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>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 t

>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 5d 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?
  - defrost 4d ago
    > Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs You say that, but someone still has to pay those costs which are rarely factored in and are significant. To the north of my state we are faced with the costs of decommissioning and removal of 35 platforms, 6076 km of pipelines and static umbilicals; 483 subsea lifts; 11 floating facilities, 120 risers and 548 wells to be plugged - in addition to kilotons of offshore steel and concrete. eg: One project is the Northern Endeavour is a 274-metre floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. The Australian Government took responsibility for the decommissioning of the Northern Endeavour after the liquidation of its owner. These are non trivial undertakings with costs running into the billions.
    - Kon5ole 4d ago
      You're absolutely correct that oil and gas extraction activities need to be properly decommissioned, and that is expensive. But that's a separate activity from shutting down electric power plants. Oil rigs will continue to operate even if all gas and oil power plants were shut down tomorrow, since only about 25% of all oil and gas is used for electricity generation.
  - leonidasrup 4d ago
    Cheap solar, yes you can now buy PV quite cheap. How much of this costs (research, developmemt, building large factories in China) was payed by German EEG money and different subsidies? Also subsidies in form of cheap Chinese coal electricity, polysilicon production is very energy intensive. Costs estimates for Energiewende are in hudreds of bilions of euros. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13705-017-0141-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13705-017-0141-0 https://www.euractiv.com/news/blackout-the-battle-to-rewire-germanys-energiewende/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/blackout-the-battle-to-rewire-... The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/3/1311/6520438 https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/3/1311/652...
    - Kon5ole 4d ago

leonidasrup 5d 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?
- defrost 4d ago
  > Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs You say that, but someone still has to pay those costs which are rarely factored in and are significant. To the north of my state we are faced with the costs of decommissioning and removal of 35 platforms, 6076 km of pipelines and static umbilicals; 483 subsea lifts; 11 floating facilities, 120 risers and 548 wells to be plugged - in addition to kilotons of offshore steel and concrete. eg: One project is the Northern Endeavour is a 274-metre floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. The Australian Government took responsibility for the decommissioning of the Northern Endeavour after the liquidation of its owner. These are non trivial undertakings with costs running into the billions.
  - Kon5ole 4d ago
    You're absolutely correct that oil and gas extraction activities need to be properly decommissioned, and that is expensive. But that's a separate activity from shutting down electric power plants. Oil rigs will continue to operate even if all gas and oil power plants were shut down tomorrow, since only about 25% of all oil and gas is used for electricity generation.
- leonidasrup 4d ago
  Cheap solar, yes you can now buy PV quite cheap. How much of this costs (research, developmemt, building large factories in China) was payed by German EEG money and different subsidies? Also subsidies in form of cheap Chinese coal electricity, polysilicon production is very energy intensive. Costs estimates for Energiewende are in hudreds of bilions of euros. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13705-017-0141-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13705-017-0141-0 https://www.euractiv.com/news/blackout-the-battle-to-rewire-germanys-energiewende/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/blackout-the-battle-to-rewire-... The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/3/1311/6520438 https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/20/3/1311/652...
  - Kon5ole 4d ago