5 ms·

It's great to see you invest your time and money in nuclear power Sam. We already have the nuclear technology to solve our energy emissions problem, we just lac

It's great to see you invest your time and money in nuclear power Sam. We already have the nuclear technology to solve our energy emissions problem, we just lack the political will to make the shift away from coal/oil/gas. Great leaps in the efficiency and safety of nuclear power systems will hopefully make the shift politically achievable.

arenaninja 11y ago
I thought the biggest hurdle with nuclear energy was waste management? As in, we've nowhere to put the toxic dump that's produced that will radiate a few tens of thousands of years? Unless that's been solved, in which case consumer education would be a next step
- jerf 11y ago
  I've been convinced for a while that the reason this problem is not solved is that everybody is sure that the problem is not solved, and therefore nuclear is really hard, and therefore we shouldn't do research on nuclear, and therefore we shouldn't do any engineering on the topic of how to solve our waste issues. In other words, ultimately the reason is circular logic. It's 2015, and we remain essentially stuck on 1950s B-Movie era stereotypes on how nuclear works, what it is, and how dangerous it is.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Much of the waste problem can be solved by using reactors designed to use the waste as fuel. This isn't currently done, but there's no big technical reason it couldn't be. For what remains after that, well, there's nothing particularly wrong with sticking it in some extremely sturdy armored containers, sticking the containers in a shed, surrounding the shed with a razor-wire fence, and stationing a couple of guards at the gate. The paranoia over nuclear waste is weird. What if civilization collapses and people in the far future discover the stuff and don't know it's dangerous? It lasts tens of thousands of years, after all! OK, but we leave dangerous stuff all over the place. There are tons of barrels of toxic chemicals, ponds full of poison, and heaps of awful stuff just sitting around, and more being produced all the time. Nuclear waste is bad because it lasts tens of thousands of years? How about arsenic or mercury, which lasts forever? And sure, precautions are taken with those toxins, but not on the "this must be placed in a geologically stable area, packaged to survive the fall of civilization, and signposted so that all future intelligence will know to avoid it" level of precaution.
  - chinathrow 11y ago
    It's not paranoia, it's a real issue with that waste. We have no working waste solution as of today. We have no working long term storage solution as of today. We have not priced the cost of long term storage/plant decomissioning etc at the full cost into the price of nuclear power - that is for most countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dealing-with-asse-where-should-germany-store-its-nuclear-waste-a-577018.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dealing-with-ass...
    - mikeash 11y ago
      What's wrong with copying the solution used for all the other toxic waste modern industry produces? We have no working long term solution for storing arsenic, but people mostly seem fine with "just dispose of it in a way where it doesn't leech into the groundwater" and not the crazy restrictions everyone wants to put on nuclear waste storage.
      - chinathrow 11y ago
        I am not a tox/haz/nuclear waste engineer (someone?) but I assume that groundwater threatening waste is being regarded differently than highly radioactive substances. Can't you protect yourself and go cleanup an arsenic spill "easily" compared to how you would cleanup a radioactive spent fuel rod container which tore open? IIRC the latter is a real issue currently at Asse in Germany.
      - throwaway24242 11y ago
        Sry, that is a terrible argument. You are saying that we do not have to worry about nuclear waste, because we currently do not worry about other waste.
        mikeash 11y ago
        I'm saying that nuclear waste is treated with far more paranoia than it deserves, as illustrated by how we dispose of other waste much less carefully, even though it's just as dangerous. And mostly successfully, too. That doesn't mean that it's something to be ignored, or that current methods of waste disposal are perfect, but if we aren't shutting down the entire chemical industry (for example) over this problem then why should we require that nuclear waste and only nuclear waste be solved for all time before nuclear power can be used?

arenaninja 11y ago

I thought the biggest hurdle with nuclear energy was waste management? As in, we've nowhere to put the toxic dump that's produced that will radiate a few tens of thousands of years? Unless that's been solved, in which case consumer education would be a next step

jerf 11y ago
I've been convinced for a while that the reason this problem is not solved is that everybody is sure that the problem is not solved, and therefore nuclear is really hard, and therefore we shouldn't do research on nuclear, and therefore we shouldn't do any engineering on the topic of how to solve our waste issues. In other words, ultimately the reason is circular logic. It's 2015, and we remain essentially stuck on 1950s B-Movie era stereotypes on how nuclear works, what it is, and how dangerous it is.
mikeash 11y ago
Much of the waste problem can be solved by using reactors designed to use the waste as fuel. This isn't currently done, but there's no big technical reason it couldn't be. For what remains after that, well, there's nothing particularly wrong with sticking it in some extremely sturdy armored containers, sticking the containers in a shed, surrounding the shed with a razor-wire fence, and stationing a couple of guards at the gate. The paranoia over nuclear waste is weird. What if civilization collapses and people in the far future discover the stuff and don't know it's dangerous? It lasts tens of thousands of years, after all! OK, but we leave dangerous stuff all over the place. There are tons of barrels of toxic chemicals, ponds full of poison, and heaps of awful stuff just sitting around, and more being produced all the time. Nuclear waste is bad because it lasts tens of thousands of years? How about arsenic or mercury, which lasts forever? And sure, precautions are taken with those toxins, but not on the "this must be placed in a geologically stable area, packaged to survive the fall of civilization, and signposted so that all future intelligence will know to avoid it" level of precaution.
- chinathrow 11y ago
  It's not paranoia, it's a real issue with that waste. We have no working waste solution as of today. We have no working long term storage solution as of today. We have not priced the cost of long term storage/plant decomissioning etc at the full cost into the price of nuclear power - that is for most countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dealing-with-asse-where-should-germany-store-its-nuclear-waste-a-577018.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dealing-with-ass...
  - mikeash 11y ago
    What's wrong with copying the solution used for all the other toxic waste modern industry produces? We have no working long term solution for storing arsenic, but people mostly seem fine with "just dispose of it in a way where it doesn't leech into the groundwater" and not the crazy restrictions everyone wants to put on nuclear waste storage.
    - chinathrow 11y ago
      I am not a tox/haz/nuclear waste engineer (someone?) but I assume that groundwater threatening waste is being regarded differently than highly radioactive substances. Can't you protect yourself and go cleanup an arsenic spill "easily" compared to how you would cleanup a radioactive spent fuel rod container which tore open? IIRC the latter is a real issue currently at Asse in Germany.
    - throwaway24242 11y ago
      Sry, that is a terrible argument. You are saying that we do not have to worry about nuclear waste, because we currently do not worry about other waste.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        I'm saying that nuclear waste is treated with far more paranoia than it deserves, as illustrated by how we dispose of other waste much less carefully, even though it's just as dangerous. And mostly successfully, too. That doesn't mean that it's something to be ignored, or that current methods of waste disposal are perfect, but if we aren't shutting down the entire chemical industry (for example) over this problem then why should we require that nuclear waste and only nuclear waste be solved for all time before nuclear power can be used?