# Perhaps we should reconsider and Revisit Nuclear Power Plants to Meet our Energy Needs ?



## BAYLOR (Aug 9, 2021)

Yes, there have been a number very serious  accidents of the the years ,  Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichai  and yes there iare the issues of what do with the Nuclear  waste and  radiation products,. But this power unlike to add to the Green house pass issues which  Coal and Oil   and natural gas have . And Nuclear  power is  more reliable  and more constant than Solar and Wind Power . And   Unlike Nuclear Fusion whose achhoiment is beyond current technology , we can build Nuclear power plants right now and with better technology, we can make them safer.

Thoughts ?


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## Dave (Aug 9, 2021)

Apart from the huge issue of waste material disposal, there are three points that I would add:


BAYLOR said:


> with better technology, we can make them safer.


The accidents generally resulted from, or were certainly exasperated by, human beings, who over ridded safety features, didn't follow protocols, or used materials below the building specifications in construction. I'm not sure how we can ever remove humans and human error from the equation.

Secondly, Uranium is a finite limited resource which has already been very successfully mined. Nuclear power can only ever by a stop-gap solution to our need for power generation. At the moment other power sources are only science fiction. There could be Thorium reactors. They were never developed because they don't make weapons grade Plutonium as a waste product.

Thirdly, the problem of energy supply is, as you eluded to, not just with generation but with meeting the demand. In the UK the we have the Dinorwig pumped-hydroelectric Power Station that lifts water up a hill during quiet periods and then lets it flow back down during busy periods. There are very few methods of generating electricity that quickly on demand apart from nuclear and gas. Battery technology is advancing very quickly and some people believe we can have huge storage batteries. I'm sceptical.

If we want zero carbon emissions, then nuclear energy must be some part of the mix. There is no doubt about that.


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## Foxbat (Aug 9, 2021)

As somebody who spent 32 years working in the nuclear industry, I think my position is obvious. The problem is that most folk don’t understand base load energy supply (the reason why when there is no wind, waves or sunlight you can still turn on the lights etc. at three in the morning. The other thing that people don’t take into account is the finite resources or particular metals needed for solar panels or that wind turbines have a lifespan of around 25 years. They can be recycled but the turbine blades are dumped as waste. Solar panels are around 40 years. We’re building hundreds of  wind turbines and solar panels now and we’ll need to start all over in a quarter of a century.

I’ve always believed in a mixed energy supply strategy and that needs to include nuclear, which is our best option for base load now that fossil fuels are being phased out. The technology is moving towards small modular reactors (cheaper and faster to build) but main concern from a public viewpoint is waste. The technology for dealing with radioactive waste already exists. Vitrification is an example and here’s a link to an article






						New melter pours first vitrified waste - World Nuclear News
					

A newly installed melter at the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River site has poured its first canisters of vitrified radioactive waste.




					www.world-nuclear-news.org


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## Dave (Aug 9, 2021)

Foxbat said:


> The other thing that people don’t take into account is the finite resources or particular metals needed for solar panels or that both wind turbines have a lifespan of around 25 years. Solar panels are around 40 years.


Yes, that too.


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## AllanR (Aug 9, 2021)

Dave said:


> have huge storage batteries


These can be discontinuous. i.e. say a city has millions of idle electric cars all charged and plugged in (sitting at work garages or homes....most cars are not in use at any given time). A grid could take from this battery (a fraction from each) to meet spike demand and then refresh the batteries once the demand lowers.


Dave said:


> At the moment other power sources are only science fiction.


Sadly fusion power always seems to be coming 'in twenty years'

I think the most difficult part of nuclear power is the social stigma. It entered the public consciousness through Hiroshima and stayed in that way for generations due to our MADness.


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## Foxbat (Aug 9, 2021)

I read a while back that in the middle east, solar energy was being experimentally stored by heating up salt chemicals and that heat can then be used later to drive turbines to create electricity when there is no sunlight. I don’t know how practical that would be in more temperate climates where we get a lot less sun.

All this makes you wonder if we would be better off in the long run converting our electricity supply from ac to dc.


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## Foxbat (Aug 9, 2021)

AllanR said:


> I think the most difficult part of nuclear power is the social stigma. It entered the public consciousness through Hiroshima and stayed in that way for generations due to our MADness.


I agree.  After Chernobyl, there was a worldwide effort to improve things and WANO was born (World Association of Nuclear Operators). It’s job is mainly peer review. Every station every few years gets a visit from a large team of experts and their job is to study and dig deep into systems and operating practices. They hunt out the slightest flaw and it can be very depressing for the workforce (I know, I’ve been through a few). The review is inherently negative because it’s about uncovering potential problems or dangers. Unless you are doing something positive that is absolutely head and shoulders above the rest of the world, getting a ‘satisfactory’ review is the best you can expect. 

I just wish the public was made more aware of these significant changes. It might help persuade some that nuclear was still a viable option.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 9, 2021)

AllanR said:


> These can be discontinuous. i.e. say a city has millions of idle electric cars all charged and plugged in (sitting at work garages or homes....most cars are not in use at any given time). A grid could take from this battery (a fraction from each) to meet spike demand and then refresh the batteries once the demand lowers.
> 
> Sadly fusion power always seems to be coming 'in twenty years'
> 
> I think the most difficult part of nuclear power is the social stigma. It entered the public consciousness through Hiroshima and stayed in that way for generations due to our MADness.



Technologically,  we're about 100 years away from making Fusion commercially viable. A pity,  because it would solve a great many problems.


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## Parson (Aug 9, 2021)

Nuclear energy has to be a part of the answer to global energy problems. Nothing "green" that we can do today is going to be able to scale enough to take the place of fossil fuels. It is unlikely a "magic bullet" will be found in the next 20-40 years. Success will come incrementally and piecemeal (Parson sighs) if it comes at all.


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## Dave (Aug 9, 2021)

BAYLOR said:


> Technologically, we're about 100 years away from making Fusion commercially viable.


Unless you've invented a Time Machine, you cannot predict that. It could  be twenty years, but it might be never. In the 1950's, we were going to be able to control the weather by 2000, and all be driving atomic cars.


AllanR said:


> Sadly fusion power always seems to be coming 'in twenty years'


When I said science fiction, I really meant much more way-out ideas, such as the Zero Point Energy Modules used in _Stargate_ that apparently draw zero point energy from artificially created layers of subspace. To be honest, I think that is just as likely as it is being able to operationally hold a fusion reaction inside a magnetic field and draw power from it without something going wrong. But hey, I don't have a Time Machine either.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 9, 2021)

Dave said:


> Unless you've invented a Time Machine, you cannot predict that. It could  be twenty years, but it might be never. In the 1950's, we were going to be able to control the weather by 2000, and all be driving atomic cars.
> 
> When I said science fiction, I really meant much more way-out ideas, such as the Zero Point Energy Modules used in _Stargate_ that apparently draw zero point energy from artificially created layers of subspace. To be honest, I think that is just as likely as it is being able to operationally hold a fusion reaction inside a magnetic field and draw power from it without something going wrong. But hey, I don't have a Time Machine either.



If Invented  a time machine, I would go forward in time to see what the winning  number for the next lottery jackpot is going to be.


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## Serendipity (Aug 9, 2021)

Nuclear fusion - depends on which type of reactor they design and get working first - if the first has secondary uses other than generating energy from nuclear fusion, then it will become commercially viable much more quickly. (This ain't rocket science!)


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## Foxbat (Aug 10, 2021)

There are plans to build a demonstration fusion reactor in the UK (due to be operational circa 2040). It’s all about building a reactor that creates more energy than it consumes. So far, that has eluded us. I might be naive but I’d like to think that if somebody is going to invest a huge amount of money in a prototype reactor, they’ll have some idea of how to achieve this.


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## Robert Zwilling (Aug 10, 2021)

Chernobyl isn't over yet. Nuclear reactions at Chernobyl are spiking in an inaccessible chamber
Fukushima isn't over yet.
Hanford can't be cleaned up because some of it was buried in the dirt and has sunk out of sight.
Siberia is loaded with nuclear dumps. Apparently even the Artic has nuclear waste in it. 

----A newly installed melter at the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the US Department of Energy's Savannah River site has poured its first canisters of vitrified radioactive waste.----

The grammar here is amazing. Here is the complete explanation, "It is the third melter in the 20-year history of the facility, and replaced Melter 2 which reached the end of its operational life in 2017 after 14 years of operation. In that time, Melter 2 poured 10. 8 million pounds (4900 tonnes) of glass into 2819 canisters." The good, the bad, and the ugly all rolled into 1 zinger. The low level waste still needs to be disposed of. That is 90 percent of what is there. So the stuff going into glass is 10 percent or less of what needs to be cleanly disposed of.

My message is simple, the nuclear industry has to clean everything up 100 percent or they don't get to do anything. Radiation doesn't go away anytime soon. Sure it keeps diminishing in quantity, the famous half life. The time it takes for it to naturally lose half its radioactivity. Different plutonium isotopes half times range from 14 years to 24,000 years. But they won't clean it all up because there will be no profit for the "owners" for the next hundred years. Interesting situation, provide stable power for the world with no possibility of a profit, or walk away. 

Now that the weather has plowed into the next dimension, can we even build a reactor that can withstand the worst weather thrown it's way. Say like 50 inches of rain, with rampant flooding.


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## Robert Zwilling (Aug 10, 2021)

It looks like fusion is not going to be done with brute force. They are doing amazing things positioning atoms with laser beams. Seems more like the way to go, maybe not.  The Chinese achieved some sign of success with brute force but how much energy was required to do that. The fusion reaction in hydrogen bombs are triggered by a small fission bomb. That would seem to indicate that brute force method is very hard to control.


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## Foxbat (Aug 10, 2021)

Low level waste is mostly, old protective clothing, polythene bags, temporary paper floor coverings and various other items (I know this because I dealt with it for many years). The vast majority has little or no radioactive contamination and is classified as low level waste mainly due to legal restrictions. In the last few years, more sensitive measuring equipment (eg. portable gamma spectrometers) has made it more possible to separate more efficiently waste that is contaminated and waste that is not. This has resulted in a significant reduction of low level waste generated in my own place of work…so much so that it became best performing low level waste handler within the UK nuclear generating industry. 

As for ‘profit’, that’s not how it works within the UK. By law, nuclear generators have to pay into the Nuclear Liabilities Fund. This money acts much like a pension fund in that it is held and invested by a board of trustees. The cash ultimately is used to fund decomissioning of reactors. 


			Purpose | NLF
		


The tools are there. It’s the will to apply those tools that is missing.


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## Robert Zwilling (Aug 10, 2021)

The low level waste is low level salt waste. I'm guessing that is stuff ranging from mild to intense that was embedded in molten salt? The melter in question is at a nuclear weapons production facility. There are 6 nuclear weapon production sites in the US, operating since the 40s and 50s. There are another 20 or so sites handling nuclear weapons for purposes of storage, use, decommission, or waste products. It doesn't matter if the nuclear waste is from commercial power plants or weapon production facilities, it all adds up and it all has to go somewhere.

We had 2 plants that were decommissioned after running 30 years. The electric company consortium did not put anywhere enough aside to pay for the decommissioning. That was supposed to be included in the electric rate. To keep the electric price competitive it didn't include enough for the decommission cost. The price of its electricity was too high to continue using it which was the primary reason for shutting them down.  The customers had the decommission shortfall cost included in the future bills. The power companies always manage to let other people pay for their shortfalls. The US has 94 commercial reactors running in 56 plants. Many are still running to put off the decommission cost. They just tack another ten years onto the license. You can get away with that with hot dog stands but not nuclear reactors. The electric companies in the US are run for profit.

Forgot profit, just include the cost of running the plant, handling the waste, and decommissioning the plant. That's all known but the total actual price is never included in all one place. Then there is the money spent on cleaning up excessive messes, like Chernobyl and Fukushima. At the end of the day it is all one big loss. The clean up is never completed because enough money is never collected.


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## Foxbat (Aug 10, 2021)

I don't know how it's done in the USA but in the UK, this type of low level waste would most likely be placed in  a specially adapted  half-height ISO container (shipping container). The lid would be sealed and it would then be pumped full of a special water-resistant grout through a number of pipe inlets designed to allow an even spread. When it has set solid, it would prevent spillage or leakage with the waste contained within. It would then be stored in a waste repository. 



			UK Radioactive Waste Inventory (UKRWI)
		


There are often anomalies in waste. For example, the majority of smoke detectors contain a tiny amount of Americium 241. This is not a naturally occurring element and has to be manufactured through fission. Smoke detectors are present in most homes but are exempt from waste disposal laws and can be thrown away as household waste. The reasoning being that it is a tiny amount of radioactive material and the benefit of possibly alerting people to a fire and saving lives is outweighed by its hazard. On a nuclear licensed site, however, the waste disposal laws kick in to play and smoke detectors have to be disposed of as low level radioactive waste (I once had to process a whole bin full of them...that's a massive amount of paper/spreadsheet work).

Once, many years ago, a worker brought on site an old instrument dial from a WW2 plane, worried that it was radioactive. It was not only radioactive but leaking. Even if it had not been leaking, it still could never leave site in any capacity other than as radioactive waste. This is because once somebody on site accepted it, it had to be inventoried. It was given a unique number and stored in our radioactive source store (it's presence checked every 24 hours) until it could be disposed of a few years later. Needless to say my superiors were not happy that this was brought on site but, once there, it became our responsibility.

It's not without its flaws as can be seen from the anecdotes  above but  I have confidence there have been vast improvements in the last three decades in the manner UK waste is processed.


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## .matthew. (Aug 10, 2021)

To put it simply, more people have died from coal pollution in Germany from the plants they built to replace nuclear in the years since Fukushima than have died as a result of every nuclear accident in history. Now to be clear I can't recall the sources as I saw this a few years ago but remember looking into it quite deeply at the time and it bore out.


Kyshtym occurred because of bad design from 1945 and had a failure of the cooling system ignored.
Chernobyl was also terribly designed in the early days of nuclear power and also largely failed due to human error.
Fukushima was hit by an earthquake and a tsunami, and most places don't risk this.

There are also issues with political pressure and development costs making the advancement of safer methods not worth a company's time. That said, there have been some recent developments with some sort of fast reactors that seem to be safer and not requiring of pressurised tanks that could explode. Some other scientists also worked out how they could reprocess weapons-grade material into a fuel source, which seems pretty good to me.

Now I'm not saying place a nuclear reactor next to every major city, but they are definitely safe enough to build out in the sticks and have the power moved along these magical things called wires 

As for waste... I'm a simple man... dig a real big hole... *shrug* problem solved.


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## HareBrain (Aug 10, 2021)

From the thread title, I pictured someone going on a tour of one of these facilities and absorbing the radiation in order to be able to run a marathon.

"Feeling lacklustre? Try a Core Tour!"

Only my own lack of energy prevents me cashing in on this marvellous idea.


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## Pyan (Aug 10, 2021)

France has 70% of its electricity generated by nuclear reactors, plan to reduce this to 50% by 2035, and have never had a major leakage, accident or meltdown. Just saying...

And everyone seems to classify Three Mile Island as a disaster, even though there were no deaths, no injuries and no discernable long-term issues arising from it.

Lessons From the 1979 Accident at Three Mile Island


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## AllanR (Aug 10, 2021)

Robert Zwilling said:


> My message is simple, the nuclear industry has to clean everything up 100 percent or they don't get to do anything.


I grew up by a creek that was laden with PCBs. After a generation the city tried to clean it up, dredged the creek and stored the earth for years. Forward fifteen years and PCBs are leaching back to the surface (they would have had to dredge far far deeper). Brain cancer is common in my old neighbourhood as children played in the creek and people watered the gardens from it.

So should I say, the electronics industry has to clean up everything 100 percent or they don't get to do anything?


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 10, 2021)

Dave said:


> Secondly, Uranium is a finite limited resource which has already been very successfully mined. Nuclear power can only ever by a stop-gap solution to our need for power generation. At the moment other power sources are only science fiction. There could be Thorium reactors. They were never developed because they don't make weapons grade Plutonium as a waste product.



I see China are going ahead with thorium and having completed, well ahead of schedule (makes a change in this field!), a prototype 2MW reactor. An upgraded commerical version with an 100MW output is apparently due to be constructed by 2030, 



.matthew. said:


> As for waste... I'm a simple man... dig a real big hole... *shrug* problem solved.



Well, I'm very glad you ain't in charge.


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## Dave (Aug 10, 2021)

Venusian Broon said:


> Well, I'm very glad you ain't in charge


LOL


Foxbat said:


> The technology for dealing with radioactive waste already exists. Vitrification is an example...



Vitrification and burying deep in geologically inactive areas appears to be a good solution and I've no doubt that nuclear safety and waste management have improved and will continue to do so, however, there are two things that can never be avoided, and those are "Time" and "human stupidity". 

To start with, considering the very long length of time, can we be sure any place in geologically inactive? 

Just as context, there is at least one hazardous waste site in the UK that is on the coast and is being eroded by the sea, with asbestos falling out of bags onto the beach. There are many others, from before waterproof seals were legally required in landfills, that are leaching poisonous chemicals into aquifers and nearby watercourses. I've just worked on a fly tipping project - the people who fly tip have absolutely no consideration for safety, for the law, or even for other humans other than themselves, they just want to save some money whatever that takes. 

Now one would hope that where low level nuclear waste was concerned, more responsible people would be involved in it's disposal and the planning of waste sites would consider the long length of time they will exist, and still be dangerous. However, my point is that they are still run and designed by people, and people have a habit of making mistakes. Sellafield has had a terrible history of water leaks into the sea, and of lies and cover-ups, that mean that the public now do not believe what they are told anymore. And building a nuclear reactor on the west coast of Japan and thinking that it would never be hit by a tsunami? Seriously? 

I think there is a lack of consideration of the very, very long timescales these waste facilities need to operate, and some idea that people will always follow rules, will never cut corners to save money, and will always have the best interests of others foremost in their minds. That's quite a big ask!


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## Venusian Broon (Aug 10, 2021)

Foxbat said:


> As somebody who spent 32 years working in the nuclear industry, I think my position is obvious. The problem is that most folk don’t understand base load energy supply (the reason why when there is no wind, waves or sunlight you can still turn on the lights etc. at three in the morning. The other thing that people don’t take into account is the finite resources or particular metals needed for solar panels or that wind turbines have a lifespan of around 25 years. They can be recycled but the turbine blades are dumped as waste. Solar panels are around 40 years. We’re building hundreds of  wind turbines and solar panels now and we’ll need to start all over in a quarter of a century.



Yes but then Nuclear reactors - which are vast pieces of kit - also have lifespans. For example, I believe that a lot of the current ones facing decomission in the UK had built-in lifespans of ~35 years. And yes, I understand that their lifespans can be extended - with I assume further big investment and better technology. But if a site is decommisioned can you use it for anything else? So both are comparable to a degree.

What I think is missing also is the demand side - we should be trying to cut down our use from the grid so that we don't need vast numbers of fission reactors. Better insulation and double glazing, ground source heat pumps, clever ways to get cooling in warm temperatures, good design of electronic equipment to be more energy efficient etc.

Of course we are facing a massive increase in grid use in the coming decades when we move from petrol/diesel cars to electric, but that's path we're going to have to do.


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## Chris 1978 (Aug 10, 2021)

On some gusty days in May this year the UK received over 60% of its electricity from the wind. That statistic really blew me away!


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## Foxbat (Aug 10, 2021)

Venusian Broon said:


> But if a site is decommisioned can you use it for anything else? So both are comparable to a degree.


A nuclear site will not be delicensed until the ONR (UK nuclear regulator) is convinced that there is no longer a hazard from ionising radiation. After delicensing, the land should be available for other use.

An article on end of life management at Harwell (part of which will be developed into  Harwell International Business centre).





						End of life management on the Harwell site - Nuclear Engineering International
					






					www.neimagazine.com


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## Vladd67 (Aug 10, 2021)

BAYLOR said:


> If Invented  a time machine, I would go forward in time to see what the winning  number for the next lottery jackpot is going to be.


I seem to remember that being tried in the series 7 days, the atmospheric disturbances caused by the time machine changed the result of the sporting event bet on.


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## Elckerlyc (Aug 10, 2021)

Interesting discussion. And Nuclear Energy might be necessary to fulfill our needs. On the long run.

However, considering the number of downsides and technological problems that needs to be answered (see this thread) before Nuclear Plants can be put forward as a serious solution to our energy needs, it will be 10 - 15 years before Nuclear Plants can even make a small begin with replacing fossil-fueled energy. Building nuclear plants take a lot of time and money. You can spend your money only once, so no budget to explore, examine or build other, alternative, energy sources. All this means a delay of about 10 - 15 years (per plant), while we need to seriously fight CO2 emissions _now_.
Does the answer really lie in technological solutions? Development of new technologies takes time and a lot of money, while the problem grows and grows. It has been mentioned that (the intention) to seek the solution in technology is a subtle way of procrastination, to evade acting now.
Perhaps, for the here and now, the answer is not new energy sources but the self-restraint to limit our consumption of energy. That boundless, uncompromising consumption lies at the heart of our problem.
If you live in a low lying country, as I do, the next 10 -15 years of our worldwide combined effort to reduce CO2 emissions could very well mean whether those low lying countries will remain habitable due to rising sea-levels.


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## Robert Zwilling (Aug 10, 2021)

I have no doubt more plants will be built without anyone paying for the past damage done. I don't like to brag, but 3 Mile Island was an American built reactor and operated as it was supposed to. The two sites in my state were cleaned up, they dug down below ground level and carted away a lot of dirt. The area is ready for any kind of development, including farming or restoration to a natural state. I wonder how long it has to sit there before people don't mind living on an old nuclear power plant site. 

Because there is no national nuclear waste depository, the nuclear waste, contained in 43 steel-reinforced concrete casks hold all the fuel the plant used over the years of its operation, and some radioactive reactor parts is still there on the property. The casks can withstand extreme weather and they’re safe enough to walk up to and touch, but the material isn’t supposed to still be here. There is no national depository to hold the waste even though all the commercial plants were built with the provision that the government would take in all the nuclear waste after the plants were decommissioned. Farther north, at another decommissioned plant, it cost 10 million a year to guard the nuclear waste that was never taken off the property. Can't find what it cost to guard the waste here. The total bill for the government not taking the waste from all the decommissioned or soon to be is guessed to be 23 to 50 billion, but no idea how long a time period that covers. It does not cover damage due to weather related incidents. I use weather related the same way the news uses the term gang related.

Because the plants were not run as a manufacturing site, waste materials were not dumped into the ground. But all around the rest of the state, the military and industrial manufacturing, which made the state rich (the plants are now gone and so is the money) dumped an incredible amount of material into the ground, all of which is slowly moving down as huge plumes into the underground water supplies. The nuclear weapon production sites also have the same problem. Probably the only place that practice worked was at Los Alamos, which is in the middle of a desert. The Hanford Plant which manufactured weapons grade material, in Washington, has a large underground plume that has been mapped and it's progress charted to show it is heading for the Columbia River. A very big river. It was built in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project and closed after the end of the cold war. The site is now the US most costliest environmental clean up site.

Bill Gates, of microsoft fame, is bankrolling various projects, including a 345 megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with molten salt-based energy storage that could boost the system's power output to 500 MW during peak power demand. The expected cost is 1 billion dollars. The nuclear reactors are called Natrium reactors. Supposedly they generate less waste (maybe cause they are smaller?), but the waste is said to be more radioactive than conventional waste. The first plant would be built in Wyoming, a state that is loaded with petroleum, uranium, and a lot of coal, and is looking to be the leader in future energy development. They already are generating a lot of power from alternative sources. They are also heavily invested in making Wyoming the home of crypto currency.


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## Mon0Zer0 (Aug 10, 2021)

Pyan said:


> France has 70% of its electricity generated by nuclear reactors, plan to reduce this to 50% by 2035, and have never had a major leakage, accident or meltdown. Just saying...
> 
> And everyone seems to classify Three Mile Island as a disaster, even though there were no deaths, no injuries and no discernable long-term issues arising from it.
> 
> Lessons From the 1979 Accident at Three Mile Island



Take this with a pinch of salt, but I met a guy at a convention who claimed he had just finished working for a company involved with disposal of nuclear waste from french reactors, and he said they had completed an inspection of barrels of waste that were stored in the bowels of the earth and many of the seals were now rotting away. They hadn't yet had a leak, but that he was deeply concerned that they would eventually rupture and the waste eventually find its way into the water table.

The future of reactors seems to be Thorium molten salt. China is heavily investing in these at the moment. They're supposed to be cleaner and not susceptible to meltdowns, so much safer.


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## AllanR (Sep 11, 2021)

One step closer to fusion MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy


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## BAYLOR (Sep 11, 2021)

AllanR said:


> One step closer to fusion MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy



This is huge .


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## Robert Zwilling (Sep 12, 2021)

The waste disposal is the main problem with nuclear power. Not accidents or malfunctions, just all that waste piling up all over the world. 

Trying to barrel anything up will eventually corrode over a long period of time and radioactivity only speeds up the process. All the reactors in the various US states were built with the provision that the federal government would take the nuclear waste off each site. That never happened as envisioned, the waste is scattered around the country and is left on site in many locations. The low grade waste can be disposed of. Embedding nuclear fuel rods and hot accessories in a big block of something, would probably require some pretty big blocks of something. Another problem is that once the original container becomes defective, the original material needs to be pried out of the corroded container and now there are two piles of radioactive waste. Or the original waste and the container container are treated as a single item and now a bigger item has to be encased in something even bigger.

Government space programs are getting more industrious again, and private industry is stepping in to help lift the heavy loads or do it all. It wouldn't be far fetched to imagine private industry deciding to deal with the waste themselves. Shipping it out into space was extraordinarily expensive, though probably the cost was worth it considering the long term costs. The price of space cargo is getting cheaper which means the radioactive waste might end up in space, or even on the moon. It's tempting to ship it into the sun, but it might burn up before it got inside the sun, and the blowback might ride the solar wind stream back out past Earth.


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## Parson (Sep 13, 2021)

Robert Zwilling said:


> The waste disposal is the main problem with nuclear power.


But that's one of the reasons fusion is so potentially game changing.  Nuclear fusion reactors produce *no high activity*, long-lived nuclear waste. The activation of components in a fusion reactor is low enough for the materials to be recycled or reused within 100 years.


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## Vertigo (Sep 13, 2021)

Dave said:


> Battery technology is advancing very quickly and some people believe we can have huge storage batteries. I'm sceptical.


There is a local active planning application for a battery storage plant near me which is up for approval right now. So someone believes the technology is up to it right now and is prepared to invest a lot of money in a major project.



AllanR said:


> These can be discontinuous. i.e. say a city has millions of idle electric cars all charged and plugged in (sitting at work garages or homes....most cars are not in use at any given time). A grid could take from this battery (a fraction from each) to meet spike demand and then refresh the batteries once the demand lowers.


The problem with this is that there must a mechanism in place to compensate the car owners. Sure the power taken is 'replaced' but all batteries can only run a limited number of charge cycles so doing this will degrade the expected lifetime of those car batteries.



Parson said:


> But that's one of the reasons fusion is so potentially game changing. Nuclear fusion reactors produce *no high activity*, long-lived nuclear waste. The activation of components in a fusion reactor is low enough for the materials to be recycled or reused within 100 years.


On top of that I believe there is no risk of runaway reactions as in fission power plants. The worst that can happen, I believe, is containment failure and then the superheated plasma could, potentially, do a lot of local destruction but without any contamination.


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## .matthew. (Sep 13, 2021)

I consider it a colossal waste of money to invest in green energy and batteries right now. Let other countries shoulder that expense then pick up the tech once it's matured and dropped in price.

Take wind farms, we've got plenty around the UK but there are still developments being made like banks of smaller ones that appear to be more efficient, more reliable, much cheaper, and easier to repair. What a waste of money the biguns were 

Same for battery technology. Using Lithium-Ion for large scale storage is inefficient and will need to be completely replaced after a relatively short time period.


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## Parson (Sep 13, 2021)

@.matthew. --- I don't know where you come from, but if it is from one of the Western Democracies, the question is -- Who better than us to shoulder a large part of the developmental cost? I believe this is an "all-hands-on-deck" moment and everything needs to be done.


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## .matthew. (Sep 13, 2021)

@Parson Literally anybody else. Remember that the west pays a premium on literally everything we buy, and these technologies would also arguably produce better results in less developed regions that are currently expanding their power grids with coal and gas. Plus it's logistically easier to build from a standing start than it is to shoehorn in all these technologies onto an established grid.

On top of this, the west would be far better off planning for the effects of climate change rather than trying to prevent it, which quite clearly isn't an achievable goal. In all seriousness, the reductions we'd have to make to even slow it down would require that every person on Earth matches the carbon footprint of the average Indian.

Additionally, while the west may be 'prosperous' there's a staggering amount of debt to deal with and the money would be better spent on dealing with problems we face right now.


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## Parson (Sep 13, 2021)

Can't say I agree with much of the above and I won't argue further or we might stray into politics. Suffice it to say that governmental debt is not the same thing as individual debt because no country I know of is on "gold standard" economy. All monetary exchange is based on assumed value rather than "real" value. We can spend whatever money people/politics deem necessary to do until that assumed value changes.


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## Robert Zwilling (Sep 13, 2021)

The green technology needs to be made immediately available to the average income or less person, as this percentage of the population is the biggest number. This would result in faster reductions in whatever we are trying to reduce. China has already started down this road with an array of inexpensive electric vehicles. Western countries are helping to produce these vehicles but show no sign of doing the same thing back in the home country. One problem might be the sturdiness of the less expensive electric vehicles as they go shoulder to shoulder to older, heavier, combustion vehicles. 

For most locations the original centralized power grids are old, and no matter how you look at it, in need of replacing, rebuilding, and updating. The wind technology will undergo changes as it evolves but it is only at the starting line and many designs and concepts will radically change over time. The smaller wind machines sound like a big step forward, pushing forward the original concept of decentralized power. Interesting to see if the wind pushes the utility lines underground as it turns the wind turbines and continues to blow down the old wooden poles and now even the steel transmission towers.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 13, 2021)

Robert Zwilling said:


> The green technology needs to be made immediately available to the average income or less person, as this percentage of the population is the biggest number. This would result in faster reductions in whatever we are trying to reduce. China has already started down this road with an array of inexpensive electric vehicles. Western countries are helping to produce these vehicles but show no sign of doing the same thing back in the home country. One problem might be the sturdiness of the less expensive electric vehicles as they go shoulder to shoulder to older, heavier, combustion vehicles.
> 
> For most locations the original centralized power grids are old, and no matter how you look at it, in need of replacing, rebuilding, and updating. The wind technology will undergo changes as it evolves but it is only at the starting line and many designs and concepts will radically change over time. The smaller wind machines sound like a big step forward, pushing forward the original concept of decentralized power. Interesting to see if the wind pushes the utility lines underground as it turns the wind turbines and continues to blow down the old wooden poles and now even the steel transmission towers.



 The Texas Power grid  this past winter?


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## psikeyhackr (Sep 14, 2021)

I think I saw a YouTube video where someone said he went to college and got a degree in nuclear engineering and never heard of thorium reactors.

I worked for IBM who hired John von Neumann as a consultant in 1951 but I never saw the term von Neumann architecture though all of the machines I was trained on used it.

There is too much knowledge control to keep the peons running in the approved ruts.


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## Vertigo (Sep 14, 2021)

.matthew. said:


> I consider it a colossal waste of money to invest in green energy and batteries right now. Let other countries shoulder that expense then pick up the tech once it's matured and dropped in price.


I'm sorry but this leaves me literally speechless. But as @Parson says that's probably best as I don't want to get into a political row.


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## Dave (Sep 14, 2021)

Yes, my own lack of reply here certainly doesn't signify any agreement, just a sad feeling of resignation.


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## Danny McG (Sep 14, 2021)

It's a shame really, all that radiation for all these years but still no superheroes


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## .matthew. (Sep 14, 2021)

Fair enough, but considering that no response dealt with the financial (other than spend whatever, which is irresponsible) or logistical, I'm going to take it that there is nothing more than ideological dogma behind it. Especially if you consider climate change to be a political subject.

To be clear, I'm not a climate denier, I don't think it'll be as bad as the media makes it out to be, but I do foresee a lot of problems arising from it. From a purely non-partisan viewpoint, every single promised action in the west won't make a lick of difference to a problem arising from global emissions.

For this reason alone, it does in fact make more sense to push these technologies on the countries that are expanding their energy demands rather than more stable or declining use nations.

Nuclear is a valid solution at least in regards to power generation though. It's proven safe and provides a reliable, responsive, and adjustable means of generating electricity that can supplement various forms of green power that will exist in the future. It should, however, require governments to properly dispose of the waste, which is currently the main issue people talk about.

Things like electric cars/battery storage/etc aren't a viable long term solution either, with the rare earth minerals required for current battery technology being massively environmentally destructive, along with the rarity. For example, 500 million electric vehicles would see us run out of platinum within 15 years (including recycling, assuming currently known mining sites). The continued push in this direction is likely to leave us with a lot of useless scrap at the end of the day.


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## Vladd67 (Sep 14, 2021)

Danny McG said:


> It's a shame really, all that radiation for all these years but still no superheroes


Didn't Jimmy Carr say that on an anniversary of Chernobyl?


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## Dave (Sep 14, 2021)

.matthew. said:


> To be clear, I'm not a climate denier, I don't think it'll be as bad as the media makes it out to be, but I do foresee a lot of problems arising from it. From a purely non-partisan viewpoint, every single promised action in the west won't make a lick of difference to a problem arising from global emissions.


Matthew, we can't reply to you because it is against the forum rules. Just stop please!


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## .matthew. (Sep 14, 2021)

Dave said:


> Matthew, we can't reply to you because it is against the forum rules. Just stop please!


I've not said a single thing that is political. Not one thing. I don't know why people treat climate change as a political issue as it's not. I also don't know what I've supposed to have said that you are considering as in any way attacking your political views.


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## AllanR (Sep 14, 2021)

Vladd67 said:


> Didn't Jimmy Carr say that on an anniversary of Chernobyl?


After Two Mile Island Carter became the Amazing Colossal President! (9:20) 


	
	






__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=533858710873763


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## J-WO (Sep 14, 2021)

Given increasing climate change of late I reckon every solution has to be on the table. Desperate times and all that.


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## Danny McG (Sep 14, 2021)

Vladd67 said:


> Didn't Jimmy Carr say that on an anniversary of Chernobyl?


Me and my school mates were saying it in 1965!

*"It's been 20 years since they dropped the atom bombs, where are the mutants with superpowers? They'll be grown up by now"*

We lost hope by the early 1970s


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## Montero (Sep 14, 2021)

.matthew. said:


> I've not said a single thing that is political. Not one thing. I don't know why people treat climate change as a political issue as it's not. I also don't know what I've supposed to have said that you are considering as in any way attacking your political views.


It's not just politics on here - it's things that people feel so strongly about that they start having massive rows. We can and should discuss future energy supply - but in a polite and scientifically argued way. You are basically being a bit in your face about it. Apparently officers' messes used to have a ban on three topics - politics, religion and women - as it started too many rows. Don't know what their rules are these days, if any - and indeed what the list would be. From what I've seen, on here topics are monitored and if they start flaming rows they go on the moderators' "approach with extreme caution" list. And bear in mind moderators are other members who are doing extra, just to keep the forum running. If they have to keep stepping in on rows it is no fun for them. I've been on committees and volunteered for stuff down the years and it can be a really thankless job. Heck I've been a systems administrator as a paid job and that was utterly soul destroying. Everybody knew better, wanted it now, couldn't see why I wouldn't do it now because it would be just five minutes and if I'd done it instead of arguing I'd have saved time yada yada yada.

I support nuclear power though I can see the problems with waste and with eventually fissionable materials running out. I see both problems and opportunities in renewable power - and get fed up when there are simplistic arguments in favour that ignore the technical problems which need to be solved and the problems from mining the rare earth elements for the magnets and the other parts that are less green than you'd think. Above all I think we need to reduce usage a lot - but many people don't want to do that. We do a bit with running washing machine and dishwasher on overnight electricity. Bit hard to do cooking that way, even with a slow cooker.

For interest for all of you - Eigg Electric - the island of Eigg was on diesel generators and all the locals were fed up with that. With EU grants they built a local distribution network and powered it hydroelectric, wind and solar - and a diesel generator for when they all are not working. There are very strict supply limits both on how much you can use in total and how much you can use at a time - so they have low powered kettles for example and you can either run your washing machine, or you can boil a kettle, but not both at the same time. In times of low supply - like low water in the reservoir, they have warning signs around the place and introduce further restrictions. They also use public buildings as heat sinks - and heat them when there is energy surplus. All the islanders prefer it to the old days of the chugging diesel generators everywhere. Eigg Electric - The Isle of Eigg

Whatever generates the electricity, restricting usage does seem to me to be the way forward. I'd like a slightly higher bar than on Eigg..... at least be able to have two computers on at once plus a light, and ideally not have to shut a computer down before you can boil a kettle - but if it was shut down a computer before you can make a cup of tea, so be it. But I grew up with war generation parents who remembered rationing, and electricity before the National Grid. Between that and being very frugal as a student, I actually take pride in low cost work arounds and saving pennies. (I do also spend money on some things, but there is a lot of satisfaction in being ingenious.)


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## .matthew. (Sep 14, 2021)

Montero said:


> It's not just politics on here - it's things that people feel so strongly about that they start having massive rows. We can and should discuss future energy supply - but in a polite and scientifically argued way. You are basically being a bit in your face about it.


Ahh, that makes sense and it is something I do feel strongly about so perhaps reacted a little harshly to the people who dismissed my points without giving their own. Part of it for me is that a lot of what is said (by all sides) never feels practical and is just about stirring the pot.

I was genuinely wanting to give a purely practical approach to the problem, and I suppose my 'damn the ideologues' angle gets people's hackles up. It's just that without feasible expectations and solutions, nothing done will actually help.

Consider this a blanket apology to anyone I've offended here, and I'll steer away from this thread. Of course, if anyone actually wants to have a discussion on it, I'm happy to have one privately.


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## psikeyhackr (Sep 15, 2021)

AllanR said:


> After Two Mile Island Carter became the Amazing Colossal President! (9:20)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I thought the Pepsi Syndrome only happened to laptops though the Coke Syndrome is more common.


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## Parson (Sep 15, 2021)

@Montero .... Thanks for the reasoned response. I agree that with our present technology the way forward is going to have to include reduced demand. But in much of the world demand is not likely to go down, especially with a warming planet. 

Another thing that bothers me is NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) politics. Both wind and solar, and to a lesser degree nuclear, spoil people's precious views. In a notorious case, a wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard was held up for decades by the rich and powerful people who live/vacation there, and did not want to see the blades turning in the distance. It seems petty, but a bit less so today because I know a bit of that frustration. As I look out my office window my view of the golf course is now 95% obstructed by a huge duplex planted between our condo and the golf course. I always knew it could/would happen, but I'm surprised about how frustrated I am by it. Doubly so right now because the construction workers are congesting our cul-de-sac with their vehicles.


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## Montero (Sep 16, 2021)

To me part of the problem is the lack of central planning at least in the UK - it is down to the individual company to pick somewhere to build something. I am not an advocate of the government being heavy handed (hope this doesn't take this thread into contentious waters) but looking at the Eigg Electric example, the community chose their own mix of generators - so they had hydropower and solar and wind - so on clear days with no wind you would have solar and on windy rainy days you have wind and water. Even so they can run out. However the point I am making is that they got to choose the mix, and they got to choose the siting and they got to benefit from it. This all worked because they have a local distribution grid which they control. Having renewables integrated into the National Grid means there is no local control on power generation.
At present in the UK the system is that the landowner, or a company approaching a landowner, says "hey how would you like to make some money from wind/solar" and it is a lottery where it lands. There is also no law that says the site should be rated to generate a minimum amount or that it should be near existing power lines (there was a bit of a scandal some years back with a lot of wind turbines being built in the Highlands of Scotland, years before the new pylon line was built, so the turbines sat there generating nothing, but ageing anyway).
The way the subsidies have been set, means that you can more than make your money back from a site which isn't all that suitable - for example there is a wind turbine just off Junction 11 of the M4 at Green Park in Reading - in amongst the office buildings in an area that is not that windy to start with. Sigh. And unlike the Island of Eigg, the local community in which the renewable electricity generator is sited, may see no additional benefit at all. There are a big variety of companies installing renewable energy and some are genuine greens who will set up community benefits and are championing renewable energy and others are just in it for the money and over-ride community interests and don't deliver on promised benefits - most of which cannot be enforced under UK law. Hence people are hacked off by them. Solar panels are less contentious, but even so, they can turn a green hillside into a grey shiny hillside and it is nicer to look at grass than something that looks like a parking lot. As ever with development it is cheaper to use a green field site than work on a brown field site or attach items to buildings. Mentioning parking lots, why not build scaffolding over every parking lot and mount solar panels on them. It would shade the cars and double up use of the land - but I've never seen it done.
And wandering back to the title of the thread - nuclear power - and @Parson 's point - nuclear power station buildings are shorter than modern industrial wind turbines and you need far, far fewer of them compared to wind turbines. So arguing regarding aesthetics, and people not wanting their view spoilt (which I sympathise with) you are better off with nuclear. I know some people like looking at wind turbines, but there are also a lot of people who don't - and however much each says to the other they are wrong, no-one is going to change their minds.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 16, 2021)

Danny McG said:


> It's a shame really, all that radiation for all these years but still no superheroes



At least ,not since the mighty Radio Active Man .

And where is Mr Neutron ?  I do wish he'd stop playing games with super spy Ted Salad . The world needs him.


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## .matthew. (Sep 17, 2021)

BAYLOR said:


> At least ,not since the mighty Radio Active Man .






"Sounds active to me."


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