Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Honest question: While it is true that nuke is "clean" generation, I haven't recently (or ever) heard any viable ideas on how to store the waste. What is/are the new technology/ies that will handle this very real concern?
Upcoming next generation reactors can use nuclear waste as a fuel source and keep using there nuclear waste over and over again making it a renewable resource in some sense. As far as storing the waste we are already doing that on site at nuclear power plants. In fact nuclear waste if added altogether is something like the size of a football field...yeah it really really is that small for as long as we have been using nuclear energy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buckaroo
And is solar is so worthless, why are utilities fighting "roof-top" solar so aggressively?
For subsidies most likely. Solar Energy and Wind Energy are extremely subsidized. That in of itself is not the worst problem. The worst problem is Solar and Wind Energy are not available 24/7 so what happens is either something like a natural gas power plant gets built or is already existing and they add a wind farm or solar farm nearby later. The natural gas or coal fire plant is to supply the power at night when the sun isn't out or during bad weather during the day in regards to Solar. For Wind it's to give power whenever it isn't windy out.
Wind power is about utterly useless in every way shape or form. Solar energy is used for satellites and has potential in future space programs like establishing an outpost on the moon so I can't and won't say solar power is completely useless like wind power is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by buckaroo
"China Syndrome" actually was an intriguing movie because it pointed out something you don't seem to mention, and that is corporations will always seek the least-expensive solution, even if there are risks involved. Nukes are not fail-safe any more than any other technology. There is no single solution; it will take a wide range of ideas to wean us off greenhouse gases.
It was a horrible movie because scientifically it was inaccurate as hell and just ended up scaring a bunch of people irrationally. For as much complaining about the fossil fuel industry as the environmental movement does the environmental movement was the greatest thing to ever happen to the fossil fuel industry. If it wasn't for that stupid movie China Syndrome and Chernobyl which was a pure Soviet screw up because it had none of the safety features of nuclear power plants in the west that caused the overreaction and hysteria over nuclear energy this country wouldn't be powered by coal at all. It would be running off Nuclear Energy almost entirely if not entirely like France is. There is a large reason people have left environmental organizations over the years because they realize it's not about protecting the environment but about pushing political agendas. The corporation argument is also weak as hell since all the real players in the energy game are in fact large corporations. More people in the US have actually died because of the solar industry vs the nuclear industry. Here I posted some videos of Penn & Teller BS that provide some comedy while talking about this subject.
If you have Netflix look up on Netflix Pandora's Promise. It's a documentary that was made by a bunch of environmentalists that used to be anti nuclear and changed there stance when they looked at the actual potential of nuclear power for the planet and realized what they use to think about nuclear power at the end of the day was propaganda they happened to fall for.
If it wasn't for that stupid movie China Syndrome and Chernobyl which was a pure Soviet screw up because it had none of the safety features of nuclear power plants in the west that caused the overreaction and hysteria over nuclear energy this country wouldn't be powered by coal at all.
And Fukushima?
(Don't get me wrong, I prefer nuclear to coal. But we have to admit that there IS risk.)
(Don't get me wrong, I prefer nuclear to coal. But we have to admit that there IS risk.)
Fukushima was the one in a billion occurrence. Even then compared to the risks associated compared to mining for coal nuclear power is still the better option. I really really recommend Pandora's Promise since they go to Fukushima and Chernobyl and really talk about what the risks actually are after a disaster happens and it's shocking because people moved back to Chernobyl shortly after the accident and having been living there for years and are perfectly fine. The risks of nuclear energy are extremely small at the end of the day.
No. It wasn't. Because we don't have 1 billion reactors operating on the planet to make a 1-in-a-billion probability pick.
Murphy's Law unfortunately works for fission reactors. And we need to be honest about that without the "those stupid Russians" and "one-in-a-billion chance of a reactor built almost directly on a fault line suffering earthquake damage" claims.
Fukushima was a warning. It could have been far worse. The warning is, "Don't leave companies to their own devices about when to upgrade known design flaws."
No. It wasn't. Because we don't have 1 billion reactors operating on the planet to make a 1-in-a-billion probability pick.
Fine 1 in a million then.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoopLV
Murphy's Law unfortunately works for fission reactors. And we need to be honest about that without the "those stupid Russians"
For Chernobyl it really was the stupidity of the Soviets with that incident. That shouldn't have happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoopLV
and "one-in-a-billion chance of a reactor built almost directly on a fault line suffering earthquake damage" claims.
Japan is a nation known for it's earth quakes though so no matter where the put it the chances of it getting hit by a very large scale earth quake is there do to the geology of Japan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScoopLV
Fukushima was a warning. It could have been far worse. The warning is, "Don't leave companies to their own devices about when to upgrade known design flaws."
I honestly would take an incident like that over all the people that have died globally mining for coal and drilling for oil and natural gas.
It's a far cry from the amount of destruction like some nut job environmentalist claim about 3 mile island (which I live by) or Chernobyl being uninhabitable which is a lie since people have moved back there shortly after the nuclear accident. Nuclear power is even safer then solar panels which I found surprising only being slightly less safe then wind power which is about useless. As far as getting back to your point about it could've been far worse that's true but considering no one has died because of nuclear power in the United States. So even if a bunch of people did die unfortunately it would still be far less deaths then those that happened in the fossil fuel industry.
Found a part of Pandora's Promise on Youtube if anyone wants to check it out.
cwa1984 is making a lot of sense. Nuclear fission power has the unique ability, through full fuel recycle and breeding to not only destroy the long half life used fuel, to generate more fuel than it uses. It does this by irradiating non fissionable elements into fissionable fuel within the core of operating fission reactors. This concerts (breeds) waste fuel and other elements into usable fuels. It literally converts waste into useable fuel.
I was just watching a travel show that was featuring the Ukraine and Kiev. One of the segments was about public tours of the destroyed Chernobyl reactor site. So even that screw up did not result is a total disaster.
I have been thinking about two forms of nuclear fission. One would be reactors that replaced the carbon fueled boilers at existing power plants. This would allow the continued use of the steam turbine generators and the electrical switchgear and transformers at considerable savings in cost over a completely new facility. The other would be a development of a small Navy style fissile reactor that could be installed in encapsulated power plants as part of a wide spread electrical generation system. I like to think of this as the "Neighborhood Nukes" program.
In any case we should be saving the coal to hold up the ground it is under, oil and natural gas for petrochemical feedstock and wood, in the form of trees, for shade in the summer. The electrical demands could be supplied with electricity generated by nuclear fission power plants that are part of a full spent fuel recycle and fuel breeding program.
The problem is this would render the coal as well as the heavy oil industry unnecessary with great loss to their owners. These investors would be very upset that, despite the real costs of their industry, their investments would be rendered nearly worthless. I consider that a small price to pay for an unending supply of electricity that makes more fuel than it consumes.
I remember a story about Chernobyl, 10 - 15 years ago, that reported more people had been killed by the relocation after the accident than by the accident itself. Of course, the relocation was precipitated by the accident. But like the accident's cause, the relocation was a socialist enterprise and was bound to be shoddy and poorly executed.
I would like to know what the absolute minimum cost per kwh of solar power is and can be. The article mentions that even if solar panels cost nothing, the cost of associated equipment and land would still render it uneconomical in most areas. I take it to mean outside of places like the Mohave or Sahara deserts, places where the land is otherwise of no value and the sun's availability is almost 100%.
To me, the fundamental limit must be the energy of the sunlight reaching a particular location. If it could be converted to a useable form or energy at 100% efficiency, would it be economical? Then, what is the minimum cost necessary to do the conversion and transmit the converted energy to where it will be used.
Looking a solar plantations it is clear that they take a lot of room. How much room is needed per KW? They have a lot of structural overhead. I don't know about maintenance, performance degradation, etc.
I think just the land requirements and corollary adverse visual impacts would rule them out except in unique circumstances.
If they are not completely cleaning up that mess they should be forced too. It's unacceptable that happened to begin with. That said lets lok at the article from Newsweek:
Quote:
With 92 percent of the original heavy metal-laden and possibly radioactive coal ash still coating 70 miles of river bottom, river advocates are frustrated.
Yes it does have trace heavy metals but so does the dirt in your backyard. They are going to be elevated in the ash becsue they have basically been concentrated, it's a concern but it's not a major environmental disaster either. The biggest concern about this spill is the silica. I have a very hard soil, I use coal ash to amend the soil. It's also used in many other products like dry wall, concrete etc. You probably have a byproduct of coal ash in the walls of your house and you may be walking on it when you go out your front door.
The radioactivity claim is completely bogus, everything is radioactive and the radioactivity of coal ash is not much greater than granite. The exposure to radioactivity the average person in the US receives from coal ash is less than 1% of the total. One x-ray is going to exceed your lifetime exposure from coal ash.
The following pie graph is outdated, the exposure from medical has increased substantially since it was produced. Coal ash falls under "other".
And is solar is so worthless, why are utilities fighting "roof-top" solar so aggressively?
Because those costs are being passed onto other consumers. The cost you pay for electric is not just for the power itself, it includes costs for maintaining the grid. Expecting someone with solar to pay for the service of being connected to grid or getting wholesale rates for the excess electric they are generating is not unreasonable. They can always install much more expensive battery storage to avoid these costs.
There is 30% tax break from the feds for these installations, most states chip in 20% so half the system is being paid for by the taxpayer.
In some place they are generating a renewable energy credit(REC). Those are purchased by utilities to meet mandates imposed by the state for renewable energy. Those costs are passed onto the regular ratepayer. When you see a 7 year return advertised on these systems the REC is usually the reason why.
On top of that they expect to connect to the grid for free that other ratepayers are paying for? They want retail rates for excessive energy when the utility can buy it for half that elsewhere?
(Don't get me wrong, I prefer nuclear to coal. But we have to admit that there IS risk.)
There is always going to be a risk but this is what I would suggest:
Don't build a nuclear plant on a coastline especially when that coastline is so susceptible to tsunamis.
If you proceed past my first suggestion perhaps you might want to consider making sure your backup generators and pumps are not susceptible to flooding or any other natural disaster.
If you don't follow those two suggestions if disaster is to occur perhaps you might want to consider accepting the offer of generators being flown to you in 24 hours.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
