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> Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shado

> Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas. [1] Cool. Now explain what happens in the ground water around Kadapa or Rossing or Kakadu. Nuclear waste is very much an issue, you're just trying to focus on the stuff you have a vague plan for rather than no plan. Noone is suggesting more coal. They're suggesting renewables which are faster, cheaper, less centralized, less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors, more able to be deployed in unstable regions, just as safe, less polluting, produce less non-radioactive waste, and use fewer materials.

arcticbull 4y ago
> cheaper Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar. > less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors Not sure what you mean. Plenty in Canada. > more able to be deployed in unstable regions Existing designs are already not a proliferation risk. > less polluting Nuclear is not polluting. > produce less non-radioactive waste A non-goal if appropriately sequestered. > use fewer materials Also, IMO, a non-goal. > Nuclear waste is very much an issue.... [citation needed] Renewables have to factor in the impact and cost of storage. That means today pumped hydro, and also battery storage. Batteries are not environmentally friendly, cheap or easy to make. Renewables require base load. Nuclear provides base load.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar. Prove it. Show me an LCA for mass expansion of nuclear, including the new mines in lower concentration deposits that comes out at lower carbon than new renewables with hydrogen (or even gas) backup for the 5% needed to cover the gaps using current technology. Then after you exhaust known reserves in 10 years include whatever scifi scheme you have for getting more. Here's a mix for somewhere in the arctic to get you started before you start concern trolling about winter: https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d01#solve https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d... > Nuclear is not polluting. Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague Every other stage of the supply chain spews heavy metals and radiation into the environment. Then there's the fact that there simply isn't enough uranium.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    > Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague Nuclear accidents are polluting, but steady state certainly is not. But what makes you think that this will be an issue elsewhere going forward? There's no evidence to think so. On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly. And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries. Battery storage requires huge quantities of lithium. A single Tesla battery pack generates as much CO2 in production as an entire ICE car does in manufacture. There is of course more than enough uranium. There's billions of tons dissolved in seawater, enough for 100,000 years of current electric capacity. In fact a new gel was just discovered to make extraction much more efficient. [2] That 4 billion tons is actually replenished as it's extracted from geological processes. There is plenty of Uranium for conventional fission reactors. By most measures, existing nuclear power schemes are renewable. Then, breeder reactors require some 100x less uranium, and CANDU reactors can already operate on thorium cycle. There is no perfect solution, and meeting our energy needs at minimum CO2 requires a variety of energy sources. I'm not opposed to renewables at all. By all means, build away. [1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... [2] https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/ https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      Wind power does not, in fact, require rare-earth metals. Rare-earth metals are now being mined (mainly for fractional-horsepower motors) in other places.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        There have always been rare earth metals outside of China, but the reason they're mined in China is only China has been willing to pay the environmental cost associated with their extraction, processing and refinement. As the peer comment pointed out you can have copper-only turbines but copper mining is an equally brutal process. [1, 2] Fun fact: copper is frequently co-located with uranium, radium and thorium. In-situ leaching can transport uranium and thorium into groundwater or surface water at the processing site. [2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-mining-reveals-clean-energy-dark-side https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin... [2] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-production-wastes https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-produ...
8note 4y ago
> Noone is suggesting more coal. What's the scope of noone? To my knowledge, new coal plants are still being built all over the world?
goatlover 4y ago
Chernobyl is basically a wildlife preserve now that humans don't live there. The dangers of nuclear accidents have been somewhat overstated. They don't create radioactive hellholes where nothing lives for thousands of years. That's simply false. It's just that humans don't wish to risk the higher cancer rates and birth defects. Nature though can manage that.
- twaw 4y ago
  Did you read about Red Forest near to Chornobyl? A nuclear station has enough material for a continent-wide Red Forest. Luckily, Chornobyl accident was steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion, so very small portion of nuclear fuel was leaked.
  - MertsA 4y ago
    This isn't correct. Chernobyl was a steam explosion but it's literally not possible for any nuclear power plant to ever have a true nuclear bomb type explosion. That's a trope straight out of the Simpsons. Chernobyl was just about the worst case scenario in terms of reactor stability combining a positive void coefficient, moderator tipped control rods, a Xenon saturated reactor core, almost all control rods removed, and no containment structure to top it all off. As far as "a very small portion of nuclear fuel" being leaked, that steam explosion completely removed the reactor hall above it. It's not like it was just the lid that flew off, the remains of the fuel bundles and graphite moderators were scattered for miles. The graphite left in the crater where the reactor used to be was all burning for days spreading any fission products contained inside up with the smoke. Chernobyl was the worst case disaster. Even before Chernobyl happened nuclear power plants outside of the USSR were already using much much safer designs. Ultimately Chernobyl has killed more people due to fears around nuclear power than even the highest realistic death toll from the accident itself.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I wasn't talking about chernobyl. I was talking about the wastelands created by mining ore that is around the same energy density as coal and leaving the toxic leaching fluid lying around or pumping it into ground water.
Manuel_D 4y ago
> less centralized I finding it amusing how wind and solar proponents cite this as a postive. It's actually a liability: energy demand is centralized in population centers but low density energy sources muse be decentralized by necessity. This means more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. This explains more: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Yet another lie and attempt to derail from the point. Political centralisation, not physical. You can build a 1GW renewable plant and connect it to a transmission line just fine, but much more importantly anyone can build one. There's no way 50% of the world will be allowed their own enrichment or reprocessing facilities. And even in the ones that are allowed, the process is necessarily under extreme regulatory capture and is controlled by a cartel that makes oil look like a free market. Rosatom had to be exempted from sanctions because the fuel and waste processing supply chains are so centralised that over half of Europe's nuclear fleet would have shut down if they didn't do businessnwith Russia.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Highlighting the (potential) benefits of political decentralization does not detract from the downsides of geographic decentralization. Regardless, plenty of smaller countries manage to get along with nuclear power just fine. Slovakia, Korea, Canada, the Czech republic, Argentina. Nuclear power has spread to every content, and dozens of countries. Centralizing reprocessing may help with nuclear weapons proliferation, but most countries have a regional hegemon that already have nuclear weapons that they're fine importing from. How big was the business with Rosatom compared with Germany importing gas from Gazprom because they invested in an intermittent power source? China accounts for nearly 80% of the world's battery supply chain [1]. And over 80% for solar panels [2]. There's a strong case to be made that renewable are more centralized: besides wind it's just one country dominating the whole market. The enriched uranium supply is actually much more diverse: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched-uranium-exporting-countries-based-on-value/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched... 1. https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-the-market-for-lithium-batteries-and-why-the-u-s-cannot-copy-their-model/ https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-th... 2. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...

arcticbull 4y ago

> cheaper Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar. > less dependent on oligopolies and hostile foreign actors Not sure what you mean. Plenty in Canada. > more able to be deployed in unstable regions Existing designs are already not a proliferation risk. > less polluting Nuclear is not polluting. > produce less non-radioactive waste A non-goal if appropriately sequestered. > use fewer materials Also, IMO, a non-goal. > Nuclear waste is very much an issue.... [citation needed] Renewables have to factor in the impact and cost of storage. That means today pumped hydro, and also battery storage. Batteries are not environmentally friendly, cheap or easy to make. Renewables require base load. Nuclear provides base load.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> Cheaper is a non-goal for me. Better is the goal. And nuclear delivers consistent stable baseload that supplements renewables while having a lower carbon footprint than both wind and solar. Prove it. Show me an LCA for mass expansion of nuclear, including the new mines in lower concentration deposits that comes out at lower carbon than new renewables with hydrogen (or even gas) backup for the 5% needed to cover the gaps using current technology. Then after you exhaust known reserves in 10 years include whatever scifi scheme you have for getting more. Here's a mix for somewhere in the arctic to get you started before you start concern trolling about winter: https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d01#solve https://model.energy/?results=822cd1d042dfd31d9faf011150ee2d... > Nuclear is not polluting. Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague Every other stage of the supply chain spews heavy metals and radiation into the environment. Then there's the fact that there simply isn't enough uranium.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  > Serpent river, Rossing, Kakadu, Kadapa, Church Hill, La Hague Nuclear accidents are polluting, but steady state certainly is not. But what makes you think that this will be an issue elsewhere going forward? There's no evidence to think so. On the other hand, wind power requires rare earth metals that are mined in open pit hellscapes in Mongolia. [1] That doesn't look very environmentally friendly. And of course solar panels are for now just acres and acres of e-waste that gets buried in poor countries. Battery storage requires huge quantities of lithium. A single Tesla battery pack generates as much CO2 in production as an entire ICE car does in manufacture. There is of course more than enough uranium. There's billions of tons dissolved in seawater, enough for 100,000 years of current electric capacity. In fact a new gel was just discovered to make extraction much more efficient. [2] That 4 billion tons is actually replenished as it's extracted from geological processes. There is plenty of Uranium for conventional fission reactors. By most measures, existing nuclear power schemes are renewable. Then, breeder reactors require some 100x less uranium, and CANDU reactors can already operate on thorium cycle. There is no perfect solution, and meeting our energy needs at minimum CO2 requires a variety of energy sources. I'm not opposed to renewables at all. By all means, build away. [1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... [2] https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/ https://bigthink.com/hard-science/extract-uranium-seawater/
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    Wind power does not, in fact, require rare-earth metals. Rare-earth metals are now being mined (mainly for fractional-horsepower motors) in other places.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      There have always been rare earth metals outside of China, but the reason they're mined in China is only China has been willing to pay the environmental cost associated with their extraction, processing and refinement. As the peer comment pointed out you can have copper-only turbines but copper mining is an equally brutal process. [1, 2] Fun fact: copper is frequently co-located with uranium, radium and thorium. In-situ leaching can transport uranium and thorium into groundwater or surface water at the processing site. [2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-mining-reveals-clean-energy-dark-side https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/09/copper-minin... [2] https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-production-wastes https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-copper-mining-and-produ...

8note 4y ago

> Noone is suggesting more coal. What's the scope of noone? To my knowledge, new coal plants are still being built all over the world?

goatlover 4y ago

Chernobyl is basically a wildlife preserve now that humans don't live there. The dangers of nuclear accidents have been somewhat overstated. They don't create radioactive hellholes where nothing lives for thousands of years. That's simply false. It's just that humans don't wish to risk the higher cancer rates and birth defects. Nature though can manage that.

twaw 4y ago
Did you read about Red Forest near to Chornobyl? A nuclear station has enough material for a continent-wide Red Forest. Luckily, Chornobyl accident was steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion, so very small portion of nuclear fuel was leaked.
- MertsA 4y ago
  This isn't correct. Chernobyl was a steam explosion but it's literally not possible for any nuclear power plant to ever have a true nuclear bomb type explosion. That's a trope straight out of the Simpsons. Chernobyl was just about the worst case scenario in terms of reactor stability combining a positive void coefficient, moderator tipped control rods, a Xenon saturated reactor core, almost all control rods removed, and no containment structure to top it all off. As far as "a very small portion of nuclear fuel" being leaked, that steam explosion completely removed the reactor hall above it. It's not like it was just the lid that flew off, the remains of the fuel bundles and graphite moderators were scattered for miles. The graphite left in the crater where the reactor used to be was all burning for days spreading any fission products contained inside up with the smoke. Chernobyl was the worst case disaster. Even before Chernobyl happened nuclear power plants outside of the USSR were already using much much safer designs. Ultimately Chernobyl has killed more people due to fears around nuclear power than even the highest realistic death toll from the accident itself.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Schroedingersat 4y ago
I wasn't talking about chernobyl. I was talking about the wastelands created by mining ore that is around the same energy density as coal and leaving the toxic leaching fluid lying around or pumping it into ground water.

Manuel_D 4y ago

> less centralized I finding it amusing how wind and solar proponents cite this as a postive. It's actually a liability: energy demand is centralized in population centers but low density energy sources muse be decentralized by necessity. This means more transmission infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. This explains more: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ScJ_FwaZk

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Yet another lie and attempt to derail from the point. Political centralisation, not physical. You can build a 1GW renewable plant and connect it to a transmission line just fine, but much more importantly anyone can build one. There's no way 50% of the world will be allowed their own enrichment or reprocessing facilities. And even in the ones that are allowed, the process is necessarily under extreme regulatory capture and is controlled by a cartel that makes oil look like a free market. Rosatom had to be exempted from sanctions because the fuel and waste processing supply chains are so centralised that over half of Europe's nuclear fleet would have shut down if they didn't do businessnwith Russia.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Highlighting the (potential) benefits of political decentralization does not detract from the downsides of geographic decentralization. Regardless, plenty of smaller countries manage to get along with nuclear power just fine. Slovakia, Korea, Canada, the Czech republic, Argentina. Nuclear power has spread to every content, and dozens of countries. Centralizing reprocessing may help with nuclear weapons proliferation, but most countries have a regional hegemon that already have nuclear weapons that they're fine importing from. How big was the business with Rosatom compared with Germany importing gas from Gazprom because they invested in an intermittent power source? China accounts for nearly 80% of the world's battery supply chain [1]. And over 80% for solar panels [2]. There's a strong case to be made that renewable are more centralized: besides wind it's just one country dominating the whole market. The enriched uranium supply is actually much more diverse: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched-uranium-exporting-countries-based-on-value/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147358/leading-enriched... 1. https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-the-market-for-lithium-batteries-and-why-the-u-s-cannot-copy-their-model/ https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-th... 2. https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/executive-summary https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...