3 ms·
> The more we learn about nuclear, the more expensive it seems to get, in contrast to pretty much any good tech. A lot of the cost of nuclear is about bringing
by jnxx 6y ago
> The more we learn about nuclear, the more expensive it seems to get, in contrast to pretty much any good tech.
A lot of the cost of nuclear is about bringing down risk to an acceptable level. And this is why nuclear accidents have increased to cost of nuclear plant construction: They have partly confirmed, and partly uncovered, areas in which plants were not safe enough.
The Three Miles Island accident has shown that it is possible that cooling fails, with the consequence of a reactor core melting down, and having a significant aggregation of critical reactive material sitting at the bottom of the reactor vessel. As any physicist knows, an uncontrolled aggregation of fissile stuff can go boom. And this is what in fact happened in Fukushima - several times.
In addition, there has been modeling since thee eighties what happens if cooling fails, and the results have been ... not so good. The pressure vessels will not withstand heat and pressure for longer than hours. Which is too little time for wide-range evacuation in a densely populated area.
In addition, in Fukushima we've seen what happens if a plant loses electrical power from cooling systems. This is also a real danger in the US plants which are in some cases exposed to disasters like hurricanes or flooding.
We have also seen that the storage of used fuel in a nuclear plant is a mayor hazard because it needs to be continually cooled for a long time. And on top of that in plants constructed so far, it has much less protection, so an airplane falling into such a spent fuel storage can cause a significant accident.
Then, in the Japanese Monju plant we've seen that breeder reactors which are cooled with liquid sodium are difficult to keep safe in case of a fire. We also now that such breeders can become super-critical if certain things line up. And so on.
So, in short, nuclear became more expensive, because we know much more what can go wrong. Whining about "regulatory hurdles" will not cut it. What is the intention here is apparently to cut down on safety regulations, which will have the result of increased risks.
- rmtech 6y ago> As any physicist knows, an uncontrolled aggregation of fissile stuff can go boom. And this is what in fact happened in Fukushima No, that wasn't what happened at Fukushima. There was no "boom" from a nuclear chain reaction there.
- jnxx 6y agoSimilarly as in Chernobyl, the chain reaction produced excess heat, and this likely caused water to dissociate into oxygen/hdydrogenium which caused the big explosion. In that sense, it was not a nuclear explosion, but one caused by an out-of-control chain reaction. If I remember correctly, there were also reports of some observations of short-lived fission products. But we still do not know exactly what happened. Roughly the same could have happened in Three Miles Island, because the reactor was melting down, but the process was stopped, possibly very little time before the reactor would have been destroyed.
- pfdietz 6y agoThe Chernobyl explosion was not due to hydrogen and oxygen reacting. If you heat water hot enough to dissociate, it will explode just from the pressure of the steam. There's no need to add endothermic chemical reactions to the scene.
- rmtech 6y agoChernobly may in fact have been a small nuclear explosion.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoThere was no nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. I guarantee you will find zero sources for your theory other than conspiracy sites. It was physically impossible for there to have been a nuclear explosion.