What's wrong with nuclear energy?

[Skroe]

So I have been reading about France and how 75% of their energy comes from nuclear reactors. With ine of the major platforms being man caused climate change, why have I not herd more politicians pushing for more nuclear reactors?

France did something extremely smart in the 1970s and 1980s. It recognized that the costs of constructing a nuclear power plant were immense, but would benefit from economies of scale and would free France from it's dependence on Middle Eastern fossile fuels. So it picked one design and built it a lot. With some modest variation, every nuclear power plant in France is identical.

France is also a unitary state. Approval and directives came from the National Government.

The United States by contrast, relied upon Market Forces to produce the most economic design, but Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disrupted that precisely at the time that mid-late Generation II reactors would have ideally competed on a construction cost basis. New safety features drove costs up. The huge diversity of design and regulation saw the economics of such reactors turn against them.

The problem with nuclear energy was and remains economics, and they've only modestly gotten better in time. It's taken more modern plants, like the AP1000, to simplify and standardize designs and drive down costs. This is something that's been basically delayed by 20 years.

In the western world, if we want more nuclear power plants, the French model is the model model. There needs to be a competition on design - a standarized, simple, economic design - and then competitive bidding to build that design. Now this raises a key problem in that what if that one design has a systemic design flaw, identified years later. But that's not uncommon to big projects and risks like that can be mitigated.

But there is no real Nuclear renaissance coming so long as every plant is treated like a one-off science project.

[Bathory]

well...don't lol

YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MOM, JILL Stein!

[Sky High]

If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Chernobyl and the Japanese nuclear reactors proved that.

that was after a literal natural disaster. also can't forget the ineptitude of the Japanese government.

[Gatsbybutters]

Nope. Nothing against fission, more like humans are fucking stupid, have neither hindsight or foresight, and currently should be grounded from using it until further notice.

[Unholyground]

that was after a literal natural disaster. also can't forget the ineptitude of the Japanese government.

It was also with really old reactor models that should not have been used.

[chazus]

Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, expensive and obsolete.

False. It's not dirty. Actually I don't even know what that means. It's not really dangerous, either. It's also not expensive. It's actually cheaper than most forms of power, with the exception of geothermal (which is hugely prohibitive), and hydro (which again, pretty prohibitive), and wind (which just doesn't generate enough power)

First of all, it is toxic from the beginning of the production chain to the very end.

So is your phone. What's your point? A lot of things are. Proper management removes any danger.

Uranium mining has sickened countless numbers of people, many of them Native Americans whose land is still contaminated with abandoned mines

So you don't use technology at all, then, I take it? If you want to complain about that, just look at nickel mines, Or ANY mines for that matter. They're all toxic. It sucks, but uranium mines are the smallest of our worries in that area.

No one has solved the problem of how to safely store nuclear waste

Yes, we have. But social stigma and shitty politics bars us from actually using them.

Nuclear power is dangerous. Accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima create contaminated zones unfit for human settlement.

Those weren't accidents. Accidents are "how could we ever have prevented this? Who knows!"

Chernobyl was due to shitty construction and manufacturing. Fukushima was building it on a volatile area. You know what's also dangerous? Keeping your microwave above your bathtub in an apartment next to the train. Same thing. Just because its safe to use doesn't mean you should put it in a place that shakes all the time.

They said Chernobyl was a fluke, until Fukushima happened just 5 years ago

WHo is 'they'? Nobody says Chernobyl was a fluke. It wasn't. It's well studied. We know exactly what happened, and it wasn't a fluke or accident.

Finally, nuclear power is obsolete. It’s already more expensive per unit of energy than renewable technology, which is improving all the time.

It's not obsolete. At all. I'm honestly not entirely sure if you know what that word means. One of the problems is that newer, safer units (that could handle things like earthquakes, bombs, etc), don't get implemented because of social bullshit. And yeah, renewables are starting to get cheaper... But for the next 30-50 years, are still largely useless for large scale grid usage.

The only reason why the nuclear industry still exists is because the government subsidizes it with loan guarantees that the industry cannot survive without. Instead we need to invest in scaling up clean renewable energy as quickly as possible.

They exist because they produce a HUGE amount of power, cheaply, and cleanly, and because we have no alternative for decades.

A lot of people talk about how 'unsafe' they are. It's stupid to say that, largely because "Reactors are unsafe because the old ones are built worse and new ones aren't being used because reactors are unsafe"

[Tradewind]

If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Chernobyl and the Japanese nuclear reactors proved that.

So, because something has inherent risks involved, it's not worth doing?

[Mackeyser]

France's nuclear power is also being subsidized by the people of East Africa.

How? Well, it's been known for a while that France has been dumping it's nuclear waste off the east coast of Africa into the deep trenches. Off of the coast of Somalia, for example. Without a stable government, they made a deal with several warlords.

The problem is that... containers leaked and killed the fish. This left the already generally poor fishermen with no fish to catch and a desperate need of livelihood. Hence the rise of Somali pirates capturing container vessels for ransom at the behest of these warlords.

If France had to actually pay to dispose of its nuclear waste according to EU standards... France's nuclear energy would be significantly more expensive.

The issue about nuclear power isn't SOLELY about emissions. It has to do with extraction of the raw materials, refining of those materials, safe handling during production of the energy (as in, not allowing radioactive water to be released), and subsequent safe disposal of any and all nuclear waste.

AND... none of that addresses the security concerns regarding securing nuclear materials or the potentially devastating impact of a nuclear meltdown due to natural disaster (Fukushima) or malfunction (Chernobyl).

YES, because once it gets going and it doesn't spew carbon, it seems like an attractive alternative.

However, much like thermonuclear war, the only winning move is not to play.

[Afrospinach]

Says the guy with the Godzilla avatar.

All I am seeing is aces!

The major problems are it is a non renewable resource and it is also not really cost effective.

[chazus]

Is this what we've come to? Just copy pasting shit other people said on reddit that got destroyed?

Well shit. This isn't even a real post. I got baited.

[Wezmon]

It was also with really old reactor models that should not have been used.

And even after all those factors actual deaths were...0. Deaths from the earthquake approx 15000. So one of the worse disasters in history killed no one.

[Skroe]

Fusion will be a reality in the next 10-20 years anyways and is like a trillion times greater as a power generation method.

No. It won't.

The ITER reactor will achieve break-even (if other projects haven't already), but it's purely a science project. A commercial reactor would be even larger in dimensions.

It's planned sucessor, likely beyond 2040, DEMO, would be an interim step between science project and commercial design. DEMO's problem though? It would produce about as much energy as a coal fired power plant and twenty times the cost.

From a science point of view, ITER and DEMO are essential. From a practical power-generating point of view, evolving existing Fission reactor designs produces identical amounts of energy at a fraction of the construction costs. Or to put it another way, a commercial Fusion reactor cannot cost $30 billion and generate as much as energy as $800 million natural gas power plant. ITER is going to cost $15 billion alone and why technological advancements over the next 40 years will certainly reduce the costs, it's still a very, very long way from making it economically competitive.

There is a common misconception that a single Fusion Plant would somehow replace dozens of nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. That is simply not the case. Beyond the fact that such a single-point-of-failure national energy generating is intrinsically dangerous, no conceptual fusion reactor design or plan is anywhere close to that size. Really, they're imagined energy production capability is the same as a big fossil fuel power plant.

Unless it can be made vastly more economical - and keep in mind, Nuclear Energy has been working on that problem on a time scale longer than the one we're describing for Fusion - it is a dead end from a generation point of view.

Enthusastic US participation in ITER and other Fusion projects is well worth it, but because of the science involved.

- - - Updated - - -

Is this what we've come to? Just copy pasting shit other people said on reddit that got destroyed?

Jill Stein is such a nut...

[Unholyground]

No. It won't.

The ITER reactor will achieve break-even (if other projects haven't already), but it's purely a science project. A commercial reactor would be even larger in dimensions.

It's planned sucessor, likely beyond 2040, DEMO, would be an interim step between science project and commercial design. DEMO's problem though? It would produce about as much energy as a coal fired power plant and twenty times the cost.

From a science point of view, ITER and DEMO are essential. From a practical power-generating point of view, evolving existing Fission reactor designs produces identical amounts of energy at a fraction of the construction costs. Or to put it another way, a commercial Fusion reactor cannot cost $30 billion and generate as much as energy as $800 million natural gas power plant. ITER is going to cost $15 billion alone and why technological advancements over the next 40 years will certainly reduce the costs, it's still a very, very long way from making it economically competitive.

There is a common misconception that a single Fusion Plant would somehow replace dozens of nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. That is simply not the case. Beyond the fact that such a single-point-of-failure national energy generating is intrinsically dangerous, no conceptual fusion reactor design or plan is anywhere close to that size. Really, they're imagined energy production capability is the same as a big fossil fuel power plant.

Unless it can be made vastly more economical - and keep in mind, Nuclear Energy has been working on that problem on a time scale longer than the one we're describing for Fusion - it is a dead end from a generation point of view.

Enthusastic US participation in ITER and other Fusion projects is well worth it, but because of the science involved.

We shall see, Considering how for example scientists never thought we would find the Higgs boson and they did it, with moore's law and quantum computing around the corner fusion is also around the corner.

[Tradewind]

Well shit. This isn't even a real post. I got baited.

Hook line and...stinker!

[chazus]

There is a common misconception that a single Fusion Plant would somehow replace dozens of nuclear or fossil fuel power plants.

I know I say this jokingly... But this misconception might be placed on the fact that so any adults (now) were raised on playing Sim City 2000 in school, where you did in fact replace many power plants with a handful of fusion plants.

[Sky High]

I know I say this jokingly... But this misconception might be placed on the fact that so any adults (now) were raised on playing Sim City 2000 in school, where you did in fact replace many power plants with a handful of fusion plants.

that was red alert 2 for me.

[ati87]

Fusion will be a reality in the next 10-20 years anyways and is like a trillion times greater as a power generation method.

That's saying is kind of like the old Linux saying how its finally the end of Windows and tomorrow it's the rise of Linux. And you may have noticed how Windows runs like 90% of all computers for how long now...

Nuclear Fusion has been at our fingertips for years and every couple of years their is some news report that says that it will be ready in 5.....

[CalasEU]

Instead we need to invest in scaling up clean renewable energy as quickly as possible.

Exactly. While nuclear energy is certainly better than fossil fuels, renewable energy really is the way to go. It's cheaper and way less risky. And it works - an example being Denmark, where 43% of the energy demand is filled by wind energy. And wind is only one type of renewable energy source.

[Deleted]

Nothing is wrong as long as it's in someone else's back yard.

[derpkitteh]

Most of the area surrounding Chernobyl is rather safe now, and it hasn't even been a hundred years there. It hasn't even been 40.

it's not safe. you're allowed to go to the place, but you're told to not stay long.