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Wind and solar aren't the answer either, or you wouldn't be having this discussion because it would already have been deployed. The economics of all intermitte

Wind and solar aren't the answer either, or you wouldn't be having this discussion because it would already have been deployed. The economics of all intermittent power sources make it unfeasible; Installing the necessary transmission lines to all those decentralized sites, the energy lost during transmission to and from storage, the costs of storing that much power, and the other inefficiencies of generating the power, make what you propose very unrealistic. Nuclear power is millions of times more energy dense than solar, wind, and fossil fuels. Though the current generation of nuclear reactors have some significant drawbacks, not the least of which is the inefficient use of fuels leading to nuclear wastes, they still generate much cleaner power than the alternatives. Liquid Salt reactor designs based on Thorium take aim specifically at the nuclear fuel and waste problems. Rather than using 1% of the solid fuel like today's reactors, it's possible for liquid salt reactors to use up nearly 99% of the fuel, reducing the waste problem by many orders of magnitude, and would not contain the transuranics that take 10s of thousands of years to decay. It's a good thing that serious people are looking into radically different forms of nuclear power. The current conventional reactors were based off of designs for producing materials for weapons, and it's high time we set that garbage aside and consider other options.

justatdotin 13y ago
"Wind and solar aren't the answer either, or you wouldn't be having this discussion because it would already have been deployed." I accept that these aren't 'solutions' for those who control the old energy industries and related power structures that are still dominant, but the logic on display here is fundamentally broken. Various forms of Solar, and bi-gas, are already deployed where I live. Tidal, geothermal and Wind are all well underway. These renewable energies already emerging around us are our inevitable future. I'm pretty familiar with hearing the nuclear industry over-promise, then watching them under-deliver, so feel free to bump that 99 to 99.9%. Continue fantasizing about radically different forms of nuclear power: I'm gonna remain focussed on the real detriments of the reactors being built (and up for license renewal) right now.
- jhartmann 13y ago
  Do the math, with advanced nuclear power (stuff we had working in the 60's and 70's, but was crap for bombs and upended the business model of existing nuclear which is roughly equivalent to giving the razor away at cost and making the money on the blades) you can hold all the energy you will ever use in your hand. A metal ball of Thorium is quite safe as well before it is used in a reactor. A molten salt reactor is a chemical plant running at ambient pressure, a much easier thing to deal with then the steam bombs we have currently deployed. They also don't require crazy coolants like liquid sodium (asking for it, a little water and boom) or fast neutrons (eats up anything containing them like swiss cheese.) The biggest problem with the nuclear industry is that they haven't been innovating since the 60's and 70's, not anything else really. Even the crazy steam bombs we have now are many orders of magnitude safer than other energy sources. How many people have died from installing solar panels, because of hydroelectric power, coal pollution, or petrochemical accidents? Let me give you a hint, all of these are WAY more than the number of people who have been affected by Nuclear accidents. Look up deaths per terawatt/hour of all the energy sources and you will see its quite clear that even current nuclear is SO much more safe than anything else, but it has been effectively marketed against by people invested in the status quo. Diffuse energy is economically unviable, it is only being deployed at great cost and things like solar will never solve baseline load. People also don't think about the pollution caused by manufacturing things like solar panels. There are vast areas in China that are full of industrial waste that will not degrade for a very very long time due to solar panel manufacturing. Way nastier stuff the radioactive elements, because anything that is really dangerous has a short half life (iodine is completely gone in weeks), and will clean up rather quickly or it is usable as a fuel (though we in the United States are daft for not reprocessing our fuel like sane countries like France.) Even existing nuclear is way better than anything else, and advanced nuclear is even better still. Nuclear has a marketing problem, not a technical one. If your worried about waste, well you have to realize that the really nasty stuff will all decay in 300-400 years, and anything radioactive left over is something I would be happy to have under my bed as I sleep. Anything radioactive at that point is also really fuel, and advanced nuclear reactors (like a molten salt reactor) will happily burn it up. The whole Yucca mountain crap is just caused by the United States having a silly ban on reprocessing. Another thing people don't mention is that the plutonium extracted from a long running reaction like those used for power is completely unsuitable for making bombs, its really just a bugaboo.
tehabe 13y ago
Actually, decentralised power sources would make high voltage lines obsolet because you can build them where you need the electricity. Centralised systems need high voltage lines around the country. Energy density is not a good measurement I think. In theory the sun sends more energy per day than we might ever need but we can only make use of parts of that. This is improving but still, just a tiny part of it. The same with Thorium or Uranium or even fossil fuels. Usually the efficiency of those power plants is well below 50%, nuclear power below 40%, coal even less, especially those "clean coal" CSS plants. The problem with molten salt reactor will be the same with fast breeders, where the liquid sodium was/is causing corrosion and problem when mixing with water. IIRC most accidents in FBRs were sodium related. And even if MSRs are cheaper in one way than current designs, it doesn't say they are not more expensive in other ways. But currently none of those reactor designs is ready for commercial use. None! With the time you need to get such a design up and running, you can also deploy renewable energy. Much more reliable and stable. In 2012 about 7.5 GW of renewable energy were deployed in Germany. Even if you calculate that not all of that is available around the clock, you would have build more than 2 EPRs with 1.6 GW electrical power to get the same amount of energy, which you just can't do within one year. Maybe MSR solve a lot of problems with nuclear energy but it won't come free, it won't come w/o other problems. All forms of energy have drawbacks. Photovoltaik uses rare earth, wind has huge towers which are not really popular with locals, water has a huge impact on rivers and the environment. Biomass has the problem with using food for energy, and usage of land. I could continue the entire night. The important question is a different one, do you want to solve the energy problem or just ask the next generation to solve it for you?
- peterpathname 13y ago
  thats it. if all the nuclear promises come true, its still just offering to delay the inevitable

justatdotin 13y ago

"Wind and solar aren't the answer either, or you wouldn't be having this discussion because it would already have been deployed." I accept that these aren't 'solutions' for those who control the old energy industries and related power structures that are still dominant, but the logic on display here is fundamentally broken. Various forms of Solar, and bi-gas, are already deployed where I live. Tidal, geothermal and Wind are all well underway. These renewable energies already emerging around us are our inevitable future. I'm pretty familiar with hearing the nuclear industry over-promise, then watching them under-deliver, so feel free to bump that 99 to 99.9%. Continue fantasizing about radically different forms of nuclear power: I'm gonna remain focussed on the real detriments of the reactors being built (and up for license renewal) right now.

jhartmann 13y ago
Do the math, with advanced nuclear power (stuff we had working in the 60's and 70's, but was crap for bombs and upended the business model of existing nuclear which is roughly equivalent to giving the razor away at cost and making the money on the blades) you can hold all the energy you will ever use in your hand. A metal ball of Thorium is quite safe as well before it is used in a reactor. A molten salt reactor is a chemical plant running at ambient pressure, a much easier thing to deal with then the steam bombs we have currently deployed. They also don't require crazy coolants like liquid sodium (asking for it, a little water and boom) or fast neutrons (eats up anything containing them like swiss cheese.) The biggest problem with the nuclear industry is that they haven't been innovating since the 60's and 70's, not anything else really. Even the crazy steam bombs we have now are many orders of magnitude safer than other energy sources. How many people have died from installing solar panels, because of hydroelectric power, coal pollution, or petrochemical accidents? Let me give you a hint, all of these are WAY more than the number of people who have been affected by Nuclear accidents. Look up deaths per terawatt/hour of all the energy sources and you will see its quite clear that even current nuclear is SO much more safe than anything else, but it has been effectively marketed against by people invested in the status quo. Diffuse energy is economically unviable, it is only being deployed at great cost and things like solar will never solve baseline load. People also don't think about the pollution caused by manufacturing things like solar panels. There are vast areas in China that are full of industrial waste that will not degrade for a very very long time due to solar panel manufacturing. Way nastier stuff the radioactive elements, because anything that is really dangerous has a short half life (iodine is completely gone in weeks), and will clean up rather quickly or it is usable as a fuel (though we in the United States are daft for not reprocessing our fuel like sane countries like France.) Even existing nuclear is way better than anything else, and advanced nuclear is even better still. Nuclear has a marketing problem, not a technical one. If your worried about waste, well you have to realize that the really nasty stuff will all decay in 300-400 years, and anything radioactive left over is something I would be happy to have under my bed as I sleep. Anything radioactive at that point is also really fuel, and advanced nuclear reactors (like a molten salt reactor) will happily burn it up. The whole Yucca mountain crap is just caused by the United States having a silly ban on reprocessing. Another thing people don't mention is that the plutonium extracted from a long running reaction like those used for power is completely unsuitable for making bombs, its really just a bugaboo.

tehabe 13y ago

Actually, decentralised power sources would make high voltage lines obsolet because you can build them where you need the electricity. Centralised systems need high voltage lines around the country. Energy density is not a good measurement I think. In theory the sun sends more energy per day than we might ever need but we can only make use of parts of that. This is improving but still, just a tiny part of it. The same with Thorium or Uranium or even fossil fuels. Usually the efficiency of those power plants is well below 50%, nuclear power below 40%, coal even less, especially those "clean coal" CSS plants. The problem with molten salt reactor will be the same with fast breeders, where the liquid sodium was/is causing corrosion and problem when mixing with water. IIRC most accidents in FBRs were sodium related. And even if MSRs are cheaper in one way than current designs, it doesn't say they are not more expensive in other ways. But currently none of those reactor designs is ready for commercial use. None! With the time you need to get such a design up and running, you can also deploy renewable energy. Much more reliable and stable. In 2012 about 7.5 GW of renewable energy were deployed in Germany. Even if you calculate that not all of that is available around the clock, you would have build more than 2 EPRs with 1.6 GW electrical power to get the same amount of energy, which you just can't do within one year. Maybe MSR solve a lot of problems with nuclear energy but it won't come free, it won't come w/o other problems. All forms of energy have drawbacks. Photovoltaik uses rare earth, wind has huge towers which are not really popular with locals, water has a huge impact on rivers and the environment. Biomass has the problem with using food for energy, and usage of land. I could continue the entire night. The important question is a different one, do you want to solve the energy problem or just ask the next generation to solve it for you?

peterpathname 13y ago
thats it. if all the nuclear promises come true, its still just offering to delay the inevitable