Its not too expensive its very cheap, its the regulation around that makes it expensive which can be solved too.
No it can’t. Any given atom stops being uranium after it fissions. Some of the waste can be reprocessed because not all is fissioned, but even then there is a lot of literally untouchable waste left over — well, literally untouchable if you want to live: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
I don’t think waste is a legitimate concern of nuclear energy, as long as they are stored and protected responsively. The risk of an uncontained explosion of a reactor is a more legitimate concern. But I understand many modern designs like molten salt reactors reduce this risk to pretty much zero.
I’m only “somewhat” in agreement because humans are terrible at reading warning signs, especially from long-dead people. “Oh,” they say, “that was ages ago. It’s just a primitive superstition. Anyway, we’re special.”
How much time do you have? This article isn't just long, it has many, many interesting links.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m...
> There is a debate over what should constitute an acceptable scientific and engineering foundation for proceeding with radioactive waste disposal strategies. There are those who have argued, on the basis of complex geochemical simulation models, that relinquishing control over radioactive materials to geohydrologic processes at repository closure is an acceptable risk. They maintain that so-called "natural analogues" inhibit subterranean movement of radionuclides, making disposal of radioactive wastes in stable geologic formations unnecessary. However, existing models of these processes are empirically underdetermined: due to the subterranean nature of such processes in solid geologic formations, the accuracy of computer simulation models has not been verified by empirical observation, certainly not over periods of time equivalent to the lethal half-lives of high-level radioactive waste. On the other hand, some insist deep geologic repositories in stable geologic formations are necessary. National management plans of various countries display a variety of approaches to resolving this debate.
So, various countries display a variety of approaches to resolving this debate.
That's all we have for now.
> I don’t think waste is a legitimate concern of nuclear energy, as long as they are stored and protected responsively.
Yeah, but so far we have no way of doing that, so it's a legitimate concern. I might as well say "we can just turn off all nuclear reactors now, we just need other means oto generate the energy and do the shutdown responsibly". Leave it allll up to the reader, or in this case, future generations, why not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
https://grist.org/article/stang/
> At Hanford, a rough rule of thumb for planners is to look ahead 1,000 years. That’s like a Viking trying to conceive of an astronaut, then trying to pass a note to him.
> Experts inside and outside of DOE have pondered this communication conundrum. The agency has assembled panels of scientists, historians, artists, and others to tackle from all angles the question of how a 21st century sign should look to a 31st century person. From symbols to colors to materials to size, everything’s up for grabs — and nothing’s been decided.
We don't have solutions. Pretending we have solutions will not help us get solutions, either.
Furthermore, the price of uranium is so cheap that it's financially feasible right now. It will be over time but that should also show you just how abundant and available it is as a resource.
If we actually got politicians to sit down and go through the requirements with engineers and scientists they would realize how cheap and still safe it can be.
Well, if that "counts", then solar power will become totally free and have a net positive environmental impact, we'll just plant some nanobots that grow and repair solar panels inside a marked area, and can be scooped up should we need them elsewhere, hence "100% free once we perfected them". They'll smell like vanilla, and change color according to the moods of people using the energy.
Latter on we make nanobots and send them to the sun to hang out there for a few thousand years and grow a scaffolding from, uhh, space dust or something, and then we shoot nanobots at it that grow solar panels on it, and we have our Dyson sphere. Add some nanostuff that creates material from energy and flings that at Earth, then convert material back to energy.
This didn't even take me 5 minutes, so I really don't get what the problem is :P
It’s already cheaper to build new solar plants and wind farms than continue to run an existing coal plant (which itself is cheaper to run than nuclear).
90-95% of all new generation coming online each year are renewables in the US. Renewables cost continues to decline year over year, speeding its uptake. I cannot fathom how one would think nuclear can compete at all in such an environment.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31192
“Nearly all nuclear plants now in use began operation between 1970 and 1990. These plants would require a subsequent license renewal before 2050 to operate beyond the 60-year period covered by their original 40-year operating license and the 20-year license extension that nearly 90% of plants currently operating have either already received or have applied for. The AEO2017 Reference case projections do not envision a large amount of new nuclear capacity additions. By 2050, only four reactors currently under construction and some uprates at existing plants are projected to come online.”
Super-expensive safety regulations are often based on the linear no-threshold model of biological dose response. There is more and more data showing that this is illogical at very low doses. Changing that is highly political.
The large 3-shift security staff at nuclear power plants is based on political concerns.
The contractor and financing models in play in the US to build nukes causes lots of misalignment, and contracts end up suing each other over trivialities rather than building the plant like the Koreans do or French did (in the 1970s). That's nearly political.
Anti-nuclear intervenors watch over plant plans and try to delay at all costs. Totally political.
Again it doesent matter how much come online it matters if it replaces fossile or nuclear in any significant way, it doesent, its unreliable.
