[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/696001017/grand-canyon-museum...
Nowhere is this proven stronger than in alternative energy.
Nuclear is proven, practical, and we have technological benefit of decades of experience.
If finding alternative energy was really necessary (and thanks to the abundance of coal and the tragedy of the commons, it won't be for ages), there wouldn't even been a discussion.
What I never understood is why Exxon/BP/etc never positioned themselves to corner nuclear/solar/etc. At their level, pivoting from being a "Gas Company" to an "Energy Company" seems like a no-brainer. Who cares which energy source wins, if you own all the energy sources?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612564/chinas-losing-its-...
We have literally built actual, real, currently operating plants almost 50 years ago for half the inflation-adjusted cost of some of the estimates. Even better than an estimate is real-world evidence.
I would like to see a complete ban of all air and water pollution that can be sourced to power and heating plants. A zero tolerance policy. If alternative sources with storage can economically beat nuclear in such world then that is great. Lets put the regulations in place today. If not then lets still put the regulations in place because the environment really need us to do so, but we need something to fill demand when renewable alternatives can't produce.
Does that include the natural gas heating furnace in my basement, or just commercial stuff? Because in my area electric heating costs about 3x more than NG.
In general however I think politics should focus on bigger problems before small ones. Industry, power plants and central heating are the primary users of natural gas. In Germany, over half the energy production is generated from gas, which the pollution graphs clearly shows (https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=map&solar=false&remote=...)
1) Thorium is safer but isn't being used effectively. Mostly because development of Nuclear power coincided with nuclear weapons, and Thorium can't be used to make weapons.
2) We can re-enrich nuclear waste but don't because of regulations. My understanding here is that the waste product becomes much smaller.
3) We have no clue what were going to do with all the solar panels after we're done with them either? They contain a ton of lead. They also produces something like 1000x the waste mass as nuclear. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't go this route, but I AM saying that we really need to have a wholistic well thought out solution rather than knee jerk fear.
4) If you compare CO2 emissions of France and Germany, one who went all in Nuclear and the other who went all in Solar/Wind. France has significantly dropped their CO2 emissions.
5) Gas power plants are typically used to supplement the downturn in supply of Solar/Wind. Nuclear is a terrible supplement for this.
Now Opinion:
I think that it's safer in the short term (assuming Global Climate Change for deniers out there) that Nuclear power is a better option for large scale reduction of CO2 Emissions until we have repeatable large scale solutions with solar/wind that are both recyclable and work at night / when wind is down. Because to support Solar/Wind Germany has had to rely on Gas power plants to supplement their gap in supply. Which they sell the excess to their neighbors instead.
As I stated above, I'm still digging around forming an opinion on this but it's why I'm at where I am now.
If the numbers added up China would be doing it already, but even for them - where they can still socialize the costs of failure (i.e. if it blows up, oh well, whereas in the West there's $100B in lawsuits) - it's expensive.
Not Thorium, but Bill Gates is invested in alternative nuclear, along with the US govt: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
Drug companies can put more than that into a single failed drug, for comparison.
If nuclear was a much larger component of the overall generation capacity in the USA we'd see them load following up and down over the 24 hour cycle.
2. Put a fence around the hole
3. Put a sign on the fence saying "if you cross this fence you will die"
4. Put radioactive waste in the hole
5. Cover the hole
It's not a complicated problem.
From https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi...
See also https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of...
Albert Einstein, in an interview with Alfred Werner, Liberal Judaism 16 (April-May 1949), Einstein Archive 30-1104, as sourced in The New Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2005), p. 173
The real problem is that nobody wants this waste dump in their state. The Yucca Mountain complex is pretty much perfect for this application but politicians killed it.
A previous version of this story didn't explain that the proximity to uranium ore described was unlikely to cause health problems, and it referred to uranium instead of uranium ore.
As someone who grew up in Boston I have lived within 40 miles of a nuclear power plant for a decent chunk of my life. The times that nuclear power has caused disasters it has always been closely tied to mismanagement and human errors - which are solvable problems if we're open about the costs to utilize nuclear power in a manner more similar to France.
I'm pretty sure you're more likely to be killed by a particularly ill mannered seabass than a nuclear power plant explosion (It definitely, for realsies, looks like being struck by lightning is a much more common way to die, but the specific counts are hard to dig up)
It was not even human error for Fukushima, they had ignored experts because the solution would hit the company's bottom line.
So the solution is having it government owned. But unfortunately, there's a clear history of governments selling assets.
Sorry, but until there's tiny reactors, the risk is huge because; human nature not science.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japa-nuclear-risks/specia...
The NRC does recognize an "entombment" state for facilities in which they are secured so as to be permanently safe, but this does not remove the 60-year requirement, so is usually done when another facility on the same site still has an active license, preventing full-site remediation.
Nuclear power plants are not large. They're definitely smaller than the literally hundreds of acres of equivalent solar panels. [1]
[1] Solar requires 3.4 acres/GWh/yr according to 2013 study. (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf). The smallest U.S. nuclear power plant was built in 1970 and generates 582 MW (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3). That's 3.4 acres/GWh/yr * 1000 GWh/MWh * 582 MW / 24 h/day / 365 day/yr = 225 acres of solar panels.
Is is really really hard to solve the problem of human mismanagement though. The technical challenges with nuclear are solvable, but the human factor is not. Take something like the space shuttle disasters - arguable both do to bad management. If NASA cant solve this problem even with the brightest minds and enormous resources, how can nuclear?
If someone can solve the problem of human mismanagement, I'm all for nuclear.
Of course. But what are the chances that almost every human in a big city get's struck by a lightning at the same time? It only has to happen once. I can't understand how people can think so carelessly when it comes to something this dangerous.
"It's really really really unlikely that something goes horribly wrong" something goes horribly wrong "welp."
We better find us some more planets to fuck up.
Nuclear power won't save the planet, but given the political will and investments we have all necessary instruments to get to 100% carbon-free power sources available today (better, cheaper and more sustainable than fission nuclear).
Don't gloss over this that quickly, this is literally the hardest part.
You might as well wish for a viable commercial fusion plant. Honestly, it's probably easier than getting China to go carbon-free.
Interesting that I am getting downvoted without anyone providing any arguments or facts against my narrative.
I certainly wouldn't say this is true. I live 13 miles from Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Not only is its proximity a non-issue for the vast amount of us in San Luis Obispo county, the economic vitality it injects into our economy (high paying jobs, taxes, etc.) helps make our area very desirable to live in. For reference Diablo gives us $22 million in local property taxes annually, of which about $8 million per year is allocated to the school district. It's going to be tough when it shuts down in 2024/2025.
Fact is: Even the pro-nuclear lobby did not manage to show how nuclear is competitive anymore. If you totally dismiss external effects and subsidies, sure, nuclear looks attractive on paper. If you start accounting for longterm waste management, safety costs, insurance (this is a biggie! No insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant. This alone shows that the technology can not be commercially viable. Calculations usually just assume zero-cost government guarantees...) and factor in realistic building costs (please look up the last reactor projects in western countries), it becomes clear that (fission) nuclear is not the solution. As said at other places in this thread: Even China, where many of the external effects can be discounted vs the west does not build new nuclear plants on a great scale.
But sure, downvoting is easier than discussing that topic critically or providing any sound arguments in favor of commercial viability of nuclear vs renewables.
I don't necessarily think nuclear energy on a large scale is more viable or more cost effective than renewables, however, I think you're overstating some of the issues you present. Based on the nuclear industry in the U.S.:
You say "No insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant" which is false. Taken directly from the III website, "Nuclear insurance consists of two tiers. The first tier is private liability insurance coverage made available by a pool of U.S. insurance companies, called American Nuclear Insurers. The second tier is made up of an assessment on nuclear power plant operators... which is supplied by the nuclear power industry as a whole. Under the Price-Anderson Act, all reactor owners are committed to paying their share of any damages that exceed the incident reactor owner’s first tier limit of $375 million—up to $111.9 million per reactor. Since [there] are currently 104 reactors in operation, the amount that would be available in the industry pool to pay claims totals $12.6 billion (2011)."[1] Clearly the insurance arrangement for nuclear power plants is atypical, but they certainly do have coverage (both private and public) and really most everything about nuclear is treated as atypical anyway. Hydro dams have similar insurance issues, despite having nothing to do with the nuclear industry, and can't rely on normal insurance companies for worse-case scenario incidents like total retainment failures.
Building costs for nuclear reactors are certainly high, but they significantly drop after the first reactor is built. Each subsequent reactor added to an existing plant creates immense value at a fraction of the cost. I work for an energy company that owns several nuclear plants. A nuclear operator trainer once told me the "first reactor is built to get all the permits and licenses in order, the second reactor is built to print money." The French, who deeply invested into nuclear, enjoy one of the lowest electricity rates in Europe[2], so I would challenge how how are they managing that? An uncited statement from Wikepedia (my favorite type of statement) suggests insurance only accounts for 0.1% of nuclear costs. The upfront capital costs of nuclear are a given, but the point is that the costs are eaten away over the long-term, as the plant operates for 40, 50, or 60 years. The big financial issue here (i.e. political issue) is that the cost recoupment of nuclear is not designed to give the capital investor an ROI 4-10 years after construction, it's meant to pass on the ROI to the next generation 30 years later. This kills the lender. Nuclear is also a cornered niche market that allows major price gouging and lacks a decent-sized pool of experienced construction experts, which accounts for the construction issues and cost overruns that occur.
Regarding China, there is certainly evidence that their build rate has slowed, but this is less caused by nuclear pricing (otherwise why would they have committed to ((I think) 25 reactors!?) but rather caused by supply chain issues with fuel, building materials, and trained personnel who can operate and maintain the plants.[3]
I'm self-admittedly not a power pricing expert, but I do know that most cost calculations for energy do not account for site maintenance, decommissioning, waste management, and other similar long-term issues, with the exception for nuclear. Nuclear pricing often does have a lot of this built into its pricing models because these are all actions that are (1) highly regulated by the government, (2) legally required to be planned for, (3) will cause a company to incur fines if not managed correctly, and (4) have enough of an impact on price that they front-load the costs into nuclear pricing schemes specifically to avoid balloon pricing issues later in life (long-term lifecycle planning is a staple of nuclear management). So unless you can provide some specifically sourced dollar-to-dollar comparisons of energy commodity prices, I choose not to believe your statement on this. I would personally argue that nuclear is comparable in price to on-land wind generation, and slightly more expensive than solar at the $/kwh level. However, nuclear can produce significantly more power than solar in a similar physical space.
All of this ignores the low-carbon footprint of nuclear, and also assumes that battery and storage technologies that turn "renewables" into "reliables" are present (from my view they're barely here, and they're super expensive). Nuclear fears have also deterred nuclear R&D, which has left the industry slagging behind where it could have been by now. Nuclear also has one of the most fuel-efficient "burns", where the amount of mass required to "burn" to get energy is orders of magnitudes lower than other sources. The amount of waste from nuclear is also significantly lower than amounts generated by other sources, but obviously it can be highly hazardous. Though nobody really ever asked what power companies were doing with all that CO2 they were producing as a byproduct, it literally just floated away, and it was by volume significantly more than the amount of spent nuclear fuel sitting around right now. How much actual realized damage have we caused by CO2 emissions vs radioactive byproducts? I genuinely don't know.
[1] https://www.iii.org/article/insurance-coverage-nuclear-accid... [2] https://en.selectra.info/energy-france/guides/electricity/co... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-01-11/china-sho...