Tell me... where would you sequester nuclear waste if not Yucca Mountain? Name a place we can put it.
I'd suggest the geology of the Rocky Mountains is closer to what is required, however I'm sure that there are other granite mountains that are suitable in the US in line with DOE's original 'defense in depth' parameters and what we have learned in the meantime about how granite captures radioisotopes and filters it from the water table.
As I said Yucca mountain is pumice, that's why it is inappropriate *geology* and hydrology.
And you say you're okay with nuclear power? Okay... cite a reactor design you find acceptable.
But unlike you "I actually have constructive solutions" for all these things. I'm fine with any energy source so long as it is done reasonably.
Well I'm yet to see you even demonstrate a knowledge of the issues, like the water table of Yucca let alone the capacity to tackle more complex issues regarding reactor and infrastructure design that lead to solutions.
So... I don't concede the fucking point.
So, instead of considering the facts presented in a balanced way you've become emotional once confronted with whats required to *actually* gain an understanding. You don't have fact to support your argument and I have produced information to support mine, for you, about the issues.
It's ok, I know it is difficult and confronting to take it in but if you want to maintain an opinion that doesn't stand up to examination then that reveals that your opinion is based on social proof, not actual proof. I won't take your insults personally.
Not conceding the point just reveals that you probably haven't reach the mental maturity required to have this debate, let alone contribute to it so it is unlikely that your opinion will evolve much further until you do - I've seen it before.
Now that I have proven your beliefs to be false, perhaps it would be wise to keep your opinions to yourself until you have had time to evaluate the information presented lest people think that you are a nuclear fanboi.
I'll accept that *you're done*, you cannot defend your argument and that you aren't honest enough to concede the point.
Ok, I'll just accept that you have conceded these point as you have no other information to counter the facts placed before you, that Yucca mountain is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste.
As to the NRC... specify your issue. You're obviously contrary to what you said a strong anti nuclear proponent and that's fine... everyone is entitled to their opinions but don't misrepresent yourself. It undermines your credibility. I'm very happy to talk with someone that is anti nuclear. Just don't tell me you're not and then pull this nonsense.
As I said, if you are pro-nuclear I will appear anti-nuclear. You have said little to indicate you even understand my position, let alone be in a position to judge me. I've ever been saying is that we really need to have a complete and pragmatic end to end look at the way the Nuclear Industry operates. It deserves our skepticism because we can't afford to be reckless with these systems as they age anymore, and why do it when America is luckier than most countries when it comes to wind, solar and geo-thermal power which doesn't have the baggage of nuclear, oil or coal? Serious investments into these have been taken up by nuclear oil, and coal so where is the return for the everyday person? Failing Nuclear power plants and expensive fuel. Money for the big end of town from the taxpayers pocket.
Where is the anti in that? Anyone who can read and add numbers can get the information by just reading the appropriate acts of law.
I'm mostly annoyed because you misrepresented yourself and you've used some pretty fallacious arguments to support your position. Any valid point shouldn't require deception to support it and pretty much your first statements to me were a lie. So... not feeling super confident in your good faith in this discussion.
Well that's what you say and I haven't seen much evidence supporting the other things you say. I've supplied the information with sincerity and you have said yourself it is too much for you. Well welcome to the complexity that is the Nuclear Industry. Stop whining to me that it is too hard to read the facts presented and then try to claim that I am deceiving you.
Nothing in
I call that Responsible Nuclear Advocacy, since at least 2006 - you just get hounded by both sides, the debate has become so polarised people have forgotten how to carry on a meaningful discussion any more
is a lie. If you can't carry out a meaningful discussion based in fact, that's your problem and not mine.
As to the problem with wind, the maintenance and depreciation of windmills is radically understated and has been for decades. The machines are always sold as being able to do X and then after they're in place for a few years the maintenance costs start radically changing the cost structure. Also the power is not consistent. Aka... it only works when the wind blows.
Maybe so. Wall Street doesn't like nuclear because its a risky investment, investors don't like that sort of risk, solar and wind are way ahead simply because the return on investment is much better than nuclear, i.e. Solar and wind satisfies the criteria that makes an investment "economically viable" nuclear power does not without substantial regulatory support.
You need a way to store wind and solar or they're more an irritation for the traditional grid than anything. Most of that power has to be backstopped with coal and nuclear. I'm okay with having a small percentage of renewables in the network. We can load balance them. But if you start increasing them radically without having adequate storage... then you're just sabotaging the grid.
It's obviously a medium-term solution that will fit into a broader energy plan for the US and other developed countries well into the future. I expect to see nuclear providing a boost to our base load power 10-20 years from now, dwindling off as reactors are taken off-line.
The choice now is whether any of the lessons from the past 50 years have been learned.
And once you add the costs of the batteries on to your wind mills... the cost structure becomes even less attractive.
America has Terrawatts of wind energy. I'm sure if the U.S can put a man on the moon then she can make a few wind turbines work.
As to the decommissioning cost, it depends on how you build the plant. You keep talking about the old 1960s nuke plant designs. That's not what anyone is talking about at this point. Your entire concept is obsolete.
It is the current issue because it's the 1960s plant designs that are reaching the end of their service life now. Yankee Rowe, a controlled shutdown of a functioning reactor, cost half a billion dollars to clean-up and it was only 137 Megawatts, less than a quarter of the size of TMI-2 for example. You have to wait to allow the *really* radioactive elements to decay. This is because new and highly radioactive elements are created in the reactor core. It's still not something that has been addressed in an industrially proficient way yet that makes the sites safe or 'greenfeild'. Considering the 104 reactor sites around America are multi-core the United States will be looking at a conservative estimate of a quarter of a *Trillion* dollars, at todays prices, on reactor decommissioning alone.
And as I mentioned SNUPPS is the basis for the design of the AP1000 reactor which is the only legally approved reactor design available for the U.S. And it has all of the same energetic input and problems mentioned in the study.
The high costs of nuclear come from the high back end costs of decommissioning and that has turned into a shitshow because people go out of their way to make it as impractical as possible.
No, it is a function of it being an enormous mound of concrete containing radioactive isotopes. Decommissioning and demolishing a reactor takes about about the same amout of energy the reactor generated for a third of its service life. Check the study around i14-i16.
I posit that if we *have* to have nuclear power then the plants should be designed to much high standards with lifespans that are more in line with the geological time-frames of the elements they are tasked to contain. I am yet to see that happen, nor have I seen a reactor design that meets those criteria. Current reactor design is not good enough, they MUST be designed to overcome what we have learned about them in the first fifty years of operation, franky the current generation of nuclear power plants proposed do not even meet the minimum requirements, wrt decommissioning, so how is it possible to support commissioning new reactors if they are just as bad (indeed worse wrt containment - but you're not ready for that conversation) than the very 1960's design of currently commissioned reactors.
If we go with a pebble bed for example then the fucking plant literally can't melt down with or without power. There are many other designs that likewise are failsafe.
Proposed Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are designed with exactly the reduced containment that Chernobyl was built with. Proposed new generation 'once-through' reactor series like the AP-1000 are designed with significantly reduced containment. They have been designed this way to reduce the expense of building them, as the sheer volume of concrete required to build a reactor containment is one of the highest input costs as well as the third greatest contributor of greenhouse gasses.
There are a number of functional issues with pebble beds, like the mechanism jammin, which is what happened to the German PBMR. Also getting hundreds of thousands of the fuel balls uniform and of course the issues at the end of their service life with air leaking into the reactor and causing graphite fires.
I compare proposed PBMR designs with RBMK at Chernobyl. You know, graphite covered fuel kernels, helium gas cooled, no containment building required, produce deadlier waste and have deadlier failure modes.
IFR is a much better concept than PBMR, pity W. ordered it's demolition. Fantastic concept and actually worked. I was a big fan of the Integral Fast Reactor, and in a way I still am. But the reality is 3rd and 4th generation reactors are a pipe dream because our material science is not advanced enough yet to produce a reactor design that will overcome neutron bombardment. If you are going to build reactors then do it properly and build a Terra-watt scale nuclear reactor facility with an attached waste facility in the belly of a massive granite mountain that chomps up all your remaining plutonium or end all commercial nuclear activity altogether.
Most of the 100 odd reactors in the U.S are approaching old-age and have to be de-commissioned so it's a future, rather than obsolete, issue. If you want to build a modern Nuclear Industry it starts with the geology of the spent fuel containment facility. If you do it in granite then you could power the US for at least 5000 years. A properly functioning Nuclear Industry is important and the one we've got is a total mess heading for either complete failure or disaster.
This had no reason to be in a separate post. My other post to you addressed this issue. You're talking about old reactor designs.
The only reactors *legally* approved for construction is the AP1000 with all of the issues in the study. TWR is an interesting concept, however it doesn't exist, compared to IFR which *did* exist, functioned as planned, did what it was supposed to do yet was still funded for *demolition* by W.Bush.
Your position is out of date. Obsolete.
Your position is SyFy. Have you investigated the difference between a breeder and a burner reactor? Your argument is for breeder reactor with the same decommssiioning issues as current generation reactors, that doesn't exist and has no legal approval to operate? I think you'll find IFR is a vastly superior reactor design, that actually works and has all the features, and more(like built in medical isotope extraction) than TWR. Far from obsolete, my position is plausible.
We have many designs that can operate on spent fuel much less requiring highly refined uranium.
Again you're assuming 1960s designs. Its not valid.
Incorrect. SNUPPS is the basis for the design of the AP1000 reactor which is the only legally approved reactor design available for the U.S. and it has all of the same energetic input and problems mentioned in the study.
And irrelevant, even with the above it's the energetic input from mining, enrichment and decommisioning that make Nuclear power not viable.
If you can't point to any legally approved reactor design then you have nothing to support your argument here.
As to Yucca being unsafe for nuclear waste according to the DoE... cite that please. I can't find anything that says that. What I found was report after report after report after article after article saying it was safe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10... [nytimes.com]
What are you talking about?
You are mis-quoting me. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is "inappropriate to contain nuclear waste". So the most appropriate way to move the Nuclear Industry forward is to develop a geologically stable containment facility (I am reluctant to call plutonium 'waste') inside a mountain. That could also, potentially, house a reactor facility, and an infrastructure plan to move that 70,000 tons of plutonium to that facility would begin to look like sound nuclear policy.
And then of course there is the whole issue with the storage for the spent fuel.
First of all lets clear up the time frame here, plutonium is radioactive for 25000 years before it decays into it's daughter product, which will then be radioactive for ??000 years and iterate 20 odd times. That's why I refer to it as 'geological time frames.
Yucca mountain is not a appropriate because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.
As to your rebuttal to my point about nuclear storage...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
""
The location has been highly contested by environmentalists and some Nevada residents[2]. It was approved in 2002 by the United States Congress. Federal funding for the site ended in 2011 under the Obama Administration via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011.[3] The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.[3]
""
Quote: For political not technical or safety reasons.
Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
Go look up the wiki on the act if you are not convinced and you'll see that Yucca was *put* in Nevada because their represenatives did not attend.
Common myth? I can't believe you said that. Seriously. That issue is categorically lost to you.
What is your specific problem with the Price Anderson Act when it has never been invoked so far as I know?
The way government deals with the risk and liability of the Nuclear Industry is via the Price-Anderson act. It underwrites the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose in the event of an actual accident.
Actuaries and Risk Assessors are professionals in the insurance industry and their assessment of the Nuclear Industry is that they won't insure it without the Price-Anderson Act. They're impartial to the way evidence is presented, just making an assessment of the risk based on the facts available. They're not 'against' Nuclear power, they're just paid to asses the risks, professionally.
Take away the Price-Anderson act and the Nuclear Industry ceases to exist because it can no longer be insured. This is a true measure of it's financial viabiliy.
Paraphrase: The P-A act remains a legal construct that is in place to support the existence of the nuclear industry. Consequently investors are only interested in investing in Nuclear power because the government guarantees the returns, not because the nuclear industry is capable of delivering them.
As to regulations, the issue is that the regulatory process is exploited by people that just don't want nuclear to make the process expensive. Look at how many plants have been approved. Why is that? Look at how long it takes to develop and then build them and how much of that time is spent getting all the paper work filed.
Political elements like to be dishonest and play games. This is not a new thing. The environmental lobbies in general do this with some frequency.
Hate to burst your bubble however the 2005 energy act prevents environmental groups from doing that. You can check the legislation yourself. Sec. 600 onward.
As to the subsidies for nuclear... most of that goes to placating the anti radicals at this point.
What it is spent on is laid out in the sections I refer you to.
Every time you build a bridge these days it takes 10 years to get approved. Where as in the old days you'd plan the bridge for maybe six months and have it built in a couple years. And that was for big fancy bridges.
We knew less in the old days, we avoid killing people to build something nowadays. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
But these days, every little fucking thing requires an "impact study" and that takes for god damn ever and the criteria for these things is arbitrary and often contradictory. The garbage you can get shut down for is absolutely fucking retarded.
It's a nuclear power plant, not a car park, you expect the process to be complex and the bill has specific clauses to deal with that too.
Paraphrase: Many of the complaints you've raised about regulation don't apply to the Nuclear industry because the law exempts them.
You can either make a quotation from the study and paraphrase the argument or I'm not going to go reading through in detail anything you post.
That's exactly what I did. I said Peer reviewed studies show there is a diminishing Energetic Return on Energetic Investment in the Nuclear fuel cycle which is a limitation based on several design aspects. Below 200grams Uranium per ton of rock Nuclear power is no longer viable because of the amount of energy you need to produce the fuel.
I can't read them all and I think it is incumbent on you to make a point that does not require I read that unless there is actually something in there that I need.
Support for my statement. You can read for yourself or beleive me.
As to your study... you want me to read that whole thing?
Try reading i12-i16, four pages, and see how you go on the EROEI thread. You might actually find it interesting if you actually *are* interested in nuclear technology. I personally find it fascinating.
Given that the study was published in Holland and you keep referencing US legislation... I'm not seeing the connection.
No need to make one. The study examines the energetic inputs and output and uncovers the diminishing energetic return of the nuclear industry. The P-A legislation enables the industry to exist as the government assumes the liability for accidents under the bill.
Paraphrase: The evidence from peer reviewed studies is that the Nuclear industry energetic contributions is greatly diminished by the energetic inputs it requires as it becomes less viable day by day due to increasing energetic inputs.
You've mentioned a few things there so I'm going to break down your arguments into threads based on the points that you are making because a linear thread will be too confusing. What I invite you to do is make or defend your point in the thread with actual fact. I'll introduce the fact I've collected. If you are able to defend that point with fact or references I'll argue them on that basis.
If you are unable to counter my rebuttals with suitable fact then I will consider that you concede the point because you are unable to support or defend you point with fact. If you introduce additional arguments, they will be seperated and answered in kind however I challenge you to think if you can find the proof to support your point before you post it.
I am not going to attempt to counter any of your points about nuclear power in this thread. That way we short circuit the polarization present in this debate and that gives us both the opportunity to evaluate the points raised based on their merit.
As to your study... you want me to read that whole thing? Shall I list 50 peer review studies and demand you read them?
I want you to support your argument with fact. If you have 50 peer reveiwed studies that support your point then send them if you have read them and it supports what you are saying.
You can either make a quotation from the study and paraphrase the argument or I'm not going to go reading through in detail anything you post.
That's exactly what I did.
Its not time effective. I get dozens of these things EVERY DAY. I can't read them all and I think it is incumbent on you to make a point that does not require I read that unless there is actually something in there that I need.
You're entitled to your own opinions, however you're not entitled to your own facts.
I support my opinions with the facts from which they were derived. If you cannot do the same then it is just your opinion and not based in any fact and you should not try to imply otherwise. If you are unwilling to evaluate your opinion in face of the facts then that's evidence of social proof, not proof of your argument. If you get DOZENS of them and you've read them, they support your case and, they are based in either science, law or evidence that is credible, then make your point.
Otherwise if you have nothing to support your argument then you should not claim that you can when you don't. If you are honest and concede the point you can uncover your assumptions, like I did.
You did not acknowledge the peer reviewed study I sent you. Understanding the EROEI on nuclear power is key to understanding it's viability.
We just got done with this and you agreed... safe nuclear power is reasonable. That is my position.
And mine is that the current iteration of the nuclear industry is unsafe. If it was safe then we would not need the Price-Anderson act.
There is no pro nuclear at any cost camp. Where as there is an anti nuclear at any cost camp.
Oh I assure you there is a 'pro nuclear at any cost camp', they are focused on profiting as much as they can from the existing infrastructure and consequences be damned. That is why you have the 'anti nuclear at any cost camp', and they have good reason to be afraid - even if people don't understand why.
The pnaacc don't actually give a shit about nuclear power or the infrastructure to do it safely, they want money, now. Then you have the tools of the pnaacc, the fanbois who's dogmatic scepticism and moral superiority require no fact to support their argument and accept no facts that disprove it.
I have never met a fanboi yet who has presented facts to back up their argument, only ad hom attacks and weird mental gymnastics. They're very hard to take seriously so I guess the pro-anti sides balance out.
As to price anderson, I have no problem with it. That's not the issue.
Well you said: the biggest issue is the cost structure due to out of date fear based regulations actually makes nuclear power less safe because it becomes impractical to replace old systems with new ones or to even examine what is going on for fear that political elements will exploit that to shut the system down.
That's a pretty specific thing to say, so specifically which regulations are you referring to?
basically impossible to store the spent fuel anywhere because of the anti nuclear lobby, etc.
That is a common myth however there are specific legal constructs that prevent rate payers and local councils from interfering with the location or installation of nuclear facilities. Would you like references to the legislation?
As to wind being better than nuclear... You can't possibly believe that...We have dead wind farms all over California going back to the 1970s.
The difference between a dead wind farm and a dead nuclear power station is you need a lot of electricity to run a decommissioned NPP while the spent fuel cools over decades. A dead wind installation just sits there and eventually falls apart, if you do that with a NPP then you have released a lot of radionuclides into the environment. I foresee a day where decommissioned plants are run on wind energy while they cool over decades.
They tend to die when the subsidies run out.
And what do you think will happen to the nuclear industry when it's subsidies run out? If it was commercially viable it would not need support either.
If your wind stations with their stop and go power can compete with nuclear reactors then you won't need a political lobby or massive subsidies to do it. You can just get investors from the private sector to build it and win in the market place. If wind were ACTUALLY cheaper wouldn't they be doing that? It isn't cheaper. Everyone with a clue knows that. You know it too. Why tell a fib to me? I'm obviously too well informed for that to be interpreted as anything but a fib.
If you are referring to baseload power that is a grid function as opposed to a function of any particular generating source, like Nuclear or coal, however EROEI.
Wind is actually quite an elegant and scalable technology and I don't understand why it receives as much criticism as it does. There are infrasound issues so I don't think it is appropriate to place them near people. I re
If you were flying with Superman wouldn't the super take off break your bones as he achieves flying speed? I don't imagine many spines being able to deal with the take off force.
My company distributed Fitbits to every employee. Was kind of worthless for me as my two main forms of exercise are cycling and weight lifting- neither were really tracked by the fitbit. I lost it after a few weeks. Fortunately, there was no actual monitoring of our use.
Try wearing a fitbit when you are doing jui-jitsu, it's ridiculous. With three hours of fighting a night *5-6 days a week, fitness isn't the issue, avoiding injury is though.
Funny how Corporations have managed to do away with pensions, reduces pay amount, rarely pays for vacation days, sure as fuck doesn't want to pay for pregnancy leaves, and been raping it's employees to line it's shareholders & CEO's pockets and people just accept it. Now they want to keep track of your health, so they can pay less healthcare cost...
...while pumping your brain full of advertizing to eat more junk food, more fizzy sugar drinks and buy a new fucking car to sit in traffic and listen to more advertising to eat more junk food, more fizzy sugar drinks and buy a new fucking car. every minute every hour buybuybuybuybuy
I think I might become a shrink because it sure as shit looks like we are going to need A lot of them!!!
I do exercise, a lot. I fitbit wants to *help* my employer monitor my fitness, then my employer can pay my gym fees and give me time off *every_fucking_day* to work out.
There's no significant faction that is arguing against all flaws in nuclear power. You're trying to create a balance where it doesn't exist which would justify the behavior of the anti nuclear lobby.
Ahh, so pro nuclear. Well the anti-nuclear lobby does have justifiable fears, which the pro-nuke lobby don't believe exist.
There is no balance and no justification.
A centre position to either side of the argument appears opposite to their position as a matter of perspective. So you will call me anti-
Of course you'll find SOMEONE taking that position but no significant faction.
Indeed.
As to the problems with nuclear power... so far as I've seen, the biggest issue is the cost structure due to out of date fear based regulations
So are you arguing to abolish the Price-Anderson act?
actually makes nuclear power less safe because it becomes impractical to replace old systems with new ones or to even examine what is going on for fear that political elements will exploit that to shut the system down.
I think you'll find that it is too expensive to replace Nuclear plants and Wall st prefers wind because it is a more reliable return on investment. Peer reviewed studies show there is a diminishing Energetic Return on Energetic Investment in the Nuclear fuel cycle which is a limitation based on several design aspects. Below 200grams Uranium per ton of rock Nuclear power is no longer viable because of the amount of energy you need to produce the fuel.
Oh... and the the issue with warehousing nuclear waste which isn't a big deal unless the radicals make it a big deal.
That view is only sustainable if you are unaware of the effect of radionuclides on the human genome or how they propagate through the food chain via bio-accumulation. It is also a key issue for any expansion of the nuclear industry so I would actually argue that it is a core issue to both sides of the debate.
Indeed that it is what I am referring to, and also that coal plants have killed more people through their pollution than nuclear plants have, by orders of magnitude.
Yes, the coal industry is all of that.
Yet everyone loses their minds at the thought of using nuclear power while the coal rolls.
The consequences of using Nuclear Power are deferred to the future. The common myth is that the are no consequences from using Nuclear Power however you only have to look at the radiological effects on humans to realize those consequences are much more subtle and complex to understand whilst taking much longer to manifest as the radionuclide load in the environment increases the likely hood of transgenic disease in human beings.
I don't think either side of this debate truly grasps that and thus the discussion becomes emotive and reliant on belief systems as opposed to fact.
... the foaming at the mouth abolitionists are the only ones that are being unreasonable. There isn't a contrary faction saying "lets have unsafe nuclear power".
True that, but the existing faction arguing for N.P does that because they resist *any* criticism of the industry's flaws. Whilst the faction against wants to shut it down and but doesn't recognize that that approach leaves us with an industry that has no capacity to sort out it's mess.
If you rationalize it and take an 'issues' based approach then acknowledging the flaws of the industry is the first step to fixing it. You start to recognize that what both parties want is the same thing but for different reasons.
Whichever side you are on, there are deep structural issues with the Nuclear Industry and everyday we allow those problems to continue is another day the radionuclide load in the environment increases the exposure of the human genome to the likely hood of transgenic disease. We can probably fix the problems but we have to start acknowledging them and do it before our society loses the capacity and expertise to do so.
There is nothing pro or anti in those observations.
Slashdot Mirror
As if millions of marketing drones cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
I'd suggest the geology of the Rocky Mountains is closer to what is required, however I'm sure that there are other granite mountains that are suitable in the US in line with DOE's original 'defense in depth' parameters and what we have learned in the meantime about how granite captures radioisotopes and filters it from the water table.
As I said Yucca mountain is pumice, that's why it is inappropriate *geology* and hydrology.
I already did that, IFR.
Well I'm yet to see you even demonstrate a knowledge of the issues, like the water table of Yucca let alone the capacity to tackle more complex issues regarding reactor and infrastructure design that lead to solutions.
So, instead of considering the facts presented in a balanced way you've become emotional once confronted with whats required to *actually* gain an understanding. You don't have fact to support your argument and I have produced information to support mine, for you, about the issues.
It's ok, I know it is difficult and confronting to take it in but if you want to maintain an opinion that doesn't stand up to examination then that reveals that your opinion is based on social proof, not actual proof. I won't take your insults personally.
Not conceding the point just reveals that you probably haven't reach the mental maturity required to have this debate, let alone contribute to it so it is unlikely that your opinion will evolve much further until you do - I've seen it before.
Now that I have proven your beliefs to be false, perhaps it would be wise to keep your opinions to yourself until you have had time to evaluate the information presented lest people think that you are a nuclear fanboi.
I'll accept that *you're done*, you cannot defend your argument and that you aren't honest enough to concede the point.
Ok, I'll just accept that you have conceded these point as you have no other information to counter the facts placed before you, that Yucca mountain is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste.
As I said, if you are pro-nuclear I will appear anti-nuclear. You have said little to indicate you even understand my position, let alone be in a position to judge me. I've ever been saying is that we really need to have a complete and pragmatic end to end look at the way the Nuclear Industry operates. It deserves our skepticism because we can't afford to be reckless with these systems as they age anymore, and why do it when America is luckier than most countries when it comes to wind, solar and geo-thermal power which doesn't have the baggage of nuclear, oil or coal? Serious investments into these have been taken up by nuclear oil, and coal so where is the return for the everyday person? Failing Nuclear power plants and expensive fuel. Money for the big end of town from the taxpayers pocket.
Where is the anti in that? Anyone who can read and add numbers can get the information by just reading the appropriate acts of law.
Well that's what you say and I haven't seen much evidence supporting the other things you say. I've supplied the information with sincerity and you have said yourself it is too much for you. Well welcome to the complexity that is the Nuclear Industry. Stop whining to me that it is too hard to read the facts presented and then try to claim that I am deceiving you.
Nothing in
I call that Responsible Nuclear Advocacy, since at least 2006 - you just get hounded by both sides, the debate has become so polarised people have forgotten how to carry on a meaningful discussion any more
is a lie. If you can't carry out a meaningful discussion based in fact, that's your problem and not mine.
Maybe so. Wall Street doesn't like nuclear because its a risky investment, investors don't like that sort of risk, solar and wind are way ahead simply because the return on investment is much better than nuclear, i.e. Solar and wind satisfies the criteria that makes an investment "economically viable" nuclear power does not without substantial regulatory support.
It's obviously a medium-term solution that will fit into a broader energy plan for the US and other developed countries well into the future. I expect to see nuclear providing a boost to our base load power 10-20 years from now, dwindling off as reactors are taken off-line.
The choice now is whether any of the lessons from the past 50 years have been learned.
America has Terrawatts of wind energy. I'm sure if the U.S can put a man on the moon then she can make a few wind turbines work.
It is the current issue because it's the 1960s plant designs that are reaching the end of their service life now. Yankee Rowe, a controlled shutdown of a functioning reactor, cost half a billion dollars to clean-up and it was only 137 Megawatts, less than a quarter of the size of TMI-2 for example. You have to wait to allow the *really* radioactive elements to decay. This is because new and highly radioactive elements are created in the reactor core. It's still not something that has been addressed in an industrially proficient way yet that makes the sites safe or 'greenfeild'. Considering the 104 reactor sites around America are multi-core the United States will be looking at a conservative estimate of a quarter of a *Trillion* dollars, at todays prices, on reactor decommissioning alone.
And as I mentioned SNUPPS is the basis for the design of the AP1000 reactor which is the only legally approved reactor design available for the U.S. And it has all of the same energetic input and problems mentioned in the study.
No, it is a function of it being an enormous mound of concrete containing radioactive isotopes. Decommissioning and demolishing a reactor takes about about the same amout of energy the reactor generated for a third of its service life. Check the study around i14-i16.
I posit that if we *have* to have nuclear power then the plants should be designed to much high standards with lifespans that are more in line with the geological time-frames of the elements they are tasked to contain. I am yet to see that happen, nor have I seen a reactor design that meets those criteria. Current reactor design is not good enough, they MUST be designed to overcome what we have learned about them in the first fifty years of operation, franky the current generation of nuclear power plants proposed do not even meet the minimum requirements, wrt decommissioning, so how is it possible to support commissioning new reactors if they are just as bad (indeed worse wrt containment - but you're not ready for that conversation) than the very 1960's design of currently commissioned reactors.
You brought up a lot of things so it was necessary. I answered this point here.
Proposed Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are designed with exactly the reduced containment that Chernobyl was built with. Proposed new generation 'once-through' reactor series like the AP-1000 are designed with significantly reduced containment. They have been designed this way to reduce the expense of building them, as the sheer volume of concrete required to build a reactor containment is one of the highest input costs as well as the third greatest contributor of greenhouse gasses.
There are a number of functional issues with pebble beds, like the mechanism jammin, which is what happened to the German PBMR. Also getting hundreds of thousands of the fuel balls uniform and of course the issues at the end of their service life with air leaking into the reactor and causing graphite fires.
I compare proposed PBMR designs with RBMK at Chernobyl. You know, graphite covered fuel kernels, helium gas cooled, no containment building required, produce deadlier waste and have deadlier failure modes.
IFR is a much better concept than PBMR, pity W. ordered it's demolition. Fantastic concept and actually worked. I was a big fan of the Integral Fast Reactor, and in a way I still am. But the reality is 3rd and 4th generation reactors are a pipe dream because our material science is not advanced enough yet to produce a reactor design that will overcome neutron bombardment. If you are going to build reactors then do it properly and build a Terra-watt scale nuclear reactor facility with an attached waste facility in the belly of a massive granite mountain that chomps up all your remaining plutonium or end all commercial nuclear activity altogether.
Most of the 100 odd reactors in the U.S are approaching old-age and have to be de-commissioned so it's a future, rather than obsolete, issue. If you want to build a modern Nuclear Industry it starts with the geology of the spent fuel containment facility. If you do it in granite then you could power the US for at least 5000 years. A properly functioning Nuclear Industry is important and the one we've got is a total mess heading for either complete failure or disaster.
This had no reason to be in a separate post. My other post to you addressed this issue. You're talking about old reactor designs.
An example of what I'd suggest for nuclear power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You keep assuming I want to build 3 mile island.
The only reactors *legally* approved for construction is the AP1000 with all of the issues in the study. TWR is an interesting concept, however it doesn't exist, compared to IFR which *did* exist, functioned as planned, did what it was supposed to do yet was still funded for *demolition* by W.Bush.
Your position is out of date. Obsolete.
Your position is SyFy. Have you investigated the difference between a breeder and a burner reactor? Your argument is for breeder reactor with the same decommssiioning issues as current generation reactors, that doesn't exist and has no legal approval to operate? I think you'll find IFR is a vastly superior reactor design, that actually works and has all the features, and more(like built in medical isotope extraction) than TWR. Far from obsolete, my position is plausible.
A bill of law is invoked and functioning as law when it is passed into law. Ergo: It is invoked and I see nothing to support your point here.
We have many designs that can operate on spent fuel much less requiring highly refined uranium.
Again you're assuming 1960s designs. Its not valid.
Incorrect. SNUPPS is the basis for the design of the AP1000 reactor which is the only legally approved reactor design available for the U.S. and it has all of the same energetic input and problems mentioned in the study.
And irrelevant, even with the above it's the energetic input from mining, enrichment and decommisioning that make Nuclear power not viable.
If you can't point to any legally approved reactor design then you have nothing to support your argument here.
You are mis-quoting me. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is "inappropriate to contain nuclear waste". So the most appropriate way to move the Nuclear Industry forward is to develop a geologically stable containment facility (I am reluctant to call plutonium 'waste') inside a mountain. That could also, potentially, house a reactor facility, and an infrastructure plan to move that 70,000 tons of plutonium to that facility would begin to look like sound nuclear policy.
As for safe, well its seismic stability is a good measure of that and I doubt the NYT is qualified to make that assessment.
First of all lets clear up the time frame here, plutonium is radioactive for 25000 years before it decays into it's daughter product, which will then be radioactive for ??000 years and iterate 20 odd times. That's why I refer to it as 'geological time frames.
Yucca mountain is not a appropriate because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.
Studies of the Yucca mountain hydrology revealed that the passage cl-36 from atmospheric nuclear testing took less that 50 years in ground water through Yucca mountain so the reality of Yucca is it is inappropriate to contain *any* kind of radioactive products. Yucca is pumice and volcanic ash, you *need* granite if you want a serious facility. Even the Swedish test facility is better designed than Yucca and the design of the actual facility shows the U.S how it *should* be done.
Go look up the wiki on the act if you are not convinced and you'll see that Yucca was *put* in Nevada because their represenatives did not attend.
Act
The way government deals with the risk and liability of the Nuclear Industry is via the Price-Anderson act. It underwrites the Nuclear industry with $600 Billion of Taxpayer money and closer to a trillion if you factor the huge amount of land you are going to lose in the event of an actual accident.
Actuaries and Risk Assessors are professionals in the insurance industry and their assessment of the Nuclear Industry is that they won't insure it without the Price-Anderson Act. They're impartial to the way evidence is presented, just making an assessment of the risk based on the facts available. They're not 'against' Nuclear power, they're just paid to asses the risks, professionally.
Take away the Price-Anderson act and the Nuclear Industry ceases to exist because it can no longer be insured. This is a true measure of it's financial viabiliy.
Paraphrase: The P-A act remains a legal construct that is in place to support the existence of the nuclear industry. Consequently investors are only interested in investing in Nuclear power because the government guarantees the returns, not because the nuclear industry is capable of delivering them.
Hate to burst your bubble however the 2005 energy act prevents environmental groups from doing that. You can check the legislation yourself. Sec. 600 onward.
What it is spent on is laid out in the sections I refer you to.
We knew less in the old days, we avoid killing people to build something nowadays. That seems pretty reasonable to me.
It's a nuclear power plant, not a car park, you expect the process to be complex and the bill has specific clauses to deal with that too.
Paraphrase: Many of the complaints you've raised about regulation don't apply to the Nuclear industry because the law exempts them.
That's exactly what I did. I said Peer reviewed studies show there is a diminishing Energetic Return on Energetic Investment in the Nuclear fuel cycle which is a limitation based on several design aspects. Below 200grams Uranium per ton of rock Nuclear power is no longer viable because of the amount of energy you need to produce the fuel.
Support for my statement. You can read for yourself or beleive me.
Try reading i12-i16, four pages, and see how you go on the EROEI thread. You might actually find it interesting if you actually *are* interested in nuclear technology. I personally find it fascinating.
No need to make one. The study examines the energetic inputs and output and uncovers the diminishing energetic return of the nuclear industry. The P-A legislation enables the industry to exist as the government assumes the liability for accidents under the bill.
Paraphrase: The evidence from peer reviewed studies is that the Nuclear industry energetic contributions is greatly diminished by the energetic inputs it requires as it becomes less viable day by day due to increasing energetic inputs.
You've mentioned a few things there so I'm going to break down your arguments into threads based on the points that you are making because a linear thread will be too confusing. What I invite you to do is make or defend your point in the thread with actual fact. I'll introduce the fact I've collected. If you are able to defend that point with fact or references I'll argue them on that basis.
If you are unable to counter my rebuttals with suitable fact then I will consider that you concede the point because you are unable to support or defend you point with fact. If you introduce additional arguments, they will be seperated and answered in kind however I challenge you to think if you can find the proof to support your point before you post it.
I am not going to attempt to counter any of your points about nuclear power in this thread. That way we short circuit the polarization present in this debate and that gives us both the opportunity to evaluate the points raised based on their merit.
I want you to support your argument with fact. If you have 50 peer reveiwed studies that support your point then send them if you have read them and it supports what you are saying.
That's exactly what I did.
You're entitled to your own opinions, however you're not entitled to your own facts.
I support my opinions with the facts from which they were derived. If you cannot do the same then it is just your opinion and not based in any fact and you should not try to imply otherwise. If you are unwilling to evaluate your opinion in face of the facts then that's evidence of social proof, not proof of your argument. If you get DOZENS of them and you've read them, they support your case and, they are based in either science, law or evidence that is credible, then make your point.
Otherwise if you have nothing to support your argument then you should not claim that you can when you don't. If you are honest and concede the point you can uncover your assumptions, like I did.
And mine is that the current iteration of the nuclear industry is unsafe. If it was safe then we would not need the Price-Anderson act.
Oh I assure you there is a 'pro nuclear at any cost camp', they are focused on profiting as much as they can from the existing infrastructure and consequences be damned. That is why you have the 'anti nuclear at any cost camp', and they have good reason to be afraid - even if people don't understand why.
The pnaacc don't actually give a shit about nuclear power or the infrastructure to do it safely, they want money, now. Then you have the tools of the pnaacc, the fanbois who's dogmatic scepticism and moral superiority require no fact to support their argument and accept no facts that disprove it.
I have never met a fanboi yet who has presented facts to back up their argument, only ad hom attacks and weird mental gymnastics. They're very hard to take seriously so I guess the pro-anti sides balance out.
Well you said: the biggest issue is the cost structure due to out of date fear based regulations actually makes nuclear power less safe because it becomes impractical to replace old systems with new ones or to even examine what is going on for fear that political elements will exploit that to shut the system down.
That's a pretty specific thing to say, so specifically which regulations are you referring to?
That is a common myth however there are specific legal constructs that prevent rate payers and local councils from interfering with the location or installation of nuclear facilities. Would you like references to the legislation?
The difference between a dead wind farm and a dead nuclear power station is you need a lot of electricity to run a decommissioned NPP while the spent fuel cools over decades. A dead wind installation just sits there and eventually falls apart, if you do that with a NPP then you have released a lot of radionuclides into the environment. I foresee a day where decommissioned plants are run on wind energy while they cool over decades.
And what do you think will happen to the nuclear industry when it's subsidies run out? If it was commercially viable it would not need support either.
If you are referring to baseload power that is a grid function as opposed to a function of any particular generating source, like Nuclear or coal, however EROEI. Wind is actually quite an elegant and scalable technology and I don't understand why it receives as much criticism as it does. There are infrasound issues so I don't think it is appropriate to place them near people. I re
If you were flying with Superman wouldn't the super take off break your bones as he achieves flying speed? I don't imagine many spines being able to deal with the take off force.
That's what you get for acting responsibly
BITCH, YOU, away from her, get
With all the downsides maybe it's dumb to have a smart phone. I know that people would be missing out on all those important facebook posts though.
My company distributed Fitbits to every employee. Was kind of worthless for me as my two main forms of exercise are cycling and weight lifting- neither were really tracked by the fitbit. I lost it after a few weeks. Fortunately, there was no actual monitoring of our use.
Try wearing a fitbit when you are doing jui-jitsu, it's ridiculous. With three hours of fighting a night *5-6 days a week, fitness isn't the issue, avoiding injury is though.
I probably not fitbit's core market
Funny how Corporations have managed to do away with pensions, reduces pay amount, rarely pays for vacation days, sure as fuck doesn't want to pay for pregnancy leaves, and been raping it's employees to line it's shareholders & CEO's pockets and people just accept it. Now they want to keep track of your health, so they can pay less healthcare cost...
...while pumping your brain full of advertizing to eat more junk food, more fizzy sugar drinks and buy a new fucking car to sit in traffic and listen to more advertising to eat more junk food, more fizzy sugar drinks and buy a new fucking car. every minute every hour buybuybuybuybuy
I think I might become a shrink because it sure as shit looks like we are going to need A lot of them!!!
I do exercise, a lot. I fitbit wants to *help* my employer monitor my fitness, then my employer can pay my gym fees and give me time off *every_fucking_day* to work out.
There's no significant faction that is arguing against all flaws in nuclear power. You're trying to create a balance where it doesn't exist which would justify the behavior of the anti nuclear lobby.
Ahh, so pro nuclear. Well the anti-nuclear lobby does have justifiable fears, which the pro-nuke lobby don't believe exist.
There is no balance and no justification.
A centre position to either side of the argument appears opposite to their position as a matter of perspective. So you will call me anti-
Of course you'll find SOMEONE taking that position but no significant faction.
Indeed.
As to the problems with nuclear power... so far as I've seen, the biggest issue is the cost structure due to out of date fear based regulations
So are you arguing to abolish the Price-Anderson act?
actually makes nuclear power less safe because it becomes impractical to replace old systems with new ones or to even examine what is going on for fear that political elements will exploit that to shut the system down.
I think you'll find that it is too expensive to replace Nuclear plants and Wall st prefers wind because it is a more reliable return on investment. Peer reviewed studies show there is a diminishing Energetic Return on Energetic Investment in the Nuclear fuel cycle which is a limitation based on several design aspects. Below 200grams Uranium per ton of rock Nuclear power is no longer viable because of the amount of energy you need to produce the fuel.
Oh... and the the issue with warehousing nuclear waste which isn't a big deal unless the radicals make it a big deal.
That view is only sustainable if you are unaware of the effect of radionuclides on the human genome or how they propagate through the food chain via bio-accumulation. It is also a key issue for any expansion of the nuclear industry so I would actually argue that it is a core issue to both sides of the debate.
Indeed that it is what I am referring to, and also that coal plants have killed more people through their pollution than nuclear plants have, by orders of magnitude.
Yes, the coal industry is all of that.
Yet everyone loses their minds at the thought of using nuclear power while the coal rolls.
The consequences of using Nuclear Power are deferred to the future. The common myth is that the are no consequences from using Nuclear Power however you only have to look at the radiological effects on humans to realize those consequences are much more subtle and complex to understand whilst taking much longer to manifest as the radionuclide load in the environment increases the likely hood of transgenic disease in human beings.
I don't think either side of this debate truly grasps that and thus the discussion becomes emotive and reliant on belief systems as opposed to fact.
... the foaming at the mouth abolitionists are the only ones that are being unreasonable. There isn't a contrary faction saying "lets have unsafe nuclear power".
True that, but the existing faction arguing for N.P does that because they resist *any* criticism of the industry's flaws. Whilst the faction against wants to shut it down and but doesn't recognize that that approach leaves us with an industry that has no capacity to sort out it's mess.
If you rationalize it and take an 'issues' based approach then acknowledging the flaws of the industry is the first step to fixing it. You start to recognize that what both parties want is the same thing but for different reasons.
Whichever side you are on, there are deep structural issues with the Nuclear Industry and everyday we allow those problems to continue is another day the radionuclide load in the environment increases the exposure of the human genome to the likely hood of transgenic disease. We can probably fix the problems but we have to start acknowledging them and do it before our society loses the capacity and expertise to do so.
There is nothing pro or anti in those observations.