/sci/ - Science & Math

62%

99% green, it produces mostly water vapor and a small amount of very toxic material

>>12054965
Less toxic than most other industrial waste.

>>12054271
It's green enough

>>12054271
99.9% better than the rest of the methods to generate power, all people need to do is send the nuclear waste to Nevada and just hide it in those old dry mines.

>>12054965
>>12055077
That small amount of highly toxic material is probably one of the biggest hurdles to nuclear energy. Until we figure out an efficient way of disposal, I can't see nuclear energy happening on a grand scale.

>>12055520
Its not hard to manage and isn't as hazardous as shit every other factory dumps literally into rivers that flow out into oceans.

You leave it in the ground and come back 50 years later to check on it; nobody is hurt by it, ecosystem may aswell not know it exists at all, and you aren't dumping billions of tons of carbon into atmosphere and then crying that you'll go extinct in next 200 years, not that hard of a concept to grasp.

>>12054271
who cares? it's dead economically and not popular

>>12055577
Gas and Coal won't work long term and Solar and Wind don't have the capacity to sustain current energy levels

>>12054965
This, but it also heats up the water and if the body of water is too small it heats up the average temperature. This leads to less oxygen dissolved in the water and can kill entire eco systems.


also building a nuclear plant on an island in a tsunami zone is an obvious bad choice.

Additionally, only reactors that produce weapons grade byproducts can meltdown. The Canadian CANDU reactors can't and are the safest in the world.

The real problem with nuclear power besides terrible placement and greedy weapons manufacturing is that the general public is terrified of radiation because of science-illiteracy

>>12055590
>Solar and Wind don't have the capacity to sustain current energy levels
That is why grid level energy storage is going to be a 20 trillion dollar industry within a decade

>>12055520
Reuse it to ger moar energy, it's doable.

>>12054965
it emits tons of heat destroying creeks and rivers

>>12054271
There is absolutely no such thing as a 'green energy source'. There are only different degrees of harm that an energy source produces and how well we can mitigate that harm during it's manufacture and after it expires.

So, let's look at a Nuclear plant vs other forms of energy. The biggest costs in terms of environmental damage caused by Nuclear are the materials used in its construction, the environmental impact of its operation, the environmental impact of its demolition, and the environmental impact of an accident.

The environmental impact of its construction lie primarily in the cement used in building the towers and the exotic materials used in its reactor. Cement is the #2 cause of carbon gases in the atmosphere so it's net effect is not zero, however this is offset by the amount of carbon gases it removes from the atmosphere in generation of electricity. The exotic elements used in the reactor cause environmental damage when mined and milled. I don't know what's used in a reactor so this is something someone else will have to help me with.

The environmental impact of its operation lie in the mining for fissile ores used in its operation and the milling of these ores into usable fissile material. This is very dangerous since tailings from uranium mining include radon, radium, thorium, polonium, and arsenic.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/longstaff1/

This is perhaps the most dangerous mining in the world as not only does it expose workers to radiation it also leaves behind the most dangerous mine tailings on the planet. Coal mining kills more people and is more dangerous to the workers but doesn't leave behind mine tailings more than a fraction as deadly as uranium mining.

>>12054271
The mining still requires a lot of hydrocarbons, but that's the fault of the mining industry. The emission of a plant are waste heat, water vapor, and a small amount of spent fuel which must be stored in a cooling pool and monitored for leaks.

>>12055713
ohhhhhhh noooooo not the little frogarinnnooooos

>>>12055723
>The emission of a plant are waste heat, water vapor, and a small amount of spent fuel which must be stored in a cooling pool and monitored for leaks
>casually overlooks the highly radioactive waste material that has to be buried for 100+ years and no country at the moment can effectively dispose of

>>12055742
based retard

>>12055716
Further there is environmental impact of operation in the disposal of waste heat. Most nuclear plants deal with waste heat through water such as a cooling pond or cooling tower where water is evaporated off. This impacts aquatic life directly and may stress water resources during drought especially now with the impact of climate change as water resources change.

The environmental impact of its demolition are the second most dangerous concern for nuclear power as it includes the disposal of radioactive material. This is what is of most concern by environmental groups and activists as there is no good long term plan for storing nuclear waste. Any plan falls apart 5-10,000 years when future humans may lose the ability to read and understand warning signs while nuclear waste will last tens of thousands of years longer. However this is not the only concern as the exotic materials used in reactor construction also must be disposed of safely and includes various gas, liquid, and solid wastes. This is not only environmentally dangerous but also a danger to workers.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0586/

>>12055742
100+ years of waste not affecting anything is surely worse than microplastics in all the fish you eat while we don't know how harmful it really is but know that it will take more than 100+ years to decompose.

Not at all, it's yellow.

>>12055757
The last environmental impact of nuclear power is accidents. A nuclear accident is perhaps no more deadly than an oil refinery fire or a coal plant explosion. Since three major accidents and many smaller accidents have happened since the start of the nuclear age (counting 3 mile island as a major accident) we cannot rule out the effect of further damages caused by accidents in the future with various results and consequences.

>>12054271
i'm sure it's fine.
Don't worry about it

>>12055765
So if we compile it altogether.

Nuclear wins in construction against some other forms of power generation. Where solar's greatest environmental impact lies in its construction in the use of materials and chemicals it produces energy after it's construction for free until the end of its life cycle. Wind and hydroelectric require more cement per kilowatt hour but may have a longer lifespan than nuclear because even the most sturdily built nuclear plant must be decommissioned after 50 years due to the breakdown of the reactor due to longterm exposure to radiation. This is unavoidable and inevitable. It'll put that as a win for neither. It does win of course against coal, oil, and natural gas.

Nuclear loses in power generation because of uranium mining however it wins in regards to it's operational waste being primarily waste heat. This is what most people think of in how nuclear power benefits the environment because its operational impact is mostly in water and heat but most people seem to forget that uranium mining is pure and utter garbage or maybe they forget that nuclear power generation is not free because they separate nuclear power itself from uranium mining and simply don't bother connecting the two as if uranium comes from space.

Despite this however it is far far far safer than the burning of fossil fuels because, despite how dangerous uranium mining is this is nothing compared to the environmental impact caused by smog directly and climate change indirectly.

Nuclear loses handily in decommissioning because we still haven't figured out long term solutions to nuclear waste disposal.

Nuclear wins heavily in accidents compared to fossil fuels though this may be due to the relatively small number of nuclear plants. This would remain to be seen if nuclear is scaled up.

So how does nuclear fare? I'd rate it a 7 out of 10. It's brilliant shit when compared to fossil fuels but not so great against renewables like solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal.

Less co2 released, land used, and material used per kwh than almost all other alternatives

>>12055839
You don't need to mine much uranium. "Spent" fuel is still like 90% life left. Reprocessing and new reactor designs can use old reactor fuel.

>>12054965

That has a half life of... 20k years. And if it gets into the groundwater? hehe

>>12055577

Does this take into effect the amount of waste created by wind and solar? Those giant fans and huge panels don't last forever and they end up in dumps.

Nuclear is great until you have a catastrophic disaster. If you're lucky it's the cost of hundreds of kilometers of uninhabitable land (for ten thousand years), cancer spikes and birth defects depending on population density, potentially hundreds of immediate deaths from exposure via cleanup, and maybe a couple video games about it.
Worst case? You create a nuclear winter that inevitably leads to the extinction of the human race.

>>12055897
>this is 1942 and reactors are experimental and can explode
ok retard

>>12055847
Waste disposal is a nightmare we'll have to deal with a for a few thousand years.

>>12055915

Fukushima Daiichi happened because of a tsunami and Kashiwazaki-Kariwa happened because of an earthquake. Chernobyl was caused by incompetance and poor design.

>>12055920

Currently they're just making cement coffins and burying them. There was already an issue in the US where some of the cement broke and nuclear waste leaked into the ground.

>>12055920
Reuse the fuel.

>>12055520
>That small amount of highly toxic material is probably one of the biggest hurdles to nuclear energy
Not really, cost is. After all, producing a large amount of highly toxic material hasn't stopped coal power plants from being built by the thousands.

It doesn't matter, the stumbling block is the fact that the initial overhead ais so expensive.
There is no commercial reactor that operates without subsidy anywhere on the face of the planet nor has one ever existed.

>>12055520
>Until we figure out an efficient way of disposal
I vote hurling it into space after we build a space elevator

It's not woke enough to be a real solution, /pol/chud

>>12056374
This is satire, r-right?

>>12056590
How dare you

>>12055764
Actually it's more blue.

Hydro and wind are still better than nuclear.
It takes s shitton of materials to build a nuclear power plant and the mining for uranium is dirty as well. The fuel waste is dangerous and the risk of polluting a huge area.

Smaller container sized power plants would be neat.

Check out SMRs or small modular reactors, also Thorium salt reactors. These options mitigate much of the decommissioning downside as well as the accident risk

>>12055883
They tend not to store nuclear waste near aquifers, especially ones that are near civilization. You might as well argue that wind is dangerous because if you stick a windmill in front of a runway a plane might hit it.

>>12055490
How do you get it there safely? If someone steps in front of your transport vehicle to protest the death of a basketball player jogging through a bank with a gun, should you stop and let them play in all of the waste in the transport?

it's more "blue" due to cherenkov radiation :)

>>12054271
>>12055860
What are the problems that must be overcome to be able to use any types of element for fuel in nuclear plant fission reactions? Imagine using stuff like carbon or iron.

>>12054271
>>12055860
What are the problems that must be overcome to use lower elements in nuclear plant fission reactions?

The closer you get to the top of the curve the more stable the atom and hence more energy is required to initiate fission, also less net energy is released

>>12057136
So we know how to do it, but choose not to?

Based on the physics the viable option is Thorium and we have been using that since the 50s I think. It is better actually than Uranium and Plutonium, there were politics involved in the decision way back when that had to do with where and what type (molten salt or our current standard) reactors would be built and if they met the needs of the air force, long story, but Thorium is back and people are looking into it, it is inherently safer as the fuel is in circulation, also has less waste issues and is scaleable. There is a movement to bring it back, cant remember the name of the main prognosticators but you can find about it online.

>>12055577
Lazard is known to lie a lot. Like they are using 30-55 % for wind capacity factor when the reality is more like 30-33 %. This makes the lower end price a lot lower.

Also, LCOE is not useful for comparing nuclear baseload to variable wind/solar because it lacks all the external costs like providing load following. For example, a gas power plant paired with wind makes the gas power cost $30/MWh more mostly because of the lower CF.

Lazard also uses a large interest rate (~10 %) that makes all the difference. It's not hard for governments and even some companies to get interests rates near 1 %. You can achieve $40-50/MWh nuclear with this lower rate.

Also, nuclear could provide district heating in colder cities but for some reason it's rarely taken advantage of. The heat can easily be worth around $50/MWh and you get almost 2 units of heat for every 1 unit of electricity (and very little extra cost to make use of it).

>>12056693
It literally takes 10 times more materials to build wind/solar power than to build nuclear so why are you lying?

>>12057348
Interesting thank you

>>12055897
Even in the worst case nuclear kills less people than all the other forms of power production.

So who cares about a small chance of getting a semi-mandatory natural park where wildlife can flourish without humans?

Nuclear winter? From nuclear power plants? Did you forget your meds?

>>12055897
>You create a nuclear winter that inevitably leads to the extinction of the human race.

>>12056749
Nuclear waste has been transported like millions of times already and there's never been any problems.

Why would you let a guy play with the waste?

>>12054271
42
as green as you want it to be, pretty much :^)

>>12055689
There's nothing wrong in building nuclear power in islands within tsunami zones. Most nuclear plants that were hit by the tsunami were just fine. Simply don't leave the backup power anywhere where water can get in. Or build enough passive cooling that can keep the reactor cold for more than a few hours. Or never shut down the power plant in the first place because it's not even necessary.

>>12055577
How the fuck can nuclear energy cost 148$/MWh while it barely cost 42€ in France?

>>12057412
Because France isn't USA you faggot.

France is almost entirely invested into nuclear power while the only nuclear USA cares about is bombs because if your army dick isn't big enough literally nothing else matters.

>>12054271
Greener than any others despite the technology hasn't been developed for 40 years, unlike the others.

>>12057423
France abandoned nuclear power for green shit (every projects revolving about nuclear power are being abandoned). moreover, it wouldn't explain a price 3.5 times higher and even the rest of your energy is incredibly expensive.

Nuclear is pretty great. And that is coming from an electrical engineer that worked in renewables. People don't realize the sheer amount of land, maintenance, waste, and extra infrastructure involved with modern green options. Ironically, solar panels create a larger mass of hazardous waste than nuclear power plants per mW. So many environmentalists look at you funny when you have to explain to them that the panels have a finite lifetime. They all just go in the dump along with all the lead used in the fabrication. To give you an idea of the the nuclear waste volume:

The U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards.

>>12057432
You're mistaking France for Germany.

>>12057441
Not at all. Here some examples:
- Astrid project has been abandonned despite 750 millions € spent.
- Nuclear plants are being closed when they start to be profitable, leading to several issues since "green" energy can't compensate the lost of the several plants that will follow.
- Nuclear plants in Brittany almost all have been abandoned, despite the region being needy when it comes to energy supply.
- Green shit has been promoted for years leading to the first "solar roadway" that coasted millions and resulted into a disaster.
- There are plans to get at least 50% of "green" energies within the next decades, at the expense of nuclear.

>>12056642
Hol up... yellow+blue=GREEN!!!
Nuclear is 100% green, confirmed!

>>12057432
$40 vs $140 /MWh cost differences are explained by the interest rate used for the capital used to finance the power plant.

The first happens when governments get cheap money and latter happens when usually private investors use 9-10 % interest rates in their calculations.

>>12057473
[eqn]\color{yellow}■+\color{blue}■=\color{green}■[/eqn]Show this on television.

>>12056266
WTF?

The nuclear power plants we have here in Finland receive no subsidies. Nuclear was also the cheapest according to a recent (2017) study as well.

>>12055839
How dumb does one have to be in order to claim there's no solution to waste? The solution is literally a hole in the ground.

>>12054271
Bump

>>12055520
We've already figured it out you fucking brain dead scaremongering moron. It is encased in ceramic lead complexes whose shelf life exceeds the decay of the radioactive content. Then, this is buried. then this is fenced, monitored and guarded. All nuclear waste to date would only fill the area of a football field 6 feet height.

>>12056267
Why would we do that? It's stupid, costly, and riskier than just storing it in what we have now which is perfectly fine.

>>12055713
lol who cares

>>12056720
Nuclear powerplants are built on an aquifer.

>>12058690
The idea of that much shit sitting around makes me uncomfortable.

>>12058776
And if you understood decay you would realize that by now 75% of it is harmless.

>>12058776
>The idea of that much shit sitting around makes me uncomfortable.

>>12057377
How recent is this? I'm curious if energy sources like coal have reduced their fatalities due to improving technologies and safety standards.

>>12056267
Based

>>12056267
Was thinking about having the reactor in space, like in orbit or perhaps on the moon, but we don't have the technology to efficiently transport the electricity down to earth.

>>12057575
You guys don't have cheap excess natural gas from fracking

>>12054271
Nearly completely. The only potentially harmful part is the mining of nuclear material. However, the material lasts for a stupidly long time so we need very little of it and the impact there is very limited.
>>12055920
no it's not. We have that figured out.

Personal nuclear reactors when?

>>12061708
>Personal nuclear reactors when?
never ever and this is part of the problem, solar panels are affordable for home owners, nuclear reactors are not

As a home owner you can put solar on your roof, it will even make you money. it's the most American thing you can do. Nuclear is big government communist energy.

>>12055077

False

>>12055742
That's largely a political issue. It can be stored easily and monitored.

>>12058799
2016.

>>12061754
SPEAK FOR YOURSELF POORFAG

Any person who thinks nuclear energy is this safe efficient resource are full of shit. They make the excuse
>three mile island was 40 years ago!
Meanwhile, (pic) was less than 10 years ago, in one of the most well-used nuclear power plants. There is a lot of maintenance and regulation that goes in nuclear power. The safety hazards isnt just a matter of whether a meltdown could happen.

>>12058799
I'm pretty sure a brand new coal plant with all the modern scrubbers and jet burners would be pretty much on the level of oil/biofuel/gas
this counts in all the old-ass plants with "aftermarket" filters (if any) and imperfect burning

>>12054271
Certainly in the red when it comes to profitability

>>12061775
>solar
>not a modular micro reactor
The nuclear dream is closer than you think!

>>12062900
Almost all American power plants are well past their designed service life.

>>12062831
not even the richest man in the world got a personal nuclear reactor in his basement, for good reason

>>12062886
Who gives a shit about "safety hazards" when every other method of power production kills more people?

Why would nuclear need to be zero risk when none of the alternatives are either? It's already the safest and that should be enough for any comparison.

>>12063045
why not?

>>12055689
Actually CANDU reactors are a huge proliferation risk, online refueling and the massive DU volume and low burnup means reprocessing would yield pretty much weapons grade uranium. They also have a positive void coefficient, but it doesn't matter because it's a liquid moderator, it wouldn't melt down so much as boil out.

However Plutonium manufacturing is dope af, better than enrichment as a strategy to get Thorium working or SMRs

>>12054271
It is like shitting in the woods. Unless you wipe your ass with your finger and lick it clean, you leave waste behind in a form of paper tissues or such.

>>12057377
>0.15
>wind
this one hits because it's only because of how dangerous is windmill inspection.

>>12055577
It's only economically dead because wind and solar get billions in government subsidies every year while nuclear is actively punished with more regulations to jump through and more taxes to pay.

It's like some vegan politician saying "look how expensive real burgers are compared to veggie burgers" after they slap the beef industry with a 75% tax.

>>12056819
The cheap neutron.
Technically neutron capture can be used in an exothermic reaction albeit probably not fission, neutrons are not produced in these reactions preventing it being self sustaining. Furthermore, the heavier the element the more energy per reaction which lowers your energy / energy out, a problem which fusion suffers from even if it works. (For example hydrogen bomb energy yields per reactant being predominantly fission with fusion just adding neutrons not energy)

>>12063170
The government doesn't want people to have fun is why.

>>12062992
And no new ones are built because it's not profitable

>>12063707
No, they aren't built because of regulation from the 70's and 80's
Financially they make so much sense long term, they aren't "profitable" in the immediate sense but they are almost entirely clean energy and totally renewable if we weren't so concerned with reprocessing "issues"

Look at Japan and France

and this is all concerning Light water reactors and Deuterium reactors. The story becomes so much more interesting when you consider molten salt and fast reactors

>>12063572
nuclear got more subsidies then anything else, it's still not competitive,
Building a nuclear plant takes decades and costs billions. Only communist big government is willing to do this.

>>12057377
You're talking about human deaths?
Did you know that anything polluting the air, wind and solar (field) kills lots of birds?
Talk about the big birds, not the small bois.

>>12066421
Fuck birds only humans matter

>>12066421
there better turbines that kill less birds i thought

>>12054965
1% of very useful material for shooting russian tanks

>>12055716
most of the uranium on the planet can be reliably extracted from oceans

>>12055490
Hiding it in mines is retarded and always has been.

>>12057358
Incredibly based and useful post

>>12065049
>No, they aren't built because of regulation from the 70's and 80's
Which regulations? The ones that say you have to maintain your facility so you don't poison drinking water? The ones that require redundant safety protocols? What do you think regulations are for? Should we all just run our reactors Chernobyl style and cut corners to save a buck?

>>12067505
It's apparent you are uninformed.
Many states have laws stating that new plants cannot be built unless they provide a method of high level waste disposal, of which there is only one location in the nation
The issue here is that 99% of the waste can be REUSED, the Actinides and Fission Products cannot. This would decrease the amount of waste by 2 orders of magnitude, and the waste thats left has a 300 year decay period instead of the millions of years it would take all the plutonium and uranium to become safe.
The problem is the abundance of Uranium on the earth, it's cheaper to mine new stuff than reprocess spent fuel. Also, retarded folk tend to worry about nuclear proliferation. Just safeguard the reprocessing plants in the same way the original enriched fissile materials are.

>>12067535
I should add that recycling nuclear waste is banned by Carter in the 70's. Explain that one to me

>>12067535
>>12067540
Waste reprocessing is a form of disposal, an expensive form. Cry more about how expensive it is to properly run a reactor.

>>12067582
Correct. What are you saying? There is no legitimate form of high level waste disposal besides reprocessing, and it's illegal in just the USA. It's not that much more expensive.

>>12067584
Sure, it's only three times more expensive, requires a dedicated facility to be built and a host of safety protocols to protect workers, relies on toxic chemicals which produce their own noxious wastes, and necessitates either one facility per plant or transport of nuclear waste across the country. I wonder why a sector that's already unprofitable wouldn't make the investments and take on the extra risk and liability. Probably has to do with a 50 year old law. It's not like they could lobby and have it changed, Congress certainly doesn't work like that...

>>12067640
>3x
Did you look at the image?
Safety is not a concern, it's no more dangerous than processing the fuels in the first place. As for safety protocol, not sure what you mean in the way of that being an obstruction.
Final high level waste disposal already would require transport across the country, having a reprocessing plant built in each region wouldnt be a problem. The rods are still going to be allowed to cool for years and years before any transportation. Look into the PUREX process to see what I'm talking about, several countries around the world are already doing this...

>>12054271
>>12054965
>>12055077
>>12055484
The accurate response is how simple controlling and producing energy is via ~"transmutation" -- "electroforming".

>>12055897
Back when reactors were pretty new technology and were largely experimental, the soviets tried to cut corners, disabled what were at the time common safety practices, and overall were acting like crazy Russians. This led to the meltdown of Chernobyl. 60 people died.
In Japan, they ran a nuclear plant that was hit by a barrage of natural disasters. The plant was safe and functional, but after a barrage of earthquakes, Fukushima began to melt down. Two people died.
Comparatively, hundreds of people fall in and get crushed to death by dam turbines every year.
The technology has progressed to the point that any fool could be given an instruction manual and run a completely safe nuclear plant.
The waste is a non issue because it can just be locked up in a basement without any risk.

>>12068821
>locked up in a basement without any risk.
wishful thinking

>>12068825
It's not wishful thinking, it's effectively true. It just costs a lot. My local plant has spent fuel in the waste pool from the 70's. Nuclear waste is extremely compact

>>12057441
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cha%C3%AFm_Nissim

>>12068821
Earthquakes were not the problem. Having backup diesel generators exposed to flooding water was the problem.

>>12067733
>Did you look at the image?
Did you? The back end is three times the cost.

>Safety is not a concern
It is when you get fined for it

>As for safety protocol, not sure what you mean in the way of that being an obstruction.
Believe it or not, you must provide for the safety of your workers or you're liable for whatever ills befall them. That's a lot of risk for a poison factory to shoulder.

>Final high level waste disposal already would require transport across the country
No, having to find a place to dump it was one of your bitching points. This waste is typically stored on site or nearby and there are many more available than just "one location".

They're not being built because it's an expensive, risky, and slow investment. The profits are too low to entice investors into shouldering those risks for a decade or longer.

>>12054271
Greener than solar, given that all the nasty shit is contained in enough concrete to tank a missile strike

>>12069427
You're brainwashed. Half of the developed countries are already reprocessing spent fuel. Imagine being this vehemently against recycling

I will also add that there is NO high level waste permanent disposal site besides Yucca. Currently all high level waste is stored in facilities that are not built to outlast the material they're housing.
The rest of your post is so baseless I'm not even going to bother

My arm is looking pretty green after they built one near me, thats for sure

>>12055577
boomer take

>>12055694
>energy storage
oh we fixed that? haven't heard
>20 trillion dollar industry
financed entirely by gov't subsidies
>within a decade
mmmm, probably not

>>12055742
>at the moment can effectively dispose of
there are already solutions to this
>>12055897
this is the kind of retardation retarding any and all investment into nuclear energy for the next XXX years
>>12056693
>It takes s shitton of materials to build a nuclear power plant
k
>mining for uranium is dirty as well
and mining for materials in a solar panel isn't?
>The fuel waste is dangerous
if handled by minks
>risk of polluting a huge area.
"huge," in your dreams
>>12057481
how did you do that
>>12058740
wrong

It's maintained and supplied by fossil fuel. It's effectively a reservoir for fossil fuel energy.

>>12070758
False but solar and wind vertical are fossil fuel friendly.

>>12054271
Thorium>Uranium
Uranium was only used because of its military potential (thank the Americans in the mid 20th century for that). Nuclear power was born because of the race for the atom bomb.

>>12071102
Brainlet cope. Uranium is much more energy dense than thorium and the fission byproducts are minute and a non issue.

>>12071113
Thorium is safer, keep crying mutt.

>>12071084
So the maintenance equipment and nuclear fuel is freighted and powered by coolies and slaves? remains true for Solar/aero/hydro

>>12054965
That's a nice way to explain it!

>>12054965

It produces radioactive waste that last for thousands of years that we have no solution for.

Don't fall into the carbon=bad meme.

>>12057377
This doesn't take into account cancer related increase that are caused by nuclear power plants.

>>12055520
We could dig a pit in Arizona where we did nuclear testing already, dump vitrified waste in it and cover it in a few dozen feet of clay, concrete and crushed rock. In 20 years, dig another pit and have all the plants send their site stored material off for burial again. All this shit about thousands of years is ridiculous. Stick a bronze pole in the ground that says "nuclear waste" and fucking leave it. Have a spy sat make sure there's nobody using earth moving equipment in the area once a day. Good enough. Shit isn't going anywhere until we want it to, which I can guarantee will happen in 100 years when we realize all that buried "waste" is actually valuable.

>>12069934
>Half of the developed countries are already reprocessing spent fuel
With strong government support. Unless it's heavily subsidized it's too unprofitable for the risk.

>The rest of your post is so baseless I'm not even going to bother
The irony

>>12071356
>I don't understand decay, the post.

>>12055713
that's quite low consequence

>>12055577
aren't wind and solar hilariously bad for wildlife, with solar requiring the complete deletion of biomes and wind fucking the shit out of bird migration routes?

>>12054271
Nuclear energy: The miracle cure to all humanity's ills, brought to you by the same pseudo religious growth mongers who brought you mass immigration and the 6th mass extinction.

>>12054271
Who fucking cares, it's sustainable and can be used to power replacements for any aspect of the biosphere. It's time to say goodbye to our planet and start thinking about creating something better. Taking care of a pretty little zoo is nice and all but it's not realistic.

>>12071119
>one fissile material is somehow safer than another fissile material
you are so fucking retarded
you need highly enriched uranium or plutonium to even start a thorium reactor, and thorium reactors really only work if its the molten salt type, which you could just as easily used uranium in a more simple breeding cycle

>>12055742
We already have reactors that naturally destroy waste material.

>>12071797
yeah like 1

>>12071746
>>one fissile material is somehow safer than another fissile material
Yes.

>>12071837
to actually use thorium effectively you have to turn it into uranium brainlet

>>12071369
Yes it does. If it didn't, nuclear numbers would be way lower than that.

You can go check it yourself by googling "deaths per TWh".

>>12071369
the radiation emitted by a nuclear power plant is lower than which is emitted by a coal one
Coal ain't pure

>>12071841
Uranium 233, not 235
you didn't think uranium was a single item like in video games, did you?

>>12071635
No. House cats kill more birds than windmills each year and I don't know what you're going on about with solar.

>>12073493
Lmao. He's right. Just because cats kill more birds doesn't detract from the half million that turbines kill. Also, turbine blades are one of the absolute worst materials to dispose of.
Solar farms require land to be cleared, and the mines required for producing manufacturing material aren't very eco friendly either
I'm all for all of them as forms of renewable energy, but there should be a balance. Unfortunately (?) Nuclear makes the most sense Ecologically since Uranium is extremely abundant naturally, can be re-used, and the waste and plant itself are so compact relative to other forms of power generation.
Most people don't realize it but a good many cities (100) are powered nearly entirely by nuclear in the US

>>12073167
>points out something irrelevant
You poor simpleton
Thorium offers no real advantages over just using the uranium fuel cycle
https://youtu.be/vxdqtAcz8hQ

>>12073493
There are almost no wind turbines compared to how many we'd need to make to replace gas and nuclear. The current farms are a rounding error, and so are the environmental impacts of them.

>>12056374
what the fuck

Why is there always the same old threads of "is nuc gud" rather than discussions on the technology itself?

>>12073692
that's a common sentiment in Europe among 1970ies Greens and their ideological descendants.
nuclear power requires huge, state backed investment, a society with high economic complexity and produces far too much energy. when your utopia is some kind of decentralised basic democratic low tech society, basically going down on the kardashev scale instead of upwards, and you want fewer 'energy slaves' instead of more that's a threat.

Isn't fission material limited in quantity i.e. wouldn't we run out if everyone went nuclear?

>>12073884
we'll run out of material for solar panels well before we run of nuclear fuel

>>12073842
The tech for existing reactors is pretty damn basic, just at an enormous scale. Talking about future designs invites a ton of "it can never happen became I hate nuclear" shitposts.

>>12073884
God no anon....we've got late-stage research that shows that oceanic uranium harvesting is 100% economical. The sun will burn out before we even get close to using up a fraction of the uranium on earth.

>>12066985
was there any plant experimental plant even on a smallest scale that tries or tried to extract uranium from oceans?
are gonna just parrot "public is scared of nuclear, that's why we haven't made or even realistically considered one yet", "oh it's 1ppb x 400 cubic kilometer of water so we'll run out in 200000 years"?

bitch do you even imagine how expensive it would be?

when it comes to tritium it's basically dead set that due to 1ppm yield it'll cost $30M/kg.

>>12073954
cope

>>12073984
lold

>>12074016
Ocean extraction is estimated to be about twice as expensive as mining but since fuel costs are a man percentage of the cost of nuclear that doesn't really mean much
https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514

>>12074052
Small percentage of cost
I meant to say

>>12073842
I'd invite discussion since I'm currently getting a degree in the field. What do you think about the US still operating a bunch ancient Boiling Water Reactors, are they a bad thing? Should they be rebuilt as Deuterium or Pressurized reactors?

>>12058776
the heavy metals released from coal plants poison the surrounding towns around them and bring an early death to nearby populations but we dont do anything about that. The fact that we want to bury the nuclear waste seems like star trek technology in comparison

>>12074255
I don't think so, as I can recall there's only been one plant recently where the maintenance would have cost to much so they opted to retire early. The way the NRC is up the ass of every plant operator I trust that the currently operating BWRs could hit the 80 year mark
But as far as if they're still economically viable is another thing especially with the manipulated energy market.

>>12074255
There is nothing wrong with BWRs when "modern" passive safety systems are used. They cane be left to reach their operational lifetime, then rebuilt into whatever the meme tech is at that point. Most likely they'll just be closed though unless civilization really pulls its head from its ass.

>>12074342
>>12074347
Agreed. The only concern would be worker health since a lot more components are irradiated in the Reactor vessel loop, but not really a concern as long as protocol is followed I guess.

What about fuel, thoughts on PUREX UREX, and other processes being used in the US? There's no supply shortage of U obviously, but it would really help the issue of high level waste disposal, which is the biggest argument against nuclear.

>>12074375
Doesn't work to make people feel better because greenies reee at any solution to waste which isn't 100% elimination, and anti-nuclear-weapons retards reee because you get relatively clean plutonium as an output. Since there's so much Uranium around, it doesn't make economical sense to reprocess waste just to get the U out.

>>12074889
reprocessing does make sense when there's high waste cost or high fuel cost, although its pretty cheap to just slap some concrete on that shit where it is, since it'll last at least 100years
>>12074375
unfortunately there hasn't been much success recently with mixing Pu to make fuel, though its mostly political or over bearing regulations, since this shit was easily done 60 years ago.
The regulations in the US banned reprocessing anyway so the best we have is with the Pu mixing, but the plant that was working on it is shit and way behind schedule and might be axed altogether
https://www.aikenstandard.com/news/feds-s-c-reach-historic-600m-plutonium-settlement-tons-to-be-removed-from-srs-by/article_ad2d13a2-eb0b-11ea-ab86-4fc4bd0968cb.html

>>12074375
If reactor designs like those from Elysium Industries ever come through we wouldn't even really need to worry about some of the reprocessing or even enrichment except when starting the reactor.
It being a fast molten salt solves many of the fuel/waste issues
http://www.elysiumindustries.com/technology
here's a recent video from them, but I haven't heard anything recently
https://youtu.be/_ou_xswB2b0

>>12073554
Turns out if you paint wind turbine blades black they kill 75% fewer birds.
Just thought you'd be glad to hear that because of concerned you are about birds dying to wind turbines

>>12057582
Or recycling, if the US actually made and used breeder reactors you could recapture some 75-90% of the waste and reuse it for another go in a reactor.

>>12062886
If 3 mile island is the worst that's happened, it's fucking nothing.

The amount of radiation leaked to the environment is on average less than what most people would get taking a plane from NY to LA.

>>12063707
More like NIMBY and people thinking that every reactor on the planet is run somewhere between The Simpsons and Chernobyl.

Nuclear's biggest problem has always been image, mostly from poorly educated hippies spreading in the counter culture like a venereal disease.

Very Green.

>>12075851
That's interesting, makes sense. I don't particularly care about birds but still. I am not a huge proponent of wind but it doesn't bother me in moderation. Even considering it as a global form of energy production is a mistake

>>12075906
Breeder reactors aren't needed for recycling fuel, but they do make sense. The hazardous waste from Nuclear are the fission products and minor Actinides. If we process spent fuel to remove the 95%+ other material (uranium, plutonium, etc) then we'd have 20x less hazardous waste to deal with.
New reactors built should utilize the newest technology like molten salt and liquid metal fast breeder reactor designs, but the old BWR systems are still functioning fine with no reason to be replaced.

>>12075908
>>12075914
I have seen the general responses to Nuke ads of Normiebook, it seems like 90+ per cent of the populus on the east coast US doesn't even realize they probably live within an hour of a reactor... It's unfortunate

>>12071369
Most people working at a nuclear plant get less radiation than several other occupations, like flight attendants and pilots, or just people who travel a lot since they're getting more from cosmic rays than the plant workers are from the reactor.

>>12075920
It's just scientifically uneducated or illiterate people that can push to vote one way or another.

Just saying 'radiation' gets people thinking of radiation syndrome and dying, because it can't get through their head that radiation is all around them in terms of light, radon in the ground or isotopes in their body or barely thinking about it with X-rays and shit. If you say "Hey, you got a .0001 mSv dose of radiation" they'll think they're dying, instead of realizing that sunbathing for an hour could get you that.

>>12054965
Unless something goes wrong ofcourse lmao

>>12075962
The statement is still true for accidents like Three Mille Island and Fukushima. The only true nuclear disaster was Chernobyl.

>>12055713
That’s bad, I agree, so why not just build them in the desert?

>>12054271

Are meltdown-proof reactor designs possible?

If not would it be worthwhile to build them underground or in a monolithic concrete structure that can be sealed off in an emergency?

>>12068995
>For ten years, Nissim, believing that fast breeder reactor "can explode with their fast neutrons",[4] did everything he could to stop the construction of the Superphénix nuclear plant, including training himself for underground guerilla, notably sabotaging electricity pylons with explosives.
>Chaïm Nissim décide de mourir le 11 avril 2017 par l'aide au suicide (translation : he killed himself via assisted suicide which is legal in Switzerland)

this is one special kind of autism.

>>12055920
>Waste disposal is a nightmare

Only in greenshits dreams, the more radioactive an element, the shorter the half life, that's nuclear physics 101, the most active elements disappear in the first few years, the most dangerous ones (that tend to bio-accumulate in animals and plants) disappear in the first few decades, our current storage solutions are more than adequate.

Again, the longer the half life, the less radioactive an element is. Our only problem with uranium is that it's a heavy metal, literally, but in that regard, we do much more to protect ourselves from this heavy metal than mercury for instance, which can be found in dangerous quantities in all fatty saltwater fishes that we eat on a daily basis.

Also what about that natural nuclear waste disposal that thrived on open air for millions of years in Africa ? You know, the Oklo Reactor
>located in Oklo, Gabon on the west coast of Central Africa, is believed to be the only natural nuclear fission reactor. Oklo consists of 16 sites at which self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions are thought to have taken place approximately 1.7 billion years ago, and ran for hundreds of thousands of years. It is estimated to have averaged under 100 kW of thermal power during that time.
Is it causing problems to wildlife ? No, because it's just fucking U-238 and poses absolutely no problem unless you eat literally eat this shit.

>>12077048
Greenism is a religion, facts have no bearing or weight within their cult

>>12076995
They're already built encased in 6foot concrete walls. That's like asking if it's possible to use gasoline that isn't flammable, there is an inherent risk but it can be totally mitigated with procedure and engineering

>>12071369
Don't pull arguments out of your ass anon, living near a NPP would expose you to a hundredth of the natural background radiation, airplane pilots are exposed to about 10x background and yet are perfectly healthy, small doses of radiation don't cause cancer, and it's a common misconception from uncultured retards to claim that any dose of radiation is dangerous.

You'd have to be directly exposed to 1 Sv of radiation on a very short period of time to increase your overall risk of cancer by 5%. Radiation related cancers happen to people that bioaccumulate radioelements, by eating, drinking or breathing contaminated food, water or dust.
Or to people directly exposed to active sources for a sustained period of time.

>>12057412
Extreme corruption in the construction sector and beaurocratic hurdles that stretch the project timelines. Most large construction projects in the US (and increasingly Europe) are merely sophisticated scams by local goverments designed to extract Billions from the Federal Government, partly to create short term job boosts and partly to line the pockets of corrupt politicans and private sector individuals. The cost-efficiency and the public benefit of these projects are practically irrelevant.

To curb this blatant corruption and misappropriation of public funds a multi-layerd response would be required, including but not limited to:
>transparency and profitability requirements
>legal culpability of officials for gross incompetence
>viability studies by independent researchers

Good fucking luck with that.

>>12076995
Many modern designs contain passive safety mechanisms to keep a reactor from melting down. In particular, generation III+ reactors are extremely meltdown resistant due to a strong focus on the use of these passive safety systems which require no power or active control to work. Generally they use gravity to halt the reactor automatically when it's outside it's operating envelope, and they core heat itself to move coolant solely by convection.
Only very old reactor designs are "dangerous". People forget that the Fukushima plant was built before Chernobyl, yet the disaster only directly killed one person.

>>12077084
>b-b-b-but muh map that shows the spread of a few dozen Becquerels of caesium per cubic meter of water in the pacific ocean !!!!!

>>12077088
>Drink a cubic meter of Japanese ocean water
>Get an order of magnitude more radiation from the sun while I do it, over the course of a few hours
>Die from drinking over 250 gallons of salt water in a day.

>>12054271
Extremely Green.
Did you know that the US currently possesses the technology to burn most of their Nuclear ""Waste"" and produce enough electricity to power the whole country for several decades? You can literally use the Waste to destroy the Waste.
The public perception of nuclear power plants is based on the technological level of the 80s.

>>12054271

Green enough that America should get off it's ass and stop sitting to the only real solution to the emissions crisis.

To shut the coal lobby up, Trump should tell them they have to convert all of their plants to nuclear within 20 years so they can stay in business. Trump should personally address "atomophobia" in his election campaign.

We can still mine coal to export it to third world shitholes like Japan does.

>>12077185
Trump endorsing nuclear would probably make the general perception even more skewed. "Converting" coal plants to nuclear plants isn't an option either

>>12055520
>That small amount of highly toxic material is probably one of the biggest hurdles to nuclear energy.
not really. with fossil fuels, we literally let the toxins go in the wind, and nobody seems to care. toxic material sitting on a concrete pad doing nothing shouldn't be much of an issue in comparison.

>>12055883
>20k years

Solar panel waste never decay. It's toxic forever.

Why are people afraid of something temporary while a permanent problem is okay?

>>12077828
This desu, if you want a nuclear revival Trump needs to get on the anti-nuclear bandwagon. It would probably be enough for him to start tweeting things like pic related to sway public opinion.

>>12077902
Nuclear ice breakers are quite possibly the fucking coolest thing humanity has created.

>>12077902
>greenpiss
Literally the biggest energy lobby in existence right now. Why don't the US and Russia blow their ships up like the French did ?

>>12077902
I hope no one tells them about the 80 plus nuclear ships the US Navy operates

about this green

>>12077902
Why do 99% of public relations statements nowadays read like random messages you'd find on a 13 year old girl's phone?

>>12056374
>>12056590
>>12073692

>>12077121
blame big coal for that
they knew nuclear would kill them off for good, so they got their pet green cultists to laser it down
the greatest tragedy of the 70s and 80s was not killing hippies to the last

>>12056223
It's not how toxic it is, it's how worried the public is about it being toxic that matters

>>12057364
>10 times more materials
This has nothing to do with the amount of raw excavation needed to produce nuclear fuel
That being said, I have no idea why he's complaining about the plant itself

>>12079014
>blaming the hippies
The cold war instilled far more fear in nuclear than hippies ever did. Hippies aren't as afraid of it, they just think it's horrible for the environment and have been convinced to take the stance of "only the best or nothing"

>>12054271
>How 'green' is nuclear energy?
Well if you count the moss growing on the many many shut down plants and the remaining plants that are soon to shut down then....

>>12078826
SHUT IT DOWN!

>>12078789
The attention span and general knowledge of reality stops developing at that level in the average human.

>>12055520
>Until we figure out an efficient way of disposal, I can't see nuclear energy happening on a grand scale.

When will this stupid meme die? We've already found a way to reprocess waste into fuel, obviously anti-nuclear cunts have done everything possible to make sure this never happens through introducing layers of red tape.

>>12077902
That would pass as an onion article

>>12057348
The reason thorium wasn't used initially is because plutonium and uranium can be used to make bombs

>>12079032
Well, the original argument was specifically about building the plants.

Uranium excavation does not make nuclear more resource intensive even if we assume low-grade ore (like in the picture here).

>>12079815
I think to be a real comparison you need to include the required resources for the entire system if it were to account for a large baseload fraction. That seems to be missing the plant itself for nuclear, and solar/wind require about double their nameplate capacity plus battery to meet the required reliability to become real baseload suppliers. Currently they function as joke energy which comes and goes whenever and is ballasted by fast responding gas plants, which end up running inefficiently under the far less predictable load curve.

>>12055520

I'm sure other anons have said this already, but over 90% of what we call nuclear 'waste' is merely 'spent' fuel which can be reprocessed and recycled through a myriad of different processes to another myriad of different applications - including fueling breeder designs

>>12054271
very green

>>12074375

>The only concern would be worker health

This is constantly being mitigated with innovation in automation and robotic systems, and the materials involved.

>>12079815

Is there a citation for this graph?

>>12062886
Holy shit dude, an unspecified amount of radiation found in and unspecified amount of fish 10 years ago with no source? wtf I suddenly love coal and gas now

>>12080294
Technically BWR employees are inherently going to be exposed to 140mrem per year while PWR workers are under 100. For reference, background exposure per year is about 6-700mrem. Not that's it's technically a concern, I think the difference in health risk is less than a thousandth of a percent

>That small amount of highly toxic material is probably one of the biggest hurdles to nuclear energy. Until we figure out an efficient way of disposal, I can't see nuclear energy happening on a grand scale.

>Any person who thinks nuclear energy is this safe efficient resource are full of shit. They make the excuse
>>three mile island was 40 years ago!
>Meanwhile, (pic) was less than 10 years ago, in one of the most well-used nuclear power plants. There is a lot of maintenance and regulation that goes in nuclear power. The safety hazards isnt just a matter of whether a meltdown could happen.

>Nuclear is great until you have a catastrophic disaster. If you're lucky it's the cost of hundreds of kilometers of uninhabitable land (for ten thousand years), cancer spikes and birth defects depending on population density, potentially hundreds of immediate deaths from exposure via cleanup, and maybe a couple video games about it.
>Worst case? You create a nuclear winter that inevitably leads to the extinction of the human race.

>>Personal nuclear reactors when?
> never ever and this is part of the problem, solar panels are affordable for home owners, nuclear reactors are not

>I fucking LOVE green energy! solar panels am I right? fuck nuclear. Chernobyl is SCARY and gives CANCER

>Nuclear energy? Sorry, I watched Chernobyl at Netflix. I'm not an uncultured pleb like you.

>what do you mean solar produces more waste per power than nuclear? You heard about Fukushima???? HA of course you don't

>>12081397
I don't disagree at all with your platform, but the wojacks are pretty fucking cringe.

>I don't disagree at all with your platform, but the wojacks are pretty fucking cringe.

>>12057438
>>12058690
Quit the single football field nonsense.
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion uranium enrichment plant in Kentucky. Acres of rusty containers with chemical and radioactive waste.

who pissed off the redditors to make them raid again

>>12081643

>>12081731
It could be so much worse

>>12081731
acres of future fuel for advanced reactors

>>12082111
how do you get the depleted rods out of the glass?

>>12082114
the same way he gets literally everything, the retard pulls it straight out of his ass

so green, even "green" virtue signallers and careerists dont like it

>>12081731
That's not radioactive waste you retard
It's what is left over from enrichment, which means it's less radioactive than natural uranium. It doesn't look that different from any other industrial site
This is was power plant waste looks like

>>12056267
idiot, then it just goes into orbit. You know deorbiting takes energy right??

>>12076333
Yes, let's build the hot thing we need to cool using cold water that evaporates into steam, in the desert!

>>12081731
That's enrichment byproduct which isn't spent fuel. Most of the spent fuel in the US is still sitting in reactor buildings in spent fuel pools

>>12054271
Why can't we reuse the nuclear byproducts?
I mean, surely harnessing the radioactivity of the waste products will give us more energy right?

>>12084240
Because of old regulations and cost of reprocessing vs just mining new uranium. Japan and France and other countries recycle it currently

>>12055716
Nickel, Cobalt, Iron, Copper, Molybdenum, and various alloys thereof.

>>12085523
I forgot: zirconium, hafnium, cadmium, boron, and graphite, and possibly even sodium. These materials vary greatly based on the reactor design.