5 ms·

Bury it in the ocean? Is nuclear not considered renewable anymore?

• yorwba 9y ago
  Nuclear is not very renewable since its fuel supply is limited (although very large compared to fossil fuels). Dumping waste in the ocean is not a great idea, because you can't be sure that fishing grounds won't be contaminated. Nobody wants radioactive fish. In general, I think the best solution to long-term storage of nuclear waste is to keep it at some facility where it can be continuously monitored. That way, you at least know when something leaks. Unfortunately, energy producers are really good at not paying for that kind of externality.
  • zeristor 9y ago
    Uranium supply is limited, but there is far more Thorium. Thorium technology is quite immature at the moment but India and China are developing it, although it'll take quite a while to get to third, or fourth generation level maturity.
    • acidburnNSA 9y ago
      There's more Thorium in the crust, there's more Uranium in seawater. With either fuel (plus breeder reactors), the nuclear fuel supply of earth is unlimited on a several billion year timeframe at world-scale.
      • zeristor 9y ago
        Well ther’s even more Hydrogen in sea water, the problem is getting it out.
        • acidburnNSA 9y ago
          Here's an entire special issue (from 2016) of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research describing progress in extracting uranium from seawater: http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15 http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15
          • zeristor 9y ago
            Thorium though doesn't need isotopic enrichment though.
            • acidburnNSA 9y ago
              Neither does Uranium if you're using breeder reactors. And you have to be using breeder reactors if you're using Thorium because Th-232 is a strong neutron absorber and you can't start a reactor on it at all. You have to breed it up through Pa-233 to U-233 which is fissile. By definition all thorium reactors are breeder reactors. Fertile U-238 can do the exact same thing; instead of U-233 it breeds fissile Pu-239. If you want all the raw details on Thorium check this out [1]. [1] https://whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium_myths.html https://whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium_myths.html
  • acidburnNSA 9y ago
    There is actually a pretty strong case to made to say nuclear is renewable [1]. Basically, there's enough uranium dissolved in seawater that is replenished through runoff and plate tectonics faster than we could ever burn it as a civilization for billions of years. Methods for extracting it economically are very close. See this entire journal issue about the technology [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene... [2] http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15 http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15
• matt4077 9y ago
  No, nuclear was never considered a renewable source of energy. It’s low-carbon, maybe. Look, HN loves nuclear. You’ll find people here who propose running an actual nuclear reactor in every backyard. You’ll find excuses why the Sowjets were obviously incapable of securely running a nuclear plant, but capitalist societies can do it without a hitch. Then, two years later, you’ll have people telling you the Japanese were obviously incapable of running a nuclear plant, but France is obviously different. Plus, the Green conspiracy has somehow thwarted the breakthrough of cold fusion pebble bed thorium reactors, but now it’s just around the corner. Meanwhile, in reality, it has simply become economically unfeasable to build nuclear reactors. Solar and wind are doing their version of Moore’s law. Batteries, and other storage technologies, are taking a bite out of the storage problem. Smart grids, combining load variability and harnessing end-user storage capacity for grid storage are basically there. Your suggestion of throwing nuclear waste into the most corrosive substance available in quantity (sea water) nicely demonstrates this naïveté. There’s a post on the front page right now that shows that low-grade radioactive exposure has literally killed hundreds of thousands. Just because you can’t see it, and it was once the darling of science fiction, does not mean it won’t kill you.
  • kalleboo 9y ago
    Nuclear plants are only economically unfeasable to build because coal plants still are. The world is still building lots of coal plants all over the place (lots in my backyard - China is building lots, and now Japan is planning on replacing their nuclear with coal). If coal plants had to pay for the externalities of their generation you would see more interest in nuclear.
    • soundwave106 9y ago
      I've always thought the negatives of nuclear were less economic than other factors (though the high fixed capital costs might be an unattractive model in some cases). The worst case scenario for a nuclear accident is pretty frightening to a lot of people. While it may be true that overall fossil fuels are more dangerous in the long run, people tend to overvalue spectacular, high profile failures. In addition, one negative of nuclear I don't see come up on HN very often, is that nuclear power plants pose an extra risk in regards to nuclear proliferation and terrorism concerns. I do think that some of the recent decline of nuclear is, in part, geopolitical. You don't see groups of nations banding together to stop another nation from building a coal plant.