Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

Putting aside any consideration about the safety of running those reactors and disposing of the spent fuel, I wonder about the wisdom of investing in an energy source which would not decrease West's dependency on authoritarian and openly adversarial states.

Kazakhstan + Russia + Uzbekistan + China = about 54% of the world production in 2018. [1] Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both in Russia's sphere of influence, especially the former one which accounts for 40% of the world production.

On the other side, Canada is the number 2 producer (13%) and Australia is estimated to have more reserves than all of the above countries combined. [2]

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r...

View on HN

> disposing of the spent fuel

This keeps coming up, but far as I can tell spent fuel disposal is not, and has never been a substantial issue. It's above all an engineering and administrative challenge and is safe when done properly. Also, spent fuel can be reused, and as technology improves, we'll be able to reuse more and more of it.

Accidents have happened where disposal was improper, but that's rare and consequences are not dire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Accidents

Radioctivity accidents can at most make places uninhabitable, but they won't contribute to the greenhouse effect (which might ultimately lead to a major socioeconomic collapse), or cause petrol-oligarchies (which have led, and will lead to war, and might lead to a thermonuclear war too). In my eyes, burning mineral fuels is much, much worse than risking radioactivity accidents.

Trivia: in Italy there was a lot of illegal dumping going on during 1980s and 1990s, they even secretely transported nuclear waste to Somalia for illegal burying and have sunk a number of ships carrying nuclear waste (for the purpose of disposal). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_%27...

Also there are only two outcomes - humanity survives, and remembers where we've deeply buried spent fuel, or humanity reverts to the stone age, and loses the technology to dig down to the deeply buried fuel (or goes extinct). Either way, it's not really a problem.

I believe we're getting to the point where, if we regress below the level of viable industry capable of running any of our high-tech energy sources (whether it's oil, coal, nuclear or any of the renewables), then we aren't getting it back ever - nor will any future civilisation, because without huge geological shifts all the sources will be beyond reach of primitive tech...

I used to think that 15,000 years from now Scientologists would be fighting with Mormons to break into Yucca Mountain and extract plutonium for nuclear weapons.

(The undesirable for weapons Pu240 isotope has a half life of about 6,000 years in contrast to the 24,000 year half life of the desirable Pu239 isotope.)

Now I don’t think the Scientologists will be around that long.

What we label as spend fuel (or even more maddening, waste!) is still viable fuel we should be burning in newer, better designs. NOT burying it in the desert.

The problem with spent fuel isn't the need to bury it. The problem is politics and myopia (on rampant display in this thread!) are winning the day instead of logic and reason.

There is currently still no licensed long term storage site for high-level waste in the world. That is amazing really. I consider that a major issue, even if the barriers are mostly political rather than technical.

It's coming close though, Onkalo in Finland is still on track for 2023/2024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...

https://www.science.org/content/article/finland-built-tomb-s...

That we are still arguing about burying viable fuel, instead of burning it in more modern and safer designs is what really boggles my mind.

"Here's a nice loaf of bread. Let's bury it in a mountain!"

Utter madness.

The countries with large uranium reserves are basically just 'big countries'. And the nature of nuclear power is such that the cost of fuel is not as important as it is for fossil fuels. Even if it were, as you point out, Australia is the Saudi Arabia of uranium reserves. I'd say they're about as far away from adversarial as you could get.

> I'd say they're about as far away from adversarial as you could get.

Have you seen them play cricket?

Also as far away as you could get geographically, though I suppose this is far less of an issue that it would have been in the past. I wonder if nuclear-powered ships could be utilised to deliver the uranium, further cutting the climate impact?

If Australia were to refine the uranium for export you wouldn't need anything special in the ways of shipping other than good containment and careful handling. If you replaced all power generation with nuclear that alone would drastically reduce the amount of shipping necessary for oil, gas and coal to a point where you would hardly need to be concerned about it. There's even a relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1162/

Uranium production doesn't really follow its actual occurrence though - you'll note the places listed are all participants or proxy states of the Cold War arms race. They inherited that production capacity and mining - whereas Australia barely mines at all because it has no nuclear weapons and only 1 research reactor.

Basically I'd say there's a lack of evidence that proven reserves only exist in unstable states, but also the refueling cycle changes things dramatically - reactor fuel can be easily and compactly stockpiled, and happens on yearly cycles - much less subject to shifting local geopolitics.

A better reactor design could allow more commonly available radioactive (but non-fissile) elements such as Thorium to be bred into fissile elements such as Uranium-233.

This kind of reactor is called a Breeder reactor [1], for example the liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) [2].

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reacto...

Another mostly forgotten aspect is that there are designs that explicitly work without enrichment, so no lengthy and limiting process of enrichment necessary (now, postprocessing the waste to separate materials to mix into new fuel, that would be useful)

Australia could be producing a lot more Uranium, it has an estimated 30% of world reserves and if you sort the list in the Wikipedia article about reserves by Reserves as of 2015, it's at the top. Canada also has large reserves and is 3rd in that list. There is also South Africa and Brazil along with other African and South American countries that could contribute to supply. I don't think supply of uranium ore would be a problem for the West.

As for safety, nuclear power production is probably one of the safest industries that exist since we are so acutely aware of the consequences. Waste storage is only a hot button issue because of trumped up fears. Compared to the variety of toxins we release into the air, the amount of nuclear waste produced is tiny and easy to contain. I'd rather all of the life threatening by products of power production be safely buried under a mountain hundreds of miles away from anyone than just dumped into the atmosphere all around the globe.

the newer tech (e.g. Gen4 reactors) also have the benefit of reusing the existing radioactive waste rods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor#Advantag...

so you wouldn't have to mine that much new uranium (or be that dependent on that)

The problem is that Gen4 reactors are essentially vaporware, with the expected first reactors to come online in 2040-2050 - and given the desaster that has been the (third gen) EPR regarding timing and budget, I believe it's foolish to rely on that date. Especially since a lot of focus is on molten-salt reactors and to this date no one has come close to solving the problem that molten salt is highly aggressive towards pipes.

We need solutions now, and we already have them in mass production: solar panels, wind power generation and battery storage.

> We need solutions now, and we already have them in mass production: solar panels, wind power generation and battery storage.

This is the one thing I like about Tesla and SpaceX: they solve problems with today's tech.

When I imagined reusable spacecraft, I was dreaming about anti-gravity drives, which just furthered my believe of it being impossible. SpaceX did it on a kerosene rocket, same physics that the Saturn V used decades ago.

We don't need to wait for some Sci-Fi physics to solve this issue. We can go really far with we already have today.

> we already have them in mass production: solar panels, wind power generation and battery storage.

I always hear that abstract argument but do we have the math right on this?

What would it take to provide enough power in the US with only those solutions (+ hydro and other non nuclear non fossil fuel solutions)?

Do we have an idea of the amount of material and pollution that would be generated by building (and then recycling) all those panels and batteries?

I would like to live in a world where we don't need nuclear but I am not convinced we can realistically do without (assuming the same standard of living).

> What would it take to provide enough power in the US with only those solutions (+ hydro and other non nuclear non fossil fuel solutions)?

A little more than the area of West Virginia [1] if you're only going for solar power using conventional panels.

[1] https://www.axionpower.com/knowledge/power-world-with-solar/

You're missing energy storage there, and also the logistics of producing that many solar panels.

We have better chances of producing that many solar panels than we have getting Gen4 reactors before 2050. As for energy storage - there's a lot of possibilities:

1) electric cars acting as buffers. Particularly rarely-used vehicles could earn some side money for being used in a smart grid.

2) battery storage like Tesla constructed in Australia

3) hydro pumped storage

In particular, base load could also be generated by permanent renewable energy (e.g. geothermal or running-water hydro power aka dams) to ease the requirement for energy storage.

> 1) electric cars acting as buffers. Particularly rarely-used vehicles could earn some side money for being used in a smart grid.

Bidirectional V2G systems only exist as demonstration projects now, and we'll need a bunch of time to ramp that up. It requires a lot of EVs, lots of grid updates all over the place, and for people to willingly participate at a meaningful scale. This won't be cheap and the grid we have now can't handle it.

>3) hydro pumped storage

Not likely to be a widely useful storage mechanism except in very specific geography.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/

Not just producing that may solar panels, but maintaining them, replacing them, dealing with the waste panels (yes, panels do need to be replaced).

You just don't chuck out a field of solar panels and ignore them.

Modern reactor designs - you do basically ignore them once they are initially set up.

This isnt really true. And even if it were, the main reason is limited financing.

Look at Canada, their program is advancing reactors. They are targeting before 2030.

if governemnt actually cared and invested the way they did in renwables these reactors would exist already.

The tech was proven in the 60/70, its just investment that is needed. But reactor companies have a really hard time with that.

I don't get your point. As you say, uranium is common. And you don't need a lot of it.

So the solution is obvious: extract it domestically or buy from friendly countries.

Then we shouldn’t invest in photovoltaics either, because rare earth elements are also predominantly produced by these countries.

Only because the extraction process is dirty and we aren't willing to do it as cheaply. Waste from mining other minerals is rich in REMs, and deposits are plentiful. "Rare" is actually a misnomer:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/15/are-rare-earth-elements...

So it's pretty much like Uranium then. It's not rare, but we outsource its mining to autocratic regimes, because they're willing to produce it cheaply (while destroying their environment).

Pretty much.

Worth shouting out that it is also sourced in former colonies that still have major dependencies on their old imperial masters. Niger/France have this relationship and Niger produces the majority of uranium used by the French nuclear industry.

Photovoltaics do not, in fact, depend on rare-earth elements.

Wind turbine generators often, but far from always, depend on rare-earth magnets. Batteries often (but far from always) depend on other rare, but not rare-earth, elements like cobalt.

Also, the term rare-earth metal is really unfortunate. About half of them have no practical industrial use. The other half is neither rare, nor particularly expensive

The three most important rare earth elements are lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium. The first two are about as "rare" as copper or nickel. Praseodymium is less abundant, about the rate of lithium or lead. Neodymium costs around $50 per kilo. About 3 kilos is necessary in an electric car. One container full of neodymium ingots is enough for 30,000 electric cars. It's not a geopolitical ace up the sleeve it's made out to be

Ytterbium used to be (carefully) splattered all over the screen of every color TV, to fluoresce red.

Erbium is used in nanogram quantity in optical fibers to amplify signals purely optically. You shine a light on a fiber doped with it and the signal gets stronger.

Can other elements, except uranium, be used for power generation?

I thought uranium is used in reactors because it also produces A-bomb material as a by-product.

> Can other elements, except uranium, be used for power generation

Plutonium, Thorium and a few others yes

> I thought uranium is used in reactors because it also produces A-bomb material as a by-product.

It doesn't and it's used mostly because it was easiest to work with and best researched when the majority oft reactors Werke build

But wasn't it "best researched" because of the potential for military use, and all the military R&D money?

No, it was just easiest to get running. You can make natural uranium reactor with no enrichment of fuel needed, even - it's how Manhattan Project could get fissile material in the first place.

Thorium was actually more of military-only solution than Uranium->Plutonium chain, as unlike Uranium it doesn't have obvious "easy" energy use path, but early on it was researched as mix of uranium and thorium fuels due to uranium availability concerns.

It's so easy, it even occurred naturally in past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reacto...

Thorium for military kind of sucks. If you want to build a substainable long term program you dont want U-232 around.

The only real advantage of Thorium is that you can use it in a thermal breeder. If you are not building a thermal breeder using thorim is mostly pointless.

Yes and yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

The thing holding us back from having thorium reactors seems to be how expensive nuclear reactor research is and how unpopular nuclear reactors are.

China is charging ahead with Thorium - maybe after they embarrass the rest of the world people will get more rational and less emotional about nuclear?

Not holding my breath....

Switching to modern reactors you will be able to continually run them without U-235. Thorium os fertil and you can have a thermal breeder. There are other methods of doing the same with Uranium.

Every country has plenty of Thorium.

And even so you can stockpile these fuels for years in advance.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com