Sustainable Systems and Nuclear Energy

[Absalom]

The only way to make nuclear energy 'clean' is to build a nice nuclear powered railgun to fire radioactive waste cores into the sun.
It's both safer and easier to do than store it underground like they do in the states... have you actually read about how large said nuclear bunker really is?
OR the fact it's apparently almost full again?

That 'big' repository in Nevada? Last I heard, it had been cancelled (Harry Reid, the current head of the Senate, is from Nevada).

On the other hand nuclear power built underground, as in say 500 meters deep, would allow us to be truly- safe from impacts of fallout and contamination in non-explosive breach situations.

I've read about 'micro reactors' built into self contained megawat units with a protected lifespan of about 60 years each, they sound good but i'm not certain i want more small plants to be tampered with or damaged by those who want to do harm or threaten us with harm than we absolutely need to :/.

As I've heard it, that's one of the nice things about them: they don't require supervision (designed to be self-stabilizing) so you can simply keep EVERYONE away from them. That makes security much more simple. Also, with the move towards urbanization, it's actually more likely that you'd have fairly large clusters of the reactors, allowing security to be centralized.

but then again who wants a power plant on their back lawn?

Back in the day, Oklahoma apparently had a law on the books that the taxes from powerplants would exclusively go to local communities (school districts I believe). One of the big problems with NIMBY is that there aren't a lot of punishments for it. If that were fixed, then these things would partially go away (except in California :p ). Then again, building on what should be reserved as farmland should have some forced costs too, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

[fredgiblet]

What happened in Japan should have been a realisation for most people just how safe nuclear power plants actually are. as opposed to have instigated another panic attack.

Indeed an early gen-2 reactor nearly survived all that, and most likely WOULD have survived one or the other. If it had been upgraded with a gen-3 or gen-4 reactor then the disaster would have been a snooze-fest.

Tell that to the people in Tsjernobyl. Last time I checked they still weren't home again. Those that are still alive I mean.

As I said in the Page 99 thread. We aren't the Russians.

The only way to make nuclear energy 'clean' is to build a nice nuclear powered railgun to fire radioactive waste cores into the sun.

Or push the development of gen-4 reactors that will eat the current nuclear waste and spit out MUCH less hazardous waste.

[javcs]

Chernobyl was ... a massive failure, yes. It was a full-meltdown of the reactors, caused by a combination of factors, and was, so far as I know, entirely preventable.


Look at how long we've been using nuclear power. Then look at the number of major nuclear plant problems. There are only three that I can think of offhand, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, and they're the ones everybody has heard of and knows. As far as I am aware all of them were preventable.

For that matter, Fukushima could have been worse, would have been worse, had the plant supervisor not disobeyed orders from higher ups to stop pumping in seawater because it was going to "ruin the reactors".

Properly maintained and run, nuclear power plants are quite safe in operation. Sure, if you hit one with a combination of natural disasters that are more or less the perfect combination for breaking it, there'll be problems, that is what happened with Fukushima. Of course, Fukushima also handn't received the updates and improvements it should have.

Although, I do have to admit, I'd be cautious about putting nuclear plants in major earthquake coastal regions, especially if I'm going to leave the fuel tanks for my backup cooling generators poorly secured and on ground level.
Heck, that's a problem that's vastly reduced in 'current' nuclear plant design - IIRC they've gone to pumping into a massive tank that feeds the coolant to the reactor by way of gravity and stores half a week of water in the tank.

Nuclear power gets a bad rep, and nobody's saying that when a nuclear plant has a major problem it's no big deal - it is, but generally speaking, a nuclear plant that is properly maintained and run is incredibly unlikely to have problems, even under adverse circumstances.

[fredgiblet]

Look at how long we've been using nuclear power. Then look at the number of major nuclear plant problems. There are only three that I can think of offhand, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, and they're the ones everybody has heard of and knows. As far as I am aware all of them were preventable.

There have been two. Three Mile Island was a non-event, the locals got the equivalent of an extra year of radiation at the WORST. You're safer living next door to Three Mile Island then living a mile away from a coal power plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... ents_Scale

TMI scored a 5 and that's probably pushing it.

[javcs]

Look at how long we've been using nuclear power. Then look at the number of major nuclear plant problems. There are only three that I can think of offhand, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, and they're the ones everybody has heard of and knows. As far as I am aware all of them were preventable.

There have been two. Three Mile Island was a non-event, the locals got the equivalent of an extra year of radiation at the WORST. You're safer living next door to Three Mile Island then living a mile away from a coal power plant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... ents_Scale

TMI scored a 5 and that's probably pushing it.

Exactly - before Fukushima, Three Mile Island was the 2nd worst "nuclear disaster", not counting nuclear weapons. TMI is now only the 3rd "worst" event, again, not counting actual nuclear weapons. TMI is more an example of how even when there is a big problem, if the plant is properly maintained and operated, the myriad of failsafes are going to do their job, and the issue, while it'll make the news, isn't going to be, objectively speaking, all that bad - and a modern nuclear plant design is even safer than TMI was.

Oh, yeah, nuclear plants put out way less radiation and general crap than coal plants do. Coal is dirty, even at best.

[Arioch]

I don't see how anyone who pretends to be serious about "sustainable" or "clean" energy sources can omit nuclear power as a serious option, as it's one of the only "real" possibilites for primary power generation that fits either category. Obviously, nuclear power produces toxic wastes as a by-product (and has very serious safety concerns), but under controlled conditions, such by-products can be responsibly dealt with, and the safety concerns can be mitigated. The same cannot be said of any other option.

In contrast, the toxic by-products of the burning of fossil fuels are dispersed into the atmosphere, and so are much more difficult to control, mitigate or reverse. Far more people have been killed by the by-products of burning coal and other fossil fuels than have ever been killed by all the by-products of nuclear reactors (and their well-publicized accidents) to date. The hysteria over the Fukushima failures following the horrific 2011 Japanese tsunami overlooks the fact that in a disaster that claimed some 20,000 lives, not a single death from radiation exposure has yet been recorded.

There are no other "clean" energy options available. Solar power is and will continue to be an important energy supplement, especially in the future as the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of cells increase, but solar is not a primary energy source, because it's only available during the day. Unless battery capacity experiences an unexpected thousand-fold increase in capacity and reliability, solar will never meet our primary power needs. Exotic algae systems may make solar energy more efficient (50-100 years down the road), but they still will never produce energy at night.

Current "bio-fuels" such as ethanol are no more sustainable than any current fossil fuels, and have just as big an environmental impact (due to the requirements of land use, fertilizers and pesticides, and the need to power farming equipment).

Wind and water power are "clean" in the sense that they produce no carbon emissions, but both are far from "clean" in the sense of environmental impact. Dams are about as environmentally destructive as anything you can imagine... we are in an era where societies are wrecking dams, not building new ones. And wind turbines also have significant environmental impact -- in addition to cluttering the landscape, they actually slow the winds in the areas where they are set up (there literally is no such thing as a free lunch). Wind is still a very viable supplement in certain areas, but it's still not a primary energy source... the power stops when the wind stops blowing.

Geothermal energy is a serious contender for the future, but right now it's limited in availability and scope, and has very serious potential environmental impact. In the sites where they inject water into the ground to produce on-demand geothermal steam, increased earthquake activity appears to be an inevitable result. Managing such impact is, I think, ultimately possible, but we're talking about a very long-term solution.

Fusion power is currently a fantasy, and it's hard to imagine that this point will change in the next 50 years.

Expecting entirely new "clean energy" sources to magically appear within the next 10-20 years just because we wish it... indicates a complete ignorance of current physical science.

[uthilian]

tidal energy (more or less wind-farms just under water :p) are showing some promise from what I hear. they adjust to the tide moving in and out which is happening all the time, but maintenance is the biggest problem atm due to the best spots for them mean that the divers doing maintenance only have a few minutes at high and low tide to do any repairs/ installations due to strong tidal currents

[discord]

i agree with arioch, and most other sane people, nuclear is the way to go, oh horrible stockpiles of waste, well build some fast reactors that are not designed to create nuclear bombs, and turn that waste into fuel.

case closed.

[GeoModder]

Indeed an early gen-2 reactor nearly survived all that, and most likely WOULD have survived one or the other. If it had been upgraded with a gen-3 or gen-4 reactor then the disaster would have been a snooze-fest.

I'd say nearly isn't good enough

As I said in the Page 99 thread. We aren't the Russians.

No, Three Mile Island was merely a sneeze!

[junk]

I don't see how anyone who pretends to be serious about "sustainable" or "clean" energy sources can omit nuclear power as a serious option, as it's one of the only "real" possibilites for primary power generation that fits either category. Obviously, nuclear power produces toxic wastes as a by-product (and has very serious safety concerns), but under controlled conditions, such by-products can be responsibly dealt with, and the safety concerns can be mitigated. The same cannot be said of any other option.

In contrast, the toxic by-products of the burning of fossil fuels are dispersed into the atmosphere, and so are much more difficult to control, mitigate or reverse. Far more people have been killed by the by-products of burning coal and other fossil fuels than have ever been killed by all the by-products of nuclear reactors (and their well-publicized accidents) to date. The hysteria over the Fukushima failures following the horrific 2011 Japanese tsunami overlooks the fact that in a disaster that claimed some 20,000 lives, not a single death from radiation exposure has yet been recorded.

There are no other "clean" energy options available. Solar power is and will continue to be an important energy supplement, especially in the future as the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of cells increase, but solar is not a primary energy source, because it's only available during the day. Unless battery capacity experiences an unexpected thousand-fold increase in capacity and reliability, solar will never meet our primary power needs. Exotic algae systems may make solar energy more efficient (50-100 years down the road), but they still will never produce energy at night.

Current "bio-fuels" such as ethanol are no more sustainable than any current fossil fuels, and have just as big an environmental impact (due to the requirements of land use, fertilizers and pesticides, and the need to power farming equipment).

Wind and water power are "clean" in the sense that they produce no carbon emissions, but both are far from "clean" in the sense of environmental impact. Dams are about as environmentally destructive as anything you can imagine... we are in an era where societies are wrecking dams, not building new ones. And wind turbines also have significant environmental impact -- in addition to cluttering the landscape, they actually slow the winds in the areas where they are set up (there literally is no such thing as a free lunch). Wind is still a very viable supplement in certain areas, but it's still not a primary energy source... the power stops when the wind stops blowing.

Geothermal energy is a serious contender for the future, but right now it's limited in availability and scope, and has very serious potential environmental impact. In the sites where they inject water into the ground to produce on-demand geothermal steam, increased earthquake activity appears to be an inevitable result. Managing such impact is, I think, ultimately possible, but we're talking about a very long-term solution.

Fusion power is currently a fantasy, and it's hard to imagine that this point will change in the next 50 years.

Expecting entirely new "clean energy" sources to magically appear within the next 10-20 years just because we wish it... indicates a complete ignorance of current physical science.

Also many proponents of other "clean" power generation methods completely and utterly forget that those methods are not available to all nations equally. There's a number of nations which have no tidal areas, insufficient water ways to create water damns to be long term usefull, don't have enough wind or sun light and a slew of other things.

Those nations are essentially forced to go nuclear if they want a relatively clean long term energy source. Obviously the by product of nuclear energy is toxic, but in the same way, there's attempts to make nuclear reactors which can utilise this waste as well and help clean up the problem somewhat.

On top of that, nuclear storage is relatively safe and has very little overspill into the environment.

Obviously nuclear catasptrophes have happened, but they don't have the biggest impact on life in it's viccinity in the long term.

Look at Fukushima today, or the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Yes people are barred from living there, but nature has reclaimed the area with aplomb. Chernobyl is teeming with life.

Indeed an early gen-2 reactor nearly survived all that, and most likely WOULD have survived one or the other. If it had been upgraded with a gen-3 or gen-4 reactor then the disaster would have been a snooze-fest.

I'd say nearly isn't good enough

As I said in the Page 99 thread. We aren't the Russians.

No, Three Mile Island was merely a sneeze!

Not good enough? Then what do you propose a nuclear reactor ought to withstand? A direct impact from an asteroid? A rift to ctulhu opening under it? Or one of the strongest earthquakes to have hit the area in a very long time.

Hint is survived the last. Hell the environmental impact from the fukushima reactor was still infinitely smaller than what happened after Chernobyl.

For that matter, Fukushima could have been worse, would have been worse, had the plant supervisor not disobeyed orders from higher ups to stop pumping in seawater because it was going to "ruin the reactors".

Actually if I recall some experts were hoping for an explosion, because the impact from that is lower than long term seeping of radioactive material out.

The thing with chernobyl is, that it wasn't an explosion either but instead an open fire into the atmosphere.


It's also why nuclear weapons are relatively clean as well. The higher the yield, the cleaner it is in effect.

[icekatze]

hi hi

One thing that frequently gets overlooked in the nuclear or not debate: There is a very finite supply of nuclear fuel resources available. At our current rate of consumption, it is estimated that the economically viable supplies will be exhausted within 200 years. If we increased our dependence on nuclear fuel, that number would obviously shrink.

[junk]

hi hi

One thing that frequently gets overlooked in the nuclear or not debate: There is a very finite supply of nuclear fuel resources available. At our current rate of consumption, it is estimated that the economically viable supplies will be exhausted within 200 years. If we increased our dependence on nuclear fuel, that number would obviously shrink.

Keep in mind we're increasing effectivity and even now waste that was previously nonuseable is looking to be worth a whole lot more again.

[fredgiblet]

Not good enough? Then what do you propose a nuclear reactor ought to withstand? A direct impact from an asteroid? A rift to ctulhu opening under it?

It frequently seems that that IS the expected requirement.

Hell the environmental impact from the fukushima reactor was still infinitely smaller than what happened after Chernobyl.

I think that Fukushima is probably overrated on the disaster scale, I honestly don't think it compares to Chernobyl. Either Chernobyl should be upgraded to an 8 or Fukushima should be dropped to a 6.

It's also why nuclear weapons are relatively clean as well. The higher the yield, the cleaner it is in effect.

IIRC this has more to do with the fact that high-yield nukes tend to be primarily fusion-based using fission solely as the catalyst.

[discord]

ice: that argument did not stop the oil business, but seriously, that is a non issue, using a hundred times the power usage of today we got enough fissile material for reactors to keep running for hundreds of years if maybe not thousands

the really important point that keeps getting overlooked by the opposition is in gen IV fast reactors, our current waste is then used as fuel, which would do something about the 'horrible handling of nuclear waste'....but for some reason the anti nuke guys just do not want it.

[GeoModder]

Not good enough? Then what do you propose a nuclear reactor ought to withstand? A direct impact from an asteroid? A rift to ctulhu opening under it? Or one of the strongest earthquakes to have hit the area in a very long time.

Use them on locations that already are a radiation hazard. Orbital industries and deep space craft.
And in a world getting more crowded every decade, were are you in the end going to store all the radioactive waste, and spent reactor equipment? Take the Outsider population Arioch postulated: 25 billion people. Millions of them will have to live close by "hazardous waste" storage facilities. A ticking time bomb.

IIRC this has more to do with the fact that high-yield nukes tend to be primarily fusion-based using fission solely as the catalyst.

No. It depends how the bombs are "salted", and deployed. An above the surface explosion has a wider area of effect. And including heavy elements in your bomb design will increase the fall-out (and endurance).

[discord]

geo: air burst has best area of effect blast and the least long term radiation problems why? less heavy radiated dust in atmosphere, there are a few reasons why it's done that way, true you can intentionally make it dirty i guess.... but yes, larger bombs are basically 'cleaner' why? two reasons, number one, fusion cycle in the bombs, two greater compression gets more complete fission of the material, see tsar bomba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_bomba for reference, biggest man made boom ever, and bang for the dirt, the cleanest.

and what part of diminishing current nuclear waste stockpiles are you missing?

but the major problem is we need a power supply, or our society will crumble fast, and silly enough nuclear is the greenest available when taking the entire foot print(full life cycle and production) in consideration.

[junk]

Not good enough? Then what do you propose a nuclear reactor ought to withstand? A direct impact from an asteroid? A rift to ctulhu opening under it? Or one of the strongest earthquakes to have hit the area in a very long time.

Use them on locations that already are a radiation hazard. Orbital industries and deep space craft.
And in a world getting more crowded every decade, were are you in the end going to store all the radioactive waste, and spent reactor equipment? Take the Outsider population Arioch postulated: 25 billion people. Millions of them will have to live close by "hazardous waste" storage facilities. A ticking time bomb.

IIRC this has more to do with the fact that high-yield nukes tend to be primarily fusion-based using fission solely as the catalyst.

No. It depends how the bombs are "salted", and deployed. An above the surface explosion has a wider area of effect. And including heavy elements in your bomb design will increase the fall-out (and endurance).

Airbursting nukes tend to usually be cleaner than ground and underground burst, mostly due to the spread of irradiated material. There's very little dust from an airbursting nuke that will end up as a long term hazard.

The thing with stronger nukes as far as I understand is that the sheer strength of them means that more of the materials gets consumed and broken down leaving very little long term health hazard.

With the most dirty being so called dirty bombs which are more about the spread of toxic materials than anything else.

As to storage. There's still more than enough space in underground areas which can be remotely enough even with a far greater population density. Take the US for example - it has a relatively low population density for it's size.

[Trantor]

Even after what we saw in Japan?

An absurdly outdated design that isn't even in the same league (much less the ballpark) of modern designs getting hit by two of the worst natural disasters in history simultaneously?

For a-sooo outdated design - aren´t there too much of them still around? Especially in the USA?

I for one am not going to use that as a basis for my opinions.

Keep living in the nuclear stone age. Ze Germans haff zat behind.
Oh, and btw: WE are/were the nation with the cutting-edge technology. See here: http://tinyurl.com/3e4ny7q .
Doesn´t look like low-tech, does it?
Though no need for them anymore.
Oh, and btw: Our Chancellor holds a doctorade in nuclear physics and quantum chemistry, so she has probably forgotten more on that topic than all those oh-so sane nukefanboys together will ever know. Or better: Believe.

As I said in the Page 99 thread. We aren't the Russians.

Well, that wasn´t an exclusive problem of them...
I don´t know how old you are, and where you from, but I can still remember all the warning signs "playground closed due to radiation", "Keep off the wood" etc, thanks to Chernobyl... Still, wildpigs from the bavarian and black forest aren´t safe to eat, between 20 and 80% of them are too contaminated and have to be disposed in special facilities. And that´s only one example.

You mean essentially the safest and cleanest power source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_n ... _incidents

But of course this whole industry is to be trusted, as they always inform truthfully and transparent.
And of course all npp´s worldwide are completely and comfortably insured, and the problem of waste-storage is absolutely solved, with no costs for the next 10.000 generations to come... Oh, wait...

Keep in mind: Plutonium has a half-life of 24k years.

What happened in Japan should have been a realisation for most people just how safe nuclear power plants actually are. as opposed to have instigated another panic attack.

Thank you. I feel soooo much safer and better now.
"Sacrifice your children and grandchildren for the shareholders benefit, worship the golden calf of turbo-nuke-capitalism! Socialize the losses! Disagreeing is un-American!!1! And un-Christian!!!1!!11!!!!"

I don't see how anyone who pretends to be serious about "sustainable" or "clean" energy sources can omit nuclear power as a serious option

You call our chancellor and our industry insane?

The hysteria over the Fukushima failures following the horrific 2011 Japanese tsunami overlooks the fact that in a disaster that claimed some 20,000 lives, not a single death from radiation exposure has yet been recorded.

IIRC i count at least two from the cleanup crew who got several sievert from that puddle. And several hundred claimed by PTSD and related suicides.
But they´re still better off than the ten-thousands who are suffering from losing their homes and their former lives.

And for the body-count: Just wait and see - radioactivity kills slowly.

And wind turbines also have significant environmental impact -- in addition to cluttering the landscape, they actually slow the winds in the areas where they are set up (there literally is no such thing as a free lunch). Wind is still a very viable supplement in certain areas, but it's still not a primary energy source... the power stops when the wind stops blowing.

You want to get informed about wind-energy. Urgently.


A russian scientist once said that one chernobyl wouldn´t be enough to make people think, but rather half-a-dozen of them.
I sadly think he´s still wrong.

[fredgiblet]

For a-sooo outdated design - aren´t there too much of them still around? Especially in the USA?

Yep, because the fearmongers insist that we can't build replacements, even when those replacements would be more efficient and safer.

Oh, and btw: Our Chancellor holds a doctorade in nuclear physics and quantum chemistry, so she has probably forgotten more on that topic than all those oh-so sane nukefanboys together will ever know. Or better: Believe.

Your point? Edward Teller, father of the atomic bomb, was in favor of nuclear power. If your Chancellor knows more than he did it's only because she stood on his shoulders.

Well, that wasn´t an exclusive problem of them...

No, but they were the only people who didn't seem to understand the respect that nuclear power required, and prior to Fukushima they were the only people who had a truly significant event. Arguably they still are since Fukushima will likely end up being significantly less impactful than Chernobyl and Fukushima was caused by a natural disaster rather than solely human error.

I don´t know how old you are, and where you from, but I can still remember all the warning signs "playground closed due to radiation", "Keep off the wood" etc, thanks to Chernobyl... Still, wildpigs from the bavarian and black forest aren´t safe to eat, between 20 and 80% of them are too contaminated and have to be disposed in special facilities. And that´s only one example.

Relevance? The Russians fucked up. No one denies that. But that was them, they were fuck-ups in general and the world would have been a better place if they never acquired nuclear power. But claiming that they should be considered the benchmark by which nuclear power should be measured is disingenuous at best. It's picking the worst example and claiming it's the average.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_n ... _incidents

I see LOTS of zeroes next to fatalities and long lists of very minor incidents that are only notable because they involve nuclear power interspersed with a light sprinkling of moderate incidents. Most of the lists incidents are basically "oops it went out of spec and shut down". Scary.

and the problem of waste-storage is absolutely solved, with no costs for the next 10.000 generations to come... Oh, wait...

Keep in mind: Plutonium has a half-life of 24k years.

So feed it to fourth-gen reactors and get power out of it and less hazardous material out.

Thank you. I feel soooo much safer and better now.
"Sacrifice your children and grandchildren for the shareholders benefit, worship the golden calf of turbo-nuke-capitalism! Socialize the losses! Disagreeing is un-American!!1! And un-Christian!!!1!!11!!!!"

What a wonderful and nuanced counter to his point. Truly thought-provoking.

You call our chancellor and our industry insane?

No, he didn't.

And several hundred claimed by PTSD and related suicides.

Related to Fukushima, or the tsunami? I'm guessing the latter is much more common. Of course you'll be happy to put every death in Japan for the last year at Fukushima's doorstep most likely.

[junk]

[Trantor super text - cut down.

I actually find it hilarious how unatomic germans turned recently. Come on, you're almost as bad as Austrians lately. As to radioactivity killing slowly. No it doesn't, at least not really. It either kills fairly fast, or leads to fairly big organ failure in relative short order.

As to your list of nuclear accidents? Look at it - the majority of them are either not directly related nuclear power, or the power cycle inside of a reactor and overall had pretty much no impact on the safety of the reactor. Similar accidents happen in just about every industrial location often enough.

There's areas more toxic with less duty of care compared to nuuclear installations .

Also how is going nuclear a sacrifice to children and grandchildren? Not going nuclear would rather be a sacrifice due to the greater and larger environmental impact from non nuclear sources. Or do you honestly believe every reactor is a ticking bomb only waiting to go up.

Seems like the most accidents that happen as far as radiation go, tend to happen with medical equipment, not power plants.

As to your chancellor - I don't call her insane. I call her an intelligent politician who wants to get reelected. She's a very intelligent woman, had actually a discussion on our faculty today. But she's still a politicians. And Germans got an utter panic attack after Fukushima. Just look at your history with nuke reactors.

Let's build them. Let's let them age and close them. No let's renew them. Fukushima! No reactors again!

As to wind power? We'll actually be probably forced to block yours soon from entering our grid, because it tends to damage it. The production of it is so unstable and volatile that it's stressing czech and polish networks pretty heavily. Not sure if that was sorted out by now - but it was a pretty huge issue.

That's actually one of the major ails of wind farms.