4 ms·

Yeah but i can imagine as we scale the hall like that will soon be able to contain only 10 years worth of material. Then 1 year etc...

loeg 6y ago
Scale what? France already generates all of its own power requirements and is a net exporter of electricity. They're at 100% scale already.
- flemhans 6y ago
  We could heat the streets in winter, keep all lights on, mine bitcoin, drive around like crazy due to almost free "fuel". All possible thanks to Nuclear!
- random_kris 6y ago
  When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions
- natmaka 6y ago
  In 2015, the National Assembly voted that by 2025 only 50% of France's energy will be produced by nuclear plants. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France The main pertinent local project is an utter disaster, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_3
cbmuser 6y ago
That single hall is for the _whole_ country for _decades_. Nuclear is the _only_ technology where the fuel and the waste for decades can be stored on-site. It's just extremely dense. The Russians have a single hall for all their waste plus the waste of other countries such as Bulgaria or Ukraine: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s The US even had a nuclear power plant with full fuel reprocessing on site: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1Xja6HlIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1Xja6HlIU
- laurent92 6y ago
  Just for everyone to have a picture, uranium doesn’t take much room because it is quite heavy: 19.1g/cm3, denser than lead (11.3) but slightly less than gold (19.3) and plutonium (19.8).
  - fastball 6y ago
    The density of uranium is secondary to just how unbelievably energetic (per unit mass of fuel) fission is.
  - loeg 6y ago
    Energy density is the main reason you don't need much volume of uranium. Fission is just extremely energetic. That c² factor in E = m c² is huge (9 * 10¹⁶). It is really hard for humans to intuit about factors of ten to the power of 16 or 17.
    - Jabbles 6y ago
      You need to include the units, else that doesn't make much sense - many physicists use units such that c = 1. In this case the units (for speed²) you want are m²/s² = J/kg
      - loeg 6y ago
        The fun thing is, the units are basically unimportant! A factor of 10^3 or two is peanuts on 10^17. Humans have just as terrible intuitions about 10^14 and 10^11 as they do about 10^17.
        exporectomy 6y ago
        The error is 10^17, not 10^3. Units are important.
- StreamBright 6y ago
  Your face when people figure out that burning coal produces 100x amount nuclear waste than an average nuclear power plant. Your face #2 when people realise that this nuclear waste goes to the environment unfiltered. https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-stations-produce-radioactive-waste/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-power-plants https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-po... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/
dtech 6y ago
If you scale this up you're also having more Area. If that hall contains all the waste from decades of energy for France, I'm sure we can also build 1 in Germany, Italy, and every US state.
- random_kris 6y ago
  When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions
  - dtech 6y ago
    That's a nonsensical question, there's not enough nuclear or fossil fuel in the world to increase our energy consumption 100.000x for any significant time period. We'd need to build a dyson sphere.

loeg 6y ago

Scale what? France already generates all of its own power requirements and is a net exporter of electricity. They're at 100% scale already.

flemhans 6y ago
We could heat the streets in winter, keep all lights on, mine bitcoin, drive around like crazy due to almost free "fuel". All possible thanks to Nuclear!
random_kris 6y ago
When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions
natmaka 6y ago
In 2015, the National Assembly voted that by 2025 only 50% of France's energy will be produced by nuclear plants. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France The main pertinent local project is an utter disaster, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_3

cbmuser 6y ago

That single hall is for the _whole_ country for _decades_. Nuclear is the _only_ technology where the fuel and the waste for decades can be stored on-site. It's just extremely dense. The Russians have a single hall for all their waste plus the waste of other countries such as Bulgaria or Ukraine: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s The US even had a nuclear power plant with full fuel reprocessing on site: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1Xja6HlIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1Xja6HlIU

laurent92 6y ago
Just for everyone to have a picture, uranium doesn’t take much room because it is quite heavy: 19.1g/cm3, denser than lead (11.3) but slightly less than gold (19.3) and plutonium (19.8).
- fastball 6y ago
  The density of uranium is secondary to just how unbelievably energetic (per unit mass of fuel) fission is.
- loeg 6y ago
  Energy density is the main reason you don't need much volume of uranium. Fission is just extremely energetic. That c² factor in E = m c² is huge (9 * 10¹⁶). It is really hard for humans to intuit about factors of ten to the power of 16 or 17.
  - Jabbles 6y ago
    You need to include the units, else that doesn't make much sense - many physicists use units such that c = 1. In this case the units (for speed²) you want are m²/s² = J/kg
    - loeg 6y ago
      The fun thing is, the units are basically unimportant! A factor of 10^3 or two is peanuts on 10^17. Humans have just as terrible intuitions about 10^14 and 10^11 as they do about 10^17.
      - exporectomy 6y ago
        The error is 10^17, not 10^3. Units are important.
StreamBright 6y ago
Your face when people figure out that burning coal produces 100x amount nuclear waste than an average nuclear power plant. Your face #2 when people realise that this nuclear waste goes to the environment unfiltered. https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-stations-produce-radioactive-waste/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-power-plants https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-po... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/

dtech 6y ago

If you scale this up you're also having more Area. If that hall contains all the waste from decades of energy for France, I'm sure we can also build 1 in Germany, Italy, and every US state.

random_kris 6y ago
When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions
- dtech 6y ago
  That's a nonsensical question, there's not enough nuclear or fossil fuel in the world to increase our energy consumption 100.000x for any significant time period. We'd need to build a dyson sphere.