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What is the problem with nuclear energy? It is very safe and very clean and provides near limitless power. Our technology has been much advanced in the last dec

What is the problem with nuclear energy? It is very safe and very clean and provides near limitless power. Our technology has been much advanced in the last decades. Now we would only need to build next generation (Thorium) reactors. At least that's what the hivemind here told me.

byroot 9y ago
French here. Besides the advantages you mentioned, the downsides the opposants talk about are: - aging power plants, we haven't build any in a long time and many are now passed the initial lifetime expetency, but can't be shutdown as they should since there is no replacement ready - price not taking plants destruction into account. None have been fully destructed yet, so we don't know how much it coat exactly but it's far from cheap since you have tons of midly radioactive material to treat - still no proper way to dispose of the waste. There research etc, but right bow we're basically storing lots of materials that will be radioactive for millennias - new generation plants project (EPR) is many years late and many times over budget because of critical defects in components. - probably other arguments I forgot I am personally undecided on the matter, but what is certain is that nuclear might be the best solution we have, but it certainly isn't without downsides.
- static_noise 9y ago
  Why don't we just dump the radioactive material into the ocean to dilute it sufficiently? Apparently that's what solved most of the Fukushima problem.
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    That would contaminate the ocean. It's easier to "dump" it (carefully and deliberately) into crystalline bedrock or salt deposits where it will remain for millions of years, well beyond the time that it is dangerous. People spreading fear about storing nuclear waste in repositories are generally lying to you or repeating lies someone else told them. It's a fairly solved problem from the technical side.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  > but it certainly isn't without downsides Neither are the alternatives. Governments, and civilians alike, should carefully weight the advantages and disadvantages. What I mainly know about it is from memory from elementary school. Because this is precisely what we did. Each group was tasked to use pictures/photos from magazines, papers, etc to make a collage and a list of the + and - of each of these sources. That said, can someone ELI5 why Thorium is the future for nuclear energy? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
- kaybe 9y ago
  Add in that in France electricity is used a lot for heating, while most of Germany is on gas or oil. People can die from lack of heating.
acidburnNSA 9y ago
> It is very safe and very clean and provides near limitless power. Very much true. Nukes produce 60% of the carbon-free energy in the USA! > Now we would only need to build next generation (Thorium) reactors. There are lots of advanced next gen reactor designs with passive safety, advanced process heat, renewable fuel (replenished from erosion into seawater), etc. Only a handful of which use Thorium. The whole Thorium thing was a rebranding attempt by a guy named Kirk Sorensen who wanted to have a advanced nuclear rebirth. I don't like it because I want to see advanced nuclear of all fuels, not just Thorium! But that's a minor point. The S. Koreans and Russians have standardized their reactor designs and built a bunch of them, and in doing so they learned how to fabricate the parts and put them together very cost effectively. The rest of the nuclear industry needs to learn from this to keep construction costs down. Options for this include: 1. Build nuclear reactors in shipyards. This is a controlled environment with high replicability. Then deliver the nukes on barges or even operate them a few km offshore with subsea cables. 2. Pick a design and stick to it. The entire industry goes around saying they have the latest and greatest design but none of them are great unless someone works the kinks out of constructing it. The best solution here in my mind is to develop national open source reactor designs.

byroot 9y ago

French here. Besides the advantages you mentioned, the downsides the opposants talk about are: - aging power plants, we haven't build any in a long time and many are now passed the initial lifetime expetency, but can't be shutdown as they should since there is no replacement ready - price not taking plants destruction into account. None have been fully destructed yet, so we don't know how much it coat exactly but it's far from cheap since you have tons of midly radioactive material to treat - still no proper way to dispose of the waste. There research etc, but right bow we're basically storing lots of materials that will be radioactive for millennias - new generation plants project (EPR) is many years late and many times over budget because of critical defects in components. - probably other arguments I forgot I am personally undecided on the matter, but what is certain is that nuclear might be the best solution we have, but it certainly isn't without downsides.

static_noise 9y ago
Why don't we just dump the radioactive material into the ocean to dilute it sufficiently? Apparently that's what solved most of the Fukushima problem.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  That would contaminate the ocean. It's easier to "dump" it (carefully and deliberately) into crystalline bedrock or salt deposits where it will remain for millions of years, well beyond the time that it is dangerous. People spreading fear about storing nuclear waste in repositories are generally lying to you or repeating lies someone else told them. It's a fairly solved problem from the technical side.
Fnoord 9y ago
> but it certainly isn't without downsides Neither are the alternatives. Governments, and civilians alike, should carefully weight the advantages and disadvantages. What I mainly know about it is from memory from elementary school. Because this is precisely what we did. Each group was tasked to use pictures/photos from magazines, papers, etc to make a collage and a list of the + and - of each of these sources. That said, can someone ELI5 why Thorium is the future for nuclear energy? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
kaybe 9y ago
Add in that in France electricity is used a lot for heating, while most of Germany is on gas or oil. People can die from lack of heating.

acidburnNSA 9y ago

> It is very safe and very clean and provides near limitless power. Very much true. Nukes produce 60% of the carbon-free energy in the USA! > Now we would only need to build next generation (Thorium) reactors. There are lots of advanced next gen reactor designs with passive safety, advanced process heat, renewable fuel (replenished from erosion into seawater), etc. Only a handful of which use Thorium. The whole Thorium thing was a rebranding attempt by a guy named Kirk Sorensen who wanted to have a advanced nuclear rebirth. I don't like it because I want to see advanced nuclear of all fuels, not just Thorium! But that's a minor point. The S. Koreans and Russians have standardized their reactor designs and built a bunch of them, and in doing so they learned how to fabricate the parts and put them together very cost effectively. The rest of the nuclear industry needs to learn from this to keep construction costs down. Options for this include: 1. Build nuclear reactors in shipyards. This is a controlled environment with high replicability. Then deliver the nukes on barges or even operate them a few km offshore with subsea cables. 2. Pick a design and stick to it. The entire industry goes around saying they have the latest and greatest design but none of them are great unless someone works the kinks out of constructing it. The best solution here in my mind is to develop national open source reactor designs.