4 ms·

Clean if we ignore radioactive waste, that is.

by l24ztj 8y ago

frozenport 8y ago
Meh. All tech produces waste. Radioactive waste is small, compact and isn't released into the environment. Solar panels produce 300x more waste than nuclear. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/23/solar-panel-waste-a-disposal-problem/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/23/solar-panel-waste-a-d...
jdc 8y ago
And if the "Last Week Tonight" (John Oliver) episode is any indication, nuclear waste disposal is not a job the US has been handling well.
- martin_a 8y ago
  Didn't watch that, but here in Germany we just dump nuclear waste into old salt domes and hope for the best. We can't even recover the waste from there because it sometimes was literally just thrown down there. One can just hope that will never lead to any problems.
T2_t2 8y ago
As opposed to wind and solar? Let alone batteries, that use extremely toxic chemicals. What we do with waste is a key ingredient to any power source, and the plan with old batteries, solar panels and wind turbines is no better than nuclear. There is no free lunch, only competing ideas with different sets of problems and difficulties.
- woah 8y ago
  How is disposing of wind turbines and solar panels any different from disposing of any other silicon and aluminum machines?
  - mhalle 8y ago
    There doesn't seem to be a great answer regarding recycling or disposing of composite wind turbine blades: https://www.windpowerengineering.com/mechanical/blades/recycling-wind-turbine-blades/ https://www.windpowerengineering.com/mechanical/blades/recyc...
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      As opposed to composite planes or car frames?
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    Size? Seems to me you would need to unearth a massive landfill to put the wind turbine blades and towers in.
waddlesworth 8y ago
Radioactive waste is a problem, but I don't think it's worse than the effects of climate change. It may not be perfect, but Nuclear solves a lot of problems.
petre 8y ago
Here, educate yourself about nuclear waste: https://youtu.be/Q3EGOL4J6yI https://youtu.be/Q3EGOL4J6yI
credit_guy 8y ago
Some people ignore nuclear waste, but then some other people ignore nuclear waste solutions. Here's the scale of the nuclear waste problem, from wikipedia [1] "High-level radioactive waste is stored for 10 or 20 years in spent fuel pools, and then can be put in dry cask storage facilities. In 1997, in the 20 countries which account for most of the world's nuclear power generation, spent fuel storage capacity at the reactors was 148,000 tonnes, with 59% of this utilized. Away-from-reactor storage capacity was 78,000 tonnes, with 44% utilized. With annual additions of about 12,000 tonnes, issues for final disposal are not urgent." Urgent or not, what final disposal options are there? Reprocessing is one. The "La Hague" plant in France [2] reprocesses about 1000t of spent nuclear fuel per year, and a capacity of 1700t. If only the US had the political will to restart nuclear fuel reprocessing... Commercial reprocessing was suspended in 1976, then banned in 1977 (for fears of nuclear proliferation), then the ban was lifted in 1981, but it never took off. [3] Another solution is to use breader-reactors, which have a much higher efficiency that regular nuclear reactors, and so produce much less waste. Russia already has some, such as the BN-800 [4]. The design that Bill Gates invested in, Terra Power [5] is an advanced design of this type. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_waste#Disposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_waste#Disposal [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#History [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower

Clean if we ignore radioactive waste, that is.

by l24ztj 8y ago

Clean if we ignore radioactive waste, that is.

Meh. All tech produces waste. Radioactive waste is small, compact and isn't released into the environment. Solar panels produce 300x more waste than nuclear. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/23/solar-panel-waste-a-disposal-problem/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/23/solar-panel-waste-a-d...

jdc 8y ago

And if the "Last Week Tonight" (John Oliver) episode is any indication, nuclear waste disposal is not a job the US has been handling well.

martin_a 8y ago
Didn't watch that, but here in Germany we just dump nuclear waste into old salt domes and hope for the best. We can't even recover the waste from there because it sometimes was literally just thrown down there. One can just hope that will never lead to any problems.

T2_t2 8y ago

As opposed to wind and solar? Let alone batteries, that use extremely toxic chemicals. What we do with waste is a key ingredient to any power source, and the plan with old batteries, solar panels and wind turbines is no better than nuclear. There is no free lunch, only competing ideas with different sets of problems and difficulties.

woah 8y ago
How is disposing of wind turbines and solar panels any different from disposing of any other silicon and aluminum machines?
- mhalle 8y ago
  There doesn't seem to be a great answer regarding recycling or disposing of composite wind turbine blades: https://www.windpowerengineering.com/mechanical/blades/recycling-wind-turbine-blades/ https://www.windpowerengineering.com/mechanical/blades/recyc...
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    As opposed to composite planes or car frames?
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  Size? Seems to me you would need to unearth a massive landfill to put the wind turbine blades and towers in.

waddlesworth 8y ago

Radioactive waste is a problem, but I don't think it's worse than the effects of climate change. It may not be perfect, but Nuclear solves a lot of problems.

petre 8y ago

Here, educate yourself about nuclear waste: https://youtu.be/Q3EGOL4J6yI https://youtu.be/Q3EGOL4J6yI

credit_guy 8y ago

Some people ignore nuclear waste, but then some other people ignore nuclear waste solutions. Here's the scale of the nuclear waste problem, from wikipedia [1] "High-level radioactive waste is stored for 10 or 20 years in spent fuel pools, and then can be put in dry cask storage facilities. In 1997, in the 20 countries which account for most of the world's nuclear power generation, spent fuel storage capacity at the reactors was 148,000 tonnes, with 59% of this utilized. Away-from-reactor storage capacity was 78,000 tonnes, with 44% utilized. With annual additions of about 12,000 tonnes, issues for final disposal are not urgent." Urgent or not, what final disposal options are there? Reprocessing is one. The "La Hague" plant in France [2] reprocesses about 1000t of spent nuclear fuel per year, and a capacity of 1700t. If only the US had the political will to restart nuclear fuel reprocessing... Commercial reprocessing was suspended in 1976, then banned in 1977 (for fears of nuclear proliferation), then the ban was lifted in 1981, but it never took off. [3] Another solution is to use breader-reactors, which have a much higher efficiency that regular nuclear reactors, and so produce much less waste. Russia already has some, such as the BN-800 [4]. The design that Bill Gates invested in, Terra Power [5] is an advanced design of this type. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_waste#Disposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_waste#Disposal [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing#History [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-800_reactor [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower