Nucular Powaaaaah (git gud 'murica)

[dasva]

True. Like most the problems of nuclear power it comes down to a combination of politics and a huge lack of basic understanding of radiation or just basic common sense. You'd be surprised how many people I've meant that are just sure that the uranium is 100% safe in the ground before we mine it up but magically afterwards it's somehow bad and putting it back in the ground will cause the end of the world

[zoobernut]

Sure, reuse is fantastic - but the clutched-pearls "what about the waste" reaction implies a major nuclear waste problem that simply doesn't exist.

How do you quantify "major nuclear waste problem"? How do you know that there aren't any issues regarding nuclear waste disposal? It is really easy for you to dismiss it without any sort of data to back it up. Also just because it isn't an issue doesn't mean that we can't improve that process or find a different way of handling the waste.

Though I agree that it isn't really an argument against nuclear power plants but it is something that needs to be taken into account.

[archibaldcrane]

It's not that there are zero issues, it's that compared to any other deployable baseload power source the threat to humans or the environment is miniscule. We simply accept the thousands who die from coal pollution or the hundreds from natural gas - not from accidents mind you, but from business as usual operation, but people freak about exceedingly rare cancer deaths from nuclear power and waste.

If you ask how I quantify it, it's in human deaths compared to the alternatives.

[dasva]

All things being equal if you want to factor in waste storage/use for nuclear power should really factor in waste disposal for solar cells. Or for anything that uses decent amounts of rare earth metals the huge tailing ponds that result from mining them. All the pollutants from fossil fuels which ironically includes a lot of radionuclides including uranium.

So yeah all sources of energy will create some waste and/or death from it's creation. And that includes the supposedly green sources. So at least when talking about risks the idea isn't to find the no risk but to find the least risk. Which given the very low number of not even really deaths but mere extrapolated chances of cancer using a model that is known to be poor and overestimated compared to the sheer amount of energy created puts current nuclear power in the lead.

Of course there is still some thought to improvement but going overboard can be detrimental too. If you keep creating increasingly redundant measures you you don't really make things any safer and can increase the price to the point where people will switch to say coal. Which is somewhat counterproductive if your goal was to make energy safer

[archibaldcrane]

If 115 new nuclear plants are built worldwide every year between now and 2050, we could completely decarbonize our electricity generation.

(yikes)

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...climate-change

That's basically adding 25% of the world's current fleet every year for 35 years. Currently there's somewhere around a dozen plants coming online per year.

Indonesia is looking at building 3 ThorCon liquid flouride thorium reactors (LFTRs) to move away from coal-powered electricity.

http://www.benzinga.com/pressrelease...ut-reliance-on

They're still in the prototype phase though so it will probably take more than a decade to happen there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorcon

[Kryssan]

Heh, didn't even know this thread existed. I really am outta the loop.


To answer the questions I've seen thrown about, in no particular order:


We're up to GenV on design potential. We are currently building GenIII+ ( Westinghouse AP1000 in SC/GA (USA) and China ). Most operational reactors currently are GenII and III designs. The only country with fast reactors on the grid ( meaning supplying electrical power and not used for testing ) AFAIK is Russia. Japan finally restarted Monju but then Fukushima happened. P. sure it hasn't been restarted but I haven't followed for a few years.


I've thrown it out before, and I'll throw it out again. Nuclear waste is horribly misunderstood. The US doesn't like MOX fuels, so reuse is NNV - at least here, other countries use it. And so is storing it in America apparently, cause *cough*Yucca*cough*. Glowing Green Goo continues to be the common idea, and noone is trying to fix it. But just to prove mother nature is still better than all of us, just google "Oklo Reactors" and read up about how the planet solved the waste issue. Spoiler alert: We still haven't figured it out yet ( the French discovered the site in the 70s IIRC ).

Of course, the US doesn't like proliferation either ( as previously noted by others ) so fast reactors also kinda remain a pipe dream. We've had a few in the past but we didn't keep them.


At least we still have RTGs? Not that anyone is talking about Cassini or New Horizon's power sources.... ( you might remember all the Plutonium concerns in 2010+ )


Greenpeace has always been silly. I'll never understand the intelligence behind wanting to spray paint shit in the ocean. What were you protesting again? What were you protecting?


All the advanced design GenIV / V reactors typically revolve around different fuels or dumping the Rankine cycle in favour of the Brayton cycle. Brayton is more efficient, and the physics behind it makes damaging reactors much harder. Unfortunately, from what I remember of those designs they required Helium coolant. We're gonna need a lot of it if people want to go that route. The built ones from the past were using Carbon Dioxide IIRC. And Helium hasn't been doing so great lately in the supply / demand resource market.

A few liquid metal salt designs keep coming up but I've never seen anyone advance them. We built them in the past as tests for our own Naval prototypes and the Russians actually used them on their Alfa class submarines. Germany's got a neat concept in DFR (link) but I don't think anyone's built one...




The Diablo's Canyon thing was a discovery made after it started operating. Well after, in fact. And yeah, it's kinda an important one and when you realise who's playing with what you ought to be a little concerned. That doesn't make DC unsafe ( and there are certainly plenty crowing about it ), but I wouldn't be 'optimistic' about it either. 985 feet from the plant intake to a fault line in California does not for happy times make. Let's not even talk about fracking / earthquakes / nuclear power...

But to give you some perspective on some of the less crazy people that are worried about DC, you need to first know about another plant: Fort St. Vrain. It's no longer operating as a nuclear site ( now it is a gas turbine plant - keep that in mind ).

If you're not familiar, Fort St. Vrain was a Helium-cooled HTGR in Colorado that operated for 10 years ( why 10 years? Because it didn't make enough money - it was a ground-breaker prototype for the design ). Just 1 year after its construction, a 16" LPG pipeline was laid with 1 mile of the reactor containment buildings with no new analysis conducted. By 1983, 12 natural gas wells had been drilled ( some of them within the plant's EAB ). This continued all the way up until the plant's shutdown in 1989 with gas facilities expanding. It wasn't until 1990, when the NRC reviewed the shut-down proposal paperwork, that they realised multiple potential bombs had been built within 500 feet of the plant's electrical switchyard and within 300 feet of the inner boundary reactor building fence. To say the NRC flipped the fuck out would be an understatement. The company provided a lot of analysis to try and calm the 'flipping the fuck outer-y' but they weren't up to snuff. Not that it mattered, they had already turned off the nuclear power part permanently. So all the NRC could really do was write a scathing report.

To be a little realistic though, "history repeats itself" is far too common a thread. Indian Point NPS also had natural gas facilities nearby ( within 400 feet ) but unlike St. Vrain they did do the required safety analysis on them. And then they removed the safety valves in 1995 because they tended to trip and stop the flow of gas.

So yeah. Like all things, nuclear power has problems. Gonna rant a bit, sorry in advance.

The real issue with problems is how we handled them. How we are handling them. Mixed in with all the silliness people throw at the wall because omg nuklear meltdown there are bad things happening that should have been prevented / properly handled that weren't. For Fukushima, the plant operators made a few mistakes ( firetrucks, yes? ) - they can be forgiven for those but we need the lessons learned to actually be spread - that made things worse, and then everything went to shit when politics and money got involved. There were good people doing good work there the whole time, unfortunately there are also plenty of people who'd rather save face and money as much as possible and even more unfortunate they are pretty much the people running the show.

It was one of my leading reasons for finally ditching nuclear power. One of the people that got me into nuclear power was Dr. Murray. Some of you have heard me talk about him before - he was the crazy old man with the lead glass cube with a uranium sample contained within from the pile reactor, he taught me nuclear safety, his is the only definition of SCRAM I will accept because he was there with Hilberry who felt like a "necessary fool" for holding the damn axe; he died June 22 2011. No, he wasn't involved with Fukushima and his death wasn't ( directly ) related to it. Personally, I don't think he wanted to deal with yet another one. How many times have we not learned? When I was in college I read the CAIB and the "lessons learned" from the CAIB continue to be present and ignored. Until we actually start practicing engineering again, be it at NASA or in the nuclear world, we really shouldn't be building the damn things. It's still all about money and the bottom line, and the corners keep getting chipped away time and time again until there's nothing left to take.

Yes, public perceptions of nuclear power are wrong, and their attentions are focused in the wrong places. But they are not wrong for focusing attention towards it. Too many people in the nuclear power industry are playing games, "look look shinies!" and are just as guilty about focusing attention in the wrong places.

There are rather scary aspects to nuclear power that are all too often not respected that lead to destruction and death. Money and time continue to be the hallmarks behind every major nuclear incident report; helped along by generous portions of human stupidity. SL-1, HTRE-2, HTRE-3 ( those former nukes that posted here, do you remember the lessons learned from HTRE? are they not laughable? yet the need for them just makes me wanna cry ), TMI-2, the fission breaks on the Shark class submarines... and that's just the American stuff. The rest of the world ain't doing any better, and I'm not even lumping Fukushima 1-4 or Chernobyl 4 into that. Hell, it wasn't even that long ago the Russians were fighting issues with the Taimyr's coolant and steam systems ( continuing the Lenin's tradition, I suppose )...

Nuclear power can be safe. Even with waste taken into consideration, it can be clean. It generates a fuckton of power for what you put into it. It could very easily be an answer to energy problems. Too bad the humans are more concerned with the end result and aren't too caring about all the planning that you need to do inbetween.

Yay capitalism, I guess. /rant

[Clash Perez]

former nukes that posted here, do you remember the lessons learned from HTRE?

Former nuke, but I don't recall anything about this one. Brief googling doesn't show anything about an accident - care to link/explain further?

Is it just 'something something flying nuke plant lol'?

[Kryssan]

Former nuke, but I don't recall anything about this one. Brief googling doesn't show anything about an accident - care to link/explain further?

Is it just 'something something flying nuke plant lol'?

No. It was one of the USAF units, but pretty sure it wasn't the one they put in the plane. That was a lot smaller. Wiki Link to the plane one because I'm lazy.

It was one of the air cooled units with a unique rod control system that utilised pneumatics. Improper communications led to misoperation of the reactor. Which led to boom. That's the real basic version, but you should be able to find it from there. Noone died in that one.

Edit: Actually, I'm having a hard time finding internet resources related to it. My Googlefu is weak or maybe I'm searching wrong. The only hit that came up was an excerpt from a book link ( here, if you wanna see ). Might have to go to a library. Info's out there, I certainly remember reading the incident reports about it. In an awestruck "are you fucking serious" kinda way.

Heh - that excerpt had another incident in it I forgot about; Windscale-1. That was UK. We've blown up so many reactors it's hard to keep track sometimes. At least my memories haven't degraded such that I could only name TMI / Chernobyl / Fukushima, which seems to be all the public was ever taught as far as I can tell.

Edit2: On a shot I dug around Wiki for HTRE... this is it ( link ). HTRE is not listed in the nuclear accidents page nor is any information listed as to what happened with the HTRE units on the page I linked to. The EBR page ( link ) has another light blurb about HTRE. One of wiki's resource links no longer links to where it points, but Internet Archive has our back... sorta (link).

I'll save you having to click if you dun wanna:

The HTRE-3 assembly produced enough thrust to theoretically sustain a flight at 460 mph for about 30,000 miles. However radiation levels were still a problem; at one point in the tests, controls failed and released enough radioactivity to contaminate 1,500 acres.

That's all it says. I'd laugh, but... just makes me sad. Library visit most likely required.

[archibaldcrane]

For people who want to understand the scale of nuclear power vs. renewables, here's a solid example.

The largest nuclear power plant in the US is at Palo Verde in Arizona. It generates 29,250 GWh of electricity per year.

That single plant produces more electricity than all the solar power in the US COMBINED (13,562 GWh in 2014).

It provides that electricity for a cost of 1.33 cents per KWh - cheaper than coal or natural gas. Shutting this plant down or refusing to renew its license (as Bernie Sanders would do) is significantly worse for the environment than smashing every solar panel in the country.

[Blubbartron]

For people who want to understand the scale of nuclear power vs. renewables, here's a solid example.

The largest nuclear power plant in the US is at Palo Verde in Arizona. It generates 29,250 GWh of electricity per year.

That single plant produces more electricity than all the solar power in the US COMBINED (13,562 GWh in 2014).

It provides that electricity for a cost of 1.33 cents per KWh - cheaper than coal or natural gas. Shutting this plant down or refusing to renew its license (as Bernie Sanders would do) is significantly worse for the environment than smashing every solar panel in the country.

All I've seen from Bernie is things regarding shutting down old plants. Do you have any sources quoting him as being entirely anti-nuclear? I haven't stumbled across any.

[archibaldcrane]

His climate plan that he just released proposes no new nuclear, no operating extensions for current nuclear. If that's not anti-nuclear, I don't know what is.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/climate-change/ - cntrl+F nuclear

Create a Clean-Energy Workforce of 10 million good-paying jobs by creating a 100% clean energy system. Transitioning toward a completely nuclear-free clean energy system for electricity, heating, and transportation is not only possible and affordable it will create millions of good jobs, clean up our air and water, and decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

Begin a moratorium on nuclear power plant license renewals in the United States. Bernie believes that solar, wind, geothermal power and energy efficiency are proven and more cost-effective than nuclear – even without tax incentives – and that the toxic waste byproducts of nuclear plants are not worth the risks of the technology’s benefit. Especially in light of lessons learned from Japan’s Fukushima meltdown, Bernie has also raised questions about why the federal government invests billions into federal subsidies for the nuclear industry. We can have an affordable carbon-free, nuclear-free energy system and we must work for a safe, healthy future for all Americans.

He's completely in reality-free cuckoo land.

[Andalusian girls]

don't you miss the days when only the fringe right-wing allowed distorting cultural pressure to internalize as anti-science beliefs

[archibaldcrane]

Just think of the land-area required alone for solar or wind to replace just nuclear, much less coal or natural gas.

A nuclear energy facility has a small area footprint, requiring about 1.3 square miles per 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity. This figure is based on the median land area of the 59 nuclear plant sites in the United States. In addition, nuclear energy facilities have an average capacity factor of 90 percent, much higher than intermittent sources like wind and solar.

By contrast, wind farm capacity factors range from 32 to 47 percent, depending on differences in wind resources in a given area and improvements in turbine technology. Solar PV capacity factors also vary based on location and technology, from 17 to 28 percent.

Taking these factors into account, a wind farm would need an installed capacity between 1,900 megawatts and 2,800 MW to generate the same amount of electricity in a year as a 1,000-MW nuclear energy facility. Such a facility would require between 260 square miles and 360 square miles of land.

A solar PV facility must have an installed capacity of 3,300 MW and 5,400 MW to match a 1,000-MW nuclear facility’s output, requiring between 45 and 75 square miles.

A single nuclear plant requires 300ish square miles of wind turbines, or 60ish square miles of solar panels. Now, wind turbines can be placed offshore or like, in a farmer's field, so the ground isn't a complete loss (but again you need to put them where the wind blows for efficiency's sake) - utility scale solar panels however are nature-obliterators.

[archibaldcrane]

Oh, and

No wind or solar facility currently operating in the United States is large enough to match the output of a 1,000-MW nuclear reactor. The country’s largest wind farm, Alta Wind Energy Center in California, has an installed capacity of 1,548 MW. The largest solar PV plants are the 550-MW Topaz Solar Farm and Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, both in California. Between six and 10 of these facilities would be needed to equal the annual output of the average nuclear reactor.

The land area needed to even start to chip away at conventional power is astronomical.

[archibaldcrane]

Trying to shut down nuclear while there is still tons of coal and natural gas on the grid is completely absurd if your goal is combating climate change.

[zoobernut]

Trying to shut down nuclear while there is still tons of coal and natural gas on the grid is completely absurd if your goal is combating climate change.

The reality is we should slowly replace all coal and natural gas plants with nuclear then once we have done that start looking at technology to replace the nuclear plants.

With respect to solar how viable are the solar tower plants? I heard the liquid sodium ones work pretty well but I don't know how they compare. Seems like they take up less land than conventional panels though.

[archibaldcrane]

Yeah, Ivanpah here in California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpa...Power_Facility takes up about 5.5 square miles, and is supposed to produce 1 TWH per year, but hasn't gotten close to that figure yet (first half of this year was around 300,000 GWh). It appears that falling prices for PV solar are pinching funding for concentrated solar towers.

I was pretty excited about the tower technology when I first heard about it too, but they are simply not getting built. I don't think we should abandon the idea, but it's not the type of technology we know we can rely on in the massive scale we need to decarbonize the electricity sector.

And remember, even if Ivanpah approaches the 1 TWh it is rated for (their design docs say it could take 4 years to hit peak operation, this is year two) - you're still talking about it producing 1/30th the electricity output of Palo Verde in only 500 fewer acres - meaning that 30 Ivanpahs would still take around 25 times the amount of land (135 square miles) as one Palo Verde.

[Buffy]

In case you haven't seen it archi: http://www.geek.com/news/goodbye-gri...water-1606022/

[archibaldcrane]

And, of course, nuclear provides steady output rain or shine, wind or calm, summer or winter. Total generation is not all that matters.

[archibaldcrane]

In case you haven't seen it archi: http://www.geek.com/news/goodbye-gri...water-1606022/

yes, i saw it

lol