4 ms·

I'm sorry, but comparing the nuclear waste to the waste provided by solar panels is absolute lunacy.

by lwhi 5y ago

PaulHoule 5y ago
Nuclear waste isn't really waste. That's part of the reason why projects like Yucca Mountain haven't been completed. Natural uranium is a mixture of U235 and U238, an LWR consumes U235 and a small amount of the U238. It gets maybe 2% of the energy out of the uranium and most of the long-lived radioactivity is Pu239 and related actinides that have value as fuel. (In a reprocessing cycle almost all of the waste decays in 500 years.) Reprocessing nuclear fuel to produce uranium and plutonium powder is a straightforward technology. What's not straightforward is fabricating fuel out of that powder. The most practical way to alloy oxides of U and Pu is to put them through a high-energy ball mill that fuses together nanoparticles of U and Pu. The HEBM can make something like Silica into a deadly poison, so just think what it can do with Plutonium! It seems impossible to run a Pu fuel fab that is a safe place to work without using a respirator full time. The French seem cool with it, but it violates the labor laws in every other country. To make it worse, fuel fabrication is a labor intensive process which involves somebody putting pellets into a fuel rod with gloved hands. There are alternatives (co-precipitation, liquid fuel reactors, robotics) but they have to be developed to close the fuel cycle.
- lwhi 5y ago
  > Nuclear waste isn't really waste. In which case why are a number of other proponents in this thread suggesting the best solution is to bury it?
  - jabl 5y ago
    Because currently fresh uranium is cheaper than reprocessing spent fuel. Further, to really close the fuel cycle and get the full benefits of reprocessing you need breeder reactors, another technology that exists and is proven to work, but with current Uranium prices isn't yet competitive with thermal reactors and a once-through fuel cycle.
    - lwhi 5y ago
      So for now, it actually is waste.
      - PaulHoule 5y ago
        Except for the fact that people refuse to bury it.
        lwhi 5y ago
        The inconvenient truth.
    - PaulHoule 5y ago
      None of the cost estimates on this subject really make sense because of the period of time involved. For instance "no nukes" think it is a scandal that we could spend $100 billion on Yucca mountain, but the average nuclear plant makes about $500 million per year in electricity so that is about 2 years of energy production. It's significant, but it's not crazy. A reprocessing cycle could easily take a century to fully burn U238 so "what it costs" is influenced by what you think interest rates will be (or should) be for next 100 years. Fuel cycle costs are nearly zero compared to the cost of the steam turbine at an LWR. If the price of uranium tripled, it would make little different in the basebar price of electricity.
      - jabl 5y ago
        Advanced fuel cycles, today, are mostly long-term insurance against Uranium prices rising significantly. And nope, given reprocessing, breeding, Thorium, and Uranium extraction from seawater, we're not going to run out of nuclear fuel for tens of thousands of years, if ever.

I'm sorry, but comparing the nuclear waste to the waste provided by solar panels is absolute lunacy.

by lwhi 5y ago

I'm sorry, but comparing the nuclear waste to the waste provided by solar panels is absolute lunacy.

Nuclear waste isn't really waste. That's part of the reason why projects like Yucca Mountain haven't been completed. Natural uranium is a mixture of U235 and U238, an LWR consumes U235 and a small amount of the U238. It gets maybe 2% of the energy out of the uranium and most of the long-lived radioactivity is Pu239 and related actinides that have value as fuel. (In a reprocessing cycle almost all of the waste decays in 500 years.) Reprocessing nuclear fuel to produce uranium and plutonium powder is a straightforward technology. What's not straightforward is fabricating fuel out of that powder. The most practical way to alloy oxides of U and Pu is to put them through a high-energy ball mill that fuses together nanoparticles of U and Pu. The HEBM can make something like Silica into a deadly poison, so just think what it can do with Plutonium! It seems impossible to run a Pu fuel fab that is a safe place to work without using a respirator full time. The French seem cool with it, but it violates the labor laws in every other country. To make it worse, fuel fabrication is a labor intensive process which involves somebody putting pellets into a fuel rod with gloved hands. There are alternatives (co-precipitation, liquid fuel reactors, robotics) but they have to be developed to close the fuel cycle.

lwhi 5y ago
> Nuclear waste isn't really waste. In which case why are a number of other proponents in this thread suggesting the best solution is to bury it?
- jabl 5y ago
  Because currently fresh uranium is cheaper than reprocessing spent fuel. Further, to really close the fuel cycle and get the full benefits of reprocessing you need breeder reactors, another technology that exists and is proven to work, but with current Uranium prices isn't yet competitive with thermal reactors and a once-through fuel cycle.
  - lwhi 5y ago
    So for now, it actually is waste.
    - PaulHoule 5y ago
      Except for the fact that people refuse to bury it.
      - lwhi 5y ago
        The inconvenient truth.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    None of the cost estimates on this subject really make sense because of the period of time involved. For instance "no nukes" think it is a scandal that we could spend $100 billion on Yucca mountain, but the average nuclear plant makes about $500 million per year in electricity so that is about 2 years of energy production. It's significant, but it's not crazy. A reprocessing cycle could easily take a century to fully burn U238 so "what it costs" is influenced by what you think interest rates will be (or should) be for next 100 years. Fuel cycle costs are nearly zero compared to the cost of the steam turbine at an LWR. If the price of uranium tripled, it would make little different in the basebar price of electricity.
    - jabl 5y ago
      Advanced fuel cycles, today, are mostly long-term insurance against Uranium prices rising significantly. And nope, given reprocessing, breeding, Thorium, and Uranium extraction from seawater, we're not going to run out of nuclear fuel for tens of thousands of years, if ever.