5 ms·

Why More and More Environmentalists Want to Go Nuclear

55 points by mpweiher 5y ago

webmaven 5y ago
Needs (2021) in the title.
banku_brougham 5y ago
The subhead presents the intractibilty of discussions with these advocates; >Unfounded fears about nuclear technology may be undercutting the fight against climate change. *Unfounded* is not the word I would use to describe fears of massively proliferating reactors across the globe. Advocates simply don't accept that the known problems are worth discussing.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  > across the globe Does it have to be across the globe?
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    Well, nuclear is supposed to alleviate the need for emitting greenhouse gases, and they are currently emitted globally. Hard to see how nuclear represents the solution if it's only built in the current nuclear powers...
    - Chris2048 5y ago
      sanction countries based on CO2/carbon emissions, allow for selling carbon allowances to nuclear powers.
- StillBored 5y ago
  No, its because people run around screaming about "problems" where there are known engineering solutions. Instead they choose to remain willfully ignorant, or ignore those solutions. There are untold piles of designs that have never been built due to fear. Many of them solve problems with proliferation, or are fail safe with regards to meltdowns, but they never see the light of day because people run around fearmongering about issues which are basically nonexistent, or solved. Now granted, for example, pebble beds (which tend to be quite robust to both proliferation as well as meltdowns) have other issues with respect to how uneaven the fuel burns and how hard it is to reprocess. But that in many ways is by design. I mean we don't have "problems" with current reactors where we take ~95% of the fuel out and call it "waste". And so much of modern reactor design is basically building a giant bomb shelter around the plant, that even in the face of full blown wars its hard to see how the reactors are any more dangerous than many other heavy industries we take for granted (aka do you know what your local mega fab is storing onsite?)
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    No, it's because nukes were and are fantastically expensive, and the projects are often cancelled with exactly zero watt-hours produced after massive cost overruns and absurd delays.
    - StillBored 5y ago
      Thats because the NRC (and similar agencies) exist effectively to assure that the cost is such that no nuke plants ever get built. Not a single NRC approved plan has ever been built, and its in no small part because of the billions of dollars in paper pushing politicians/etc getting in the way of people who actually design and build stuff. Nuke plants are hardly more complex than a combined cycle gas generator, and those are pretty inexpensive. (see also Korea for an example of building plants for less than the entire GDP of a country) If solar/wind had 1/2 of the regulatory overhead to assure that say the thorium tailings from rare earth mining (neodymium/etc) never got into the drinking water/air/etc then you would never see a single new solar/windmill either.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        There is no reason for solar or wind to suffer regulatory overhead. They pose no existential threat if built or operated unsafely. Worst case, they fall over.
        StillBored 5y ago
        More people died in the Texas grid failure last year than have died in all the Nuke plant accidents. Unreliable power is dangerous too.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        The Texas grid failure was a product of under-regulation, not use of renewables. Responsible management requires back-up generation capacity that works when needed. What failed in Texas was that the (gas-fired) back-ups were not mandated to work when cold, and so didn't.
floppiplopp 5y ago
What's always missing in these kinds of propaganda articles is the resource issue with fissile material. If you look at the data given by the International Atomic Energy Agency you'll see that there are roughly 6 million tons available at the moment, with the price for uranium doubling over the last 20 years and cost for exploration quadrupling in the same time. Now, we get around 10% of all energy worldwide from fission, using 60k tons of uranium per year. So, at the current rate, we can do this for maybe 100-150 years. Increase the power output, reduce this time accordingly. And don't mention non-existing or experimental reactors like fusion of thorium, that have been just 10 years away from working for the last 50 years. We cannot solve climate change with current nuclear energy technology. There's just not enough fissile material.
- DerArzt 5y ago
  Yes, but..... It emits a lot less greenhouse gas right? Even if we only have 100-150 years, that is a long time horizon for us to figure out nuclear fission which doesn't use uranium. Our current problem is that we need energy, and we currently have several ways of producing it several of which produce much more green house gas than others. Nuclear looks like a less than ideal solution, but one that we know how to do today, and one that can replace coal/gas in the interim buying time while we get other tech ready to go.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    The embodied energy problem with nuclear plants is nothing to laugh at. The barrier for getting new plants up is going to increase as we tackle the carbon footprint of concrete. At least until someone certifies these new concretes for building nuclear plants.
    - foxyv 5y ago
      Nuclear energy offers an excellent source of energy for the production of concrete. I can imagine that a new plant would not take very long for it to offset enough CO2 to make up for the CO2 used in its production. Similar to electric cars and solar panels.
ifokiedoke 5y ago
> "Nuclear waste in canisters has never hurt anyone" This is an interesting statement, and though true I think it's a bit disingenuous. I'm no expert on nuclear or nuclear power, but I recently listened to a Canadaland podcast about nuclear waste [0] and did a little extra reading [1][2] on deep geological nuclear disposal. If what I heard/read is to believed, it sounds like although the international science community has agreed on the best and safest way to bury nuclear waste, this hasn't _actually_ ever been done. It's one thing to say to a community "in theory, we all agree that if everything is done correctly this is the best solution" and another COMPLETELY to trust that 1) The task will be done right, 2) The governing body (NGO, government, etc) will be around for the full lifetime of the nuclear waste being a threat (~150+ years), and 3) Said governing body will be well-funded enough the entire time to do the job right. I believe that the engineering solutions are sound, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss the concern "often good science isn't executed very well". Until this is addressed, I'm not sure "but the science says!" is going to be a very effective response. For something as high-stakes as this, we need a more comforting guarantee. [0] https://www.canadaland.com/nuclear-waste-ignace-ontario/ https://www.canadaland.com/nuclear-waste-ignace-ontario/ [1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12 https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pile... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/storage-and-disposal-of-radioactive-waste.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... EDIT: typo
- ncmncm 5y ago
  We might compare to what happened next to the Farallon islands, off California. At least 47,500 barrels of nuclear waste, weighted with concrete, just dropped in the water. (Those that floated anyway were shot.) The fate of the barrels was an example in my differential equations course. (tl;dr: They burst when they hit the sea floor.) Wikipedia suggests that "by 1980, most of the radiation had decayed". Excepting what hadn't, of course. All that observed, the problem with nuke plants is absolutely not the waste. The overwhelming problem is the outrageous cost, and that they don't start displacing fossil fuels for years, if ever. A dollar sunk into a nuke plant instead of renewables is simply sunk, as far as the climate is concerned.
mateo1 5y ago
I've seen 100 articles saying this yet not one environmentalist I know has changed his mind.
- 8bitsrule 5y ago
  The first person the article quotes at length is "Mark Nelson, who earned his Master of Philosophy degree at Cambridge University’s Nuclear Energy program." Why not lead with one of the 'more and more environmentalists'?? He's followed by Stewart Brand, who wasn't left with much cred decades ago when he made those statements. I guess those were their best choices??? What can't be denied is that there isn't time or willing money to go heavily nuclear at this point ... too late. Maybe they're hoping that they can keep enough from caring for so long that there'll be no options left - only billions of desperates.
laurencerowe 5y ago
I'm much less worried about the risks from nuclear power than I am about global warming. But while the costs of renewables continue to fall we now seem completely incapable to building new nuclear power for a reasonable price. While the article mentions "electricity in France was almost 40 percent cheaper than in Germany as of the first half of 2020" this is from the existing fleet power stations almost all of which were mostly built 30-40 years ago. Even France seems incapable of building new nuclear power stations at a reasonable cost: "EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months. The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... And for countries which have large investments in renewable energy, nuclear seems a poor match for balancing variable output since its costs are almost all capital expenditure so it never makes sense to run at less than full capacity.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fundad 5y ago
The industry relies on government spending, The only bigger enemy than environmentalist. I’m sure it was environmentalists that made it so a decade long tax-funded project isn’t possible in the US. Oh yeah and I guess it was environmentalists made this expression famous: I don’t want to smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud

55 points by mpweiher 5y ago

Needs (2021) in the title.

The subhead presents the intractibilty of discussions with these advocates; >Unfounded fears about nuclear technology may be undercutting the fight against climate change. *Unfounded* is not the word I would use to describe fears of massively proliferating reactors across the globe. Advocates simply don't accept that the known problems are worth discussing.

Chris2048 5y ago
> across the globe Does it have to be across the globe?
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  Well, nuclear is supposed to alleviate the need for emitting greenhouse gases, and they are currently emitted globally. Hard to see how nuclear represents the solution if it's only built in the current nuclear powers...
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    sanction countries based on CO2/carbon emissions, allow for selling carbon allowances to nuclear powers.
StillBored 5y ago
No, its because people run around screaming about "problems" where there are known engineering solutions. Instead they choose to remain willfully ignorant, or ignore those solutions. There are untold piles of designs that have never been built due to fear. Many of them solve problems with proliferation, or are fail safe with regards to meltdowns, but they never see the light of day because people run around fearmongering about issues which are basically nonexistent, or solved. Now granted, for example, pebble beds (which tend to be quite robust to both proliferation as well as meltdowns) have other issues with respect to how uneaven the fuel burns and how hard it is to reprocess. But that in many ways is by design. I mean we don't have "problems" with current reactors where we take ~95% of the fuel out and call it "waste". And so much of modern reactor design is basically building a giant bomb shelter around the plant, that even in the face of full blown wars its hard to see how the reactors are any more dangerous than many other heavy industries we take for granted (aka do you know what your local mega fab is storing onsite?)
- ncmncm 5y ago
  No, it's because nukes were and are fantastically expensive, and the projects are often cancelled with exactly zero watt-hours produced after massive cost overruns and absurd delays.
  - StillBored 5y ago
    Thats because the NRC (and similar agencies) exist effectively to assure that the cost is such that no nuke plants ever get built. Not a single NRC approved plan has ever been built, and its in no small part because of the billions of dollars in paper pushing politicians/etc getting in the way of people who actually design and build stuff. Nuke plants are hardly more complex than a combined cycle gas generator, and those are pretty inexpensive. (see also Korea for an example of building plants for less than the entire GDP of a country) If solar/wind had 1/2 of the regulatory overhead to assure that say the thorium tailings from rare earth mining (neodymium/etc) never got into the drinking water/air/etc then you would never see a single new solar/windmill either.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      There is no reason for solar or wind to suffer regulatory overhead. They pose no existential threat if built or operated unsafely. Worst case, they fall over.
      - StillBored 5y ago
        More people died in the Texas grid failure last year than have died in all the Nuke plant accidents. Unreliable power is dangerous too.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        The Texas grid failure was a product of under-regulation, not use of renewables. Responsible management requires back-up generation capacity that works when needed. What failed in Texas was that the (gas-fired) back-ups were not mandated to work when cold, and so didn't.

floppiplopp 5y ago

What's always missing in these kinds of propaganda articles is the resource issue with fissile material. If you look at the data given by the International Atomic Energy Agency you'll see that there are roughly 6 million tons available at the moment, with the price for uranium doubling over the last 20 years and cost for exploration quadrupling in the same time. Now, we get around 10% of all energy worldwide from fission, using 60k tons of uranium per year. So, at the current rate, we can do this for maybe 100-150 years. Increase the power output, reduce this time accordingly. And don't mention non-existing or experimental reactors like fusion of thorium, that have been just 10 years away from working for the last 50 years. We cannot solve climate change with current nuclear energy technology. There's just not enough fissile material.

DerArzt 5y ago
Yes, but..... It emits a lot less greenhouse gas right? Even if we only have 100-150 years, that is a long time horizon for us to figure out nuclear fission which doesn't use uranium. Our current problem is that we need energy, and we currently have several ways of producing it several of which produce much more green house gas than others. Nuclear looks like a less than ideal solution, but one that we know how to do today, and one that can replace coal/gas in the interim buying time while we get other tech ready to go.
- hinkley 5y ago
  The embodied energy problem with nuclear plants is nothing to laugh at. The barrier for getting new plants up is going to increase as we tackle the carbon footprint of concrete. At least until someone certifies these new concretes for building nuclear plants.
  - foxyv 5y ago
    Nuclear energy offers an excellent source of energy for the production of concrete. I can imagine that a new plant would not take very long for it to offset enough CO2 to make up for the CO2 used in its production. Similar to electric cars and solar panels.

ifokiedoke 5y ago

> "Nuclear waste in canisters has never hurt anyone" This is an interesting statement, and though true I think it's a bit disingenuous. I'm no expert on nuclear or nuclear power, but I recently listened to a Canadaland podcast about nuclear waste [0] and did a little extra reading [1][2] on deep geological nuclear disposal. If what I heard/read is to believed, it sounds like although the international science community has agreed on the best and safest way to bury nuclear waste, this hasn't _actually_ ever been done. It's one thing to say to a community "in theory, we all agree that if everything is done correctly this is the best solution" and another COMPLETELY to trust that 1) The task will be done right, 2) The governing body (NGO, government, etc) will be around for the full lifetime of the nuclear waste being a threat (~150+ years), and 3) Said governing body will be well-funded enough the entire time to do the job right. I believe that the engineering solutions are sound, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss the concern "often good science isn't executed very well". Until this is addressed, I'm not sure "but the science says!" is going to be a very effective response. For something as high-stakes as this, we need a more comforting guarantee. [0] https://www.canadaland.com/nuclear-waste-ignace-ontario/ https://www.canadaland.com/nuclear-waste-ignace-ontario/ [1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pilesscientists-seek-best/98/i12 https://cen.acs.org/environment/pollution/nuclear-waste-pile... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-waste/storage-and-disposal-of-radioactive-waste.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... EDIT: typo

ncmncm 5y ago
We might compare to what happened next to the Farallon islands, off California. At least 47,500 barrels of nuclear waste, weighted with concrete, just dropped in the water. (Those that floated anyway were shot.) The fate of the barrels was an example in my differential equations course. (tl;dr: They burst when they hit the sea floor.) Wikipedia suggests that "by 1980, most of the radiation had decayed". Excepting what hadn't, of course. All that observed, the problem with nuke plants is absolutely not the waste. The overwhelming problem is the outrageous cost, and that they don't start displacing fossil fuels for years, if ever. A dollar sunk into a nuke plant instead of renewables is simply sunk, as far as the climate is concerned.

mateo1 5y ago

I've seen 100 articles saying this yet not one environmentalist I know has changed his mind.

8bitsrule 5y ago
The first person the article quotes at length is "Mark Nelson, who earned his Master of Philosophy degree at Cambridge University’s Nuclear Energy program." Why not lead with one of the 'more and more environmentalists'?? He's followed by Stewart Brand, who wasn't left with much cred decades ago when he made those statements. I guess those were their best choices??? What can't be denied is that there isn't time or willing money to go heavily nuclear at this point ... too late. Maybe they're hoping that they can keep enough from caring for so long that there'll be no options left - only billions of desperates.

laurencerowe 5y ago

I'm much less worried about the risks from nuclear power than I am about global warming. But while the costs of renewables continue to fall we now seem completely incapable to building new nuclear power for a reasonable price. While the article mentions "electricity in France was almost 40 percent cheaper than in Germany as of the first half of 2020" this is from the existing fleet power stations almost all of which were mostly built 30-40 years ago. Even France seems incapable of building new nuclear power stations at a reasonable cost: "EDF estimated the cost at €3.3 billion and stated it would start commercial operations in 2012, after construction lasting 54 months. The latest cost estimate (July 2020) is at €19.1 billion, with commissioning planned tentatively at the end of 2022." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Plan... And for countries which have large investments in renewable energy, nuclear seems a poor match for balancing variable output since its costs are almost all capital expenditure so it never makes sense to run at less than full capacity.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fundad 5y ago

The industry relies on government spending, The only bigger enemy than environmentalist. I’m sure it was environmentalists that made it so a decade long tax-funded project isn’t possible in the US. Oh yeah and I guess it was environmentalists made this expression famous: I don’t want to smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud