6 ms·

You are aware of the current U.S. President and the current EPA Administrator, right?

by tossandturn 9y ago

davrosthedalek 9y ago
Not so sure about that. Might risk these billions of coal jobs he created...
- PaulHoule 9y ago
  Also those two do not believe in global warming. (One thing nuclear does not cause) It make take a long time for thorium reactors to come online but it is hard to believe anybody is going to fund the construction of a new large LWR anywhere outside China.
  - moonbug 9y ago
    Hinkley C
  - roceasta 9y ago
    Great that thorium is progressing. I predict the debate about global warming will disappear once we have new power sources in place. Those who denied global warming will suddenly acknowledge it; those who berated the deniers will move on to other issues.
    - warmwaffles 9y ago
      You have way too much hope for the internet to not shit post.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > (One thing nuclear does not cause) However, two problems remain: 1) where to get the raw material? African mines are not exactly known for adhering to human or environmental rights, also African mines, by nature of being in Africa, don't create American jobs. Same is valid for the other major sources of nuclear fuel, all of which aren't the USA. 2) where to dump all the nuclear waste? I mean, people have debated to put in the most long-living and nasty stuff into special reactors to get it split up to less harmful stuff, but to my knowledge this has never been realized - and NIMBYs are highly afraid of a rad-waste dump near their houses, across the world. Also, no one has shown how to build something that can last over ten thousands of years while still protecting the rad waste.
    - PaulHoule 9y ago
      The use of thorium in the MSR is perhaps 30x more fuel efficient than the current light water reactor. Large amounts of thorium have been buried in the desert by the U.S. government. Also, sufficient deposits exist in the U.S. to support centuries of use. As for nuclear waste, the real reason why the problem appears intractable is that nuclear waste is not waste. The LWR gets only 2% or so of the energy in uranium, the same fuel could be reprocessed and used in fast breeder reactors to release the other 98%. In fact, it is the presence of plutonium and other actinides in spent fuel that requires environmental isolation beyond 500 years or so. If we use those actinides as fuel, they do not need to be buried, and if we do that, the volume of waste is vastly reduced along with the half-life. The fast breeder/reprocessing route has not been commercialized as of yet for a number of reasons. Probably the most discussed is that plutonium, neptunium and other actinides useful for nuclear weaponry could be nicked from the reprocessing plant. The thorium MSR is an alternate path to a breeder, aka a "thermal breeder". In the case of the MSR, the reprocessing is done online or nearline to the reactor. It is also possible to do thermal breeding with thorium with a modified version of the light water reactor. Reprocessing that is a bitch though... The most immediate problem facing the industry is an inability to say "it is going to take X years and Y dollars to build a reactor" and then finish it somewhere near on schedule and on budget. Being over 10% would be no scandal, but it is still looking more like 10x than 10%.
      - ornel 9y ago
        Doesn't reprocessing produce a lot of high level waste as a byproduct, thereby worsening the waste problem? And I understand the Japanese had an experimental breeder reactor for a long time and never achieved actually producing any commercially viable electricity. They did get lots of plutonium, though, which may be turned into bombs any moment.
        wbl 9y ago
        Reprocessing separates rapidly decaying fission products from slowly decaying transuranics. The transuranics go back in to be burned, the fission products decay comparatively rapidly.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  “We will begin to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector, which I’m so happy about, which produces clean, renewable and emissions-free energy,” Trump said. https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/2017/Trump-Puts-Nuclear-First-on-America-s-Energy-Agend https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/2017/Trump...
  - FireBeyond 9y ago
    “We’ve already eliminated a devastating, anti-coal regulation, but that was just the beginning,” he said. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, going to have clean coal, really clean coal.” “We will produce American coal to power American industry.”
    - WillPostForFood 9y ago
      In the speech now known as the "energy dominance" speech, Trump promoted fracking, nuclear, offshore drilling, and coal (including exporting coal).
  - pizza 9y ago
    ah yes the renewable nuclear
    - WillPostForFood 9y ago
      Backstory on the debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene... Regardless, renewable is a less important concept than clean (how do you renew the sun which is a big nuclear reaction?).
      - aidenn0 9y ago
        The sun will burn out at a fixed time regardless of how much or little energy we harvest from it. Assuming energy demand growth of 5% per year, we have enough land-based actinates for less than a century of energy usage in fast breeder reactors (if you prefer 2% annual demand growth, it's enough for about 2 centuries). Seawater uranium buys you more time, depending on how you extract it, but hundreds of years and the sun burning out are two very different timelines.

You are aware of the current U.S. President and the current EPA Administrator, right?

davrosthedalek 9y ago

Not so sure about that. Might risk these billions of coal jobs he created...

PaulHoule 9y ago
Also those two do not believe in global warming. (One thing nuclear does not cause) It make take a long time for thorium reactors to come online but it is hard to believe anybody is going to fund the construction of a new large LWR anywhere outside China.
- moonbug 9y ago
  Hinkley C
- roceasta 9y ago
  Great that thorium is progressing. I predict the debate about global warming will disappear once we have new power sources in place. Those who denied global warming will suddenly acknowledge it; those who berated the deniers will move on to other issues.
  - warmwaffles 9y ago
    You have way too much hope for the internet to not shit post.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > (One thing nuclear does not cause) However, two problems remain: 1) where to get the raw material? African mines are not exactly known for adhering to human or environmental rights, also African mines, by nature of being in Africa, don't create American jobs. Same is valid for the other major sources of nuclear fuel, all of which aren't the USA. 2) where to dump all the nuclear waste? I mean, people have debated to put in the most long-living and nasty stuff into special reactors to get it split up to less harmful stuff, but to my knowledge this has never been realized - and NIMBYs are highly afraid of a rad-waste dump near their houses, across the world. Also, no one has shown how to build something that can last over ten thousands of years while still protecting the rad waste.
  - PaulHoule 9y ago
    The use of thorium in the MSR is perhaps 30x more fuel efficient than the current light water reactor. Large amounts of thorium have been buried in the desert by the U.S. government. Also, sufficient deposits exist in the U.S. to support centuries of use. As for nuclear waste, the real reason why the problem appears intractable is that nuclear waste is not waste. The LWR gets only 2% or so of the energy in uranium, the same fuel could be reprocessed and used in fast breeder reactors to release the other 98%. In fact, it is the presence of plutonium and other actinides in spent fuel that requires environmental isolation beyond 500 years or so. If we use those actinides as fuel, they do not need to be buried, and if we do that, the volume of waste is vastly reduced along with the half-life. The fast breeder/reprocessing route has not been commercialized as of yet for a number of reasons. Probably the most discussed is that plutonium, neptunium and other actinides useful for nuclear weaponry could be nicked from the reprocessing plant. The thorium MSR is an alternate path to a breeder, aka a "thermal breeder". In the case of the MSR, the reprocessing is done online or nearline to the reactor. It is also possible to do thermal breeding with thorium with a modified version of the light water reactor. Reprocessing that is a bitch though... The most immediate problem facing the industry is an inability to say "it is going to take X years and Y dollars to build a reactor" and then finish it somewhere near on schedule and on budget. Being over 10% would be no scandal, but it is still looking more like 10x than 10%.
    - ornel 9y ago
      Doesn't reprocessing produce a lot of high level waste as a byproduct, thereby worsening the waste problem? And I understand the Japanese had an experimental breeder reactor for a long time and never achieved actually producing any commercially viable electricity. They did get lots of plutonium, though, which may be turned into bombs any moment.
      - wbl 9y ago
        Reprocessing separates rapidly decaying fission products from slowly decaying transuranics. The transuranics go back in to be burned, the fission products decay comparatively rapidly.
WillPostForFood 9y ago
“We will begin to revive and expand our nuclear energy sector, which I’m so happy about, which produces clean, renewable and emissions-free energy,” Trump said. https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/2017/Trump-Puts-Nuclear-First-on-America-s-Energy-Agend https://www.nei.org/News-Media/News/News-Archives/2017/Trump...
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  “We’ve already eliminated a devastating, anti-coal regulation, but that was just the beginning,” he said. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, going to have clean coal, really clean coal.” “We will produce American coal to power American industry.”
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    In the speech now known as the "energy dominance" speech, Trump promoted fracking, nuclear, offshore drilling, and coal (including exporting coal).
- pizza 9y ago
  ah yes the renewable nuclear
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    Backstory on the debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene... Regardless, renewable is a less important concept than clean (how do you renew the sun which is a big nuclear reaction?).
    - aidenn0 9y ago
      The sun will burn out at a fixed time regardless of how much or little energy we harvest from it. Assuming energy demand growth of 5% per year, we have enough land-based actinates for less than a century of energy usage in fast breeder reactors (if you prefer 2% annual demand growth, it's enough for about 2 centuries). Seawater uranium buys you more time, depending on how you extract it, but hundreds of years and the sun burning out are two very different timelines.