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Comment by andbberger | Hacker News Reader

Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole. [1]

Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations?

I am, and will continue to be blown away that the world found out how to make rocks so spicy they can power our civilizations for thousands of years with no carbon 50+ years ago....... and decided to keep burning dead dinosaurs. Fuck big oil, fuck greenpeace, and fuck anyone who is STILL anti-nuclear energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

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>Go ahead and keep arguing about whether or not nuclear is a good idea. Earth doesn't care. The water will be lapping at your feet soon. How's that for externalizing a cost to future generations?

Agreed. The reality is there is nothing like nuclear energy. We lost (and continue losing) decades of nuclear development and deployment due to the anti-nuke movement (environmental or otherwise). This resulted in hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 emitted that otherwise wouldn't have been emitted (imagine if the developed world invested in nuclear to the same level as France in the 70s) - emissions that would have bought us more decades to tackle climate change.

But physics are physics. Nuclear will come back because you cannot beat the energy density of nuclear in a world which requires more and more power, with a growing population and living standards, and is dealing with the double environmental whammy of global warming and your generic environmental collapse. Things like wind and solar need huge surface areas to operate in, and require environmentally disastrous mining as well as huge swaths of landfill once decommissioned ... and need fossil fuel base load to be viable.

I watched a YouTube video recently that compared nuclear-powered and diesel-powered aircraft carriers [1]. The diesel-powered carrier needs to refuel every few weeks, while nuclear-powered carrier needs to refuel every 20 years. That is just insanity. Living in the modern world, we have an intuitive understanding how often things need to recharged and/or refueled, and nuclear just breaks your mind.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObTKRHkIkgI&t=493s

> The diesel-powered carrier needs to refuel every few weeks, while nuclear-powered carrier needs to refuel every 20 years.

True, but while refuelling only takes hours, ROH operations on a naval reactor are usually scheduled to last 46 months [edit] and cost several billion dollars [/edit].

That's just insanity :D

A lot of that can be reduced by innovative designs, such as having a modular reactor when you can slide out the vessel(or some other sub set of the reactor, not a nuclear engineer here) with the spent fuel and slide in a new one. Then you can refuel the old vessel to be ready for the next swap. You can gain economics of scale if you build a lot of plants in a region with the same modular design and have a central refueling facility. (yes I know I switch from ships to plants, same benefits accrue though)

Carriers typical undergo a service life extension overhaul (think overhaul the whole ship, stem to stern) in conjunction with refueling. The 46 month figure is for a RCOH (Refueling and Complex OverHaul). Subs can and are refueled much more quickly (and in many cases more often).

Yea nuclear waste isn't actually a problem, I was surprised when I learned this since everyone seems to make a big deal about it.

It's solid waste (not radioactive sludge like in many movies/shows), and requires very simple storage containers, which you can just keep on site or bury, no problem.

> In fact, the U.S. has produced roughly 83,000 metrics tons of used fuel since the 1950s—and all of it could fit on a single football field at a depth of less than 10 yards. [1]

[1] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...

or instead of burying the majority of it, burn it in different reactor technologies?

90% of what we are burying could be re-burned in different technology reactors. Note I didn’t say new, because the tech isn’t new. It just wasn’t prioritized because the current reactors byproducts could be used for weapons too.

And the stuff that is left over from these other reactors isn’t nearly as nasty or as long lived either, so no need for ridiculously over-engineered holes in the desert either.

The anti-nuke hysteria of the last 40 years has prevented having even remotely rational discussions about the true clean energy source out there.

>Waste was never really a problem and has been definitively solved. You bury it in a deep unmarked hole.

Yeah, too bad it doesn't work in practice.

How does it not?

https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-rad...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-environment-i...

https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry...

https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2008-09-20-year-long...

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-10-30/scotland-expos...

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/un-atomic-agency-probing-del...

https://apnews.com/ba820f02074247fc8486b63b7c87d6cb/russias-...

https://www.upi.com/Energy-News/2008/09/08/Nuclear-waste-sca...

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-23...

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/02/oregons-response...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27...

I think there needs to be real storage plans for radioactive water before terrestrial fission is a major power source but it is certainly telling that in 3 of those cases the radioactive waste was from fracking and not a reactor.

The Onkalo spent fuel repository I linked to is the only such operational site in existence, and is slated to start storing fuel in 2020. So I think it's safe to say that no data exists to support your claim.

With all security measures and the problem with storing waste, nuclear is just very expensive, at least for many countries with a high population density.

Europe doesn't have that many vast uninhabited landscapes for example. That Canada can just dump it beyond the polar circle is another thing.

Uranium isn't endless. With the current rate of consumption, it would last ~80 years. Sure, there are ideas to extract it and we certainly could find more, but it should certainly be a factor to be reminded of. There are also quite rare materials needed for containment, which have similar restrictions. Some say we could extract Uranium from seawater, but that is pretty much bullshit, not only economically.

I am not for shutting down nuclear plants, but I doubt it can compete or is the future of our energy production. Maybe other reactor types may help, but I don't judge people for being anti nuclear.

Nuclear can not compete against cheap renewable for dynamic power load and cheap fossil fuel for base load. For base load in particular the convenience and agility to spin up more gas burning power plants based on weather conditions and demand is impossible to beat, and as a resource, natural gas can be found in many geographical places and gathered through multiple different methods.

We will not see nuclear plants in the future as long as fossil fuels are burning to power up the energy grid and warm up homes. Maybe when the coral reefs are all gone in 20-30 years, water levels has increased a bit to be inconvenient enough, and enough people are displaces because of drought and other humanitarian disaster, then maybe the cost of burning fossil fuels will finally be applied to the operators of such power plants and alternative sources become more competitive when the sun is down and the wind is not blowing.

I do judge people for burning fossil fuels. That my country has a set date when nuclear should be all gone but no date when fossil fuels can be banned is a pretty good sign how bad the priorities are.

Yep. It is quite unbelievable how we use a 1 million old technology (burning stuff) and try to argue that the new way of producing energy (which is already much safer if you check number of deaths per twh) is somehow dangerous and bad. In 50 years of nuclear energy we already made is super safe. Now we can make it safe for being used in location which have pretty serious earthquakes or as a resource for flying (even for spaceships some day).

> 1 million old technology (burning)

AFAIK nuclear is older than oxidation/burning.

On a more serious note, burning has been a source of power only since about the steam engine, so about 300 years.

You are discounting cave man with camp fire. Also nuclear _technology_ as of being controlled by humans is not as old.

I’m pretty sure the parent is pointing out that the chemical combustion in eg a caveman’s campfire required many millions of years of stars performing nuclear fusion to create any elements with higher atomic numbers than 2, oxygen included.

I agree. I am talking about technology as of what humans control. Humans do not control this -> "many millions of years of stars performing nuclear fusion to create any elements with higher atomic numbers than 2"

Oh, I read it as a reference to natural fission reactors, like the one found at Oklo.

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