Nuclear Energy

[Grumblenuts]

 

[MisterBeale]

. . . some say. . . That's what ended Tesla's career.

What ended tesla's career? Nuclear energy?

quest for free energy...
which doesnt exist...

free energy doesn't exist?

sure it doesn't.

 

[Thevolunteerwino]

Maybe the US could just go back to dumping barrels of nuclear waste in the pacific ocean.
Problem solved.

 

[Grumblenuts]

You're welcome.

 

[Thevolunteerwino]

It is a better energy source than coal. That is for sure.

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste

By burning away all the pesky carbon and other impurities, coal power plants produce heaps of radiation

www.scientificamerican.com

Yeah and horrible economic numbers are always better than expected

 

[HenryBHough]

There is some low-level risk from nuclear plants.

But since cockroaches are proven immune to it it's a puzzle why liberals aren't out picketing to demand more nukes now.

 

[Thevolunteerwino]

I am curious to know people's views on nuclear energy.
How do people feel about worldwide efforts to achieve nuclear fusion? How do people feel about our current state of fission? Do you believe that nuclear has no place in certain areas? ( I.E. naval vessels/aircrafts/ trains/ shuttles and space stations/ etc.) Are there any reactors or materials you take issue with? What causes any reservations if you have any? How do people feel about waste disposal?
I will be doing another one of these posts on other forms of energy.
I am curious to see what people think. This is specifically on nuclear energies and is not limited to problems but extends to any offered solutions, theories, or inquiries.

There is no other future to energy production in the world, currently, other than nuclear power. There is no other source of energy that is as clean, as cheap, and as scale-able as nuclear.

View attachment 433442

This is the solar park in Bhadla India.

View attachment 433445
This is the Perry Nuclear plant in Ohio.

Let's compare the two.

The solar park takes 14,000 acres of land.

The Nuclear plant takes 1,100 acres of land.

That's a huge difference. That's 14,000 acres of land that can't be used for farming, or building housing, or anything.

Comparing production is problematic, because a solar farm requires sun obviously, just like a wind farm requires wind obviously, neither of which are entirely predictable. A nuclear power plant can run non-stop no matter what.

So the Solar park has a 'name plate' value of 2.2 Gigwatts.

The nuclear plant produces 3.75 Gigwatts. But unlike the solar park, that's 3.75 Gigwatts year round, 24/7. And by the way, that's only 3.75 Gigwatts because the idiotic government stepped in and canceled the second reactor (which is why in the photo only one cooling tower is on). It would have been up to 7 Gigwatts 24/7 if the idiots in government hadn't screwed the public.

A solar park on the other hand, produces nothing at night, and if there is a storm, or clouds, the production drops.

By the way, one of the reasons when you see any renewable power, you see it as having a "name plate" capacity. There's a reason for this. It's because none of them actually produce that much power, even in ideal situations.

Nuclear on the other hand, is entirely different. If the production capacity is 3.75 GigWatts, then that plant can produce..... 3.75 Gigwatts.

Now you might be complaining that I'm just attacking renewable power. No, I'm not. In order to see the advantages of nuclear, you have to compare it to something.

That said, pollution wise, nuclear has a clear advantage over all other forms of energy production, in that all pollution is captured.

When you look at spent fuel rods, they are contained, and safe, and stored. People complain, what do we do with the fuel rods? Well there are a million things we can do with them, but at least we can do something with them. What can you do about the smoke coming out of the power plant stack? Nothing, it's in the air and dispersed into the environment.

View attachment 433452

Even solar panels wear out in a matter of years, and are tossed into landfills. Thousands of tons of solar panels are dumped into waste piles like this one.

View attachment 433453

That's a nuclear fuel rod, that will function for years before being replaced. It will produce massive amounts of power, and then can be safely stored after it is spent. (fyi, yes you can hold, and handle nuclear fuel rods).

Contrary to urban myth, spent nuclear fuel is not a gas, that can escape into the environment, and contaminate the planet. Nor is it a liquid that will get into the ground water, and turn all your kids into green glowing monsters.

In fact, they found in a uranium deposit, that a natural nuclear reaction had taken place in nature. They researched this event, and found that the nuclear waste products didn't even contaminate the area far from the reaction.

Point being, it's not like something you see in a cartoon with green glowing ooze that gets into the environment and starts turning everything into monsters. Even if the containment caskets that spent fuel rods are placed in, were somehow to be broken open, the fuel rods are solid. They are not going to 'ooze out' and start contaminating the world.

However, even this is a contrived problem. Nuclear fuel rods can simply be reprocessed. France has been doing this for decades.

You take a spent fuel rod, and you reprocess the fuel. By filtering out the un-usable material, you end up with a new ready to use fuel rod. The remaining material, will be roughly 10% of what you had before. Meaning for every 100 fuel rods, you would end up with 90 ready to use, and 10 waste.

Why don't we do this? Because ignorant people voted for ignorant politicians, that prevent us from using technology.

But you might ask, what can we do with the remaining 10 fuel rods of waste? We can actually use those as well.

There are reactors called MOX, or mixed oxide fuel reactors. We can use that waste, in MOX fuel rods, and create power with them as well.

My understanding is that barely 10% of the waste from reprocessed fuel rods, would be unusable in MOX reactors.

So all the 'nuclear waste' that we have today could be reprocessed, reducing it by 90%, and then that 10% could be processed again reducing that waste by another 90%.

And what is left, that is waste.... can safely be stored in casks until it is no longer radio active.

Now all of that, is to deal with current day in-use nuclear technology.

We have technology that we haven't used, that is safer, and produces even less waste. Such as molten salt reactors, or Thorium reactors, both of which far better.

But regardless of which future tech we use, there is really no alternative to nuclear power. There simply isn't any other fuel source for energy, that provides the most power, for the lowest cost, with the least amount of pollution. It's that simple. There just isn't.

You said the nuclear plant only takes 1100 acres of land. But thats not true. You forgot to add the acreage for the storage of nuclear waste.

You also call it clean energy. But there is nothing clean about areas like Chernobyl. Fukushima. Or the INEL waste site in Idaho where outlying well water showed contamination from leaking barrels infiltrating clean underground aquifer lakes
Nuclear is not clean. That is deliberate mislabling
Perhaps your just still hoping for a return on that uranium mining stock that tanked after fukushima?

 

[Grumblenuts]

^What neoliberals are good for. Carrying water for the oligarchs.

 

[Pythagoras]

Maybe the US could just go back to dumping barrels of nuclear waste in the pacific ocean.
Problem solved.

There are ways to remove waste that are not going to destroy the world. However, it has been known that certain companies are willing to cut corners. Do you have any other solutions in nuclear development to try to counteract the environmental destruction? Do you prefer a different energy production scheme?

 

[Pythagoras]

. . . some say. . . That's what ended Tesla's career.

What ended tesla's career? Nuclear energy?

quest for free energy...
which doesnt exist...

free energy doesn't exist?

sure it doesn't.

Do you support plans like the solar panel plan that came from a company in Japan to basically turn the moon into a generator? I think Shimizu Corp? Is there another way to harness star energy you prefer. I heard a theory similar to geothermal production but for stars that sounded fascinating. So, I am curious about what you think is the best method?

 

[justinacolmena]

How do people feel about worldwide efforts to achieve nuclear fusion?

All it takes is a very hot coal fire, in a blast furnace or the like for containment.
A CNO fusion cycle takes place, as in the interior of the Sun or other stars.

CNO cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Coal is dirty and the environmentalists don’t like it.

 

[petro]

This plant is about 25 miles west of us.

Xcel Energy

www.xcelenergy.com

Don't even really think about it.

 

[petro]

How do people feel about worldwide efforts to achieve nuclear fusion?

All it takes is a very hot coal fire, in a blast furnace or the like for containment.
A CNO fusion cycle takes place, as in the interior of the Sun or other stars.

CNO cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Coal is dirty and the environmentalists don’t like it.

Speaking of which Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

 

[Pythagoras]

How do people feel about worldwide efforts to achieve nuclear fusion?

All it takes is a very hot coal fire, in a blast furnace or the like for containment.
A CNO fusion cycle takes place, as in the interior of the Sun or other stars.

CNO cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Coal is dirty and the environmentalists don’t like it.

Speaking of which Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

What do you think of this achievement? Do you like the idea of Fusion being able to top the 10% of the current facility you mentioned produces?

 

[justinacolmena]

Speaking of which Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

What do you think of this achievement? Do you like the idea of Fusion being able to top the 10% of the current facility you mentioned produces?

Scientists aren’t boilermakers or coaltenders. They don't know shit about energy.

 

[petro]

How do people feel about worldwide efforts to achieve nuclear fusion?

All it takes is a very hot coal fire, in a blast furnace or the like for containment.
A CNO fusion cycle takes place, as in the interior of the Sun or other stars.

CNO cycle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Coal is dirty and the environmentalists don’t like it.

Speaking of which Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

What do you think of this achievement? Do you like the idea of Fusion being able to top the 10% of the current facility you mentioned produces?

It appears that a working energy source from fusion is still a ways off, but it was an important step.
Most of our power here is still from coal fired plants, with assorted wind and solar farms.

 

[Thevolunteerwino]

Maybe the US could just go back to dumping barrels of nuclear waste in the pacific ocean.
Problem solved.

There are ways to remove waste that are not going to destroy the world. However, it has been known that certain companies are willing to cut corners. Do you have any other solutions in nuclear development to try to counteract the environmental destruction? Do you prefer a different energy production scheme?

Nuclear and coal are out as the worst solutiins
Any energy solution has its downsides so no matter what i offer you will only pick on the downside such as times when yhe sun doesnt shine. No winds. Hydro and salmon. Etc.
Its just that the damages done by nuclear are worse options than no sun or wimd on some days.
There are areas that wind is awesome and turning turbins most all the time. On the columbia river in oregon is an excellent example. High winds and an already existing hydro structure to tap into
Also there are options that dont include a type of power. Shopping more locally for your produce for instance reducing shiping and storage power demands. Also quit buying an iphone every year.
No power option is perfect. But coal and nuclear are at the bottom of the list of clean energy. And nuclear has the history to prove its bad.
Just quit buying so much crap you dont need every year would save half of the energy we use.

 

[Likkmee]

Wind, Water, Solar,Volcano(geothermal) and cow Fartology here. No coal to be found

 

[alpine]

. . . some say. . . That's what ended Tesla's career.

What ended tesla's career? Nuclear energy?

quest for free energy...
which doesnt exist...

free energy doesn't exist?

sure it doesn't.

Do you support plans like the solar panel plan that came from a company in Japan to basically turn the moon into a generator? I think Shimizu Corp? Is there another way to harness star energy you prefer. I heard a theory similar to geothermal production but for stars that sounded fascinating. So, I am curious about what you think is the best method?

and a free one too, obviously...

 

[Grumblenuts]

^What neoliberals are good for. Carrying water for the oligarchs.

That was intended to be in response to this typical industry produced propaganda (nothing from the wino):

There is some low-level risk from nuclear plants.

But since cockroaches are proven immune to it it's a puzzle why liberals aren't out picketing to demand more nukes now.