5 ms·

The engineering side might be a theoretically solved problem, anybody looking at belgium's crumbling nuclear powerplants can help but feeling slightly nervous!

The engineering side might be a theoretically solved problem, anybody looking at belgium's crumbling nuclear powerplants can help but feeling slightly nervous! I agree we probably need nuclear to bridge the gap until solar or wind can take over fully, but there are a lot of problems with nuclear and the most pressing ones are connected to the unwillingness of people to spend money before a disaster happens. On top of that, uranium is a limited resource, it's extraction is (energetically) expensive and dirty and the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Storing safely stuff for thousands of years is just not a realistic scenario whatsoever. All this is not to say we should just skip on nuclear power altogether, we can't afford that I think and burning all the fossil fuels will probably have more disastrous consequences. But we shouldn't close out eyes to the problems either.

ben_w 6mo ago
> and the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Storing safely stuff for thousands of years is just not a realistic scenario whatsoever. More of a political problem, from what I hear. This is, if anything, worse: simply not knowing is a research problem, but knowing how to do it and yet having an influential group saying "no because reasons" could be genuinely insurmountable.
- maybewhenthesun 6mo ago
  My experience is that politicians tend to hand-wave this problem away, while physicists and geologists acknowledge the problem and actually think about it. So imo not really a political problem.
yvdriess 6mo ago
Just to highlight: in contrast with fossil fuels, at least nuclear waste is something we can capture, creating a storage problem.
- tcfhgj 6mo ago
  *if everything works as planned
  - leonidasrup 6mo ago
    If everything works as planned fossil fuel power plant emmits CO2 and pollutants.
    - tcfhgj 6mo ago
      Gladly, you don't need to use them
      - Moldoteck 6mo ago
        not if you read fraunhofer ise decarbonization pathways report. If you dont like nuclear and have no hydro, it basically means fossils
        tcfhgj 6mo ago
        I don't know how you read this out of the report When we already talk about Fraunhofer, they with a few other institutes, have been sketching out various pathways over the years for Germany for transitioning to a renewable energy system multiple times, see https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-wAssets/docs/LFS3_O45_Webinar_Energieangebot.pdf https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-wAssets/docs... While Germany has some hydro, it's just a tiny amount
        Moldoteck 6mo ago
        I'm talking about this one https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-to-a-climate-neutral-energy-system.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-... In pessimistic economy growth scenario about 80GW of gas are needed or more otherwise. The hope is to sometime replace it with hydrogen which looks like a gamble https://ieefa.org/resources/germanys-gas-and-hydrogen-gamble https://ieefa.org/resources/germanys-gas-and-hydrogen-gamble
pjc50 6mo ago
Given the actual build times of nuclear plants in Europe, vs the renewables build out rate, we need solar and wind to tide us over for a decade or more before the nuclear plants come on line.
- Filligree 6mo ago
  Solar and wind cannot do that. We'll need oil and gas to tide us over for that decade or more.
  - pjc50 6mo ago
    Some gas, but we can reduce it by an order of magnitude. Either way nuclear is not coming online quickly.
  - torpfactory 6mo ago
    Solar and wind are scaling much faster than gas and oil right now. After the recent Iran war I think it would be insane to rely on new oil or gas. Yeah let’s rely on this commodity whose supply and price are controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs on the planet.
    - i_love_retros 6mo ago
      >Yeah let’s rely on this commodity whose supply and price are controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs on the planet. Don't talk about Americans that way!
      - torpfactory 6mo ago
        We aren’t making a very good case for ourselves on the world stage are we…
DeusExMachina 6mo ago
> the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Nuclear waste is small and solid, not a leaky green ooze like you see in the Simpsons. You can just bury it deep in a mountain, which is where you extracted the uranium from in the first place. - https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-... - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... - https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11/it-sounds-crazy-but-fukushima-chernobyl-and-three-mile-island-show-why-nuclear-is-inherently-safe/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11...
- frm88 6mo ago
  Nuclear waste is small and solid That would depend on the category of the waste: - High level waste - Transuranic waste - Low level waste where high level waste comes in two classes: spent fuel and reprocessing waste, the latter being liquid (possibly not green). https://ieer.org/resource/classroom/classifications-nuclear-waste/ https://ieer.org/resource/classroom/classifications-nuclear-... You can just bury it deep in a mountain Belgium is notably lacking in mountains, which is why they now start building a site for low level nuclear waste storage, adding to the cost. For high level nuclear waste they have to build deep underground, waterproof, bomb-proof facilities at high expense: https://www.nirasondraf.be/ https://www.nirasondraf.be/ As for the article by Shellenberger you linked, please note that he is a right winger criticising wokeism etc, who claims eternal growth can continue like until now without ecoogical impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger Edit: I just found out that Shellenberger now works on finding the Aliens: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth", Shellenberger claimed sources have told him that intelligence communities "are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information" about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Same wiki.
  - DeusExMachina 6mo ago
    > please note that he is a right winger criticising wokeism Ad hominem. Criticize the argument. Your opinion about Shellenberger or even his other opinions are irrelevant. I don't particularly like him, but that does not mean all his points are invalid.
Moldoteck 6mo ago
Belgian plants arent crumbling, they just need refurbs to have higher CF. Uranium is sufficient to outlive the sun. Nuclear requires least amount of materials and mining. Uranium mining is nowadays mostly in situ which is environmentally fine vs say lithium mining. "Storing safely stuff for thousands of years is just not a realistic scenario whatsoever." - so you say the same nonsense about storing arsenic/cadmium/lead waste from copper mining for eternity? Storing nuclear waste isnt much different from say Herfa Neurode. An example is onkalo. Soon others will appear, like Fosmark. FFS you just thrown a bunch of fossil propaganda nonsense

ben_w 6mo ago

> and the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Storing safely stuff for thousands of years is just not a realistic scenario whatsoever. More of a political problem, from what I hear. This is, if anything, worse: simply not knowing is a research problem, but knowing how to do it and yet having an influential group saying "no because reasons" could be genuinely insurmountable.

maybewhenthesun 6mo ago
My experience is that politicians tend to hand-wave this problem away, while physicists and geologists acknowledge the problem and actually think about it. So imo not really a political problem.

yvdriess 6mo ago

Just to highlight: in contrast with fossil fuels, at least nuclear waste is something we can capture, creating a storage problem.

tcfhgj 6mo ago
*if everything works as planned
- leonidasrup 6mo ago
  If everything works as planned fossil fuel power plant emmits CO2 and pollutants.
  - tcfhgj 6mo ago
    Gladly, you don't need to use them
    - Moldoteck 6mo ago
      not if you read fraunhofer ise decarbonization pathways report. If you dont like nuclear and have no hydro, it basically means fossils
      - tcfhgj 6mo ago
        I don't know how you read this out of the report When we already talk about Fraunhofer, they with a few other institutes, have been sketching out various pathways over the years for Germany for transitioning to a renewable energy system multiple times, see https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-wAssets/docs/LFS3_O45_Webinar_Energieangebot.pdf https://langfristszenarien.de/enertile-explorer-wAssets/docs... While Germany has some hydro, it's just a tiny amount
        Moldoteck 6mo ago
        I'm talking about this one https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-to-a-climate-neutral-energy-system.html https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-... In pessimistic economy growth scenario about 80GW of gas are needed or more otherwise. The hope is to sometime replace it with hydrogen which looks like a gamble https://ieefa.org/resources/germanys-gas-and-hydrogen-gamble https://ieefa.org/resources/germanys-gas-and-hydrogen-gamble

pjc50 6mo ago

Given the actual build times of nuclear plants in Europe, vs the renewables build out rate, we need solar and wind to tide us over for a decade or more before the nuclear plants come on line.

Filligree 6mo ago
Solar and wind cannot do that. We'll need oil and gas to tide us over for that decade or more.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  Some gas, but we can reduce it by an order of magnitude. Either way nuclear is not coming online quickly.
- torpfactory 6mo ago
  Solar and wind are scaling much faster than gas and oil right now. After the recent Iran war I think it would be insane to rely on new oil or gas. Yeah let’s rely on this commodity whose supply and price are controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs on the planet.
  - i_love_retros 6mo ago
    >Yeah let’s rely on this commodity whose supply and price are controlled by the dumbest egomaniacs on the planet. Don't talk about Americans that way!
    - torpfactory 6mo ago
      We aren’t making a very good case for ourselves on the world stage are we…

DeusExMachina 6mo ago

> the storage of the nuclear waste is very far from a solved engineering problem. Nuclear waste is small and solid, not a leaky green ooze like you see in the Simpsons. You can just bury it deep in a mountain, which is where you extracted the uranium from in the first place. - https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-nuclear-fuel https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-... - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... - https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11/it-sounds-crazy-but-fukushima-chernobyl-and-three-mile-island-show-why-nuclear-is-inherently-safe/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/03/11...

frm88 6mo ago
Nuclear waste is small and solid That would depend on the category of the waste: - High level waste - Transuranic waste - Low level waste where high level waste comes in two classes: spent fuel and reprocessing waste, the latter being liquid (possibly not green). https://ieer.org/resource/classroom/classifications-nuclear-waste/ https://ieer.org/resource/classroom/classifications-nuclear-... You can just bury it deep in a mountain Belgium is notably lacking in mountains, which is why they now start building a site for low level nuclear waste storage, adding to the cost. For high level nuclear waste they have to build deep underground, waterproof, bomb-proof facilities at high expense: https://www.nirasondraf.be/ https://www.nirasondraf.be/ As for the article by Shellenberger you linked, please note that he is a right winger criticising wokeism etc, who claims eternal growth can continue like until now without ecoogical impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger Edit: I just found out that Shellenberger now works on finding the Aliens: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth", Shellenberger claimed sources have told him that intelligence communities "are sitting on a huge amount of visual and other information" about Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Same wiki.
- DeusExMachina 6mo ago
  > please note that he is a right winger criticising wokeism Ad hominem. Criticize the argument. Your opinion about Shellenberger or even his other opinions are irrelevant. I don't particularly like him, but that does not mean all his points are invalid.

Moldoteck 6mo ago

Belgian plants arent crumbling, they just need refurbs to have higher CF. Uranium is sufficient to outlive the sun. Nuclear requires least amount of materials and mining. Uranium mining is nowadays mostly in situ which is environmentally fine vs say lithium mining. "Storing safely stuff for thousands of years is just not a realistic scenario whatsoever." - so you say the same nonsense about storing arsenic/cadmium/lead waste from copper mining for eternity? Storing nuclear waste isnt much different from say Herfa Neurode. An example is onkalo. Soon others will appear, like Fosmark. FFS you just thrown a bunch of fossil propaganda nonsense