5 ms·

Yes. Burn it inside building and capture CO2. As it stands, the gas waste is externalised. Imagine if nuclear reactors were allowed to dump waste in air/river.

by Joakal 7y ago

CydeWeys 7y ago
And do what with the CO2? Burning coal releases a lot of it.
- toss1 7y ago
  Capture it and bury it underground turning it into rock https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide-cleaner-air.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide-cleaner... Capture it and convert it to fuel https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst-door-carbon-dioxide-capture.html https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst-door-carbon-dioxide-c... Capture it and convert it to plastics https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel-plastics-food.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel-plastics-... etc...
  - neuronic 7y ago
    The fact that none of this is economical makes this fairly difficult to do.
    - yellow_postit 7y ago
      “Economical” evaluation right now, in the US, is before the true cost of carbon emissions are priced in. Once/If there’s a real carbon tax the economic viability on these may change. I personally believe that in addition to pricing carbon governments are going to have to self fund massive sequestration projects as well to avoid catastrophic change.
  - happosai 7y ago
    Which none make any sense since capturing and converting co2 consumes more energy than burning the coal generated.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  Carbon Sequestration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Which no one has demonstrated workably or economically. The best way to sequester carbon is to turn it into coal or oil and bury it deep underground where it will remain for hundreds of millions of years. It's insane to dig up coal and oil, burn it for energy, then spend MORE energy capturing all that CO2, converting it back into a long-term storage formfactor, and burying it again. Much simpler to leave the coal/oil buried and get your energy from other sources. Carbon sequestration makes way less sense than simply not digging up the carbon and burning it in the first place.
    - sonnyblarney 7y ago
      "Which no one has demonstrated workably or economically." This is false. There are several tests of capture underway, where it's working at least within other parameters. [1] As for economic viability, that may or may not come with scale and integration. The bigger question is obviously the long term implications of storing CO2 (i.e. will it leak) etc.. "It's insane to dig up coal and oil, burn it for energy, then spend MORE energy capturing all that CO" No, if sequestration can be viable, it would be 'insane' to ignore it. If it increased the cost of burning natural gas by 2x, it'd still be cheaper than anything else. It'd be irresponsible to ignore possible vectors of innovation. Why would you build solar equipment with unreliable output at 7 cents kww instead a reliable natural gas / sequestered operation with 3 cents kwh? "Much simpler to leave the coal/oil buried and get your energy from other sources." There is no plan to going to get all of our energy needs from wind and solar, so I don't know what you mean by 'simpler'. Carbon fuels are by far our best source of power, if we can capture CO2 efficiently, than we should. The apparent 'anti sequestration' attitude that seems to prevailing here in HN is naive. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-carbon-storage/japan-carbon-capture-site-shows-promise-for-industrial-use-idUSKBN1HQ0WZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-carbon-storage/japa...
dredmorbius 7y ago
Coal is burned inside buildings. The buildings have stacks. I'd suggest calculating the volume of gas produced by the combustion of 3750 MTOe of coal, the amount presently extracted and consumed annually.[1] It is significant. 1. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal.html#coal-production https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal.html#coal-production https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/images-svg/energy-economics/coal-consumption-by-region-stsr-bp.svg https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...
bbrian 7y ago
Nuclear waste is dumped in the Irish sea, at "regulated" amounts. > In the United Kingdom, spent fuel is reprocessed at the Sellafield facility in Cumbria on the North West coast of England. Waste generated at the site comprises a wide range of radionuclides including radiocarbon (14C) which is disposed of in various forms including highly soluble inorganic carbon within the low level liquid radioactive effluent, via pipelines into the Irish Sea. This 14C is rapidly incorporated into the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) reservoir and marine calcifying organisms, e.g. molluscs, readily utilise DIC for shell formation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X15301454 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X1...
- greglindahl 7y ago
  What fraction of dangerous nuclear waste is carbon-14? Isn’t it basically completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things?

Yes. Burn it inside building and capture CO2. As it stands, the gas waste is externalised. Imagine if nuclear reactors were allowed to dump waste in air/river.

by Joakal 7y ago

Yes. Burn it inside building and capture CO2. As it stands, the gas waste is externalised. Imagine if nuclear reactors were allowed to dump waste in air/river.

CydeWeys 7y ago

And do what with the CO2? Burning coal releases a lot of it.

toss1 7y ago
Capture it and bury it underground turning it into rock https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide-cleaner-air.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-iceland-carbon-dioxide-cleaner... Capture it and convert it to fuel https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst-door-carbon-dioxide-capture.html https://phys.org/news/2018-10-catalyst-door-carbon-dioxide-c... Capture it and convert it to plastics https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel-plastics-food.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-co2-ingredients-fuel-plastics-... etc...
- neuronic 7y ago
  The fact that none of this is economical makes this fairly difficult to do.
  - yellow_postit 7y ago
    “Economical” evaluation right now, in the US, is before the true cost of carbon emissions are priced in. Once/If there’s a real carbon tax the economic viability on these may change. I personally believe that in addition to pricing carbon governments are going to have to self fund massive sequestration projects as well to avoid catastrophic change.
- happosai 7y ago
  Which none make any sense since capturing and converting co2 consumes more energy than burning the coal generated.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
Carbon Sequestration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Which no one has demonstrated workably or economically. The best way to sequester carbon is to turn it into coal or oil and bury it deep underground where it will remain for hundreds of millions of years. It's insane to dig up coal and oil, burn it for energy, then spend MORE energy capturing all that CO2, converting it back into a long-term storage formfactor, and burying it again. Much simpler to leave the coal/oil buried and get your energy from other sources. Carbon sequestration makes way less sense than simply not digging up the carbon and burning it in the first place.
  - sonnyblarney 7y ago
    "Which no one has demonstrated workably or economically." This is false. There are several tests of capture underway, where it's working at least within other parameters. [1] As for economic viability, that may or may not come with scale and integration. The bigger question is obviously the long term implications of storing CO2 (i.e. will it leak) etc.. "It's insane to dig up coal and oil, burn it for energy, then spend MORE energy capturing all that CO" No, if sequestration can be viable, it would be 'insane' to ignore it. If it increased the cost of burning natural gas by 2x, it'd still be cheaper than anything else. It'd be irresponsible to ignore possible vectors of innovation. Why would you build solar equipment with unreliable output at 7 cents kww instead a reliable natural gas / sequestered operation with 3 cents kwh? "Much simpler to leave the coal/oil buried and get your energy from other sources." There is no plan to going to get all of our energy needs from wind and solar, so I don't know what you mean by 'simpler'. Carbon fuels are by far our best source of power, if we can capture CO2 efficiently, than we should. The apparent 'anti sequestration' attitude that seems to prevailing here in HN is naive. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-carbon-storage/japan-carbon-capture-site-shows-promise-for-industrial-use-idUSKBN1HQ0WZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-carbon-storage/japa...

dredmorbius 7y ago

Coal is burned inside buildings. The buildings have stacks. I'd suggest calculating the volume of gas produced by the combustion of 3750 MTOe of coal, the amount presently extracted and consumed annually.[1] It is significant. 1. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal.html#coal-production https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/coal.html#coal-production https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/images-svg/energy-economics/coal-consumption-by-region-stsr-bp.svg https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/c...

bbrian 7y ago

Nuclear waste is dumped in the Irish sea, at "regulated" amounts. > In the United Kingdom, spent fuel is reprocessed at the Sellafield facility in Cumbria on the North West coast of England. Waste generated at the site comprises a wide range of radionuclides including radiocarbon (14C) which is disposed of in various forms including highly soluble inorganic carbon within the low level liquid radioactive effluent, via pipelines into the Irish Sea. This 14C is rapidly incorporated into the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) reservoir and marine calcifying organisms, e.g. molluscs, readily utilise DIC for shell formation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X15301454 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X1...

greglindahl 7y ago
What fraction of dangerous nuclear waste is carbon-14? Isn’t it basically completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things?