Merged nuclear power safe?

[r-j]

Every method of energy creation you choose has the problem of accumulation.

The amount of waste from wind is really starting to pile up.

 

[bikerdruid]

The amount of waste from wind is really starting to pile up.

and i have to sweep up the masses of dead photons below my solar panels regularly .

 

[Ziggurat]

The amount of waste from wind is really starting to pile up.

Actually...

 

[jimbob]

Excellent point. I knew launches were expensive, I just didn't know how expensive. Thanks.

And a lot of the expense is in energy... You wouldn't want it merely in orbit as it would come crashing down eventually. #
So at the best, with 100% efficiency you'd need to accelerate it to escape velocity about 11km/second

E=0.5.m.V²
Which comes to about 60 MJ/kg.

there is a large mass of nuclear waste

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

The amount of waste from wind is really starting to pile up.

The amount of waste from wind is actually piling up faster than the power it generates (construction and maintenance generates waste too).

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

and i have to sweep up the masses of dead photons below my solar panels regularly .

And the mining sites in China where the rare earth metals your solar panels are made of came from?

 

[Corsair 115]

If nuclear power actually was safe, and nuclear waste was safe, and nuclear material was safe, nobody would be discussing it.

The U.S. Navy has been using nuclear reactors to power its submarines and aircraft carriers for some fifty years now. It seems to have managed to operate its reactors safely without issue.

The nation of France has an extensive nuclear power network and it too has managed to operate its reactors without issue.

 

[PGH]

And a lot of the expense is in energy... You wouldn't want it merely in orbit as it would come crashing down eventually. #
So at the best, with 100% efficiency you'd need to accelerate it to escape velocity about 11km/second

E=0.5.m.V²
Which comes to about 60 MJ/kg.

there is a large mass of nuclear waste

Any chance we could run those shuttles on nuclear waste?

Didn't think so.


But to stand up for my idea we do shoot plenty of things into space for various reasons. Space exploration, the international space station, sattellites... if we have the money to shoot a manned rocket into space to study the effects of zero gravity on ant populations isn't it worth it to spend the money to help us have a viable and clean energy policy? (I know they study more than just ants up there, just making a point)

Run everything on electric, including vehicles, set up an effective grid, centralize a large number of nuclear reactors somewhere out of the way and shoot the dangerous byproduct the hell out of here. I'll be the first to admit that it's cavalier and incredibly wasteful. But I don't see sucking all the planet's oil out of it's crust and burning it on the surface, creating massive amounts of Earthly pollution, as a problem free idea either.

 

[Hellbound]

Personally, I think we need to develop some sort of gun-type launch platform (conventional or electromag). Not having to carry 15 to 20 times the weight of your payload as fuel cuts a LOT of the costs out.

Of course, a space eleveator type thing would work too...if you're too chicken for the space gun

 

[jimbob]

Any chance we could run those shuttles on nuclear waste?

Didn't think so.


But to stand up for my idea we do shoot plenty of things into space for various reasons. Space exploration, the international space station, sattellites... if we have the money to shoot a manned rocket into space to study the effects of zero gravity on ant populations isn't it worth it to spend the money to help us have a viable and clean energy policy? (I know they study more than just ants up there, just making a point)

Run everything on electric, including vehicles, set up an effective grid, centralize a large number of nuclear reactors somewhere out of the way and shoot the dangerous byproduct the hell out of here. I'll be the first to admit that it's cavalier and incredibly wasteful. But I don't see sucking all the planet's oil out of it's crust and burning it on the surface, creating massive amounts of Earthly pollution, as a problem free idea either.

As huntsman alludes to in the post after yours, this is if you manage to send up the waste without having any mass for multiple stage rockets etc.

Wikipedia's entry on the shuttle says it has a mass of about 2000 tonnes and a payload of about 24 tonnes. This is for low earth orbit, not foe escape velocity sot the energy costs are orders of magnitude for a realistic attmpt

 

[Christian Klippel]

Last I checked the energy industry still judged TWRs to be too expensive to impliment. Or so the story goes.

Google for "terrapower toshiba twr". They are working on it, and even Bill Gates is throwing money at that.

So, while no electricity-producing TWR has been built yet, work is done on that technology.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[PGH]

Personally, I think we need to develop some sort of gun-type launch platform (conventional or electromag). Not having to carry 15 to 20 times the weight of your payload as fuel cuts a LOT of the costs out.

Of course, a space eleveator type thing would work too...if you're too chicken for the space gun

A very sound idea. I'll be adding your name to the proposal I'm submitting.

Nuclear waste fired into space from a cannon to save the world
as submitted by PGH and Hellbound

 

[Safe-Keeper]

If nuclear power actually was safe, and nuclear waste was safe, and nuclear material was safe, nobody would be discussing it. We would just all be using safe nuclear power.

In a logicaland rational society, no, we wouldn't. Same way there'd be no evoluution/creationism comtroversy in such a society.

Pity we don't live in such a world.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

If nuclear power actually was safe, and nuclear waste was safe, and nuclear material was safe, nobody would be discussing it. We would just all be using safe nuclear power.

In a logicaland rational society, no, we wouldn't. Same way there'd be no evoluution/creationism comtroversy in such a society.

Pity we don't live in such a world.

 

[theprestige]

If nuclear power actually was safe, and nuclear waste was safe, and nuclear material was safe, nobody would be discussing it. We would just all be using safe nuclear power.

This is just a terrible argument, r-j: You're trying to compensate for your own ignorance by appealing to the ignorance of everybody else.

ETA: If nuclear power actually was dangerous, and nuclear waste was dangerous, and nuclear material was dangerous, why do the people who know the most about it choose to work with it every day?

Who knows more about nuclear power? The guy who's never been inside a nuclear power plant, and who probably hasn't even passed a high school physics class? Or the guy with an advanced degree in nuclear power plant engineering, who works in one every day?

It's obvious who to trust in this matter: The guy who knows everything there is to know about nuclear power, and still thinks it's a good idea.

 

[Aepervius]

You forget that nuclear waste is continuously accumulating and this radioactive decay happens over a period of time, not instantaneously. Sure the older material losses it's status as high level radioactive waste over time but new high level material is being accumulated at an increasing rate as more reactors come on line.

But the POINT is that highly radioactive is a SHORT TERM waste. What people usually protest agaisnt (beside NIMBY) is long term waste, and those are NEITHER highly radioactive NOR in big quantites !

BTW, Plutonium is extremely poisonous.

And so is mercury, but you will hardly have a problem with plutonium in food chains. Now mercury OTOH...

At present most of this waste is being stored on site, not in a location specifically designed for safe, long term storage. That is still being held up by our fearless leaders.

That is the US way. France for example has another much more meaningfull way.

Long lived radioactive waste is problematic because we don't know what will happen down the road as large amounts of this type of waste is concentrated in small areas. (Remember, this stuff is constantly accumulating as nuclear plants operate. the more they operate, the more it accumulates, that is unless new technology comes around that deals with it better than what is being done now) You could say that's a problem for future generations to deal with, but then so is Global Climate Change.

Long time waste is not a problem because it is not much radioactive. The biggest problem could be it leaching into the environment and being ingested later, but that is also a problem with the heavy metal waste some industry did build (and are still building).

Not if new waste is continuously accumulated over time. The only way the nuclear waste gets smaller over time is that no new nuclear plants come on line and they no longer produce waste. Both of which have a low probability of happening in the near future.
BTW uranium and plutonium are heavy metals as are some of the by products of mining and processing uranium in to fuel grade purities.

Compare the QUNATITIES of heavy metal with other like arsenic and emrcury released in the environment and come back when you udnerstand the order of magnitude some heavy metal are released.

All you need is enough power to run a a city or supplement other renewable sources. Good enough is good enough.
Recent developments in solar cell research is beginning to reach 80% conversion efficiencies already.

During the day only on very insolated region.

If you want a baseload production, 24/365 then you need much more, you need to have a much much bigger surface , say in germany, or in sweden, and then there is the long winter night, so that also means you need to produce TWICE the capacity during the day, and store it, and then there is the long period of covered sun and fog (also autumn / winter) so you need even more capacity for that.

By the end , to cover the peak capacity of winter stormy foggy snow covered weather you could as well cover the whole country in solar panel.

ETA: wind is not much better as you cannot have a predictible base load either without building an enormous overcapacity everywhere, or being at place with reliable wind and transporting it everywhere. But even reliable wind does not mean "100% of the wind needed thru the whole day". Even place with lotta wind farm relies on other capacity for baseload.

 

[Roboramma]

Personally, I think we need to develop some sort of gun-type launch platform (conventional or electromag). Not having to carry 15 to 20 times the weight of your payload as fuel cuts a LOT of the costs out.

Of course, a space eleveator type thing would work too...if you're too chicken for the space gun

And one of the good things about a space gun is that you don't have to worry about it exploding up in the atmosphere, since the projective won't need to carry (anywhere near as much) rocket fuel.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Such a gun system has been proposed.

John Hunter wants to shoot stuff into space with a 3,600-foot gun. And he’s dead serious—he’s done the math. Making deliveries to an orbital outpost on a rocket costs $5,000 per pound, but using a space gun would cost just $250 per pound.

Building colossal guns has been Hunter’s pet project since 1992, when, while a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he first fired a 425-foot gun he built to test-launch hypersonic engines. Its methane-driven piston compressed hydrogen gas, which then expanded up the barrel to shoot a projectile. Mechanical firing can fail, however, so when Hunter’s company, Quicklaunch, released its plans last fall, it swapped the piston for a combustor that burns natural gas. Heat the hydrogen in a confined space and it should build up enough pressure to send a half-ton payload into the sky at 13,000 mph.​

It would have to be scaled up significantly to match the 11 km/s required for escape velocity, but Hunters proposal shows it's doable and does not require exotic technology like rail guns.

 

[jimbob]

But the POINT is that highly radioactive is a SHORT TERM waste. What people usually protest agaisnt (beside NIMBY) is long term waste, and those are NEITHER highly radioactive NOR in big quantites !

Wouldn't isotopes with half lives in the hundreds to thousands of ears be pretty radioactive? These might be short-lived in geological terms but still problematic compared to spans of human civilisations.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Wouldn't isotopes with half lives in the hundreds to thousands of ears be pretty radioactive? These might be short-lived in geological terms but still problematic compared to spans of human civilisations.

Depends on what you define as "pretty radioactive". The shorter the half-life, the higher the radioactivity. That also means that the longer the half-life, the lower the radioactivity.

BTW, there is a lot of stuff that is radioactive but that we have in our homes. For example, do you have a kitchen-top made from granite? Check it with a Geiger counter, you will be surprised.

Greetings,

Chris