balderdashPower Sources
ElectroVagrantreplace skeleton with cooling rods and this meme gets better tbh đ
Itâs already got the Cherenkov radiation though.
Fantastic!
Darkassassin07Nobody wants to maintain anything.
When you fail to maintain coal, gas, wind, or solar, it just stops working for the time being.
When you fail to maintain nuclear systems (be that poor understanding, lack of training, negligence, whatever), things go very bad very quickly.
This is before you get into wider issueâs like waste management and environmental concerns.
Syl âyeah, so letâs continue as we do until we canât !
Suppose I should clarify:
I like and support Nuclear power, Iâm just listing one of the biggest reasons itâs not hugely prevalent in our societies over other sources: The large risk involved.
In theory itâs a fantastic energy source, but in practice I donât really trust those that manage it. Stuck between a rock and a hard place really.
HauiWe tend to forget the negligence humans are capable of.
But to be fair, abolishing nuclear was a trick to expand oil, gas and coal afaik. At least the funding came from there iirc.
True, but there were also concerns about the proliferation of nuclear technology and the risks of nuclear war.
If we could power the earth without nuclear or fossil fuels, that would be objectively better. But it just doesnât seem possible.
And trying to achieve an impossible goal while simultaneously burning even more carbon is irresponsible.
So we need to quickly build out the required nuclear capacity.
Yes, I agree that there are risks involved.
I think the risks with Fossil fuels are a lot higher:
- instead of putting nuclear waste in the ground, we pump it in the air (fossil fuel waste is radioactive)
- instead of nuclear proliferation, we support barbarist states such as saudi arabia
So, the question between fossil and nuclear was never there. It was always nuclear and people that lobbied against it should go to jail for the rest of their lives for murder.
Now, I have no clue how far along we are. This (site)[wisevoter.com/âŚ/renewable-energy-by-country/] says weâre at 17% global coverage and some people argue that rn we should invest every dollar/euro in renewables instead of nuclear.
I can understand that argument. Not sure which makes more sence though.
Renewable Energy by Country 2023 - Wisevoter
Renewable energy has gained significant momentum in countries around the world as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Some countries have made progress in generating renewable energy. Iceland leads the way with an impressive 86.87% of its energy generated from renewable sources. Norway follows closely at 71.56%, while Sweden stands at 50.92%. These countriesâ high [âŚ]
Waste management and environmental concerns are already bad with coal power (even worse than nuclear power, in the sense that nuclear doesnât launch waste into the air as far as I know, feel free to correct me if Iâm wrong)
Although, yes, security has to be higher for nuclear power, but nuclear is not as bad as most people think
There is no solution for nuclear waste. Itâs buried underground it takes millennia to disperse the radiation. Donât think there is anything worse environmentally.
Canât think of anything worse than radiactive material that has been solidified and shielded and buried far away from any living creatures, in the same way that tons of naturally-occurring radioactive material has for millennia?
I mean⌠It could be dispersed into the atmosphere⌠like what happens when we burn coal, which inevitably has some radioactive materials in it cuz we dug it up from deep underground.
Yeah, cos that radiation dispersal from fossil fuels, which is failing to turn us all into mutants since it is so low in concentration compared to nuclear waste, great comparison.
Best check your nuclear storage. It hasnât been doing well of late. B109 Hanford Nuclear Reservation leaking 1300 gallons a year. 200000 gallons already leaked from 67 tanks leaking.
75% of US nuclear sites have leaks.
Plenty more examples of your âsafeâ waste storage around.
Oh boy, another hot take from a well educated and informed source, Iâm sure.
80% of what you think about nuclear is fossil fuel propaganda, 10% is because the soviets are dipshits, and the last 10% are reasonable concerns that redundant safety system upon redundant safety systems address.
Do you have a source on those percentages?
photonic_sorcererThis is the internet, where 90% of percentages are made up.
PantherinaLet me tell you about the âAsseâ in Lower Saxony, GermanyâŚ
There is no way to safely store nuclear waste. It makes entire landscapes unusable, it lasts nearly forever and⌠the waste management is done by the state, not the company!
Nuclear power is some capitalist bullshit that outsources the waste and risks to the state. Only in that case its profitable in any way.
Solar and Wind are so much easier, solar extremely. If we could change out loads, focus everything on the day and simply not use that much at night, we wouldnt even need that much wind. Decentralized, local networks of Solar Power are the future.
FazooExcept there are ways to use the waste as fuel. So no, not some âcapitalist bullshitâ. Just a problem with a solution.
AnamanaOnly the fuel can be reused up to a certain percentage. Most of the waste is just waste that you have to store somewhere.
Okay, so whay is the waste mitigation for solar panels and windwill blades?
Currently they just get land filled. Or burnt.
Itâs bad there is not better recycling for some parts as of now, but there are plenty of companies actively working on new techniques regarding that.
Itâs also not nuclear trash, so you can dispose of it way easier.
Windmill blades are afaik way worse than solar panels. And again, as its capitalist, focussing on efficiency, price or even (who would expect?) planned obsolescence, these products may not be as repairable as possible.
For example, give up 2% efficiency but have the solar panel parts easily seperateable. Have every part modular, they may be bigger and heavier, but allow a circular economy.
:Nuclear power is capitalist bullshit" is not the hot take I was expecting. And itâs utter horseshit.
ParsnipWitchI can see nuclear power plants being a capitalists dream though. Itâs not like renewable energy sources, that can be owned by smaller groups of people. A nuclear power plant is owned by a corporation.
Itâs also quite capitalist in nature when you consider that it mostly burdens future generations for gains and profit now. And it exploits a non-renewable natural source for resources.
Yeah all those corporations in in the USSR owning all those nuclear plantsâŚ
The power generation isnât inherently biased tob one economic system.
There are other ways of organising.
You just seem short sighted.
Mossy Feathers (She/Her)sigh I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but it sounds like you might need to hear this too:
We would have had [the storage of nuclear waste] solved a long time ago if it werenât for a few factors.
The first is that a significant amount of radioactive waste is short-term. Like, literally inert after a couple years. The reason for that is because the vast majority of radioactive waste isnât actually inherently radioactive. Most of it has become radioactive as a result of coming into extended contact with highly radioactive sources. However my understanding is that despite being short-lived, you must dispose of it the same way youâd dispose of nuclear fuel rods. This is an issue that could be resolved by separating the short-lived stuff from the fuel rods and returning the short-lived stuff to a landfill once radioactivity drops to background radiation levels.
Factor 2: paranoia. We had a potential permanent waste site in the middle of nowhere, in an extremely geologically stable area in the US that has virtually no chance of flooding, however people thought that radioactive waste buried beneath a literal mountain would somehow still poison them. So Yucca Mountain was never fully completed. Afaik itâs technically still on the table but itâs been completely defunded thanks to NIMBYs, so instead nuclear waste is being stored across the US at various nuclear plants which are less geologically stable, have a higher chance for flooding, etc. This also hampers state and national efforts to clean up decommissioned plants and nuclear accidents. The waste has to go somewhere; if you have no where to safely store it, you canât clean it up.
Factor 3: if I understand correctly, we could hypothetically design nuclear plants with reactor chains that produce dead fuel rods (fuel rods that are completely spent). However, a lot of weapons-grade material would be produced during the intermediate stages. For sooome reason everyone freaks out when they hear youâre making weapons-grade radioactive material, even if you promise youâre just using it to generate power. I canât imagine why /s
The problems with nuclear storage are actually pretty easily solved, itâs just that no one wants to because theyâd rather pretend nuclear doesnât exist to begin with. I swear, we could have a one-time pill that makes you fully immune to every radiation-induced disease and people would still freak out about nuclear. Hell, there was an article I saw a month or two about how a bunch of researches discovered that turning used graphite control rods into diamonds resulted in low-power batteries that could be used for things that require a small amount of power over long durations (like SSDs or RAM). Iirc something about the diamondâs structure meant it contained its own radiation as well, meaning it didnât need any radiation shielding either despite generating energy via radioactivity.
Also,
the waste management is done by the state
Maybe in Germany, but afaik in the US itâs done by the company until itâs time to move it to a permanent storage facility. Because permanent storage facilities donât exist in the US, that means the company has to take care of it indefinitely. I donât know about you, but Iâd much rather have it in the indefinite care of the US government than in the indefinite care of a company.
Decentralized, local networks of Solar Power are the future.
Youâre partially right imo. Those would be great, but youâre offloading cost on the individual, who are already being squeezed by capitalism. Additionally, iirc centralized wind and solar can cause a significant disruption to the local ecosystems. Are they preferable to coal and gas? Hell yeah! But you cannot convince me that miles of turbines and solar panels are less disruptive than a properly maintained nuclear plant.
Ideally weâd be building fusion plants at this point, but I feel like I havenât heard any major fusion-related news lately which makes me worried that funding might be falling off.
Really interesting things. Nuclear power is still non regenerative though. And I have no clear opinion on if its safe or not, just that its not really necessary.
No, costs for decentralized Solar would not be on the Individuals. Individuals are a Product of Capitalism, if you want to phrase it like this. They are consumers of electrical power and also now Producers. There should simply be an amount of solar power everyone can have, per capita for example. And for every person this power is then produced, on their roof or elswhere if its not fitting.
I have no clear plan, as consumers need to pay the consume. But for example having a tax-free lending (non native no idea how its called) would help
Ah yes, all those capitalist nuke plants they built in the Warsaw Pact countriesâŚ
Insulting people you disagree with is a rather poor way to win them over and/or create productive discourse.
Every safety system makes it more expensive to run and theyâre already not profitable, do you really think theyâll just keep throwing money into it without cutting corners? One little economic downturn and we start getting problemsâŚ
Why even risk it when we could have far better systems from the start? Nuclear is nice in science fiction but when you actually have to plug the numbers into the real world it doesnât look good at all, especially not compared to wind, solar and tidal
Seriously. A finicky system which requires constant monitoring is a bad idea. People have problems maintaining their cars.
Simple, robust, and capable of absorbing neglect is better.
New nuclear reactors are fully or nearly fully automated I think. If humans disapeared overnight, they can fully shut down by themselves. Also newer reactors are made so that you need to actively monitor the reaction to even keep it going unlike old reactors (that are not in use anymore I think) that had you monitoring it to prevent it blowing up.
Playing devils advocate here:
Automated systems are not maintenance or error free and the costs of mistakes are vast. It may have been designed to detect problems and shut itself down; but has it been maintained well enough to successfully do so? Maybe, maybe not.
Given how well maintained most public infrastructure is, Iâm not very confident.
A shut down nuclear power plant is a problem though. Especially when you consider that many people here advocate for a massive increase in the number of nuclear power plants. A river going dry, a shore line that moves, future wars or pandemics that we canât even foresee now. All these are huge risks for nuclear energy. For really no reason since there are renewable energy sources that do not share these risks.
The overhype of nuclear power seems completely surreal to me.
I wouldnât say thatâs true for gas. Without the right maintenance and/or shutdown procedures, refinery systems can reach dangerous pressures and literally explode.
Even shutting down a refinery is a very calculated process. If the refinery teams decided to walk away doing nothing, people would be in danger. The sheer amount of toxins released could kill quite a few, let alone explosions or fire.
Iâm not a big fan of gas power, but itâs surely deadly in the wrong hands.
My first paragraph was a bit of a simplification.
While that is true, a refinery explosion is far less impactful than a nuclear meltdown.
Donât get me wrong, both are really bad; but a refinery gone wrong doesnât leave huge amounts of land entirely unusable for decades.
Honestly Iâd rather avoid both and go for energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, even geothermal. I think we could go a long way if the majority of homes had panels on the roof and some local storage for night time use.
Iâve said elsewhere; I like the concept of Nuclear energy, I just struggle to trust those that run it, particularly given how neglected much of our existing infrastructure is already.
Obligatory Kyle Hill videos because keyword ânuclear energyâ:
Some things to note:
Going back to 1965, air pollution from fossil fuels has cost us around 81 million lives. 4,000 people in China die every day due to fossil fuel pollution. 1 in 5 premature deaths can be attributed to fossil fuels.
Radiation in pop culture is portrayed as difficult to contain, but that isnât the case. We know how to do it well, and we already do it.
Pop culture depictions fail to illustrate the radiation that is released into the air, unable to be properly managed, as a result of fossil fuel production and consumption.
We Solved Nuclear Waste Decades Ago
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Containing the radiation isnât the same as resolving the nuclear waste problem.
Containing the radiation isnât the same as resolving the nuclear waste problem.
Thatâs why weâve already seen breakthroughs in reactors that use nuclear waste for fuel.
Which if they were practically feasible, still wouldnât be running for another ten years. Whereas the time and money and resources looking for breakthroughs in that ten years, could easily go to renewables and hey, they donât need a breakthrough solution for nuclear waste. They already work and already are cheaper. Literally the solution. Right there.
We would have had that solved a long time ago if it werenât for a few factors.
The first is that a significant amount of radioactive waste is short-term. Like, literally inert after a couple years. The reason for that is because the vast majority of radioactive waste isnât actually inherently radioactive. Most of it has become radioactive as a result of coming into extended contact with highly radioactive sources. However my understanding is that despite being short-lived, you must dispose of it the same way youâd dispose of nuclear fuel rods. This is an issue that could be resolved by separating the short-lived stuff from the fuel rods and returning the short-lived stuff to a landfill once radioactivity drops to background radiation levels.
Factor 2: paranoia. We had a potential permanent waste site in the middle of nowhere, in an extremely geologically stable area in the US that has virtually no chance of flooding, however people thought that radioactive waste buried beneath a literal mountain would somehow still poison them. So Yucca Mountain was never fully completed. Afaik itâs technically still on the table but itâs been completely defunded thanks to NIMBYs, so instead nuclear waste is being stored across the US at various nuclear plants which are less geologically stable, have a higher chance for flooding, etc. This also hampers state and national efforts to clean up decommissioned plants and nuclear accidents. The waste has to go somewhere; if you have no where to safely store it, you canât clean it up.
Factor 3: if I understand correctly, we could hypothetically design nuclear plants with reactor chains that produce dead fuel rods (fuel rods that are completely spent). However, a lot of weapons-grade material would be produced during the intermediate stages. For sooome reason everyone freaks out when they hear youâre making weapons-grade radioactive material, even if you promise youâre just using it to generate power. I canât imagine why /s
The problems with nuclear storage are actually pretty easily solved, itâs just that no one wants to because theyâd rather pretend nuclear doesnât exist to begin with. I swear, we could have a one-time pill that makes you fully immune to every radiation-induced disease and people would still freak out about nuclear. Hell, there was an article I saw a month or two about how a bunch of researches discovered that turning used graphite control rods into diamonds resulted in low-power batteries that could be used for things that require a small amount of power over long durations (like SSDs or RAM). Iirc something about the diamondâs structure meant it contained its own radiation as well, meaning it didnât need any radiation shielding either despite generating energy via radioactivity.
Factor 1: Not quite accurate. Yes there are categories of waste; the names change depending on the regulator. The lower level wastes are already disposed of in the US (there are already four such facilities). The politically charged problem is always the spent nuclear fuel itself.
Factor 2: Senator Reed (D-NV) was a former Senate majority leader. He extracted the defending of Yucca Mountain from the Obama administration as a concession to pass Obamacare. Itâs still technically viable and not disposing of waste costs enormous amounts of money. The federal government is legally obligated to take spent fuel off the hands of operators. Obviously they have not, so the government is sued (and loses). This has cost the government roughly $20b for their inaction see here..
Factor 3: You can recycle spent fuel but thereâs no concept as spent fuel with zero radioactivity.
Two largest problems in the US: Inability to manage waste and inability to execute on large scale construction required for nuclear.
On factor 3: I thought that there were cyclic reactor chains, where the fuel produced at the end of the chain could be reused at the start. If followed long enough, wouldnât that theoretically result in fully spent fuel rods? It might take a long time, but itâs not impossible and in the meantime, theyâre still being useful and generating power when theyâd normally be discarded.
Itâs better than what we ate doing to limit the emissions from petroleum.
Thatâs kinda the problem. Money that should be going to renewables is going to nuclear, which wonât be effective for many years. Renewables donât have the high cost and requirements and ramp up time nuclear requires.
skulblakaNuclear could be extremely effective right now, if only someone put money into it and people stopped jumping at ghosts. We have the technology, it's not like we have another 2 decades of research to make it viable. The general public is just uninformed and when someone says "nuclear" they hear "Chernobyl" and this has caused quite a lot of general mass panic, despite the fact that nuclear is one of the safest and most environmentally friendly power production technologies that exist today.
No one has mentioned Chernobyl here. And burying the waste for 240000 years and hoping it doesnât leak is not a solution.
Renewables are safer and cheaper and more environmental. There is no case for nuclear.
Chernobyl happened because of a multitude of reasons that just arenât capable of happening today in the western world. This is just pure fear-mongering, itâs like saying we need to ban planes because of world trade center, or ban all research on narcotic medications because the opiod epidemic.
A wind farm costs in the range of 32 - 62 dollar per megawatts (Judith Gap/Spion Kop wind farms), compared to the 29 dollars per megawatt for nuclear power (average in USA year 2021).
In USA there are 92 reactors totaling 809 terawatt hours. To compensate for that with wind turbines you would require roughly 33.000 wind turbines all running 24/7 at max capacity with no down-time assuming a rated limit of 3 megawatt. Together those wind turbines would collectively take up 260 square kilometers.
Building them would likely be close to impossible as there isnt any infrastructure to make 33.000 in a timely manner. Since 2005 about 3000 has been built per year, assuming current production that would mean 11 years without producing parts for servicing current turbines to simply just replace the nuclear energy.
Lets make it a little more interesting and compare wind turbines to Browns Ferry nuclear plant. It has 3 reactors producing in total 3600 megawatt, to compensate for just that plant alone it would require 1200 turbines. To make it even more interesting, fossile fuel plants produces in total 2554 terawatt hours, and is the worst energy source we have, and would require roughly 104.000 turbines to offset, or 34 years of wind turbine production. That means the old turbines will have to be replaced before theyre all even fully built.
Are you starting to grasp the problems with wind turbines now? To stop the usage of fossile fuel for powerplants you need other complementary systems. We need to get rid of fossile plants -now- and thereâs literally no way wind turbines could ever realistically fill that role alone.
Again, no one but you mentioning Chernobyl.
Youâre ignoring solar and hydro. No one said everything has to be wind.
Nuclear costs in the US are at that price because the industry is mature and subsidised by the government significantly. As in France, as reactors age, things get a lot costlier. Maintaining the surplus industries for storage, maintenance, supplies and infrastructure for nuclear are only getting more expensive. And you still havenât solved the waste problem. Renewables have some obstacles, but none that canât be resolved with money. And the end result is cleaner and cheaper.
You mentioned chernobyl.
Youâre also oversimplifying the problems and arguing in bad faith by simply ignoring the viability and reality. You canât just throw money at a problem and itâll magically resolve itself. Instead of arguing against one of our safest energy sources you should turn your eyes towards fossile power plants which is genuinely killing our planet as we speak.
At this point youâre either trolling or arguing with yourself and for some reason replying to me.
Iâm not âfearmongeringâ when I point out the indisputable fact that renewables donât produce nuclear waste. Youâre also not including the supporting industries that nuclear requires in your costs. And more importantly, youâre only looking at the US. Even then, your figures are arguable.
Wikipedia âIn 2019 the US EIA revised the levelized cost of electricity from new advanced nuclear power plants going online in 2023 to be $0.0775/kWh before government subsidiesâ
Wikipedia âThe global weighted average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of new onshore wind projects added in 2021 fell by 15%, yearâonâyear, to USD 0.033/kWh, while that of new utility-scale solar PV fell by 13% year-on-year to USD 0.048/kWh and that of offshore wind declined 13% to USD 0.075/kWh.â
Nuclear may make current economic sense when you ignore the storage issues and the cost of new reactors and the unavoidable increase in uranium importation. Long term it doesnât. Renewables donât have that issue and are already cheaper.
Again, renewables globally are cheaper and safer. Byeeeeeee
Except that clearly isnât true, if nuclear was a viable solution then weâd be building power plants but weâre not because they make no sense economically or practically.
Look at all the plants in France losing more money every time they have another problem, shutting down in the summer because the rivers get low⌠Oh someone said the word terror attack letâs spend a whole boat load of euros on security because theyâre such a massive and vulnerable targetâŚ
They keep saying the new nuclear will be great and we just need ten more years of oil and gas plus a billion in research and development grants then itâll do everything they promised a decade ago.
For a lot of people it seems to have turned into a sports team tribalism. They feel like theyâre supposed to support nuclear because itâs science which kinda overlooks that PV is far cooler science, we need to look at reality and see we can have renewables now or the hope for a decent micellar ten or twenty years down the line, maybe.
Marxism-FennekinismItâs still better than the totally uncontained pollution and carbon dioxide of fossil fuels.
No. Itâs kicking the can down the road. And when there is a real, viable, cleaner, cheaper option already up and running, nuclear is simply not the answer.
And the non insurable nature of nuclear power besides its distant break even point is the reason only governments have ever build nuclear plants, or had to give huge guarantees. There are financial problems with nuclear, too.
Oh yes, letâs focus on an extremely expensive energy source! Letâs get rid of dependencies of dicatotors by making us dependent of other dictators to get uran! Why waste any more time on energy sources that pay off after a few years when we can have an energy source theyâll still have to pay for in 100 generations? So genious!
Right? I'm pretty sure everyone downstream of Fukushima likes it this way. The people who are hoping we don't need an actual priesthood, or glowing cats, or whatever, to warn people about nuclear waste thousands of years in the future after the fall of all current civilizations, like it this way.
Let nuclear continue to waste away as the terrible idea it always was.
There are real gold nuggets of useful nuclear tech that we need for the energy revolution. We can make it safe, and we will need all tools at our disposal.