Plus, if we went to Thorium reactors, we could take decommissioned warheads and current nuclear waste and burn it all up or if we used a MSR we could use it for new thorium reactors.
I personally think it should be a combination of everything available:
1) Review and change existing regulatory concerns over nuclear power. Nuclear should be close to the bottom based on safety, environmental damage, and longevity. Hell, more hazardous material is produced from coal plants than nuclear reactors (Coal ash is more radioactive and more people die from radiation poisoning from Coal than Nuclear).
2) Restart thorium research (MSR, LFTR, etc..) to replace the brain loss in that sector. Thorium would be my long term goal for energy (not counting some miracle discovery).
3) In the mean time, I'd be building the shit out of solar panels, Natural Gas, geothermal, hydro, whatever while new Generation IV thorium reactors where being built. That'd be my short-term plan. Build the shit out of renewable's to ease current energy loads/requirements on existing plants.
So for example: Say X-City will be building a Gen IV thorium nuclear plant to replace it's coal plant, and it is expected to take 25+ years to complete. During the construction of the new nuclear plant, build up renewables to the point where it could reduce the load requirements of the existing power plant(s), then once the nuke plants becomes active, switch it all around: make the nuclear power plant the primary source, renewable the secondary source, while killing off the other plant(s).
You might ask why not just go full solar/wind/geothermal? I personally see that form of energy generation as the means, not the end. We use solar/wind/whatever to get to nuclear, we use it to reduce overall loads on the nuke plant, but it's not the main source of energy generation because I still think it's unreliable for being your main source of energy. This belief may be wrong and if it is, I'm fully willing to change my stance on it.
I'd then put more money and brain power into research/testing/construction of energy amplifier's. At this time, I'd expect research on space elevators to be complete, so I suppose if you really really wanted to launch stuff at the sun, have at it?
Bonus: Because I'd want this nation wide, construction wise I'd put it under federal control, hire as many unemployed and willing workers to help with infrastructure upgrades and construction of the renewable plants.
But, because this is all wishing and I know would absolutely never happen, I am willing to take whatever the industry can put out to replace our current energy generation.
Solar, wind (birds can go suck it I need my electric heater, they better evolve quick) and geothermal will only ever be useful in limited areas with current technology. It will probably get cheaper but unless we start using a lot less energy per person it is not viable in many areas, even with batteries. That said, it can provide a significant amount of energy in some areas. Those areas with easily accessible renewable resources will no doubt be popular places to live, since energy costs may be a lot lower in the future.
In terms of transport fuel, some kind of hydrogen fuel that can be created from electricity and water + some kind of reusable transport chemical seems like the perfect solution, if it existed. Basically some way to change all that nuclear energy into car food is so needed to really solve these problems.
Hydroelectric energy can go to hell. And I say that as someone who gets his electricity and water from a hydroelectric dam. From everything I have read it destroys local ecosystems, the disasters are terrible and it hurts water supplies.
Reducing energy use (like reducing materials used and consumption) can help these problems in the short term as well and should be a focus for individuals to work on. Smartly buying products which use less energy and other resources both in the short and long term would be a good idea. Wish that information was easily available.
Seems nice, though the introduction kind of got me with a Dr. Evil feel.
"I will drain all the worlds oceans!"
I take it these are quite a while away from a working model?
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
It makes use of hot water. If you like it heats water in a closed system, so it ain't draining anything.
Of course it can be used as a mining system also, in wich case it "drains" water and minerals from it. Its not like the water is consumed or anything.
Its just driving steam turbines. Very similar to nuclear powerplants except that the power source is not nuclear but instead readily aviable natural geothermal energy.
You can also heat your water with nuclear fuel instead, if you like. Of course you have to get nuclear fuel on a constant basis then and also consider how the waste is handled and, as recent events showed there are some security considerations, but if you like it better that way - hey, who am i to judge?
Personally all applications of nuclear technology seem to me as somebody trying to cut butter with a chainsaw. I have to admit it works, tho. Absolutely.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
I rarely see people talking about the mining of uranium when it comes to nuclear power.
People I talk to may oppose nuclear power because of the risk of meltdowns and whatnot, to which I reply that the worst case scenarios they think about are physically impossible with modern technology.
But I do wonder about the harvesting of uranium, it seems like that part would not exactly be a clean deal.
Honk on
PSN: Honkalot
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited April 2011
The relatively smaller quantities of uranium and thorium required mean that while it's as shitty as mining always is it's less of a problem than coal etc
Does mining HAVE to be really dirty or is it just too expensive to make minimal environmental impact?
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Sea mining of uranium involves no dirt or breaking up of stuff
It's also like, not quite viable yet, needs more work. My point is there are so many possibilities for nuclear, it's really one of the most exciting energy technologies because there are so many potential winners out there for it, and then Fukushima happens and everyone's like "Welp, we better go back to sucking down coal fumes"
I was under the impression that both the mining and the refining of fission fuels is a pretty dirty job, though I'm not sure how it relates to coal. Coal you need loads of, but it's available in near pure form. Uranium is at best like 0.1% ?
A lot of harsh chemical treatment is involved into extracting that low percentage. from memory making Uraniumhexafluoride out of it. Now I assume that most of that is done in a safe-ish manner (But if a poorer country does it, you can't really be sure). But it's still an enviromental pressure.
I was under the impression that both the mining and the refining of fission fuels is a pretty dirty job, though I'm not sure how it relates to coal. Coal you need loads of, but it's available in near pure form. Uranium is at best like 0.1% ?
A lot of harsh chemical treatment is involved into extracting that low percentage. from memory making Uraniumhexafluoride out of it. Now I assume that most of that is done in a safe-ish manner (But if a poorer country does it, you can't really be sure). But it's still an enviromental pressure.
It's not really that dangerous. Uranium hexafluoride is nasty stuff, but the by products are just hydrofluoric acid - which is itself, super-dangerous to work with, but used all the time in the semiconductor industry and can be disposed of easily by neutralizing it with sodium bicarb or some other base (or better - recycled).
It makes use of hot water. If you like it heats water in a closed system, so it ain't draining anything.
Of course it can be used as a mining system also, in wich case it "drains" water and minerals from it. Its not like the water is consumed or anything.
Its just driving steam turbines. Very similar to nuclear powerplants except that the power source is not nuclear but instead readily aviable natural geothermal energy.
You can also heat your water with nuclear fuel instead, if you like. Of course you have to get nuclear fuel on a constant basis then and also consider how the waste is handled and, as recent events showed there are some security considerations, but if you like it better that way - hey, who am i to judge?
Personally all applications of nuclear technology seem to me as somebody trying to cut butter with a chainsaw. I have to admit it works, tho. Absolutely.
One of my environmental sciences teacher was concerned that geothermal could wick enough heat away from the Earth's interior to cause problems down the road.
She was insane, but I think it's an attitude that is too prevalent among environmentalists. Any technology that is not solar or wind is too harmful to the environment and we shouldn't use them. Ugh...
It makes use of hot water. If you like it heats water in a closed system, so it ain't draining anything.
Of course it can be used as a mining system also, in wich case it "drains" water and minerals from it. Its not like the water is consumed or anything.
Its just driving steam turbines. Very similar to nuclear powerplants except that the power source is not nuclear but instead readily aviable natural geothermal energy.
You can also heat your water with nuclear fuel instead, if you like. Of course you have to get nuclear fuel on a constant basis then and also consider how the waste is handled and, as recent events showed there are some security considerations, but if you like it better that way - hey, who am i to judge?
Personally all applications of nuclear technology seem to me as somebody trying to cut butter with a chainsaw. I have to admit it works, tho. Absolutely.
One of my environmental sciences teacher was concerned that geothermal could wick enough heat away from the Earth's interior to cause problems down the road.
She was insane, but I think it's an attitude that is too prevalent among environmentalists. Any technology that is not solar or wind is too harmful to the environment and we shouldn't use them. Ugh...
Couple years back I was reading about some looney-toon environmentalist complaining about tidal power. Not because it would hurt the ecosystem, or kill fish in turbine blades or what you'd normally think. Oh no. This one was convinced that tidal power stations would "deprive future generations of the Moon's gravitational resources" and given enough time, might actually pull the Moon out of its orbit.
DivideByZero on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
Even wind power though, I've heard people complain that it kills a lot of birds.
I'm reasonably sure the bird- (and bat) killing thing has been mostly dismissed, at least with regard to the number of avian fatalities involved. Specifics probably depend on the type of bird, though.
The big blocks against wind energy seem to be 1) reduction in view/property value and 2) noise. Noise doesn't seem like it should be a huge deal assuming you aren't building turbines in densely populated areas or right on top of residences, and I could give a fuck about some dude's ocean view.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Hippies are directly responsible for global warming by shooting nuclear in the foot, I can't ever forgive the environmentalist movement for that and they don't seemed to have even learned the lesson.
It sucks that we need them
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
Hippies are also the main reason in making nuclear energy even remotely dangerous, here in Sweden.
They break into nuclear plants and attempt sabotage, they also forcibly tried to board a ship carrying nuclear waste which was headed for processing in England.
But it's okay though because I guess they are trying to prove something.
Even wind power though, I've heard people complain that it kills a lot of birds.
Which probably isn't very true at all.
Actually it does. There are a couple of places in the UK where windfarms are threatening marginal populations of certain species. The same can be said of overhead power lines and pylons, though.
The crux of the problem is that once birds, and especially predatory birds, are flying higher than the tree canopy, the don't look in the direction that they're flying, they look at the ground.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Even wind power though, I've heard people complain that it kills a lot of birds.
Which probably isn't very true at all.
Entirely false actually.
Basically, original wind turbines did kill some birds because they spun very fast and the blades were hard to see. So they redesigned the blades and turbines so that birds could avoid them, which had the side-effect of making the turbines more efficient as well.
A giant modern field of wind turbines, studies say, might kill 1 bird every 100 years or so.
Hippies are also the main reason in making nuclear energy even remotely dangerous, here in Sweden.
They break into nuclear plants and attempt sabotage, they also forcibly tried to board a ship carrying nuclear waste which was headed for processing in England.
But it's okay though because I guess they are trying to prove something.
Don't forget that in the US they are the chief reason we don't have modern plants, but instead have shitty non-passively safe reactors.
I like that dangerous plants these days are still only dangerous (and not even that deadly, just dangerous) if the earth itself splits apart and throws a tsunami that kills 10,000 people at it
It's kind of like saying, "well your prison is only mostly escape proof, if a plane with 400 people on it crashes into it and causes severe damage then a few prisoners could escape, so your prison isn't really safe"
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
Same here basically, or rather a split public opinion.
The end result is that we will keep using nuclear power forever, because there isn't a popular base to remove it. But at the same time we can't upgrade the plants, because it would seem like we put too much confidence into nuclear power.
If we lived in the real world people would look and see that we get slightly below half our energy from nuclear power, realise that it's replaceable by nothing, and spend more money on making it more effecient.
When gas hits $10 a gallon and the US starts liquefying its coal to such an extent that coal power goes beyond nuclear in price, it will become viable real quick
30,000 years on uranium. Thorium will help extend that if we need to (by a large amount I'm too lazy to put research to get a number for). So will using seawater (that's another 60,000)
edit: assuming that we switch entirely to nuclear and that the world's power requirements grow by an order of magnitude we should still have enough to run on current tech (ie: no thorium) for a millennium. Somehow I think we'll have a better source of power within 500 years, so ... yeah.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
200 years at present rate it says.
30,000 years was with some special reactor that I assume is not in use right now.
30,000 years was with some special reactor that I assume is not in use right now.
200 years is with no reprocessing and current rates of power consumption growth.
30,000 years is if we use the reprocessing technology which is perfectly safe and was mastered in the 60s and 70s.
Anyone who tells you we have a uranium shortage is an idiot. Current non breeder reactors only use about 1% of the energy in the fuel, that's why the waste is pretty radioactive and hot. Because it's not waste, it's just fuel we aren't allowed to use.
I agree with you on the Fukishima disaster's scale, but what about the spent fuel problem? How can we guarantee safety over 10s of thousands of years, when we can't even guarantee that the U.S. will exist?
Edit: I'm of the opinion that we humans don't do that kind of long-term planning all that well, so I do find that worrying, though not in an immediate sense.
The 10s of thousands of years number is a total red herring. That's the amount of time for the fuel to be no more radioactive than the average rock surrounding it. However, the waste is made out of stuff that was radioactive when you dug it up. It's only ~100 years before it is no more radioactive than it was to start with. So 100 years is the real number which should be considered. Unless you think we should dig up natural uranium deposits and start containing them whether we use nuclear power or not.
I agree with you on the Fukishima disaster's scale, but what about the spent fuel problem? How can we guarantee safety over 10s of thousands of years, when we can't even guarantee that the U.S. will exist?
Edit: I'm of the opinion that we humans don't do that kind of long-term planning all that well, so I do find that worrying, though not in an immediate sense.
The 10s of thousands of years number is a total red herring. That's the amount of time for the fuel to be no more radioactive than the average rock surrounding it. However, the waste is made out of stuff that was radioactive when you dug it up. It's only ~100 years before it is no more radioactive than it was to start with. So 100 years is the real number which should be considered. Unless you think we should dig up natural uranium deposits and start containing them whether we use nuclear power or not.
Of course, the stuff we started with was widely dispersed underground while the stuff we get is bricks of radioactivity laying around on the surface, so it makes sense to compare with available storage spaces.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited April 2011
That's pretty interesting, though I never thought there was a shortage of uranium myself.
30,000 years was with some special reactor that I assume is not in use right now.
200 years is with no reprocessing and current rates of power consumption growth.
30,000 years is if we use the reprocessing technology which is perfectly safe and was mastered in the 60s and 70s.
Actually, its earlier than that:
The first successful solvent extraction process for the recovery of pure uranium and plutonium was developed at ORNL in 1949. The PUREX process is the current method of extraction.
-wikipedia
We've been reprocessing this shit for more than 60 years.
Posts
I personally think it should be a combination of everything available:
1) Review and change existing regulatory concerns over nuclear power. Nuclear should be close to the bottom based on safety, environmental damage, and longevity. Hell, more hazardous material is produced from coal plants than nuclear reactors (Coal ash is more radioactive and more people die from radiation poisoning from Coal than Nuclear).
2) Restart thorium research (MSR, LFTR, etc..) to replace the brain loss in that sector. Thorium would be my long term goal for energy (not counting some miracle discovery).
3) In the mean time, I'd be building the shit out of solar panels, Natural Gas, geothermal, hydro, whatever while new Generation IV thorium reactors where being built. That'd be my short-term plan. Build the shit out of renewable's to ease current energy loads/requirements on existing plants.
So for example: Say X-City will be building a Gen IV thorium nuclear plant to replace it's coal plant, and it is expected to take 25+ years to complete. During the construction of the new nuclear plant, build up renewables to the point where it could reduce the load requirements of the existing power plant(s), then once the nuke plants becomes active, switch it all around: make the nuclear power plant the primary source, renewable the secondary source, while killing off the other plant(s).
You might ask why not just go full solar/wind/geothermal? I personally see that form of energy generation as the means, not the end. We use solar/wind/whatever to get to nuclear, we use it to reduce overall loads on the nuke plant, but it's not the main source of energy generation because I still think it's unreliable for being your main source of energy. This belief may be wrong and if it is, I'm fully willing to change my stance on it.
I'd then put more money and brain power into research/testing/construction of energy amplifier's. At this time, I'd expect research on space elevators to be complete, so I suppose if you really really wanted to launch stuff at the sun, have at it?
Bonus: Because I'd want this nation wide, construction wise I'd put it under federal control, hire as many unemployed and willing workers to help with infrastructure upgrades and construction of the renewable plants.
But, because this is all wishing and I know would absolutely never happen, I am willing to take whatever the industry can put out to replace our current energy generation.
In terms of transport fuel, some kind of hydrogen fuel that can be created from electricity and water + some kind of reusable transport chemical seems like the perfect solution, if it existed. Basically some way to change all that nuclear energy into car food is so needed to really solve these problems.
Hydroelectric energy can go to hell. And I say that as someone who gets his electricity and water from a hydroelectric dam. From everything I have read it destroys local ecosystems, the disasters are terrible and it hurts water supplies.
Reducing energy use (like reducing materials used and consumption) can help these problems in the short term as well and should be a focus for individuals to work on. Smartly buying products which use less energy and other resources both in the short and long term would be a good idea. Wish that information was easily available.
Seems nice, though the introduction kind of got me with a Dr. Evil feel.
"I will drain all the worlds oceans!"
I take it these are quite a while away from a working model?
Of course it can be used as a mining system also, in wich case it "drains" water and minerals from it. Its not like the water is consumed or anything.
Its just driving steam turbines. Very similar to nuclear powerplants except that the power source is not nuclear but instead readily aviable natural geothermal energy.
You can also heat your water with nuclear fuel instead, if you like. Of course you have to get nuclear fuel on a constant basis then and also consider how the waste is handled and, as recent events showed there are some security considerations, but if you like it better that way - hey, who am i to judge?
Personally all applications of nuclear technology seem to me as somebody trying to cut butter with a chainsaw. I have to admit it works, tho. Absolutely.
People I talk to may oppose nuclear power because of the risk of meltdowns and whatnot, to which I reply that the worst case scenarios they think about are physically impossible with modern technology.
But I do wonder about the harvesting of uranium, it seems like that part would not exactly be a clean deal.
It's also like, not quite viable yet, needs more work. My point is there are so many possibilities for nuclear, it's really one of the most exciting energy technologies because there are so many potential winners out there for it, and then Fukushima happens and everyone's like "Welp, we better go back to sucking down coal fumes"
Excellent game on the subject.
I had a thread in G&T but its dropped to page 5 by now. Good game though.
A lot of harsh chemical treatment is involved into extracting that low percentage. from memory making Uraniumhexafluoride out of it. Now I assume that most of that is done in a safe-ish manner (But if a poorer country does it, you can't really be sure). But it's still an enviromental pressure.
It's not really that dangerous. Uranium hexafluoride is nasty stuff, but the by products are just hydrofluoric acid - which is itself, super-dangerous to work with, but used all the time in the semiconductor industry and can be disposed of easily by neutralizing it with sodium bicarb or some other base (or better - recycled).
One of my environmental sciences teacher was concerned that geothermal could wick enough heat away from the Earth's interior to cause problems down the road.
She was insane, but I think it's an attitude that is too prevalent among environmentalists. Any technology that is not solar or wind is too harmful to the environment and we shouldn't use them. Ugh...
Couple years back I was reading about some looney-toon environmentalist complaining about tidal power. Not because it would hurt the ecosystem, or kill fish in turbine blades or what you'd normally think. Oh no. This one was convinced that tidal power stations would "deprive future generations of the Moon's gravitational resources" and given enough time, might actually pull the Moon out of its orbit.
Which probably isn't very true at all.
The big blocks against wind energy seem to be 1) reduction in view/property value and 2) noise. Noise doesn't seem like it should be a huge deal assuming you aren't building turbines in densely populated areas or right on top of residences, and I could give a fuck about some dude's ocean view.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It sucks that we need them
They break into nuclear plants and attempt sabotage, they also forcibly tried to board a ship carrying nuclear waste which was headed for processing in England.
But it's okay though because I guess they are trying to prove something.
Actually it does. There are a couple of places in the UK where windfarms are threatening marginal populations of certain species. The same can be said of overhead power lines and pylons, though.
The crux of the problem is that once birds, and especially predatory birds, are flying higher than the tree canopy, the don't look in the direction that they're flying, they look at the ground.
That's pretty sad.
Entirely false actually.
Basically, original wind turbines did kill some birds because they spun very fast and the blades were hard to see. So they redesigned the blades and turbines so that birds could avoid them, which had the side-effect of making the turbines more efficient as well.
A giant modern field of wind turbines, studies say, might kill 1 bird every 100 years or so.
It's kind of like saying, "well your prison is only mostly escape proof, if a plane with 400 people on it crashes into it and causes severe damage then a few prisoners could escape, so your prison isn't really safe"
The end result is that we will keep using nuclear power forever, because there isn't a popular base to remove it. But at the same time we can't upgrade the plants, because it would seem like we put too much confidence into nuclear power.
If we lived in the real world people would look and see that we get slightly below half our energy from nuclear power, realise that it's replaceable by nothing, and spend more money on making it more effecient.
Sure its life will be eternal agony, but that's the cost we have to pay for power.
edit: assuming that we switch entirely to nuclear and that the world's power requirements grow by an order of magnitude we should still have enough to run on current tech (ie: no thorium) for a millennium. Somehow I think we'll have a better source of power within 500 years, so ... yeah.
30,000 years was with some special reactor that I assume is not in use right now.
200 years is with no reprocessing and current rates of power consumption growth.
30,000 years is if we use the reprocessing technology which is perfectly safe and was mastered in the 60s and 70s.
Anyone who tells you we have a uranium shortage is an idiot. Current non breeder reactors only use about 1% of the energy in the fuel, that's why the waste is pretty radioactive and hot. Because it's not waste, it's just fuel we aren't allowed to use.
That's supposed to be the point of ethanol.
The 10s of thousands of years number is a total red herring. That's the amount of time for the fuel to be no more radioactive than the average rock surrounding it. However, the waste is made out of stuff that was radioactive when you dug it up. It's only ~100 years before it is no more radioactive than it was to start with. So 100 years is the real number which should be considered. Unless you think we should dig up natural uranium deposits and start containing them whether we use nuclear power or not.
Of course, the stuff we started with was widely dispersed underground while the stuff we get is bricks of radioactivity laying around on the surface, so it makes sense to compare with available storage spaces.
We've been reprocessing this shit for more than 60 years.
Catholics? The British burned them hundreds of years ago!