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>Western nuclear power plants always had containment buildings, so no, this isn't a factor. You can't build a building that contains a steam explosion from a r

>Western nuclear power plants always had containment buildings, so no, this isn't a factor. You can't build a building that contains a steam explosion from a runaway reactor. If you could, the reactor could be made indestructible in the first place. Chernobyl has cost over 600 bn since 1986 and costs billions per year still, and will do so for the foreseeable future. The same goes for Fukushima. Such costs could appear at any time, anywhere in the world that has a nuclear reactor. For example due to negligence, acts of war or terrorism. No earthquake required. >Hydro storage is geographically dependent: you essentially need to be able to create an artificial alpine lake True if you want to create it from scratch, but many countries already have lots of hydro that could be increased by adding pumps to existing dams. Other countries can use other methods, like store heat, for example in molten salt. Thermal solar power plants generate power even during the night. Or you can generate Hydrogen or Nitrogen. Or you can store pressurized air on the ocean floor. Or you can use batteries. There are a number of options, and they all have the benefit of being safe enough and cheap enough that they can be made by anyone anywhere, even at small scale. I personally think that the ease of deployment will be the killer feature for storage, as it was for solar.

Manuel_D 4y ago
> You can't build a building that contains a steam explosion from a runaway reactor. If you could, the reactor could be made indestructible in the first place. Wrong: we can, and do, build concrete domes that contain a potential steam explosion. The pressure vessel has to connect to steam generators, control rods, and more whereas the secondary containment does not. Furthermore, once the pressure vessel explodes, the water boils off and is no longer being heated by the core. > Chernobyl has cost over 600 bn since 1986 and costs billions per year still, and will do so for the foreseeable future. The same goes for Fukushima. Got a source for these claims? Especially the "billions per year still" for Chernobyl? Even the more extreme estimates claim $200B for Fukushima, and much of that is speculative (nowhere near that much has actually been spent). > Other countries can use other methods, like store heat, for example in molten salt. Thermal solar power plants generate power even during the night. Or you can generate Hydrogen or Nitrogen. Or you can store pressurized air on the ocean floor. Or you can use batteries. Except for solar thermal (which was never cost competitive, and still suffers from intermittency due to weather), all of these things are experimental. Like I said: in order to make intermit energy sources feasible, we need some new form of energy storage that yields order-of-magnitude improvements over existing storage systems. Maybe some of these will be our silver bullet for storage. Maybe not. Most don't want to gamble the future of civilization on the guess that some silver bullet will be found.
- Kon5ole 4y ago
  > Got a source for these claims? Sure! If you are honestly interested in the truth, it's quite easy to find information about all things nuclear. The veneer of falsehoods causing people to believe that nuclear is cheap and safe when it clearly isn't is very thin and will only affect those who don't really want to know. Here's an estimate from 2016 for Chernobyl, the total back then was estimated to be around 700 bn USD but with some uncertainty. It's probably safe to say at least 600bn now, and it's ongoing. https://uscglobalhealth.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/2016_chernobyl_costs_report.pdf https://uscglobalhealth.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/2016_che... The yearly costs for handling Chernobyl (before the recent war) were over 5% of the national budget of Ukraine, and countries as far away as scandinavia still have ongoing costs. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1037451 https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1037451 >Even the more extreme estimates claim $200B for Fukushima 200 bn is the actual estimate from the government. (Extreme estimates are already at 1000 bn). 82 bn was spent in the first 11 years, meaning the average is over 7 billion yearly. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 The 200 bn estimate is very clearly extremely _optimistic_. It's frankly unreasonable to think that another 15 years will see the end of expenses related to Fukushima. Now imagine if we could spend all this money on energy storage instead. I think it could go a long way, we just need to do it.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Unsurprisingly, as per your source the figures for 600 billion for Chernobyl are not in the form of actual spending: this figure comes in the form of estimated economic impact. This is a drastically different figure, one that encompasses things far beyond actual spending. Fossil fuels have an estimated economic impact of over a trillion dollars every year. Figures for estimated economic impact are also hugely variable since study authors can apply analysis that includes more and more layers of indirection. The costs for Fukushima are also not bearing out as you seem to claim: the bulk of that 82 billion came in the form of disaster relief (more than half), land remediation. and decommissioning the plant. Storage of the waste water from continued maintenance of the failed reactor is a slim minority less than 3%. So I'm not sure why you seem to be under the impression that there will be so much more expense, when the most expensive steps - namely resettlement and cleanup - have already been completed. 10 trillion yen out of the 12 trillion are for disaster relief payments and decontamination - both of which are already done. You have demonstrated the ability to perform division when you calculate that 82 billion over 11 years works out to about 7.5 billion per year - but you're missing the fact that this spending was heavily frontloaded during the immediate disaster response.

Manuel_D 4y ago

> You can't build a building that contains a steam explosion from a runaway reactor. If you could, the reactor could be made indestructible in the first place. Wrong: we can, and do, build concrete domes that contain a potential steam explosion. The pressure vessel has to connect to steam generators, control rods, and more whereas the secondary containment does not. Furthermore, once the pressure vessel explodes, the water boils off and is no longer being heated by the core. > Chernobyl has cost over 600 bn since 1986 and costs billions per year still, and will do so for the foreseeable future. The same goes for Fukushima. Got a source for these claims? Especially the "billions per year still" for Chernobyl? Even the more extreme estimates claim $200B for Fukushima, and much of that is speculative (nowhere near that much has actually been spent). > Other countries can use other methods, like store heat, for example in molten salt. Thermal solar power plants generate power even during the night. Or you can generate Hydrogen or Nitrogen. Or you can store pressurized air on the ocean floor. Or you can use batteries. Except for solar thermal (which was never cost competitive, and still suffers from intermittency due to weather), all of these things are experimental. Like I said: in order to make intermit energy sources feasible, we need some new form of energy storage that yields order-of-magnitude improvements over existing storage systems. Maybe some of these will be our silver bullet for storage. Maybe not. Most don't want to gamble the future of civilization on the guess that some silver bullet will be found.

Kon5ole 4y ago
> Got a source for these claims? Sure! If you are honestly interested in the truth, it's quite easy to find information about all things nuclear. The veneer of falsehoods causing people to believe that nuclear is cheap and safe when it clearly isn't is very thin and will only affect those who don't really want to know. Here's an estimate from 2016 for Chernobyl, the total back then was estimated to be around 700 bn USD but with some uncertainty. It's probably safe to say at least 600bn now, and it's ongoing. https://uscglobalhealth.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/2016_chernobyl_costs_report.pdf https://uscglobalhealth.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/2016_che... The yearly costs for handling Chernobyl (before the recent war) were over 5% of the national budget of Ukraine, and countries as far away as scandinavia still have ongoing costs. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1037451 https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1037451 >Even the more extreme estimates claim $200B for Fukushima 200 bn is the actual estimate from the government. (Extreme estimates are already at 1000 bn). 82 bn was spent in the first 11 years, meaning the average is over 7 billion yearly. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14762193 The 200 bn estimate is very clearly extremely _optimistic_. It's frankly unreasonable to think that another 15 years will see the end of expenses related to Fukushima. Now imagine if we could spend all this money on energy storage instead. I think it could go a long way, we just need to do it.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Unsurprisingly, as per your source the figures for 600 billion for Chernobyl are not in the form of actual spending: this figure comes in the form of estimated economic impact. This is a drastically different figure, one that encompasses things far beyond actual spending. Fossil fuels have an estimated economic impact of over a trillion dollars every year. Figures for estimated economic impact are also hugely variable since study authors can apply analysis that includes more and more layers of indirection. The costs for Fukushima are also not bearing out as you seem to claim: the bulk of that 82 billion came in the form of disaster relief (more than half), land remediation. and decommissioning the plant. Storage of the waste water from continued maintenance of the failed reactor is a slim minority less than 3%. So I'm not sure why you seem to be under the impression that there will be so much more expense, when the most expensive steps - namely resettlement and cleanup - have already been completed. 10 trillion yen out of the 12 trillion are for disaster relief payments and decontamination - both of which are already done. You have demonstrated the ability to perform division when you calculate that 82 billion over 11 years works out to about 7.5 billion per year - but you're missing the fact that this spending was heavily frontloaded during the immediate disaster response.