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The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid of it
- rbanffy 6y agoRight. We should be afraid of people who want to cut corners with nuclear power. Also, building a reactor takes a long time when all the precautions are taken. Building hundreds simultaneously is begging for precautions to be dropped or mismanaged.
- ineedasername 6y agoAt this point we have some proven designs that make things a little easier to get right because we're not building from scratch. But a big part of the problem now is lack of expertise. We don't have enough trained hands to build these sorts of specialized systems, or keep them running once built. We need to bootstrap our way out of this problem. Appropriate education programs should be created and subsidized. The aging workforce that still exists should be paid well to put off retirement or hired out of retirement to help implement things like apprenticeships. In five years we could have a new generation of workers with an established pipeline to continue training more people.
- rbanffy 6y agoAt this point I'm skeptical of these designs. How recent they are and how many units are in operation? How long have they operated? Did we see changes in projected useful life?
- jasonjayr 6y agoUninformed conjecture here, but, should nuclear power be a private industry? Where the incentive is profit? Could it be a Government Utility, where the incentive can be safety above all else?
- rbanffy 6y agoWill it be cost effective then? It's already pretty marginal.
- nobodyandproud 6y agoHow expensive are highways?
- jasonjayr 6y agoI thought that the costs come mostly from insurance? (Which the public is already on the hook for to some degree) There are an lot of industry where they are not cost effective without heavy government involvement, and even then the public barely get to reap the rewards. (Though I supposed if this happened in the USA it would be the death knell of the fossil fuel industry)
- codeyperson 6y agoWhat about the opportunity cost of having a planet to live on?
- rbanffy 6y agoYou can have that with renewables, at a much lower cost.
- toyg 6y agoDifferent incentive structure in Chernobyl; still fucked up. Given a large enough number of chances, people will fuck up. The fallout from nuclear fuckups is just too big to risk it.
- 6y ago
- dariusj18 6y agoInteresting question, how many nuclear plants can be built at once in the world. I imagine there are not that many outfits with the experience to take on that kind of job.
- BurningFrog 6y agoI'd expect the opposite: The more we build the better, cheaper and safer they become. That's what happened with cars and airplanes for example. I'm not aware of counterexamples.
- danielheath 6y agoThey didn’t build all the cars they would need concurrently; they mostly finished a small number at a time. That let them learn along the way, but there isn’t time to do that for nuclear because we need hundreds or thousands of plants and they each take years to build.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt doesn't take 20 years, billions of dollars, and thousands of specialized workers to build each car.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoCounterexample: Large infrastructure projects that take >10 years to build. Big Dig, trains, et cetera. They take so long to build that people only work on a very small number during their career so the ability to learn lessons from one to apply to another is small. Nuclear plants are in this category.
- apendleton 6y agoThey're only in this category specifically because each one is a bespoke custom project. That's not a compelling argument against standardization and mass factory production.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoEven the NuScale SMR reactors only produce the core in a factory setting. They still need a large bespoke building and containment vessel.
- 6y ago
- ekianjo 6y ago> Building hundreds simultaneously is begging for precautions to be dropped or mismanaged. So playing with people's fears again?
- freeflight 6y agoThat's not some kind of abstract fear, even without doing it at such a mass-scale there have been and are more than enough examples of cutting corners [0] The nuclear industry, just like every other industry on this planet, is run by flawed and corruptible humans. The problem is that their flaws and corruption can do damage for many generations to come, so being a bit careful and skeptical is only due diligence. [0] https://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-plants-down-due-to-quality-concerns/ https://www.powermag.com/frances-nuclear-storm-many-power-pl...
- billars 6y agostop spamming this pro nuclear bullshit.
- dang 6y agoThoughtful critique is welcome, but please don't post like this (whatever the topic). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- itsangaris 6y agoDiscussions on this site are typically respectful and insightful. Do mind elaborating with more specifics on why you think this article is bs?
- pkingolfsson 6y agoWe don’t need it. We all saw how this ended in Japan, Fukushima and how they haven’t even figured basic stuff out. See recent article on BBC here: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54566978 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-54566978
- krupan 6y agoPlease, tell us what happened in Fukushima with comparisons to other forms of energy production. Include dollar costs, life costs of humans, animals, and plants, costs in terms of physical footprint, noise, net carbon output, and any other relevant factors you can think of. No form of energy comes without trade-offs and dangers.
- pkingolfsson 6y agoIt’s quite simple, most other ways of energy creation does not yield hazardous waste. I’m referring to motion and geothermal. You tell me how wind energy danger is compared to nuclear? How is nuclear energy a sustainable energy source in unstable world?
- pkingolfsson 6y agoAlso should we just rely on nuclear because it’s accessible technology to us right now? We need new forms of energy creation, accepting nuclear energy as our defacto power source will be equivalent to our ancestors choosing coal when looking back at history. Don’t be naive. You do also know that older nuclear power plants are a major headache to most governments
- bassman9000 6y agoDoes a plane accident imply we haven't figured out flight yet? Because there's hundreds of nuclear power plants that have been working without major issues for decades now. And that's not including subs/ships.
- rbanffy 6y ago
- ardit33 6y agoThere must be some nuclear company PR firm behind all these nuclear articles. Renewable energy, that's where it is.... we need a manhattan project for it (and how to store excess energy for time periods where the energy (solar, wind) is not available). We can take advantage of the planet getting hotter by harnessing some of that energy.
- bra-ket 6y agothe problem with wind, solar is that manufacturing them in sufficient capacity to replace fossils fuels will create even more pollution. Those billions of solar panels and the materials and energy used to create and recycle them are not coming out of thin air. You have to burn enormous amounts of fossil fuels to generate that energy. It is not sustainable in the long run. Nuclear, because of its extremely high energy density and close to zero emissions, is the best shot we have saving the environment.
- sfkdjf9j3j 6y agoYou're making it sound like solar and wind cause a net increase in fossil fuels because there are non-renewables involved in their manufacture, but that's simply not a true statement.
- bra-ket 6y agoso do you use a magic wand to bootstrap that manufacturing process?
- sfkdjf9j3j 6y agoNo, you use some non-renewables to make solar panels, which then - over their lifetime - replace more non-renewable energy than they cost to make.
- ncmncm 6y agoAs the renewable fraction of power production increases, the amount of greenhouse gas released in production of new renewables decreases. Something similar might be true of nuclear, except that emissions per ton of concrete are not going down.
- minerjoe 6y agoUm, yes we should be afraid of it. See Fukashima.
- king_magic 6y agoYes. We need more nuclear. By far the safest way to tackle climate change.
- epistasis 6y agoI disagree, it is one of the riskiest ways to try to confront climate change. Any Western nation that has tried in the past 30 years has had terrible experiences with building it. Construction of nuclear in Western economies is too financially risky to pursue. It's too delayed. Even if we start 200 reactors tomorrow, expecting half of the construction projects to fail, we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, because they take too long to build.
- rbanffy 6y ago> we would not be able to finish them in time to have a significant climate impact, And you'd probably accelerate climate change because of all the carbon released in building those reactors.
- jakehop 6y agoThere has been no other technology faster at decarbonizing the energy sector, than nuclear power. France and Sweden still hold the record for that exact same reason.
- epistasis 6y agoThis was true 50 years ago, but has not been true in the last thirty years. The technology has changed. Within the past 30 years, nuclear has become more expensive than alternatives, and a dollar invested in nuclear correlates with seven-fold less drop in emissions than that same dollar invested in renewables: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/53376 Note that the above story has been criticized as being correlative, but that correlative reasoning is the same reasoning that's used when saying that France and Sweden have decarbonized with nuclear. (And Sweden owes a lot to hydropower, which is 45% of its electricity)
- beamatronic 6y agoNeed to get AOC on your side.
- sgillen 6y agoWe absolutely should have a healthy fear and respect for nuclear power. I’m personally for it to provide a baseline load for other renewables. But let’s not pretend like there are no risks anymore. Although in a theoretical setting we have reactor designs that are safe, in practice plants can be mismanaged and unexpected disasters can strike. People also thought Chernobyl and Fukushima were safe before they weren’t, and the price for getting it wrong is so high. One thing I’d like to know is why there isn’t more research into thorium reactors, when I looked into some years ago it seemed like a much safer technology, so I was missing the reason why it wasn’t getting nearly as much funding or attention.
- krupan 6y agoWe should have a healthy respect and fear of all forms of energy generation/harvest. Energy is, well, energetic! Everything we have done to produce and harness energy has been dangerous to people, plants, and animals. Stating that nuclear energy is dangerous is just stating a tautology. The interesting discussion is about the trade-offs relative to other energy sources.
- rbanffy 6y agoI think my PV panels are pretty safe.
- krupan 6y agoYou could kill someone with the output of the inverters very easily. Also, the ones that are placed over "bare land" have killed life that was there on that land before the panels stole the energy that used to hit the land there. That's not to mention what it took to gather materials, manufacture, and transport the panels.
- rbanffy 6y ago> Also, the ones that are placed over "bare land" have killed life that was there on that land before the panels stole the energy that used to hit the land there. There's also evidence that the shade they provide reduced loss of water in a similar way as trees would.
- zests 6y agoI agree. Fukushima proved that even when a nuclear power plant is hit by a massive earthquake and a tsunami (that killed more people than have ever died from nuclear power) the disaster can be managed with few deaths and ill effects. If we should be afraid of nuclear power we should be afraid of a lot more than we currently are. For starters, we should move everyone off of major fault lines.
- randallsquared 6y ago> few deaths I have read that the technically correct number is "zero" deaths. There were, however, deaths from evacuation to avoid the lack of death from radiation.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt also shows that if you cut power to the cooling system of a reactor of a very common design, there are no passive systems that can prevent a meltdown.
- contravariant 6y agoNot sure if an irreparable reactor that's to date still leaking radioactive waste water should be used as an example of how well nuclear power plants handle catastrophic failure.
- Gwypaas 6y agoFactor in a cleanup cost of $200 billion, or up $470 billion if actually taking care of the contaminated water [0] and not a single insurance company or reinsurance broker willing is to take on a nuclear plant. I would much rather have that money going to true decentralized renewables and reliable transmission. [0]: https://apnews.com/article/d1b8322355f3f31109dd925900dff200 https://apnews.com/article/d1b8322355f3f31109dd925900dff200
- sjwright 6y agoA nuclear reactor well above sea level and on geologically stable ground would have many orders of magnitude less risk than the east coast of Japan. Just because it’s not safe everywhere doesn’t mean it’s not safe anywhere.
- krupan 6y agoA salient quote from TFA, "there have been a total of over 17,000 reactor-years (where one nuclear reactor operating for a year equals one reactor-year) spanning 33 countries. The three aforementioned incidents [Chernobyl, 3-mile island, Fukushima] are the only adverse ones to be documented in all that time"
- TameAntelope 6y agoRight, but I'm familiar with each of them, because of the devastating impact each had (or could have had). I'm not saying we don't do it, but "there were only 3" doesn't feel like an honest argument.
- krupan 6y ago"or could have had" And that sums up most opposition to nuclear right there. Fear of what maybe might could happen.
- TameAntelope 6y agoOh for sure, but I guess my overarching point that I think us pro-nuclear people need to keep in mind is that it only takes one, and that (possibly irrationally) scares people.
- Aachen 6y agoI think everyone is well aware that it takes only one disaster to paint a picture, no matter whether it's still possible today, proportional to deaths caused by other energy sources, or otherwise based on misinformation and emotional reasons. This is exactly the fallacy everyone should be arguing against. Yes, also people who think nuclear is a bad option for other (rational) reasons. Otherwise you're lying about your motivations and pushing a different point under false pretenses.
- pvaldes 6y agoWhen "what maybe could have happened but didn't, ha-haa!" is making half of European continent uninhabitable for several generations in 1986... fear is fully justified. Our brain evolved the capability to explore hypothetical undesirable outcomes and feel fear of it to keep us alive, and it serves us well since millions of years. The fools that never are afraid of anything tend to have very short lives.
- residentfoam 6y agoLet's put aside Chernobyl, Fukushima and all the safety/economic/environment implications those incidents have had. What about the nuclear waste ? How/where are we gonna store it ? And for how long is gonna be safe, before containers start leaking radioactive st into the environment ? Nobody wants to live anywhere near that st. That's a big problem.
- lemming 6y agoSustainable Energy Without The Hot Air (really excellent book, although a little dated now) discusses this: https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_169.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_169.shtml Thus waste storage engineers need to make a plan to secure high-level waste for about 1000 years. Is this a difficult problem? 1000 years is certainly a long time compared with the lifetimes of governments and countries! But the volumes are so small, I feel nuclear waste is only a minor worry, compared with all the other forms of waste we are inflicting on future generations. At 25 ml per year, a lifetime’s worth of high-level nuclear waste would amount to less than 2 litres. Even when we multiply by 60 million people, the lifetime volume of nuclear waste doesn’t sound unmanageable: 105 000 cubic metres. That’s the same volume as 35 olympic swimming pools. If this waste were put in a layer one metre deep, it would occupy just one tenth of a square kilometre.
- holoduke 6y agoWe dump it in concrete barrels somewhere deep inside our planet's crust. In 1000 years from now we take it out and send it to the sun.
- rurounijones 6y agoin the US No one wants to live near the hidsiously environmentally unsafe fly ash tips from the 120'ish million tons produced yearly by coal power plants either https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash and they were told to get stuffed basically. Waste storage is a technical non-issue (Yucca Mountain). It is a political one.
- Dumblydorr 6y agoWe need it to be cheaper, that will make it much easier to build our nuclear fleet. Solar, wind, batteries, and gas are much cheaper in the vast majority of power markets. The only way to build out nuclear is for innovation to drive down the price, or for society to come to grips with negative externalities from gas and coal.
- jakehop 6y agoBatteries are not cheap. And current tech doesn't scale to the massive scale needed to fix the problem "cheap" wind and solar : unreliability.
- wp381640 6y agoThe market has already spoken on renewables + storage vs nuclear
- jakehop 6y agoWhere is it, then? What I think you mean is that politicians have spoken and the market saw the open coffers and took advantage of that. If I go to the market and ask for 240TWh of stable energy each year (Danish electricity consumption), without any carbon-based sources as backup, which technology will provide that the cheapest? Oddly enough, electricity is 50% more expensive in windmill-rich Denmark, than nuclear and hydro-powered Sweden. One wonders what the market is trying to tell us Danes...
- LockAndLol 6y agoCould you post numbers for your claim that other energies are cheaper than nuclear? Which country are you talking about?
- epistasis 6y agoI'm not scared of nuclear, but I'm terrified of climate change. We don't need nuclear, because we have other options for firm low-carbon energy (geothermal) and energy storage of surplus and super-cheap intermittent renewables (lithium ion, flow batteries, hydrogen, methane, compressed air, liquid air...). If nuclear could compete on cost, we should go for it, but it can't without a major tech breakthrough. The potential tech breakthroughs (SMRs) are far less technologically mature than any of our other options. For example, we will definitely need to start producing hydrogen in order to decarbonize heavy industry (e.g. steel production, ammonia production, etc.). So we need hydrogen infrastructure because it's the only foreseeable path for several parts of our economy. It will get developed. Even this article, which is interpreted as heavily skeptical of hydrogen, sees a huge future for hydrogen on the grid: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-two-the-demand-side/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-h... Nuclear will only have a future if it can solve its construction problem, and compete with more modern technologies. As it is, it's a dinosaur from the past, a legacy of a time before we had better tech. The more we learn about nuclear, the more expensive it seems to get, in contrast to pretty much any good tech.
- nickles 6y ago> We don't need nuclear, because we have other options for firm low-carbon energy (geothermal) and energy storage of surplus and super-cheap intermittent renewables (lithium ion, flow batteries, hydrogen, methane, compressed air, liquid air...). Nuclear power is a zero emissions source of power. Alternative renewables (e.g. wind, solar) require fossil fuels to power the electrical grid when they are not able to generate power. The sources you mention are also substantial less effective from an energy density perspective. The amount of energy they output, relative to the energy input to construct them and the amount of land they consume, is orders of magnitude less than that produced by nuclear. Storing energy is incredibly expensive. If we were to use lithium ion batteries to store electricity, it would cost trillions of dollars to produce and maintain the batteries. This does not include the immense environmental damage that would occur as a consequence of this policy (land usage, mining, waste products, etc.) > If nuclear could compete on cost, we should go for it, but it can't without a major tech breakthrough Nuclear energy is more cost effective than alternatives. The main issue is that antinuclear activists, funded by the fossil fuel industry, have lobbied to make it cost prohibitive to build nuclear power plants by way of onerous regulation and prolonged legal battles. Countries that have reduced their reliance on nuclear power, for example France, have seen their electricity prices and carbon emissions rise as a consequence. We also know that nuclear power plants can operate for longer than previously believed — at least 80 years, as opposed to the 40 years that was previously assumed. This understanding further drives down the cost of electricity derived from nuclear energy, as it reduces the need to construct new facilities. > For example, we will definitely need to start producing hydrogen Why? Producing hydrogen is inefficient and unnecessary if you have a consistent source of energy, which nuclear provides. > As it is, it's a dinosaur from the past, a legacy of a time before we had better tech. Nuclear energy is safe, causing fewer deaths and adverse health impacts than alternative sources of energy. It is cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable than alternatives while also being far more environmentally friendly. If it is a dinosaur, then so are the transistors that make up computer processors, which are roughly as old and somehow are still the subject of cutting edge research.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoMy whole life was altered by a nuclear power accident, and I was lucky to "just" spend summers far from home (so as to not be outside in the contaminated area) for years before my family moved away. Millions of people developed health issues, and many, many people died, although the "official" statistics will tell you thousands. If you're not afraid of nuclear power, you're a fool. If you're not afraid of environmental and habitat destruction through all the various different means, you're a fool.
- jakehop 6y agoWhere was this? I feel rude to object to your personal history, but no major, trustworthy institution has reported anything like this. The worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, had around 50 casualties. This was mostly due to the handling by the Soviet Union, not something inherent to nuclear power itself (other than the obvious radiation involved, but the secrecy, lack of knowledge, etc. is 100% a political issue).
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoTo be precise, Chernobyl had 31 casualties and around 4000 statistically estimated death toll. That is, life expectancy reduced because of radiation exposure.
- acidburnNSA 6y agoYou're downvoted because it's an unbelievable statement. You gotta provide credible sources when you say something that incredible. People are usually blown away when they read the UN assessments of Chernobyl because of how different the science is compared to the pop culture. [1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html
- pvaldes 6y agoAccording to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, 25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled" Which makes a total of 60,000 dead and 165,000 disabled (by now). The organisation Médecins pour la prévention de la guerre nucléaire estimated that 10,000 babies had born in Europe with malformations attributable to Chernobyl, and 5,000 sucklings died by the effects of radiation. The "but just 31 people died" statement, that conveniently forgets about the long and middle term health effects suffered, or about the effects on babies and pregnant women, is incredibly disrespectful for the victims.
- elihu 6y agoI'm willing to accept that the technical and safety aspects of nuclear are manageable. The hard part is that humans are responsible for operating the reactors. How do we protect against regulatory capture, when there may be very large sums of money involved with safety decisions? (Note that regulatory capture can go both ways: a company running a reactor might prefer regulations to be lax for their reactor, but unattainably strict for any new reactor a competitor might build.)
- erentz 6y agoMy answer to this is to look at it this way. We’ve been running nuclear power for over fifty years, exposed to these very concerns you have of regulatory capture and humans at the controls, and it’s still over that time proven to be the safest form of electricity. So the experiment has been done and the conclusion is really: nuclear power is safer than other forms in spite of regulatory conditions or humans.
- ykevinator 6y agoExcept for nuclear waste
- d3ntb3ev1l 6y agoNo one is afraid of nuclear power. They are afraid of the radiation
- rland 6y agoI think the big issue with nuclear (that doesn't come up) is not cost or waste, but proliferation. Even if we could build nuclear plants in the USA or Europe, we will be far less willing to lend out the technology to developing countries, especially those who are our geopolitical enemies (or in the influence of our geopolitical enemies). Actually, I don't think that will ever happen -- look at how much effort/innocent lives/etc we expended for the Iran deal. These countries will try to source fuel from their most powerful regional neighbor, who might not be on best terms with the US, which would inflame everyone, and for that reason, US/the West will not ever give up the keys to the kingdom.
- jakehop 6y agoI agree that "the Iran deal" is a sore issue. But that is not the issue. Regarding climate change, I would focus much more in China and India getting nuclear power plants (which they are building right now), rather than worry about proliferation, since that ship sailed decades ago.
- rland 6y agoI should be clear, I think the US policy re: proliferation is more draconian than necessary, and will essentially prevent any new nuclear technology from being shared, worsening climate change and increasing the risk of mishaps. Climate change is a global problem and if nuclear is going to be a part of the solution the proliferation issue is central.
- m463 6y agoI found the wikipedia table of energy density informative. -- wh/kg -- uranium: 22,394,000,000 oil: 11,630 coal: 9,166 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Tables_of_energy_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Tables_of_energ... by weight nuclear has 2 million times the energy of coal or oil. (and I think coal might have more radioactivity by energy)
- bra-ket 6y agoHere is a reference (thanks to jka) with lifetime emissions per energy source (including infrastructure and supply chain): https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-iii.pdf#page=7 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5... It shows nuclear lifetime emissions are lower than solar, but I think this report excludes the carbon footprint in manufacturing/recycling the renewables.
- ceejayoz 6y agoRefineries, mines, etc. don’t either.
- SCHiM 6y agoBut that's why the energy density matters. For every KG of material mined you get more bang for buck.
- ceejayoz 6y agoIf you’re gonna do that, you need to measure the energy density of the uranium ore mined, not the purified product. Then, you have to figure out where photons net out on the wh/kg chart.
- ineedasername 6y agoSeems like a boot strapping problem to me. If we create enough solar/wind energy then we can devote some of that energy back to production of materials used to produce solar panels.
- microcolonel 6y agoWe should be wary of it, but we should be more wary of the true alternatives to it. Not having cheap electricity in America is an existential threat to humanity, not having clean energy is as well.
- cletus 6y agoI'd be a big fan of fission energy if it wasn't for people. 1. Processing uranium ore into sufficiently enriched U235 creates a lot of waste. That waste needs to essentially be stored (at least I'm unaware of a better option). I'm talking about UF6 centrifuge byproducts here. 2. Depleted uranium fuel also needs to be stored. 3. While running the plant needs to be properly maintained and serviced. So I'm not sure the true cost of (1) and (2) is represented by fission energy costs. Maybe it is but the infrastructure around this (the NRC for inspections, storage sites, etc) needs to be accounted for. I don't trust people to do any one of these things let alone all three. Not long term and at scale.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- solinent 6y agoYes, and we don't even need to use uranium, and it doesn't need to be as dangerous. Fusion is mainly a problem of scaling the system up now I believe, there are a few possible fuels depending on the method if I recall correctly.
- mrjin 6y agoUnfortunately we are not even close to getting control of fusion just like fission. And for fission, we can hardly tell whether it brings more benefit than harm as the radioactive wastes take so long to neutralize.
- solinent 6y agoSource? I've heard the opposite, I'm not an expert but I do believe fusion is pretty imminent. Maybe not at MIT. We can achieve fusion already, so presumably we already have control of it? Check out lppfusion. https://lppfusion.com/technology/focus-fusion/ https://lppfusion.com/technology/focus-fusion/ I think if we discarded the failed attempts we could consolidate something here. Seems to be happening https://lppfusion.com/international-focus-fusion-research/ https://lppfusion.com/international-focus-fusion-research/
- chub500 6y agoIt seems the anti-nuclear crowd on HN always points out the cost/MWH vs wind/solar as a sort of coup des grace against nuclear but I have never understood that argument. Can someone help me to understand how the same reasoning couldn't be applied to fusion entrepreneurship as well? The cost per MWH for fusion right now is infinity because we can't _yet_ get net energy gain. Should the current inefficiency stop innovation and investment?
- ncmncm 6y agoYes. There is no rational reason to expect fusion will produce a single watt of practical, commercial power in the lifetime of the grandchildren of anyone reading this. The most optimistic estimate of power density of a productive plasma is so low that a practical fusion plant would need to be tens or hundreds of times as large as a current nuke. Then, it would destroy itself in a short time, leaving hundreds of tons of more-or-less radioactive waste. Fusion research is a jobs program for high-neutron-flux physicists, to provide a population to draw on for weapons work. There has never been an expectation of practical power generation, and its prospects fall as renewables continue getting cheaper.
- pfdietz 6y agoFusion is ridiculous. It will make fission look simple and cheap by comparison. Those investing in it are pouring money into a bottomless pit. And this would be true even if the plasma confinement issues were 100% solved.
- pmoleri 6y agoHow come there are many countries with 100% renewable then? Big, small, rich, poor; we have many examples of different characteristics and still we get the nuclear vs coal debate as those were the only options. Is it really that expensive, how come 3rd world countries can afford it? I think it's more about politics than feasibility.
- relativitypro 6y ago“Renewables” doesn’t address climate change, low carbon grid-scale power does.
- PostOnce 6y agoEven if it really is safe now, it's going to be hard to sell the public on nuclear when we keep telling them how safe it is and how Chernobyl was a one-time Communist screw-up, and Fukushima only happened because it was an old design, and every other excuse listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and... Dropping the ball wasn't a one time thing, and it's going to be hard to talk people into believing we somehow now finally will stop dropping the ball, or that we have foreseen every possible edge case, or that the worst-case scenario really isn't that bad. So, then, how do we do that?
- rsa25519 6y ago> Radiation release during explosion and fire at Russian nuclear missile test site > Thor missile launch failures during nuclear weapons testing at Johnston Atoll > Goiânia accident A lot of these aren't accidents related to use of nuclear for power generation.
- PostOnce 6y agoChernobyl, three mile island, Fukushima, and Lucens are just the civilian ones and thats _a lot_ for something "totally safe" in a short period of time relative to our long term future... and thats 4 different parts of the world with different governments and engineering standards! Those "weren't that bad", but it'll be hard to convince the public the next one can't be worse, larger scale, longer lasting, and with more cancer. Even if the science is there, the trust isn't.
- nimbius 6y agoI loathe whenever these articles pop up on HN because they embrace an almost puerile approach to a wide range of complex issues surrounding Nuclear power and conclude their critics as histrionic environmentalists to avoid the demanding task of defending the atom. when people express concern about nuclear energy its not just meltdowns. its the entire lifecycle. >Yes, it’s true that fission power plants that cut corners could lead to radioactivity-related disasters it isnt just the plants, The US has had more than fifty nuclear accidents since we've harnessed the atom, the majority in the service of nuclear power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_accidents_by_country#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_accidents_by_cou... There are currently 21 stranded nuclear waste sites in the US that have nothing to do with a powerplant, and will not, for another 900 years. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-shows-expanse-of-u-s-nuclear-waste-sites/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/05/31/new-map-... Nuclear plants are an enticing target for terrorists, natural disasters, and human error with consequences far outstripping any carbon benefit. Major accidents can render tens or hundreds of kilometers of sterile earth uninhabitable for thousands of years, during which time floods and fires can continue to poison surrounding areas as was seen recently with the wildfires of Pripyat. We still, to this date, have no comprehensive or cogent plan to properly extinguish a nuclear fire the scale of Chernobyl other than sacrificing first responders until the catastrophe abates. We didnt even have a competent plan to prevent or arrest the meltdown at Fukushima which created its own 400km exclusion zone. finally, we have no competent architectural, structural, or societal plan to alert or inform anyone 20,000 years from now of the vast areas of nuclear contamination we will have left buried in the earth in the desperate hope of staving off irreversible climate change. The idea that we would so foolheartedly blaze a trail of atomic poison without considering in any of these articles a future generation smacks of a pandersome tone that seeks a quick and dirty answer to a problem that renewables --which require careful consideration and study-- can easily achieve. Nuclear is the dullards flex-tape solution to a much larger concern of careful consideration, moderation, and sustainable lifecycles of energy for the future.
- jay_kyburz 6y agoWell put. Yes the problem is there is a lot carbon in the air, but the deeper problem is that we have no respect for the environment or for future generations. We should not just be looking for the cheapest, easiest, fastest solution generate electricity. We need to build a society that lives in harmony with our environment and doesn't leave any waste behind for future generations to clean up.
- hackshack 6y agoI keep meaning to have a bumper sticker made: “Solar Power is Nuclear Power!” with a cute little trefoil for one of the O’s. Until we can do profitable fusion, though, “alternative” energy may be the best, holistically. Neighborhood-, ward-, and city-sized nuclear à la Taylor Wilson’s proposal would be ideal, but humans will be humans and we can’t afford such a security risk. This pains me to no end. We’ve been given a near-magical metal (see XKCD, “Plutonium”) but we’re too... base to manufacture and use it appropriately. I’m butchering it, but the quote that keeps coming back to me is, “Nuclear is a 22nd-century solution to a 20th-century problem.” If you’re into fate and religious stuff, I have a suspicion it was deliberately dangled in front of us as the one way to conquer interstellar space, if we can maturely manage the material itself.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y agoI'm not afraid of the power source, I'm afraid of the cost and trickle down taxation imposed on us to do that instead.
- virmundi 6y agoNuclear is expensive due to regulation. Renewables are going to destroy vast swaths of the world. The drive to get raw materials with strip the amazon of her forests. All of this because we’ve adopted a fevered dream of storage from solar or wind.
- Matt3o12_ 6y agoI think the biggest problem with nuclear energy is humanity itself. We are simply not capable of making long term commitment and keeping them. Sure theoretically nuclear power is safe, especially in developed countries like the US and Europe. But let's pretend we build a super safe nuclear facility somewhere in Europe. In the beginning we will be very vigilant. The depleted ore will be properly stored (or whatever the toxic nuclear byproduct is). Maintenance will be kept to highest standard but what happens in 20 years? During that time frame a lot can change, a country can be bankrupted, and has to cut a budget. What is a fairly rich country today might not be one in 20 years. But let's say that doesn't happen. We also always try to optimize. Say we fill our storage for depleted ore, and we look for a new one. We figure out that we can outsource it to another country because it is cheaper. This country has the same standards we do, so we happily give it to them. But after a while they can't accept anymore so we start looking for other countries to sell our waste product to, and because we have already outsourced it once, we will probably do it again but this time at lower standards. What I am saying is, it is really difficult to predict how we handle a nuclear plant built today, 40-100 years from now, because this is how long the lifetime of a plant and its byproducts are at minimum. Meanwhile wind/solar/batteries has a much better defined lifetime. After only 10 years we will most likely recycle them. Yes sometimes recycling them creates unnecessary waste because some countries/companies/people will cut corners but the damage caused by improperly recycled solar and even batteries is so much lower then the damage of what a nuclear power plant can do. So the question is, do we trust all countries that 'can safely operate a nuclear plant today' to do so in 20-50 years? What about the waste products? Can we be sure that they will always be properly stored? That every country checks their stores for leaks regularly over 100 years? And this doesn't even account for developing countries that want -- and possible need nuclear power -- to catch up to developed countries. Can we just deny it to them while we are doing it ourselves? If humanity has proven anything, it's that we are not capable of making such decisions of a long period of time reliably.
- vermontdevil 6y agoYou should watch this video (and several others) of this professor, David Ruzic from Uni of Illinois This video he talks about the economics of nuclear plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY This video, he talks about modular micro-nuclear reactor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gtog_gOaGQ His videos are great. Worth your time.
- deevolution 6y agoNuclear really is the only viable option at scale... “Two terawatts of photovoltaic would require installing 100 square meters of 15-percent-efficient solar cells every second, second after second, for the next 25 years. (That’s about 1,200 square miles of solar cells a year, times 25 equals 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic cells.) Two terawatts of solar thermal? If it’s 30 percent efficient all told, we’ll need 50 square meters of highly reflective mirrors every second. (Some 600 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of biofuels? Something like 4 Olympic swimming pools of genetically engineered algae, installed every second. (About 61,000 square miles a year, times 25.) Two terawatts of wind? That’s a 300-foot-diameter wind turbine every 5 minutes. (Install 105,000 turbines a year in good wind locations, times 25.) Two terawatts of geothermal? Build three 100-megawatt steam turbines every day—1,095 a year, times 25. Three terawatts of new nuclear? That’s a 3-reactor, 3-gigawatt plant every week—52 a year, times 25.” Add it up, and when you’re done, you’ve got an area about the size of America—“Call it Renewistan,” says Griffith—covered with stuff dedicated to generating humanity’s energy." From the Whole Earth Catalog by stewart brand.
- oh_sigh 6y agoIt's not really clear to me that building 21 steam turbines a week is harder than building 3 nuclear plants per week.
- deevolution 6y agoIf it were easier you'd think we'd be getting alot more energy from geothermal but we don't. Global Nuclear: 2,500 TWh Global Geothermal: 12.8 GWh
- pfdietz 6y agoThat argument isn't even an argument. "Oooh, numbers are big and scary! Run away!" The truth is that renewables (well, aside from biomass; that's usually what those arguments boil down to, so don't use biomass as your renewable source) scale just fine. The Earth is constantly struck by 100,000 terawatts of sunlight, and global primary energy demand is less than 20 terawatts.
- nipponese 6y agoThere will be a lot of smart people in this thread saying nuclear doesn't make economic sense, and honestly I don't know how accurately quantify the price myself, but if you look at a map of all nuclear energy projects under construction, they are not happening in "rich" countries, but nations with huge populations that are on the verse of emerging from mass poverty. I assume they have done the math.
- ncmncm 6y agoIn other words, they are in nations with high levels of corruption, minimal regulation, but just enough money. The US has the most institutionalized corruption in the world, but the US just did it all earlier.
- nipponese 6y agoIf you're implying nuclear power is just a pork barrel scam to milk the tax base money and jobs, then I am really starting to understand why we, as Americans, may never meaningfully tackle climate change. Even Joe Biden is pitching conversion to solar as a jobs-creation initiative.
- ncmncm 6y agoNo, it's not just a pork barrel scam. It's the pork barrel scam all other pork barrel scams wish they could be, the ur-scam. It has a superficially plausible premise that continues to fool a lot of people, a tie-in to the military-industrial complex, it always involves insane amounts of capital expenditure, takes years and years of construction before anything comes out, and costs way more than everything else. Orbital solar power might rival it someday. Fusion is trying; watch out, once they hit break-even. If the money spent on fusion projects had been put into solar, we would have had solar cheaper than coal 20 years ago.
- pfdietz 6y agoIn countries of the kind that would want to practice covert proliferation, in other words.
- 8bitsrule 6y ago1. The world does -not- need nuclear. Green sources simply collect zero-cost fuels that are available to everyone, everywhere, without mining or transportation or political borders. Nuclear is expensive. It costs money to store green energy for future use. It also costs money to store nuclear waste ... for what use? 2. I'm not afraid of nuclear -power-. But the risks are quite clear, much greater, and more costly. The industry has consistently demonstrated that the nuclear path is vulnerable to human error, acts of god, deliberate shortcuts and cost-cutting , lack of maintenance, undetected deterioration, sabotage, bad design, and so on. Each risk can result in leakage of very dangerous and persistent toxins into the environment.The cost of remediation - if that's even possible - (Fukushima for one example) can be much, much higher than the cost of avoiding the problem. How much windpower could Japan create with the money they'll invest in Fukushima in coming decades (for what return)? The technology is already available to allow us to go Green, at much lower cost, on a much faster timeline, with much less waste and environmental risk, anywhere in the world where there's sun and wind.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agostartswithabang? I see forbes has learned to be eponysterical https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eponysterical https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eponysterica...
- codecamper 6y agoWe have solar power.
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- im3w1l 6y agoThe way I see it, nuclear is proven. And renewable storage is uncertain. Most likely we can make it work, but what if we can't? It could quite literally doom us. It may sound macabre, but I would feel much safer if I knew the renewable advocates had serious skin in the game. If they were duty bound to commit seppuku should the renewables push fail.
- LatteLazy 6y agoWe only need nuclear if you care about co2 (even then its debatable, but whatever). And we don't actually care about co2. Everyone lies and says they do, but we keep on emitting it. We're even emitting more every year. This is like how it's vitally important to find a cure/vaccine for malaria, vitally important until you have to decide between that and finding a tax cut or a pensions increase or a new shiny aircraft carrier. Then suddenly it will wait till next year...
- immmmmm 6y agoSome points that this kind of articles typically fail to address: 1) Storage of waste is still an unsolved problem. Even here in Switzerland, which is a very rich country, there is no definitive agenda for storage. 2) We are in the middle of a climate transient, with severe and long droughts as one of the many consequences. Is a technology that require water to be safe the best bet for the future. 3) Little is said about the necessity to reduce energy use, it's often assumed our energy demand will continue growing exponentially, with no questioning on that side.
- wazoox 6y agoActually the problem is solved. First, dangerous waste is extremely small. All of the French high-activity waste for the past 50 years is currently in one single storage pool (a cube of less than 50m). Second, deep storage is safe. Oil and gas stayed safely deep in the earth crust for many millions of years. Nuclear waste has no particular reason to be so much more difficult to store. Building nuclear doesn't preclude a very high reduction of our energy use. Fossil fuels are currently 80 to 90% of our energy. So we're already talking of a very steep reduction ahead. Do you want to try reducing by 95 or 99%? Regarding energy use, please consider that the fact that there are about 8 billions humans roaming the earth is because of high energy availability. We already face the very serious challenge of reducing drastically our energy use without making it a genocide of unimaginable proportions. I'd rather stay prudent and modest in our abilities.
- PeterStuer 6y agoNuclear would be fine, if it weren't for human nature. Time and time again humanity has proven it can not handle the responsibility of any process that involves low probability but very high stakes long term risks. And it is not that it's a close call. Blatant irresponsible gambles at huge scale for concentrated short term profits are the core of our preferred socioeconomic paradigms.
- Synaesthesia 6y agoFrance has managed quite well and has shown the way IMO. Yes they turned against nuclear now but their policy before was quite successful. They managed to reduce costs substantailly with standardisation.
- yokto 6y ago...and with staff cuts, subpar monitoring, irresponsible subcontracting, pressure on 'independant' inspectors to not report issues and many others.
- anoncake 6y agoOf course we should be afraid of nuclear power. Whether we should use it anyway is a different question.
- kwhitefoot 6y agoI'm not afraid of nuclear power but I am afraid of the corruption that seems to be inextricably entwined with it. If a private company and its investors want to build a nuclear power plant and are willing to earmark sufficient funds for decommissioning then I say they should be allowed to go for it. But they should not expect any more state support than any other commercial enterprise and they should be expected to bid on the open market for the resources (land, water, rail and road connections, etc.) that they need without relying on state guarantees for the power that is generated not for compulsory purchase orders when someone refuses to sell their house to make way for it. And certainly the state should not be demolishing sites of special scientific interest in order to build nuclear, or any other, power stations. The same, of course, should apply to wind and solar.
- sunstone 6y agoSmall, safe, portable nuclear would be a "nice to have" but not a "need to have". And just like modern passenger airplanes they would need to have extensive safety tests before deployment.