6 ms·

Stewart Brand has an interesting take on this in Whole Earth Discipline (which is quite a read) - this is energy we don't know how to use yet. In 100 years, we'

Stewart Brand has an interesting take on this in Whole Earth Discipline (which is quite a read) - this is energy we don't know how to use yet. In 100 years, we'll be digging this stuff right up again, because there's energy in there. I'm not typically as utopian - techno or otherwise - as Brand, but I agree with him here - the nuclear industry is less than a century old, and we've already got a pretty good idea how to get enough energy from this fuel to not have a 100k year problem to begin with. Kicking the can down the road a couple decades might actually be the right thing to do here.

gtvwill 3y ago
Less common side of the argument a friend presented to me. We shouldn't use nuclear in mainstream use cases now because we don't harness enough of its power. We're basically depleting a future fuel supply before we even know how to use it properly. It has more value to us in the future when utilization is at higher %. Personally not sure which side of the fence I sit on. It definitely has benefits now, but we also have capacity to make do with other shit. If we make do with other stuff will we forget about it and never get to that higher utilization point? I found it an interesting point. Wouldn't be the first time humans have made something extinct/disappear/rare before the true value of the thing is understood. Use now with low efficacy for mild gains. Save for future with bet on higher efficiency and increased gains.
- cultofmetatron 3y ago
  the problem that argument is that we learn how to increase efficiency as a result of using it and building a supply chain around that resource. Just look at gas engines. a modern gas engine uses a fraction of the fuel of a model T to transport more weight faster to their destinations. What you're suggestion would be akin to saying we should avoid the model T and wait till the prius is available. without a car industry, we wouldn't have ever gotten the R&D to have a prius in the first place.
  - pazimzadeh 3y ago
    I get your overall point, however it's the reverse: electric cars were around before gas-powered cars. And the first hybrid gas-electric car was made around 1898. https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Once we're that much more capable we'll be doing fusion which requires different elements for fuel anyway.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  There's also the opportunity cost of not using nuclear fuel right now, instead burning fossil fuels and incurring all the irreversible long term damage that comes with it.
- civilitty 3y ago
  That doesn’t apply to fission power due to breeder reactors. We can wring more power and efficiency out of nuclear waste by just sticking it into a breeder reactor to absorb neutrons until the waste is up-converted back into fuel. That’s where the increased efficiency and gains will come from in the future - better and better ways to convert big atoms into fissile atoms. It doesn’t matter if those big atoms come from nuclear waste or some other source (like thorium!)
- tedunangst 3y ago
  Seems the same argument could be applied to coal and oil, but at least the byproducts of nuclear reactors could be potentially useful. Not much hope for the remnants of burnt coal.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  This is just a bad take. There is almost unimaginable amount Thorium and Uranium on the planet. We will never run out. In reality, volcanic activity keeps transporting thorium up, so it borderline renewable. We have energy for 100s or 1000s of years with nuclear, even used inefficiently. Sure it fucking sucks we are only mostly U-235 and we are doing it inefficiently, but stopping progress because of that is just dumb.
  - pazimzadeh 3y ago
    > We have energy for 100s or 1000s of years with nuclear, even used inefficiently Doesn't sound like a lot to me. I believe there must be something like Parkinson's law for energy (work expands to fill the allotted time) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
    - goda90 3y ago
      Asteroid mining and new sources of energy could be developed in that time though.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
    ‘No one will ever need more than 512kb of memory’ And calling something ‘a bad take’ because you have a differing opinion makes you an arrogant crass brute.
    - Swizec 3y ago
      No one would ever come up with usecases for more than 512kb of memory without first having access to 512kb of memory. You need to use stuff. Only then can you have better ideas.
      - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
        That was a paraphrased quote, made by bill gates. I think we’ve somehow found usecases for >512kb of memory, which was my point. Edit: I’ve conflated parent and grandparents points, I was in the middle of avoiding a social situation while posting.
- DennisP 3y ago
  All we have to do is keep the spent fuel around, and feed it into fast reactors later. Besides that, seawater extraction of uranium is already just five times more expensive than mining. With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical. Uranium mining today is a small portion of nuclear cost. With fast reactors fueled by seawater uranium, we'll have enough fuel for millions of years.
  - eternauta3k 3y ago
    > With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical What fraction of the cost of nuclear comes from the uranium costs?
    - DennisP 3y ago
      "Economics of new nuclear plants are heavily influenced by their capital cost, which accounts for at least 60% of their LCOE"[1] and "fuel costs account for about 28% of a nuclear plant's operating expenses."[2] So 28% of 40% gives about 10%. A lot of that fuel cost is probably fabrication and enrichment, which aren't trivial. But let's say it's the raw ore cost, in which case five times raises total cost by 40% for conventional reactors. But fast reactors use 1% as much uranium ore as conventional reactors, so it'd be 1% of 10%, times five means seawater extraction for fast reactor fuel would account for about half a percent of the cost of power. [1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...
- WalterBright 3y ago
  In the long term we'll have orbiting solar power stations collecting all the energy we could possibly use. Think of all the solar energy that misses the Earth and just flies off uselessly into space. There's another enormous source of energy right under our feet - the geothermal heat of the Earth. It isn't that far down, either.
Moldoteck 3y ago
We know how to use it... France already had(has) a reprocessing plant and according to wiki about 32k tonnes were processed during operation
audunw 3y ago
In 100 years we won't need it. In 100 years we'll be asking ourselves why we bothered with nuclear energy at all. Look at the fundamentals. There's more than enough free energy all around us. In 100 years the world population will be declining, and we will already have mined and refined all the metal we'll ever need. The energy use per person is already falling and will continue to fall. Solar will be vastly more cheap, efficient, and be part of a 100% circular economy. It'll cover most of the energy needs just by covering buildings or creating useful shades for parking, reservoars, irrigation channels and agrovoltaics. Energy storage will essentially be solved. We have to. You can't run a car or a ferry directly on nuclear energy. We have to store and transform energy at a similar scale to what's needed to balance the grid to replace fossil fuels anyway. Think about how many days you could run your house on a modern BEV. 5-7 days in my case. And already, today, my car is helping balancing the grid by avoiding charging when prices are high. I'd be willing to do V2G too if it was supported. In northern climates advanced geothermal will provide heat for district heating, and some extra electricity for the winter. Once you've built a well it provides all the benefits of nuclear with none of the downsides. It's just a matter of time before deep geothermal wells are cheap enough to drill. Could be decades, but not more than 100 years. With all the oil and gas engineers with nothing better to do in 20 years time.. I'm inclined to think we'll have some excellent solutions for advanced geothermal by 2050. We've already seen innovations from the oil/gas sector transferring over to geothermal in recent years. There are some nuclear proponents that dream about everyone having megawatts of personal energy. Think of everything we could do if we had 10x the energy we have today! That's a terrible idea. If the entire world went all-in on nuclear and expanded its energy usage, the waste heat would be a problem and a barrier to getting the climate back to a cooler stable equilibrium. Nuclear R&D is fantastic. We should continue to develop it. But mostly for future space use. Helions fusion reactor might be a good idea if it works. It should have less problems with waste heat since it converts much of the energy directly to electricity rather than using heat exchange mechanisms. If Helion succeeds fission is permanently dead, and we'll definitely want to bury the waste in 100k year storage so we don't burden our children with more debt and can stop thinking about the waste at all.
- wizofaus 3y ago
  > The energy use per person is already falling and will continue to fall. Source? I certainly wouldn't expect it to fall for the vast majority of the world's population.

gtvwill 3y ago

Less common side of the argument a friend presented to me. We shouldn't use nuclear in mainstream use cases now because we don't harness enough of its power. We're basically depleting a future fuel supply before we even know how to use it properly. It has more value to us in the future when utilization is at higher %. Personally not sure which side of the fence I sit on. It definitely has benefits now, but we also have capacity to make do with other shit. If we make do with other stuff will we forget about it and never get to that higher utilization point? I found it an interesting point. Wouldn't be the first time humans have made something extinct/disappear/rare before the true value of the thing is understood. Use now with low efficacy for mild gains. Save for future with bet on higher efficiency and increased gains.

cultofmetatron 3y ago
the problem that argument is that we learn how to increase efficiency as a result of using it and building a supply chain around that resource. Just look at gas engines. a modern gas engine uses a fraction of the fuel of a model T to transport more weight faster to their destinations. What you're suggestion would be akin to saying we should avoid the model T and wait till the prius is available. without a car industry, we wouldn't have ever gotten the R&D to have a prius in the first place.
- pazimzadeh 3y ago
  I get your overall point, however it's the reverse: electric cars were around before gas-powered cars. And the first hybrid gas-electric car was made around 1898. https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
wkat4242 3y ago
Once we're that much more capable we'll be doing fusion which requires different elements for fuel anyway.
jupp0r 3y ago
There's also the opportunity cost of not using nuclear fuel right now, instead burning fossil fuels and incurring all the irreversible long term damage that comes with it.
civilitty 3y ago
That doesn’t apply to fission power due to breeder reactors. We can wring more power and efficiency out of nuclear waste by just sticking it into a breeder reactor to absorb neutrons until the waste is up-converted back into fuel. That’s where the increased efficiency and gains will come from in the future - better and better ways to convert big atoms into fissile atoms. It doesn’t matter if those big atoms come from nuclear waste or some other source (like thorium!)
tedunangst 3y ago
Seems the same argument could be applied to coal and oil, but at least the byproducts of nuclear reactors could be potentially useful. Not much hope for the remnants of burnt coal.
panick21_ 3y ago
This is just a bad take. There is almost unimaginable amount Thorium and Uranium on the planet. We will never run out. In reality, volcanic activity keeps transporting thorium up, so it borderline renewable. We have energy for 100s or 1000s of years with nuclear, even used inefficiently. Sure it fucking sucks we are only mostly U-235 and we are doing it inefficiently, but stopping progress because of that is just dumb.
- pazimzadeh 3y ago
  > We have energy for 100s or 1000s of years with nuclear, even used inefficiently Doesn't sound like a lot to me. I believe there must be something like Parkinson's law for energy (work expands to fill the allotted time) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
  - goda90 3y ago
    Asteroid mining and new sources of energy could be developed in that time though.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
  ‘No one will ever need more than 512kb of memory’ And calling something ‘a bad take’ because you have a differing opinion makes you an arrogant crass brute.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    No one would ever come up with usecases for more than 512kb of memory without first having access to 512kb of memory. You need to use stuff. Only then can you have better ideas.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
      That was a paraphrased quote, made by bill gates. I think we’ve somehow found usecases for >512kb of memory, which was my point. Edit: I’ve conflated parent and grandparents points, I was in the middle of avoiding a social situation while posting.
DennisP 3y ago
All we have to do is keep the spent fuel around, and feed it into fast reactors later. Besides that, seawater extraction of uranium is already just five times more expensive than mining. With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical. Uranium mining today is a small portion of nuclear cost. With fast reactors fueled by seawater uranium, we'll have enough fuel for millions of years.
- eternauta3k 3y ago
  > With fast reactors getting a hundred times as much energy from the same amount of natural uranium, seawater extraction becomes easily economical What fraction of the cost of nuclear comes from the uranium costs?
  - DennisP 3y ago
    "Economics of new nuclear plants are heavily influenced by their capital cost, which accounts for at least 60% of their LCOE"[1] and "fuel costs account for about 28% of a nuclear plant's operating expenses."[2] So 28% of 40% gives about 10%. A lot of that fuel cost is probably fabrication and enrichment, which aren't trivial. But let's say it's the raw ore cost, in which case five times raises total cost by 40% for conventional reactors. But fast reactors use 1% as much uranium ore as conventional reactors, so it'd be 1% of 10%, times five means seawater extraction for fast reactor fuel would account for about half a percent of the cost of power. [1] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspec... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_pla...
WalterBright 3y ago
In the long term we'll have orbiting solar power stations collecting all the energy we could possibly use. Think of all the solar energy that misses the Earth and just flies off uselessly into space. There's another enormous source of energy right under our feet - the geothermal heat of the Earth. It isn't that far down, either.

Moldoteck 3y ago

We know how to use it... France already had(has) a reprocessing plant and according to wiki about 32k tonnes were processed during operation

audunw 3y ago

In 100 years we won't need it. In 100 years we'll be asking ourselves why we bothered with nuclear energy at all. Look at the fundamentals. There's more than enough free energy all around us. In 100 years the world population will be declining, and we will already have mined and refined all the metal we'll ever need. The energy use per person is already falling and will continue to fall. Solar will be vastly more cheap, efficient, and be part of a 100% circular economy. It'll cover most of the energy needs just by covering buildings or creating useful shades for parking, reservoars, irrigation channels and agrovoltaics. Energy storage will essentially be solved. We have to. You can't run a car or a ferry directly on nuclear energy. We have to store and transform energy at a similar scale to what's needed to balance the grid to replace fossil fuels anyway. Think about how many days you could run your house on a modern BEV. 5-7 days in my case. And already, today, my car is helping balancing the grid by avoiding charging when prices are high. I'd be willing to do V2G too if it was supported. In northern climates advanced geothermal will provide heat for district heating, and some extra electricity for the winter. Once you've built a well it provides all the benefits of nuclear with none of the downsides. It's just a matter of time before deep geothermal wells are cheap enough to drill. Could be decades, but not more than 100 years. With all the oil and gas engineers with nothing better to do in 20 years time.. I'm inclined to think we'll have some excellent solutions for advanced geothermal by 2050. We've already seen innovations from the oil/gas sector transferring over to geothermal in recent years. There are some nuclear proponents that dream about everyone having megawatts of personal energy. Think of everything we could do if we had 10x the energy we have today! That's a terrible idea. If the entire world went all-in on nuclear and expanded its energy usage, the waste heat would be a problem and a barrier to getting the climate back to a cooler stable equilibrium. Nuclear R&D is fantastic. We should continue to develop it. But mostly for future space use. Helions fusion reactor might be a good idea if it works. It should have less problems with waste heat since it converts much of the energy directly to electricity rather than using heat exchange mechanisms. If Helion succeeds fission is permanently dead, and we'll definitely want to bury the waste in 100k year storage so we don't burden our children with more debt and can stop thinking about the waste at all.

wizofaus 3y ago
> The energy use per person is already falling and will continue to fall. Source? I certainly wouldn't expect it to fall for the vast majority of the world's population.