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1. The facility is not accepting new deposits but it is operational. Regardless, this is a political fearmongering challenge, not a scientific one. 2. This

1. The facility is not accepting new deposits but it is operational. Regardless, this is a political fearmongering challenge, not a scientific one. 2. This is absolutely false because you are not including the costs of STORAGE. Without massive storage, they are useless in providing year-round baseload. 3. Gen III+ reactors are built to international standards. Racism is not an adequate argument.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). In the meantime, progress marches on: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d... (Generating unit retirements, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (Generating unit additions, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 (EIA Electric Power Monthly)
- merpnderp 7y ago
  This is agreeing you were wrong, but your false claims still win because the people are suckers. When climate change is still roaring along 30 years from now and the laws of physics haven’t changed to allow solar and wind to completely displace fossil fuels, you can really be proud of your win.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    I'm not proud nuclear proponents are ignorant of the reality of the situation. They care more about being "right" than what is feasible today. Nuclear would've been fine to go all in on 20 or 30 years ago; today, it's too late (considering the timeline between first kwh produced and breaking ground today). Mourning a tragedy isn't a strategy for success. If you can get it built, why isn't it built yet? Or at the very least, under construction.
    - koheripbal 7y ago
      Claiming that nuclear power isn't feasible because "people fear it" is as valid an argument as saying that Climate Change cannot be averted because too many people don't believe in it. The entire point of us having these conversations online is to help convince these uneducated idiots in society, exactly so that we can overcome these challenges.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        > help convince these uneducated idiots in society Hence why the argument is already lost. Educated citizens have valid concerns that aren’t being addressed, and the uneducated ones? They still get the same vote you do.
      - manicdee 7y ago
        You aren’t helping your case by labelling people who disagree with you as “uneducated idiots.” In my local environment the most visible people championing nuclear power are the same ones who turn up in Parliament House wearing their sponsor’s uniform, or bring lumps of coal into the House. They also engage in corporate style group psychopathy of “if what we want to do isn’t illegal, there’s nothing stopping us from doing it.” With friends like those, nuclear power doesn’t need any enemies. The impression is that the only reason nuclear power is mentioned is because some politicians are looking for a comfortable post-retirement life in a junket lobbying position at Westinghouse. So between the nuclear advocates here on HN claiming that everyone who doesn’t support nuclear power is a “climate alarmist” uneducated idiot, the only proponents in government being the most visibly corrupt, and the discussion of nuclear power always turning to “proven” thorium technology, nuclear power really has little hope of being accepted by society at large.
- creato 7y ago
  > We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). The point here is not disagreement with these points, rather than the arguments that brought us to these points are misguided. > In the meantime, progress marches on: And so does climate change.
jessaustin 7y ago
...political fearmongering challenge... Nevada is not so populous a state. There seem to be lots of nuclear enthusiasts online. You folks should just move to Nevada and elect more courageous state officials!
- manicdee 7y ago
  Voting margins are around 3%. Population around 3M. Thus Nevada only needs an influx of about 90,000 nuclear-friendly gentry to make a huge change to the future of nuclear power in the world.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Keep in mind, voter turnout was 1.1M in 2016, and that was considered very high. In most years the margin you're talking about could be much smaller.
    - manicdee 7y ago
      Honestly I doubt we’d find 500 people who thought nuclear power was important enough a hill to die on that they’d move to Nevada to ensure its future (and I sometimes wonder whether the majority of pro-nuclear experts can be bothered to get out of their armchairs and vote in the first place). A better option would be to move to Australia and campaign for a nuclear waste dump here. The voting margins are lower (often measured in low triple digit votes) and the politicians are more cheaply bought. Those same 500 proponents could more easily effect change in Australia than any state of the USA.
Jedi72 7y ago
Regardless of the reasoning, if the US cant keep a site operating for even 100 years, how do we expect it to keep functioning for 10,000? Storing nuear waste is a complete non-starter for me simply because of the timelines involved. Nobody can guarantee the safety of anything for thousands (!!) of years, when the USA itself is only ~400 years old.
- briffle 7y ago
  You really don't need to. The whole reason we have the waste problem now is politics. We could reprocess the waste. the 'old' rods still have 95% of their energy in them. President Carter ended that with a single executive order.
- allovernow 7y ago
  Storage of spent fuel is almost entirely passive. You're literally burying it in a geologically stable site, where even if the containers completely dissolve it will take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for that waste to even potentially impact the greater environment to any significant degree. The only conceivable risk is for some future civilization coming across the cache, not knowing what it is, and potentially suffering as a result. Which presumes that such a civilization will have declined substantially in scientific knowledge at which point it is unlikely that such access would even affect more than a small group of future peoples. The risk is practically non existent, especially when compared to the risk of continuing to ignore nuclear now. This is pure, unsubstantiated fearmongering.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). In the meantime, progress marches on: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_d... (Generating unit retirements, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c.png https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/images/figure_6_01_c... (Generating unit additions, Nov 2019 through Oct 2020) Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4 (EIA Electric Power Monthly)

merpnderp 7y ago
This is agreeing you were wrong, but your false claims still win because the people are suckers. When climate change is still roaring along 30 years from now and the laws of physics haven’t changed to allow solar and wind to completely displace fossil fuels, you can really be proud of your win.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  I'm not proud nuclear proponents are ignorant of the reality of the situation. They care more about being "right" than what is feasible today. Nuclear would've been fine to go all in on 20 or 30 years ago; today, it's too late (considering the timeline between first kwh produced and breaking ground today). Mourning a tragedy isn't a strategy for success. If you can get it built, why isn't it built yet? Or at the very least, under construction.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Claiming that nuclear power isn't feasible because "people fear it" is as valid an argument as saying that Climate Change cannot be averted because too many people don't believe in it. The entire point of us having these conversations online is to help convince these uneducated idiots in society, exactly so that we can overcome these challenges.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > help convince these uneducated idiots in society Hence why the argument is already lost. Educated citizens have valid concerns that aren’t being addressed, and the uneducated ones? They still get the same vote you do.
    - manicdee 7y ago
      You aren’t helping your case by labelling people who disagree with you as “uneducated idiots.” In my local environment the most visible people championing nuclear power are the same ones who turn up in Parliament House wearing their sponsor’s uniform, or bring lumps of coal into the House. They also engage in corporate style group psychopathy of “if what we want to do isn’t illegal, there’s nothing stopping us from doing it.” With friends like those, nuclear power doesn’t need any enemies. The impression is that the only reason nuclear power is mentioned is because some politicians are looking for a comfortable post-retirement life in a junket lobbying position at Westinghouse. So between the nuclear advocates here on HN claiming that everyone who doesn’t support nuclear power is a “climate alarmist” uneducated idiot, the only proponents in government being the most visibly corrupt, and the discussion of nuclear power always turning to “proven” thorium technology, nuclear power really has little hope of being accepted by society at large.
creato 7y ago
> We agree to disagree then. Good luck to nuclear proponents attempting to make their case to the general public (who don't want it), investors (who won't invest in it), and political leaders (who don't want to risk their careers on it). The point here is not disagreement with these points, rather than the arguments that brought us to these points are misguided. > In the meantime, progress marches on: And so does climate change.

jessaustin 7y ago

...political fearmongering challenge... Nevada is not so populous a state. There seem to be lots of nuclear enthusiasts online. You folks should just move to Nevada and elect more courageous state officials!

manicdee 7y ago
Voting margins are around 3%. Population around 3M. Thus Nevada only needs an influx of about 90,000 nuclear-friendly gentry to make a huge change to the future of nuclear power in the world.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Keep in mind, voter turnout was 1.1M in 2016, and that was considered very high. In most years the margin you're talking about could be much smaller.
  - manicdee 7y ago
    Honestly I doubt we’d find 500 people who thought nuclear power was important enough a hill to die on that they’d move to Nevada to ensure its future (and I sometimes wonder whether the majority of pro-nuclear experts can be bothered to get out of their armchairs and vote in the first place). A better option would be to move to Australia and campaign for a nuclear waste dump here. The voting margins are lower (often measured in low triple digit votes) and the politicians are more cheaply bought. Those same 500 proponents could more easily effect change in Australia than any state of the USA.

Jedi72 7y ago

Regardless of the reasoning, if the US cant keep a site operating for even 100 years, how do we expect it to keep functioning for 10,000? Storing nuear waste is a complete non-starter for me simply because of the timelines involved. Nobody can guarantee the safety of anything for thousands (!!) of years, when the USA itself is only ~400 years old.

briffle 7y ago
You really don't need to. The whole reason we have the waste problem now is politics. We could reprocess the waste. the 'old' rods still have 95% of their energy in them. President Carter ended that with a single executive order.
allovernow 7y ago
Storage of spent fuel is almost entirely passive. You're literally burying it in a geologically stable site, where even if the containers completely dissolve it will take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for that waste to even potentially impact the greater environment to any significant degree. The only conceivable risk is for some future civilization coming across the cache, not knowing what it is, and potentially suffering as a result. Which presumes that such a civilization will have declined substantially in scientific knowledge at which point it is unlikely that such access would even affect more than a small group of future peoples. The risk is practically non existent, especially when compared to the risk of continuing to ignore nuclear now. This is pure, unsubstantiated fearmongering.