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Area Around Chernobyl Plant To Become a Nuclear Dump (japantimes.co.jp)
mdsolar quotes a report from The Japan Times: A heavily contaminated area within a 10-kilometer radius of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine will be used to store nuclear waste materials, the chief of a state agency managing the wider exclusion zone said in an interview. "People cannot live in the land seriously contaminated for another 500 years, so we are planning to make it into an industrial complex," said Vitalii Petruk, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. The zone is 30-km radius from the site of the 1986 nuclear accident -- the world's worst nuclear disaster. "We are thinking of making land that is less contaminated a buffer zone to protect a residential area from radioactive materials," he said.
Petruk added, "We are considering building a facility for alternative energy such as solar panels" so as to utilize the remaining electricity infrastructure including power grids for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant there.
Why.... It is not about Fukushima?
Japan is wealthy
Ukraine is poor
Ukraine can use the money while Japan gets to rehab Fukujima
Of course Ukraine will become the nuclear waste dump for Japan
Money talks, dude, money talks !
I was so ready to hate this plan but I actually like it. Makes sense, doesn't it?
This isn't exactly a feel-good story; but it's hard to say that it's a bad plan. If you've already got a serious 'brownfield' site, using it to deal with other unpleasant industrial matters rather than letting it sit idle or attempting some wildly uneconomic remediation seems sensible. Hopefully the new facilities will not inherit the legacy of...competent and safety oriented...nuclear engineering that caused the trouble originally.
One thing I'd be curious about, though: I assume that the exclusion zone is because of a combination of nasty isotopes in the soil that make subsistence activities, kids eating dirt, and various other aspects of human habitation problematic, along with the generally low tolerance of radiation risks for civilians not working in nuclear energy/related industries; but are there any areas(outside of the interior and immediate vicinity of the Chernobyl sarcophagus) where the radiation exposure you would receive just by standing around is still intense enough to be an occupational safety issue?
Isotope contamination can mostly be dealt with as though it were a mere chemical hazard, since you won't take much exposure unless you ingest/inhale/whatever the stuff and end up with it in your body somewhere; but your options are a lot more limited if you are being bathed in ionizing radiation just standing there. Chemical protective gear isn't a pleasure to wear; but it's doable. Radiation shielding tends to be mass prohibitive unless you are going full power armor or something.
What are you going to do about the people already living in the "uninhabitable" zone around Chernobyl?
Kind of fucks up your whole damn narrative...
Really, build some modern reactors there and run them from a remote central station. Also use it for storage, solar panels, etc...
The worst that could happen already has. May as well make some decent power for the effort.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Hopefully the new facilities will not inherit the legacy of...competent and safety oriented...nuclear engineering that caused the trouble originally.
And not just originally. Remember when the first containment building was falling apart and dropping big chunks of concrete that were raising clouds of radioactive dust, and they had to build another one over the top of it? Yeah. They've already got a history of mismanaging the site. Now we're supposed to believe that they're going to do it right in the future? Nofuckingway.
One thing I'd be curious about, though: I assume that the exclusion zone is because of a combination of nasty isotopes in the soil that make subsistence activities, kids eating dirt, and various other aspects of human habitation problematic,
No, just walking around, just the wind blowing... you don't have do actually do much.
I think the truly telling thing here is that when Nuclear fails, the only thing you can follow it with is Solar. Why not just put in Solar to begin with, and skip the exclusion zone stage?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As opposed to coal which fucks up areas thousands of miles away with acid rain, carbon, strip mining and land destruction, and if you believe greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming!
Some environmentalists are so stupid! Clearly we are not going to stop using energy and I'd say nuclear is a far cleaner option than coal/oil
So until solar is at a point where it can support millions of homes, nuclear is our best option.
Some environmentalists are so stupid! ... nuclear is our best option.
Yep, if your kind were in charge we'd have nuke plants everywhere and if some accident happened making 90% of the earth uninhabitable, we could send your kind to Mars or the moon.
Don't not forget the cancers related to the exhaust from burning.
So the question becomes: what's the better risk: let it self-decontaminate via decay, or dump waste there. And if so, how will it be stored ? Surface Storage of hazardous waste materials, be they radioactive or chemically active/poisonous (or, like plutonium, both. . .) is FAR less than optimal. Ideally, storage of waste should be in engineered long-duration containers stored out of the weather in a geologically stable area, well insulated from both the atmosphere and the local water table.
And if it's up to you we'll destroy the planet with heat, cancer and land destruction. Choose your poison wisely.
Actually nuke plants everywhere isn't such a bad idea. The problem is having such a large reactor can be catastrophic when disaster strikes. Compare this to a reactor built specifically for a house or building. One can make RTG's last a very, long, time. Albeit somewhat inefficient they are extremely effective.
Dudes, Maryland's "'Renewable' Waste to Energy" program has you both beat.
Maryland continues to generate electricity by burning waste products, including municipal solid waste, wood waste, and a byproduct of the paper-making process called “black liquor.” These sources are all currently included in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS which means they can receive subsidies that are underwritten by Maryland rate-payers. Trash-burning is called “waste to energy” or WTE, whereas black liquor and wood waste both fall under the category of “biomass.” The biomass can come from any state in the same electricity grid as Maryland, while the trash incineration can only come from Maryland, according to the RPS law.
The Energy Recovery Council cites 85 incinerators, operating in 23 states, disposing approximately 30 million tons of municipal solid waste each year and recovering from household waste approximately 15 million megawatt hours of energy per year.[52] However, waste incinerators frequently burn non-household items like tires and the insides of automobiles, and almost any type of incineration releases particulates and toxic chemicals into the air.
A 2008 report from the British Society of Ecological Medicine catalogued the health threats from incineration: incinerators burn materials that result in toxic ash; they release dioxins, particularly at the time of start-up and shut-down, when emissions are not subject to standard monitoring; they emit ultra-fine particulates implicated in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular mortality.[53] A 2013 study of birth outcomes in Italy found that “maternal exposure to incinerator emissions, even at very low levels, was associated with preterm delivery.” [54]
A 2011 study by the Environmental Integrity Project found that trash incinerators produce more pollution per kilowatt hour of energy generated than each of Maryland’s four largest coal-power plants, and these emissions include toxic pollutants such as mercury and lead. The report also found that waste-to-energy facilities are expensive to construct and provide fewer jobs and economic benefits than options such as recycling and source reduction.[55] Additional community concerns are the increase in truck traffic to haul in waste and the proper disposal of incinerated ash.
Maryland hosts three trash incinerators (in Montgomery County, Baltimore City, and Harford), as well as a sewage sludge incinerator in Upper Marlboro, tire incineration in the Harford trash incinerator and in cement kilns in Hagerstown and Union Bridge. The nation’s largest medical waste incinerator is in southeast Baltimore.
In addition to trash incineration, the burning of wood waste and black liquor also poses health problems. Between 2006 and 2012, black liquor and wood waste accounted for 50% of the subsidies given under Maryland’s RPS. Most go to out of state paper mills, resulting in no economic benefits for Marylanders and perpetuating health and environmental damage in Maryland and other states. Air pollution and carbon emissions from these dirty biomass sources travel across state borders; they generate nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide both of which are linked to an array of adverse respiratory effects such as exacerbation of asthma.
[52]US Department of Energy. “Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Perspective on Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas from the United States.” May 2014.
[53]Energy Recovery Council. Fact Sheet: Waste-to-Energy and State Renewable Statues. 2013.
[54]Thompson, Jeremy, and Dr. Honor Anthony. “The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators.” Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine 15.2-3 (2005): 115-56. British Society for Ecological Medicine.
[55]Candela, S., A. Ranzi, L. Bonvicini, F. Baldacchini, P. Marzaroli, A. Evangelista, F. Luberto, E. Carretta, P. Angelini, A. Freni Sterrantino, S. Broccoli, M. Cordioli, C. Ancona, and F. Forastiere. “Air Pollution from Incinerators and Reproductive Outcomes.” Epidemiology 24.6 (2013): 863-70.
As a longer-term issue, is the declining performance of PV panels over time. This, too, is slowly being overcome, but in the long term, will require PV panels to be recycled and re-manufactured as they drop below viable generation levels. There isn't much data at all on these costs, simply because the vast majority of installed PV panels have yet to reach that state.
I suspect that "transition" will not fully occur. PV may work for many residential applications, but lacks both the energy density and constant load delivered that many industrial applications require.
As opposed to coal which fucks up areas thousands of miles away with acid rain, carbon, strip mining and land destruction, and if you believe greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming!
Uranium mining is really bad as well. It uses acid leach mining which pollutes water tables. Mega litres of sulfuric acid pumped underground and stored above ground containing radio active isotopes. It's such a destructive form of mining it is illegal in Russia and The United States.
Switch to traditional uranium mining methods and that process creates massive amounts mine tailing that realease huge amount of highly water soluable radon gas that also pollutes water tables. Sure it's in peoples basements, that doesn't mean you should breate it or drink it.
Moving on to enrichment that process releases huge amount of CFC114 which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. So you are looking at land destruction proportional to the amount of plants you are fueling. Both coal and nuclear are destructive to the land in different ways. Both are really bad options that come from a time when we didn't know as much.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If you think that's smart, you should look into what Norway has been doing for energy since WWII. It's clear to me that money drives our energy sources.
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
What? Who told you that? It most certainly is. For example, we can make thin-film ones now, they don't all have to be PC. Their energy cost continues to decline.
As a longer-term issue, is the declining performance of PV panels over time. This, too, is slowly being overcome, but in the long term, will require PV panels to be recycled and re-manufactured as they drop below viable generation levels.
Yep. Decades from now, when you're having to deal with the decommissioning problems of your nuclear plant... A far greater problem. As well, as we move to microinverters, the cost of upgrading your power plant drops rapidly. Since panels are always improving, a plant based on microinverters (which are desirable anyway as they reduce transmission loss) can either be built to improve over time (by installing heavier-gauge cable than you need initially, to account for improving output of panels in the same form factor) or to become smaller over time, and simply replace the panels with less panels as the efficiency improves. The cost of this maintenance actually decreases as time passes.
There isn't much data at all on these costs, simply because the vast majority of installed PV panels have yet to reach that state.
You don't need the vast majority to do that. You can extrapolate from the ones that have. As it is, no solar panels commonly deployed will produce less than 80% of their power after 25 years. Even in the 1970s solar panels would pay back the energy cost of their production in seven years, and that's the old PC kind. The TF ones can do it in two or three.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So what? You have to have landfills somewhere. Alternatively, they could use California.
You would think at some point mdsolar would post a solar story. All he has ever posted is anti-nuclear propaganda.
Some environmentalists are so stupid! ... nuclear is our best option.
Yep, if your kind were in charge we'd have nuke plants everywhere and if some accident happened making 90% of the earth uninhabitable, we could send your kind to Mars or the moon.
Ahem. Given that water comprises 70% of our earth, and water is extremely good at defusing and containing radiation, the chance of 90% of our planet becoming uninhabitable is quiet unlikely, to say the least. Furthermore, the grandparent has a really valid point - solar cells contain toxic heavy metals that aren't commonly recycled, coal releases far more radiation and the explosion from one is actually a lot more destructive than an explosion at a nuclear power plant, hydroelectric dams murder the wildlife in the water and drown out everything if they collapse, and windmills kill birds and disrupt the surrounding landscape. Geothermal is as ideal as it gets, but it's currently limited to only a few places in the world.
Nuclear is the only form of energy that can deal with our need for electricity. It can produce vast amounts of electricity, far more so than any competing technology. It has very low impact on the surrounding area except for the very few times it was disrupted; and in all these cases, it was either careless errors and old reactors, or it was major environmental disasters. We've used it for decades successfully, and if only people would make the rational choice, we'd eliminate even the few cases where they have failed. Take a look at a molten salt reactor. Molten salt fixes the few safety problems in light water reactors, while also creating waste that only take a few hundred years to degrade harmlessly. They can even process existing waste from other power plants!
There are many steps we can take; a solar panel on houses in sunnier climates isn't a bad idea, so long as we're careful to make sure they're properly recycled, but most renewable sources do incredible amounts of damage to the environment they're supposed to protect. I think fish fear the turbines of a dam far more than 1/10000 of the radiation from a banana. If we really want to make a long term investment in our future, then I think nuclear is our only practical option.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
Of course it is. They wouldn't be cheap if it wasn't. Silicon manufacture is getting much more efficient than it was.
The rare earths are, not surprisingly, rare, and both mining and refining them have not changed much.
Silicon solar panels-- the ones that are cheap-- don't use rare earths. You're thinking of the thin films. But the rare materials used in thin film solar cells are literally micron thick layers (which is why they'r cheap)-- and in any case, the panels that have become extremely low in price lately are silicon, not thin films.
(Also, rare earths aren't actually rare).
...As a longer-term issue, is the declining performance of PV panels over time.
You mean degradation? Hasn't been a problem for silicon panels.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Coal mining also disrupts the water table and does far more damage over all. Nuclear has far less waste also. A waste that can be managed where coal waste is dispersed around the planet.
I'm with you fuzzy..when life serves you corium you have to make coriumade.
Argh. The laws of science be a harsh mistress.
Some environmentalists are so stupid!
You nutty nukkers always point to some other tragedy and ignore the ongoing tragedy that the people that used to live around Chernobyl and Fukushima cannot go home. The Tsunami was a horrible tragedy made worse by the fact that the people that used to live there can't rebuild because a nuclear reactor spilled radioactive isotopes everywhere. Those fortunate enough not to have their homes destroyed also can't go home.
How many hundreds of thousands of people are affected? You guys carry on as if those people don't even exist and it's just callous. How would you like being evacuated from everything and everyone you knew with little or no warning then told you can't go home. One day you have a life, next day it's gone. If you live near a nuclear power plant that's the risk you live with e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. I doubt your anonymous rhetoric would survive very long if you were confronted by the evacuees of such places. Would you explain to them how bad coal is?
If a nuclear power plant explodes, the community around that reactor cannot return.
Clearly we are not going to stop using energy and I'd say nuclear is a far cleaner option than coal/oil
Yes, it's bad, I agree. What has the damage coal does to the environment have to do with people who have been physically evacuated from their homes?
That facts are evident: nuclear power is a technical marvel that destroys the communities around it when it fails.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Lemons turn YOU to lemonade
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Detroit and New Orleans will be designated Prison cities.
Keeping the contamination in, and adding new.
Coal mining also disrupts the water table and does far more damage over all. Nuclear has far less waste also. A waste that can be managed where coal waste is dispersed around the planet.
Yep, totally agree, coal is extremly damaging. What has that got to do with permanently polluting an entire water table with radioactive isotopes?
As for managing nuclear waste perhaps this article from the science section of National Geographic Magazine will help put it into perspective for you.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Look at where rare earths occur. Much of the production capacity is in China, but the geographic range that produces them extends up into Mongolia and Siberia. It's is quite plausible Russia could build POV panels very cheaply if it has an economic justification for expanding it's industrial base to more efficiently mine and transport resources from its Far East. This gives them that reason (and it's a good, viable reason as opposed to some of the more political "rationales" that Putin's administration has used in the past.). It would also hurt the price of those rare earths China is exporting, on which more than a few believe China is deliberately price gouging:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423730/the-rare-earth-crisis/
(There was a more direct article, omitted because of Forbes BS)
Silicon solar cells degrade with time owing to cosmic ray damage. They experience more rapid degadation on orbit and the same will be true in the area around Chernobyl. It is possible that more amorphous CdTe cells would degrade more slowly owing to radiation, and in any case they are on a regimented recycling schedule owing to the cadmium content. So long as they don't them selves become low level waste through contamination, CdTe panels might be the way to go.
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
That makes no sense. The energy cost of the solar panels is part of the selling cost. The bulk of the materials for PV panels is silicon, and the major cost of production is getting the silicon to be extremely pure. Most of the other materials are common, like glass, aluminum and silver, and the rarer elements are only used in small quantities.
PV may work for many residential applications, but lacks both the energy density and constant load delivered that many industrial applications require.
The energy density can be fixed by deploying more solar panels. There's still plenty of room in most countries. The constant load can be solved by batteries and smart grids.
You cannot produce enough RTGs without producing LOTS of radioactive waste in reactors. The plutonium RTGs used in space research, for instance, are reasonably safe since the plutonium produces only the alpha particles. But together with it there are lots of more serious isotopes radiating high energy gamma. If you use these isotopes the cost of shielding would be enormous - much more per watt than the reactor itself. It's the reason why the RTGs are used in extreme circumstances only.
but it's hard to say that it's a bad plan.
No, its not hard to say. Its a fucking ridiculously stupid fucking plan.
I assume
Stop, you're wrong, the rest of your post is entirely wrong because of this ignorant assumption.
The land they are referring to is 'seriously contaminated' to the point that if you went and lived there ... you'd never fucking notice unless you slept in the new containment building.
So yes, its a bad fucking plan because a bunch of pansy ass idiots are freaked out about NOTHING.
Look at what is ACTUALLY occurring there and what ACTUAL radiation levels are ... Look at the ACTUAL chemicals you would ingest ... then crawl in a hole and die because the coal fired power plant powering your computer while you read this puts out more contamination EVERY FUCKING YEAR than that nuclear incident did ...
But you're too stupid, ignorant and afraid of OMFG NU-CLEAR ... so you keep making stupid fucking statements like 'this isn't a bad idea'.
This 'waste' should be buried a couple miles down inside of a fucking mountain where it can decay to the point of not mattering WELL before anyone can get anywhere near it. Not in a beautiful environment full of animals (and could be people if it were for the ignorant paranoia and this exclusion zone bullshit)
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Think about environmental damage vs energy output. How many megawatts comes from how much destruction when considering coal vs nuclear? Carbon sequestration coal? Breeder reactor nuclear?
I think the P and GP both have points, and the debate is going to be won based on quantitative merits on specific system configurations rather than qualitative statements about general power architectures.
solar cells contain toxic heavy metals that aren't commonly recycled
Toxic materials in solar cells are used in very small quantities. The bulk of the solar cell is just silicon. Typical every day appliances have just as much toxic materials in them.
Nuclear is the only form of energy that can deal with our need for electricity.
Solar and wind can too, and are much more appealing to the average investor.
Haven't you seen any movies? As soon as a major player says those words, construction workers at Chernobyl 2 will start to die in horrific ways...
Seriously, it could be a money pit with most typical technology breaking down or producing errors when exposed to radiation. It could be extremely costly to support even a solar plant. The waste could be improperly stored (possibly due to the same sort of systematic incompetence) resulting in a bigger mess -- but that is why they are thinking that would be a good location, isn't it?
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Since it already has electrical infrastructure and is fit for storing waste, why not put something like a nuclear power plant there?
captcha: overdone
hahahhaha
Well, the first containment was built immediately after the accident, by Communists that were only there because they'd be shot in the face if they didn't. Doesn't exactly endear them to the work, and motivate for doing it right.
The new containment structure that is (was?) built was being done by contractors from a different country, being paid quite nicely to get the job done. It's possible that they could do this properly because they aren't under the specter of worldwide attention, and I'm pretty sure that Ukraine someday would like to be known for something other than being a radioactive dump and warzone.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
As opposed to the incumbent 18th century technology (coal / oil) which obliterates all coastal zones on the planet as a matter of normal operation.
No, nuclear power isn't perfect, but we don't have a generation technology that is. So pick a mix that does the least damage as a matter of normal operation, and keep working towards things that are better.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Exactly who is going to work in that contaminated environment installing solar equipment or power lines etc.? And how about the hazard of trucking in nuclear waste. There is a river there as well and i wonder what will happen if that river floods. Just think of how many things can go wrong and assume that they really will go wrong given enough time. Nuclear power as it now exists is too dangerous to be allowed at all.
1. you wouldn't need nuke plants "everywhere" because they create vastly more energy than the solar panels that you do need everywhere.
2. if there is "some accident" it's a local event to that site, and it's pure fantasy land that "90% of the earth" would be made uninhabitable.
3. You are a fucking moron.
Keeping the waste secure might be an issue too. Just because people don't go there does not mean terrorists won't.
solar cells contain toxic heavy metals that aren't commonly recycled
Toxic materials in solar cells are used in very small quantities. The bulk of the solar cell is just silicon. Typical every day appliances have just as much toxic materials in them.
Nuclear is the only form of energy that can deal with our need for electricity.
Solar and wind can too, and are much more appealing to the average investor.
Uh, you're aware many newer solar panels are made of lead, in order to boost efficiency? I'm pretty certain my toaster is not made out of an extremely toxic heavy metal. And guess what, manufacturing them isn't as clean as you believe either. And we haven't even talked about any of the other downsides of solar power - they can be disrupted by the weather, they're not that efficient, and most climates simply can't support them. Sunny Hawaii and California, maybe, but up north in Washington or Oregon they'd only work during the Summer, if even that. And that's really the main problem - we could manufacture solar power cleanly even though we don't at the moment, and we could maybe improve the efficiency, but solar ultimately will not be able to provide the world with enough energy. You'd need to pick a second source anyway for climates without reliable sun, and what would that be? Natural gas? That's not really all that sustainable either, once we drain all of that too. Since you'd need to eventually use nuclear power anyway, why not make it our main focus?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Yeah, and people are happily moving back that were evacuated from Fukushima now. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/f...
I don't have to explain shit.
Well, the area around Chernobyl has shown how well the Earth's environment can recover from human infestation. Beautiful plants, trees, horses, pigs, foxes, other mammals, insects and birds living in harmony, free from the disease-spreading humans.
A great thing to observe. A similar area will grow up around Fukushima, Japan, where the Earth has been cleared of humans.
Not a single human being has been (or will be) demonstrably harmed from the radiation emitted from the Fukushima nuclear power station meltdown. Not one. Nuclear power is 50 times safer than coal fired plants (5 pounds of Uranium emitted daily from each of them, on average), and 10 times safer than oil powered plants.
If we could build nuclear plants at the same engineering level of safety as we build coal-fired power plants, electricity would be "free".
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
Ok, first off you'll need to provide some evidence to support your assertion regarding energy costs not falling. All the evidence I've ever seen indicates that we are slowly but steadily learning how to make them more efficiently both economically and thermodynamically. Solar panels really are still a fairly new technology and they are progressing fast with no indication of that changing soon. Second, you seem to be forgetting about a positive feedback loop with solar panels. Solar panels provide energy so system-wide the more solar panels you add the more they can power the manufacturing of solar panels. (system-wide is a key concept there) That means that (hugely simplified) each panel reduces the net input of additional energy needed to produce the next panel. Add to that the fact that we are constantly learning how to make things more efficiently (economics drives the need to reduce energy costs) and over time we really are reducing the marginal energy cost of making additional panels.
The rare earths are, not surprisingly, rare, and both mining and refining them have not changed much.
Mining of rare earth minerals is a substantial factor but its by no means the only one or even the dominant cost.
PV may work for many residential applications, but lacks both the energy density and constant load delivered that many industrial applications require.
You are making several logical errors here. First, there already are industrial scale solar plants capable of powering industrial applications. They exist today. Second, energy density is not so important when you can transport the energy. Solar panels don't have to be co-located where the energy is used. Third, once you have enough distributed solar panels and batteries in the system solar (and wind) can do a pretty good job of providing even base load power under all but the most exceptional circumstances. Fourth, nobody (nobody sane) is suggesting that we should make solar our only source of power. That's not sensible or possible. But it makes a LOT of sense to make solar a much larger part of our energy supply.
Solar panels do not need rare earths, they can be made without them, same goes for wind turbines.
"the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't" [falling]: Flat out wrong, see: Whatâ(TM)s the EROI of Solar? | Ramez Naam
Rare earths are sourced from China because they sell them cheap.
Declining solar panel performance is not an issue, good solar panels decline at less than 0.5% performance per year, that means they will still be going with 50% of their original efficiency 100 years from now.
Energy density is not a problem. See: Land Art Generator Initiative
A huge transition to solar panels will occur for one simple reason: price, solar+battery storage is expected to continue falling to as low as 2c per kWh of solar+battery.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Again with the bird thing. The fact that birds die because of windmills isn't a design flaw of the mill. It's because these birds are dumber than a bag of hammers. These are the same animals that die from flying face first into windows on buildings. So we don't build them on nature preserves or around endangered species, that is a perfectly reasonable stance to take and it still leaves plenty of places on this planet where they could go. Meanwhile we can either work on making the blades more visible to birds (honestly who ever thought that making them "blend in with the skyline" would make them less of an eyesore needs to have his vision checked again), or we can consider this an experiment in evolution.
Their are rare earths all over, China's production capacity is because it's cheapest to mine them there because China doesn't care about the environmental effects despite the pollution problems they have. They likely will soon, but I'm guessing they will need to see significant health issues before they finally see the light. China's hold on rare earths was actually an issue with OLED, IIRC, and I don't remember what occurred there.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Silicon solar panels-- the ones that are cheap-- don't use rare earths.
But the electronics that control the panels do use rare earth minerals. So there is some amount of rare earths required even if it isn't as much as it once was.
rare earths aren't actually rare
They aren't especially rare but they are relatively challenging to separate and they tend to be dispersed. The scarcity of economically exploitable ore deposits is how they got their name, not because the elements themselves are especially rare.
but it's hard to say that it's a bad plan.
No, its not hard to say. Its a fucking ridiculously stupid fucking plan.
I assume
Stop, you're wrong, the rest of your post is entirely wrong because of this ignorant assumption.
The land they are referring to is 'seriously contaminated' to the point that if you went and lived there ... you'd never fucking notice unless you slept in the new containment building.
So yes, its a bad fucking plan because a bunch of pansy ass idiots are freaked out about NOTHING.
Look at what is ACTUALLY occurring there and what ACTUAL radiation levels are ... Look at the ACTUAL chemicals you would ingest ... then crawl in a hole and die because the coal fired power plant powering your computer while you read this puts out more contamination EVERY FUCKING YEAR than that nuclear incident did ...
But you're too stupid, ignorant and afraid of OMFG NU-CLEAR ... so you keep making stupid fucking statements like 'this isn't a bad idea'.
This 'waste' should be buried a couple miles down inside of a fucking mountain where it can decay to the point of not mattering WELL before anyone can get anywhere near it. Not in a beautiful environment full of animals (and could be people if it were for the ignorant paranoia and this exclusion zone bullshit)
The tone of your post and it's consistency with reality is questionable. On the one hand you state that the exclusion zone is not that dangerous, and yet, you mean to imply that we should try to bury all radioactive waste at the core of the earth or under a mountain rather than in a building in the countryside. As for your statement about how deadly the exclusion zone is or isn't based on somewhat experimental data..
Go to www.kidofspeed.com and read about the motorcycle trip the girl took through the exclusion zone and realize she does not have cancer and is not dead.
Don't make assumptions, it makes you look like an idiot. Make reasonable deductions based on experimental evidence like I just did there. It is not hard.
Yep. Decades from now, when you're having to deal with the decommissioning problems of your nuclear plant... A far greater problem.
Well played. Kind of an argument stopper in fact.
Since panels are always improving, a plant based on microinverters (which are desirable anyway as they reduce transmission loss)
And less strategically vulnerable as well. Imagine the strategic advantages of that - I guess the best non military example of that is when we have a local power failure, and my house is still lit up, furnace working, while the neighbors shiver in the dark - disclaimer, my neighbors are all welcome to come over and enjoy a blackout party. We have plenty of beer and wine as well.
But I digress
You don't need the vast majority to do that. You can extrapolate from the ones that have. As it is, no solar panels commonly deployed will produce less than 80% of their power after 25 years. Even in the 1970s solar panels would pay back the energy cost of their production in seven years, and that's the old PC kind. The TF ones can do it in two or three.
This! For some odd reason, solar skeptics often post about how EV panels will just kinda fall apart right after the warranty period. I've got some old-school cells that are still going strong.
And the doubters care free to doubt, but the panels keep going up. Yesterday I had my motorcycle out for an early spring ride, and saw an old Victorian mansion with the roof covered in panels. It was, oddly enough, awesome.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
but are there any areas(outside of the interior and immediate vicinity of the Chernobyl sarcophagus) where the radiation exposure you would receive just by standing around is still intense enough to be an occupational safety issue?
Well, "enough to be an occupational safety issue" is not very much. You don't have to get enough radiation to get acutely sick for it to be an "issue". Still it's reasonably safe to work in the exclusion zone as long as you take precautions and monitor your exposure. In fact people do continue work there, even at the plant itself. It's a little-known fact that the three other Chernobyl reactors were operated 14 years after the 1986 catastrophe in Number 4, but in part this reflects a much more cavalier attitude towards worker safety than would be acceptable in the West. It's also little-known that the 1986 catastrophe was neither the first nor the last serious mishap at the plant. And then of course when you shut down a nuclear reactor you can't just walk away from it even in the best of circumstances. As of today people are still working in the exclusion zone to maintain the site and build the New Safe Confinement structure.
I have mixed feelings about the idea of using Chernobyl as a nuclear waste site. On one hand it makes sense to concentrate your nuclear hazard operations where you're forced to do it anyway. On the other hand it'd be a bad thing to simply abandon the area, because it's not really that contaminated -- not so contaminated that people can't work there at least. And people will have to continue working there. For how long? Possibly for as along as our species continues to exist, because whenever the decision comes up whether to stabilize the site permanently or build another confinement structure that'll last for a few more decades, it'll always be more cost effective to go with the temporary fix. So it's a very good thing that people will be able to move into the exclusion zone in 500 years -- if we don't mess up in the meantime.
What you really need is a crystal ball that can show you the future. If you see a well-managed operation then this is a site which is solving problems for the rest of the world. If you see a half-assed operation then this may become site where the problems are so concentrated you can't work on them there. Everything boils down to how much you trust people to do the right thing even when it's expensive and difficult and doing the wrong thing won't cause any problems unless you're unlucky.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's complete bollocks quite frankly.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Uh, you're aware many newer solar panels are made of lead,
You're aware that these are brand new, and already people are working on lead-free alternatives ? And manufacturing is as clean as you want it to be. The problem is China doesn't really want to be that clean (but that is changing too).
I'm pretty certain my toaster is not made out of an extremely toxic heavy metal.
No, but it probably has some of these metals inside, just like your phone. And people are more likely to throw a toaster in the garbage than big solar installations.
Sunny Hawaii and California, maybe, but up north in Washington or Oregon they'd only work during the Summer
Germany is even further up North, and they're breaking solar records every year. Add wind power, and combine low-loss grids to cover most of the needs, and work on storage, such as new types of liquid calcium batteries. Add smart grids, so you can use home batteries for storage.
Coal power kills more people per YEAR than Nuclear power has ever killed, total. And the nuclear waste problem only exists because America refuses to use waste reprocessing. A nuclear reactor converts radiation to electricity. Stop taking the fuel out of the reactor and dumping it in a hole in the ground.
The problem is 'his kind' aren't ignorant about how nuclear power works like you are, and they are fully aware that 'the worst nuclear disasters' to ever take place on the planet ... weren't really that bad.
Chernobyl isn't all that dangerous of a place to live unless you're inside the new containment building. You don't know people still work at the plant right? And that it was an operating power plant until well into the last decade, right?
Japan has had at least 3 major nuclear events in the last 100 years, 2 of those were atmospheric nuclear super criticality events resulting in nuclear detonation ... yet ... Those two cities are thriving. The third site, Fukushima is nothing more than a media sensationalization exercise where idiots like you freak out over ... nothing.
More people have been harmed by media coverage of nuclear events than the nuclear events themselves, thanks to idiots like you.
Get a fucking clue. Educate yourself. Do some research. That bullshit FUD they fed you in the 1950 isn't actually how it works.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The area is almost recovered for the most part.... aaand they plan on storing waste there russian style. Going with mountain not near water sources and actually able to contain the waste? Why do that when you have 500 years contaminated propaganda and a bunch of free land.
Im going to venture capital a project to take geothermal energy from the earths core but just the bits that warm merkin land,
Warming merkin land is one of my favorite hobbies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ehm... So go further north or south.. You know that during the winters there we do not have that many hours of sunlight... And transferring power long distances is not really viable.
Second thing... What about during the night? Are we supposed to live in darkness?? Sure we got hydroelectric/wind etc, but are you supposed to scale up wind/hydro to the degree where they could provide power during the night?
We need some type of base-power that is stable and is "always there"... But sure supplement it with solar/wind/hydro..
And ... batteries... sure..... do please read up on what we have today, and maybe what's being researched today, before saying "solve it with batteries and smart grids"....
It may work for a home but it has to be able to scale out to provide power to factories etc..
Yeah, and people are happily moving back that were evacuated from Fukushima now. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/f...
Wow, 7000 return and 100,000 still can't - gee you really got me there. For the people around Chernobyl though? Perhaps they don't deserve our empathy because, well, they were soviet's back then.
I don't have to explain shit.
Perhaps you don't know? So here is a explanation of the global danger that Fukushima reactor 4 still poses to all of us e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. and the nature of a plutonium fire. It really shows the regard the Japanese government has for the residents of Fukushima.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's easy to make a windmill blend in the landscape. You pain the bottom blade green, and the top blade blue and white.
From wikipedia, "The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[2]" in reference to Yucca mountain.
It seems short sighted to dump stuff in an area that could eventually be at least partially reclaimed. Was the area around chernobyl studied to the extent Yucca mountain was, or is this decision merely political as well?
Uh, you're aware many newer solar panels are made of lead,
You're aware that these are brand new, and already people are working on lead-free alternatives ? And manufacturing is as clean as you want it to be. The problem is China doesn't really want to be that clean (but that is changing too).
I'm pretty certain my toaster is not made out of an extremely toxic heavy metal.
No, but it probably has some of these metals inside, just like your phone. And people are more likely to throw a toaster in the garbage than big solar installations.
Sunny Hawaii and California, maybe, but up north in Washington or Oregon they'd only work during the Summer
Germany is even further up North, and they're breaking solar records every year. Add wind power, and combine low-loss grids to cover most of the needs, and work on storage, such as new types of liquid calcium batteries. Add smart grids, so you can use home batteries for storage.
Having actually lived in Germany and being half German, yes, we have a large amount of energy come from these. What you probably don't know is that this is only possible because we buy tons of energy from France and other neighbors to make up the loss (lots of that isn't renewabley generated), and ever since our brilliant chancellor decided to close our nuclear reactors, we've compensated by building more coal and natural gas plants to replace them. If anything, Germany should be an example of how not to do it, in my opinion.
And again, you kind of prove my point - they're deployed everywhere, but they don't work well during cloudy or rainy weather, which we get a lot of. They're deployed because the country has a well-meaning goal of being only sustained on renewable energy, and Solar + Wind are the only remotely reliable methods from the bunch for this region, not because they're good replacements. Nuclear energy only caused three incidents in close to 40 years of operation, of which only two released any contamination at all, and these were both extremely minor incidents with no effects on the environment or people. In comparison, over a 30 year period, coal power plants caused a very real amount of deaths or premature deaths; the number is around a million or so, maybe a little lower. If the country chooses coal to make up the difference, you are trading imaginary fears and monsters under the bed for very real dangers and deaths, and there's nothing that grinds my gears more than irrational and short sighted decisions. Something that, unfortunately, seems to be becoming increasingly common.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
If i where in charge i would start by replacing all the outdated plants we have today with new ones that are unable to melt down.. Second i would put loads more research into alternative reactors that are even safer.. And supplement them with solar/hydro/wind where appropriate to reduce the produced waste..
And i would put huge taxation on coal/oil to force it out of the market.
This craze with that everything "nuclear" is so dangerous "just because" is hindering the development of new safer plants.... And it's actually causing a huge increase in released co2 causing global warming...
Btw, fun fact.. Guess who's putting in most money lobbying against nuclear and pushing for solar?... Oil-companies..
With new type of reactors we could be repurposing the spent fuel-rods without having to reprocess them.. Would probably last our life-time atleast, and at the same time take care of the issue with storing it... A perfect nuclear reactor would have no waste... If we could go from energy conversion to >99% matter->energy conversion (as we can with known current technologies) that would be good..
And perhaps when we run out of waste from our current reactors we might be at the point where fusion-plants are viable.
Pools too, I suppose...
First Solar's CEO was quoted last year saying to total installed cost for their utility scale systems would be under $1/watt next year. And, in detectors, CdTe is quite rad-hard except for the issue of thermal neutron activation of the cadmium. Not clear that is a problem for solar panels.
How many people die per year from coal-plants? How many people have ever died from nuclear-disasters?
Hint... more people die per year from coal-plants than the amount of people forced from their homes in Fukushima....
Hint.. More people die per year , in the US alone, from pollution from coal-plants than all nuclear disasters we have had combined.
Nuclear plants also saturate cooling capacity. Miami is now facing saline intrusion owing to cooling issues at Turkey Point. It is a very inefficient awkward technology.
Anther puppet for environmentalists...
Radiation levels are higher on the beaches of Rio than at the Chernobyl site itself.
From the sun or from fallout from a nuclear reactor? Radio-isotopes can be absorbed into the body - you should learn the difference between internal and external radiation exposure. External radiation from the sun causes tans and skin cancer, internal exposure from organically bound radio-isotopes causes tumors.
You are aware that many people have refused to leave Chernobyl and have been living there since 1986 right?
Ghosts in a zombie city, very sad that you would cite their suffering as an argument to why it isn't occurring. Do many children live there?
The 70s are gone and so with it the flower children.
Flares, I wore them once, I didn't get laid, I'm not wearing them again.
Study the facts before you spew out your garbage.
As you should before spewing your rhetoric.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Ignorant and inflammatory opinion spouting. Yes, old reactor designs CAN fail in less than optimal ways. They're old, we understand the risks and technology has advanced since they were built 50-odd years ago.
Newer reactor designs (molten salt, pebble-bed, etc) are orders of magnitude safer, with significantly improved failure mechanisms and better operating efficiency.
There is no good (non-political) reason not to build reactors utilizing newer, improved designs.
I would wager Soviet environmental law were similar to China's in lax standing. Whether modern Russia would impose anything much more significant / costly so far away from its populations centers is probably debatable.
[capacha: subsidy]
Btw, fun fact.. Guess who's putting in most money lobbying against nuclear and pushing for solar?... Oil-companies..
Because they get a taxation benefit even if they *don't* build it. 2005 Energy Act SEC 600 onwards. IIRC SEC 625-638 lays out exactly how the oil and coal industry can help themselves to the nuclear industry's milkshake. That's why it's hilarious watching you guy point fingers at hick and hippies in combi vans and yell "NIMBYs" as if they can affect the placement of a multi billion reactor facility. You nutty nutty nukkers and your silly silly sayings!!!
And for your further information funds exist in the same act to develop hydrogen and electricity generating nuclear plants which hasn't been touched. I guess oil and coal industry doesn't want nuclear sniffing around their monopoly.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Depends on the factory. Most factories have more square footage than indoor space thanks to parking lots, cooling ponds, and other on-site things that can contribute to the solar footprint.
If your talking about aluminum smelting or other things that will take 10%+ of a large hydroelectric dam's output, then I fully concede to your argument.
I know Slashdot isn't the place to go for breaking news, but the area around Chernobyl became a nuclear dump 30 years ago.
Think about environmental damage vs energy output. How many megawatts comes from how much destruction when considering coal vs nuclear? Carbon sequestration coal? Breeder reactor nuclear?
or the EROEI of nuclear and it's *net* energy output compared to the damage.
I think the P and GP both have points, and the debate is going to be won based on quantitative merits on specific system configurations rather than qualitative statements about general power architectures.
Thank you. I think it's important to talk about the social aspects because they are too often ignored. Nuclear power has long been sustained via the Price-Anderson act which, if repealed, would collapse the nuclear industry overnight from the sheer weight of liabilty. Nuclear power is the only industry that needs legislative constructs to survive and these were supposed to be temporary measures when they were introduced.
Nuclear power is falling apart for many reasons, the most telling being that Wall st just thinks it's a bad, overly risky,investment.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You can see that when it fails it obliterates the communities around it.
The mod trolls are out, doing their best to keep people thinking for themselves about comments like these. Oh you shrill shill nukkers!!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Nuclear can't grow. There is only 80 years of uranium left at the current rate of consumption. Also, it saturates cooling resources. France has to shut plants down frequently owing to inadequate cooling. The US also does so. Nuclear's role is very limited.
cunt
Is Japan conquering again?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The rare earths are, not surprisingly, rare, and both mining and refining them have not changed much. No they are not rare. That is a missnamer given to them when they where discovered.
Silicon based solar cells don't even contain rare earths.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I suspect they're trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
The exclusion zone could probably be repopulated to some degree, but its never going to be popular. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck if you throw more waste there and have the added benefit that most people will shrug and say that it was already a death zone anyway, so why not?
Of course, most of it is not a death zone, certainly not after almost 30 years, but with the nuclear fears out there, you're more likely to see people erring on the side of fear, rather than on the side of being mad that someone has created a waste dump in an otherwise inhabitable place.
Having all that land sit there as nothing but a nature reserve is probably causing a country like Ukraine to get itchy. A pretty nature reserve that size is something that would be an extravagant luxury for their country. The fact that it was forced on them doesn't really change that. They could use the business, and if they're going to be handicapped by a fear of it being a death zone, they might as well use it as a death zone.
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
Of course it is. They wouldn't be cheap if it wasn't. Silicon manufacture is getting much more efficient than it was.
Has anyone ever studied truly optimising the systems? Here is what I'd like to see
1) A good standard so even a low skilled worker can pop off a failing panel and pop another in place. The removed panel would be recycled.
2) Possibly changing the electrical standard to match these things. Would a DC based design work? Electrical power transformers are fairly efficient, but you also have to shift back and forth from DC to AC. If everyone had solar panels and batteries and was still interconnected, then there would not generally be any long distance runs, so maybe one could standardise on say 200V DC. If you transmit any distance, you have to step up again, but for a residential area it might work. Basically if you had a surplus you would sell it to your neighbours, if they needed it. A DC based system would work well for anything with a motor that needs to be variable speed, since simple pulse width modulation should work there. DC to DC supplies should also work fine.
3) One will still need places to put batteries and electronics. A basement or separate room. The key components need to be standardised and modular. Ideally it should be possible to replace a failing module without powering down a building. If the module only brings down a fraction of your capacity you may be able to stay up on your own power, but if a larger fraction comes down it may automatically pull power from neighbours, including batteries, if required. Of course if a module/battery fails it should be recycled, because why not?
The engineer in me thinks that we could go all solar + batteries, particularly if the battery tech improves. I still find it difficult to see where this is going to compete with my current ~$60 electric bill. (I have natural gas for heat.) Short of a complete change in attitude (which is not going to happen) I can't see people voting for enough politicians to force long term thinking like this kind of thing would require..
On the other hand it'd be a bad thing to simply abandon the area, because it's not really that contaminated -- not so contaminated that people can't work there at least.
The original exclusion zone is roughly 100km in diameter, about 80miles east to west and about 60 miles north to south wide.
We are talking about the 6miles area around the disaster places, 10km.
While wildlife might flourish (considering a buck lives only 6 years) in many parts of the zone, it is no way safe for people to live there. Most certainly not in the central zones. Workers working there are using masks and protection gear.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Of course, most of it is not a death zone, certainly not after almost 30 years, but with the nuclear fears out there, you're more likely to see people erring on the side of fear.
So when did you check last time with a geiger counter?
Ah, you are still sitting on your couch. Wow ... how insightful.
I suggest to google a bit and watch some youtube videos. There are plenty.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In what country do you live that coal plant still do that?
I like to avoid it in my travels.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
the chance of 90% of our planet becoming uninhabitable is quiet unlikely, to say the least.
You already pointed out that 70% of the planet is water.
So only 30% are left. Regardless how much you make of that uninhabitable, in addition to high altitudes, deserts, the arctics etc. we are already very close to "90% uninhabitable"
solar cells contain toxic heavy metals
Usually they don't. And if they did: who cares? As long as they are in the cell, they can not get out.
that aren't commonly recycled
If one recycles the solar cell, as in melting the silicon out: he would be extremely dumb not to recycle any metals in it as well.
coal releases far more radiation
No it does not. Coal ash is used as building material. In other words "there is nothing released" in a way that is harmful.
and the explosion from one is actually a lot more destructive than an explosion at a nuclear power plant
Whow, what a nonsense. How could it be? Don't even know if a coal plant technically can explode. Perhaps you mean a fire in the coal storage? That hardly can be called an explosion.
Nuclear is the only form of energy that can deal with our need for electricity.
If that was true the planet would not produce 5% of its total energy by nuclear power but 50% or 80% or 90%. You are an idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That's a great plan, but it has two flaws: 1. Clouds move, so you'd have to be continually repainting the top blade. 2. The sky's only blue and white in daytime, so it would still confuse owls.
Uh, you're aware many newer solar panels are made of lead, in order to boost efficiency?
They are not "made out of lead" they contain lead as conductor at the points where the cables are connected. So why do you care? Are you scratching on the panels and licking your fingernails afterwards?
they're not that efficient :D
They are efficient. The point is that you don't grasp what "efficiency" in the context of ordinary solar panels means
and most climates simply can't support them
Why? All energy a solar panel produces does not need to be produced by anything else. The antarctic stations run fine with wind and solar.
Here, someone has linked this a few posts up the chain: http://landartgenerator.org/bl...
Does not hurt to link it again. You unfortunately are one of the NJW (just invented that ;D nuclear justice warriors) who as absolutely no clue about what he is talking.
But thank you ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Perhaps surprisingly, rare earths are not at all rare. Good sites for profitable mining of rare earths at current prices are rare.
As for the energy cost to produce PV panels, perhaps they should consider solar power :-)
What you probably don't know is that this is only possible because we buy tons of energy from France and other neighbors to make up the loss (lots of that isn't renewabley generated) ... to all over europe.
That is again: wrong
Like basically all your posts. Germany is a net exporter, usually also to France. The months in the last ten years where we imported more energy from France than we exported is perhaps 5 to 10.
Germany exports about 30% its power produced
You can dig around here: https://www.fraunhofer.de/ they have an english site.
and ever since our brilliant chancellor decided to close our nuclear reactors, we've compensated by building more coal and natural gas plants to replace them.
We have built new coal plant to replace old inefficient ones.
Bottom line we produce less coal power than 20 years ago and have less plants. Seems you are a "Bild Zeitung Leser" and you "build up your opinion" according to their "Leitarticles".
Nuclear energy only caused three incidents in close to 40 years of operation, of which only two released any contamination at all, and these were both extremely minor incidents with no effects on the environment or people.
Are you living behind the moon? Germany has 40 incidents per year!!. In the 1990s we escaped barely a majour catastrophe in Greifswald. If worst case scenarios had happened, Germany and -depending on wind directions - the surrounding countries would be back to be a second world nation.
over a 30 year period, coal power plants caused a very real amount of deaths or premature deaths; No one doubts that. But since the late 1970s all plants are fitted with scrubbers. As we are replacing them mainly with wind plants that issue is gone anyway soon. So the last 30 or 40 years it is very unlikely that a coal plant harmed one in Germany.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
In fairness to the Ukrainians and their Soviet colleagues, the first containment building was built around what amounted to a highly active, exposed nuclear pile. The work had to be done by robots that were controlled remotely, because once they put enough parts of the sarcophagus in place, it had the effect of reflecting the neutrons rather than absorbing them, effectively moving it closer to critical mass and thus making the pile much more radioactive. As a result, no human could safely do work on the sarcophagus in person for more than a few tens of seconds without dying of radiation poisoning. It's a bloody miracle they were able to build it at all.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The total death toll to Chernobyl is estimated to be a between 1 and 2 millions
Did not know that coal kills so many per year. How does that happen? Kids playing snow ball battles with coal bricks?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The only reason Chernobyl was as bad as it was was simply due to three main factors: bad engineering, bad leadership, and immense political pressure. Had any one of those not been there, the worst would've been the plant shutting down. Due to the immense push from the Kremlin that nuclear power must not fail, due to the threat from the west, made them move their schedules much faster than would've been allowed safely. Had they had time to properly test their backup coolant pumps, or had leadership been more diligent in pushing back or getting the tests done, or had the engineering not led them to the point where there was no coolant flow while the diesel generators were spun up, the whole thing would've been avoided, or at least mitigated to the point of being a sneeze.
The exact same can be said of any real power generation. Probably less than 100 years worth of fossil fuels left -- that includes coal, gas, and oil. Unless we find other sources or get a lot better at recycling, rare-earth metals used in construction of electronics will start getting depleted as well. There's already a shortage on tellurium or molybdenum, both of which are key components in manufacturing electronics including solar cells.
Really, it's all a race until we get fusion going. At which point all of the clean energy nonsense stops becoming relevant except as a stopgap in remote areas where fields of solar panels or wind turbines are practical.
Turns out 100% renewable is the best mix. You can even use it to restore buffalo habitat. https://slashdot.org/journal/2...
Living and working in the exclusion zones are two different matters altogether. Nobody can maintain the kinds of precautions you'd need 7x24.
As for workers in the immediate vicinity of the plant, those working on the New Safe Containment structure don't seem to be using masks or hazmat suits. Images from the years following the disaster show workers in the control room or turbine hall wearing clean room style jumpsuits with surgical caps and masks, but clearly not continually worn. This might indicate a more lax attitude toward worker safety than we would have, or that the contamination is not so bad in those specific places as we would assume, or most likely both. Obviously in parts of the plants they go with a full respirator.
What I've read is that outside the reactor the contamination is very spotty. That's probably because the places where there are higher levels of contamination have remained undisturbed by human activity.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Solar cells are made of sand. Not really a rare substance. Tellurium is available in vast quantities on the ocean bottom, so that is not a constraint either. Fuel-free energy is really the only Real Energy. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/
BLOWOUT SOON STALKERS!
Country is for sale. Just 2 weeks ago they said they are cutting prices down 25-50% on state owned enterprises. Buy 1 get 1 free. Junta government does all it can to sell off country, they try to get as much money as they can while they are still in the office.
As opposed to the incumbent 18th century technology (coal / oil) which obliterates all coastal zones on the planet as a matter of normal operation.
As part of normal operation Nuclear power plants are authorized by the NRC to release radioactive gasses, produced in the reactor core, into the environment. In abnormal operation people are evacuated from the area.
No, nuclear power isn't perfect, but we don't have a generation technology that is.
So we agree that coal and nuclear produce the same levels of damage in different ways.
So pick a mix that does the least damage as a matter of normal operation, and keep working towards things that are better.
Then let's invest heavily in solar, wind and geothermal.
I have no objection to the continual development of nuclear technology but the reality is our management systems, where people are involved, are simply not mature enough for us to run them safely, let alone profitably. You nukkers always talk about some new reactor technology but fail to focus on the core reason we have reactor accidents in the first place, facility management. *EVERY* nuclear accident has had this as a factor. Windscale,Lake Karachay, TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima. It is time for you guys to face the reality that we simply do not have management systems that will run them without an accident every other decade and that cleaning up the mess the nuclear industry has made is as urgent as geologically sound spent fuel storage facilities.
And even if we did, we don't have the materials technology to keep a reactor going any more than 40 years, and that reduces the EROEI of a nuclear plant making them pointless anyway. All the rubbish about capacity factors and energy density are irrelevant compared to tearing these things down at the end of their service life, even if they run perfectly without a single accident.
Nuclear power looks great when you have a superficial look at it, as you learn more you start to ask questions and then the nutty nukkers call you 'anti-nuclear'. I *used* to think that nuclear power would save the world, then I educated myself about it and discovered that it is a pointless bad idea.
Nuclear power is great, if you don't know much about it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Nuclear does kill a lot of people.
Thank you for another great posting. Perhaps you have seen this status of Fukushima No4 spent fuel cooling pool. This is the thing that has made me crap my pants about Fukushima from day one. Hope you find it interesting.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Overloaded spent fuel pools are a danger in many places.
Coal power kills more people per YEAR than Nuclear power has ever killed, total.
Radio-isotope contamination causes transgenic disease and genetic aborations in many species including human beings. Deaths from nuclear power can also be looked at statistical reductions in the rate of pregnancies that fail to come to full term, produce fatal mutations when they do. These elements in the food chain will be causing problems for many generations. Perhaps you should look into understanding how these isotopes interact with metabolisms to get an understanding of how nuclear *will* continue to kill long after our arrogant generation is long dead.
Of course we could also just confront your statement as an out right construct enabled by the IAEA having publishing interdiction powers over the WHO. Information from those sources is biased by an organization who's charter is to promote nuclear power. Are you suggesting that the IAEA should operate outside its charter by allowing information out that doesn't support nuclear power?
And the nuclear waste problem only exists because America refuses to use waste reprocessing.
You may not be aware that Carter's order was repealed by Reagun, that tired thinking is as obsolete as a plutonium economy. America isn't reprocessing nuclear fuel because it is expensive and not cost effective. Even if it was the supporting reactor technology does not exist despite funding to create it in the US' 2005 Energy Act - check SEC 600 onwards if you don't believe me.
Stop taking the fuel out of the reactor and dumping it in a hole in the ground.
Well you nutty nutty nukkers really don't understand that geologic stable spent fuel facilities are the things the Nuclear Industry needs to remain viable. You think some new reactor technology will save it or suddenly make it economically viable. In the meantime our generation imposes it's decision on generations to come who will look at us like the bunch of incompetent arrogant ditherers we actually are.
Fortunately we will be too dead to be concerned with the consequences.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Oh, I agree. US plant are twice the storage density of Japanese plants, SONGS across the pacific was a massive concerns. That's the main reason I see construction of geological spent fuel facilities as a priority.
I thought you might be interested in the allegations of illegal fuel rod storage going on at Fukushima and the claims from civil engineers that the No4 cooling pool should have had adequate structural integrity to survive the ground acceleration from a 9 earthquake.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I think of nuclear energy as borrowed energy. I think we'll have to repay it in transmuting the waste into stable isotopes. Fortunately, it looks as though renewable energy will be up to the job.
Yes, coal mining and uranium mining both move a lot of earth about. What of mining for silicon? That doesn't disturb the soil? What of mining for aluminum?
Mining does disturb the soil. Doing it poorly can do damage to the water supply. What uranium mining does do is provide massive amounts of energy compared to the amount of soil moved.
Oh, and radioactive isotopes are everywhere. When you dig up the dirt for silicon, aluminum, copper, or whatever you are going to get some radioactive stuff. Once the stuff that is wanted from the mine is carried away the stuff left over is now more radioactive than the original dirt.
I find it difficult to believe that uranium mining would leave the soil more radioactive than it was to begin with. Uranium is radioactive and removed from the soil. What is left behind should be LESS radioactive that what was there before. Uranium mining does not create more radioactive material since nothing has yet undergone fission.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Solar panels do not need rare earths, they can be made without them, same goes for wind turbines.
Doing so means the solar panels and wind turbines are less efficient than if they used rare earths. Rare earth magnets are used in windmills to make generators that are lighter and more efficient than ones made without.
"the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't" [falling]: Flat out wrong, see: WhatÃ(TM)s the EROI of Solar? | Ramez Naam
Solar with an EROEI of 25 is still 1/3 of nuclear, 1/2 of hydro, and still not better than coal. Solar still cannot compete, even after decades of government backed R&D.
Rare earths are sourced from China because they sell them cheap.
That's because they don't have this irrational fear of thorium. Thorium is a mildly radioactive element with numerous industrial uses. It can also be used as fuel in a fission breeder reactor. For some reason that baffles me the US federal government has declared thorium an element that is deemed as weapon grade material, even after a government experimentation proved a thorium based weapon nonviable. Thorium is worthless for bombs but if it is a byproduct of rare earth mining, and it almost always is, then that thorium must be disposed of as if it was weapons grade plutonium. That makes rare earth mining in the USA very expensive. There are rare earth mines in the USA but they don't produce like those in China, the mines in the USA must have little of thorium as possible making viable rare earth mines very hard to find.
A huge transition to solar panels will occur for one simple reason: price, solar+battery storage is expected to continue falling to as low as 2c per kWh of solar+battery.
If we get energy storage that cheap then that would make coal and nuclear much cleaner and cheaper too. A few big problems with coal and nuclear is that they don't like changing loads, they work best when run at near "full throttle", and they are a large investment making them difficult to fund. With cheap storage these plants can be built and run full throttle almost immediately, with the storage systems leveling out the load through the day. This also would make the payback period shorter since they can cash in from the people storing the energy, which should make investment much more attractive.
So, sure, bring on the storage technology. Doing so helps nuclear and coal as much as, or perhaps more than, solar would gain.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I think of nuclear energy as borrowed energy.
From future generations - completely agree.
I think we'll have to repay it in transmuting the waste into stable isotopes. Fortunately, it looks as though renewable energy will be up to the job.
Do you mean using renewables to transmute transuranics?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I think we'll use accelerators to shift the most problematic fission products into stable or quickly decaying isotopes. Renewable energy will run the accelerators. Hopefully, this occurs at current sites so we are not transporting the waste. But security or environmental issues may intervene in some former reactor sites.
It's an appealing, if energy intensive method. Why not a proper waste storage facility and allow time to do the work? Work around uranites look like a promising method to lock these materials up so they don't leech into the water table. Second best there is granite and bentonite clays, IIUC.
Would you mind explaining your rationale?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
That makes no sense. The energy cost of the solar panels is part of the selling cost.
They lose money on every sale, but make up for it in volume.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Once the stuff that is wanted from the mine is carried away the stuff left over is now more radioactive than the original dirt.
It's an interesting point.
I find it difficult to believe that uranium mining would leave the soil more radioactive than it was to begin with.
It brings elements that have been in place in the earth for millions of years. Once you disturb them and put them on the surface of the earth is where the problem begins..
Uranium is radioactive and removed from the soil. What is left behind should be LESS radioactive that what was there before.
Indeed, but Uranium is not the only radio-isotope there, radon gas comes with it which is a heavy water soluble gas, as I mentioned.
Uranium mining does not create more radioactive material since nothing has yet undergone fission.
I know, it was in place in the earth and now it is dug up as a by-product of the Uranium mining. Radon gas, now leaking out of the mine tailings, flows over the land to the lowest point where there is usually a water source and then sinks into the water. It's parallels what nutty nukkers complain about when the coal industry emits radio-isotopes in coal fly ash from their stacks, since nothing has yet undergone fission. Well you get a lot of that sort of effluent from uranium mining.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Much better.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I think we are headed for a period of conservatism once we have averted the climate crisis. A renewable energy system is pretty stable, and probably will behave like the roman road system in terms of self perpetuation. The green party tenth key value will likely be a part of that conservatism, and that says what you can't safely dispose of must be unmade. Truly safe disposal of nuclear waste seems unfeasible, at least according to SCOTUS.
What are you talking about ?
Spend 20 seconds on wikipedia to find out. Rare earth elements are used in capacitors, electrodes, microchips, stainless steel, fiber optics, magnets and quite a lot more. Virtually every modern bit of electronics has some amount of rare earth elements in it.
Rare earths are not that rare. They are however hard to refine since they all share very similar chemical properties.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
So ... doing nothing is an option?
And when the levees around the cooling water ponds finally fail, you'll do nothing.
And when the relatively radioactive silt at the bottom of the ponds starts to blow around and blow off-site as the ponds finally dry out ... do nothing?
Your argument about the management history is actually one for having competent people involved and doing things in a transparent, well-reported manner. "Do nothing" will inevitably result in mismanagement of the site.
Does your idiom have the phrase "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea"?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I think we are headed for a period of conservatism once we have averted the climate crisis.
Interesting, still a long way to go there though. It would seem that two party systems are having difficulty making progress. So perhaps people will notice.
The green party tenth key value will likely be a part of that conservatism, and that says what you can't safely dispose of must be unmade.
I am simply concerned about mutagenic elements being allowed in the environment. It is extremely concerning that they are being spread around as munitions combined with the frustrating arrogant incompetent way the Nuclear Industry handles its effluents. These practises have to stop.
If it can be unmade that is fantastic news to me. I'm ok with stored if the geology is working. Anything that works. So far crystalized Uranium looks like the most promising way to store transuranics without leeching into water tables. But, like the places that are meant to store them, still under development.
I've only begun to investigate "Accelerators" since you mentioned them, thank you. I did a bit of searching for myself, is there anything you could recommend I look at? Is this proven technology, is it available?
Truly safe disposal of nuclear waste seems unfeasible, at least according to SCOTUS.
What do you mean by this? Are you referring to a specific ruling?
A renewable energy system is pretty stable, and probably will behave like the roman road system in terms of self perpetuation.
Absolutely. Renewable energy systems look like some of the most interesting type of technology coming onto the market for decades. I'm surprised that people around here aren't more excited about it. Frankly it looks like an extremely profitable technology with minimal downsides.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There is some work on using accelerators but on the basic feasibility, you can use them to reduce everything to protons.... Very frustrated that I can't find SCOTUS opinion. I've linked to it before but now the closest I come is Steven Chu referencing it in congressional testimony.
I disagree: ***selling price*** of PV panels is coming down. However, the energy cost of creating solar panels isn't.
That makes no sense. The energy cost of the solar panels is part of the selling cost.
They lose money on every sale, but make up for it in volume.
So if they lose $1 on every sale, then selling 1 million of them is a million dollar loss.
How does that "make up for it in volume"?
They lose money on every sale, but make up for it in volume.
So if they lose $1 on every sale, then selling 1 million of them is a million dollar loss. How does that "make up for it in volume"?
My statement was a Yogi Berra type joke. It's where you take something that might sound a little true, but is actually ridiculous.
Another example is one of his famous quotes about a particular restaurant - "No one goes there any more - its too crowded"
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There is some work on using accelerators but on the basic feasibility, you can use them to reduce everything to protons....
I think we could start by assembling these things near every nuclear disaster site and get them to work. Lake Karachay and Fukushima are good places to start considering their threat to oceans.
Very frustrated that I can't find SCOTUS opinion. I've linked to it before but now the closest I come is Steven Chu referencing it in congressional testimony.
I would be very interested in seeing that, when you do find it, please send it on. A ruling like that does not say a lot for the feasibility of the Price-Anderson Act.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.