Why is the developed world turning away from Nuclear Energy?

[bononos]

Fast breeders to reuse the spent fuel rods reduces waste a lot. All nuclear waste produced in the USA currently fills one and a half olympic swimming pools so the issue is blown out pf proportion. In my view storing the waste deep underground is better than dumping it into the atmosphere. Coal plants produce more radiation in normal operation than nuclear plants and the ash pits are both huge and insanely toxic.

Do you have any sources to backup your statement about the amount of nuclear waste being only 1.5 swimming pools? That sounds like the amount of waste being generated by a few nuclear plants in a year.

 

[0roo0roo]

because fundamentally greens are full of sh*t

 

[Jeff7]

Any reason for that? Does it have anything to do with bombs?

I think that is the reason for it.

My take: If the government wants to make extraordinarily destructive weapons, they're going to do it anyway.

Do you have any sources to backup your statement about the amount of nuclear waste being only 1.5 swimming pools? That sounds like the amount of waste being generated by a few nuclear plants in a year.

I don't think that that's too far off. Not much waste is produced by nuclear reactors, compared to the amount of energy that's produced as a result. You'd be looking at a large chunk of waste that you could hold in your (radioactive) hand as a result of producing all the electricity you'll use in your lifetime. Nuclear reactions can release incredible amounts of energy from a very tiny amount of reaction mass.

And uranium is a very dense material, though the density of the fuel rods looks to be a bit less - the density of MOX fuel rods looks to be around 10g/cm³. And an Olympic pool is fairly large in terms of overall volume; it's certainly no backyard swimming pool.


Getting some numbers here.........

Swimming pool specs: 50x25x2m = 2500m³.
MOX fuel density: 0.010kg/cm³ = 10000kg/m³
1.5 swimming pools * 2500m³/pool * 10000kg/m³ = 37500000 kilograms = 41,337 short tons
A bit on the low side. Maybe 2-3 pools - to hold all of the waste made by the nuclear power industry in the US.


And if you send that waste through a breeder reactor, even more energy can be extracted, and you'll end up with a volume of fully-spent waste that's even smaller.

 

[Timorous]

Do you have any sources to backup your statement about the amount of nuclear waste being only 1.5 swimming pools? That sounds like the amount of waste being generated by a few nuclear plants in a year.

I think I head it on a T.E.D. talk or in an IQ2 debate about nuclear energy but I cannot remember.

As other posters have said. Thorium reactors produce less waste and have a shorter half life. Breeder reactors can be used to reduce the amount of current waste that you have. Passively safe designs exist to make nuclear even safer than it already is and it is currently miles safer than any other form of energy production.

Gen 4 Very High Temperature reactors can be used as part of the process to generate hydrogen fuel cells which means you can move away from oil usage.

 

[Terzo]

It does sound like money is a big issue. The arstechnica article someone linked talks about the expenses of nuclear power being a problem. That probably also leads into questionable decisions related to safety. The article linked from artstechnica's article lists some incidents where regulations were ignored.

Do you have any sources to backup your statement about the amount of nuclear waste being only 1.5 swimming pools? That sounds like the amount of waste being generated by a few nuclear plants in a year.

I think I head it on a T.E.D. talk or in an IQ2 debate about nuclear energy but I cannot remember.

As other posters have said. Thorium reactors produce less waste and have a shorter half life. Breeder reactors can be used to reduce the amount of current waste that you have. Passively safe designs exist to make nuclear even safer than it already is and it is currently miles safer than any other form of energy production.

Gen 4 Very High Temperature reactors can be used as part of the process to generate hydrogen fuel cells which means you can move away from oil usage.

I don't know how much space it takes up, but the arstechnica article says we have about 62,000 tons of nuclear waste.

The US is already storing around 62,000 tons of nuclear waste, adding around 2,300 tons to this stockpile every year.

 

[Bignate603]

i call shens on that.

Call shens all you want. Nuclear is safer just like flying is safer than driving. The accidents are rare but big so they make the news.

Other forms of energy have people die in construction or mining accidents. They'll die one or two at a time but if you add it up there will be more total deaths. Those deaths typically never make anything more than the local news.

 

[Bignate603]

I don't know how much space it takes up, but the arstechnica article says we have about 62,000 tons of nuclear waste.

Nuclear waste is a very general term. It can be used to refer to spent reactor fuel which is highly radioactive or a set of gloves that were used to handle something and have very low levels of radiation but is still required to be disposed of as low level nuclear waste. That 62,000 tons probably refers to everything, not just the really nasty stuff.

 

[Terzo]

Nuclear waste is a very general term. It can be used to refer to spent reactor fuel which is highly radioactive or a set of gloves that were used to handle something and have very low levels of radiation but is still required to be disposed of as low level nuclear waste. That 62,000 tons probably refers to everything, not just the really nasty stuff.

Yeah, I was wondering about that. I guess that number is pretty meaningless then.

 

[WelshBloke]

That charts rubbish, it mixes up yearly doses with single event doses.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Because they are a bunch of scared sheep. Same reason our freedoms are being eroded in the name of "terrorism"

 

[rcpratt]

Aren't the 4 new rectors that were approved to be built recently in the U.S basically the same design as the Fukushima plant.

And this is why the status of nuclear knowledge in this country is embarrassing.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It's the same reason why the news reports murders but not deaths by asthma, radon, pneumonia.

 

[piasabird]

Have you seen any pictures from Japan?

Whatever can go wrong will. A lot of the areas in the USA are areas where we can get earthquakes and floods.

 

[piasabird]

The flood of 93 was all the way to the top of the nearby levy's.

Then there are the tornados and thunderstorms.

Dont forget the hurricanes.

Build it in LA, Chicago, Boston or NYC.

Maybe not.

Put the reactors on the east coast so all the contamination will be carried out to sea on the prevailing winds.

 

[BudAshes]

I remember reading about the fact that the nuclear power stations in the south/ mid west will run out of water as the ground water is depleted essentially making them useless in 50 years. Anyone else read anything about this?

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Have you seen any pictures from Japan?

Whatever can go wrong will. A lot of the areas in the USA are areas where we can get earthquakes and floods.

You know, it's not like people don't die from coal or natural gas power production.

 

[piasabird]

Do you know anything about cooling ponds? Many nuclear power plants are storing huge amounts of contamination in their cooling ponds on site next to their reactors. You would know that if you knew how nuclear power plants are constructed!

Then often the cooling pond fills up and they pack it in barrels and store it above ground on a pad next to the reactor.

 

[rcpratt]

Do you know anything about cooling ponds? Many nuclear power plants are storing huge amounts of contamination in their cooling ponds on site next to their reactors. You would know that if you knew how nuclear power plants are constructed!

Hahahah omg I'm dying right now. And I thought I had heard everything.

 

[destrekor]

Do you know anything about cooling ponds? Many nuclear power plants are storing huge amounts of contamination in their cooling ponds on site next to their reactors. You would know that if you knew how nuclear power plants are constructed!

Then often the cooling pond fills up and they pack it in barrels and store it above ground on a pad next to the reactor.

Hahahah omg I'm dying right now. And I thought I had heard everything.

Yeah, that was quite the gem. :biggrin:

 

[Joepublic2]

I remember reading about the fact that the nuclear power stations in the south/ mid west will run out of water as the ground water is depleted essentially making them useless in 50 years. Anyone else read anything about this?

Well if that's true it's going to be a problem for any type of power plant, just more so nuclear because of the bigger temperature differentials.

A solution (not that it's easy) is to convert a greater % of the thermal energy of the water to mechanical energy with more efficient turbines/more turbine stages, so you don't need a giant heat sink like a pond/river/aquifer to get rid of all the "waste" heat. They've made big advances on this front with better materials/thermodynamic modeling over the past few decades but again most older plants don't use modern tech on the back end, although it's easier/cheaper to retrofit into older plants than building an entire new one of course.

Another (cheaper (then the above), easier, less efficient) solution would be to just bury tons of piping in the ground and use the earth as a heat sink (and maybe build greenhouses over it so I can have locally grown tropical fruit/veggies in the winter in Texas for example ). But it's smarter to use all that waste heat to do something rather than just letting it dissipate into the environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration

 

[piasabird]

Maybe this will add to your laughter! I just want you to realize what is really going on. As I stated, there are tons of nuclear waste all over the United States. Maybe you are better off not knowing this. Typically a nuclear power plant has enough storage in the cooling tank for 10-30 years of storage space for spent reactor rods. They make casks to store the reactor rods in but they cost over 1 million dollars and have a license for use for 10 years. I included some links from various sites for your information.

http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_waste_storage/nuclear_waste_storage.html

http://www.thenation.com/article/161500/fixing-americas-nuclear-waste-storage-problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

"Waste disposalDisposal of nuclear waste is often said to be the Achilles' heel of the industry.[87] Presently, waste is mainly stored at individual reactor sites and there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate. Experts agree that centralized underground repositories which are well-managed, guarded, and monitored, would be a vast improvement.[87] There is an "international consensus on the advisability of storing nuclear waste in deep underground repositories",[88] but no country in the world has yet opened such a site.[88][89][90][91]"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/us-nuclear-waste-radioactive-storage_n_839438.html

"The U.S. has 104 operating nuclear reactors, situated on 65 sites in 31 states. There are another 15 permanently shut reactors that also house spent fuel.

Four states have spent fuel even though they don't have operating commercial plants. Reactors in Colorado, Oregon and Maine are permanently shut; spent fuel from all three is stored in dry casks. Idaho never had a commercial reactor, but waste from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania is being stored at a federal facility there.

Illinois has 9,301 tons of spent nuclear fuel at its power plants, the most of any state in the country, according to industry figures. It is followed by Pennsylvania with 6,446 tons; 4,290 in South Carolina and roughly 3,780 tons each for New York and North Carolina."

 

[JulesMaximus]

Because they're fucking retarded retards. Hopefully Americans can turn their mindset around. We need more nuke facilities powering our states.

We're building 2 more nuclear plants right now in the southeast aren't we?

I don't have a problem with nuclear energy as long as we make sure it is safe.

 

[rcpratt]

It's not your facts that are so amusing, it's the ridiculous imagery brought up by words like "cooling pond" and "barrels."

 

[AeroEngy]

For civilization to advance we need cheap & abundant energy. Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) will not get us there. Personally I like the idea of solar and wind but I don't think it is practical given the efficiencies and the scale required for the world's growing energy needs. Nuclear is pretty much the only long term answer (without massive advances in "green" efficiency).

The problem is people are generally very poorly educated on nuclear power. They associate the crappy water reactors (light, boiling, etc) that are prevalent today with nuclear power. These designs are old and ineffecient in the use of fuel. A light water reactor extracts about 1% of the energy from the uranium before the rod has to be scrapped. I would be against anymore of this type of reactor being built.

We need to stop being retarded and build some non-water based breeder type reactors. There are designs out there that could actually reprocess/run on the waste from current reactors and consume almost all of the nuclear fuel instead of a tiny 1%. Some of these designs are passively safe meaning if power is lost ... say from a tsunami taking out the generators it will shut itself down. Time to educate the masses and start building some LFTRs and Fast Breeders.

 

[alkemyst]

this argument is by the poor not willing to pay for their energy use in america.

Outside it, it's decided by density.