4 ms·

Here we go again: 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. The Cybernobyl Exclusion Zone is quite literally 1,000 square miles [1]; 2. Advocate like to talk a

by cletus 6y ago

Here we go again: 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. The Cybernobyl Exclusion Zone is quite literally 1,000 square miles [1]; 2. Advocate like to talk about reprocessing as a solution to the waste problem. It seems to be missed that this is limited to spent fuel reprocessing. This appears to have significant cost and safety issues; 3. Separately to spent fuel, you also have to store enrichment byproducts (eg UF₆, UF₄) that have their own problems; 4. Stored nuclear waste is a security issue; and 5. Transportation of fuel and spent fuel is a security issue. The big problems with nuclear aren't technical they're political but they are no less significant. For me, I just don't trust humans--either government entities or for-profit enterprises--to safely and responsibly build and manage a nuclear power plants as well as all the infrastructure to mine, process, transport, reprocess and store any byproducts. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone

bliteben 6y ago
would you support fusion power, or are you a one fusion reactor per solar system kind of guy?
- cletus 6y ago
  Some solar systems have 2 or even 3 fusion reactors. :) The answer to your question depends on the characteristics of the technology. There are many proposed variations (eg the traditional H-H including heavier isotopes, He₃, pB). For fuels, deuterium is abundant in the environment environment so isn't an issue. Tritium decays quickly. This is a fairly common theme with lighter elements. U₂₃₅ on the other hand is extremely problematic for being both a heavy metal, long-lived and radioactive. But I'm not yet convinced we'll actually have commercial fusion power. Aneutronic variants aside, neutron embrittlement and the energy loss from neutrons are significant unsolved problems. Even with powerful magnets, containing a fluid at 100M Kelvin is a significant problems, inherently so because of turbulence. I hope relatively cheap fusion power is in our future but there's no clear path forward yet. None of these have particularly problematic byproducts.
pharke 6y ago
Counter point. We must learn how to responsibly manage extremely dangerous materials and technologies. It is the only way we can avoid inevitable extinction at our own hands as technology advances. Atomic weapons are no longer the only existential threat we are capable of wielding, we are rapidly approaching the ability to engineer de novo viruses and eventually self replicating cells. We already possess the means to create autonomous weapons systems and are improving upon them daily. As access to space becomes commercialized it will become increasingly trivial to deliver un-interceptable payloads to anywhere on earth and they needn't be explosive since a large enough mass travelling fast enough is more than capable of demolishing any building. Extrapolate further into the future and if we master high enough energy density batteries or capacitors then we start having to worry about directed energy weapons, imagine a hand held device capable of generating an instantaneous lethal dose of X-rays. I'm sure we're also capable of thinking up a long list of even more deadly weapons let alone beneficial technologies that could be mishandled. We can't turn back to a simpler time, we have to take the bull by the horns.
ncmncm 6y ago
These. Furthermore: 1. Nuclear has always been the most expensive alternative, moreso now than ever before. Its advocates knew this at the time that they were calling it "too cheap to meter". Even continuing to operate an existing plant costs more than building out renewables and switching to those. 2. Nuclear construction projects invariably turn into massive pipelines for corruption and graft, siphoning $billions or tens of $billions from public budgets into well-connected private hands before ever delivering any power. Renewable projects (with the exception of larger dams) have not typically catered to corruption. "Small nuke" has never got traction, despite apparent efficiencies, specifically because it offers so little scope for long-term corruption. (E.g., the US government just granted a measly $10 million to one company to promote it.) 3. Nuclear construction takes so long that any supposed benefit comes far too late to do much good. The same money spent on renewables always starts delivering immediately, in much larger amounts, when it is most needed. The money saved on the much cheaper power can be spent immediately building out more, for even more benefit, compounding. As an aside, Tokamak fusion will never, ever produce so much as one solitary erg of commercially competitive energy. The current ITER project is not projected to do anything until 2050 (although it will take hundreds of megawatts to fire up, for experiments), and then is not so much as planned to deliver practical power, ever, despite costing tens of $billions. The "practical" plant they imagine building, to turn on at end-of-century (after all of us reading this are dead!), would need to be an order of magnitude larger, and cost $trillions and decades without producing, all the while stealing capital from actually viable projects. The only rational conclusion is that Tokamak fusion research is and was never intended to produce practical power. The whole program is, rather, purely a jobs program for hot-neutron physicists and contractors, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. Every cent spent on Tokamak fusion is stolen from research on alternatives that could, in principle, be practical. (The one valuable output of Tokamak research is a generation of physicists now comfortable with plasma fluid-dynamics mathematics.)
godelski 6y ago
> 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. Do you have a source? There's plenty of larger fossil fuel catastrophes that just aren't well known because they are in third world countries, so who gives a fuck, right? [0] (note that this is 1700 square miles) I'm not sure this point if about environmental damage or human not being able to live there damage. If the former, I think climate change is a pretty apparent counter point. If the latter, well the size of that is largely political but you can think of it as an unexpected opening of a national forest. Sure, sucks for humans, but all the trees are great for climate (hell, killing humans is great for climate, but that's not popular). > 2. Advocate like to talk about reprocessing as a solution to the waste problem. Reprocessing isn't necessary. There's little reason to with our current industry, and even France's. Storage is easy. You place it on site. We have a few hundred years to figure out deep geological repositories (which I also advocate for plastics, heavy metals, and other non-degradable toxic substances). We just don't have enough and it isn't dangerous enough for this to be a problem. Nuclear waste is hundreds of thousands of times smaller than other energy sources (500,000x less than coal). You all act like this is a problem that only nuclear has. It isn't even close to being the biggest perpetrator. It is a good criticism, but if you are only applying this criticism to one product I'm not convinced it is a concern you actually have but rather you're just holding "enemies" to higher standards. > 3. Separately to spent fuel, you also have to store enrichment byproducts (eg UF₆, UF₄) that have their own problems This is a restatement of 2 unless you're talking about weapons, which my response would be that you clearly do not understand the difference between weapons and reactors. As a side note, understanding this difference is key to understanding the Iran Deal and why no one is concerned that they produced more enriched material than the deal allowed (i.e. it was a political gesture and could only be a political gesture). > 4. Stored nuclear waste is a security issue And? It is stored on site. Energy production plants of any kind are a security issue. > 5. Transportation of fuel and spent fuel is a security issue. See 4. And congrats, you hit 5/10 of the common myths[1]. Now if you said that nuclear power plants were too expensive, we could have a real discussion and there would be differing opinions based on different criteria and hopeful/naive projections. But we can't even have that conversation if you aren't willing to just google the opposition's answers to your questions that have been continually asked for decades. I'm just reminded of this Futurama episode (which I just noticed makes a flat earth joke)[2]. We don't need more Dr. Banjos. [0] https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/the-amazon-chernobyl-6309a19c27b7 https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/the-amazon-chernobyl-6309a19... or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikneKQAeUp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikneKQAeUp0 [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RUHhCzgxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RUHhCzgxI

by cletus 6y ago

bliteben 6y ago

would you support fusion power, or are you a one fusion reactor per solar system kind of guy?

cletus 6y ago
Some solar systems have 2 or even 3 fusion reactors. :) The answer to your question depends on the characteristics of the technology. There are many proposed variations (eg the traditional H-H including heavier isotopes, He₃, pB). For fuels, deuterium is abundant in the environment environment so isn't an issue. Tritium decays quickly. This is a fairly common theme with lighter elements. U₂₃₅ on the other hand is extremely problematic for being both a heavy metal, long-lived and radioactive. But I'm not yet convinced we'll actually have commercial fusion power. Aneutronic variants aside, neutron embrittlement and the energy loss from neutrons are significant unsolved problems. Even with powerful magnets, containing a fluid at 100M Kelvin is a significant problems, inherently so because of turbulence. I hope relatively cheap fusion power is in our future but there's no clear path forward yet. None of these have particularly problematic byproducts.

pharke 6y ago

Counter point. We must learn how to responsibly manage extremely dangerous materials and technologies. It is the only way we can avoid inevitable extinction at our own hands as technology advances. Atomic weapons are no longer the only existential threat we are capable of wielding, we are rapidly approaching the ability to engineer de novo viruses and eventually self replicating cells. We already possess the means to create autonomous weapons systems and are improving upon them daily. As access to space becomes commercialized it will become increasingly trivial to deliver un-interceptable payloads to anywhere on earth and they needn't be explosive since a large enough mass travelling fast enough is more than capable of demolishing any building. Extrapolate further into the future and if we master high enough energy density batteries or capacitors then we start having to worry about directed energy weapons, imagine a hand held device capable of generating an instantaneous lethal dose of X-rays. I'm sure we're also capable of thinking up a long list of even more deadly weapons let alone beneficial technologies that could be mishandled. We can't turn back to a simpler time, we have to take the bull by the horns.

ncmncm 6y ago

These. Furthermore: 1. Nuclear has always been the most expensive alternative, moreso now than ever before. Its advocates knew this at the time that they were calling it "too cheap to meter". Even continuing to operate an existing plant costs more than building out renewables and switching to those. 2. Nuclear construction projects invariably turn into massive pipelines for corruption and graft, siphoning $billions or tens of $billions from public budgets into well-connected private hands before ever delivering any power. Renewable projects (with the exception of larger dams) have not typically catered to corruption. "Small nuke" has never got traction, despite apparent efficiencies, specifically because it offers so little scope for long-term corruption. (E.g., the US government just granted a measly $10 million to one company to promote it.) 3. Nuclear construction takes so long that any supposed benefit comes far too late to do much good. The same money spent on renewables always starts delivering immediately, in much larger amounts, when it is most needed. The money saved on the much cheaper power can be spent immediately building out more, for even more benefit, compounding. As an aside, Tokamak fusion will never, ever produce so much as one solitary erg of commercially competitive energy. The current ITER project is not projected to do anything until 2050 (although it will take hundreds of megawatts to fire up, for experiments), and then is not so much as planned to deliver practical power, ever, despite costing tens of $billions. The "practical" plant they imagine building, to turn on at end-of-century (after all of us reading this are dead!), would need to be an order of magnitude larger, and cost $trillions and decades without producing, all the while stealing capital from actually viable projects. The only rational conclusion is that Tokamak fusion research is and was never intended to produce practical power. The whole program is, rather, purely a jobs program for hot-neutron physicists and contractors, to maintain a population to draw on for weapons work. Every cent spent on Tokamak fusion is stolen from research on alternatives that could, in principle, be practical. (The one valuable output of Tokamak research is a generation of physicists now comfortable with plasma fluid-dynamics mathematics.)

godelski 6y ago

> 1. Nuclear has much worse failure modes. Do you have a source? There's plenty of larger fossil fuel catastrophes that just aren't well known because they are in third world countries, so who gives a fuck, right? [0] (note that this is 1700 square miles) I'm not sure this point if about environmental damage or human not being able to live there damage. If the former, I think climate change is a pretty apparent counter point. If the latter, well the size of that is largely political but you can think of it as an unexpected opening of a national forest. Sure, sucks for humans, but all the trees are great for climate (hell, killing humans is great for climate, but that's not popular). > 2. Advocate like to talk about reprocessing as a solution to the waste problem. Reprocessing isn't necessary. There's little reason to with our current industry, and even France's. Storage is easy. You place it on site. We have a few hundred years to figure out deep geological repositories (which I also advocate for plastics, heavy metals, and other non-degradable toxic substances). We just don't have enough and it isn't dangerous enough for this to be a problem. Nuclear waste is hundreds of thousands of times smaller than other energy sources (500,000x less than coal). You all act like this is a problem that only nuclear has. It isn't even close to being the biggest perpetrator. It is a good criticism, but if you are only applying this criticism to one product I'm not convinced it is a concern you actually have but rather you're just holding "enemies" to higher standards. > 3. Separately to spent fuel, you also have to store enrichment byproducts (eg UF₆, UF₄) that have their own problems This is a restatement of 2 unless you're talking about weapons, which my response would be that you clearly do not understand the difference between weapons and reactors. As a side note, understanding this difference is key to understanding the Iran Deal and why no one is concerned that they produced more enriched material than the deal allowed (i.e. it was a political gesture and could only be a political gesture). > 4. Stored nuclear waste is a security issue And? It is stored on site. Energy production plants of any kind are a security issue. > 5. Transportation of fuel and spent fuel is a security issue. See 4. And congrats, you hit 5/10 of the common myths[1]. Now if you said that nuclear power plants were too expensive, we could have a real discussion and there would be differing opinions based on different criteria and hopeful/naive projections. But we can't even have that conversation if you aren't willing to just google the opposition's answers to your questions that have been continually asked for decades. I'm just reminded of this Futurama episode (which I just noticed makes a flat earth joke)[2]. We don't need more Dr. Banjos. [0] https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/the-amazon-chernobyl-6309a19c27b7 https://medium.com/@renegadeinc/the-amazon-chernobyl-6309a19... or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikneKQAeUp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikneKQAeUp0 [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RUHhCzgxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RUHhCzgxI