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Nuclear is 2% of world energy, and only an insignificant fraction is reprocessed right now. You're pushing it as a complete fossil fuel replacement, not electri

Nuclear is 2% of world energy, and only an insignificant fraction is reprocessed right now. You're pushing it as a complete fossil fuel replacement, not electrical generation. Then there's the rest of the world that don't have access to enough energy yet. So you're saying releasing 10PBq of Cs137 per year which is the lower bound on what la hague did in the 90s for reprocessing 1000t of fuel is completely fine and can be scaled up to the level required to generate world primary energy?

Manuel_D 4y ago
No, it wont. The UK and USSR dumped nearly 100 PBq of radioactive waste into the ocean. Scientists have monitored its activity and found that it dilutes to background levels of radiation. Over 2 million PBq of radiation were released during the cold war as part of nuclear weapon tests. And you know what dwarfs all of these figures? The naturally occurring potassium 40 isotope in the ocean makes up 14,000,000 PBq [1]. Even if your figure of 10 PBq is correct (you don't give a source for it) it is a drop in the bucket compared to what's already been released. Even 50 La Hague operating for 100 years, producing radioactive waste at your figures would not reach 1% of naturally occurring radiation. It's painfully obvious that Greenpeace is exploiting fundamental misunderstandings of radioactive waste, and how small it is compared to our background radiation exposure. And I'm sorry to tell you, you've fallen for their misinformation. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste#1946%E2%80%931993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Way to conflate different isotopes that are short lived or don't bioaccumulate. The total Cs137 (which caused most of the damage) entering the biosphere from nuclear testing was officially reported as 545PBq. My figure from La Hague was accidentally the total including H3, not just Cs137, but seeing as that's completely fine, let's use Stellafield before big mean Greenpeace and the nuclear alarmists held them to account at the end of your supposed golden age. This was around 4PBq/yr for reprocessing around 1500t/yr of low burnup SNF which would produce around 200t/yr or of MOX or about 10GWe Producing 10TWe or enough energy to power the world in your fantasy breeder scenario would be 4000PBq per year of Cs137 or 8x the fallout of the entire testing program every year if even a small portion of reprocessing operated in this completely fine and normal way. Your comparison to K40 is facile because Cs137 bioaccumulates up to 100x in food and it doesn't blend into the ocean evenly. The fukushima plume was still concentrated over a relatively small area and a few hundred m deep when it hit the coast of california 5 years later. There are still hotspots in Japan Now prove it's safe.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    The cesium 137 that "hit" the west coast was less than a trillionth higher than the pre-release concentration. 100x of an incredibly small number is still an incredibly small number. We test waters and measure their level of radioactive material. We do the same with fish. They're not even remotely close to hazardous levels. In fact they're not even consistently above baseline: https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/radiation/fukushima-update/fish-and-shellfish-testing https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/radiation/fukus... You're assuming that every reprocessing plant will release the same amount of radiation as Sellafield, which was a particularly badly run plant that saw over a dozen contamination incidents. And even then, it was still less than half the figures you initially claimed La Hague was releasing. No such releases have been measured. Greenpeace's claims of widespread contamination we're not replicated. The tests around the oceans in la Hague all indicate levels of cesium isotopes orders of magnitudes lower than unsafe levels. Fish are not showing radiation contamination. Greenpeace makes fake radiation readings all the time. They tried to claim the Olympic torch path was contaminated, nobody else was able to replicate their findings: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/radiation-hotspots-found-near-fukushima-olympic-site-greenpeace https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/radiation-hots... If one activist group published tests supposedly disproving anthropic climate change, would you just ignore all scientific concensus and believe this one group? Why is that valid reasoning when it comes to believing a fringe group's claims about radiation exposure? It's just a coincidence that no healthcare authority, no food and drug agency, no oceanography department, no group besides activists seem to be able to detect this contamination? Again, just think about how absurd this idea is: France is poisoning the English channel and the UK, Belgium, and Netherlands are totally okay with it? Somehow they're able to keep radiation levels under wraps when anybody can walk out to shore and collect a sample? Fish are being contaminated but nobody seems to be able to find radioactive
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      I never said it was currently unsustainable. And you're the one that wants to expand nuclear energy 50-fold and switch to breeders when the fuel runs out. Three or four coal plants would be fine. Just like the insignificant amount of reprocessing going on now is fine. You said Sellafield's emissions which were a product of a regulatory framework of the 70s were completely fine and insignificant. Now prove it. Back your position up. Demonstrate that its releases were insignificant when scaled to meet world demand and that it won't poison coastlines. Be sure to include the result of hot spots and bioaccumulation.

Manuel_D 4y ago

No, it wont. The UK and USSR dumped nearly 100 PBq of radioactive waste into the ocean. Scientists have monitored its activity and found that it dilutes to background levels of radiation. Over 2 million PBq of radiation were released during the cold war as part of nuclear weapon tests. And you know what dwarfs all of these figures? The naturally occurring potassium 40 isotope in the ocean makes up 14,000,000 PBq [1]. Even if your figure of 10 PBq is correct (you don't give a source for it) it is a drop in the bucket compared to what's already been released. Even 50 La Hague operating for 100 years, producing radioactive waste at your figures would not reach 1% of naturally occurring radiation. It's painfully obvious that Greenpeace is exploiting fundamental misunderstandings of radioactive waste, and how small it is compared to our background radiation exposure. And I'm sorry to tell you, you've fallen for their misinformation. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste#1946%E2%80%931993 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_...

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Way to conflate different isotopes that are short lived or don't bioaccumulate. The total Cs137 (which caused most of the damage) entering the biosphere from nuclear testing was officially reported as 545PBq. My figure from La Hague was accidentally the total including H3, not just Cs137, but seeing as that's completely fine, let's use Stellafield before big mean Greenpeace and the nuclear alarmists held them to account at the end of your supposed golden age. This was around 4PBq/yr for reprocessing around 1500t/yr of low burnup SNF which would produce around 200t/yr or of MOX or about 10GWe Producing 10TWe or enough energy to power the world in your fantasy breeder scenario would be 4000PBq per year of Cs137 or 8x the fallout of the entire testing program every year if even a small portion of reprocessing operated in this completely fine and normal way. Your comparison to K40 is facile because Cs137 bioaccumulates up to 100x in food and it doesn't blend into the ocean evenly. The fukushima plume was still concentrated over a relatively small area and a few hundred m deep when it hit the coast of california 5 years later. There are still hotspots in Japan Now prove it's safe.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  The cesium 137 that "hit" the west coast was less than a trillionth higher than the pre-release concentration. 100x of an incredibly small number is still an incredibly small number. We test waters and measure their level of radioactive material. We do the same with fish. They're not even remotely close to hazardous levels. In fact they're not even consistently above baseline: https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/radiation/fukushima-update/fish-and-shellfish-testing https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/radiation/fukus... You're assuming that every reprocessing plant will release the same amount of radiation as Sellafield, which was a particularly badly run plant that saw over a dozen contamination incidents. And even then, it was still less than half the figures you initially claimed La Hague was releasing. No such releases have been measured. Greenpeace's claims of widespread contamination we're not replicated. The tests around the oceans in la Hague all indicate levels of cesium isotopes orders of magnitudes lower than unsafe levels. Fish are not showing radiation contamination. Greenpeace makes fake radiation readings all the time. They tried to claim the Olympic torch path was contaminated, nobody else was able to replicate their findings: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/radiation-hotspots-found-near-fukushima-olympic-site-greenpeace https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/04/radiation-hots... If one activist group published tests supposedly disproving anthropic climate change, would you just ignore all scientific concensus and believe this one group? Why is that valid reasoning when it comes to believing a fringe group's claims about radiation exposure? It's just a coincidence that no healthcare authority, no food and drug agency, no oceanography department, no group besides activists seem to be able to detect this contamination? Again, just think about how absurd this idea is: France is poisoning the English channel and the UK, Belgium, and Netherlands are totally okay with it? Somehow they're able to keep radiation levels under wraps when anybody can walk out to shore and collect a sample? Fish are being contaminated but nobody seems to be able to find radioactive
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    I never said it was currently unsustainable. And you're the one that wants to expand nuclear energy 50-fold and switch to breeders when the fuel runs out. Three or four coal plants would be fine. Just like the insignificant amount of reprocessing going on now is fine. You said Sellafield's emissions which were a product of a regulatory framework of the 70s were completely fine and insignificant. Now prove it. Back your position up. Demonstrate that its releases were insignificant when scaled to meet world demand and that it won't poison coastlines. Be sure to include the result of hot spots and bioaccumulation.