More Anti-Nuclear BS

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I think alot of you are forgeting that Solar power can be stored for when it's cloudy or dark outside.

If we put the Solar pannels to cover our entire roofs then that would be enough to maintain a small family in an environment with alot of sunlight wouldn't it?

In environments with less sunlight we could have solar pannels but also other forms of energy such as if the environment is windy...Wind farms.

We could also have nuclear energy but we would have it alongside all of the other types of energy. Thus cutting the amount of nuclear energy we would really need.


If we do more research into Solar Panels we could increase their effeciency. I saw a tv show on alternative fuels and they were able to power an entire house on solar energy. They had the solar panels ontop of the roof opposed to singels. They stored the energy they didn't use for when it was cloudy or dark outside. They were 100% effecient and self maintaining. They didn't need any other energy sources.

I believe most Americans would be able to do this if the cost of solar panels went down and their effeciency went up. Why not?


For those living in environments with less sunlight they could use wind farms or hydro energy or nuclear energy.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

How can "spent fuel rods" be used? Certaintly they aren't 100% useless? What can they be used for? Can't they be used for energy somehow also?


Also can't we store them in places where we could easily retrive them for when we have better means of disposing of them?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Solar and Wind are, and will be, important, alternative, sources of energy, but they cannot provide base load power for any part of the power grid in the United States. They are simply not reliable/stable enough. Nuclear power plants are extremely reliable (back to capacity factors here), which is why nuclear plants always provide base load power on their respective grids. It's not magic, it's simply fact.

If Americans cut the amout of energy they use and come up with new ways of conserving energy.

And if each home in America has installed solar panels ontop of their homes.

The amount of energy use would be much much less than it currently is.

Then add in other alternative fuel sources.

The amount of energy we would need for nuclear energy would be much much less than it currently is.

Many American homes would be indipendent of the "grid" and would be self sustaining. Others would be nearly self sustaining and only need a fraction of their electricty from nuclear power.

 

[Kaarjuus]

Yeah, but why worry, when you can store the radioactive waste in Russia?

 

[cloudshipsrule]

If Americans cut the amout of energy they use and come up with new ways of conserving energy.

And if each home in America has installed solar panels ontop of their homes.

The amount of energy use would be much much less than it currently is.

Then add in other alternative fuel sources.

The amount of energy we would need for nuclear energy would be much much less than it currently is.

Many American homes would be indipendent of the "grid" and would be self sustaining. Others would be nearly self sustaining and only need a fraction of their electricty from nuclear power.

That's great in theory, it's just not how the real world works. Is the government going to by my roof-top solar panels? The nations energy demands are not stagnant, nor linear. The demand for more energy grows every day, and that is a product of capitolism. Nuclear power is one of the few sources that can realistically provide for those demands right now and in the near future.

I'm not saying we shouldn't work at cutting demand and invest more in alternative means of power generation.

 

[rustytunes]

How can "spent fuel rods" be used? Certaintly they aren't 100% useless? What can they be used for? Can't they be used for energy somehow also?


Also can't we store them in places where we could easily retrive them for when we have better means of disposing of them?

Spent fuel is valuable and should be kept in a manner that allows easy retrieval. It still holds about 97% of the original potential energy, but is even more valuable for the fission products it contains.

For example, rhodium, a platinum metal, makes up about 2% of the fission products, the price of rhodium fluctuates between the price of gold, and 10 times that. Fresh fission-product rhodium contains traces of isotopes with half-lives os 2.9 and 3.3 years. It does not take long for these radioactives to decay to negligible levels. The material in US spent fuel is worth billions of dollars and gets more valuable every day as the shorter lived activities die away.

For the first 20 years or so of operation, a power plant stores spent fuel under water in a small pool. When the pool becomes full, the older fuel - for which most of the radioactivity has decayed away, is removed from the water and stored in casks on site. An area the size of a football field is adequate for storing spent fuel from hundreds of years of a power plant's operation. Given the huge number of kilowatt-hours that are produced, the problem of management and disposal of spent fuel should be regarded as insignificant.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

That's great in theory, it's just not how the real world works. Is the government going to by my roof-top solar panels? The nations energy demands are not stagnant, nor linear. The demand for more energy grows every day, and that is a product of capitolism. Nuclear power is one of the few sources that can realistically provide for those demands right now and in the near future.

I'm not saying we shouldn't work at cutting demand and invest more in alternative means of power generation.

Capitalism would also make it so people would switch to alternative energies when the price of gas continues to increase.

 

[rustytunes]

Being unable to imagine nuclear waste catastropes is kind of my point. But let's take groundwater pollution as an example. Say the leak doesn't happen for another 450 years, at which time we've forgotten to test for it any more. If we tap that water for anything, it could be months before we realize that that water is contaminated. It could be in people; it could be in food we've shipped all over the world; it could be anywhere. And by the time we discover and patch the leak, many more months could have gone by. People would look back at AIDS and say "Why can't we have easily-cureable problems like that any more?"

We can't save the future by putting it at even more risk. Once cancer is easily cured (don't get me started on the idiocy of genetic engineering), then I say great, nuke away. But not until.

All sorts of hypothetical problems have been dreamed up conerning radioactive waste repositories. In Oklo, Africa, there is a natural nuclear reactor, which due to the presence of water as a moderator, started up spontaneously in a uranium ore deposit about 2 billion years ago. Excavation and annalysis of the ore body proved that most of the high level waste remained immobilised at the reactor site despite running groundwater.

Disposal of nuclear wastes has never been much of a physical problem. As I said before, it is only a polictal problem. For example, there is the "dilute and disperse" approach that is effectively done now with the radioactive ash from coal-fired power stations. The plutonium is merely diluted by a factor of 1000with a suitable non-radioactive mineral. The amounts involved from the entire nuclear power industry are small enough to make this a feasible proposition, if only it was politcally acceptable.

Of course there is also the Synroc mineralisation procedure which locks high level radioactive isotopes into an exceptionally stable matrix of selected minerals, mainly titanates. This produces a dense ceramic rock-like cylinder, which can be buried safely. Recovery is virtually impossible.

Breeder reactors have the ability to incinerate high-level radioactive wastes, as well as extending the supply of the world's fissile reactor fuel.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

Capitalism would also make it so people would switch to alternative energies when the price of gas continues to increase.

I agree. Fossil fuels are the root of two extraordinary problems on Earth. In addition to the crap in the middle east, fossil fuel-burning plants emit more pollution into the air than all the automobiles on earth combined. China is facing huge problems with air quality because of this. Their rate of energy demand growth has far outpaced their rate of growth of clean power generation. The Three Gorges Damn will help. (At a tremendous cost to their culture.)

 

[rustytunes]

I agree. Fossil fuels are the root of two extraordinary problems on Earth. In addition to the crap in the middle east, fossil fuel-burning plants emit more pollution into the air than all the automobiles on earth combined. China is facing huge problems with air quality because of this. Their rate of energy demand growth has far outpaced their rate of growth of clean power generation. The Three Gorges Damn will help. (At a tremendous cost to their culture.)

Yes, politics again.

I understand that China has 8 reactors under construction, or commencing construction at present.

 

[Blank]

I think alot of you are forgeting that Solar power can be stored for when it's cloudy or dark outside.

Not with the technology we have.

Batteries are probably the best we have at the moment and they are hardly enviromentally friendly alternative as they use several toxic components and get worn out with time. Converting to hydrogen is a losing game with thermodynamics.

On a small scale feeding the electricity back to the grid to be used elsewhere is a nice alternative, but can't be applied to provide base power production.

 

[Skeptic]

People are confusing, I think, radioactivity and being poisonous. Most radioactivite elements, despite its scary name, is harmless; but a lot of stuff--like, say, lead--is poisonous wihtout being radioactive.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Not with the technology we have.

Batteries are probably the best we have at the moment and they are hardly enviromentally friendly alternative as they use several toxic components and get worn out with time. Converting to hydrogen is a losing game with thermodynamics.

On a small scale feeding the electricity back to the grid to be used elsewhere is a nice alternative, but can't be applied to provide base power production.

I was watching a TV show where they had built homes that were powered by solar energy and they could store the energy for when it's cloudy or dark outside.

 

[rustytunes]

People are confusing, I think, radioactivity and being poisonous. Most radioactivite elements, despite its scary name, is harmless; but a lot of stuff--like, say, lead--is poisonous wihtout being radioactive.

When it comes to toxic or poisonous chemical elements, plutonium is hardly even the the running. Herbicide and pesticide sprays found in the average garden shed are more likely to cause harm than the majority of radioactive substances.

Rarely mentioned is the fact that non-radioactive elements have an infinate half-life, they never decay away to become less harmful elements. Deadly elements like thallium retain their toxicity forever.

 

[Mongrel]

I was watching a TV show where they had built homes that were powered by solar energy and they could store the energy for when it's cloudy or dark outside.

Did they show you the big room where they stored the batteries?
Did they give you a breakdown of all the chemical nasties that have to especially disposed of when the batteries need to be replaced?
Did they show you how much it cost to replace your room full o' batteries when they reach the end of their working life?
Who pays for them? I bet it's not going to be the power companies.

We're close with NiMH batteries which don't contain as many heavy metals as previous high density, rechargeable batteries but they don't have the longevity.
Once we have cheap, high energy density and long life rechargeables then personal solar power will be less of a pipedream.
(battery info here)

As an aside, a personal observation is that when you see "solar powered homes" you never see a 50" Gas Plasma screen with a 5.1 system, cable TV, Air-Conditioning, high spec computer and a multitude of kitchen gadgets. They all remind me of my Grandparents house, a couple of radios and a telly that only goes on after 6 O' Clock...

Edit - Just found in another thread Battery University, very good info. Thanks BenK

 

[rockoon]

Do you realize how much it'll cost to baby sit that stuff for a few thousand years?

Not as much.

 

[rockoon]

Not as much as you're thinking. Once it gets out of earths orbit it wouldn't need much energy. The energy used to propel it would continue to do so since in space there is nothing acting on it. It would continue to fly towards the sun at a constant speed.

The earths oribits (relative to the sun) at an average speed of 30,000 meters per second, which (to put it in evil western automotive terms) is 108,000 kilometers (67,000 miles) per hour.

To get something to drop into the sun after an earth launch, you have to almost fully negate that velocity.

The problem is inertia (a property shared by all matter with mass) and I am quite sure that you arent aware of technology that will accomplish this in a manner that is cheaper than digging a hole in the ground and filling it with cement.

 

[cloudshipsrule]

It would take a lot of discipline and a lifestyle change for most American families to rely solely on a PV system to provide their power needs. Most families would only get half the power they needed from solar, and the rest would have to come from a local utility.

What is the cost of maintenance on a typical family-sized PV system?

 

[Beerina]

This morning, I came upon this in the opinion/commentary section of my local newspaper.
Nuclear power continues to raise concerns

Is it just me, or is this the same kind of uninformed crap you've heard a thousand times before? I especially like the, "Nuclear power is clean, but it uses fossil fuels to get the fuel!" part in the beginning.

You're kidding me, right? I've heard of innumeracy, but this should get an award. The amount used in mining such things might be a lot compared to your car, but the "bang for the buck" is many orders of magnitude cleaner than burning fossil fuels to generate electricity when amortized across an entire city's power generation.

 

[Hindmost]

Technology can take care of many of the issues brought up here. The next generation of fast reactors greatly helps with the heavy metal wastes. The fuel comes out of the reactor and is reprocessed to remove the fission products. Most are short lived and only need storage for a few short years. The uranium, plutonium and other transuranics are recycled back into fuel and put back into the reactor. The spent fuel is so radioactive, it eliminates the idea that terrorist could steel it. Putting it back in the reactor will enable more energy to be extracted and for the transuranics to be fast fissioned and later reprocessed out. This reprocessing followed by fueling the reactor is a continous process where there would be almost no long term waste like we are producing now…I am thinking only cesium..it has a long live isotope if I recall.

Storing high level waste has been accomplished by France in an efficient manner. In the US, the process has both political as well as technical issues. A story for another thread.

At least with nuclear waste it will decay to a less dangerous form. Chemical waste can stay around forever--just take a look at how much waste the chemical industry produces. Biological hazards can be much more severe that any radioactive waste.

Uranium is much more chemically hazardous when compared with its radiological hazard. Plutonium is nasty stuff…if it is inhaled. If swallowed, it will end up in the toilet. If inhaled in micrograms, it will eventually cause lung or bone cancer. It is a bone seeker like strontium due to its chemical properties. Recycling it in fast reactors will eliminate it through the fission process.

The future energy crisis should use a combination of nuclear, solar, coal gasification, possible geothermal, wind farms if you don't mind the entire landscape covered by those things and other sources of energy. (by the way, ethanol is not the answer—most people don’t realize how much energy we use in the US and the world.)

glenn