5 ms·

>And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Only in the political sense. Waste volumes are small enough that we easily could if they

>And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Only in the political sense. Waste volumes are small enough that we easily could if they were willing to dig a big enough hole.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
You are neglecting the transport issue. It's hard enough to transport the waste over land, with all the security precautions. Crossing country borders is a huge political and diplomatic mess. Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me.
- ryathal 4y ago
  The US navy has hundreds of reactors doing just that now...
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    And they didn't ask any environmentalists how they feel about it.
    - petre 4y ago
      If we ask the environmentalists every time we'd end up like Germany - hooked on Russian gas, instead of France which doesn't have this problem due to the ~70% electrical energy mix coming from nuclear.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Well, look at what happens in China when industry doesn't need to obey to environmental concerns. France has plenty of problems with its nuclear power. Germany is moving away from Russian gas, and a lot quicker than Russia would like.
        petre 4y ago
        Moving to what, coal? For the volumes needed, a gas terminal is insufficient, so it would ultimately boil down to burning coal again. The problems France has with its nuclear reactors is the need to replace them and build new ones.
    - voldacar 4y ago
      "Environmentalists" have demonstrated for half a century that they are not credible on the topic of nuclear power. The NRC is probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths by retarding the construction of new nuclear fission for decades, which is the safest (deaths per watt hour) energy production tech we have
- varajelle 4y ago
  Probability of the ship sinking: quite low. Damages caused (by the nuclear waste) if the ship sinks: quite low. Multiply the two number, then it's very low. (a ship sinking is usually an environment desaster, but the nuclear waste sinking should be a very small concern because the waste are fixed in glass, and water absorb radiation)
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Handwavy assumptions about potential environmental disasters. Good job. Scaling nuclear power up by factor of 10 to 100 means scaling transport of nuclear waste up by the same factor at least. Including all the risks associated with it. People are not going to take these vague assurances after so much has gone wrong in the past.
- voldacar 4y ago
  Could you stop commenting on this? It's making me embarrassed to be a Bayesian
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  > Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me. Are you aware the several nuclear submarines have sunk? Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants (>80% for nuclear subs, ~20-25% for power plants). Yet no adverse impact is observed. Even in cases like Kursk where some radioactivity release is monitored, it subsides to background levels just a few meters outside the wreck.
  - jhgb 4y ago
    > Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants Which is surely one of the reasons why they generate less waste -- less non-fissile fuel to be irradiated, smaller reactor vessels to be activated, etc. Plus the average power generated is way lower for a nuclear submarine. A single commercial ~1 GW nuclear reactor quite likely produces as much power as the whole US submarine fleet on average, and there's hundreds of such ~1 GW units in the world. And less power means fewer fission events, which means less activation and less waste. So even a sunk sub is nowhere near the levels of a sunk commercial waste fuel shipment when it comes to what either of the two could release into the environment should the bad stuff leak out.

>And no, it's not possible to ship all the nuclear waste to Finland. Only in the political sense. Waste volumes are small enough that we easily could if they were willing to dig a big enough hole.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

You are neglecting the transport issue. It's hard enough to transport the waste over land, with all the security precautions. Crossing country borders is a huge political and diplomatic mess. Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me.

ryathal 4y ago
The US navy has hundreds of reactors doing just that now...
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  And they didn't ask any environmentalists how they feel about it.
  - petre 4y ago
    If we ask the environmentalists every time we'd end up like Germany - hooked on Russian gas, instead of France which doesn't have this problem due to the ~70% electrical energy mix coming from nuclear.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      Well, look at what happens in China when industry doesn't need to obey to environmental concerns. France has plenty of problems with its nuclear power. Germany is moving away from Russian gas, and a lot quicker than Russia would like.
      - petre 4y ago
        Moving to what, coal? For the volumes needed, a gas terminal is insufficient, so it would ultimately boil down to burning coal again. The problems France has with its nuclear reactors is the need to replace them and build new ones.
  - voldacar 4y ago
    "Environmentalists" have demonstrated for half a century that they are not credible on the topic of nuclear power. The NRC is probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths by retarding the construction of new nuclear fission for decades, which is the safest (deaths per watt hour) energy production tech we have
varajelle 4y ago
Probability of the ship sinking: quite low. Damages caused (by the nuclear waste) if the ship sinks: quite low. Multiply the two number, then it's very low. (a ship sinking is usually an environment desaster, but the nuclear waste sinking should be a very small concern because the waste are fixed in glass, and water absorb radiation)
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Handwavy assumptions about potential environmental disasters. Good job. Scaling nuclear power up by factor of 10 to 100 means scaling transport of nuclear waste up by the same factor at least. Including all the risks associated with it. People are not going to take these vague assurances after so much has gone wrong in the past.
voldacar 4y ago
Could you stop commenting on this? It's making me embarrassed to be a Bayesian
Manuel_D 4y ago
> Putting the waste on a ship with the potential of the ship sinking or having an accident elicits a big "nope" from me. Are you aware the several nuclear submarines have sunk? Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants (>80% for nuclear subs, ~20-25% for power plants). Yet no adverse impact is observed. Even in cases like Kursk where some radioactivity release is monitored, it subsides to background levels just a few meters outside the wreck.
- jhgb 4y ago
  > Their fuel is enriched far higher than terrestrial nuclear plants Which is surely one of the reasons why they generate less waste -- less non-fissile fuel to be irradiated, smaller reactor vessels to be activated, etc. Plus the average power generated is way lower for a nuclear submarine. A single commercial ~1 GW nuclear reactor quite likely produces as much power as the whole US submarine fleet on average, and there's hundreds of such ~1 GW units in the world. And less power means fewer fission events, which means less activation and less waste. So even a sunk sub is nowhere near the levels of a sunk commercial waste fuel shipment when it comes to what either of the two could release into the environment should the bad stuff leak out.