Skeptics and nuclear power

[lomiller]

Proponents of solar just don't get the scales needed to power the whole planet with solar.

The same can be said for proponents of Nuclear. It really all stems from the fact we are digging up and burning fossil plants/animals on a scale that is nearly unimaginable. There is no single solution to this problem.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

https://www.withouthotair.com/c30/page_236.shtml

Proponents of solar just don't get the scales needed to power the whole planet with solar. There's talk about saving the environment by using solar and wind but it would cause even more environmental damage when we're already stressing the planets ability to handle it....

250 kWh/d is a ridiculous amount of electricity. Looking it up, the US average is 900 kWh per household per month. So try about 10 per person-day and see if your sky is still falling.

Garbage in, garbage out.

[ETA] Nor is insolation anywhere near as low as 15 Wh / m^2 / day. Desert insolation is easily 6 kWh/m^2/d. These numbers are complete crap.

[ETAA] Assuming he's trying to factor in solar cell efficiency, he's assuming an efficiency of 0.25%, instead of ~25%. You can't just put decimals anywhere you please.

[ETAAA] **** it, I'm triggered. With 115 million American households, call it 125, at 30 kWh/household/day, is 3.75 billion kWh/day. Call it four. 6 kWh insolation at 25%, call it 20%, is 1.2 kWh/day. So we'll need 3.333 billion square meters of solar, or a square of about 60 kilometers on a side. So look at the little red square inside the yellow square and imagine another little square inside of that, and that's what you'd need if this dumbass had gotten his numbers even remotely right to begin with.

 

[Crossbow]

I've already shown you an example of a safe disposal system for this waste.

Here is what the current thinking is:
"The safety of geological disposal is widely accepted amongst the technical
community and a number of countries have now decided to move forward with
this option."
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/LTS-RW_web.pdf
So when people say we don't know how to dispose of it, you can understand why this is regarded as false.

Sorry, but I think that you have failed to realize that there is far more involved with the development of a nuclear waste site than simply overcoming the technical details of handling the nuclear waste.

After all, while just about everyone does agree that there needs to be a way for the safe disposal of nuclear waste and at the same time, there is just about no agreement on just where such a facility should be built.

The USA has been struggling with this problem for decades and in spite of the billions of dollars spent on the development of a nuclear waste site, still no such waste site is in operation.

 

[Craig B]

Is it? Nuclear waste is dangerous for a number of millennia. That's pebbles for the planet. On the other hand, coal waste, which is also radioactive, incidently, is toxic forever, and in much greater quantities for the same MWh.

This has always puzzled me. Can you provide an answer?

The primary source of low-background steel^WP is ships that were constructed before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.​

The WWI German fleet was coal fired.

 

[Crossbow]

Because the moral thing to do with anything waste we create (nuclear or otherwise) is to manage responsibly.

In the case of spent nuclear fuel, the issue has been looked at by international multi-disciplinary teams for many years. We know how to dispose of spent fuel, and that is deep geological depository. That someone might not want to use Yucca mountain only means you either over ride that or come up with a better site.

Although one reason they don't want to use it is that much of the waste has yet to be reprocessed, which would give more energy, and leave less long-lived actinides. But in the end one would still need to dispose of it eventually, and this is the best, and safest way.

Some of it has already been vitrified, so this would probably be disposed of as is.

If you have a better place for nuclear waste site than the one at Yucca Mountain, then please do us all a favor and provide it. Either that, or show us a way to over-ride the concerns about Yucca Mountain.

However, I do not expect that you can do either one.

 

[Belz...]

This has always puzzled me. Can you provide an answer?

The primary source of low-background steel^WP is ships that were constructed before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.​

The WWI German fleet was coal fired.

I'm sorry, what does that have to do with anything?

 

[Craig B]

I'm sorry, what does that have to do with anything?

It has nothing to do with whether coal and products of burning coal are sources of radioactivity? You have said that "coal waste, which is also radioactive, incidently, is toxic forever."

But you don't need to apologise.

 

[theprestige]

Ok so coal is too polluting, wind is insufficient, nuclear is too dangerous, hydro too limited geographically and solar too surface-intensive.

Ok, so what now?

Economic scale back and mass die off.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

250 kWh/d is a ridiculous amount of electricity. Looking it up, the US average is 900 kWh per household per month. So try about 10 per person-day and see if your sky is still falling.

Garbage in, garbage out.

[ETA] Nor is insolation anywhere near as low as 15 Wh / m^2 / day. Desert insolation is easily 6 kWh/m^2/d. These numbers are complete crap.

[ETAA] Assuming he's trying to factor in solar cell efficiency, he's assuming an efficiency of 0.25%, instead of ~25%. You can't just put decimals anywhere you please.

You've misread on several fronts. That chart isn't addressing just electricity, it's addressing all uses of energy. And 15 watts (not watt hours per day) is what the chart claims and that is a reasonably accurate number of what usable energy can be collected.

 

[Belz...]

It has nothing to do with whether coal and products of burning coal are sources of radioactivity? You have said that "coal waste, which is also radioactive, incidently, is toxic forever."

But you don't need to apologise.

What? What are you on about?

Coal plants produce mainly toxic waste but the waste is also radioactive. What part of that do you take issue with?

Economic scale back and mass die off.

Cold but true.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

This has always puzzled me. Can you provide an answer?

The primary source of low-background steel^WP is ships that were constructed before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.​

The WWI German fleet was coal fired.

??? The steel isn't coal waste. They remove the coal waste.

 

[Craig B]

What? What are you on about?

Coal plants produce mainly toxic waste but the waste is also radioactive. What part of that do you take issue with?

Given that fact, I have asked for an explanation of this. Can you provide one?

This has always puzzled me. Can you provide an answer?

The primary source of low-background steel^WP is ships that were constructed before the Trinity test, most famously the scuttled German WWI battleships in Scapa Flow.​

The WWI German fleet was coal fired.

 

[Belz...]

Given that fact, I have asked for an explanation of this. Can you provide one?

I can't because I have no idea how one thing is related to the other. How about you clarify and tell me why you think steel is relevant?

But regardless of my answer, the fact remains that coal plant waste IS radioactive.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You've misread on several fronts. That chart isn't addressing just electricity, it's addressing all uses of energy. And 15 watts (not watt hours per day) is what the chart claims and that is a reasonably accurate number of what usable energy can be collected.

Total energy, you say? Using this... yeah, 250 kWh/person/day is about right.

That'll teach me for nerdraging before I've had my coffee. Sorry about that, Mr. random website dude.

 

[wobs]

If you have a better place for nuclear waste site than the one at Yucca Mountain, then please do us all a favor and provide it. Either that, or show us a way to over-ride the concerns about Yucca Mountain.

However, I do not expect that you can do either one.

And yet Finland, Canada, and Sweden seem to have managed to build such facilities. If they can, I'm sure the US can.

Its just a matter of political will, which isn't easy at times of course, but it is not a technical issue.

I should add that those countries have used a consent based system, but it is currently looking like the US may use a different method.

 

[Crossbow]

And yet Finland, Canada, and Sweden seem to have managed to build such facilities. If they can, I'm sure the US can.

Its just a matter of political will, which isn't easy at times of course, but it is not a technical issue.

I should add that those countries have used a consent based system, but it is currently looking like the US may use a different method.

Well then, I am sure that you are wrong.

If you would actually read my postings, then you see that I have already pointed out that the USA has already spent decades of years and billions of dollars to develop a nuclear waste site, and yet there still no such site which is available for use.

And until such a site can be developed, then I am a skeptic who is opposed to nuclear power.

 

[Belz...]

Well then, I am sure that you are wrong.

If you would actually read my postings, then you see that I have already pointed out that the USA has already spent decades of years and billions of dollars to develop a nuclear waste site, and yet there still no such site which is available for use.

I'd like a clarification: are you in agreement that it's mainly a political issue?

 

[crescent]

It is quite applicable because it is true.

If there actually is a good solution to the safe disposal of nuclear materials, then there should be quite possible to safely dispose of nuclear waste materials.

However, since there are considerable problems with the safe waste disposal of nuclear materials, then it is quite evident that it is not possible to safely dispose of nuclear waste materials.

If you can show a good solution for the safe disposal for nuclear materials, then I (and quite a few other people) would be most happy to support it. Also, if you do have such a solution, then I expect that you would soon be a very wealthy man.

However, at least here in the USA there is not any good solution for the safe disposal of nuclear materials even though the USA has spent billions of dollars over many decades in order to produce a good solution for the safe disposal of nuclear materials.

Because the moral thing to do with anything waste we create (nuclear or otherwise) is to manage responsibly.

In the case of spent nuclear fuel, the issue has been looked at by international multi-disciplinary teams for many years. We know how to dispose of spent fuel, and that is deep geological depository. That someone might not want to use Yucca mountain only means you either over ride that or come up with a better site.

Although one reason they don't want to use it is that much of the waste has yet to be reprocessed, which would give more energy, and leave less long-lived actinides. But in the end one would still need to dispose of it eventually, and this is the best, and safest way.

Some of it has already been vitrified, so this would probably be disposed of as is.

The primary issues with long term management of nuclear waste are political and cultural, not technical.

A key thing here is that there are two schools of thought on how to manage waste:

One idea is to reprocess it to separate out the hottest materials, which are then reused as fuel. The hot stuff then never needs to be disposed of, only low-level waste. That seems to be favored by most nuclear advocates but is politically unacceptable due to concerns about proliferation and the need to transport materials to and from reprocessing facilities.

The second idea is vitrification and deep geological disposal - pulverized everything, mix with molten glass, let it cool and stick it deep underground. This could happen with or without reprocessing, but is usually advocated alongside no-reprocessing. Then it gets controversial because they are burying stuff that is still very radioactive and will be for tens of thousands of years. (There is also the separate issue of misinformation suggesting that very long half-life = really dangerous. Once you get into half-lives of millions of years, you are dealing with stuff that is not much more meaningfully radioactive than a granite countertop).

I'm all about reprocessing and reuse as fuel. The most dangerous of the dangerous stuff never needs to be in the waste stream as it currently is.

 

[CORed]

Not really, actually. The "natural" half-life of U-235 is pretty damn long. Cutting it by half still gives you pretty low radioactivity. And we're talking about alpha radiation. I suspect the situation at the reactor is a _lot_ worse than that.

Well yes, if you have any significant amount of fission going on, your'e producing neutron and gamma radiation, which is considerably more dangerous. Alpha radiation is generally only harmful if the radioactive material gets into your body. Neutrons and gamma rays are dangerous just to be around. Of course, at Chernobyl, you've also got lots of fission products, some of which are gamma emitters.

 

[CORed]

The primary issues with long term management of nuclear waste are political and cultural, not technical.

A key thing here is that there are two schools of thought on how to manage waste:

One idea is to reprocess it to separate out the hottest materials, which are then reused as fuel. The hot stuff then never needs to be disposed of, only low-level waste. That seems to be favored by most nuclear advocates but is politically unacceptable due to concerns about proliferation and the need to transport materials to and from reprocessing facilities.

The second idea is vitrification and deep geological disposal - pulverized everything, mix with molten glass, let it cool and stick it deep underground. This could happen with or without reprocessing, but is usually advocated alongside no-reprocessing. Then it gets controversial because they are burying stuff that is still very radioactive and will be for tens of thousands of years. (There is also the separate issue of misinformation suggesting that very long half-life = really dangerous. Once you get into half-lives of millions of years, you are dealing with stuff that is not much more meaningfully radioactive than a granite countertop).

I'm all about reprocessing and reuse as fuel. The most dangerous of the dangerous stuff never needs to be in the waste stream as it currently is.

Reprocessing gets the maximum utilization of the fuel resource. If I understand correctly, with current technology, only a fraction of the fuel is used before the reaction is poisoned by fission products and the fuel is "spent". You have to reprocess if you want to use the rest of the U-235 (and plutonium produced during operation). The problem is that reprocessing is a pretty hazardous process. You are dealing with highly radioactive materials, and also materials that could potentially be diverted for weapons. If you reprocess somewhere other than the reactor site, the materials have to be transported. IMO, these are all manageable risks, but nobody wants the reprocessing facility in their backyard, nor do they want the materials transported through their neighborhood.