5 ms·

> Where has this shown to be realistic at scale? France. But also, even if the fuel isn't optimally recycled, nuclear power is realistic. "Put it in a can and

> Where has this shown to be realistic at scale? France. But also, even if the fuel isn't optimally recycled, nuclear power is realistic. "Put it in a can and bury it under a mountain" is a sufficient waste disposal strategy for a pretty long time, and certainly much less damaging that the current fossil fuel "strategy" of "blast it all into the atmosphere and let God sort it out". The US produces about 18% of its energy from nuclear today, and generates about 2000 tons of waste per year. Presumably that means that going all-nuclear would generate about 11,000 tons per year. The Yucca Mountain facility alone had a capacity of 77,000 tons - so about 7 years' worth of powering the whole country.

foolfoolz 3y ago
nuclear has been declining in france for 20 years
- para_parolu 3y ago
  And now they have to play putin games because they need gas.
  - crote 3y ago
    Not really. Pre-war it only imported 17% from Russia, and like most European countries it has since switched to other suppliers. Turns out bringing LNG regasification plants online can be done in a few months, and plenty of countries are willing and able to supply that.
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      Yeah now we in Europe pay 3x more for energy that we used to, and the process of liquifying natural gas generates 2-se the emissions that we did when we got gas from pipeline. Shipping LNG around the world is a greenwashing disaster, it's like when Europe burns biomass from trees chopped in the amazon and calls it 'sustainable'
      - crote 3y ago
        Electricity peaked in August 2022, and has returned pretty much back to pre-war levels. You might be paying 3x more, but your electricity provider definitely is not. Besides, the claim I responded to was that the decline of nuclear in France led to a dependency on Russia for gas. The fact that Europe rapidly switched to LNG shows that this is not true, regardless of your opinion about anything else. Nobody is pretending that LNG is green, and biomass is heavily criticized for exactly that reason.
- evilos 3y ago
  This was literally legislated by green party politicians. They passed a law mandating that the nuclear fleet must go from 75% to 50% of generation. They also forced the company that owns the fleet (EDF) to sell power at a loss to energy traders and placed a tax on all power bills that went directly to funding their renewable portfolio. Thankfully, they have changed course since the war and are now planning a new nuclear buildout as well as have removed the 50% cap. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-parliament-votes-nuclear-plan-with-large-majority-2023-03-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-parliament-votes...
walls 3y ago
> "Put it in a can and bury it under a mountain" is a sufficient waste disposal strategy for a pretty long time It's simple in theory, not so much in practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  I wonder if hurling it into the sun could be made cost effective.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    The problem is you need to get it into space first, which means putting it on top of a rocket. Rockets have this nasty habit where sometimes they blow up, and whatever they're carrying gets vaporised into the atmosphere.
  - ericbarrett 3y ago
    It actually takes much less energy to throw something out of the solar system than into the sun: 17 km/s deltaV versus 28 km/s.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    No. Kurzgesagt has a good video about this on YouTube. Launching nuclear waste into space is not even remotely cost effective (and launching it to the Sun is even worse).
  - smileysteve 3y ago
    Why the sun? It came from the earth; the core can process it back to a future mine.
  - AndrewPGameDev 3y ago
    Just some napkin math: (Suppose, as it hasn't been tested that the) SpaceX Starship can carry up to 100 tons of material to LEO. It costs 100 million USD per launch. (11,000 tons / 100 tons) * 100 million USD = 11 billion dollars. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has a budget of 149 billion, so under these pessimistic conditions it would cost around 7% of the budget. That's not good, but its not crazy either. Elon Musk has stated that he thinks the cost of launching Starship will go down to 10 million per launch in the next 2-3 years (not sure if thats realistic). On the other hand, we probably don't want to unload a bunch of nuclear material in LEO, but much further away from Earth. Just watched the Kurzgesagt video. They make the point that more radioactive material is put into the world by burning coal, which I think is a valid point. They use the Falcon 9 exclusively to calculate the cost of launching, and they never indicate in the video that the cost of putting 1 kg of material into space might go down. Falcon Heavy can already launch (reusable) 63.8 tons to LEO at a cost of 97 million, which is around 1500USD/kg instead of the 4000 they cite. They also strangely compare it to the cost of the fissile material, which doesn't make any sense as the majority of the cost for a nuclear reactor is in safety precautions, not in the actual production of nuclear fuel. In their sources they're a little less forward: Electricity from nuclear reactors is produced for about $70 per MWh, which is 7 cents per kWh. The fuel costs represent just 0.46 cents per kWh or 6.5% of the total cost. If we had to get rid of nuclear waste by putting it on rockets, causing fuel costs to rise 3.4 times to 1.57 cents per kWh, the total cost would be increased to 8.1 cents per kWh. This means the total cost becomes 16% higher. In the video they state "In 2021, we saw a record 135 launches into space. If we repurposed each of those rockets and filled them all with nuclear waste, the total amount that could be lifted into a Low Earth Orbit, which is the closest orbit above the atmosphere, is nearly 800 tonnes. " And then they extrapolate this out to... forever, I guess? Either way there were 178 successful launches in 2022. There have already been 123 (successful) launches in 2023. Regardless it seems reasonable to expect this number to go up and the average tonnage per rocket to go up. It just seems strange to make this video that is very explicitly only about 2021 and to have the economics change so much even in 2 years. I would've preferred if they stated in the video that it doesn't make sense today, but it could in 5 or 50 years, and made more arguments in favor of storing it deep underground. --- The biggest risk (as another commenter mentioned) is the massive risk to the environment by trying to shoot it into space. If we really needed to get rid of it, we could bury it under a mountain for 100 years, dig it back up, and shoot it into space when the cost is much lower, and its much safer to launch. Or just never launch it at all. I don't really buy the idea that burying nuclear waste in remote areas is dangerous. Critics say that the problem is that you have to keep waste contained continuously (say for the next 10,000 years) but I'm near certain we will have some way of truly getting rid of it in the next 500 years. Whether that's blasting it into space or reprocessing or something else entirely.
stephenr 3y ago
If your argument (or the argument you're standing by) says "the spent fuel can be recycled", but then you say "well even if we can't recycle it we can just bury it" (which by the by, is what happens a reasonable chunk of French nuclear waste), it makes your entire argument (or the argument you're standing by) sound... how do I put this.... juvenile. We know it can be buried. That’s what we're arguing against. What kind of mentality does it take to think that "aha! We can just bury it" is a gotcha response when someone says "but what about all the nuclear waste". That's like saying "what should we do about plastic waste?" "Aha! We can bury it". > so about 7 years' worth of powering the whole country Wow, what a long term solution you hate there. > less damaging that the current fossil fuel "strategy" You realise that literally no one arguing against nuclear power, thinks fossil fuels are the alternative right? What is it with nuclear proponents and ridiculous straw man arguments.
- kuchenbecker 3y ago
  The point is this is tractable. Your argument is Sophist deconstructing the previous argument without contributing to the discussion by nitpicking points.
- GeneralMayhem 3y ago
  > What kind of mentality does it take to think that "aha! We can just bury it" is a gotcha response when someone says "but what about all the nuclear waste". It's not a "gotcha" response - it's simply pointing out that "all" the nuclear waste is really not that much. > That's like saying "what should we do about plastic waste?" "Aha! We can bury it". No... because the whole point is the relative quantity. There's an absurd amount of plastic. Much, much, much more. And even collecting it into one place is hard, since it's in tiny bits in every room on the planet, whereas nuclear reactor byproducts tend to be centralized and easy to locate.
pseudosavant 3y ago
To put it into perspective, in 2021, the US generated ~1,800,000,000 tons of carbon (just the carbon part) from electricity generation. So yes, burying 11,000 tons per year would be far better than pumping 2B tons into the air and hoping for the best...

foolfoolz 3y ago

nuclear has been declining in france for 20 years

para_parolu 3y ago
And now they have to play putin games because they need gas.
- crote 3y ago
  Not really. Pre-war it only imported 17% from Russia, and like most European countries it has since switched to other suppliers. Turns out bringing LNG regasification plants online can be done in a few months, and plenty of countries are willing and able to supply that.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    Yeah now we in Europe pay 3x more for energy that we used to, and the process of liquifying natural gas generates 2-se the emissions that we did when we got gas from pipeline. Shipping LNG around the world is a greenwashing disaster, it's like when Europe burns biomass from trees chopped in the amazon and calls it 'sustainable'
    - crote 3y ago
      Electricity peaked in August 2022, and has returned pretty much back to pre-war levels. You might be paying 3x more, but your electricity provider definitely is not. Besides, the claim I responded to was that the decline of nuclear in France led to a dependency on Russia for gas. The fact that Europe rapidly switched to LNG shows that this is not true, regardless of your opinion about anything else. Nobody is pretending that LNG is green, and biomass is heavily criticized for exactly that reason.
evilos 3y ago
This was literally legislated by green party politicians. They passed a law mandating that the nuclear fleet must go from 75% to 50% of generation. They also forced the company that owns the fleet (EDF) to sell power at a loss to energy traders and placed a tax on all power bills that went directly to funding their renewable portfolio. Thankfully, they have changed course since the war and are now planning a new nuclear buildout as well as have removed the 50% cap. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-parliament-votes-nuclear-plan-with-large-majority-2023-03-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/french-parliament-votes...

walls 3y ago

> "Put it in a can and bury it under a mountain" is a sufficient waste disposal strategy for a pretty long time It's simple in theory, not so much in practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
I wonder if hurling it into the sun could be made cost effective.
- stephenr 3y ago
  The problem is you need to get it into space first, which means putting it on top of a rocket. Rockets have this nasty habit where sometimes they blow up, and whatever they're carrying gets vaporised into the atmosphere.
- ericbarrett 3y ago
  It actually takes much less energy to throw something out of the solar system than into the sun: 17 km/s deltaV versus 28 km/s.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  No. Kurzgesagt has a good video about this on YouTube. Launching nuclear waste into space is not even remotely cost effective (and launching it to the Sun is even worse).
- smileysteve 3y ago
  Why the sun? It came from the earth; the core can process it back to a future mine.
- AndrewPGameDev 3y ago
  Just some napkin math: (Suppose, as it hasn't been tested that the) SpaceX Starship can carry up to 100 tons of material to LEO. It costs 100 million USD per launch. (11,000 tons / 100 tons) * 100 million USD = 11 billion dollars. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has a budget of 149 billion, so under these pessimistic conditions it would cost around 7% of the budget. That's not good, but its not crazy either. Elon Musk has stated that he thinks the cost of launching Starship will go down to 10 million per launch in the next 2-3 years (not sure if thats realistic). On the other hand, we probably don't want to unload a bunch of nuclear material in LEO, but much further away from Earth. Just watched the Kurzgesagt video. They make the point that more radioactive material is put into the world by burning coal, which I think is a valid point. They use the Falcon 9 exclusively to calculate the cost of launching, and they never indicate in the video that the cost of putting 1 kg of material into space might go down. Falcon Heavy can already launch (reusable) 63.8 tons to LEO at a cost of 97 million, which is around 1500USD/kg instead of the 4000 they cite. They also strangely compare it to the cost of the fissile material, which doesn't make any sense as the majority of the cost for a nuclear reactor is in safety precautions, not in the actual production of nuclear fuel. In their sources they're a little less forward: Electricity from nuclear reactors is produced for about $70 per MWh, which is 7 cents per kWh. The fuel costs represent just 0.46 cents per kWh or 6.5% of the total cost. If we had to get rid of nuclear waste by putting it on rockets, causing fuel costs to rise 3.4 times to 1.57 cents per kWh, the total cost would be increased to 8.1 cents per kWh. This means the total cost becomes 16% higher. In the video they state "In 2021, we saw a record 135 launches into space. If we repurposed each of those rockets and filled them all with nuclear waste, the total amount that could be lifted into a Low Earth Orbit, which is the closest orbit above the atmosphere, is nearly 800 tonnes. " And then they extrapolate this out to... forever, I guess? Either way there were 178 successful launches in 2022. There have already been 123 (successful) launches in 2023. Regardless it seems reasonable to expect this number to go up and the average tonnage per rocket to go up. It just seems strange to make this video that is very explicitly only about 2021 and to have the economics change so much even in 2 years. I would've preferred if they stated in the video that it doesn't make sense today, but it could in 5 or 50 years, and made more arguments in favor of storing it deep underground. --- The biggest risk (as another commenter mentioned) is the massive risk to the environment by trying to shoot it into space. If we really needed to get rid of it, we could bury it under a mountain for 100 years, dig it back up, and shoot it into space when the cost is much lower, and its much safer to launch. Or just never launch it at all. I don't really buy the idea that burying nuclear waste in remote areas is dangerous. Critics say that the problem is that you have to keep waste contained continuously (say for the next 10,000 years) but I'm near certain we will have some way of truly getting rid of it in the next 500 years. Whether that's blasting it into space or reprocessing or something else entirely.

stephenr 3y ago

If your argument (or the argument you're standing by) says "the spent fuel can be recycled", but then you say "well even if we can't recycle it we can just bury it" (which by the by, is what happens a reasonable chunk of French nuclear waste), it makes your entire argument (or the argument you're standing by) sound... how do I put this.... juvenile. We know it can be buried. That’s what we're arguing against. What kind of mentality does it take to think that "aha! We can just bury it" is a gotcha response when someone says "but what about all the nuclear waste". That's like saying "what should we do about plastic waste?" "Aha! We can bury it". > so about 7 years' worth of powering the whole country Wow, what a long term solution you hate there. > less damaging that the current fossil fuel "strategy" You realise that literally no one arguing against nuclear power, thinks fossil fuels are the alternative right? What is it with nuclear proponents and ridiculous straw man arguments.

kuchenbecker 3y ago
The point is this is tractable. Your argument is Sophist deconstructing the previous argument without contributing to the discussion by nitpicking points.
GeneralMayhem 3y ago
> What kind of mentality does it take to think that "aha! We can just bury it" is a gotcha response when someone says "but what about all the nuclear waste". It's not a "gotcha" response - it's simply pointing out that "all" the nuclear waste is really not that much. > That's like saying "what should we do about plastic waste?" "Aha! We can bury it". No... because the whole point is the relative quantity. There's an absurd amount of plastic. Much, much, much more. And even collecting it into one place is hard, since it's in tiny bits in every room on the planet, whereas nuclear reactor byproducts tend to be centralized and easy to locate.

pseudosavant 3y ago

To put it into perspective, in 2021, the US generated ~1,800,000,000 tons of carbon (just the carbon part) from electricity generation. So yes, burying 11,000 tons per year would be far better than pumping 2B tons into the air and hoping for the best...