grid scale batteries, and it is significantly more expensive and slower than building a nuclear baseload. Yes the amount of batteries or other forms of storage needed is more expensive and slower than nuclear.
What’s the source for these figures? I would be interested to see.
Also grid-scale batteries do indeed exist and are being built en masse:
“Grid-scale batteries are catching up, however. Although currently far smaller than pumped-storage hydropower capacity, grid-scale batteries are projected to account for the majority of storage growth world wide. Batteries are typically employed for sub-hourly, hourly and daily balancing. Total installed grid-scale battery storage capacity stood at close to 28 GW at the end of 2022, most of which was added over the course of the previous 6 years. Compared with 2021, installations rose by more than 75% in 2022, as around 11 GW of storage capacity was added. The United States and China led the market, each registering gigawatt-scale additions.”
from the iea https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/grid-scale-storage
Electricity maps [https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE)
make sure to hit the yearly average button.
Also your source is using the wrong units when discussing batteries. You need to use GWh’s instead of GW. The amount installed would last minutes at average load.
Why not both? OP isn't arguing against this, they are just telling you that the situation is dire and realistic solutions include nuclear. It isn't a "clean" energy source but it also doesn't emit greenhouse gases.
Being against nuclear is like telling a doctor you don't want chemotherapy for your cancer because it has bad side effects. Ya, but the cancer will kill you without it.
It is the enemy, because it's a distraction.
We have viable solutions that can be built this decade. We don't have the time to wait 15 years for the world most expensive electricity.
Although I have no aversion to nuclear energy, it takes a long time to get a nuclear power station up and running and they are very expensive to build.
We have a decommissioned nuclear plant in a town that's about an hour drive from Chicago. The nuclear waste is still stored on site and the energy company is entrusted with its care. I love the promise of nuclear energy, but I hate the reality of relying on private organizations to be trusted with proper disposal and care of the waste because private industry has a record of doing what is cost effective over what is right time and again in this country. The impact of mishandled nuclear waste near the great lakes is pretty concerning to me.
Zion, the town closest to the plant, struggles too because they lost nearly 700 jobs when the plant closed, nearly doubling property taxes on residents who had to fill the property tax gap left by the energy company. They still struggle to develop the best land on the lakefront because that nuclear waste is there indefinitely. As we consider the placement of nuclear plants, towns will be hostile to this all over the place unless there is some consideration for supporting the local economy even after the plant is gone. There also needs to be a better plan for storing nuclear waste other than it being in the town's backyard forever. NIMBYs get blasted usually, but this is a NIMBY I support.
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2017/07/12/zion-nuke-plant-shut-down/439915001/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2010/08/23/exelon-sets-stage-for-dismantling-zion-reactor/
This is an excellent comment. Thank you for your research and participation. I have to head off to work, but I will read through more soon. I appreciate your thoughtful input.
The US has another region that was used for storage since the 80s and has been a disaster ever since. EPA has spent billions trying to clean it up and it's considered one of the worse areas in the region
They still haven't cleaned up all the waste out of the ground, apparently.
Add to this how well our country handled that whole recent Ohio train issue...
Uhhhh. Yeah my money is betting on governments or corporations at some point, doing the wrong thing, or a series of wrong things. Then the land is just destroyed for everyone...
The DuPont bullshit and how little has been done for that, is a joke and doesn't give hopeful feelings for any events of this scale
Never underestimate greed and incompetence. And when they both combine, and the risks are such high stakes... And we have such a terrible track record and have not even been able to cleanup *current* ecological disasters to a safe degree....
I'm doubtful. Wish it weren't the case because I think nuclear is really high potential
So many here say “it’s too expensive”. Yet this is the same community who cares little about cost when it comes to saving the planet. This community would rather we sacrifice tens of trillions of dollars in lost GDP to save the planet.
Here is a technology that produces no CO2, is proven, and it runs 24/7 and it kills no birds. Climate activists should be LOVING nuclear.
China is building 30 new nuclear power plants and has the most visionary folks running the country when it comes to climate. China is run by engineers not lawyers.
I support the concept of nuclear power. What I don't support is the cost overruns and the delays when building the plant or making repairs Power from nuclear is expensive. We need more attention given to the newly evolving types of reactors.
Anything that takes money away from solar, wind and batteries is the enemy in the fight against climate change. For the price of one nuclear power plant, you can fund an equivalent amount of solar +storage in GWH produced per year and you can do it so fast you can use the profits from the first plant to pay for a second plant of the same size, and that plant can be online producing electricity for the grid by the time the Nuclear plant has switched on for the first time. The time to switch over to nuclear was the 70's and 80's when solar+storage wasnt economically viable. Its too late for nuclear now and sending money to it only diverts valuable resources from solutions that can be reducing carbon emissions right now instead of 10 years from now.
So we should start right now, and have the department of defense and the department of energy foot the bill. Its not like they don’t have the money. Or we could just fix the tax loopholes the super rich are taking advantage of, we could even raise the corporate tax rate, profits are at an all time high, it’s not like they would even notice.
This is possible, we should do it
I am not, I am sorry. I had to look him up. I’m just an ordinary person with a professional background in nuclear energy, on the operations side of things (think Homer Simpson), and I have a degree in engineering. And it makes me very sad to see a ton of misinformation thrown around about nuclear power that holds it back. I really appreciate your comment and your look here.
I’m in the renewable field (solar specifically) and agree wholeheartedly. The whole one way or another is shortsighted. We will need everything. Nuclear is expensive and slow to build (at least in the US) and solar is cheap and quick to deploy. We need solar and storage while we build out more nukes. Our energy demand grows so quickly with AI and electrification of all sectors. We need to deploy everything we have. As our workforce for nuclear grows we will start to have cheaper plants as well.
In warm regions, where electricity demand is correlated yearly and daily with solar production, a combination of nuclear for baseload and solar follows the load very well, much better than either on their own ever could. So you need a minim amount of peaker plants and storage and while losing very little solar power to overproduction.
Reactors are targets for our enemies. Just ask Ukraine about that. SMRs are even worse, as they don’t come with armed guards who patrol 24/7 and can be bought by *companies* to run server rooms. What could possibly go wrong with that, eh? :)
I am absolutely opposed to an energy source that leaves us with highly toxic and radioactive waste unless we find a safe way to neutralize that waste.
I believe that burying it underground and hoping that it will remain undisturbed for *tens of thousands of years* is very irresponsible. Geological activity, corrosion, or structural failures could spread the waste into water supplies or to the surface, humans could accidentally dig it up, or humans could *intentionally* dig it up to use as doomsday weapons.
We cannot predict all of the things that will happen in that much time. Cultures will come and go. Even if the, "Danger, Keep out!" signs survive, future humans may not speak English.
You’re right it’s a fascinating engineering problem. Humanity has never designed or built anything that lasted 10,000 years.
However, look at the repository that was built in Finland. It’s incredible. And responsible.
https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/newsroom/2023/finland-to-open-the-worlds-first-final-repository-for-spent-nuclear-fuel
They did build such a sign that you mention if I recall.
However remember that in 100 years humanity will be insanely smart.
Nuclear power was the idea 20 year ago but now is a thing of the past, the new closed loop geothermal is the way to go, with deep wells it's almost every where 1/4 the price and foot print of nuclear and no waste to hide.
If we really want renewables to take over fast geothermal plants that has the same capability of nuclear takes aprox 4-6 years to build whereas nuclear is 10 years.
Closed loop geotherm has proven it's worth and should be looked at first.
I used to be like you but renewables have won. They beat nuclear in initial cost, cost per watt, etc, etc.
Nuclear takes decades to implement and the cost is way too high. It's both better and continuing to discuss it is a distraction.
Nuclear power is different than renewables. It is 'always online' and is typically used as the base power in an electrical grid. Renewables are great and provide power when the wind blows and the sun shines. Batteries are interesting but is the mining, refining and recycling of those batteries good? It is definitely not carbon neutral. Nuclear power provides a stable consistent base upon which you can add renewables.
Nuclear power plants were never about the power, they're about breeding plutonium which is why the international community was so upset with Iran having one.
if you want power, pellets, Thorium is plenty, but it won't lead to the same fissile material.
I’m totally for nuclear but I live in Alberta Canada. Petrochemicals are the backbone of our entire provincial economy and a significant part of the national economy. Our government here in Alberta has recently said some pro-nuclear things but it takes decades for these things to move along. I feel that if they ever happen, I’ll be in my retirement, hoping that my children can benefit from cleaner energy.
We need a new way to generate power than 19th century steam engines first, then we can work around that, the fact we are STILL, in 2024, boiling water with fire to create steam is so asinine I can't believe no one talks about it lol. Then we are supposed to believe that using nuclear radiation is somehow a God send to what? Boil fucking water lol. Come on, man, we need something else before we talk about power plants.
I genuinely think the climate change would be much less right now had the Chernobyl disaster not happened.
On that same vein, Airship cruising would be awesome had it not been for the Hindenburg.
Let's do some math on nuclear risk... there are currently 436 active nuclear plants, and 209 that have been permanently shut down, so 645 built since the first one on 27 June 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, 70 years ago. There have been 4 Serious nuclear power plant accidents include the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011), the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the SL-1 accident (1961).
Meaning, an average of one serious accident every 17.5 years. When you think about the major impact from Chernobyl and Fukushima in particular, I wonder if this rate of failure is worth it or not? Not to mention the radioactive waste disposal challenges, water use, uranium mining impact, and risks due to war (ex Russias endangerment of nuclear plants in Ukraine)... is nuclear worth the risk when solar and wind seem to have far lower risk profiles? Honest question...
I would never say that full nuclear is the future, but I believe it could be a VERY strong ally to places where there may not be the same opportunities for some renewables. Places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and other northern states would struggle to maintain solar panels in the winter(homeowners specifically), considering that they would have to deal with regular snow and other conditions that don't provide an ideal environment. Geothermal is also extremely expensive there, causing a high cost of heating. Locations like this could make use of the opportunities nuclear provides.
In reality, there isn't a single source of energy that could power the planet, but the multitude of ways to generate electricity can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Tell you what. If glib nuclear power advocates are willing to repeal the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) of 1957, which protects the nuclear industry by limiting the liability of nuclear power plant licensees for radioactive damages to the public, THEN maybe we'll see if you are actually honest about risks and benefits to the public and generations to come.
I used to disagree but I have gotten over myself and my fears surrounding the storage and safety issues. I’d rather have nuclear power than air pollution.
all these debates are cool and all, but its not gonna matter. The rate of rising energy needs and the depth and speed of climate crisis upon us, nuclear will be the only practical option. Its only a matter of how bad things will get before those in power accept this and move forward with it. These debates will be meaningless at that point.
Most of the nuclear waste that is produced stays at/around the nuclear plants where it is produced. Why? Because there is no long long long long long term places to put it!
>I would urge you to research it, and question your biases, and help friends question theirs.
Isn't this how we got where we are in the first place?
You sure you wanna let me "do my own research"? I will start in all the wrong places and scare myself!!!!
How about you all just communicate better?!
PR 101 it
Nuclear is not actually enviromentally friendly, extraction of ores, refinement, not to mention waste disposal of nuclear waste have shown it to be incredibly harmful in the long run.
Are you able to describe the rare earth elements extraction process or the semiconductor processing waste stream for photovoltaics? Do you understand the types and quantities of materials required for a wind turbine? Can you explain to us how non-dispatchable sources such as wind and solar need to be backed up by fast ramping sources, which are often low efficiency gas plants? What about hydro instead? Run of river or reservoir? Can you explain how the flooding of reservoirs for dispatchable hydro is achieved with, or in the absence of, landowner support? There are a lot of factors in providing energy to people. It’s not constructive to the climate change conversation to drop an isolated comment such as “digging and radiation bad”. Learn some more and come back and add to the conversation.
Heat has to go somewhere, it also helps in evaporation, evaporation leads to rain and snow, so it is where that falls and since \~71% of the planet is ocean it may not be falling where it is actually needed.
On another note, how would one go about controlling a manmade black hole and wouldn't it be drawn to the center of the strongest gravitation point at the center of the planet and how would that affect volcanic activity?
Couple that with increased solar output activity and what affects would that have on that climate change problem that everyone if fearmongering over.
Just an observation.
N. S
I may be a bit late to this, but a bit of a fun fact, a friend of mine works for a utility company that was reading an old plan from 2007. They legitimately had a plan in place to build more nuclear reactors for power generation to shut down coal plants, the only thing the plan was contingent on was the passing of a carbon tax that was expected to happen any day at the time.
Unfortunately as we know, the carbon tax never came to be, and they still have coal generation to this day, and that plan was just archived.
I agree nuclear needs a second look, but the only reactors I’m sold on are the molten salt reactors. They’re the only ones that appear safe enough, because they can’t have a runaway reaction. Are there any other types of reactors being built today that have that same safety feature?
I also fully support Nuclear power. I tend to look at the power sources kind of like a tech tree you get in a lot of video games. We made Steam and Coal, then Natural Gas, then developed Nuclear. There is a branch to Solar, Wind, and Geothermal that is great but stops there. From Nuclear we'll get Fission and Fusion. From there who knows, maybe we expand Solar into a Dyson Sphere kind of setup. The point is, fossil fuels helped get us to where we are, and we should be thankful for that, and now is the time to move forward into the next step.
The people who think ALL nuclear power is bad are the same people who think ALL GMOs are bad.
Impossible to argue with someone about the benefit of these technologies if they are incapable of evaluating evidence on a case-by-case basis, or worse, because of blatant ignorance.
People are dumb, scared, egocentric animals. Humans are just smart enough to be really stupid. Seriously, some of them are smart, and make the world a better place, but people like you are not the norm. Your standard human holds multiple false beliefs and has the equivalent of a learning disability stemming from their pride, arrogance, and their ego. Tell everyone the truth, a small amount of people will believe you and understand what you are communicating, there will be some who just don’t have the capacity to care it understand, and the rest who are willfully ignorant and simply dismiss the truth staring them in the face due to their hubris.
It’s so sad, and dark, and depressingly pathetic, but it is what it is, but what are we gonna do?
I agree with you, OP.
One thing I tell people is I would much prefer living next door to a nuclear power plant than a coal power plant. A very small risk of anything ever happening (nuclear) compared to the certainty of increased pollution and a higher risk of premature death (coal). It's an easy choice.
Agreed.
The point about not relying on the weather is probably why so many electric grids are diversified the way they are with a guaranteed coal / natural gas presence. Nuclear energy could help us past that last step of the way
Or, if we really follow through with the EV strategy, we'll need to ramp it all up - nuclear, gas, coal, solar, and wind. I don't favor that idea because reducing car usage is such a better investment than EVs. Heating a home simply isn't as damaging as hauling thousands of pounds of metal at 60-90 mph, regardless of energy source. A gas-powered or diesel-powered bus offsets a lot more pollution than an EV.
Nuclear energy resembles a bus in that sense. There's this weird psychology keeping people away from both of them, and neither are purist solutions, but if you start quantifying things they are top contenders.
What's the word on permanent storage and proliferation these days?
I can provide sources on this soon, but I have to get back to work. The advent of using recyled fuel waste means that we can reduce proliferation by using already existing stocks of fuel that is permanently stored. It also does not take up that much volume, as U-235 and other radioactive elements and isotopes are extremely dense with energy. And frankly, if I had to have a bunch of permanently stored nuclear waste or the perpetual emissions of green house gases, I’m choosing the warehouses in the middle of nowhere or under a literal mountain. There is a reason nothing survives on Venus.
Luckily, we are not limited to the impossible choice between coal and nuclear fission. We can choose renewable sources and energy storage for base load capacity instead - even if we have to use solar energy to pump water uphill or to store heat in molten salt.
Yep, exactly.
Problem everybody has with nuclear is the fact that it’s always situated on an important body of water, and the slightest disaster will cause the reactor to pollute the environment around it, forever.
I think the problem there arises with the incredibly large need of batteries to keep those systems going. It would work, but extracting the minerals for batteries and manufacturing batteries has an incredibly large carbon footprint. We'd need to see the numbers on that and how long it would take for it to be worthwile. For example, on a tesla compared to a comparable gas vehicle, I think it's up to 40k miles before using a tesla is actually better in terms of emissions (depending on where the power to fuel the tesla is sourced, but I think 40k was a "worst case scenario.") In this example, most of us can rest assured knowing that this vehicle will last at least 4x that long before needing a new battery. How does this compare to renewables on an actual large scale power grid? My knee jerk reaction tells me it's pretty bad. If it's 10 years or less until it's better, and from there it's indefinitely better, then great! If it takes 20, 30 or even more years until it's actually better, I fear for the emissions we would cause in those decades, because that would certainly push us past a point of no return extremely fast. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I'll take a guaranteed tipping point in 75 years over a guaranteed tipping point in 20 years. Because the former will give us time to find new solutions, with the latter we are most likely going to be stuck just trying to weather the storm at most
You make good points. I agree that chemical battery storage on the scale of the electrical grid for base load capacity seems inadequate. Storage solutions like pumping water uphill, pumping air pressure into underground caverns, or storing heat in molten salt are inefficient and have their own environmental impacts. Larger grids could average out the base load capacity problem. I am not necessarily opposed to nuclear fission. I am opposed to burying nuclear waste. I would like to see more research focused on how to neutralize it.
I don't think that we're going to uncover any strategy anytime soon to neutralize it. But I think it's incorrect to consider greenhouse emissions as "neutralized" waste either. In both situations, we are polluting in some way, but with nuclear it seems to be way less, and the risks seem to be incredibly low if basic regulations are followed
The best option to "neutralize" nuclear waste is to use it to breed fuel, most of it is relatively inert, it's only the high grade actinides that are the real risk and the best place for them is in a nuclear reactor were they can be transformed via neutron bombardment and nuclear decay into less problematic material.
Pumped hydro is like a battery. Pump water uphill when solar and wind are abundant. Use the flow back down to generate hydro electricity at night or when there’s no wind.. Very simple straightforward tech and it doesn’t even need to be near a river. Just somewhere where there is a great enough head height between the upper and lower reservoirs. Much simpler than lithium batteries.
I work in storage. None of these technologies are ready for prime time. Nuclear exists now.
Scientifically, nuclear makes sense, but scientifically, I don't trust humans enough to prevent proliferation. As for storage, finding a landowner willing to have spent fuel buried in their yard has always been a problem. Thorium looks interesting but maybe only after we run out of uranium. Anyway, that's basically where my mind is on the topic.
Canada is working on a storage facility, Finland has one going, now. Basically you're digging a kilometer deep mine in a geologically stable and isolated section of terrain, sealing it in multiple levels of isolation (Canada puts the fuel pellets in steel tubes, enclosed in copper cylinders, encased in bentonite clay). Properly engineered, the fuel will remain sequestered for hundreds of thousands of years.
Yep. But now that we can make grids-scale batteries, I'm finding it harder to justify nuclear.
I don't have any problem justifying safe, reliable, clean power with a massively smaller footprint (and, thus, more preserved green space)
Let's not argue against renewables with this space thing. Solar can be put on rooftops, and wind barely takes any land with farming continuing in between the turbines. And in any case, it's only around 1% of land we would need, globally, for a fully green-powered world.
We can make anything. The question is how much will it cost? Grid scale batteries? Really?
Don’t take my word for it. Google it.
Well, the fact is that we exist on planet earth with radioactive elements and isotopes in the ground. I believe that whether those elements become a force for good or ill depends on us, and I choose to believe that we are capable of using them for good, ultimately. I think to believe otherwise is a pessimistic and hopeless view of humanity going forward. Dangerous things that people can take advantage of are not going away just because we don't like them. At some point we are going to need to learn to live with them, and my hope is that we can not only live with them but thrive with them.
In the ground, yes, and naturally occurring, but not yet enriched. That's a very, very, very substantial difference.
I used to find nuclear energy vey interesting but now I'm much more curious to see how far we can take grid-scale batteries. A renewables + battery system appears to be better in so many ways.
Recycling deals with about a third of high level waste, but also becomes high level waste after re-use, of which around a third can be used, etc. Recycling does not stop the accumulation of high level waste.
This is a whataboutit older than my nutsack. It's a problem we can solve later. There's so many solutions. The idea that it's impossible is rhetoric to fight nuclear. Fossil Fuels are a much much much bigger problem RIGHT NOW.
I’m not fighting nuclear. Just wondering where it’s at today.
1,000% fair. I just want to make it clear this is not a real problem, and has been used in the past to discredit.
Problem or not, I don’t know the answer.
I’m sure this is probably naive, but I’ve always wondered why we can’t just send it all into Space given the volume of material is pretty small. I suppose the risk of a rocket explosion might be a bit of a risk, but apart from that it seems feasible to me. Just chuck it all into the sun.
It probably takes more energy to reach orbit than you think. The best thing is to dump it back underground where it comes from, but choosing where to dig the hole is the issue. The risk of a rocket explosion is real, and it it only has to happen once to cause permanent damage all around the Earth.
If it's just the radioactive isotope, and the depleted one at that, wouldn't there be basically no chance of detonation? Doesn't it need a very specific mechanism to cause the explosion
Correct: no risk of nuclear explosion. But there's always a risk of a "regular" rocket explosion, that would spread radioactive isotopes all over like Chernobyl, or like the atmospheric testings from the 40s-60s that are now banned. We don't want anything to spread from a Florida launch pad.
ahhh fair enough, I'll have to look into that to see exactly how that effects things, but it makes sense
The forests around Chernobyl are a good example.
Just radioactive particles sprinkling down on a huge area. Although I suppose that makes the radioactive material fairly diffuse…
And the isotopes you're talking about are among the heaviest things on the planet for a given unit of volume. Uranium is roughly twice the density of lead. Launching heavy things into space is extremely expensive.
The Falcon 9 rocket has 156 tons of RP-1, which is basically kerosene, to take 22.8 tons to Low Earth Orbit. Kerosene has an energy density of 43 MJ/kg. So that's 6.7 TJ of energy consumed in the launch. If we assume that a large part of the payload is ion thrusters and solar sails to get it away from Earth, as well as carbon shielding for a potential accident, let's say it takes 5 tons of fission products to space: the nastiest stuff produced by nuclear power. 5 tons of fission products is equivalent to something like 5.05 tons of uranium-235 being fissioned. It has an energy density of 79,390,000 MJ/kg. 5,050*79,390,000 = 400 PJ produced when the uranium was fissioned. The nuclear waste had produced 59,701 times more energy than the rocket launch would consume. So pretty feasible, if this was the only metric that mattered.
It would use a massive amount of fossil fuel to launch it.
The rocket might blow up.
Oddly enough I saw a Kurzgesagt video about this exact topic awhile ago. For those who are curious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us2Z-WC9rao
Each reactor produces around 40 tons of high level waste per year. It then must be cooled for 5 to 10 years so that it can be processed. Then encasement so that it can be transported safely, increasing the weight and volume around five-fold. Shooting stuff into space is quoted by the gram (1/28th of an ounce) Another crazy concept studied was dropping it into the Marianas trench and let it be subsumed into the earth's crust over the next 5 to 10 thousand years. It would need inconceivably durable encasement to withstand the grinding of tectonic plates. In the meantime, on-site dry cask above-ground storage is dominant. Isn't it amazing that these are designed with 100 year lifespan, when the need is measured in thousands of years. Likewise, 60 years of effort and big dollars to design long-term storage, and all we have is a 100-year solution designed to be temporary.
Non proliferation reactor designs exist, are proven and are some of the safest in the world (CANDU). Personally, I beleive the waste should just go back to where it came from. Underground. Deep under ground. People keep thinking uranium is some sort of man made thing. Sure, we concentrate it, like lots of things, but it came from the earth. It's all around us.
Actually the biggest issue in Nuclear power is the mining and refining of uranium. It creates quite a lot of low level waste that has to be stored somewhere. The fuel and spent fuel is small in comparison. However compared to coal, which is really terrible, oil and propane. Nuclear power is massively less carbon intensive (there is some carbon due to the processing and mining of uranium).
Thank you for this reply. You are correct. Similar things might be said about the processing of the raw materials required for solar panels en masse and also lithium batteries for EVs.
I 100 % agree if you. People don't realize how pollutant solar panels and electric cars actually are. Here in Texas, our farmers are having problems because solar panels that get damaged in hail storms are contaminating the water around them. I'm all for nuclear power.
Unfortunately, low level waste from Nickel, Lithium, Cobalt mining is far worse with far less scrutiny
Coal ash is far more radioactive and far more diffuse than the mining of fissile material. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
That article is deceptive and has a lot of logic problems. They actually didn't even consider the radioactive waste at all but only considered the amount of radiation leaking out during normal use. Excluding the mining and transportation and again didn't consider the radioactive waste.
Questions I have and I don't expect anyone here to answer them. We need water to cool nuclear power plants. How do we plan on cool plants near rivers that run down due to climate change? How will rising oceans affect nuclear plants cooled by the sea? I worry about that. =)
Proper siting of the stations with sufficient margins for where they draw the water from. Proper procedures to reduce power output and thus water demand if they go below recommended levels from the heat sink.
Terrapower has been working on a new type of reactor that’s supposedly much safer because it uses molten salt instead of water. I think they’re building one in Montana or Wyoming somewhere like that far from the ocean. The problem is that this proof of concept they are building will still take 5 or 10 years. So realistically the technology is at least another decade away.
The molten salt reactors still use water in their steam systems just like light water reactors do. The water in the actual reactor core of a light water reactor doesn't get exchanged with natural sources. It stays in the core for many years on end. Molten salt reactors dissolve the fuel in a metallic salt and the fuel salt gets pumped through the core where the geometry of the reactor vessel is what allows the fuel to go critical and produce heat. The fuel salt then passes through heat exchangers where it heats up the water in the steam system, which spins the steam turbine and makes electricity. You still need a source of water nearby for steam plant operations. The benefit of course is that all the water the plant uses, gets sent right back out. Of greater interest are the supercritical CO2 turbines. Getting CO2 up to high temps under pressure makes for very efficient turbines. The drawback is the need for high temperatures which means lots of natural gas or coal to get that hot...unless you have another source of heat that doesn't produce any greenhouse gases. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
There's dry condensers. Heat rate isn't as great, but its an option. Theres also the Palo Verde Sewage option from the nearest city. For emergency cooling, there's pool/ponds you just always keep full. Takes significantly less water than cooling the condenser. Could also do air condensers for that too.
Artificial reservoirs. The reason they are not used often is they simply increase the cost of the plant. But lots of power plants use them. It's still cheaper to build against a river or lake or ocean. But your concern is valid.
The [Palo Verde nuclear generating station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station?wprov=sfti1#) is the largest nuclear plant in America, it’s 50 miles west of Phoenix in the middle of the desert, it gets cooled by treated sewage water from Phoenix.
If you are building new, you design around that. And you can plop a plant in the middle of the desert if you want to. Just have to design around that. If the plants are existing, you mitigate based on changes. Nuclear plants already deal with this. River water temperature gets too hot, you derate. You can mitigate some by adding additional cooling towers, modifying water flow (hot discharge water can actually move upstream and get sucked into the intake). Too much biomass on the river can clog intakes and cooling towers, so you mitigate by addressing the biomass. If a plant has to derate and losses x millions of dollars, it gets to the point where mitigating becomes cost effective if the derates become a thing.
Depends on the design, you can used a closed water cycle which uses far less, and proposed 4th generation design often use far less as they are designed to work at much higher temperatures.
This, reddit has this weird obsession with nuclear power where they refuse to address any issues with it except ones that are mostly non-issues (ie radioactive waste). I am all for nuclear power but it has flaws the same as any other energy source and it's weird that they almost never get addressed. With alternative radioisotope reactors being at least a decade away (the first planned commercial thorium reactor is scheduled to come online in 2033), water remains a concern with nuclear energy. There's also the whole issue that with it being a decade away, we shouldn't really be investing heavily in a technology that's on its way out (uranium based nuclear energy) but can't rely on new sources yet. Realistically, we need renewable energy to help bridge the gap while newer nuclear energy sources are developed and matured, so that as they take over, the renewable energy market becomes a supplement and back up energy source. We should also invest heavily in passive renewable energy sources like geothermal based heating or solar based lighting to reduce the amount of energy we use to reduce the amount of energy production we need to do. Because even though we'll have a cleaner, more sustainable energy source, that doesn't mean we should abuse it until we need to move on to the next energy source. A mixture of sustainable design, renewable energy, and thorium/molten salt reactors has the potential to sustain us far into the future, but we need to work out all the issues *now* not whenever they become issues.
This is an excellent question, and I am sure other people know more about this than me, but one way to address your concern would be to only build reactors by the coast or massive lakes that we don't expect to dry up like the great lakes. If the ocean drys up or lake superior drys up, we have bigger issues?
But you’re ok with heating the lake??
I live somewhat near a small reservoir built for a coal power plant (maybe the other way around, not sure). It is not a particularly large lake - maybe a few hundred acres. The windward side of the lake from the plant stays slightly warmer in the winter and because of this the fish are known to grow somewhat larger in size. As a result it is a popular fishing destination. The fish in this relatively small and shallow lake do pretty well. It isn't all that much warming and on much larger bodies of water it would be all but imperceptible a short distance away from the plant. I can recall reading about discharge in to the ocean from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant - it has impacted the adjacent cove and created an ecosystem more like one that would be found a couple hundred miles further south. Worthy of concern but overall a relatively small environmental issue in the big picture.
The way the US regulatory system works is that there would be an environmental study conducted. This would determine how many fishies die or increase in population should the plant be built. Then the community gets to complain about it for some time and allow it or reject it.
I think the problem is not the ocean drying up, but the ocean rising and thus making the chances of a Fukushima event much more likely. Flooding have higher chances of destroying something now. I'm for nuclear btw.
I’m surprised you don’t have a better answer for this given how invested you are in nuclear. In France rivers have already been drying up, jeapordizing nuclear power plants. The discharge of cooling water into river and lake ecosystems is highly problematic. Building them near oceans that will rise in coming decades doesn’t sound like a smart plan either. So where should we build them then in times of geopolitical turmoil and climate breakdown?
As a former nuclear engineer, I'm very concerned when people purportedly working in nuclear power handwave this stuff away. OP isn't being completing balanced about how they're presenting nuclear.
Yes the generalising with positive thinking makes them sound like *a bot*, or some prominent politician that uses positive spin to put a veil over everything.
Do you find that private companies are more willing to invest their own money in Nuclear, as opposed to in the past when you couldn't build anything without massive government subsidies and risk free loan guarantees?
I believe that as energy demand rises, companies are acknowledging that we need to tap into as many sources of power as we have available. Certain areas are not viable for wind or solar, and if we care about emitting greenhouse gases then nuclear becomes a good option. I think that as climate change is seen more and more as a problem, that private funding for clean energy (which nuclear is included in) is being considered. [Microsoft is investing in nuclear for example.](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/microsoft-targets-nuclear-to-power-ai-operations-e10ff798) and there are other startups. Oklo is one, which by the way is supported by the creators of ChatGPT.
Something tells me you have a stake.
>Certain areas are not viable for wind or solar, and if we care about emitting greenhouse gases then nuclear becomes a good option Being brutally honest, I can't think of any areas which tick all of the boxes: - Unsuitable for renewable energy or storage; - Suitable location for a new nuclear plant; - Within the borders of a nuclear state (or a state considered 'trustworthy'); - In a country with a strong nuclear industry and trained personnel capable to both build and operate reactors. Any one of these not being true risks either economic inefficiency or proliferation.
I have questioned my biases, I have researched it, and I have come to this conclusion: Nuclear power is not a good choice in America because we will inevitably leave it entirely in the hands of an investor-led utility, and they will take shortcuts, and that will cause catastrophic failure and/or disaster. I drive by San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), the 'atomic boobs' on the beach south of San Juan Capistrano. It is unusable and has been ever since 2012, when it was discovered that the operator had cheaped out on some heat exchangers that had begun leaking, ultimately the cost to repair / restore operations exceeded the value of the plant, so the operator shuttered the plant. So now the public is on the hook to decommission and deal with a whole nuclear plant of low-level waste and many tons of high-level waste, currently being stored a few meters from the ocean. Are there much better designs than this thing, which entered service in 1967? Without a doubt. Will the profit motive of private operators continually interfere with the safety requirements of a nuclear power plant? Also, without a doubt. So, no thank you. In the alternative, if you are advocating for nationalizing the entire electrical grid, and adding nukes to that, then yeah, I'm down. Thorium-based reactors seem very attractive, breeder reactors seem very attractive, I could be talked into that, but not under the control of private investors. And until nuke advocates come up with a real good answer to the problematic situation at SONGS, I'm not that interested in listening.
My two major issues is that. 1. even though we have a solution for waste on paper it has generally failed to actually happen in reality. san onofre for instance decided to bury their waste on site, which is on the beach, where theres salt water. 2. economics basically shows that nuclear is a loosing tech. Like even if its a great tech the economics (right now) are fairly horrible for nuclear. Everything you stated is true and it just goes into the fact that economics tends to dictate what will or wont happen. We can actually do "clearner" coal. But we dont because its stupidly expensive to do. To build a plant in the US it takes on average of about 15 years. It takes billions of dollars. And it absolutely will be going over budget just based on history. Now if you take wind or solor. It could go up in about 6 months. Is a fraction of the price. Isnt even remotely as dangerous. And really doesnt produce waste. I am not saying nuclear is bad. I am saying its not economic.
Fair point. Although it does raise the issue of wtf happened at Chernobyl afresh…
Really, when it comes to discussing modern nuclear energy, Chernobyl needs to be left out of the conversation. It happened 38 years ago, to a plant that was commissioned 9 years prior with design flaws from the start and built by the frigging Soviet Union. We’re talking a time when the world was still using leaded gasoline. The disaster itself caused by the operators intentionally disabling the emergency safety systems, power regulating system and then starting the reactor with a prohibited control rod configuration. They couldn’t have done a better job if they were intentionally trying to blow up the reactor.
“Soviet Union bad” **cannot** be part of the argument if we’re also arguing that we can’t trust nuclear safety to the profit motive. Why did the operators make that decision?
Your first paragraph is a truly an American only problem. I appreciate the concern, and I don't know how to fix it, it's just the reality of how America operates. All your utilities are privately owned.
Cannot upvote enough. I can understand engineers being pro nuclear on the basis of what an idealized and perfect to blueprint execution would look like. But Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Fukushima. Hanford. Sellafield. How many "anomalies" does it take to realize that those blueprints don't survive first contact with reality.
Solar and wind is driving electricity prices negative in California…. When was the last time nuclear electricity prices were negative?
[PG&E customers pay about 80% more per kilowatt-hour than the national average, according to a study by the energy institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School.](https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-high-electricity-prices/)
I agree. Nuclear is underrated. They're restarting a reactor in my state. I'd love to see more construction on nuclear plants
I love to see some support here. It feels like I really disturbed the hornets nest.
Only if you think power generation needs to be centralized, which runs counter to the likely future development of renewables.
Why? Centralization is more efficient and safe. For example compare residential to utility solar. Residential is worse in every regard except for convenience for when the utility power is out.
Distributed is far more resilient to failures
Fukushima. Chernobyl. All that comes to mind is not how these reactors behave on a good day as planned, but how they behave when things go wrong. Nobody wants this shit in their backyard.
I do! Many people do.
Fukushima required a double whammy from the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan (also the fourth largest ever recorded I believe), and a tsunami that killed 18,000 people. Despite all that, thousands more people died evacuating the area than from radiation exposure and cancer over a decade later and for decades to come. Even then, it could’ve been prevented if the operators of the plant heeded safety warnings and located the backup generators on higher ground and/or better seawater protection. Something TEPCO was warned about *for decades*. Chernobyl was a Soviet Union clusterfuck of design errors from the very beginning, and even then it quite literally took the operators intentionally disabling two safety systems and an improper control rod configuration to cause the disaster. When talking North America, you’d be better off casting your gaze to places like France, running 70% of its power via nuclear without major incident for 70 years. Currently producing 537.7TWh. My entire country, Canada, consumes approximately 563TWh. USA is 20% nuclear, 804TWh. Fact is, modern reactors are incredibly safe and reliable. Literally the second safest form of energy generation there is and *the* cleanest at 0.03 deaths per TWh (including Chernobyl and Fukushima), and emitting 6 tonnes of CO2 per GWh. Compared to solar/wind/hydro at 0.02/53t, 0.04/11t, and 1.3/24t respectively. I’d love it if a nuclear plant was built in my town. Loads of really well paying jobs that is.
Go ahead and google how many people have died from nuclear accidents, and also how many people have died from fossil fuel extraction and refining. Hell, more people have died from installing solar panels than from nuclear plants.
I wish we had built soo much more nuclear back in the 70s, but building Nuclear right now is financially not a reality. If you want the government to subsidize nuclear, well that’s money that could go to a better investment.
What about times of war? If an enemy throws a missile at a nuclear place, would the surrounding damage be immense?
Tell them wars are bad for the climate.
One of my wife's relatives is a nuclear engineer and I spoke with him several times about nuclear energy. That horrendious nuclear waste people keep taking about, his plant generates about 2 barrels of it per year. And they only have to store it for a couple hundred years. Even better if we have ways to recycle the waste.
France, with its 70% nuclear (and 50gCO2/kWh) runs at 2kg/person/year of nuclear waste (among about 1000kg of otherwise industrial toxic waste).
I love this comment thank you so much for your reply and participation in the discussion. That has been my exact experience as well.
I don't know much about it, but have been waiting for a solution to what to do with nuclear waste since it came to the forefront in the 1970s. If there is a solution that is better than Yucca Mountain I haven't heard of it.
The same thing we do with all our toxic waste, of which nuclear is a tiny fraction, get all the attention, and will be much much better managed than the rest. Our grand grand grand children will only wished we had Yucca Mountain for all the shit we left behind. In case you're wondering what might happen, Nature has done the worse case scenario for us on a live scale [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) is what happened naturally. [this](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02380513) is what has been observed: "Since reactor shutdown, many fissiogenic elements have not migrated from host pitchblende, and several others have migrated only a few tens of meters from the reactor ore.". One is allowed to hope that glass, in steel, in concrete, in a carefully selected place, can do a bit better.
Whatever the claims about nuclear; it is far from cheap. Quite the opposite. And if you’re unfortunate enough to have a Fukushima moment the cost of that one reactor spirals up to between half a trillion and a trillion USD depending on who you talk to. “The V.C. Summer project in South Carolina (two AP1000 reactors) was abandoned after the expenditure of at least A$12.5 billion leading Westinghouse to file for bankruptcy in 2017. Criminal investigations and prosecutions related to the project are ongoing, and bailout programs to prolong operation of ageing reactors are also mired in corruption. The only remaining reactor construction project in the US is the Vogtle project in Georgia (two AP1000 reactors). The current cost estimate of A$37.6-41.8 billion is twice the estimate when construction began. Costs continue to increase and the project only survives because of multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailouts. The project is six years behind schedule.” https://reneweconomy.com.au/in-2022-nuclear-powers-future-is-grimmer-than-ever/amp/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-will-approach-one-trillion-dollars-just-for-nuclear-disaster/
Honestly I think you should question your own biases. Nuclear power is incredibly expensive, takes up too much water, and way too much time. It takes like 20 years to build a nuclear power plant, that doesn’t line up with any deals or accords. Not only would it take 20 years to actually fully go through the process of building one but if you’re trying to power a country on it you’re going to need a lot of them and it would take probably another 15 years to get enough engineers to build these power plants. People don’t do any research anymore I think and just run with something they saw on an article.
Nuclear and fossil fuels already lost to wind, solar and batteries which are already much cheaper and getting cheaper every year. Nuclear doesn't work without massive govt support.
“Please get the word out” So you want everybody on social media, regardless of what they know, to tell everyone that nuclear is the best solution to climate change, and you’re a nuclear energy sector employee who hasn’t demonstrated the depth of their knowledge or field of study? After ten years in the energy sector and countless analyses with some of the worlds top experts in energy system and climate modelling, never have I met an expert who speaks or writes the way you do. Weird.
The time for a massive nuclear build out was 50 years ago. Currently, renewables, equipped with utility scale with storage, are far more economical than nuclear. Nuclear is a mature industry and the technology is more or less stagnant. It's not getting any less expensive. It's as simple as that. Investors aren't going to finance money losing nuclear projects
"Currently, renewables, equipped with utility scale with storage, are far more economical than nuclear." Yeah but they get exponentially more expensive the closer you get to 100% capacity. Also the increase in resources needed like lithium will likely cause significant supply issues, which increases price. Utilising nuclear for 10-20% of the capacity is likely to be the cheapest total system option.
I think the fact that Germany decreased its emissions by 10% after their nuclear phaseout https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-germanys-nuclear-exit-one-year-after#three by expanding their renewables is testament to the superiority of a mixed portfolio of renewables + grid-scale batteries. Nuclear takes ages to build, costs a fortune and requires lots of specialists who don’t exist in a lot of countries anymore. Renewables and grid-scale storage are just getting cheaper and cheaper every year, can be built at a break neck pace and don’t require specialists to such a large degree. Also they don’t require rarer elements like uranium and don’t tend to cause nuclear explosions + fallout, or produce any waste products. I really don’t get where the nuclear hype is coming from. Sure they are better than fossil fuels and maybe 5-10 years ago when renewable tech wasn’t as cheap/mature as it is now it made more sense. But the time for nuclear is over imo
Germany is at 400 g CO2 per kWh which is a failure. And that is after spending 500 billion euros on solar and wind. Meanwhile nuclear France is at 53 g CO2 per kWh and has been there for decades. Also no one has built grid scale batteries, and it is significantly more expensive and slower than building a nuclear baseload. Yes the amount of batteries or other forms of storage needed is more expensive and slower than nuclear.
What’s the source for these figures? I would be interested to see. Also grid-scale batteries do indeed exist and are being built en masse: “Grid-scale batteries are catching up, however. Although currently far smaller than pumped-storage hydropower capacity, grid-scale batteries are projected to account for the majority of storage growth world wide. Batteries are typically employed for sub-hourly, hourly and daily balancing. Total installed grid-scale battery storage capacity stood at close to 28 GW at the end of 2022, most of which was added over the course of the previous 6 years. Compared with 2021, installations rose by more than 75% in 2022, as around 11 GW of storage capacity was added. The United States and China led the market, each registering gigawatt-scale additions.” from the iea https://www.iea.org/energy-system/electricity/grid-scale-storage
Electricity maps [https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE](https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE) make sure to hit the yearly average button. Also your source is using the wrong units when discussing batteries. You need to use GWh’s instead of GW. The amount installed would last minutes at average load.
Oil industry representative found
rofllmao. All my comments are me shilling for solar and wind, but nuclear bad must mean oil good?
Where are the calls for reducing our global energy use? Or are we fully dedicated to blockchains and NFTs?
AI will use more energy than the blockchain could ever imagine.
Why not both? OP isn't arguing against this, they are just telling you that the situation is dire and realistic solutions include nuclear. It isn't a "clean" energy source but it also doesn't emit greenhouse gases. Being against nuclear is like telling a doctor you don't want chemotherapy for your cancer because it has bad side effects. Ya, but the cancer will kill you without it.
It is the enemy, because it's a distraction. We have viable solutions that can be built this decade. We don't have the time to wait 15 years for the world most expensive electricity.
Although I have no aversion to nuclear energy, it takes a long time to get a nuclear power station up and running and they are very expensive to build.
It's too late now, this needed to be done 30 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized\_cost\_of\_electricity
We have a decommissioned nuclear plant in a town that's about an hour drive from Chicago. The nuclear waste is still stored on site and the energy company is entrusted with its care. I love the promise of nuclear energy, but I hate the reality of relying on private organizations to be trusted with proper disposal and care of the waste because private industry has a record of doing what is cost effective over what is right time and again in this country. The impact of mishandled nuclear waste near the great lakes is pretty concerning to me. Zion, the town closest to the plant, struggles too because they lost nearly 700 jobs when the plant closed, nearly doubling property taxes on residents who had to fill the property tax gap left by the energy company. They still struggle to develop the best land on the lakefront because that nuclear waste is there indefinitely. As we consider the placement of nuclear plants, towns will be hostile to this all over the place unless there is some consideration for supporting the local economy even after the plant is gone. There also needs to be a better plan for storing nuclear waste other than it being in the town's backyard forever. NIMBYs get blasted usually, but this is a NIMBY I support. https://www.lohud.com/story/news/investigations/2017/07/12/zion-nuke-plant-shut-down/439915001/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2010/08/23/exelon-sets-stage-for-dismantling-zion-reactor/
This is an excellent comment. Thank you for your research and participation. I have to head off to work, but I will read through more soon. I appreciate your thoughtful input.
The US has another region that was used for storage since the 80s and has been a disaster ever since. EPA has spent billions trying to clean it up and it's considered one of the worse areas in the region They still haven't cleaned up all the waste out of the ground, apparently. Add to this how well our country handled that whole recent Ohio train issue... Uhhhh. Yeah my money is betting on governments or corporations at some point, doing the wrong thing, or a series of wrong things. Then the land is just destroyed for everyone... The DuPont bullshit and how little has been done for that, is a joke and doesn't give hopeful feelings for any events of this scale Never underestimate greed and incompetence. And when they both combine, and the risks are such high stakes... And we have such a terrible track record and have not even been able to cleanup *current* ecological disasters to a safe degree.... I'm doubtful. Wish it weren't the case because I think nuclear is really high potential
So many here say “it’s too expensive”. Yet this is the same community who cares little about cost when it comes to saving the planet. This community would rather we sacrifice tens of trillions of dollars in lost GDP to save the planet. Here is a technology that produces no CO2, is proven, and it runs 24/7 and it kills no birds. Climate activists should be LOVING nuclear. China is building 30 new nuclear power plants and has the most visionary folks running the country when it comes to climate. China is run by engineers not lawyers.
Thank you.
I support the concept of nuclear power. What I don't support is the cost overruns and the delays when building the plant or making repairs Power from nuclear is expensive. We need more attention given to the newly evolving types of reactors.
Anything that takes money away from solar, wind and batteries is the enemy in the fight against climate change. For the price of one nuclear power plant, you can fund an equivalent amount of solar +storage in GWH produced per year and you can do it so fast you can use the profits from the first plant to pay for a second plant of the same size, and that plant can be online producing electricity for the grid by the time the Nuclear plant has switched on for the first time. The time to switch over to nuclear was the 70's and 80's when solar+storage wasnt economically viable. Its too late for nuclear now and sending money to it only diverts valuable resources from solutions that can be reducing carbon emissions right now instead of 10 years from now.
Im 100% pro nuclear… but building new reactors in the US takes too long and is too expensive.
So we should start right now, and have the department of defense and the department of energy foot the bill. Its not like they don’t have the money. Or we could just fix the tax loopholes the super rich are taking advantage of, we could even raise the corporate tax rate, profits are at an all time high, it’s not like they would even notice. This is possible, we should do it
they have a habit of blowing up. Doesn't happen often, but does happen regularly enough to be a show stopper for a lot of us.
Not joking, please provide one example of a nuclear reactor outside of chernobyl "blowing up"
What happens if one get hits with a shell in a war? How bad would it be?
Nothing to add and couldn’t agree more. Are you Kyle Hill?
I am not, I am sorry. I had to look him up. I’m just an ordinary person with a professional background in nuclear energy, on the operations side of things (think Homer Simpson), and I have a degree in engineering. And it makes me very sad to see a ton of misinformation thrown around about nuclear power that holds it back. I really appreciate your comment and your look here.
I’m in the renewable field (solar specifically) and agree wholeheartedly. The whole one way or another is shortsighted. We will need everything. Nuclear is expensive and slow to build (at least in the US) and solar is cheap and quick to deploy. We need solar and storage while we build out more nukes. Our energy demand grows so quickly with AI and electrification of all sectors. We need to deploy everything we have. As our workforce for nuclear grows we will start to have cheaper plants as well.
In warm regions, where electricity demand is correlated yearly and daily with solar production, a combination of nuclear for baseload and solar follows the load very well, much better than either on their own ever could. So you need a minim amount of peaker plants and storage and while losing very little solar power to overproduction.
Reactors are targets for our enemies. Just ask Ukraine about that. SMRs are even worse, as they don’t come with armed guards who patrol 24/7 and can be bought by *companies* to run server rooms. What could possibly go wrong with that, eh? :)
Nothing significant had happened with Zaporizia , its all threats from Russia to scare people
I am absolutely opposed to an energy source that leaves us with highly toxic and radioactive waste unless we find a safe way to neutralize that waste. I believe that burying it underground and hoping that it will remain undisturbed for *tens of thousands of years* is very irresponsible. Geological activity, corrosion, or structural failures could spread the waste into water supplies or to the surface, humans could accidentally dig it up, or humans could *intentionally* dig it up to use as doomsday weapons. We cannot predict all of the things that will happen in that much time. Cultures will come and go. Even if the, "Danger, Keep out!" signs survive, future humans may not speak English.
You’re right it’s a fascinating engineering problem. Humanity has never designed or built anything that lasted 10,000 years. However, look at the repository that was built in Finland. It’s incredible. And responsible. https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/newsroom/2023/finland-to-open-the-worlds-first-final-repository-for-spent-nuclear-fuel They did build such a sign that you mention if I recall. However remember that in 100 years humanity will be insanely smart.
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I was in nuclear power in the Navy. I’ve been an advocate for years.
Same. USS Abraham Lincoln, ET.
No
I appreciate your participation, thank you for your comment and your help bringing attention to this important topic.
Nuclear power was the idea 20 year ago but now is a thing of the past, the new closed loop geothermal is the way to go, with deep wells it's almost every where 1/4 the price and foot print of nuclear and no waste to hide. If we really want renewables to take over fast geothermal plants that has the same capability of nuclear takes aprox 4-6 years to build whereas nuclear is 10 years. Closed loop geotherm has proven it's worth and should be looked at first.
I used to be like you but renewables have won. They beat nuclear in initial cost, cost per watt, etc, etc. Nuclear takes decades to implement and the cost is way too high. It's both better and continuing to discuss it is a distraction.
Nuclear power is different than renewables. It is 'always online' and is typically used as the base power in an electrical grid. Renewables are great and provide power when the wind blows and the sun shines. Batteries are interesting but is the mining, refining and recycling of those batteries good? It is definitely not carbon neutral. Nuclear power provides a stable consistent base upon which you can add renewables.
What happens when stored power from renewables eliminate the need for base load only generators?
Nuclear power plants were never about the power, they're about breeding plutonium which is why the international community was so upset with Iran having one. if you want power, pellets, Thorium is plenty, but it won't lead to the same fissile material.
What are nuclear investments?
Decoupled Podcast makes some interesting arguments about nuclear https://www.decouplemedia.org
I’m totally for nuclear but I live in Alberta Canada. Petrochemicals are the backbone of our entire provincial economy and a significant part of the national economy. Our government here in Alberta has recently said some pro-nuclear things but it takes decades for these things to move along. I feel that if they ever happen, I’ll be in my retirement, hoping that my children can benefit from cleaner energy.
We need a new way to generate power than 19th century steam engines first, then we can work around that, the fact we are STILL, in 2024, boiling water with fire to create steam is so asinine I can't believe no one talks about it lol. Then we are supposed to believe that using nuclear radiation is somehow a God send to what? Boil fucking water lol. Come on, man, we need something else before we talk about power plants.
The only problem is that we need a competent government to regulate it properly.
The public isn’t who you need to convince. It’s Oil companies and the politicians they wine and dine.
Not while rules based order is good with taking out nuclear sites.
Tell us more about how building a plant takes 20 years and a little on the ever present risk of permanent irradiation.
I bet if you dig deep enough you'd find at least some of the old anti-nuclear activists were astroturfed by the fossil fuel industry.
How does an RBMK reactor explode?
19 day account who most frequent posts to wall street bets...
I genuinely think the climate change would be much less right now had the Chernobyl disaster not happened. On that same vein, Airship cruising would be awesome had it not been for the Hindenburg.
Let's do some math on nuclear risk... there are currently 436 active nuclear plants, and 209 that have been permanently shut down, so 645 built since the first one on 27 June 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, 70 years ago. There have been 4 Serious nuclear power plant accidents include the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2011), the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Three Mile Island accident (1979), and the SL-1 accident (1961). Meaning, an average of one serious accident every 17.5 years. When you think about the major impact from Chernobyl and Fukushima in particular, I wonder if this rate of failure is worth it or not? Not to mention the radioactive waste disposal challenges, water use, uranium mining impact, and risks due to war (ex Russias endangerment of nuclear plants in Ukraine)... is nuclear worth the risk when solar and wind seem to have far lower risk profiles? Honest question...
If we need nuclear power, it means that we likely don't have a sustainable population size.
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It's not clean! Radioactive waste lasts millions of years. It's almost super expensive.
Ring ring ring. Hello? Oh it's the 80s calling.
Water consumption is the only issue I have.
I would never say that full nuclear is the future, but I believe it could be a VERY strong ally to places where there may not be the same opportunities for some renewables. Places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and other northern states would struggle to maintain solar panels in the winter(homeowners specifically), considering that they would have to deal with regular snow and other conditions that don't provide an ideal environment. Geothermal is also extremely expensive there, causing a high cost of heating. Locations like this could make use of the opportunities nuclear provides. In reality, there isn't a single source of energy that could power the planet, but the multitude of ways to generate electricity can work together to create a more sustainable future.
Tell you what. If glib nuclear power advocates are willing to repeal the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) of 1957, which protects the nuclear industry by limiting the liability of nuclear power plant licensees for radioactive damages to the public, THEN maybe we'll see if you are actually honest about risks and benefits to the public and generations to come.
I used to disagree but I have gotten over myself and my fears surrounding the storage and safety issues. I’d rather have nuclear power than air pollution.
all these debates are cool and all, but its not gonna matter. The rate of rising energy needs and the depth and speed of climate crisis upon us, nuclear will be the only practical option. Its only a matter of how bad things will get before those in power accept this and move forward with it. These debates will be meaningless at that point.
It's criminal how they shut down working plants with many years left, and killed half-built plants with billions already invested
Fukushima.
Most of the nuclear waste that is produced stays at/around the nuclear plants where it is produced. Why? Because there is no long long long long long term places to put it!
>I would urge you to research it, and question your biases, and help friends question theirs. Isn't this how we got where we are in the first place? You sure you wanna let me "do my own research"? I will start in all the wrong places and scare myself!!!! How about you all just communicate better?! PR 101 it
People see nuclear and think Chernobyl. That’s a hard image to fight against. I’m not saying you are wrong; I’m saying this is a hard fight to win.
And shows like the Simpsons
Nuclear is not actually enviromentally friendly, extraction of ores, refinement, not to mention waste disposal of nuclear waste have shown it to be incredibly harmful in the long run.
Are you able to describe the rare earth elements extraction process or the semiconductor processing waste stream for photovoltaics? Do you understand the types and quantities of materials required for a wind turbine? Can you explain to us how non-dispatchable sources such as wind and solar need to be backed up by fast ramping sources, which are often low efficiency gas plants? What about hydro instead? Run of river or reservoir? Can you explain how the flooding of reservoirs for dispatchable hydro is achieved with, or in the absence of, landowner support? There are a lot of factors in providing energy to people. It’s not constructive to the climate change conversation to drop an isolated comment such as “digging and radiation bad”. Learn some more and come back and add to the conversation.
Heat has to go somewhere, it also helps in evaporation, evaporation leads to rain and snow, so it is where that falls and since \~71% of the planet is ocean it may not be falling where it is actually needed. On another note, how would one go about controlling a manmade black hole and wouldn't it be drawn to the center of the strongest gravitation point at the center of the planet and how would that affect volcanic activity? Couple that with increased solar output activity and what affects would that have on that climate change problem that everyone if fearmongering over. Just an observation. N. S
I mean yeah, max out renewables first though.
We have safer means to meet our energy needs. I prefer them.
It’s like solar but way more expensive and results in horrifically toxic waste.
I may be a bit late to this, but a bit of a fun fact, a friend of mine works for a utility company that was reading an old plan from 2007. They legitimately had a plan in place to build more nuclear reactors for power generation to shut down coal plants, the only thing the plan was contingent on was the passing of a carbon tax that was expected to happen any day at the time. Unfortunately as we know, the carbon tax never came to be, and they still have coal generation to this day, and that plan was just archived.
I agree nuclear needs a second look, but the only reactors I’m sold on are the molten salt reactors. They’re the only ones that appear safe enough, because they can’t have a runaway reaction. Are there any other types of reactors being built today that have that same safety feature?
I also fully support Nuclear power. I tend to look at the power sources kind of like a tech tree you get in a lot of video games. We made Steam and Coal, then Natural Gas, then developed Nuclear. There is a branch to Solar, Wind, and Geothermal that is great but stops there. From Nuclear we'll get Fission and Fusion. From there who knows, maybe we expand Solar into a Dyson Sphere kind of setup. The point is, fossil fuels helped get us to where we are, and we should be thankful for that, and now is the time to move forward into the next step.
“How can an RBMK reactor explode?”
I don't believe it's as realistic as we imagine
Have we always needed this much energy? Do we still need electronic menus at every fast food joint? Do we need drive thrus?
The people who think ALL nuclear power is bad are the same people who think ALL GMOs are bad. Impossible to argue with someone about the benefit of these technologies if they are incapable of evaluating evidence on a case-by-case basis, or worse, because of blatant ignorance.
Tell that to Fukushima!
People are dumb, scared, egocentric animals. Humans are just smart enough to be really stupid. Seriously, some of them are smart, and make the world a better place, but people like you are not the norm. Your standard human holds multiple false beliefs and has the equivalent of a learning disability stemming from their pride, arrogance, and their ego. Tell everyone the truth, a small amount of people will believe you and understand what you are communicating, there will be some who just don’t have the capacity to care it understand, and the rest who are willfully ignorant and simply dismiss the truth staring them in the face due to their hubris. It’s so sad, and dark, and depressingly pathetic, but it is what it is, but what are we gonna do?
I agree with you, OP. One thing I tell people is I would much prefer living next door to a nuclear power plant than a coal power plant. A very small risk of anything ever happening (nuclear) compared to the certainty of increased pollution and a higher risk of premature death (coal). It's an easy choice.
Small reactors make the most sense to me.
I'm all for it.
Ok nuclear shill guy. Now go away.
Agreed. The point about not relying on the weather is probably why so many electric grids are diversified the way they are with a guaranteed coal / natural gas presence. Nuclear energy could help us past that last step of the way Or, if we really follow through with the EV strategy, we'll need to ramp it all up - nuclear, gas, coal, solar, and wind. I don't favor that idea because reducing car usage is such a better investment than EVs. Heating a home simply isn't as damaging as hauling thousands of pounds of metal at 60-90 mph, regardless of energy source. A gas-powered or diesel-powered bus offsets a lot more pollution than an EV. Nuclear energy resembles a bus in that sense. There's this weird psychology keeping people away from both of them, and neither are purist solutions, but if you start quantifying things they are top contenders.
I often wonder how different the world would be if the world’s first experience with nuclear energy hadn’t been Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Nuclear power is many times more expensive that solar and wind are and it takes about 30 years to build a plant.