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| ▲ | pqtyw 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Still, though, if nuclear continued growing at the same pace it was until the 80s we'd be in a massively better spot climate change wise. Sure, these days its too expensive in relative terms but switching back to fossil fuels due to all the Chornobyl/Three Mile panic (but mainly likely because of the cost) might end up being one of the bigger mistakes in human history. | |
| ▲ | close04 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We can make nuclear safe (enough) but after one big incident nobody wanted the political career suicide to push for this. So we are stuck with criticizing stone-age level nuclear power because we never took it further. The West never stopped doing something just because the USSR didn’t do it properly. If we did the same with commercial air travel after the first disasters we’d still cross the oceans in boats. Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking kills 7-8 times more people than cars every year (that’s 80-100 Chernobyls worth every year) and we still allow it. The reasons are political not technically or financially insurmountable obstacles. We didn’t shut down nuclear in Europe for “green” reasons or because we can’t improve it, or because it kills too many people, but because enough Russian money went into politicians’ pockets to do this. | | |
| ▲ | oneshtein 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You arguments boils down to «it's OK to wipe a continent once in a while, because nuclear energy is the safest energy option per megawatt produced». | | |
| ▲ | dpassens 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No, the argument is that it didn't "wipe the continent" and in fact caused far less damage than other things we're totally fine with. I don't see GP saying that they want an incident like this to repeat, just that, if it did, the consequences would be far less severe than "wiping the continent". | |
| ▲ | pqtyw 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > OK to wipe a continent Why not exaggerate to the "entire planet" if we are going this way.. Regardless, in hindsight humanity could have prevented (at least to a significant extent) climate change if we doubled down on nuclear 40-50 years ago instead of stopping most expansion. What will be the cost of that? | | |
| ▲ | natmaka 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I doubt so: 416 industrial nuclear reactors are deployed in the world today. They produce 10% of the electricity, itself 20% of the final energy, so nuclear power produces at best 2% of the energy consumed. Nuclear power would provide 10% of the energy, which would be far from sufficient since it is necessary to electrify uses (in order to reduce the quantity of fossil fuel burned) and therefore produce more electricity, if we could multiply the power of the fleet by 5, therefore building around 1500 new reactors and keeping the existing fleet active. Hoping for this before 2100 would be absurd. | | |
| ▲ | pqtyw 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, its way too late now. 80 reactors were launched between 1960 and 1970, 185 between 70s, 237 in the 80s, in the 90s it was barely 60. Instead if it kept doubling every decade it would be well over 10%. Of course electrification of transportation etc. should have starter much earlier. Obviously none of that was economical compared to coal/gas/oil back then. | | |
| ▲ | natmaka 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > doubling every decade Uranium deposits mined under the right conditions can supply the current stock for at best two centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium To extend this beyond that, we must hope for a revolutionary production process (pursued in vain for decades: breeders...), the ability to exploit less promising uranium deposits, thus tolerating increased emissions and costs, or the discovery of a large deposit. Hoping for such a discovery is risky because intensive prospecting began at the end of the Second World War (the quest for nuclear weapons), and the rapid and sharp rise in the price of uranium (a bubble) that occurred around 2007 triggered a massive investment in prospecting, the results of which (15%) are very inadequate. Therefore, multiplying the stock by five would leave at best 40 years of uranium certainly available under current conditions, and would therefore be an inept investment (one needs to amortize the plant). Moreover there are geostrategic considerations: many nations don't have any reserve not want to have to buy uranium (creating a dependency) or technical expertise. | | |
| ▲ | mpweiher 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Since the 70s, oil reserves only lasted for another decade. "Current reserves" is a moving target: once scarcity raises prices, prospecting makes sense again. Uranium is incredibly cheap. Prospecting is not worth it as there are enough reserves to exploit in the foreseeable future. Seawater extraction is starting to be competitive with mining. With that, even natural Uranium becomes essentially unlimited. In addition, we currently throw away >95% of the energy potential of the Uranium we use. Why? Recycling is not economically viable, because raw Uranium is far too cheap (see above). So facto 20 of what we've used so far is just sitting in Castors. And fortunately not in deep geological repositories, out of reach. And then there's Thorium, which is significantly more abundant in the crust than raw Uranium. And of the Uranium, only a small percentage is currently usable. Fuel is simply not going to be a problem. | | |
| ▲ | natmaka 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Uranium is incredibly cheap. Prospecting is not worth it as there are enough reserves to exploit in the foreseeable future. A huge uranium bubble between 2004 and 2008, which triggered massive investments for prospection... and a ridiculous result (15%). The cause is known: the quest for atomic weapons triggered during the 1950's and 1960's massive prospection, and there is no decisive way to better prospect and few not yet prospected zones. > Seawater extraction is starting to be competitive with mining This is periodically announced since the 1970's, and no-one could industrialize.
Bottomline: "pumping the seawater to extract this uranium would need more energy than what could be produced with the recuperated uranium"
Source: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/jones-j2/docs/e... > In addition, we currently throw away >95% of the energy potential of the Uranium
> So facto 20 of what we've used so far is just sitting in Castors. And fortunately not in deep geological repositories, out of reach. It would be sound if a ready-for-deployment model of industrial breeder reactor. There is none. > And then there's Thorium Indeed, but not industrial reactor. Next. | | |
| ▲ | mpweiher 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | LOL. An overview article that was obsolete even in 2016 when it was published. You need to get with the times. "... the amount of uranium in seawater is truly renewable as well as inexhaustible." "New technological breakthroughs from DOE's Pacific Northwest (PNNL) and Oak Ridge (ORNL) national laboratories have made removing uranium from seawater economically possible." https://www.ans.org/news/article-1882/nuclear-power-becomes-... More recently: Ultra-highly efficient enrichment of uranium from seawater via studtite nanodots growth-elution cycle Nature, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-50951-4 High-capacity uranium extraction from seawater through constructing synergistic multiple dynamic bonds Nature, 2025 https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-024-00346-y If you prefer a popular overview: Uranium Seawater Extraction Makes Nuclear Power Completely Renewable https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s... A speculative bubble is not the same as serious serious demand, and the actual demand never materialized. The vast majority of the "prospecting" was just speculators, not serious mining companies. And for serious prospecting, the 4 year time-frame was way too short, you just barely get done with the early stages of - land acquisition and permitting - Geological surveys (airborne radiometrics, mapping, geochemistry) - Target generation - Initial drilling programs - Preliminary resource estimates (if successful) You don't have enough to get to actual serious exploration and feasibility studies: - Infill drilling - Metallurgical testing - Environmental baseline studies - Scoping and feasibility studies - More permitting - Community consultation Breeder reactors exist, they face the same problem as recycling: mined uranium is still way too cheap to make investment in those technologies economically attractive. Should Uranium get more scarce and thus more expensive, the economic incentives change very quickly and then we can pull those technologies off the shelf. Same for Thorium reactors: currently not necessary, as we have plenty of Uranium for the existing Uranium based designs. Doesn't stop companies like Copenhagen Atomics from investing, as they see other advantages in addition to very readily available fuel. |
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| ▲ | pqtyw 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Having a massive head start at stopping or slowing down climate change would have been quite nice, though. Even if it weren't a permanent solution. But yes, I agree that fossil fuels also had a lot of very significant political, economical and technological advantages over both nuclear and renewables which is why coal/gas/oil won. For renewables it might be changing now it just might be a bit too late... |
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| ▲ | close04 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, those are your words. The dumbed down, skewed, ragebaity, Fox News level strawman. The guaranteed way to drag down the conversation when you have nothing of value to say: pretend the other guy said something just as worthless and then fight that because it’s easier and you think you have a shot. Your arguments have been shot down all over this thread. Do you need a win so bad? | |
| ▲ | YawningAngel 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | We have had several serious nuclear incidents and none have destroyed either a continent or the people on it | | |
| ▲ | Kon5ole 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it couldn't happen in the future. We have never had a worst case event but we do know pretty well what the consequences of a worst case event could be. The worst case consequences of Chernobyl were stopped because people literally risked their lives to prevent it. The fire was put out, the steam explosion was prevented, and countless lives were saved as a result. Even so, many countries spent billions, over several decades, to minimize the consequences. As far as 2000 miles away, animals are still to this day fed special foods and managed to avoid prolonged grazing in contaminated areas. Think about it for a second - over 2000 miles away, almost 40 years later, this still requires active management. Despite best efforts to handle the situation when it happened. Now consider that every reactor carries it's own copy of the risks, and they only generate around 10 TWh of electricity per year. That's just way too little electricity for such a risk. It makes no sense. Meanwhile solar and storage is deployed at a rate equivalent to a new reactor every month as we speak. Faster, cheaper, and comparatively risk-free. | |
| ▲ | natmaka 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most Russian Roulette games have many 'clicks' before the 'bang'. | | |
| ▲ | 0-_-0 2 days ago | parent [-] | | these were the bangs | | |
| ▲ | natmaka 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody knows for sure, however after each of these click/bang the "there will be no more problem!" thesis seems less and less prominently published. |
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| ▲ | natmaka 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking Avoiding car accident and not smoking is way, way easier than avoiding most effects of a major nuclear accident (fine dangerous and very durable dust disseminated on a vast geographical zone, thanks to wind and rain). The total amount of victims of the Chernobyl accident is a matter of debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the... | |
| ▲ | burnt-resistor 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, we can't. I worked in the industry when there was strong, independent regulation and private engineering consultancies. These don't exist anymore. The NRC is stacked politically and it and EPRI lack the gray beards it once had and the engineering industry is a shadow of its former self. Dunning-Kruger ignorant proponents advocate for it without understanding the issues or the complications in this current situation that is a far different situation than 30 years ago that might've been reasonable when Duke Energy wanted a revival. Its time has passed because the economics of conventional alternatives make it moot. | | |
| ▲ | close04 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I meant “we” as humanity. You gave a very US-centric perspective at a time when the US finds it challenging to deal with many long solved issues. Why conflate not wanting, not caring, not wanting to pay for it, or just not being able right now with it being humanly impossible? We didn’t get to making the calculations of economics to improve the tech because of the corruption and lack of education I was mentioning before. What we have is calculations based on 60 years old tech and risk analysis based on a 40 year old accident. As I said in the previous comment, if you’d do the same for commercial flight you might find steam ships are a better deal. | | |
| ▲ | sillyfluke 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You would need to wait at least five years to make sure Europe will not go the way of the US due to the similar uptick of the same ideology now in power in the US, more if it's still a tiebreak in five years time. Betting on a technology that has a catastrophic likelihood of low probability but high impact at a time when your scientific and regulatory institutions are crumbling is a high risk strategy. Unless you're arguing that modern nuclear tech is literally childproof and not susceptible to catastrophe under idiocratic regimes. | |
| ▲ | burnt-resistor 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Your mind appears closed and you're not interested in having a normal conversation because you don't have any valid points. Best of luck to you. I worked with Japanese and Germans in the field, so I guess you don't know what you're talking about and are projecting your biases. The owner of the company was a Jewish Moroccan expat who contributed greatly to the field. Please have a look inside yourself before confessing your issues. | | |
| ▲ | close04 a day ago | parent [-] | | Rude and aggressive reply to an otherwise perfectly civil comment, “trust me bro, I’m an expert”, bringing up “arguments” but never actually stating any, and chatgpt-like random statements about Jewish-Moroccans from “the company”. Hallmarks of competence. Color me humbled... |
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| ▲ | looofooo0 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What kind assumptions is this based on? | |
| ▲ | justsomehnguy 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > can wipe a continent Sorry, but no. Chernobyl exclusion zone is less than a single area of the Agent Orange usage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mi... | | |
| ▲ | aydyn 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Again, Chernobyl was not the worst case scenario. Everyone knows the story, some heroes sacrified their lives to prevent it. | | |
| ▲ | Integer 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You mean, everyone watched the TV story which has little basis in fact. Chernobyl was the worst case scenario - there's no way to build a reactor that would produce worse radiation effects when destroyed than to use a pile of graphite. |
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