Did Tesla Just Kill Nuclear Power?

[AWDtsla]

As we add more wind & solar and those sources can carry demand for more and more of the day it makes less and less sense to keep a nuclear plant around that costs about the same whether it's generating

It saddens me that everyone is stuck in a good vs bad argument when reality has much more grey. You can't get rid of the nuclear plants, because when you do that, you have nowhere to consume the nuclear waste. Not that the US is doing now, because we have banned fuel reprocessing for half a century now. Most of the "waste" isn't waste, it's just fuel that can no longer produce power economically. Fully utilizing the waste is the responsible thing to do, as then the real waste only has a half-life of tens of years, versus tens of thousands of years.

The only responsible thing to do, regardless of cost, is to immediately begin fueling existing reactors with reprocessed fuel until we run out. That will be a long long time.

 

[nwdiver]

It saddens me that everyone is stuck in a good vs bad argument when reality has much more grey. You can't get rid of the nuclear plants, because when you do that, you have nowhere to consume the nuclear waste.

We don't have an infinite supply of capital. Burning nuclear waste in a reactor is statistically the highest risk AND highest cost way to secure it. Reprocessing only gets rid of the 'long-lived' 'waste' like Plutonium.

Reprocessing will only create more of these;

The best way to dispose of nuclear waste is to bury it in a geologically stable place like WIPP. There's already so much there a little more won't make any difference anyway... and there's no way we're gonna dig up the barrels full of contaminated machinery and clothing stored there now and convert it to fuel...

Ok... back to evidence-based; cost-effective solutions... wind, solar, demand response and storage.

 

[AWDtsla]

We don't have an infinite supply of capital. Burning nuclear waste in a reactor is statistically the highest risk AND highest cost way to secure it. Reprocessing only gets rid of the 'long-lived' 'waste' like Plutonium.

Reprocessing will only create more of these;

View attachment 270510

No it doesn't CREATE those, it separates those from the fuel, and they have half-lives that we can consider handling.

The best way to dispose of nuclear waste is to bury it in a geologically stable place like WIPP. There's already so much there a little more won't make any difference anyway... and there's no way we're gonna dig up the barrels full of contaminated machinery and clothing stored there now and convert it to fuel...

Ok... back to evidence-based; cost-effective solutions... wind, solar, demand response and storage.

Absolutely NOT, you offer no solution for dealing with large quantities of toxic waste that will outlive any known human civilization by a factor of a thousand. It can't be stored for that long.

Humanity is doomed because you can't wrap your head around these things.

 

[nwdiver]

No it doesn't CREATE those, it separates those from the fuel, and they have half-lives that we can consider handling.

Absolutely NOT, you offer no solution for dealing with large quantities of toxic waste that will outlive any known human civilization by a factor of a thousand. It can't be stored for that long.

Humanity is doomed because you can't wrap your head around these things.

How is humanity doomed by something that will out live humanity?

1) Shorter half-lives makes those materials MORE hazardous to handle.

2) 'Geologically Stable' means that there is ~zero probability it will be disturbed over 10 half-lives at which point it's gone. For Plutonium that's ~4M years... really not that long geologically. Like I mentioned... WIPP is already home to more than enough waste in the form of contaminated machinery, tools and clothing that adding more won't make any difference and it would be FAR worse to try to dig all that up and transport it again.

From any rational perspective burning spent fuel is the worst way to get rid of it.... even if we could afford to do so...

High risk & High Cost to us to burn it today OR very low risk to some future maybe civilization that goes digging in the wrong spot and ignores all the warnings we buried... to say the cost/benefit supports storing it at WIPP is an understatement...

Here's a pretty good breakdown. One item you probably didn't consider is that MOX doesn't really eliminate plutonium... depending on the fuel life you could breed more plutonium than it was initially loaded with... the plutonium acts like more of a catalyst than a fuel.

 

[nwdiver]

Interesting Article from Scientific American;

'Ultimately, however, the core problem may be that such new reactors don't eliminate the nuclear waste that has piled up so much as transmute it. Even with a fleet of such fast reactors, nations would nonetheless require an ultimate home for radioactive waste, one reason that a 2010 M.I.T. report on spent nuclear fuel dismissed such fast reactors. Or, as Cochran puts it: "If you want to get rid of milk, don't feed it to cows."'​

 

[beeeerock]

"If you want to get rid of milk, don't feed it to cows."

Awesome answer... LOL!

 

[Skotty]

We can get by without nuclear, and the nuclear waste is bad, but lets us also not forget this little nugget that I'll just leave here:

xkcd: Log Scale

 

[nwdiver]

We can get by without nuclear, and the nuclear waste is bad, but lets us also not forget this little nugget that I'll just leave here:

xkcd: Log Scale

True. And irrelevant. The energy density of uranium fuel could be 10, 1000 or 1M times more than it is now and it wouldn't help. There are several factors that make an energy source viable. Cost is one of them. Nuclear needs to be cheaper to be a viable energy source.

Vanadium Flow Batteries have a cycle life that is >10x that of Lithium Ion but they'll never be in EVs. That cycle life could improve 100x and they still would not be a viable candidate to replace lithium ion in cars. The energy and power density need to improve ~100x to make flow batteries viable in EVs.

Excelling in a few areas but failing in others does not a viable substitute make...


You could also go with this graphic... Solar would be equally unviable if PV was still >$10/w... which fortunately for everyone... it's now <$1/w

And; despite being a fraction of the available energy that solar is... wind will likely aways be #1 because... once again.... cost. Cost matters.

 

[Skotty]

True. And irrelevant. The energy density of uranium fuel could be 10, 1000 or 1M times more than it is now and it wouldn't help. There are several factors that make an energy source viable. Cost is one of them. Nuclear needs to be cheaper to be a viable energy source.

Vanadium Flow Batteries have a cycle life that is >10x that of Lithium Ion but they'll never be in EVs. That cycle life could improve 100x and they still would not be a viable candidate to replace lithium ion in cars. The energy and power density need to improve ~100x to make flow batteries viable in EVs.

Excelling in a few areas but failing in others does not a viable substitute make...


You could also go with this graphic... Solar would be equally unviable if PV was still >$10/w... which fortunately for everyone... it's now <$1/w

And; despite being a fraction of the available energy that solar is... wind will likely aways be #1 because... once again.... cost. Cost matters.

That graphic likely suffers from renewables-people-hate-nuclear bias. I can make a credible case that if you consider the sun to be renewable, then you can claim Earth-based nuclear potentially is as well. That's a stretch, but what's even more of a stretch is claiming coal has more potential than nuclear, which this graphic clearly does. In classic renewables-people-hate-nuclear fashion, this graphic was likely generated with worst case scenario for all aspects of nuclear.

The real problem with nuclear is that humans are still too dumb to do it right, so we should stick to classic renewables which are a lot easier and safer to build and operate.

 

[winfield100]

could go with graphic... Solar would be equally unviable if PV was still >$10/w... which fortunately for everyone... it's now <$1/w

someone else who follows Dr Richard Perez. thanks. now if we could animate the graphic to illustrate the depletion of the finite ones on the right side of the graphic....

 

[mspohr]

That graphic likely suffers from renewables-people-hate-nuclear bias. I can make a credible case that if you consider the sun to be renewable, then you can claim Earth-based nuclear potentially is as well. That's a stretch, but what's even more of a stretch is claiming coal has more potential than nuclear, which this graphic clearly does. In classic renewables-people-hate-nuclear fashion, this graphic was likely generated with worst case scenario for all aspects of nuclear.

The real problem with nuclear is that humans are still too dumb to do it right, so we should stick to classic renewables which are a lot easier and safer to build and operate.

The potential exploitable energy of various sources is irrelevant once you know that there is "enough" to meet needs. The important part of this chart is that total energy use can be easily met by renewable solar and wind. Once you are assured that there is enough, then you can make decisions on which source to use based on factors such as cost and environmental impact.
I can understand why you are paranoid about "nuclear haters" since there has been so much negative press about nuclear disasters but for many of us, the primary concerns of the solar/wind vs. nuclear argument are about cost and environmental impact. Solar and wind are cheap (and getting cheaper) and have much less environmental impact than nuclear which is expensive. "Hate" implies an irrational bias but the arguments against nuclear have sound science and economics behind them.

 

[nwdiver]

The real problem with nuclear is that humans are still too dumb to do it right, so we should stick to classic renewables which are a lot easier and safer to build and operate.

On the contrary. I think we're fully capable of safely operating the AP1000. I just don't think it's worth paying >$0.12/kWh for energy just so we can point and say 'nuclear power'.

arguments against nuclear have sound science and economics behind them.

Yep. GA and SC just spent ~$35B to generate ~16TWh/yr from nuclear 'hopefully' starting in 2022. Imagine if they had instead invested that money in offshore wind. Unlike nuclear the more wind you build the cheaper it tends to get. They could have ALREADY been generating >20TWh/yr with much more to come and $$$ still left over.

 

[mspohr]

Southern Company Just Raised Cost Estimates For This Megaproject Again | OilPrice.com

Votgle cost increases again.
These revised cost estimates indicate that total cost of the two units could approach $28 billion upon completion. Back in 2012, when the Georgia Public Service Commission regulators approved them, the cost estimate was $14 billion. This is a 100 percent cost increase over initial estimates and represents incremental financial risk for investors.

 

[mspohr]

In this heavily polluted Georgia town, people fear nuclear power project will only make things worse

Here's a story about the nuclear contamination from the existing Votgle plant.
"You could be forgiven for taking a Geiger counter on a visit to Shell Bluff, Georgia. The town lies just across the Savannah River from a nuclear weapons facility and just down the road from an aging nuclear power plant. The river is one of the most toxic waterways in the country. The weapons facility is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, and the power plant is about to double in size.

Locals are outraged.

“We believe that Plant Vogtle is going to exacerbate the existing contamination that’s already in the area and make things worse,” said Lindsay Harper, deputy director of Georgia WAND, a women-led advocacy group working to end nuclear proliferation and pollution. “We believe that more money should be put toward cleaning up the contamination instead of continuing to produce more.”

 

[AWDtsla]

In this heavily polluted Georgia town, people fear nuclear power project will only make things worse

Here's a story about the nuclear contamination from the existing Votgle plant.
"You could be forgiven for taking a Geiger counter on a visit to Shell Bluff, Georgia. The town lies just across the Savannah River from a nuclear weapons facility and just down the road from an aging nuclear power plant. The river is one of the most toxic waterways in the country. The weapons facility is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, and the power plant is about to double in size.

Locals are outraged.

“We believe that Plant Vogtle is going to exacerbate the existing contamination that’s already in the area and make things worse,” said Lindsay Harper, deputy director of Georgia WAND, a women-led advocacy group working to end nuclear proliferation and pollution. “We believe that more money should be put toward cleaning up the contamination instead of continuing to produce more.”

"People that don't know anything outraged by things they don't understand, news at 10!"

There should be approximately 0 contamination coming from the nuclear plant.

 

[transpondster]

Here's a story about the nuclear contamination from the existing Votgle plant.
The weapons facility is one of the most contaminated places on the planet

Nice try with FUD

 

[mspohr]

"People that don't know anything outraged by things they don't understand, news at 10!"

There should be approximately 0 contamination coming from the nuclear plant.

Yes, there should be 0 contamination from the nuclear plant... however, people are getting sick, there is contamination in the river (could be from the nuclear weapons plant), and there is a systematic effort to deny and cover up contamination.
Interesting article from a few days ago about the closed San Onofre Nuclear Plant in California which finds nuclear contamination on the sea bed next to the outflow for the cooling water so it could be from the nuclear plant but it's not monitored carefully.
Denial and cover up makes people suspicious. Transparency is best but we don't have that. The reason people are outraged is that they have been lied to and contamination has been covered up. You can't just call them stupid. They are much smarter than you think.

 

[mspohr]

Here's a story about the nuclear contamination from the existing Votgle plant.
The weapons facility is one of the most contaminated places on the planet

Nice try with FUD

Because the monitoring has be inadequate and obfuscated, you can't say where the contamination is coming from. The FUD started with the government and the nuclear plant operator.

Both the power plant and the weapons facility across the river produce a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium that has been tentatively linked to Down syndrome in infants. Monitoring has found “elevated levels” of tritium in the groundwater near Plant Vogtle — too little to threaten public health, officials say, but enough to raise eyebrows.

Of course you should trust the government? They do admit that there is radioactive tritium in the groundwater. They say it's not dangerous. I don't trust them.

 

[AWDtsla]

Because the monitoring has be inadequate and obfuscated, you can't say where the contamination is coming from. The FUD started with the government and the nuclear plant operator.

Both the power plant and the weapons facility across the river produce a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium that has been tentatively linked to Down syndrome in infants. Monitoring has found “elevated levels” of tritium in the groundwater near Plant Vogtle — too little to threaten public health, officials say, but enough to raise eyebrows.

Of course you should trust the government? They do admit that there is radioactive tritium in the groundwater. They say it's not dangerous. I don't trust them.

They should be more worried about the dihydrogen monoxide in their water. On the other hand humans are given tritiated water for medical tests.

 

[mspohr]

They should be more worried about the dihydrogen monoxide in their water. On the other hand humans are given tritiated water for medical tests.

If you'll read the "linked" link, you'll see a link between tritium and Down's syndrome. Of course, this could not be "proved" but they did warrant further study (which of course wasn't done).
More government FUD.