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US Navy just patented a very compact fusion reactor.
Tsumi
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All of which you stated as alternatives are horrible baseline power sources and require either some sort of extremely expensive energy storage solution or an alternative means of baseline power source. The closest baseline solar tech is the molton salt solar power generator, but even that will have issues on extended overcast days.
Risk free? tell that to all the russian firefighters that died horrible deaths
Hence battery technology is at the forefront and one key to clean energy.
Never - keep fishing in your pockets.
Tsumi
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You're not wrong, but how long until we can produce enough lithium ion batteries and develop the recycling infrastructure for when they wear out? How much space do we need to allocate, and where? And what are the environmental implications of mining that much lithium and cobalt?
There is no perfect answer to our energy needs, and dismissing nuclear tech as a possibility because "batteries and other green tech will get good enough soon enough" is a little too idealistic. At least, that is my opinion.
Battery tech has come MILES in the last few years, Would you have beloved electric cars with the range they now have - 20 years ago? I Doubt it. t's because of the battery tech. Nuclear Power has advanced tech wise but stagnated due to costs and complexity. Battery development is a lot easier, cheaper and cost effective than cutting edge Nuclear Reactor design and implementation.
NightReaver
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Wait, what do batteries have to do with nuclear power generation? EVs could have the best batteries possible, but they have to be charged with power.
Or you can go have a conversation about the subject with the 23.000 europeans that die from the pollution from coal fueled powerplants in europe every year.
Those numbers kinda give you some perspective dont they?
I'd rather have nuclear powerplants pop up like mushrooms.
try and keep up
Coal is being phased out pretty much everywhere for Natural Gas or alternative fuels. Apparently, the pollution control standards are not up where they should be. Your preference to nuclear is not shared by a vast majority of people for the obvious reasons in this thread.
NightReaver
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Alright, I'm out on this one. Despite 20 percent of US power coming from nuclear and the only incident causing exactly zero deaths here, along with a few new reactors being built to this day, it is clearly unreliable and unsustainable. Can't wait for fusion to go through the same wringer. Agree to disagree I suppose.
The obvious reasons are wrong and/or overstated for a number of reasons. Three mile island and Fukushima had zero radiation related deaths. The number of deaths and the number of people that had radiation related health issues after Chernobyl are grossly overstated by special interest groups and environmentalists.
Add to this that these incidents happened at facilities with designs that are considered archaic by todays standards.
Natural gas kills about 4000 people per year globally. Biomass fuels kill 24.000 people a year.
Also worth consideration. Should we run the risk that we cannot reach the goals set for global warming with the alternative energy sources that are available to us? The stakes are enormous.
Nuclear power is guaranteed to get us to those goals in a relatively short time.
Add to this that these incidents happened at facilities with designs that are considered archaic by todays standards.
Natural gas kills about 4000 people per year globally. Biomass fuels kill 24.000 people a year.
Also worth consideration. Should we run the risk that we cannot reach the goals set for global warming with the alternative energy sources that are available to us? The stakes are enormous.
Nuclear power is guaranteed to get us to those goals in a relatively short time.
Remember - abandoned land and thousands of directly linked deaths world wide plus much better alternatives. Hold on to that Fusion Power Pipe Dream - It is doubtful anyone alive today will live to see it be self-sustaining and a net + power producer.
So apparently the figures you pull for "convention fuel deaths" is on target but the "nuclear related deaths" are grossly overrated? Enough, please stop.
Do you know what the numbers thrown around are based on?
They are based on the maximum theoretical possible under the worst case scenario, over a timespan over 95 years. Thats what those numbers are.
You can find the real numbers in a UNSCEAR report. I'll save you the trouble though. So far 15 people have died from thyroid cancer caused by radiation from Chernobyl.
While purely anecdotal, I'll add that I was directly downwind the Chernobyl site when it happened. Our goverment did a lot of things to mitigate damage, but have recently admitted that they knew at the moment that none it was necessary, and that it was a waste of money and only caused unneeded stress and fear in the population.
And your European death estimates are right on at ~30k dead. Keep going. Then move to India where there are no pollution controls and hit paydirt. Let me save you the trouble - Unregulated or poorly regulated pollution controls are not at debate. This is a government enforcement issue. Maybe the world should just dump all the spent nuclear fuel at Chernobyl. It's already wasted land.
You cant make coal clean by mandating pollution controls. It's a dirty energy source, end of story.
As for spent fuel, you can look to Finland. The first permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel is just about finished. Looking at the design it should be able to withstand anything short of a direct asteroid impact, and in that scenario the fuel will be the least of our problems.
Also, Chernobyl isnt wasted land. There are some interesting finds in studies of the ecology there, but the land is certainly not lost for ever. As a matter of fact local wildlife and flora is flourishing. There are a few pockets with rather high levels of radiations and I have visited several of them, but nothing that will kill you unless you act like a toddler and sit there and eat dirt every day for an extended period of time.
No one is debating coal except u.
wow that was easy, you just solved the spent nuclear fuel problem along with Finland. Add that to your costs.. how many billions was that? Oh, and we will need many more. keep adding costs.. $$$$ In the end - no better than anything else and I suggest worse with a half-life in the thousands of years. [/QUOTE]
Good to know, I can't wait to move back there tomorrow with everyone else. LOL
Good to know, I can't wait to move back there tomorrow with everyone else. LOL[/QUOTE]
Actually, all the spent nuclear fuel in the world would fit into three soccer fields if put in normal 208 liter barrels and stacked next to each other. If you stack three barrels on top of each other they would only take one. A small warehouse could house it, and a well built hole in the ground can hold it and much more.
As a matter of fact, hiring SpaceX to send it all into the sun would cost a lot less than the cost of health issues from fossile fuel pollution.
Actually, all the spent nuclear fuel in the world would fit into three soccer fields if put in normal 208 liter barrels and stacked next to each other. If you stack three barrels on top of each other they would only take one. A small warehouse could house it, and a well built hole in the ground can hold it and much more.
As a matter of fact, hiring SpaceX to send it all into the sun would cost a lot less than the cost of health issues from fossile fuel pollution.[/QUOTE]
Thats great - u just have to encase it and guard it for a few thousand years. OR have your buddy LAUNCH IT INTO SPACE.
"$1.2 trillion to launch the high-level waste into the Sun on a trajectory that takes a long long time."
GoodBoy
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Everyone does realize that all this "nuclear material" is already here on Earth? We are just moving it around, concentrating it in one place.
Someone has seen a few too many hollywood movies...
Not downplaying the real danger, but it is a danger we have always lived with but were too ignorant to know. Well I suppose it has also been buried for millennia too before we dug it up... Which is why burying it again after use only makes sense.
Shipping it to the Sun is stupid.. why accelerate the Suns' eventual collapse by adding heavy elements that it can't fuse with gravity? Plus it's crazy expensive. And it wouldn't need to be sent to the Sun anyway... just launch it and send it in a direction that takes it out of the solar system... we'll never see it again.
The same argument can be made for Arsenic - moving it around and concentrating it.. Do you know that if you drink too much water, it can kill you too? Your argument is foolish.
Hagrid
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Thats great - u just have to encase it and guard it for a few thousand years. OR have your buddy LAUNCH IT INTO SPACE.
"$1.2 trillion to launch the high-level waste into the Sun on a trajectory that takes a long long time."[/QUOTE]
https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...s/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx
https://www.world-nuclear.org/infor...s/radioactive-wastes-myths-and-realities.aspx[/QUOTE]
Brought to you by the "World Nuclear Association". Lets delve into that..
"The World Nuclear Association is the international organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the companies that comprise the global nuclear industry"
Yeah, I trust them..not. Please don't be so gullible on propaganda from the nuclear industry.
That article includes material that is quite unharmful.
You do realize that these different types of nuclear waste have different levels of radioactivity, right?
The waste we do need to worry about would fit as I described. That changes things doesnt it?
You do realize that these different types of nuclear waste have different levels of radioactivity, right?
The waste we do need to worry about would fit as I described. That changes things doesnt it?
nope - let me know when you add in the 1.1 billion needed to ship it off into space. you all failed economics and cost - risk analysis, apparently.
Here are a few billion: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/coal-costs-us-half-trillion-annually-in-hidden-costs-study-says
Hard to have a good discussion these days. People will say just about anything to hammer through their opinions.
Hard to have a good discussion these days. People will say just about anything to hammer through their opinions.
GoodBoy
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No one is shipping anything off to space...
As opposed to the propaganda from the coal industry on all the "dangers" of nuclear? It couldn't be that it would put them out of business..
"no, can't be that.
Must be like the hollywood dystopian future movies... or the videos games... yeah, that's it, Fallout 4 was great. I mean it must be true and all..."
As opposed to the propaganda from the coal industry on all the "dangers" of nuclear? It couldn't be that it would put them out of business..
"no, can't be that.
Must be like the hollywood dystopian future movies... or the videos games... yeah, that's it, Fallout 4 was great. I mean it must be true and all..."
The waste you're reburying is not the same as what came out of the ground, though. The atoms have been split, energy has been harvested, and the resultant materials are vastly different than what was mined. Not to mention that the mined materials have been concentrated and purified to lethal levels, something that is generally not true of the material before it's mined and purified.
While it is true that the dangers of nuclear reactors and the resultant risks are generally exaggerated, what we have done in regard to waste products (nuclear or otherwise) has more or less not always gone as planned, with devastating results in cases. It's foolish to believe that humans will be infallible in continuing to encase waste products in the future.
All of which may or may not apply to the thread which is about fusion instead of fission. Fusion, and the waste products thereof (depending on which materials you choose to fuse in the first place), has the potential to have far less consequential waste products.
While it is true that the dangers of nuclear reactors and the resultant risks are generally exaggerated, what we have done in regard to waste products (nuclear or otherwise) has more or less not always gone as planned, with devastating results in cases. It's foolish to believe that humans will be infallible in continuing to encase waste products in the future.
All of which may or may not apply to the thread which is about fusion instead of fission. Fusion, and the waste products thereof (depending on which materials you choose to fuse in the first place), has the potential to have far less consequential waste products.
All true, but i feel the that the risks have to weighed up against the risk that we wont be able to avoid global warming if we do not use the nuclear power option. It seems to me that the economic consequences and the number of lives at stake are a few of orders of magnitude higher than we risk with nuclear power.
Your math doesn't work in reality. It is off by several orders of magnitude.
Thank you for your explanation. I appreciate that you do not have time to formulate real arguments and come up with real stats. We should just take your word for it. No need for you to follow this thread any more, your points are irrefutable, and as such this discussion is not worthy of you. Dont let the door hit you in the ass on your way out
Very true but you can't forget that when people think of nuclear power, they are naturally going to equate nuclear power generation with nuclear weapons even though the fissile material used for atomic weapons is different, generally, than the fissile materials used for atomic energy. Even though I somewhat have an understanding of the difference between the two, I have an irrational fear of 'what if' when it comes to a runaway fission reaction (which an atomic weapon is the ultimate demonstration thereof).
(As a side note, atomic reactions are probably the most divergent dual use material we have today. Fuel (coal, gasoline, etc.) are generally not used as weapons per se but are used as the means of delivering weapons.)
We have already been over this, but lts go over it again - china is the only real place expanding Nuke because lack of safeguards that inhibits them from building nuke power.
EVERYWHERE ELSE it is cost prohibitive due to SAFETY CONCERNS AND DEVELOPMENT COSTS.
IF it was safe, economically feasible and cost effective - MORE countries would be expanding nuke. They are NOT.
History shows: Nuke is dirty, very expensive and risky.
That is why it is dead until there is a breakthrough in that field.
Neither of those are facts. The reason we're not building nuclear power plants are public opinion. Politicians are subject to public opinion. The death tolls from the three nuclear accidents we have in our history, put up against other energy sources is proof enough alone that the fears and uncertainties on this subject are unsubstantiated.
Please take some time to consider this before honoring us with the opinion you are married to.
Nuke is dirty, very expensive and risky. Which part is false?
Dirty - again we all know about nuclear waste how dangerous it is. we also have no where to put it. I dont think Norway will take our nuke waste. Most of it is sitting in water pools onsite at the reactors because there is nowhere to put it.
Expensive - this is obvious, plan construction, technology and waste disposal is MUCH greater than ANY other power generation source.
Risky - we have seen already several "accidents" that have massive cleanup costs and have come close to meltdowns, how many more do we need? Apparently more..
These are the facts, not politics. Stop being obtuse.