Nuclear power has never been economic or feasible in germany

[XDurionX]

Australia has Lots of Thorium and rather go digging for Thorium in Silithus,
Thorium reactors due to Thorium's safety is the way to go.

I'd gladly take all your spare arcanite crystals.

[Deleted]

Yes and Germans built a bunch of coal plants to make up for shutting down the nuclear power plants.

Congratulations to your green party, I guess they didn't think this one through, eh?

[XDurionX]

Yes and Germans built a bunch of coal plants to make up for shutting down the nuclear power plants.

Congratulations to your green party, I guess they didn't think this one through, eh?

Percentage of coal energy has not risen since the Atomausstieg.

http://www.bmwi.de/DE/Themen/Energie...en-fakten.html

And following the Kyoto protocol, we promised a reduction of co2 emissions of 21%, and we managed a reduction of 24.8% (1990 vs 2010 data, atomausstieg obviously not included). That's quite an amazing feat.

[Blobfish]

I'd gladly take all your spare arcanite crystals.

No Mate..No Arcanite crystals.... I know they are valuble about lvl 40 WOW

But in Reality

Thorium-based nuclear power is nuclear reactor-based fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. According to proponents, a thorium fuel cycle offers several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle—including much greater abundance on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production.

However, development of thorium power has significant start-up costs. Proponents also cite the lack of weaponization potential as an advantage of thorium, while critics say that development of breeder reactors in general (including thorium reactors, which are breeders by nature) increases proliferation concerns.

In other words Thorium is much safer than Uranium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoriu..._nuclear_power

[Cyberowl]

A little off-topic:

Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space?

Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

[Tyrianth]

That seems to be the only advantage, though. And its hard to believe that temporary co2 emissions hit harder than millenia of radiation. I don't know about the USA, but we still don't have a ultimate disposal place for our waste. Where will you store your waste after Yucca Mountain has been stopped?

The operating costs of a Nuclear Plant are much cheaper than that of coal or gas fired. It's just more expensive up front.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/informa...ear-power.aspx

In the assessment of the economics of nuclear power allowances must also be made for the management of radioactive used fuel and the ultimate disposal of this used fuel or the wastes separated from it. But even with these included, the total fuel costs of a nuclear power plant in the OECD are typically about a third of those for a coal-fired plant and between a quarter and a fifth of those for a gas combined-cycle plant.

[XDurionX]

A little off-topic:

Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space?

Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

I'm quite confident someone has calculated that too and it turned out to be too expensive. You'd need ENORMOUS capacities. Nuclear energy stopped being economic when we banned dropping it into the sea twenty years ago (in 1994? Feel free to correct me).

We are NOW getting problems with the nuclear waste that has been sunk in the channel in the last century, now the barrels are rusting. Russia has illegally dumped nuclear waste in the baltic sea and the italian mafia is said to have dumped some in the mediterranian sea. La Hague and Sellafield are to this day dumping radiactive waste into the sea.

[Sunseeker]

So....it's not economic because it was privately operated for profit, and then the people making the profit took their money and ran when it came time to clean up the mess? Sounds more like a fault of capitalism than of nuclear power.

[XDurionX]

So....it's not economic because it was privately operated for profit, and then the people making the profit took their money and ran when it came time to clean up the mess? Sounds more like a fault of capitalism than of nuclear power.

It's both. High level waste has to be stored for a million years, according to german law (http://www.bmub.bund.de/themen/atome...anforderungen/ ). That's something the corporations couldn't have achieved in any case. And we still don't know what to do with our low level waste even. At this point. we store it next to the power plants, and shift it around every few years. That has an enormous cost.

[Deleted]

A little off-topic: Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space? Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

you rtealise we have alot of important things in space such as GPS sattelites etc, radiation waste would damage them and plus who is gonna fund the rocket to send the shit up into space,

[Canpinter]

A little off-topic:

Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space?

Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

because on rare but not totally unheard of occasions rockets explode in the atmosphere.

[Osmeric]

A little off-topic:

Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space?

Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

Launch costs, especially with the structure needed to ensure the waste survives launch accidents, is too high.

However, there is no reason to shoot it into space now. Store it in dry casks and wait for launch costs to come down. I expect this is how nuclear waste will finally be handled, perhaps centuries from now. We have until the waste becomes too "cool" to self-protect against easy diversion of its plutonium; this is about 300 years.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm quite confident someone has calculated that too and it turned out to be too expensive. You'd need ENORMOUS capacities. Nuclear energy stopped being economic when we banned dropping it into the sea twenty years ago (in 1994? Feel free to correct me).

No, actually nuclear power would be uneconomical even if waste could be disposed of at zero cost. The capital cost is simply too high. Some nuclear plants in the US are being shut down because they can't even earn back their operation and maintenance costs.

The big story in power generation now is utility-scale solar. Recently a 800 MW solar plant in Oman was bid at $.0299/kWh. This was shortly after one in Mexico went for $.035/kWh, and one in Nevada for below $.04/kWh (the last one has some tax subsidies that amount to less than $.02/kWh, but even without the subsidy that is cheaper than the price of power from new nuclear plants, and probably even gas combined cycles plants.)

These costs are game changing. Solar is at its inflection point. The cost of solar is continuing to drop rapidly. In the near future it will begin to push most other power sources into niches (for example, high latitude markets.) The large disparity in power availability between day and night is driving and will continue to drive investment in energy storage, which is also seeing rapid cost decline.

[Tyrianth]

A little off-topic:

Why don't they shoot nuclear waste into space?

Just make sure it's travel path will never cross earth again and make it cost-efficient. That little extra radiation won't kill anyone. So, ignoring the possibility of this being mistaken as an attack by aliens *tinfoil hat intensifies*, it comes down to cost-effectiveness, doesn't it? Maybe SpaceX can help with that.

Because Nuclear Power generates very little waste, and it's much, much cheaper to just bury it in the arctic or dessert than it is to ship it off into space.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm quite confident someone has calculated that too and it turned out to be too expensive. You'd need ENORMOUS capacities. Nuclear energy stopped being economic when we banned dropping it into the sea twenty years ago (in 1994? Feel free to correct me).

Fuel costs, including proper disposal, is the cheapest part of Nuclear Energy. Fuel costs, including disposal, is cheaper than coal or gas powered plants.

[Osmeric]

you rtealise we have alot of important things in space such as GPS sattelites etc, radiation waste would damage them and plus who is gonna fund the rocket to send the shit up into space,

I don't think you realize just how full of ionizing radiation space already is. Waste disposed of in space would contribute negligibly to the dose received by spacecraft.

[XDurionX]

Because Nuclear Power generates very little waste, and it's much, much cheaper to just bury it in the arctic or dessert than it is to ship it off into space.

- - - Updated - - -

Fuel costs, including proper disposal, is the cheapest part of Nuclear Energy. Fuel costs, including disposal, is cheaper than coal or gas powered plants.

So it is cheap to store it for hundreds of years, let alone millenia? Unless you think of "disposal" as "throwing it into a forest somewhere". Bury it in the desert and it will be in the ground water eventually. Source on that? How does canada handle its waste? Is there a final storage?

[Osmeric]

So it is cheap to store it for hundreds of years, let alone millenia?

Let me introduce you to the concept of time value of money. Costs incurred in the future are discounted by the interest one could earn on the money before then.

[Cyberowl]

you rtealise we have alot of important things in space such as GPS sattelites etc, radiation waste would damage them and plus who is gonna fund the rocket to send the shit up into space,

Scientists have done some crazy shit in space, I think they could manage a route/timing combination that doesn't collide with satellites and never crosses earths path. Oh, and look up radiation in space.

[XDurionX]

Let me introduce you to the concept of time value of money. Costs incurred in the future are discounted by the interest one could earn on the money before then.

If my grandchildren have to pay for it, it's basically free for me.

[Tyrianth]

So it is cheap to store it for hundreds of years, let alone millenia? Unless you think of "disposal" as "throwing it into a forest somewhere". Source on that? How does canada handle its waste? Is there a final storage?

Yes, when talking about the economics of Nuclear Energy and it's fuel costs, proper disposal is taken into account. Read the link I posted, especially the section on operating costs.

[Shahad]

Launch costs, especially with the structure needed to ensure the waste survives launch accidents, is too high.

However, there is no reason to shoot it into space now. Store it in dry casks and wait for launch costs to come down. I expect this is how nuclear waste will finally be handled, perhaps centuries from now. We have until the waste becomes too "cool" to self-protect against easy diversion of its plutonium; this is about 300 years.

That or we'll use fusion reactors to greatly reduce the half-life of fission waste and just wait it out.