4 ms·

The biggest red flag for me in nuclear is the complete lack of a closed ecosystem and if you bring it up youre immediately down voted here. We do not recycle w

The biggest red flag for me in nuclear is the complete lack of a closed ecosystem and if you bring it up youre immediately down voted here. We do not recycle waste, our plans for the waste are temporary at best, and no company has proposed a solution thats part of the build out of any new reactor. Were just supposed to assume it'll be fine.

digdugdirk 3y ago
Waste recycling is absolutely done. If you're referring to "we" as "USA", then correct. But it's not a technical issue. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20does%20not,%2C%20such%20as%20France%2C%20do https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-....
Yoric 3y ago
I could be wrong, but I believe that France recycles nuclear waste.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  They've admitted it costs more to do so than not doing so, and the benefits (in thermal reactors) are limited. The value of separated Pu in MOX fuel is actually negative (it's cheaper to use freshly enriched uranium), and MOX fuel cannot be recycled again in thermal reactors due to build up of undesirable Pu isotopes. France has terminated their fast reactor program, which had been the actual intended use for separated plutonium.
  - Yoric 3y ago
    Interesting. Are you talking of monetary cost or energy/raw material cost? If it's the former, that might be very dependent on market conditions.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Monetary. Uranium would have to be greatly more expensive to justify reprocessing for MOX for thermal reactors (or for fuel for fast reactors, for that matter).
- tesdinger 3y ago
  France has recently increased its prices on nuclear power. I noticed earlier last year that Germany is importing nuclear power from France, which is subsidized by France. So, and take this with a grain of salt, I am not an expert on this topic, Germany was essentially taking advantage of France. It is possible that they have now fixed this through the price hike.
acidburnNSA 3y ago
There are a few points on recycling nuclear waste: 1. We can and have done it in the past (see EBR-1 where we proved breeding in addition to recycling in 1952) 2. It is extra expensive; uranium is relatively cheap and would have to become ~3x more expensive before recycling was economical 3. Storing existing nuclear waste is relatively easy from a technical point of view because there's so little of it. Finland is moving forwards with their Onkalo repository as case in point. 4. Breeding and recycling is likely necessary if we go world-scale with nuclear and produce more like 50% of primary world energy rather than 4% 5. It's not unreasonable to do once-through now with deep geologic repositories and then switch to billion-year sustainable breeding/recycling if and when we build 3000 new gigawatt scale reactors.
credit_guy 3y ago
Russia just started burning MOX fuel with minor actinides extracted from spent fuel [1]. > Afterburning of minor actinides is the next step in closing nuclear fuel cycle, which should not only reduce the amount of nuclear waste for final isolation, but also significantly reduce its radioactivity. In the long term, it could avoid the complicated and expensive deep burial of waste [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Mixed-oxide-fuel-with-minor-actinides-produced-for https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Mixed-oxide-fuel...
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> lack of a closed ecosystem It’s a nothingburger—we can hide radioactive waste for a long time. Experts do not see it as a roadblock [1], and it’s a problem that diminishes with new designs. We’re not closing the loop on solar panels or wind turbines, by the way. Masswise, that’s a bigger problem. Toxicitywise, it’s in the same class after a few years. (Radioactive waste, unlike the worst chemical pollution, degrades over time. Not just dilutes. But actually degrades. The only reason we’re more scared of uranium than ethylene solvents or benzenes is novelty.) More directly, the world isn’t replacing nukes with solar. We—mostly the developing world—are replacing them with coal and gas. Stalling on nukes to cure public misconceptions is public action at its worst. [1] https://news.mit.edu/2023/3-questions-knowing-about-nuclear-waste-1019 https://news.mit.edu/2023/3-questions-knowing-about-nuclear-...
GuB-42 3y ago
It is not a closed system, sure, but with current technology, we have at least decades, if not centuries of nuclear fuel reserves. If we count future tech that we already have proofs-of-concept for, millennia. By the time, I hope we have something more exciting (fusion maybe). Nuclear waste is a non-problem, seriously. Yes, the material itself is pretty bad, but compared to the other pollutants, the quantities are tiny and easily manageable. What is a problem right are the waste products of combustion, CO2 in particular, but also things like coal ash that is radioactive and is not conveniently contained in barrels. Unlike with nuclear power where we have a couple hundred years to deal with potential problems coming from its non-renewable nature, carbon emissions are a problem we need to do something about right now.

digdugdirk 3y ago

Waste recycling is absolutely done. If you're referring to "we" as "USA", then correct. But it's not a technical issue. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20does%20not,%2C%20such%20as%20France%2C%20do https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-....

Yoric 3y ago

I could be wrong, but I believe that France recycles nuclear waste.

pfdietz 3y ago
They've admitted it costs more to do so than not doing so, and the benefits (in thermal reactors) are limited. The value of separated Pu in MOX fuel is actually negative (it's cheaper to use freshly enriched uranium), and MOX fuel cannot be recycled again in thermal reactors due to build up of undesirable Pu isotopes. France has terminated their fast reactor program, which had been the actual intended use for separated plutonium.
- Yoric 3y ago
  Interesting. Are you talking of monetary cost or energy/raw material cost? If it's the former, that might be very dependent on market conditions.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Monetary. Uranium would have to be greatly more expensive to justify reprocessing for MOX for thermal reactors (or for fuel for fast reactors, for that matter).
tesdinger 3y ago
France has recently increased its prices on nuclear power. I noticed earlier last year that Germany is importing nuclear power from France, which is subsidized by France. So, and take this with a grain of salt, I am not an expert on this topic, Germany was essentially taking advantage of France. It is possible that they have now fixed this through the price hike.

acidburnNSA 3y ago

There are a few points on recycling nuclear waste: 1. We can and have done it in the past (see EBR-1 where we proved breeding in addition to recycling in 1952) 2. It is extra expensive; uranium is relatively cheap and would have to become ~3x more expensive before recycling was economical 3. Storing existing nuclear waste is relatively easy from a technical point of view because there's so little of it. Finland is moving forwards with their Onkalo repository as case in point. 4. Breeding and recycling is likely necessary if we go world-scale with nuclear and produce more like 50% of primary world energy rather than 4% 5. It's not unreasonable to do once-through now with deep geologic repositories and then switch to billion-year sustainable breeding/recycling if and when we build 3000 new gigawatt scale reactors.

credit_guy 3y ago

Russia just started burning MOX fuel with minor actinides extracted from spent fuel [1]. > Afterburning of minor actinides is the next step in closing nuclear fuel cycle, which should not only reduce the amount of nuclear waste for final isolation, but also significantly reduce its radioactivity. In the long term, it could avoid the complicated and expensive deep burial of waste [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Mixed-oxide-fuel-with-minor-actinides-produced-for https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Mixed-oxide-fuel...

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> lack of a closed ecosystem It’s a nothingburger—we can hide radioactive waste for a long time. Experts do not see it as a roadblock [1], and it’s a problem that diminishes with new designs. We’re not closing the loop on solar panels or wind turbines, by the way. Masswise, that’s a bigger problem. Toxicitywise, it’s in the same class after a few years. (Radioactive waste, unlike the worst chemical pollution, degrades over time. Not just dilutes. But actually degrades. The only reason we’re more scared of uranium than ethylene solvents or benzenes is novelty.) More directly, the world isn’t replacing nukes with solar. We—mostly the developing world—are replacing them with coal and gas. Stalling on nukes to cure public misconceptions is public action at its worst. [1] https://news.mit.edu/2023/3-questions-knowing-about-nuclear-waste-1019 https://news.mit.edu/2023/3-questions-knowing-about-nuclear-...

GuB-42 3y ago

It is not a closed system, sure, but with current technology, we have at least decades, if not centuries of nuclear fuel reserves. If we count future tech that we already have proofs-of-concept for, millennia. By the time, I hope we have something more exciting (fusion maybe). Nuclear waste is a non-problem, seriously. Yes, the material itself is pretty bad, but compared to the other pollutants, the quantities are tiny and easily manageable. What is a problem right are the waste products of combustion, CO2 in particular, but also things like coal ash that is radioactive and is not conveniently contained in barrels. Unlike with nuclear power where we have a couple hundred years to deal with potential problems coming from its non-renewable nature, carbon emissions are a problem we need to do something about right now.