7 ms·

Such charts exist - they're the "costs per unit" charts; perhaps broken down into (say) capital upfront plant costs, ongoing running costs per unit generated, a

Such charts exist - they're the "costs per unit" charts; perhaps broken down into (say) capital upfront plant costs, ongoing running costs per unit generated, and decommissioning costs. It's the decommissioning costs for both nuclear and fossil fuel plants that are most often missing or overlooked.

Kon5ole 5d ago
True enough but there's an order of magnitude difference in those costs. For nuclear the costs extend beyond out ability to predict the future, and they simply can't be ignored whatever they amount to. A fossil plant can simply be abandoned, and the damage will be minimal compared to abandoning a nuclear plant. Without this information the chart is repeatedly used as an argument that nuclear power is safe, which is of course the direct opposite of the truth. It is the option that requires the most money and effort to keep safe and nothing is even a close second.
- leonidasrup 4d ago
  Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. Such cleaning at end of life has to be done also for many kinds of chemical plants, chemical storage tanks, otherwise you get a catastrophe like in Bhopal, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster If you are looking for long term storage of spend nuclear fuel, it's mostly a political issue, not technical issue. In U.S. there is WIPP, in New Mexico, a deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. But this is only licensed to store military nuclear waste, not civilian nuclear waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant Finland is building Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... There is also hazardeus chemical waste which is stored in underground. The Herfa-Neurode underground landfill ( UTD Herfa-Neurode ) is the world's largest underground landfill for hazardous waste, includes 690,000 tons of waste containing dioxins and furans , 220,000 tons of waste containing mercury , 127,000 tons of waste containing cyanide , and 83,000 tons of toxic waste containing arsenic. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode
  - Kon5ole 4d ago
    >Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. The site itself sure, but the "removal" just moves the remaining cost somewhere else, it doesn't /re/move it. The remaining costs for "decommissioned" power plants usually end up with the military. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US for example. The problem with the idea of a multi-century stable solution is that we make mistakes. The WIPP facility in the US had a similar cousin in Germany, the Asse II mine. Also planned to be permanent storage until they had to empty it because water found a way in. Several new billions of euros will now be drawn from taxpayers to pay for "decommissioned" plants. It can be argued that so far, there has been no fully decommissioned, as in "stopped costing any money" nuclear plants, anywhere. Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs. Thank god, because that's what we should do of course!
    - leonidasrup 4d ago
      Civil nuclear power plants accumulate funds for decommissioning and disposal of nuclear waste. It's part of the electricity costs. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US are military/research facilities. "Asse II: A lesson that is making modern deep repositories safer" https://www.nagra.ch/en/news/asse-eine-lektion-die-moderne-tiefenlager-sicherer-macht https://www.nagra.ch/en/news/asse-eine-lektion-die-moderne-t... There were reports in 2008 about brine contaminated with radioactive caesium-137, plutonium and strontium. I would be interested about the amounts of these isotopes in the brine, as we can detect extremely small quantities of radioactive isotopes. For example for caesium-137 we can measure amounts as low as 5 Bq/kg, the decay of 5 atoms of caesium-137 per second in 1 kg of sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594677/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594677/ An adult person usually has activity of 3,000–6,000 becquerels (Bq) of potassium-40. 3,000–6,000 potassium-40 atoms decay and emit a beta particle in adult person every second. https://stuk.fi/en/radioactivity-in-human-body https://stuk.fi/en/radioactivity-in-human-body
      - Kon5ole 4d ago
        We have developed cheap glass that can be mass produced and sucks electricity from sunshine, can be placed on already occupied surfaces to produce 100x more electricity than we are currently consuming. It requires basically no maintenance or operating costs for decades and is xheap enough for an average home-owner to meet at least half of their electricity needs. We have also discovered cheap containers that can be built using the fourth most common element in the earths crust to store that electricity for when it's needed. All of this can be built cheaply, massively, quickly, and be deployed anywhere with no conceivable risks of either massive disasters or proliferation of destructive weapons. The end result is electricity creation distributed everywhere, so cheap that it's realistic to have small communities provide all the electricity they need. Resilient to failure, sabotage or natural disasters. Why argue for massive amounts of money, manpower and time being spent to create central power plants that take a decade to build, end up controlled by a few masters who can milk the customers at will forever, when we can have so much better?

Kon5ole 5d ago

True enough but there's an order of magnitude difference in those costs. For nuclear the costs extend beyond out ability to predict the future, and they simply can't be ignored whatever they amount to. A fossil plant can simply be abandoned, and the damage will be minimal compared to abandoning a nuclear plant. Without this information the chart is repeatedly used as an argument that nuclear power is safe, which is of course the direct opposite of the truth. It is the option that requires the most money and effort to keep safe and nothing is even a close second.

leonidasrup 4d ago
Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. Such cleaning at end of life has to be done also for many kinds of chemical plants, chemical storage tanks, otherwise you get a catastrophe like in Bhopal, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster If you are looking for long term storage of spend nuclear fuel, it's mostly a political issue, not technical issue. In U.S. there is WIPP, in New Mexico, a deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. But this is only licensed to store military nuclear waste, not civilian nuclear waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant Finland is building Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... There is also hazardeus chemical waste which is stored in underground. The Herfa-Neurode underground landfill ( UTD Herfa-Neurode ) is the world's largest underground landfill for hazardous waste, includes 690,000 tons of waste containing dioxins and furans , 220,000 tons of waste containing mercury , 127,000 tons of waste containing cyanide , and 83,000 tons of toxic waste containing arsenic. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode
- Kon5ole 4d ago
  >Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. The site itself sure, but the "removal" just moves the remaining cost somewhere else, it doesn't /re/move it. The remaining costs for "decommissioned" power plants usually end up with the military. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US for example. The problem with the idea of a multi-century stable solution is that we make mistakes. The WIPP facility in the US had a similar cousin in Germany, the Asse II mine. Also planned to be permanent storage until they had to empty it because water found a way in. Several new billions of euros will now be drawn from taxpayers to pay for "decommissioned" plants. It can be argued that so far, there has been no fully decommissioned, as in "stopped costing any money" nuclear plants, anywhere. Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs. Thank god, because that's what we should do of course!
  - leonidasrup 4d ago
    Civil nuclear power plants accumulate funds for decommissioning and disposal of nuclear waste. It's part of the electricity costs. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US are military/research facilities. "Asse II: A lesson that is making modern deep repositories safer" https://www.nagra.ch/en/news/asse-eine-lektion-die-moderne-tiefenlager-sicherer-macht https://www.nagra.ch/en/news/asse-eine-lektion-die-moderne-t... There were reports in 2008 about brine contaminated with radioactive caesium-137, plutonium and strontium. I would be interested about the amounts of these isotopes in the brine, as we can detect extremely small quantities of radioactive isotopes. For example for caesium-137 we can measure amounts as low as 5 Bq/kg, the decay of 5 atoms of caesium-137 per second in 1 kg of sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594677/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594677/ An adult person usually has activity of 3,000–6,000 becquerels (Bq) of potassium-40. 3,000–6,000 potassium-40 atoms decay and emit a beta particle in adult person every second. https://stuk.fi/en/radioactivity-in-human-body https://stuk.fi/en/radioactivity-in-human-body
    - Kon5ole 4d ago
      We have developed cheap glass that can be mass produced and sucks electricity from sunshine, can be placed on already occupied surfaces to produce 100x more electricity than we are currently consuming. It requires basically no maintenance or operating costs for decades and is xheap enough for an average home-owner to meet at least half of their electricity needs. We have also discovered cheap containers that can be built using the fourth most common element in the earths crust to store that electricity for when it's needed. All of this can be built cheaply, massively, quickly, and be deployed anywhere with no conceivable risks of either massive disasters or proliferation of destructive weapons. The end result is electricity creation distributed everywhere, so cheap that it's realistic to have small communities provide all the electricity they need. Resilient to failure, sabotage or natural disasters. Why argue for massive amounts of money, manpower and time being spent to create central power plants that take a decade to build, end up controlled by a few masters who can milk the customers at will forever, when we can have so much better?