Hey, a climate activist with some common sense!
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
145 points (91.4% liked)
Hacker News
4122 readers
2 users here now
This community serves to share top posts on Hacker News with the wider fediverse.
Rules
0. Keep it legal
- Keep it civil and SFW
- Keep it safe for members of marginalised groups
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The way I see it, we either get cleaner energy with some safer nuclear energy, or it’s still catastrophic and we all just die faster anyway. I’m down for nuclear lol
As it stands. Nuclear (fission) is the cleanest and safest form of energy available at the moment. When we get to fusion it’ll get even cheaper without even the miniscule amount of (stored)waste fission produces.
It is not the "cleanest" it is the most "climate friendly". Commitment to nuclear waste is a thousand year long process of monitoring and processing waste products and our record on a short term commitment of like 50 years to climate change is not a good record. Its not clean and in the long term not likely cheap.
However its certainly not as destructive to the world as gas is right now so relieving climate change before some other catastrophic milestone occurs is probably a good idea. Folks saying "its too late" misunderstand climate change; there's always another level bad we can hit and nuclear provides stable, reliable power.
It really isn't a thousand year long process though. The containers they have for them are very long lasting. Bury it in a large containment facility deep in the mountains (Norway is making a large underground system specifically for this iirc) and just seal it up. Maintenance will be minimal.
Aren't you able to recycle spent fuel for additional fuel and a lower amount of waste?
Yes, we could reduces the nuclear waste by recycling it and the technology for that exists since nearly the beginning of nuclear energy.
But the political pressure and the fearmongering of nuclear, paid by oil money, prevented the necessary longterm investmenst in that area.
To put the amont of nuclear waste in perspective.
- Total nuclear high level waste globally since existence: around 400 000 tonnes
- Yearly produced hazardous waste globally: around 400 000 000 tonnes
Nuclear waste is merely a dent in comparsion to alle the problematic waste we create. At least are able to contain it, while we are not able to contain a lot of the other stuff.
Adding a random comparsion for scale. The skyscraper Burj Khalifa in Dubai weights 500 000 tonnes.
Awesome! I always wondered when those voiced would get louder.
I agree with the sentiment. I would caution people that nuclear waste can last something like 10k years but swapping the current climate crisis for a future radioactive waste storage crisis is probably good trade at the moment.
I mean, it was a good trade 50 years ago. An even better trade, really.
Anti-nuclear campaigns, when all is said and done, may have accidentally had the effect of turning sentiment against something that would have actually saved the planet.
Hope she told Greenpeace as well where to leave the nuclear waste and how to archive costs similar to renewables. Because that's a question I don't know the answer to.
Thank God you're not the one that has to figure it out then.
Long-term nuclear waste doesn't take up huge amounts of space in the grand scheme of things. And while renewables are essential, having a nuclear backbone in the mix is going to be needed for times of lower output. Otherwise you'd need huge amounts of batteries which would drive up the cost again and slow down the move to zero fossil fuels.
I am from Germany. We have been looking for an "Endlager" (place to store the waste up to a million years safely) since the beginning of using nuclear energy and we haven't found one. No one wants to have one in ones vicinity and the place where we are storing it now (Asse) is leaking. Times when the sun does not shine and there are no winds are rare and there are more options to store energy than batteries. What we need are better power grids to meet demands during those difficult times and harvest the renewable energy more efficient.
Plus, where does the uranium come from, that for example France uses? Russia (dictatorship), Kazakhstan and Niger (military coup). The sun and the wind don't attack sovereign nations, don't write an invoice and cannot pressure you to do a moral limbo when it comes to your energy resources.
It's stupid because here in Australia we have the size of Western Europe as desert that won't ever be used for anything. We already have ports and roads in and nuclear testing has already taken place in the desert.
Yet, somehow that area isn't used as global mass storage for everyone's nuclear waste despite decades of every nation with nuclear plants looking for one. I guess complex problems don't always have simple solutions.
Nuclear waste can be buried deep inside the ground in stable rock in specially made canisters, not possible everywhere in the world but it's a good way to store it long term where it's possible.
While other renewables might beat nuclear in costs they cant produce electricity when the sun doesnt shine or wind doesnt blow etc. So when also accounting for the energy storage to smooth out the spikes nuclear is considerably cheaper
Thanks god
Give LFTR now plz
I'm not sure it's the right way now. Small modular reactors, regardless of tech, seem to be the way forward, and molten salt/thorium could just increase the amount of new things that need to be tested and developed.
I mean, they may as well. Even if Greenpeace disappeared entirely, cost would still stop construction of nuclear power plants.
All of them, on both sides of the "green spectrum" are either insane or ignoring reality.
Closing existing nuclear power plants is wasteful if they are still safe to run.
Creating new fission based power plants is useless because they will not be ready in time to make a bit of difference, separate from the fact that increasing surface water temperatures will render most of these units unusable/inefficient in the next decade or so.
Renewables+storage will be safer and at a much lower cost.
None of this will help save the "planet". Reduction of (the growth of) carbon emissions is insufficient to cool the planet down in any way shape or form to a degree that helps in time to prevent disaster/extinction.
Increasing earths albedo is the only method currently achievable to get from +2W/m² forcing to -2W in time to save at least something of our current habitat but those sort of literally world saving options is drowned out by a discussion about how big energy can wring more subsidies from the public coffers by promising that Nuclear will save the day and having "Green" proponents make the argument for them. Don't be fooled. Stop wasting public money on big, slow and ultimately wasteful projects just so energy companies can keep themselves alive.
Renewable + storage on the scale we need is not cheaper. And nuclear wont' be too late. Or we're already too late even for renewable at this point.
There is exactly one study that says nuclear is too costly, and it's very much propaganda because it ignores most of history of building nuclear power plant and it discards some important sources about the subject because they're deemed not objective enough, which is quite hilarious to read.
Horizon for going into production of a NPP is at least a decade, more likely two. By that time storage techniques and renewable prduction will be able to cope handsomely and at a lower price, so yes, too late. And yes we are much too late in reducing carbon output (output is still growing) and capturing greenhouse gasses is miles away from being relevant to cooling the planet.
Influx reduction is our best bet and it will have to happen quickly or this planet is going to be hard to live on.
Nuclear is not the future or even the present.
The mean time to build a nuclear power plant is 7 years. France was able to build 60 reactors in 30 years, some of which in 5 years. That's something that was done, that history proves we can do it, and we can probably do even better.
Meanwhile there isn't enough lithium production in the world to do the same for renewables.
Propaganda is only propaganda. When ecofasfists will start to actually fight for the climate rather than for their fantasies, everyone will win.
From plan to production is not 7 years, just the building itself. Especially not now that cooling capabilities are disappearing (many of those French installations had to reduce output significantly due to the heat wave this year.) This will mean it will cost much longer to get these installations okayed and their usefulness is further limited.
Calling me an ecofacist also means this is the end of the line of this "discusssion". Have fun in your alternate reality.
I'm not calling you an ecofascist. You put yourself in this category because you are so radically against nuclear I guess.
And you're denying facts. And making hypothesis about the future. The output reduction last year was exceptional, a combination of factors. It's as likely, if not less, as a Europe scale meteorological event that alter the output of solar and wind on the whole continent.
Nuclear has never been good, just an "oh shit, we left it too late".
Nuclear will be good when there is no wind, at night, with limited hydro and storage. The excitement with it has been from years of industry astroturfing. Seeing reddit go from opposed to, celebrating nuclear as thinking it was superior to all other renewables was a wild ride.
Nuclear is the best option
False. Solar PV, hydro and wind are superior without the nuclear waste problem.
Nuclear has a purpose in the mix, but more in a supporting role.
The nuclear waste problem's solution is stick it in the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
In good environmentally friendly concrete. So greeen.
What do you think hydroelectric dams get built with?
Smugness?
Once with concrete which lasts decades. But nuclear plants produce waste every day that needs concrete for decades. And they are built with concrete.
Nice try.
Nuclear is easily the safest, cleanest and most efficient form of energy production. Until we get to nuclear fusion.