Nuclear Power, Pros and Cons ?

[quantumfireball2099]

I wonder why Nuclear power is such a hot topic for environmentalists, the only few downsides I can think of is cost, and nuclear waste. With climate change being such a big deal, and looming right around the corner as some people make it out to seem, why are so many environmentalists pushing so hard for wind and solar power when we can build nuclear reactors?

I could not find a topic about this, but if anyone has information on Nuclear Power pros and cons, preferably from an unbiased source, I would appreciate it.


Thank you for any information!

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Because radiation is bad M'kay! And there isn't anything else.
However I have other objections due to excessive consuptions and poor maximization. We are consuming way beyound what can be replenished and this is by nature a unsustainable position, sure some new inovation might give us a new life boat from time to time but if we keep making holes at our feet eventualy the life boats will run out. Nuclear power may seam now a inexaustable source of power because there is so much of it, but so did oil a long time ago and look where we are now. How much time do you think nuclear will last? I don't give it 50 years.

 

[quantumfireball2099]

Because radiation is bad M'kay! And there isn't anything else.
However I have other objections due to excessive consuptions and poor maximization. We are consuming way beyound what can be replenished and this is by nature a unsustainable position, sure some new inovation might give us a new life boat from time to time but if we keep making holes at our feet eventualy the life boats will run out. Nuclear power may seam now a inexaustable source of power because there is so much of it, but so did oil a long time ago and look where we are now. How much time do you think nuclear will last? I don't give it 50 years.

What reason do you have to believe that Nuclear Energy won't last 50 years? Thinking that we will run out of Uranium?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

What reason do you have to believe that Nuclear Energy won't last 50 years? Thinking that we will run out of Uranium?

It is a uniformed opinion, take it for what it is, but not totaly unfouned. Because Uranium deposits are rare, the extraction process is costly and you don't get that much. Even if it has a great energetical potential if we keep increasing our energy demands the way we are doing right now, it is only a matter of time (and a very short one) that that to will not be enough.

 

[quantumfireball2099]

Interesting, thanks for the information. =)

 

[Yfelsung]

The nuclear rods we're using now for fuel will have to be stored in special facilities in cooling tanks for as little as 50 years, for some forms of waste, and as long as SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS. If these tanks fail, it will cause collosal environmental damage that would take that same SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS to go away.

I can't stress that number enough:

That's 700 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, we have the technology TODAY to harness the LIMITLESS resource of geo-thermal energy.

Do you know how much electricity we can gather from geo-thermal energy just using today's technology? FOUR THOUSAND TIMES the amount we need to run the earth. Enough energy to create machines capable of manual control of a given area's climate with lots left over.

Problem is, with that much supply, the demand goes down and the prices drop. When you can product 4000 times the needed energy to run the earth, you can't really charge much for it.

We have the technology and resourced to create a Utopian society from one end of the earth to the other, or at the very least feed, shelter, clothe and power the entire planet with lots left over but we likely never will.

 

[lrkun]

The nuclear rods we're using now for fuel will have to be stored in special facilities in cooling tanks for as little as 50 years, for some forms of waste, and as long as SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS. If these tanks fail, it will cause collosal environmental damage that would take that same SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS to go away.

I can't stress that number enough:

That's 700 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, we have the technology TODAY to harness the LIMITLESS resource of geo-thermal energy.

Do you know how much electricity we can gather from geo-thermal energy just using today's technology? FOUR THOUSAND TIMES the amount we need to run the earth. Enough energy to create machines capable of manual control of a given area's climate with lots left over.

Problem is, with that much supply, the demand goes down and the prices drop. When you can product 4000 times the needed energy to run the earth, you can't really charge much for it.

We have the technology and resourced to create a Utopian society from one end of the earth to the other, or at the very least feed, shelter, clothe and power the entire planet with lots left over but we likely never will.

It is good to know that there is an alternative.

 

[quantumfireball2099]

The nuclear rods we're using now for fuel will have to be stored in special facilities in cooling tanks for as little as 50 years, for some forms of waste, and as long as SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS. If these tanks fail, it will cause collosal environmental damage that would take that same SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS to go away.

I can't stress that number enough:

That's 700 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, we have the technology TODAY to harness the LIMITLESS resource of geo-thermal energy.

Do you know how much electricity we can gather from geo-thermal energy just using today's technology? FOUR THOUSAND TIMES the amount we need to run the earth. Enough energy to create machines capable of manual control of a given area's climate with lots left over.

Problem is, with that much supply, the demand goes down and the prices drop. When you can product 4000 times the needed energy to run the earth, you can't really charge much for it.

We have the technology and resourced to create a Utopian society from one end of the earth to the other, or at the very least feed, shelter, clothe and power the entire planet with lots left over but we likely never will.

Where do you get your information about Geo-Thermal energy being 4k times the amount we need to run the earth? I just would like to use that information, but it holds little water if 'someone from a forum told me' =)

 

[lrkun]

The nuclear rods we're using now for fuel will have to be stored in special facilities in cooling tanks for as little as 50 years, for some forms of waste, and as long as SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS. If these tanks fail, it will cause collosal environmental damage that would take that same SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION YEARS to go away.

I can't stress that number enough:

That's 700 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, we have the technology TODAY to harness the LIMITLESS resource of geo-thermal energy.

Do you know how much electricity we can gather from geo-thermal energy just using today's technology? FOUR THOUSAND TIMES the amount we need to run the earth. Enough energy to create machines capable of manual control of a given area's climate with lots left over.

Problem is, with that much supply, the demand goes down and the prices drop. When you can product 4000 times the needed energy to run the earth, you can't really charge much for it.

We have the technology and resourced to create a Utopian society from one end of the earth to the other, or at the very least feed, shelter, clothe and power the entire planet with lots left over but we likely never will.

Where do you get your information about Geo-Thermal energy being 4k times the amount we need to run the earth? I just would like to use that information, but it holds little water if 'someone from a forum told me' =)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy#Sustainability

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=geothermal_home-basics

The above are just the basic info about GE. However, I'm having a hard time looking for the 700 000 000 and 4000 figures.

 

[Yfelsung]

700 000 000 years is the half life of Uranium235, a bi-product of nuclear power but in small quantities
Most waste only has a half-life of about 10k years (still insanely long).

As for the 4000 figure, it was extrapolated from some documentary I watched that I can't remember the name of, but I think it was related to something called the eden project or some weird environmental economic model not based on money but instead on flat resources. Basically, from what I remember, geothermal energy could produce something like 2000 (units) [Might have been terra-joules or something) and we only need 0.5 of these units to power the entire planet as it currently is.

 

[Netheralian]

As for the 4000 figure, it was extrapolated from some documentary I watched that I can't remember the name of, but I think it was related to something called the eden project or some weird environmental economic model not based on money but instead on flat resources. Basically, from what I remember, geothermal energy could produce something like 2000 (units) [Might have been terra-joules or something) and we only need 0.5 of these units to power the entire planet as it currently is.

15x from this source - but that is mainland US which is a large consumer. I guess taking the low energy density consumption as having equal potential (Australia, Antarctica, Russia, the ocean, etc) then you could probably get a much bigger number.

 

[Unwardil]

See, to my mind, anything less ambitious than a massive orbital array of solar collectors is simply being to shortsighted and small minded.

If geo thermal can provide us with 15x the power we need right now, the sun has the potential for generating more energy than we could ever conceivably need ever for the entire foreseeable future of our species. Build in the arrays in space where they get constant sunlight unimpeded by atmosphere and microwave beam that energy back to relay satellites which then send the power down to a transformer station on the surface. The only limiting factors would be how much power a single transformer station would be able to handle and how many solar collection units could be put in space, but I figure if you build these arrays around a central collection craft with a bunch of little collector drones all beaming power to the central unit, you could build solar collector hive fleets which wouldn't require any on sight human operation or maintenance. That seems like the most viable far reaching long term goal to me.

 

[Netheralian]

Build in the arrays in space where they get constant sunlight unimpeded by atmosphere and microwave beam that energy back to relay satellites which then send the power down to a transformer station on the surface. The only limiting factors would be how much power a single transformer station would be able to handle and how many solar collection units could be put in space, but I figure if you build these arrays around a central collection craft with a bunch of little collector drones all beaming power to the central unit, you could build solar collector hive fleets which wouldn't require any on sight human operation or maintenance. That seems like the most viable far reaching long term goal to me.

I agree with you in principle here, however it is not so easy. We currently consume on average about 15 terraWatts (1.5E13). To collect this with solar arrays alone you are talking 3.6E10 m2 of solar array area (based on a 30% solar array efficiency). You can probably comfortably double or triple that number once we add beaming efficiency, other transmission efficiency, some future projection, redundancy etc. But lets work with that first number anyway...

So - the maximum payload mass of the space shuttle (old tech but anyway) is 25,000kg to LEO. Assuming 1kg/m2 (I don't know how light we can go) for the solar array we will need some 1.5 million launches. Except, we probably want them in a higher orbit (otherwise everything must be in a dusk/dawn sun synchronous orbit, which could be getting pretty crowded and any other LEO orbit you will get shadowing by the earth which means more solar array area) if not at a lagrangian point. Space shuttle can put about 4,000 kg to GEO. So now we are up to nearly 10 million shuttle launches.

So, I do agree with you - we just need entirely new launch capability to be able to do it (probably a space elevator), or a supper light solar array system. Or possibly some in-situ manufacturing on the moon or something... Anyway, its a long way off.

 

[Unwardil]

Yeah, without either a space elevator (or bollas or something like that) and with space based mining and manufacturing, it's really not feasible, hence my other belief that when it comes to colonizing space, speed is to be preferred over quality and efficiency. I actually think it would be quite easy if we rely on automation. There's no need for people to be directly involved in the process because there is no limit to the operating time of a solar powered robot in space that there is on earth. They can literally work forever, so long as they can keep line of sight to the sun without ever running out of power. I'm sure there would be some kind of gradual degradation over time, but the point is, you could get millions of hours of work out of them without ever having to recharge them. The other thing about them is that they don't have to be very big or very strong, because they're working in a low gravity environment. If we're looking at say, 50 year plans, I think it's perfectly feasible.

 

[Finger]

I recently heard that scientists are becoming more interested in thorium. Supposedly, thorium reactors eliminate all the major problems with uranium reactors. According to this Cosmos article, thorium is more abundant in the Earth than uranium, has a greater yield, generates safer waste products that are radioactive for only a few hundred years (instead of tens of thousands,) can increase the decay rate of existing nuclear waste, aaand it can't be weaponized. Wow! The story is that the only reason thorium didn't catch on when nuclear energy was first being developed is because governments opted to fund the weaponizable version instead (for obvious reasons.)

This all seems maybe just a little bit too good to be true, but I heard about it on The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe and those guys are very good at picking out good science in the news.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

What reason do you have to believe that Nuclear Energy won't last 50 years? Thinking that we will run out of Uranium?

It is a uniformed opinion, take it for what it is, but not totaly unfouned. Because Uranium deposits are rare, the extraction process is costly and you don't get that much. Even if it has a great energetical potential if we keep increasing our energy demands the way we are doing right now, it is only a matter of time (and a very short one) that that to will not be enough.

While you're correct in assuming that it will not last, the 50 years figure is more than a little bit extreme. As little Uranium as we have in the ground, nuclear plants are pretty efficient with their fuel. Granted, the ones in the U.S. are probably about 2 generations behind what are used in other countries because the U.S. closed all doors to accepting any new technological advancements in nuclear power ever since 3 Mile Island... but even those old ones are not as bad as one might think. Even on those old ones, you can get a single load of fuel to last as long as 2 years, and the newer ones being ordered for construction in the U.S. can go as long as 5-6 years between refuelings. Either way, even without any new mining operations and sitting only on extant reserves, we've got a lot more than 50 years... hell, we've got more than 400 years.

The newer 4th generation designs can get close to 2 orders of magnitude more energy (not an exaggeration) out of the same fuel, especially those that use alternative coolants like sodium or lead... well, to be more accurate, a large part of that is from the fact that nearly all of the original load of fuel gets used up completely rather than the majority of it being wasted and then used as ammunition. That too, if you can manage the reprocessing of waste into new usable fuel so many times over and get more life out of the same load of fuel, and the final waste product won't leave behind thousands of years of radioactive output, but only decades worth. Now the U.S. pretty much has the policy of never investing in recycling/reprocessing of spent fuel or breeder reactors because you also get a certain amount of weapons-grade fuel out as well and they're afraid that terrorists will steal it or blast it... seriously, terrorists could bomb a nuclear reactor as it is and cause a lot more damage that way. Whatever the case, the U.S. has more interest in investing in biological methods of managing waste like engineering bacteria that can metabolize the waste into soluble forms.

Also, as Finger mentioned, a lot of newer reactors can take other elements like thorium and strontium and use them as fuel -- something that nations who have lesser reserves of Uranium are investing in. India, for instance, has more thorium than anybody, but almost no uranium reserves... so they're developing breeders that will make thorium a friendly choice. If they're successful in this, it means the world will suddenly have double the amount of available nuclear fuel, and that will go up to quadruple if other countries follow suit. Again, that's also just comparing reserve amounts to reserve amounts. Not even including mining operations. In any case, I guess my point in mentioning all this is simply that innovation opens up a lifespan for nuclear that amounts to a lot more than a mere 50 years.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I wonder why Nuclear power is such a hot topic for environmentalists, the only few downsides I can think of is cost, and nuclear waste. With climate change being such a big deal, and looming right around the corner as some people make it out to seem, why are so many environmentalists pushing so hard for wind and solar power when we can build nuclear reactors?

I could not find a topic about this, but if anyone has information on Nuclear Power pros and cons, preferably from an unbiased source, I would appreciate it.


Thank you for any information!

Because nuclear power plants would be run by the same idiots who can't keep boilers from blowing up or oil rigs from exploding. Nuclear power is fine on paper. In reality there might be American businesses involved, which means a nuclear meltdown is guaranteed.

 

[MRaverz]

A large amount of Uranium is found under the Amazon.

Getting to it would result in even more loss of rainforest.

 

[PBnFlash]

I wonder if there is a post length limit...

A large amount of Uranium is found under the Amazon.
Getting to it would result in even more loss of rainforest.

There is also a large amount in the center of Jupiter, that doesn't mean we need to go and get it.

In fact most of the uranium comes from Australia and most of Australia looks like this:

See, to my mind, anything less ambitious than a massive orbital array of solar collectors is simply being to shortsighted and small minded.

To keep things in geosynchronous orbit (assuming you don't have massive mobile receptors that move around the earth) they would need to be at the equator 22,000 mi up, and then only get sun 1/2 the time. They would also need a constant supply of xenon gas to make sure that the orbit didn't decay, not to mention maintenance that is already prohibitory expensive. Even the fanciest of robots can't fix a debris strike on a crystalline silicon cell and the more stuff you put up there the more common strikes would be.

700 000 000 years is the half life of Uranium235, a bi-product of nuclear power but in small quantities
Most waste only has a half-life of about 10k years (still insanely long).

As for the 4000 figure, it was extrapolated from some documentary I watched that I can't remember the name of, but I think it was related to something called the eden project or some weird environmental economic model not based on money but instead on flat resources. Basically, from what I remember, geothermal energy could produce something like 2000 (units) [Might have been terra-joules or something) and we only need 0.5 of these units to power the entire planet as it currently is.

U235 has a long half life, true. And that's good. A long half life means that it's not very radioactive. Bismuth has a half life of over twenty billion billion years or so lightly radioactive scientists didn't know it was until early the 2000s.
Stuff like Co-55 with a half life of 17.53 h give you a lethal dose in seconds.

Geothermal is not new, or even close. Tesla thought geothermal would power our city by now. But aside from the irony that geothermal is nuclear it's not practical to dig mile deep holes all over the place (it's not easy ya know), only a few places in the world can use geothermal and even then it's not all that hot down a few miles only 300 degrees or so.

Do you know how much electricity we can gather from geo-thermal energy just using today's technology? FOUR THOUSAND TIMES the amount we need to run the earth. Enough energy to create machines capable of manual control of a given area's climate with lots left over.

Today's tech is limited to digging a 10 million dollar hole with a 20% failure rate then only getting a 3 MW factory or about the amount of energy in a train. And if you take too much energy out of the rock, it cools down and you can't get any more out till it warms back up. Good show getothermal.

Because Uranium deposits are rare, the extraction process is costly and you don't get that much.

Uranium is 40 times more common than silver...
I can't think of anything more to say.

Because radiation is bad M'kay! And there isn't anything else.
However I have other objections due to excessive consuptions and poor maximization. We are consuming way beyound what can be replenished and this is by nature a unsustainable position, sure some new inovation might give us a new life boat from time to time but if we keep making holes at our feet eventualy the life boats will run out. Nuclear power may seam now a inexaustable source of power because there is so much of it, but so did oil a long time ago and look where we are now. How much time do you think nuclear will last? I don't give it 50 years.

I'm glad to know you have no idea what you're talking about. The "50 years" estimate is based on all power consumed being nuclear from cars to heating. That's 50 years of zero emitions using the uranium 235 we can get from the ground.

However breeding uranium or thorium etc, we have more than enough to power us (at our current consumption rate) until the sun novas and kills us all.










Radio active waste is extremity dangerous when it first comes out, after a few years you can put your hand on it, after a few hundred you could use it as a suppository.
I'm against the long term storage of nuclear "waste" only because most of it can be put in a breeder reactor and burnt again and again. And long term Geo storage is not easy, but certainly not imposable.

 

[Unwardil]

To keep things in geosynchronous orbit (assuming you don't have massive mobile receptors that move around the earth) they would need to be at the equator 22,000 mi up, and then only get sun 1/2 the time. They would also need a constant supply of xenon gas to make sure that the orbit didn't decay, not to mention maintenance that is already prohibitory expensive. Even the fanciest of robots can't fix a debris strike on a crystalline silicon cell and the more stuff you put up there the more common strikes would be.

I did think about this a bit actually.

There's no reason that the collector arrays would be in geosynchronous orbit. That wouldn't be a lot better than just putting the collectors on earth, because there would be times when they are in the shadow of the earth. You want maximum yield off these babies which means putting them directly in the path of the solar winds. Beyond the earth's magnetosphere ideally and the closer to the sun, the better.

Obviously you would need something in geostationary orbit, but that would simply be a power relay terminal satellite, not the actual collectors. Launching newer and better relay satellite every few years when the old ones wear out would not be prohibitively expensive.

You're also correct about maintenance costs. Fact is, it would be impossible. If a panel breaks, that's it, it's done. The solution is mind numbingly easy though. You treat the collectors the same way a hive treats it's drones. Occasional losses are expected and budgeted for, simply replace the drones. If a drone collector stops working, it spends it's reserve fuel to make a final thrust out of formation and plots a course in a decaying orbit with the sun.

Again, this is to be expected, because one has to assume that the more this technology gets used, the more advanced the collector drones will become, so you'll constantly need to be rotating out the old models with the new ones.

Now the last point about the cost of launching all this stuff into space in the first place, well, the ideal model would have these drone collectors being constructed in space from at least 90% space harvested resources from the moon or from asteroids. The majority of the bulk in their construction would not be terrestrial in origin, only the very finely made computer controls which currently require human controlled manufacturing to produce. Everything else would be constructed in space by robots. That's the end goal anyway, but we won't ever get to that end goal without intermediary steps between now and then.