A tale of two particles: Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful(worksinprogress.substack.com)
worksinprogress.substack.com
A tale of two particles: Not all radioactivity is risky or harmful
https://worksinprogress.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-particles
80 comments
Two points really stand out here. 1.) Nuclear waste can be handled by hand after 600 years. 2.) Coal plant: 3-6 Million tons of toxic ash in its operating life, not to mention 110 million tons of CO vs 1000 tons of nuclear waste.
1) makes the same mistake as the author.
Yes, after 600 years you can hold it in your hand for a brief moment without dying. You have to swallow, or be in contact 24/7.
But if you live in an area with contaminated air or water, you're going to swallow, and on a daily basis.
The difficulty of nuclear storage is not guarding highly radioactive stuff the first 100 years. It's the medium and low radioactive stuff that you need to keep out of the water and air the next 10,000.
Also, even if you don't drop dead straight away, if your life is shortened by 10 years, that sort of sucks too.
Of course, that means you need to concern yourself with the people will live then. And since we are already having great difficulty keeping our place in the universe habitable for our children...
Yes, after 600 years you can hold it in your hand for a brief moment without dying. You have to swallow, or be in contact 24/7.
But if you live in an area with contaminated air or water, you're going to swallow, and on a daily basis.
The difficulty of nuclear storage is not guarding highly radioactive stuff the first 100 years. It's the medium and low radioactive stuff that you need to keep out of the water and air the next 10,000.
Also, even if you don't drop dead straight away, if your life is shortened by 10 years, that sort of sucks too.
Of course, that means you need to concern yourself with the people will live then. And since we are already having great difficulty keeping our place in the universe habitable for our children...
Contrast this with the dangers to humanity inherent in other forms of power generation.
Hydropower has, thus far, proven far more dangerous. The collapse of the Banqiao dam in China led to between 26,000 to 240,000 estimated fatalities that impacted 30 cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
Coal, of course, exceeds this by orders of magnitude.
Hydropower has, thus far, proven far more dangerous. The collapse of the Banqiao dam in China led to between 26,000 to 240,000 estimated fatalities that impacted 30 cities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
Coal, of course, exceeds this by orders of magnitude.
> The collapse of the Banqiao dam in China led to between 26,000 to 240,000 estimated fatalities that impacted 30 cities
Not downplaying those deaths, but at least you can rebuild on the land right after. Seems way different than having some part of the world off limit for 10,000 years.
Not downplaying those deaths, but at least you can rebuild on the land right after. Seems way different than having some part of the world off limit for 10,000 years.
I would not assume that to be the case.
Thirty cities were hit by flood waters that were moving at 50 km/hr. This likely involved many, many industrial chemicals, solvents, waste, and other harmful elements that were generally disbursed.
Thirty cities were hit by flood waters that were moving at 50 km/hr. This likely involved many, many industrial chemicals, solvents, waste, and other harmful elements that were generally disbursed.
I've read everything I can find on Banqiao, and have commented and posted on it several times. Repeating what I've written before:
[T]he failures largely accrued from institutional hubris, engineering insufficiency, lack of relevant domain knowledge (often deliberate ignorance or denial, see especially Vajont, also St. Francis), poor overall management, lack of disaster preparation, drilling, or readiness, limited resurces or capabilities (especially in developing countries), communications breakdown (see Banqiao's comms loss), and inadequate response in light of imminent or present threat.
None of these are domain-specific to hydraulic civil engineering or absent from nuclear engineering projects.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20020553>
And:
The specific failings at Banqiao were virtually all managerial and political, not technical; poor engineering, inadequate safety provisions, underestimated environmental and operational risks, poor contingency planning, unforeseen perfect storm (literally), severed communications, insufficient warnings, no community disaster preparation, inadequate rescue and recovery. None of these failures are specific to hydro, all apply to nuclear power, and as non-engineering problems there is no technical fix that makes them go away.
In Banqiao, about 25,000 people died in the immediate inundation. Another 150,000 died in the following weeks of starvation and disease. There's no great mystery as to how such deaths are avoided: floodwaters are mitigated by high ground and evacuation centres; starvation and disease by food, water, and medical stocks; and rescue & recovery by trained teams and equipment. Reestablishment of communications, transport, and utilities is critical.
China at the time was desperately poor, politically dysfunctional, and gambled hugely on risk and lost. Other major hydro disasters tend to share these traits.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24327114>
The risks from Banqiao were short-term (acute), though profound. They could have been mitigated by planning, preparation, warnings, evacuation, and response. China at the time lacked the safety and civil defence maturity and mindsets, the political will, the engineering culture, and simply the capacity to respond appropriately given the magnitude of the disaster. The deaths were avoidable, and similar threats, say the 2017 Oroville Dam spillway failure. The engineering failure resulted in costs, but no loss of life, nor any significant damage to property other than the dam itself.
The U.S. still does see occasional dam failures, as with the Edenville and Sanford Dam failures of 19 May 2020. Here again poor engineering, construction, and operation created the risk, though again, preparedness and response prevented deaths, though in this case there was significant property damage.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenville_Dam>
Today, Chernobyl and Fukushima are exclusion zones, and they will be for centuries. The reactor cores themselves, for tens of thousands of years. This is far longer than the companies, countries, cultures, and even languages extant at the time of the disasters --- our capacity to address risks and management at this scale is utterly nonexistent. Banqiao is home to 17 million people who face no ongoing concerns from the incident.
Dam failures are short-lastting disasters, occurring over hours, days, or perhaps weeks.
Nuclear failures are long-lasting disasters, occurring over decades, centuries, and perhaps millennia.
[T]he failures largely accrued from institutional hubris, engineering insufficiency, lack of relevant domain knowledge (often deliberate ignorance or denial, see especially Vajont, also St. Francis), poor overall management, lack of disaster preparation, drilling, or readiness, limited resurces or capabilities (especially in developing countries), communications breakdown (see Banqiao's comms loss), and inadequate response in light of imminent or present threat.
None of these are domain-specific to hydraulic civil engineering or absent from nuclear engineering projects.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20020553>
And:
The specific failings at Banqiao were virtually all managerial and political, not technical; poor engineering, inadequate safety provisions, underestimated environmental and operational risks, poor contingency planning, unforeseen perfect storm (literally), severed communications, insufficient warnings, no community disaster preparation, inadequate rescue and recovery. None of these failures are specific to hydro, all apply to nuclear power, and as non-engineering problems there is no technical fix that makes them go away.
In Banqiao, about 25,000 people died in the immediate inundation. Another 150,000 died in the following weeks of starvation and disease. There's no great mystery as to how such deaths are avoided: floodwaters are mitigated by high ground and evacuation centres; starvation and disease by food, water, and medical stocks; and rescue & recovery by trained teams and equipment. Reestablishment of communications, transport, and utilities is critical.
China at the time was desperately poor, politically dysfunctional, and gambled hugely on risk and lost. Other major hydro disasters tend to share these traits.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24327114>
The risks from Banqiao were short-term (acute), though profound. They could have been mitigated by planning, preparation, warnings, evacuation, and response. China at the time lacked the safety and civil defence maturity and mindsets, the political will, the engineering culture, and simply the capacity to respond appropriately given the magnitude of the disaster. The deaths were avoidable, and similar threats, say the 2017 Oroville Dam spillway failure. The engineering failure resulted in costs, but no loss of life, nor any significant damage to property other than the dam itself.
The U.S. still does see occasional dam failures, as with the Edenville and Sanford Dam failures of 19 May 2020. Here again poor engineering, construction, and operation created the risk, though again, preparedness and response prevented deaths, though in this case there was significant property damage.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenville_Dam>
Today, Chernobyl and Fukushima are exclusion zones, and they will be for centuries. The reactor cores themselves, for tens of thousands of years. This is far longer than the companies, countries, cultures, and even languages extant at the time of the disasters --- our capacity to address risks and management at this scale is utterly nonexistent. Banqiao is home to 17 million people who face no ongoing concerns from the incident.
Dam failures are short-lastting disasters, occurring over hours, days, or perhaps weeks.
Nuclear failures are long-lasting disasters, occurring over decades, centuries, and perhaps millennia.
Do you realise that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuilt right after?
Did you realise that Chornobyl will not be rebuilt in our lifetime?
Nuclear weapon is not equal to nuclear reactor. If Russians will blow up Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, most of the people will be evacuated, but radiation will poison land and sea for hundreds or thousands of year.
Nuclear weapon is not equal to nuclear reactor. If Russians will blow up Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, most of the people will be evacuated, but radiation will poison land and sea for hundreds or thousands of year.
> Did you realise that Chornobyl will not be rebuilt in our lifetime?
What are you talking about exactly: the destroyed reactor #4 won't be rebuilt but I don't think it's relevant, but the other reactors were still functional a decade after the accident, and people have been working there since then.
And Pripyat won't ever be rebuilt mostly because it was never destroyed in the first place. In fact if Ukraine wasn't facing a chronic population shrinkage due to low natality, Pripyat could have been resettled long ago with only minor restrictions (and since the area is mostly a swamp, it's not like it had a big agricultural value before anyway).
> but radiation will poison land and sea for hundreds or thousands of year.
This is Nuclear risk misunderstanding number 1: “radiation” poison nothing except living thing receiving them in very high doses, radiation don't stay. What stays is the “radioactive material” which (unless at the epicenter of the accident) do emit a limited amount of radiations. What's harmful is eating or inhaling such material like any pollutants, and unlike other pollutants, radioactive material decays and only a fraction of it remains after a decade.
People are routinely exposed to environmental pollution that are as dangerous: if you had lived in Pripyat for the past 20 years, your risk of cancer would probably be lower than someone having lived in Kyiv, just because there's no car and the related air pollution in Pripyat.
What are you talking about exactly: the destroyed reactor #4 won't be rebuilt but I don't think it's relevant, but the other reactors were still functional a decade after the accident, and people have been working there since then.
And Pripyat won't ever be rebuilt mostly because it was never destroyed in the first place. In fact if Ukraine wasn't facing a chronic population shrinkage due to low natality, Pripyat could have been resettled long ago with only minor restrictions (and since the area is mostly a swamp, it's not like it had a big agricultural value before anyway).
> but radiation will poison land and sea for hundreds or thousands of year.
This is Nuclear risk misunderstanding number 1: “radiation” poison nothing except living thing receiving them in very high doses, radiation don't stay. What stays is the “radioactive material” which (unless at the epicenter of the accident) do emit a limited amount of radiations. What's harmful is eating or inhaling such material like any pollutants, and unlike other pollutants, radioactive material decays and only a fraction of it remains after a decade.
People are routinely exposed to environmental pollution that are as dangerous: if you had lived in Pripyat for the past 20 years, your risk of cancer would probably be lower than someone having lived in Kyiv, just because there's no car and the related air pollution in Pripyat.
a dam collapsing due to crappy engineering practice, isnt a property of hydro electric power, but the risk of such is perhaps 2nd or third order consequence of a dams existence, alongside orthagonal circumstances.
And nuclear waste getting out (which has to my knowledge never happened and caused harm) is also a result of crappy engineering practice and isn't a property of nuclear power. The risk of such is similarly a 2nd or third order consequence of a nuclear power plant's existence, alongside orthagonal circumstances.
> never happened and caused harm
Hanford. Simi Valley. USSR.
Hanford. Simi Valley. USSR.
[deleted]
Coal kills 25 people per TWh generated (vs 0.03 for Nuclear - somewhere between wind and solar). Coal deaths translate to about 5 Chernobyl's per year (assuming the UNSCEAR 4000 deaths number) in the United States alone. Unlike nuclear power, coal is also responsible for spreading nuclear waste around the countryside because coal contains uranium and thorium that's concentrated in the ash left over after it's burned. [1]
[edit] > Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. [1]
Waste from nuclear plants is nice and contained in neat little bundles that are monitored, safe and if you're worried, can be put into Yucca Mountain.
[edit] btw, Yucca Mountain is conveniently located next to the Nevada Test Site, where the US tested many nuclear weapons, mostly underground, from 1957 to 1992. NTS contains some of the most radioactive land areas in the world. So at least you can be confident knowing you're putting the new spicy rocks in with the rest of them. [2]
However, nuclear waste is very much a non-issue.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
[2] https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nevada-test-site-down...
[edit] > Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. [1]
Waste from nuclear plants is nice and contained in neat little bundles that are monitored, safe and if you're worried, can be put into Yucca Mountain.
[edit] btw, Yucca Mountain is conveniently located next to the Nevada Test Site, where the US tested many nuclear weapons, mostly underground, from 1957 to 1992. NTS contains some of the most radioactive land areas in the world. So at least you can be confident knowing you're putting the new spicy rocks in with the rest of them. [2]
However, nuclear waste is very much a non-issue.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
[2] https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/nevada-test-site-down...
> Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. [1]
Cool. Now explain what happens in the ground water around Kadapa or Rossing or Kakadu. Nuclear waste is very much an issue, you're just trying to focus on the stuff you have a vague plan for rather than no plan.
Noone is suggesting more coal. They're suggesting renewables which are faster, cheaper, less centralized, less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors, more able to be deployed in unstable regions, just as safe, less polluting, produce less non-radioactive waste, and use fewer materials.
Cool. Now explain what happens in the ground water around Kadapa or Rossing or Kakadu. Nuclear waste is very much an issue, you're just trying to focus on the stuff you have a vague plan for rather than no plan.
Noone is suggesting more coal. They're suggesting renewables which are faster, cheaper, less centralized, less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors, more able to be deployed in unstable regions, just as safe, less polluting, produce less non-radioactive waste, and use fewer materials.
> cheaper
Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar.
> less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors
Not sure what you mean. Plenty in Canada.
> more able to be deployed in unstable regions
Existing designs are already not a proliferation risk.
> less polluting
Nuclear is not polluting.
> produce less non-radioactive waste
A non-goal if appropriately sequestered.
> use fewer materials
Also, IMO, a non-goal.
> Nuclear waste is very much an issue....
[citation needed]
Renewables have to factor in the impact and cost of storage. That means today pumped hydro, and also battery storage. Batteries are not environmentally friendly, cheap or easy to make. Renewables require base load. Nuclear provides base load.
Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar.
> less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors
Not sure what you mean. Plenty in Canada.
> more able to be deployed in unstable regions
Existing designs are already not a proliferation risk.
> less polluting
Nuclear is not polluting.
> produce less non-radioactive waste
A non-goal if appropriately sequestered.
> use fewer materials
Also, IMO, a non-goal.
> Nuclear waste is very much an issue....
[citation needed]
Renewables have to factor in the impact and cost of storage. That means today pumped hydro, and also battery storage. Batteries are not environmentally friendly, cheap or easy to make. Renewables require base load. Nuclear provides base load.
> Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar.
Prove it. Show me an LCA for mass expansion of nuclear, including the new mines in lower concentration deposits that comes out at lower carbon than new renewables with hydrogen (or even gas) backup for the 5% needed to cover the gaps using current technology. Then after you exhaust known reserves in 10 years include whatever scifi scheme you have for getting more.
Here's a mix for somewhere in the arctic to get you started before you start concern trolling about winter:
https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d...
> Nuclear is not polluting.
Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague
Every other stage of the supply chain spews heavy metals and radiation into the environment.
Then there's the fact that there simply isn't enough uranium.
Prove it. Show me an LCA for mass expansion of nuclear, including the new mines in lower concentration deposits that comes out at lower carbon than new renewables with hydrogen (or even gas) backup for the 5% needed to cover the gaps using current technology. Then after you exhaust known reserves in 10 years include whatever scifi scheme you have for getting more.
Here's a mix for somewhere in the arctic to get you started before you start concern trolling about winter:
https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d...
> Nuclear is not polluting.
Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague
Every other stage of the supply chain spews heavy metals and radiation into the environment.
Then there's the fact that there simply isn't enough uranium.
> Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague
Nuclear accidents are polluting, but steady state certainly is not.
But what makes you think that this will be an issue elsewhere going forward? There's no evidence to think so.
On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly. And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries. Battery storage requires huge quantities of lithium. A single Tesla battery pack generates as much CO2 in production as an entire ICE car does in manufacture.
There is of course more than enough uranium. There's billions of tons dissolved in seawater, enough for 100,000 years of current electric capacity. In fact a new gel was just discovered to make extraction much more efficient. [2] That 4 billion tons is actually replenished as it's extracted from geological processes. There is plenty of Uranium for conventional fission reactors. By most measures, existing nuclear power schemes are renewable.
Then, breeder reactors require some 100x less uranium, and CANDU reactors can already operate on thorium cycle.
There is no perfect solution, and meeting our energy needs at minimum CO2 requires a variety of energy sources. I'm not opposed to renewables at all. By all means, build away.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
[2] https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/
Nuclear accidents are polluting, but steady state certainly is not.
But what makes you think that this will be an issue elsewhere going forward? There's no evidence to think so.
On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly. And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries. Battery storage requires huge quantities of lithium. A single Tesla battery pack generates as much CO2 in production as an entire ICE car does in manufacture.
There is of course more than enough uranium. There's billions of tons dissolved in seawater, enough for 100,000 years of current electric capacity. In fact a new gel was just discovered to make extraction much more efficient. [2] That 4 billion tons is actually replenished as it's extracted from geological processes. There is plenty of Uranium for conventional fission reactors. By most measures, existing nuclear power schemes are renewable.
Then, breeder reactors require some 100x less uranium, and CANDU reactors can already operate on thorium cycle.
There is no perfect solution, and meeting our energy needs at minimum CO2 requires a variety of energy sources. I'm not opposed to renewables at all. By all means, build away.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
[2] https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/
> Ok, but what makes you think that this will be an issue elsewhere going forward?
The fact that it's an issue right now? The fact that it's not an accident but standard operating procedure?
> On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly.
More lies.
https://www.vestas.com/content/dam/vestas-com/global/en/sust...
Where are the rare earths? Enercon even got rid of the copper.
> And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries.
It's made of sand with traces of silver and lead all encased in glass. It has mandatory recycling laws in civilised countries, you're welcome to implement them (or just wait until the recycling supply chains make used panels valuable enough that it happens anyway). And there and an order of magnitude less of it than the uranium leaching fluid that gets left in unsealed dams in kadapa, or dams with no flood mitigation in Husab, or pumped directly into the ground water in Inkai or Kakadu.
With your sea mining scifi you know you need to make 1-2kg of polymer and put it in the ocean for 6 months per MWh all to get around the same amount of energy per unit of water as lifting it 70 metres, right?
The fact that it's an issue right now? The fact that it's not an accident but standard operating procedure?
> On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly.
More lies.
https://www.vestas.com/content/dam/vestas-com/global/en/sust...
Where are the rare earths? Enercon even got rid of the copper.
> And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries.
It's made of sand with traces of silver and lead all encased in glass. It has mandatory recycling laws in civilised countries, you're welcome to implement them (or just wait until the recycling supply chains make used panels valuable enough that it happens anyway). And there and an order of magnitude less of it than the uranium leaching fluid that gets left in unsealed dams in kadapa, or dams with no flood mitigation in Husab, or pumped directly into the ground water in Inkai or Kakadu.
With your sea mining scifi you know you need to make 1-2kg of polymer and put it in the ocean for 6 months per MWh all to get around the same amount of energy per unit of water as lifting it 70 metres, right?
> More lies.
So not a lie, but thank you for new information. Don't worry mining in general, but copper in particular, is an environmental nightmare too. [1] Copper mining can actually contaminate groundwater with uranium and thorium. I believe this came up in an Odd Lots episode on the copper market recently.
> Where are the rare earths?
In every other turbine?
> It's made of sand with traces of silver and lead all encased in glass.
Don't worry we're running out of the sand to make glass too, and it's also an environmental nightmare. [2]
Basically any extractive industry is. That's why we have to do a bunch of different things, each according to what they're good at, and weigh the pros and cons.
That's why I'm in favor of solar, wind and nuclear, in spite of the fact each has their own drawbacks.
> And there and an order of magnitude less of it than the uranium leaching fluid that gets left in unsealed dams in kadapa, or dams with no flood mitigation in Husab, or pumped directly into the ground water in Inkai or Kakadu.
[citation needed].
> With your sea mining scifi you know you need to make 1-2kg of polymer and put it in the ocean for 6 months per MWh all to get around the same amount of energy per unit of water as lifting it 70 metres, right?
It's not my sea mining, I was responding to your false statement that we're anywhere close to running out of uranium. There's plenty on shore for hundreds of years, and by then I'm sure we'll have a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem, either removing it from the sea, or moving to breeder reactors, or the thorium cycle. Put on your problem solving hat my friend.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...
[2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a398808...
So not a lie, but thank you for new information. Don't worry mining in general, but copper in particular, is an environmental nightmare too. [1] Copper mining can actually contaminate groundwater with uranium and thorium. I believe this came up in an Odd Lots episode on the copper market recently.
> Where are the rare earths?
In every other turbine?
> It's made of sand with traces of silver and lead all encased in glass.
Don't worry we're running out of the sand to make glass too, and it's also an environmental nightmare. [2]
Basically any extractive industry is. That's why we have to do a bunch of different things, each according to what they're good at, and weigh the pros and cons.
That's why I'm in favor of solar, wind and nuclear, in spite of the fact each has their own drawbacks.
> And there and an order of magnitude less of it than the uranium leaching fluid that gets left in unsealed dams in kadapa, or dams with no flood mitigation in Husab, or pumped directly into the ground water in Inkai or Kakadu.
[citation needed].
> With your sea mining scifi you know you need to make 1-2kg of polymer and put it in the ocean for 6 months per MWh all to get around the same amount of energy per unit of water as lifting it 70 metres, right?
It's not my sea mining, I was responding to your false statement that we're anywhere close to running out of uranium. There's plenty on shore for hundreds of years, and by then I'm sure we'll have a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem, either removing it from the sea, or moving to breeder reactors, or the thorium cycle. Put on your problem solving hat my friend.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...
[2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a398808...
> In every other turbine?
You were presenting it as necessary. It's neither necessary nor particularly prevalent for onshore wind. Enercon use none, Vestas' smaller turbines use none. Other DFIG and EESG turbines use none. Smaller offshore turbines overlapwith onshore ones. The larger offshore turbines are experimenting with iron nitride which is better but unproven. Some designs (like the e126 and family) already use negligible copper. The rest of the industry is reducing it.
> Don't worry we're running out of the sand to make glass too, and it's also an environmental nightmare. [2]
That's the kind of sand you need in much larger quantities for the concrete in a nuclear reactor. It doesn't matter if glass sand is smooth so you can get it from a desert.
For Uranium leaching of low grade ore (the only kind available in a mass expansion scenario) you need 40-200kg of sulfuric acid mixed with >3000kg of ore per kg of Uranium https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
1kg of natural uranium produces about 1kW for 3-6 years.
1kg of PV including glass but not the frame produces about 5W net for 30-50 years.
The sulfuric acid quantity is larger in an ISL mine, and the crushed ore slurry quantity is orders of magnitude larger.
> It's not my sea mining, I was responding to your false statement that we're anywhere close to running out of uranium. There's plenty on shore for hundreds of years, and by then I'm sure we'll have a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem, either removing it from the sea, or moving to breeder reactors, or the thorium cycle. Put on your problem solving hat my friend.
It's your scifi scenario. There is only enough for the current fleet (about 2% of world primary energy) for 100 or so years. Expanding it enough to make a difference reduces this to a couple of decades. Sea mining for a burner reactor is a ridiculous proposition if you look at the actual numbers.
Breeder reactors don't exist. No power generating reactor has ever run on fissile fuel bred using an equal or smaller amount of fissile fuel. Even if a commercial design is made, most of the world will never be allowed to operate one, and it won't be developed on any timescale to make a difference.
The problem solving hat is on, and the solution doesn't involve nuclear. It can't solve more than a tiny fraction of the problem, and it can't even do that well or quickly. There's no reason to deal with the downsides.
You were presenting it as necessary. It's neither necessary nor particularly prevalent for onshore wind. Enercon use none, Vestas' smaller turbines use none. Other DFIG and EESG turbines use none. Smaller offshore turbines overlapwith onshore ones. The larger offshore turbines are experimenting with iron nitride which is better but unproven. Some designs (like the e126 and family) already use negligible copper. The rest of the industry is reducing it.
> Don't worry we're running out of the sand to make glass too, and it's also an environmental nightmare. [2]
That's the kind of sand you need in much larger quantities for the concrete in a nuclear reactor. It doesn't matter if glass sand is smooth so you can get it from a desert.
For Uranium leaching of low grade ore (the only kind available in a mass expansion scenario) you need 40-200kg of sulfuric acid mixed with >3000kg of ore per kg of Uranium https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
1kg of natural uranium produces about 1kW for 3-6 years.
1kg of PV including glass but not the frame produces about 5W net for 30-50 years.
The sulfuric acid quantity is larger in an ISL mine, and the crushed ore slurry quantity is orders of magnitude larger.
> It's not my sea mining, I was responding to your false statement that we're anywhere close to running out of uranium. There's plenty on shore for hundreds of years, and by then I'm sure we'll have a perfectly reasonable solution to the problem, either removing it from the sea, or moving to breeder reactors, or the thorium cycle. Put on your problem solving hat my friend.
It's your scifi scenario. There is only enough for the current fleet (about 2% of world primary energy) for 100 or so years. Expanding it enough to make a difference reduces this to a couple of decades. Sea mining for a burner reactor is a ridiculous proposition if you look at the actual numbers.
Breeder reactors don't exist. No power generating reactor has ever run on fissile fuel bred using an equal or smaller amount of fissile fuel. Even if a commercial design is made, most of the world will never be allowed to operate one, and it won't be developed on any timescale to make a difference.
The problem solving hat is on, and the solution doesn't involve nuclear. It can't solve more than a tiny fraction of the problem, and it can't even do that well or quickly. There's no reason to deal with the downsides.
> You were presenting it as necessary.
A lie is defined as an intentionally false statement. You were accusing me of intentionally misleading. I was doing no such thing. You taught me something, which I found interesting but ultimately not super relevant. Consider alternatives to avoid inflammatory language.
> It's your scifi scenario. There is only enough for the current fleet (about 2% of world primary energy) for 100 or so years.
One hundred years is more than enough time to figure out how to extract it practically from sea water, which is recognized as a viable solution [0]. In fact it's already only 2x as expensive as mining - and the cost of uranium is today is $0.0015/kWh. The reason we haven't done it is because we don't need to.
> Breeder reactors don't exist.
Yes they do. However, we didn't pursue commercialization because we don't need to - because there's a ton of fissile material for conventional reactors. To quote wikipedia "interest declined after the 1960s as more uranium reserves were found."
And further, thorium is also super abundant (2 million tons of reserves as of 2011, and the USA has the largest) and again, CANDU reactors can already operate on natural uranium, thorium - or on plutonium - without enrichment, mitigating the proliferation risk you identified earlier. [1] Note that thorium is about 3X as abundant as uranium, and spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and used as fuel for other reactors, albeit in a process with its own trade-offs.
There is no shortage of fissile material. Objectively. Move on.
> The problem solving hat is on, and the solution doesn't involve nuclear.
Agree to disagree. I'm ending this conversation here.
[0] https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-extrac...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
A lie is defined as an intentionally false statement. You were accusing me of intentionally misleading. I was doing no such thing. You taught me something, which I found interesting but ultimately not super relevant. Consider alternatives to avoid inflammatory language.
> It's your scifi scenario. There is only enough for the current fleet (about 2% of world primary energy) for 100 or so years.
One hundred years is more than enough time to figure out how to extract it practically from sea water, which is recognized as a viable solution [0]. In fact it's already only 2x as expensive as mining - and the cost of uranium is today is $0.0015/kWh. The reason we haven't done it is because we don't need to.
> Breeder reactors don't exist.
Yes they do. However, we didn't pursue commercialization because we don't need to - because there's a ton of fissile material for conventional reactors. To quote wikipedia "interest declined after the 1960s as more uranium reserves were found."
And further, thorium is also super abundant (2 million tons of reserves as of 2011, and the USA has the largest) and again, CANDU reactors can already operate on natural uranium, thorium - or on plutonium - without enrichment, mitigating the proliferation risk you identified earlier. [1] Note that thorium is about 3X as abundant as uranium, and spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and used as fuel for other reactors, albeit in a process with its own trade-offs.
There is no shortage of fissile material. Objectively. Move on.
> The problem solving hat is on, and the solution doesn't involve nuclear.
Agree to disagree. I'm ending this conversation here.
[0] https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-extrac...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
Wind power does not, in fact, require rare-earth metals.
Rare-earth metals are now being mined (mainly for fractional-horsepower motors) in other places.
Rare-earth metals are now being mined (mainly for fractional-horsepower motors) in other places.
There have always been rare earth metals outside of China, but the reason they're mined in China is only China has been willing to pay the environmental cost associated with their extraction, processing and refinement. As the peer comment pointed out you can have copper-only turbines but copper mining is an equally brutal process. [1, 2]
Fun fact: copper is frequently co-located with uranium, radium and thorium. In-situ leaching can transport uranium and thorium into groundwater or surface water at the processing site. [2]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-produ...
Fun fact: copper is frequently co-located with uranium, radium and thorium. In-situ leaching can transport uranium and thorium into groundwater or surface water at the processing site. [2]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-produ...
I did not, in fact, just point out you could have copper only turbines. I pointed out that there were also purely aluminum wound ones.
Additionally trying to scare about the effects of copper ISL when nuclear needs the copper and then also leaching (in situ or above) vastly higher quantities of ore which transports far more of those doesn't really help your point.
Additionally trying to scare about the effects of copper ISL when nuclear needs the copper and then also leaching (in situ or above) vastly higher quantities of ore which transports far more of those doesn't really help your point.
> The propensity to consider that the technologies under development – hydrogen as an energy vector, smart-grids – can be, in a climate emergency, technologies to be deployed massively, in the moment, testifies to a profound ignorance of development deadlines.
Quote from someone you probably don't like: a previous french High Commissioner for Atomic Energy.
Quote from someone you probably don't like: a previous french High Commissioner for Atomic Energy.
You're right. Instead of using things which exist and are currently scaling up we should instead go all in on technologies with insurmountable resource limits and technologies that are much less developed like breeders and sea mining.
Renewables energy sources as called were still pushed by the same arguments back then, we can see the results today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0qg9PT-HqM
I'm not saying this won't work this time, but again, I ask you how sanely can you propose a fully renewable model when countries with a lot more sun struggle to do the same ?
I wonder how can you be so sure of the solution you are "selling".
Ironically, on my own bus line, hydrogen bus doesn't have the best carbon footprint: https://www.airliquide.com/group/press-releases-news/2018-03...
No, the battery powered bus, charged with low carbon, nuclear energy has the lowest carbon footprint: https://imgur.com/a/fx5MiMp , because here, next to the Air Liquide Innovation pole, hydrogen is still made from hydrocarbons. Also these one were not paid with europe money, but the region.
Disclaimer: I own 14 shares of Air Liquide SA.
I'm not saying this won't work this time, but again, I ask you how sanely can you propose a fully renewable model when countries with a lot more sun struggle to do the same ?
I wonder how can you be so sure of the solution you are "selling".
Ironically, on my own bus line, hydrogen bus doesn't have the best carbon footprint: https://www.airliquide.com/group/press-releases-news/2018-03...
No, the battery powered bus, charged with low carbon, nuclear energy has the lowest carbon footprint: https://imgur.com/a/fx5MiMp , because here, next to the Air Liquide Innovation pole, hydrogen is still made from hydrocarbons. Also these one were not paid with europe money, but the region.
Disclaimer: I own 14 shares of Air Liquide SA.
So germany massively scaled back their renewable rollout and this is bad because they built renewables? Then an unrelated rant about hydrogen.
That definitely convinced me. Good job, champ.
That definitely convinced me. Good job, champ.
> Then an unrelated rant about hydrogen.
Isn't your miracle solution to storing energy, electrolysers ? I don't see how that unrelated.
> So germany massively scaled back their renewable rollout and this is bad because they built renewables?
Ah yes, of course the issue is they have gone fully with your idea it would had worked for sure! Or maybe their issue is a lack of cheap magical energy storage?
Also, where do the energy come from, in your magical energy mix, for this month, for Germany? How many installed capacity do they need ?
Isn't your miracle solution to storing energy, electrolysers ? I don't see how that unrelated.
> So germany massively scaled back their renewable rollout and this is bad because they built renewables?
Ah yes, of course the issue is they have gone fully with your idea it would had worked for sure! Or maybe their issue is a lack of cheap magical energy storage?
Also, where do the energy come from, in your magical energy mix, for this month, for Germany? How many installed capacity do they need ?
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> Noone is suggesting more coal.
What's the scope of noone? To my knowledge, new coal plants are still being built all over the world?
What's the scope of noone? To my knowledge, new coal plants are still being built all over the world?
> less centralized
I finding it amusing how wind and solar proponents cite this as a postive. It's actually a liability: energy demand is centralized in population centers but low density energy sources muse be decentralized by necessity. This means more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. This explains more: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk
I finding it amusing how wind and solar proponents cite this as a postive. It's actually a liability: energy demand is centralized in population centers but low density energy sources muse be decentralized by necessity. This means more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. This explains more: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk
Yet another lie and attempt to derail from the point.
Political centralisation, not physical. You can build a 1GW renewable plant and connect it to a transmission line just fine, but much more importantly anyone can build one.
There's no way 50% of the world will be allowed their own enrichment or reprocessing facilities. And even in the ones that are allowed, the process is necessarily under extreme regulatory capture and is controlled by a cartel that makes oil look like a free market.
Rosatom had to be exempted from sanctions because the fuel and waste processing supply chains are so centralised that over half of Europe's nuclear fleet would have shut down if they didn't do businessnwith Russia.
Political centralisation, not physical. You can build a 1GW renewable plant and connect it to a transmission line just fine, but much more importantly anyone can build one.
There's no way 50% of the world will be allowed their own enrichment or reprocessing facilities. And even in the ones that are allowed, the process is necessarily under extreme regulatory capture and is controlled by a cartel that makes oil look like a free market.
Rosatom had to be exempted from sanctions because the fuel and waste processing supply chains are so centralised that over half of Europe's nuclear fleet would have shut down if they didn't do businessnwith Russia.
Highlighting the (potential) benefits of political decentralization does not detract from the downsides of geographic decentralization.
Regardless, plenty of smaller countries manage to get along with nuclear power just fine. Slovakia, Korea, Canada, the Czech republic, Argentina. Nuclear power has spread to every content, and dozens of countries. Centralizing reprocessing may help with nuclear weapons proliferation, but most countries have a regional hegemon that already have nuclear weapons that they're fine importing from.
How big was the business with Rosatom compared with Germany importing gas from Gazprom because they invested in an intermittent power source? China accounts for nearly 80% of the world's battery supply chain [1]. And over 80% for solar panels [2]. There's a strong case to be made that renewable are more centralized: besides wind it's just one country dominating the whole market. The enriched uranium supply is actually much more diverse: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched...
1. https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-th...
2. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...
Regardless, plenty of smaller countries manage to get along with nuclear power just fine. Slovakia, Korea, Canada, the Czech republic, Argentina. Nuclear power has spread to every content, and dozens of countries. Centralizing reprocessing may help with nuclear weapons proliferation, but most countries have a regional hegemon that already have nuclear weapons that they're fine importing from.
How big was the business with Rosatom compared with Germany importing gas from Gazprom because they invested in an intermittent power source? China accounts for nearly 80% of the world's battery supply chain [1]. And over 80% for solar panels [2]. There's a strong case to be made that renewable are more centralized: besides wind it's just one country dominating the whole market. The enriched uranium supply is actually much more diverse: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched...
1. https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-th...
2. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...
"What about Gazprom" falls flat when Gazprom was sanctioned and Rosatom was not. No-one is claiming gas is better. I'm claiming we should do the thing which reduces the total amount of gas needed most quickly. Which is wind and solar.
As to China, the barriers to developing a renewable industry are vastly smaller than building a nuclear industry (as evidenced by Europe not sanctioning Rosatom but building new solar production, wind, and battery capacity).
Whether or not it's necessary, it remains true that when some countries try building their own infrastructure, they get it blown up by state sponsored terrorists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
As to China, the barriers to developing a renewable industry are vastly smaller than building a nuclear industry (as evidenced by Europe not sanctioning Rosatom but building new solar production, wind, and battery capacity).
Whether or not it's necessary, it remains true that when some countries try building their own infrastructure, they get it blown up by state sponsored terrorists https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
Chernobyl is basically a wildlife preserve now that humans don't live there. The dangers of nuclear accidents have been somewhat overstated. They don't create radioactive hellholes where nothing lives for thousands of years. That's simply false. It's just that humans don't wish to risk the higher cancer rates and birth defects. Nature though can manage that.
Did you read about Red Forest near to Chornobyl? A nuclear station has enough material for a continent-wide Red Forest. Luckily, Chornobyl accident was steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion, so very small portion of nuclear fuel was leaked.
This isn't correct. Chernobyl was a steam explosion but it's literally not possible for any nuclear power plant to ever have a true nuclear bomb type explosion. That's a trope straight out of the Simpsons. Chernobyl was just about the worst case scenario in terms of reactor stability combining a positive void coefficient, moderator tipped control rods, a Xenon saturated reactor core, almost all control rods removed, and no containment structure to top it all off. As far as "a very small portion of nuclear fuel" being leaked, that steam explosion completely removed the reactor hall above it. It's not like it was just the lid that flew off, the remains of the fuel bundles and graphite moderators were scattered for miles. The graphite left in the crater where the reactor used to be was all burning for days spreading any fission products contained inside up with the smoke.
Chernobyl was the worst case disaster. Even before Chernobyl happened nuclear power plants outside of the USSR were already using much much safer designs. Ultimately Chernobyl has killed more people due to fears around nuclear power than even the highest realistic death toll from the accident itself.
Chernobyl was the worst case disaster. Even before Chernobyl happened nuclear power plants outside of the USSR were already using much much safer designs. Ultimately Chernobyl has killed more people due to fears around nuclear power than even the highest realistic death toll from the accident itself.
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I wasn't talking about chernobyl. I was talking about the wastelands created by mining ore that is around the same energy density as coal and leaving the toxic leaching fluid lying around or pumping it into ground water.
In this line of reasoning a collapsing dam serves as a warning, but a meltdown is a once (oops, twice) in a lifetime anomaly that will never happen again!
Wind, solar, batteries and pumped storage have yet to kill 240,000 people and are cheaper than nuclear power. It's not 1980 any more.
Nuclear has yet to kill 240,000 people as well. Fossil and biofuel normal-operation particulates kill a high-ball long-term Chernobyl worth of people every 8 hours.
Emm, these people are killed by cancer, every year. Unless we will find cure for cancer very soon, Chornobyl kills dozens of thousands per year right now.
That's outrageously inconsistent with all scientific studies.
"Among the residents of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated."
https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
Note that thyroid cancers rarely lead to fatality.
"Among the residents of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure. The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated."
https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
Note that thyroid cancers rarely lead to fatality.
That's only because they haven't been in use at scale for as long. Solar power kills more people than nuclear does, and wind isn't far behind.
> And since we are already having great difficulty keeping our place in the universe habitable for our children...
You must be joking.
We'll figure out how to dispose of nuclear waste safer as we go. For now, it's the best thing we've got to combat fossil fuel dependency.
> But if you live in an area with contaminated air or water, you're going to swallow, and on a daily basis.
There is no "safe enough to lick it" industrial process.
Humans figured out how to build pyramids millenia ago with hand tools. We will figure it out.
You must be joking.
We'll figure out how to dispose of nuclear waste safer as we go. For now, it's the best thing we've got to combat fossil fuel dependency.
> But if you live in an area with contaminated air or water, you're going to swallow, and on a daily basis.
There is no "safe enough to lick it" industrial process.
Humans figured out how to build pyramids millenia ago with hand tools. We will figure it out.
> The difficulty of nuclear storage is not guarding highly radioactive stuff the first 100 years. It's the medium and low radioactive stuff that you need to keep out of the water and air the next 10,000.
You don't have to deal with the latter if you reprocess the "waste". Which, well before 10,000 years, you're going to do anyway, because on that time scale there will be significant economic value in retrieving usable fuel from it. The only reason reprocessing is not done now in the US is politics; other countries have been doing it for decades with no problems. And as it gets more expensive to mine more fuel, reprocessing becomes more and more of an economic advantage.
You don't have to deal with the latter if you reprocess the "waste". Which, well before 10,000 years, you're going to do anyway, because on that time scale there will be significant economic value in retrieving usable fuel from it. The only reason reprocessing is not done now in the US is politics; other countries have been doing it for decades with no problems. And as it gets more expensive to mine more fuel, reprocessing becomes more and more of an economic advantage.
Two things that are glossed over are "Others can be processed into excellent nuclear fuel, although currently this is not quite economic, in part because the fission product decay makes handling the used fuel so difficult." So we don't know how to do this yet, and processing spent fuel rods also produces a lot of toxic and radioactive byproducts that are also difficult to handle, take a look at this Superfund site:
https://nmisite.org/site-history/
The other thing the article does not even mention is meltdowns of operating plants and attacks on or natural disasters affecting dry cask storage and reprocessing plants. Sure, you have to eat or breath the material for it to be dangerous after 600 years, but if a plant melts down or an idiot blows up the spent fuel then it gets into water, food, soil and the air and everyone ingests it, for a very long time thereafter, BEFORE the 600 years is up. Also, keeping something safe for 600 years is something nobody has ever done. Most societies don't even last 600 years. Look at what a mess we made of it just 50 years ago:
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-07-01/us-says...
And here is a list of how well we've handled nuclear materials so far:
"11 Nuclear meltdowns and Disasters"
https://www.cnbc.com/2011/03/16/11-Nuclear-Meltdowns-and-Dis...
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine is currently being shelled. Again. So it seems world peace is a prerequisite, I'd like to see the plan for that. After we've achieved world peace then the 600 year containment experiments can start and we can figure out how to get our engineering to 99.99999% reliability. Smaller, less dangerous, and inherently safer reactor designs are being tried, maybe one of those will work well enough to be able to ramp up nuclear power, but the technology in current use is not good enough.
https://nmisite.org/site-history/
The other thing the article does not even mention is meltdowns of operating plants and attacks on or natural disasters affecting dry cask storage and reprocessing plants. Sure, you have to eat or breath the material for it to be dangerous after 600 years, but if a plant melts down or an idiot blows up the spent fuel then it gets into water, food, soil and the air and everyone ingests it, for a very long time thereafter, BEFORE the 600 years is up. Also, keeping something safe for 600 years is something nobody has ever done. Most societies don't even last 600 years. Look at what a mess we made of it just 50 years ago:
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-07-01/us-says...
And here is a list of how well we've handled nuclear materials so far:
"11 Nuclear meltdowns and Disasters"
https://www.cnbc.com/2011/03/16/11-Nuclear-Meltdowns-and-Dis...
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine is currently being shelled. Again. So it seems world peace is a prerequisite, I'd like to see the plan for that. After we've achieved world peace then the 600 year containment experiments can start and we can figure out how to get our engineering to 99.99999% reliability. Smaller, less dangerous, and inherently safer reactor designs are being tried, maybe one of those will work well enough to be able to ramp up nuclear power, but the technology in current use is not good enough.
Aqueous reprocessing of nuclear fuel is a technology that's been mastered by many nations. Fabricating quality MOX that be fed back into reactors is something that France and Russia have succeeded at and the US and UK have failed at.
That said, there might be some other way to make MOX, or some other fuel formulation based on molten salts, metal fuel, nitrides, carbides, etc.
As for economics a big problem is that the LWR works at low temperatures and requires a huge steam turbine and huge heat exchangers. This is apart from the problem that large LWR construction projects frequently go over schedule and budget by a large margin. There is some hope that a smaller reactor like China's ACP-100 can find some simplification at small scale that makes up for the diseconomies of small scale and avoids the project management problems but it will take some kind of water-free reactor that operates at higher temperatures for nuclear to be competitive with natural gas.
That said, there might be some other way to make MOX, or some other fuel formulation based on molten salts, metal fuel, nitrides, carbides, etc.
As for economics a big problem is that the LWR works at low temperatures and requires a huge steam turbine and huge heat exchangers. This is apart from the problem that large LWR construction projects frequently go over schedule and budget by a large margin. There is some hope that a smaller reactor like China's ACP-100 can find some simplification at small scale that makes up for the diseconomies of small scale and avoids the project management problems but it will take some kind of water-free reactor that operates at higher temperatures for nuclear to be competitive with natural gas.
> Fabricating quality MOX that be fed back into reactors
MOX can be fed back only once. After that too much Pu-240 accumulates, and that's a non-fissile element that absorbs a lot of neutrons, so it's a neutron poison (see [1]). Pu-240 can't be separated from Pu-239, except using the same methods to separate U-235 from U-238 (but more difficult, since the relative atomic mass difference is much smaller). If you get into the business of isotope separation, you might as well enrich Uranium.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Spent_MOX_fuel
MOX can be fed back only once. After that too much Pu-240 accumulates, and that's a non-fissile element that absorbs a lot of neutrons, so it's a neutron poison (see [1]). Pu-240 can't be separated from Pu-239, except using the same methods to separate U-235 from U-238 (but more difficult, since the relative atomic mass difference is much smaller). If you get into the business of isotope separation, you might as well enrich Uranium.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel#Spent_MOX_fuel
With a fast reactor you can keep the cycle going. Russia is recycling MOX with the BN-800 fast reactor. The U.S. did it too with the FFTF but the FFTF dumped the heat to the air without trying to produce power. Oddly, this makes the FFTF look more like a future fast reactor because the heat exchanger for the FFTF looks more like the heat exchanger for a low capital cost closed cycle gas turbine.
> Russia is recycling MOX with the BN-800 fast reactor
Source? I was aware it was using MOX, but did not see any discussion over whether it was weapons derived, PWR SNF, from the breeding blanket, or twice used MOX
Source? I was aware it was using MOX, but did not see any discussion over whether it was weapons derived, PWR SNF, from the breeding blanket, or twice used MOX
[deleted]
[deleted]
Something that the article didn't mention is that coal plants also produce radiation, and because of the lack of protection against it, the average dose of yearly radiation you get living near a coal plant is actually higher than living near a nuclear plant. That said, the repercussions of a major disaster are a lot lower with a coal plant than with a nuclear plant.
And, as always, relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
And, as always, relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
This factoid about coal power plants is often repeated, but I have my doubts about the accuracy. It seems to be based on a 44 year old paper [1] which comes to the conclusion that the radiation dose you get from living near a coal plant is on the same order of magnitude as the one from living near a BWR or PWR (Table 5 in the reference). However, emissions regulations for power plants (fossil or nuclear) are surely very different in 2022 than they were in 1978.
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.202.4372.1045
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.202.4372.1045
My understanding is that radioactive waste volumes & activity differ based on reactor type. Light-water reactors (PWR/ BWR) only burn 3% of the fuel energy hence leaving large energies as mid- and high-level radioactive waste.
Heavy-water reactors such as CANDU can achieve greater burn-up, can avoid enrichment, and even reportedly burn waste from PWRs as fuel. There are downsides but to my mind they seem small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Fuel_cycle
Heavy-water reactors such as CANDU can achieve greater burn-up, can avoid enrichment, and even reportedly burn waste from PWRs as fuel. There are downsides but to my mind they seem small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Fuel_cycle
Sleight of hand and lies as usual.
Breeder reactors do not actually exist and never have. Hitting some fertile material with fast or heavy water moderated neutrons is the easy part. Reprocessing reactor grade plutonium is the hard part and every program that has attempted it on a commercial scale has failed spectacularly. The french reprocessing facilities for ex weapons MOX are filthy, release more radiation than TMI and Fukushima combined in normal operation, and are horrifically expensive, and the others are all kept secret.
The BN800 is closest as it's running ~100% MOX right now (with no indication as to the source or whether it is using the breeding blanket), but noone even has any plans to attempt to reprocess spent plutonium based fuels, so at best it just doubles the amount of energy, doubles the amount of short lived extremely high level waste, and leaves you with a slightly higher level of long lived transuranics.
The danger of the long lived waste isn't handling it, it's having it enter the ground water and ecosystem where it will build up in the food chain forever.
Breeder reactors do not actually exist and never have. Hitting some fertile material with fast or heavy water moderated neutrons is the easy part. Reprocessing reactor grade plutonium is the hard part and every program that has attempted it on a commercial scale has failed spectacularly. The french reprocessing facilities for ex weapons MOX are filthy, release more radiation than TMI and Fukushima combined in normal operation, and are horrifically expensive, and the others are all kept secret.
The BN800 is closest as it's running ~100% MOX right now (with no indication as to the source or whether it is using the breeding blanket), but noone even has any plans to attempt to reprocess spent plutonium based fuels, so at best it just doubles the amount of energy, doubles the amount of short lived extremely high level waste, and leaves you with a slightly higher level of long lived transuranics.
The danger of the long lived waste isn't handling it, it's having it enter the ground water and ecosystem where it will build up in the food chain forever.
> The french reprocessing facilities for ex weapons MOX are filthy, release more radiation than TMI and Fukushima combined in normal operation, and are horrifically expensive, and the others are all kept secret.
The only people making these claims are Greenpeace: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site
In reality, a single transatlantic flight will expose you to more radiation than spending a year at the reprocessing site.
Greenpeace had zero credibility on nuclear power. They think a million people died from Chernobyl. This is nothing more than propaganda.
> The danger of the long lived waste isn't handling it, it's having it enter the ground water and ecosystem where it will build up in the food chain forever.
You realize that naturally occurring uranium already contaminates many regions water supplies? But it's not the end of the world, it can be treated and filtered out: https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/120396/uranium-contaminat...
The only people making these claims are Greenpeace: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site
In reality, a single transatlantic flight will expose you to more radiation than spending a year at the reprocessing site.
Greenpeace had zero credibility on nuclear power. They think a million people died from Chernobyl. This is nothing more than propaganda.
> The danger of the long lived waste isn't handling it, it's having it enter the ground water and ecosystem where it will build up in the food chain forever.
You realize that naturally occurring uranium already contaminates many regions water supplies? But it's not the end of the world, it can be treated and filtered out: https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/120396/uranium-contaminat...
> In reality, a single transatlantic flight will expose you to more radiation than spending a year at the reprocessing site.
More attempted misdirection. The problem is the emissions into the atmosphere and ocean which is cumulative and spread over a much larger region, not the radiation on site. Much like coal: One La Hague running at full capacity for a coupleof decades is a relatively minor problem. A thousand of them running for a century using much more polluting feed stock is the issue.
> Greenpeace had zero credibility on nuclear power. They think a million people died from Chernobyl. This is nothing more than propaganda.
If it's not a problem then why not pay for third parties to put whatever sensors they please and run whatever tests they wish on the outlets, vents, and surrounding land rather than removing them and running a media suppression campaign? Proving Greenpeace wrong would make their job far easier.
> You realize that naturally occurring uranium already contaminates many regions water supplies? But it's not the end of the world, it can be treated and filtered out: https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/120396/uranium-contaminat...
U238 isn't americium or neptunium or plutonium, and natural contamination levels are far lower than what happens around those mines.
More attempted misdirection. The problem is the emissions into the atmosphere and ocean which is cumulative and spread over a much larger region, not the radiation on site. Much like coal: One La Hague running at full capacity for a coupleof decades is a relatively minor problem. A thousand of them running for a century using much more polluting feed stock is the issue.
> Greenpeace had zero credibility on nuclear power. They think a million people died from Chernobyl. This is nothing more than propaganda.
If it's not a problem then why not pay for third parties to put whatever sensors they please and run whatever tests they wish on the outlets, vents, and surrounding land rather than removing them and running a media suppression campaign? Proving Greenpeace wrong would make their job far easier.
> You realize that naturally occurring uranium already contaminates many regions water supplies? But it's not the end of the world, it can be treated and filtered out: https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/120396/uranium-contaminat...
U238 isn't americium or neptunium or plutonium, and natural contamination levels are far lower than what happens around those mines.
Radiation density is what matters. Radiation that escapes into a much larger volume rapidly becomes negligibly more radioactive than the average. If the surrounding areas are contaminated, it should be trivial to find this without access to the plant itself. Unless this is radiation is completely contained in the plant, and in that case it's not really contamination is it?
They don't want Greenpeace sticking random sensors everywhere, because they'll detect negligible amounts of radioisotopes and insist it's contamination. They're free to walk around less than a mile away from the plant with Geiger counters in and whatever other equipment they want. If nearby areas were contaminated, then being prohibited from entering the plant itself would pose no issue to discovering that contamination. And you can't just walk onto a nuclear facility, them being prohibited is not unusual in the slightest. It's like claiming the fact that Im not free to expose Area 51 is proof that there's something nefarious hidden there: aliens, genetically engineer Nekos, take your pick.
They don't want Greenpeace sticking random sensors everywhere, because they'll detect negligible amounts of radioisotopes and insist it's contamination. They're free to walk around less than a mile away from the plant with Geiger counters in and whatever other equipment they want. If nearby areas were contaminated, then being prohibited from entering the plant itself would pose no issue to discovering that contamination. And you can't just walk onto a nuclear facility, them being prohibited is not unusual in the slightest. It's like claiming the fact that Im not free to expose Area 51 is proof that there's something nefarious hidden there: aliens, genetically engineer Nekos, take your pick.
The sensors removed were outside the facility. The suppression campaign was about Iodine in the soil.
It is trivial to provide hard evidence about what the levels of radioactive Iodine, Krypton, Caesium, etc. are. Suppressing it just makes you look guilty. Their behavior is exactly like in Kakadu where the response is "you can't prove people don't smoke and drink more here", or what the tobacco and fossil fuel industries have done for decades.
It is trivial to provide hard evidence about what the levels of radioactive Iodine, Krypton, Caesium, etc. are. Suppressing it just makes you look guilty. Their behavior is exactly like in Kakadu where the response is "you can't prove people don't smoke and drink more here", or what the tobacco and fossil fuel industries have done for decades.
If evidence is so trivial to provide, then why hasn't it been found? The only readings these activists have taken show average levels of radioisotopes that they turn around and claim are contamination. Why aren't France's neighbors complaining about these spills? Surely neighboring countries would object to their waters being polluted, and they have the resources to detect it. Or does this conspiracy spread beyond France, an international conspiracy of countries colluding to cover up waste?
If I stick a voltmeter on a power distribution center, and the plant workers remove it is it evidence of some sort of nefarious activity? No, because unknown devices being placed in critical infrastructure should be removed and examined.
Greenpeace France have stopped trying to argue waste is being spilled. If nothing else I have to laud your commitment to this theory that waste is being released.
If I stick a voltmeter on a power distribution center, and the plant workers remove it is it evidence of some sort of nefarious activity? No, because unknown devices being placed in critical infrastructure should be removed and examined.
Greenpeace France have stopped trying to argue waste is being spilled. If nothing else I have to laud your commitment to this theory that waste is being released.
> If evidence is so trivial to provide, then why hasn't it been found?
Yeah you're right, conclusive evidence that it's safe and isn't producing an amount of radiation that would become dangerous over decades if it were to expand is trivial to provide. Why hasn't it been found?
Yeah you're right, conclusive evidence that it's safe and isn't producing an amount of radiation that would become dangerous over decades if it were to expand is trivial to provide. Why hasn't it been found?
I know right? It has been in operation for more than half a century. If there was a noticeable buildup of radioisotopes in the areas we'd be seeing a growing concentration in that areas. We have incredibly precise ways to measure radiation, sensitive to deviations if a fraction of a percent above average. The blueish area on this chart [1] is a trillionth (10^-12) above the initial radiation value. We can detect the radiation this far away not because it's dangerous, but because our instruments are so sensitive.
If there was contamination then countries all across Europe would be detecting along their waters. But they aren't.
1. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/fukus...
If there was contamination then countries all across Europe would be detecting along their waters. But they aren't.
1. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/fukus...
That was a dye simulation you linked and it shows Fukushima is miniscule compared to enough reprocessing plants to cover a country's energy over a few decades. And that even a single reprocessing plant will release a Fukushima worth of radiation every few decades if they are operating without a group like Greenpeace to hold them to account. As usual, lies and attempted misdirection.
Turns out the output in the English channel is measurable and has been measured. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16376698/
From just two facilities reprocessing a tiny fraction of spent fuel the amounts are measurable and have historically been high enough to cause major problems at neigible fuel output. Stellafield alone released more Cs137 into the ocean than Fukushima.
They both decreased since the 90s because Greenpeace were right and they won and better control measures were put in place. The decreased output rate per kg of MOX is still not low enough for it to be safe with mass expansion.
You are proposing the amount of nuclear derived electricity increase 20-fold. Including MOX in this would cause reprocessing to increase by several orders of magnitude.
If the total quantity from those reprocessing facilities is safe, then this is trivial to prove. Set up publicly auditable monitoring around all of their outputs.
Turns out the output in the English channel is measurable and has been measured. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16376698/
From just two facilities reprocessing a tiny fraction of spent fuel the amounts are measurable and have historically been high enough to cause major problems at neigible fuel output. Stellafield alone released more Cs137 into the ocean than Fukushima.
They both decreased since the 90s because Greenpeace were right and they won and better control measures were put in place. The decreased output rate per kg of MOX is still not low enough for it to be safe with mass expansion.
You are proposing the amount of nuclear derived electricity increase 20-fold. Including MOX in this would cause reprocessing to increase by several orders of magnitude.
If the total quantity from those reprocessing facilities is safe, then this is trivial to prove. Set up publicly auditable monitoring around all of their outputs.
The studies you link do not find any dangerous levels of radioisotopes. They also actually found higher radioisotope concentrations in the Baltic than in the north sea and English channel, because Chernobyl released more radiation than this reprocessing plant contrary to your assertion otherwise. You say that a reprocessing facility releases more radiation than Fukushima every few decades, but La Hague had been in operation for 50 years. Fukushima levels of radiation would have been released by now, and mysteriously nobody can seem to detect it.
> They both decreased since the 90s because Greenpeace were right and they won and better control measures were put in place.
What measures? No source seems to mention any sort of changes or improvements following Greenpeace's stunts. What is far more likely for reductions in radioisotopes? Is the stopping of oceanic dumping of nuclear waste, that I explained later.
> If the total quantity from those reprocessing facilities is safe, then this is trivial to prove. Set up publicly auditable monitoring around all of their outputs.
This is already happening! You just linked to two public studies on the concentration of radioisotopes in the waters around Europe. How can you simultaneously post studies measuring radiation density, while also claiming that it's not possible to measure the radiation in the vicinity of these facilities?
And again, it's mysteriously only Greenpeace that cares. Belgium, Netherland, the UK, Spain - all of France's neighbors are apparently okay with their waters being polluted?
To be blunt, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how radioactive contamination works. The UK and USSR dumped huge amounts of nuclear waste into the ocean, and there was no observed ill effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_... Whatever emissions this French reprocessing site is producing is negligible compared to the background concentrations of radioisotopes.
> They both decreased since the 90s because Greenpeace were right and they won and better control measures were put in place.
What measures? No source seems to mention any sort of changes or improvements following Greenpeace's stunts. What is far more likely for reductions in radioisotopes? Is the stopping of oceanic dumping of nuclear waste, that I explained later.
> If the total quantity from those reprocessing facilities is safe, then this is trivial to prove. Set up publicly auditable monitoring around all of their outputs.
This is already happening! You just linked to two public studies on the concentration of radioisotopes in the waters around Europe. How can you simultaneously post studies measuring radiation density, while also claiming that it's not possible to measure the radiation in the vicinity of these facilities?
And again, it's mysteriously only Greenpeace that cares. Belgium, Netherland, the UK, Spain - all of France's neighbors are apparently okay with their waters being polluted?
To be blunt, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how radioactive contamination works. The UK and USSR dumped huge amounts of nuclear waste into the ocean, and there was no observed ill effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_... Whatever emissions this French reprocessing site is producing is negligible compared to the background concentrations of radioisotopes.
Two plants reprocessing a negligible fraction of the fuel for 2% of world energy provably have more effect on the north sea than chernobyl.
Both plants, but especially Stellafield were producing many times as much before Greenpeace's 'stunts'.
Scale it up at least 5000 times so that the amount of reprocessing isn't negligible and you have a chernobyl worth of radiation every 20 years or so. This is only the one pair of isotopes in the one place with an indisputable proof.
Note that your claims about it being undetectable were proven to be yet another lie and you immediately went back to 'you can't prove that it's reached harmful levels yet' or the exact same script fossil fuel has been running for decades.
When every pro nuclear claim that is easily checked is a lie, what possible reason is there to believe you about the ones that are harder to verify that you'd have even less incentive to tell the truth for?
Both plants, but especially Stellafield were producing many times as much before Greenpeace's 'stunts'.
Scale it up at least 5000 times so that the amount of reprocessing isn't negligible and you have a chernobyl worth of radiation every 20 years or so. This is only the one pair of isotopes in the one place with an indisputable proof.
Note that your claims about it being undetectable were proven to be yet another lie and you immediately went back to 'you can't prove that it's reached harmful levels yet' or the exact same script fossil fuel has been running for decades.
When every pro nuclear claim that is easily checked is a lie, what possible reason is there to believe you about the ones that are harder to verify that you'd have even less incentive to tell the truth for?
Radiation is everywhere. We can detect radiation incredibly precisely, to the point that we can tell which person ate a banana for breakfast. I wrote that contamination was not detected, not that zero radiation whatsoever was detected. Again, we can detect radiation that's a trillionth of a deviation above average. But we don't care about the mere presence of radiation - it's all around us in low quantities - radioactive contamination happens when levels reach harmful concentration. None of your studies concluded that radiation would reach harmful levels even if it increased by a factor of 1,000. And remember, we already get 10% of our electricity from nuclear power so I'm not sure where this figure of 5,000 came from.
We all know that the cooling systems of nuclear power plants leak tritium. But the levels are negligible and nowhere near the concentrations that would cause harm. But organizations like Greenpeace continue to try lie and insist that it's contamination when it's not. The same thing is happening with La Hague.
There is absolutely nothing misleading about saying radiation isn't at harmful levels. On the contrary, insisting that the presence of any radioisotopes is evidence of harmful contamination is, itself a highly misleading kind of rhetoric. If you care about the levels of radiation released by La Hague you should be frantically trying to ban stone and brick housing.
Hopefully this will better convey a sense of what radiation exposure really means: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
We all know that the cooling systems of nuclear power plants leak tritium. But the levels are negligible and nowhere near the concentrations that would cause harm. But organizations like Greenpeace continue to try lie and insist that it's contamination when it's not. The same thing is happening with La Hague.
There is absolutely nothing misleading about saying radiation isn't at harmful levels. On the contrary, insisting that the presence of any radioisotopes is evidence of harmful contamination is, itself a highly misleading kind of rhetoric. If you care about the levels of radiation released by La Hague you should be frantically trying to ban stone and brick housing.
Hopefully this will better convey a sense of what radiation exposure really means: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
Also, ingestion is neither the most dangerous or most likely route to eventually-fatal exposure: inhalation of radioactive dust is the hazard. It might take years to deliver lung cancer, on schedule, but it is a bad way to go.
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the spent fuel still produces a lot of heat. have there been examples of somehow utilizing the waste while it degrades?
That is called a "Radioisotope thermoelectric generator" but it's not the magic bullet that it appears to be. Depending on the isotope, you either get a very tiny amount of power (far less than you'd get from a solar array), or a very short half life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
I mean maybe not even powergen. Store it in the arctic where the population is low, people are unlikely to stumble across it, and then use the latent heat to heat homes or greenhouses or something. Also, I don't think seismically active and things like flooding/hurricanes aren't a thing. If the containers can keep their integrity, why not? If if not enough to fully heat homes/water/whatever, it would at least reduce the need for other sources. Of course this all depends on if the stuff can be stored safely -- and I think that's mostly solved?
> Keep the material in dry cask storage until the photon emitters have mostly decayed away, at most 600 years. If the US were to generate all its electricity from nuclear, a 600 year decay time means she would have to devote at most 21 square miles — about the size of Manhattan — to dry cask storage. This is based on the Histore system, Figure 5, which needs one acre to store 580 tons of used fuel.
Does anyone actually believe that our energy needs will never grow over time, and that growth isn't exponential?
Does anyone actually believe that our energy needs will never grow over time, and that growth isn't exponential?
> Does anyone actually believe that our energy needs will never grow over time, and that growth isn't exponential?
IME we minimize the negative when considering costs of things we strongly desire. When considering our ability to pay costs in the future we are similarly (overly) optimistic.
IME we minimize the negative when considering costs of things we strongly desire. When considering our ability to pay costs in the future we are similarly (overly) optimistic.
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