6 ms·

When I saw the Greenland study on HN[1] last night, all I could think is how much more worse does it have to get before we refocus on building fission plants an

by mtooth 6y ago

When I saw the Greenland study on HN[1] last night, all I could think is how much more worse does it have to get before we refocus on building fission plants and doubling-down on fusion research investment? Unfortunately the economics of natural gas make it a steep hill to climb even if the politics and public sentiment changed on nuclear. To me, fission really seems like the only rational solution to the climate crisis that we can implement starting tomorrow. We probably do need either carbon taxes or heavy fission plant construction subsidies (easier to implement than carbon tax and most of the negative economic incentive is the capital-intensive upfront costs - nuclear is significantly cheaper than gas at the 35-40 year plant life mark). 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24165395

User23 6y ago
This isn’t the first time Greenland’s glaciers have receded. The name is a bit of a clue after all about its condition when the Vikings named it. Edit: Covered in a reply, but for those who don't read it please understand I was referring to the Medieval Warm Period[1]. [1[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
- nanomonkey 6y ago
  It's my understanding that the name Greenland was used to attract new settlers, not because it actually was a good description. [From Wikipedia] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Greenland's name was partly marketing: > After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers.[20][21][22] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."[23] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Etymology
  - User23 6y ago
    I can't dispute whether or not Erik engaged in marketing, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. However his voyage was well into the start of the Medieval Warm Period[1], so I'll stand by my claim that there was less glaciation when he named the place. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  Greenland's name was given by Eric the Red, who wanted fellow Norse to settle there. He being there because he got kicked out of Iceland. Erik (according to popular legend) called the island Greenland and painted the island as being a wonderful place to settle. It was slightly warmer than even today, but that was a localized warming, not Global. Greenland has had several cold and warm cycles over the past hundred millennia.
- moultano 6y ago
  The heat anomaly at the time was concentrated over Greenland. https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/Temperature_Pattern_MWP.gif https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/Temperature_Patte... The current temperature anomaly covers the entire earth. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201906.png https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mn...
  - User23 6y ago
    I'm glad we agree there was a heat anomaly in Greenland when it was named Greenland, which indicates the glaciers had receded. Digging into that historical data further, what sourcing is there? The wiki page I already links indicates records for most of the world at the time were, well, awful. And that what we do know suggests it was similarly warm and dry in Asia, Africa, and South America. Skepticalscience.com is a web cartoonist's blog, not a serious scientific source. That said even cartoonists can read and learn, so I'd be very interested in seeing his sources.
    - moultano 6y ago
      It really seems like you're just trolling and aren't actually interested at all in what's true. Skepticalscience.com is a site created and maintained by a team of climate scientists. https://skepticalscience.com/about.shtml https://skepticalscience.com/about.shtml The article that diagram is from is here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-interm... While greenland was warmer during the medieval warm period than immediately afterwards, its ice sheet is 400,000 years old. Saying they had "receded" is a stretch, and it is warmer today than it was then. The effect of the medieval warm period was localized to the north atlantic, while the rest of the world was colder, and the north atlantic is already substantially hotter today than it was then.
      - User23 6y ago
        No, skepticalscience.com is a website created by a web dev cartoonist with absolutely no climatology background[1]. I'm also well aware that Greenland's ice sheet is a remnant of the Quaternary Glaciation[2]. What word would you prefer other than "receded" to say that the extent of the ice sheet was less in the 11th century than it was in the 9th or the 20th? Also, in the opposite spirit of your opening sentence, let me advise you that "It really seems like you're just trolling" is a very weaselly way to insinuate bad faith, and you should try to do better. If you want to call me a liar or a fool just do it. I don't think you could support that accusation based on my use of sources like wikipedia because I am acting in good faith and a spirit of intellectual curiosity, but hey you do you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptical_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptical_Science [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
acidburnNSA 6y ago
I'm a nuclear fission power plant designer. I write a lot about nuclear reactor development history and nuclear economics. One of the most interesting ways to decarbonize with nuclear fission at the scale and pace necessary is to use shipyards to serial construct GW-scale nuclear power plants on offshore floating platforms. This allows us to do Henry Ford serialization while capturing economies of scale. This method was very seriously considered in the 1970s and 1000 people built the production facility in Jacksonville, FL. It was called Offshore Power Systems (a joint venture between Westinghouse and the Newport News Shipyards) and there's a wonderful writeup about it in a 1975 New Yorker [1], plus my summary of it from earlier this year [2]. This form of nuclear production got an actual construction license from the NRC after incredible amounts of environmental study. It may raise eyebrows, but consider that in deep water tsunamis are a few feet tall, earthquakes are non-existent, and huge ships like the Prelude are designed to handle category-5 cyclones. You also have infinite access to cooling water and can design in a sink-safe worst-case scenario with a engineered recovery operation. If we were serious about decarbonizing right now and I were in charge, I think I would march over to S. Korea and try to get their world-class nuclear construction people (KEPCO) hooked up with their world-class shipyard people and just start hammering them out. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/05/12/the-atlantic-generating-station https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/05/12/the-atlantic-g... [2] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
- hairytrog 6y ago
  Let's not get stuck into one solution. Need to pursue several. Floating power plants are very promising as there is lots of shipbuilding capability and the worldwide commercial cargo fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of ships. This could scale pretty fast. I do dislike the idea of a power plant surrounded by salt water - it just doesn't help with the chemical/corrosion safety even if you can use as coolant for an extreme accident. Obviously, no earthquakes and less population in the area. But once the accident happens, you don't get to do mitigation like collecting the dust or pieces. Another strong approach gaining traction is production in the 5-50MW range, with 100s/1000s/yr in the same way Boeing and Airbus build ~2000 wide body aircraft each year. Smaller reactors with lower power density can claim inherent safety with respect to various hazards - ie cannot meltdown through system failures. Must move away from absolutist mind set with single solution and try lots of strategies. Many will be effective.
mschuster91 6y ago
Regarding fission: - no one has yet solved the waste problem (okay, the US has ample free land, but the rest of the world does not!) - the proliferation risk is not eliminated (and no, it's not only plutonium, but also ordinary uranium for dirty bombs to take care of, plus the risk of enrichment tech, as evidenced with Iran) - uranium fuel is mined under incredibly exploitative conditions. Additionally the US doesn't have meaningful uranium reserves on their territory, dito for Europe. Does the world really want a repeat of the oil crises, with some random sheikhdom having the world by the proverbial balls? - safety issues haven't been solved at all: terrorism (hijacked airplanes) remains a constant threat, operator error/sabotage is a risk, and capitalism leading to corner cutting in construction, operation and demolition is popping up every other year. Fission is a dead end, the hope is solar, wind and battery storage.
- opo 6y ago
  >...- no one has yet solved the waste problem (okay, the US has ample free land, but the rest of the world does not!) In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. >...- the proliferation risk is not eliminated (and no, it's not only plutonium, but also ordinary uranium for dirty bombs to take care of, plus the risk of enrichment tech, as evidenced with Iran) This isn't really relevant for commercial nuclear power - no country has ever gotten a nuclear bomb from commercial nuclear reactors. No terrorist has ever gotten access to nuclear waste. There are lots easier ways for terrorists and countries to obtain nuclear material. (Nuclear designs like the Integral Fast Reactor keep everything on site (including reprocessing) so the terrorist threat would be even more unlikely.) >..- uranium fuel is mined under incredibly exploitative conditions. Better than mining rare earths or coal etc. >...Additionally the US doesn't have meaningful uranium reserves on their territory, With next gen breeder reactors, there is enough fuel for tens of thousands of years. (Or thorium reactors might be used, etc) >...- safety issues haven't been solved at all: Nuclear power has proven to be the safest form of mass power we have ever created. Yes, like any power source we should worry about terrorism, but that isn't unique to nuclear power. >...Fission is a dead end, the hope is solar, wind and battery storage. It is possible there will be some major advances in grid storage that will allow us to stop using natural gas to cover for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. But what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. Is your fear of nuclear power so great that if you had to choose, you would prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?

by mtooth 6y ago

User23 6y ago

This isn’t the first time Greenland’s glaciers have receded. The name is a bit of a clue after all about its condition when the Vikings named it. Edit: Covered in a reply, but for those who don't read it please understand I was referring to the Medieval Warm Period[1]. [1[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

nanomonkey 6y ago
It's my understanding that the name Greenland was used to attract new settlers, not because it actually was a good description. [From Wikipedia] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."
throw0101a 6y ago
Greenland's name was partly marketing: > After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers.[20][21][22] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."[23] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland#Etymology
- User23 6y ago
  I can't dispute whether or not Erik engaged in marketing, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. However his voyage was well into the start of the Medieval Warm Period[1], so I'll stand by my claim that there was less glaciation when he named the place. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CapitalistCartr 6y ago
Greenland's name was given by Eric the Red, who wanted fellow Norse to settle there. He being there because he got kicked out of Iceland. Erik (according to popular legend) called the island Greenland and painted the island as being a wonderful place to settle. It was slightly warmer than even today, but that was a localized warming, not Global. Greenland has had several cold and warm cycles over the past hundred millennia.
moultano 6y ago
The heat anomaly at the time was concentrated over Greenland. https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/Temperature_Pattern_MWP.gif https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/Temperature_Patte... The current temperature anomaly covers the entire earth. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201906.png https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mn...
- User23 6y ago
  I'm glad we agree there was a heat anomaly in Greenland when it was named Greenland, which indicates the glaciers had receded. Digging into that historical data further, what sourcing is there? The wiki page I already links indicates records for most of the world at the time were, well, awful. And that what we do know suggests it was similarly warm and dry in Asia, Africa, and South America. Skepticalscience.com is a web cartoonist's blog, not a serious scientific source. That said even cartoonists can read and learn, so I'd be very interested in seeing his sources.
  - moultano 6y ago
    It really seems like you're just trolling and aren't actually interested at all in what's true. Skepticalscience.com is a site created and maintained by a team of climate scientists. https://skepticalscience.com/about.shtml https://skepticalscience.com/about.shtml The article that diagram is from is here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-interm... While greenland was warmer during the medieval warm period than immediately afterwards, its ice sheet is 400,000 years old. Saying they had "receded" is a stretch, and it is warmer today than it was then. The effect of the medieval warm period was localized to the north atlantic, while the rest of the world was colder, and the north atlantic is already substantially hotter today than it was then.
    - User23 6y ago
      No, skepticalscience.com is a website created by a web dev cartoonist with absolutely no climatology background[1]. I'm also well aware that Greenland's ice sheet is a remnant of the Quaternary Glaciation[2]. What word would you prefer other than "receded" to say that the extent of the ice sheet was less in the 11th century than it was in the 9th or the 20th? Also, in the opposite spirit of your opening sentence, let me advise you that "It really seems like you're just trolling" is a very weaselly way to insinuate bad faith, and you should try to do better. If you want to call me a liar or a fool just do it. I don't think you could support that accusation based on my use of sources like wikipedia because I am acting in good faith and a spirit of intellectual curiosity, but hey you do you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptical_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeptical_Science [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

acidburnNSA 6y ago

I'm a nuclear fission power plant designer. I write a lot about nuclear reactor development history and nuclear economics. One of the most interesting ways to decarbonize with nuclear fission at the scale and pace necessary is to use shipyards to serial construct GW-scale nuclear power plants on offshore floating platforms. This allows us to do Henry Ford serialization while capturing economies of scale. This method was very seriously considered in the 1970s and 1000 people built the production facility in Jacksonville, FL. It was called Offshore Power Systems (a joint venture between Westinghouse and the Newport News Shipyards) and there's a wonderful writeup about it in a 1975 New Yorker [1], plus my summary of it from earlier this year [2]. This form of nuclear production got an actual construction license from the NRC after incredible amounts of environmental study. It may raise eyebrows, but consider that in deep water tsunamis are a few feet tall, earthquakes are non-existent, and huge ships like the Prelude are designed to handle category-5 cyclones. You also have infinite access to cooling water and can design in a sink-safe worst-case scenario with a engineered recovery operation. If we were serious about decarbonizing right now and I were in charge, I think I would march over to S. Korea and try to get their world-class nuclear construction people (KEPCO) hooked up with their world-class shipyard people and just start hammering them out. [1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/05/12/the-atlantic-generating-station https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1975/05/12/the-atlantic-g... [2] https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...

hairytrog 6y ago
Let's not get stuck into one solution. Need to pursue several. Floating power plants are very promising as there is lots of shipbuilding capability and the worldwide commercial cargo fleet numbers in the tens of thousands of ships. This could scale pretty fast. I do dislike the idea of a power plant surrounded by salt water - it just doesn't help with the chemical/corrosion safety even if you can use as coolant for an extreme accident. Obviously, no earthquakes and less population in the area. But once the accident happens, you don't get to do mitigation like collecting the dust or pieces. Another strong approach gaining traction is production in the 5-50MW range, with 100s/1000s/yr in the same way Boeing and Airbus build ~2000 wide body aircraft each year. Smaller reactors with lower power density can claim inherent safety with respect to various hazards - ie cannot meltdown through system failures. Must move away from absolutist mind set with single solution and try lots of strategies. Many will be effective.

mschuster91 6y ago

Regarding fission: - no one has yet solved the waste problem (okay, the US has ample free land, but the rest of the world does not!) - the proliferation risk is not eliminated (and no, it's not only plutonium, but also ordinary uranium for dirty bombs to take care of, plus the risk of enrichment tech, as evidenced with Iran) - uranium fuel is mined under incredibly exploitative conditions. Additionally the US doesn't have meaningful uranium reserves on their territory, dito for Europe. Does the world really want a repeat of the oil crises, with some random sheikhdom having the world by the proverbial balls? - safety issues haven't been solved at all: terrorism (hijacked airplanes) remains a constant threat, operator error/sabotage is a risk, and capitalism leading to corner cutting in construction, operation and demolition is popping up every other year. Fission is a dead end, the hope is solar, wind and battery storage.

opo 6y ago
>...- no one has yet solved the waste problem (okay, the US has ample free land, but the rest of the world does not!) In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. >...- the proliferation risk is not eliminated (and no, it's not only plutonium, but also ordinary uranium for dirty bombs to take care of, plus the risk of enrichment tech, as evidenced with Iran) This isn't really relevant for commercial nuclear power - no country has ever gotten a nuclear bomb from commercial nuclear reactors. No terrorist has ever gotten access to nuclear waste. There are lots easier ways for terrorists and countries to obtain nuclear material. (Nuclear designs like the Integral Fast Reactor keep everything on site (including reprocessing) so the terrorist threat would be even more unlikely.) >..- uranium fuel is mined under incredibly exploitative conditions. Better than mining rare earths or coal etc. >...Additionally the US doesn't have meaningful uranium reserves on their territory, With next gen breeder reactors, there is enough fuel for tens of thousands of years. (Or thorium reactors might be used, etc) >...- safety issues haven't been solved at all: Nuclear power has proven to be the safest form of mass power we have ever created. Yes, like any power source we should worry about terrorism, but that isn't unique to nuclear power. >...Fission is a dead end, the hope is solar, wind and battery storage. It is possible there will be some major advances in grid storage that will allow us to stop using natural gas to cover for the intermittent nature of wind and solar. But what if that doesn't pan out? The dangers we are facing in the coming decades are immense. Is your fear of nuclear power so great that if you had to choose, you would prefer the world to suffer through catastrophic climate change rather than use nuclear power?