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The waste disposal problem has been solved at the Onkalo Nuclear Waste Repository in Finland. It's a deep geologic repository without the political fights assoc

The waste disposal problem has been solved at the Onkalo Nuclear Waste Repository in Finland. It's a deep geologic repository without the political fights associated with Yucca. Deep geologic repositories are basically a consensus solution now. Finns chose to solve the nuclear waste issue and did it. Fukushima killed up to 1 person from radiation. Meanwhile fossil is killing 4.3 million people per year via air pollution. If fossil had to pay for that health externality (not to mention climate change), then nuclear economics would look exceedingly more fantastic. Though it's true that nuclear builds need to get their act together to maintain relevance. Small reactors have less radioactive source in them and are proportionally less radiologically impactful than larger higher power reactors in the event of military/terrorist attack. Wind and solar are doing amazing. There is some serious worry that the Energy Return on Investment (EROI) will go below the level needed to sustain industrialized civilization once variable renewables are deployed at significant enough scale to require massive energy investment in "non-productive" equipment like batteries. For example, see this Nov 2019 paper on the topic [1]. EROI on solar PV is like 3-8. With massive storage it can dip below 3. Nuclear is like 50. I think a low-carbon future will have a whole lot of wind/solar and a whole lot of nuclear. Both industries can scale by 10x happily and we still will struggle with our climate issues. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300926 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X1...

natmaka 7y ago
Urenco only does uranium enrichment, waste management is vastly more than this > France and most of Europe use Urenco. I'm French, and can see the result: waste is piling up nearby the plants. Deep geological repositories are given as the ultimate solution since the 1970's at least, and there is _NO_ exploited site. Cigéo/Bure (in France) is only a project. Yucca Mountain never ran and is halted. On a similar vein see the Superphenix financial and industrial disaster. It was a french project, aiming at (there were other objectives) reusing waste and enriched uranium, and the French know about nuclear power. Net result: 60 billion French Francs lost. There is NO currently exploited solution for all the waste. No real breeder, no repository, nothing. This is Huge Establishment mismanagement at its best. > The integral molten salt reactor has these advantages and > should be comercialy available wothin 10 years. Molten-salt reactor R&D started in the 1960's, and stopped 30 years later. AFAIK with some complication and no industrial application(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment#Decommissioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment... I'm sorry to repeat myself, but there is no present and current solution. Promises are fun, and the nuke sector is prone to them, see the waste management farce resumed above. See also the nuclear fusion joke, periodically presented as the ultimate solution nearly every year... since 1940... and counting (mainly taxpayer's money for costly research). > I don't buy that waste is a serious problem Central administrations (in France, the US...) consider them to be a problem, even if most of them are pro-nuke. There must be something here. A tiny amount of hot waste reaching a phreatic zone, for example, is a very, very serious concern. > If your only point of comparison is 60 year old computers > you might argue that computers will never be economical to use. The quest for perfectly sure nuke plant, and for a sure way to manage waste (especially hot) started at the very least 50 years ago. > The waste disposal problem has been solved at the Onkalo Nuclear Waste Repository in Finland. It is "the first such repository in the world for high level waste, and currently under construction". It may start in 2023. This means that it is the most advanced project (it began in 1983, building began in 2004), but not yet in operation, and already under scientific criticism (copper capsules corrosion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... Concise version: nuke plants are vomiting hot stuff for decades and a potential and very local solution (AFAIK it is not intended to store US, French or other waste) may start in 4 years. Who thinks that this is adequately managed? > Fukushima killed up to 1 person from radiation. This is some official thesis, there huge scandals tied to many official theories about this disaster, and also much more stern counter-theories. AFAIK nobody knows for sure because the amount of dead/sick persons or animals, and various cleanup costs, may only be known when the last contaminated particle which escaped will be inert. No expert judges that we can neglect those particles, therefore they probably aren't innocuous and huge efforts are made trying to clean up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup Many are now in the ocean. Some of it inducing solid cancers, which develops after 10+ years. > Meanwhile fossil is killing 4.3 million people per year via air pollution. Indeed, however tt doesn't imply nuke plants are a necessity, we have ways (solar, wind...), we may save energy, research to be able to obtain better ways to store it... Nuke distracts resources from those less dangerous and more realistic approaches which, moreover, are progressing impressively (efficiency up, total cost down, more and more effective deployments...) > Small reactors have less radioactive source in them and are proportionally less radiologically impactful than larger higher power reactors in the event of military/terrorist attack. Most of the existing ones use highly enriched uranium, and such material falling in the wrong hands will have effects quickly leading you to radically change your mind about this. > Wind and solar are doing amazing. ((...)) require massive energy investment in"non-productive" equipment like batteries Indeed, and this is a reason to invest into R&D on energy-saving, efficiency, energy storage... instead of pouring even more billions into already-explored dead-ends.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Anti-nuclear messaging has traditionally said that nuclear waste problem is unsolvable and then stonewalled potential solutions. In this case, the Finns are operating test drills as we speak [1]. The number of people who have been injured or killed by stored commercial nuclear waste is very near zero, and we know how to store it safely in the long term. Again, meanwhile 84% of our energy generation kills 4.3 million people per year. The nuclear waste issue is no longer a good reason to oppose nuclear energy. Nuclear is unique in its ability to fully contain and store all of its waste in the long term. This is thanks to E=MC2 where the mass of the hazardous waste is extraordinarily small compared to other energy system waste. There are counter-theories to death counts in Chernobyl and Fukushima. But there is a UN/WHO group of true experts who are the authorities on these items. Think of them like the IPCC for climate change, but for radiation. It's called UNSCEAR, and they are clear in their analysis. Up to 4000 dead at Chernobyl, up to 1 dead at Fukushima. There's always wild counter-theories in these big science questions: just like some people claim millions died at Chernobyl (looking at Greenpeace), some claim that climate change doesn't exist. [1] http://www.posiva.fi/en/media/image_gallery?gfid_2061=94#gallery_2061 http://www.posiva.fi/en/media/image_gallery?gfid_2061=94#gal... I think you're replying to multiple people above as I only said half of that stuff.
  - natmaka 7y ago
    A drill in a new not-yet-started local and small solution is not a running global solution. When all waste will be inert we may evaluate the sanitary consequences. Meanwhile the dangerous hot waste may or may not harm. Well-known scientists who worked in situ have a somewhat different opinion about the consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... UN agencies aren't BS and lies-free.
    - acidburnNSA 7y ago
      It has started. They are doing actual tests of waste packages in actual final disposition tunnels. See the photo gallery. > When all waste will be inert we may evaluate the sanitary consequences. Meanwhile the dangerous hot waste may or may not harm. I don't understand how you can justify this statement. Again, commercial nuclear waste in dry casks has never hurt anyone and probably never will, yet nuclear power has produced ~5% of the world's energy over the past several decades, and it does so without emitting carbon dioxide, and it does so 24/7, and it does so with very little raw material and land impact. Meanwhile, fossil actually kills 4.3 million people every single year. How can you justify a nearly fantastical fear of nuclear waste future harm while 4.3 million people are dying every year from air pollution from the alternative? This is like Germany, who phased out nuclear plants while keeping brown coal plants on, thereby choosing literally to kill about 1000 extra people per year because of their fear of radiation. This feels wild to me, and borderline inhumane given the statistics.

natmaka 7y ago

Urenco only does uranium enrichment, waste management is vastly more than this > France and most of Europe use Urenco. I'm French, and can see the result: waste is piling up nearby the plants. Deep geological repositories are given as the ultimate solution since the 1970's at least, and there is _NO_ exploited site. Cigéo/Bure (in France) is only a project. Yucca Mountain never ran and is halted. On a similar vein see the Superphenix financial and industrial disaster. It was a french project, aiming at (there were other objectives) reusing waste and enriched uranium, and the French know about nuclear power. Net result: 60 billion French Francs lost. There is NO currently exploited solution for all the waste. No real breeder, no repository, nothing. This is Huge Establishment mismanagement at its best. > The integral molten salt reactor has these advantages and > should be comercialy available wothin 10 years. Molten-salt reactor R&D started in the 1960's, and stopped 30 years later. AFAIK with some complication and no industrial application(?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment#Decommissioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment... I'm sorry to repeat myself, but there is no present and current solution. Promises are fun, and the nuke sector is prone to them, see the waste management farce resumed above. See also the nuclear fusion joke, periodically presented as the ultimate solution nearly every year... since 1940... and counting (mainly taxpayer's money for costly research). > I don't buy that waste is a serious problem Central administrations (in France, the US...) consider them to be a problem, even if most of them are pro-nuke. There must be something here. A tiny amount of hot waste reaching a phreatic zone, for example, is a very, very serious concern. > If your only point of comparison is 60 year old computers > you might argue that computers will never be economical to use. The quest for perfectly sure nuke plant, and for a sure way to manage waste (especially hot) started at the very least 50 years ago. > The waste disposal problem has been solved at the Onkalo Nuclear Waste Repository in Finland. It is "the first such repository in the world for high level waste, and currently under construction". It may start in 2023. This means that it is the most advanced project (it began in 1983, building began in 2004), but not yet in operation, and already under scientific criticism (copper capsules corrosion). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... Concise version: nuke plants are vomiting hot stuff for decades and a potential and very local solution (AFAIK it is not intended to store US, French or other waste) may start in 4 years. Who thinks that this is adequately managed? > Fukushima killed up to 1 person from radiation. This is some official thesis, there huge scandals tied to many official theories about this disaster, and also much more stern counter-theories. AFAIK nobody knows for sure because the amount of dead/sick persons or animals, and various cleanup costs, may only be known when the last contaminated particle which escaped will be inert. No expert judges that we can neglect those particles, therefore they probably aren't innocuous and huge efforts are made trying to clean up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_disaster_cleanup Many are now in the ocean. Some of it inducing solid cancers, which develops after 10+ years. > Meanwhile fossil is killing 4.3 million people per year via air pollution. Indeed, however tt doesn't imply nuke plants are a necessity, we have ways (solar, wind...), we may save energy, research to be able to obtain better ways to store it... Nuke distracts resources from those less dangerous and more realistic approaches which, moreover, are progressing impressively (efficiency up, total cost down, more and more effective deployments...) > Small reactors have less radioactive source in them and are proportionally less radiologically impactful than larger higher power reactors in the event of military/terrorist attack. Most of the existing ones use highly enriched uranium, and such material falling in the wrong hands will have effects quickly leading you to radically change your mind about this. > Wind and solar are doing amazing. ((...)) require massive energy investment in"non-productive" equipment like batteries Indeed, and this is a reason to invest into R&D on energy-saving, efficiency, energy storage... instead of pouring even more billions into already-explored dead-ends.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
Anti-nuclear messaging has traditionally said that nuclear waste problem is unsolvable and then stonewalled potential solutions. In this case, the Finns are operating test drills as we speak [1]. The number of people who have been injured or killed by stored commercial nuclear waste is very near zero, and we know how to store it safely in the long term. Again, meanwhile 84% of our energy generation kills 4.3 million people per year. The nuclear waste issue is no longer a good reason to oppose nuclear energy. Nuclear is unique in its ability to fully contain and store all of its waste in the long term. This is thanks to E=MC2 where the mass of the hazardous waste is extraordinarily small compared to other energy system waste. There are counter-theories to death counts in Chernobyl and Fukushima. But there is a UN/WHO group of true experts who are the authorities on these items. Think of them like the IPCC for climate change, but for radiation. It's called UNSCEAR, and they are clear in their analysis. Up to 4000 dead at Chernobyl, up to 1 dead at Fukushima. There's always wild counter-theories in these big science questions: just like some people claim millions died at Chernobyl (looking at Greenpeace), some claim that climate change doesn't exist. [1] http://www.posiva.fi/en/media/image_gallery?gfid_2061=94#gallery_2061 http://www.posiva.fi/en/media/image_gallery?gfid_2061=94#gal... I think you're replying to multiple people above as I only said half of that stuff.
- natmaka 7y ago
  A drill in a new not-yet-started local and small solution is not a running global solution. When all waste will be inert we may evaluate the sanitary consequences. Meanwhile the dangerous hot waste may or may not harm. Well-known scientists who worked in situ have a somewhat different opinion about the consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... UN agencies aren't BS and lies-free.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    It has started. They are doing actual tests of waste packages in actual final disposition tunnels. See the photo gallery. > When all waste will be inert we may evaluate the sanitary consequences. Meanwhile the dangerous hot waste may or may not harm. I don't understand how you can justify this statement. Again, commercial nuclear waste in dry casks has never hurt anyone and probably never will, yet nuclear power has produced ~5% of the world's energy over the past several decades, and it does so without emitting carbon dioxide, and it does so 24/7, and it does so with very little raw material and land impact. Meanwhile, fossil actually kills 4.3 million people every single year. How can you justify a nearly fantastical fear of nuclear waste future harm while 4.3 million people are dying every year from air pollution from the alternative? This is like Germany, who phased out nuclear plants while keeping brown coal plants on, thereby choosing literally to kill about 1000 extra people per year because of their fear of radiation. This feels wild to me, and borderline inhumane given the statistics.