/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.11281723]

Why don't we just use nuclear power?

[Anonymous No.11281725]

>>11281723
we got amateurs at 12 o clock, check your safety!

[Anonymous No.11281727]

[Anonymous No.11281733]

W-we do

[Anonymous No.11281737]

>>11281723
NIMBYs
Red Tape
Not wanting marginal states to have the means of producing weapons grade fissile material.
I'm a nuclearfag, but you've got to be a real asshole to not understand there are legitimate concerns and impediments.

[Anonymous No.11282005]

>>11281737
Personally I'd let them build a fat nuclear station in my back yard. Sure, I might get Fukushima'd but my situation seems less perilous than it would be if I had a coal mine or a fracking operation in my backyard. The effects on the climate of fossil fuel use would also probably come to my back yard eventually.

[Anonymous No.11282066]

I think the better question is "why don't we use it more than we already do?" Well, that's because the startup cost and time to develop a nuclear plant are far greater than that of other energy sources such as wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric, etc. So when we're looking for a fossil fuel alternative (as they are a finite source of energy so businesses don't want to invest in something that may not exist a decade down the line) businesses are more likely to invest in something that will result in quick returns as opposed to a plantation that takes like 5 years to develop and they'll only start making their money back after 8 or so. Also uneducated people who think nuclear plants=Chernobyl.

[Anonymous No.11282301]

>>11281723
It's still in use, but it's just not profitable any more and we are running out of uranium. So most plants will be shout down over the next decades. If nobody comes up with a cleaver idea to make atomic reactors much safer, much cheaper and much faster to build atomic energy is dead

[Anonymous No.11283110]

>>11282301
Why not just start using thorium? Is it really because muh nuclear weapons meme?

[Anonymous No.11283336]

>>11282066
>cost and time to develop a nuclear plant
Convince me this is a real issue.
Nuclear plants are essentially ordinary steam turbine power plants with a coal burner swapped out for a uranium core. Lots already exist so we must have the blueprints for cores already.
They're 99% steel and cement like every other building.
Extras you might want are a fence and a security guard, a computer and a technician to run it, some uranium, a spill kit and a geiger counter.
Should be able to build them at cost and rate set by drying concrete.

[Anonymous No.11283506]

Why are the nuclear threads always whining about why don't we use nuclear rather than a discussion about the current and future technology for nuclear
pic related

[Anonymous No.11283536]

>>11281723
they're expensive as fuck

[Anonymous No.11283549]

>>11281723
Because it's more ExPenSivE by an order of magnitude

[Anonymous No.11283559]

>>11281723
1. There is not that much fuel, so at best it is a stop-gap measure. For world energy we would need 12,000 1GW reactors and that would burn a lot of fuel.

2. Due to NIMBYism and red tape it is far more expensive than it needs to be.

3. With breeder reactors we could extend the time from a few decades to hundreds of years. But having 12,000 breeder reactors is basically a guarantee of WW III.

More generally the global warming crisis is a minor glitch - the major problem is that we are running out of all viable cheap energy sources. Read up on this - it is not a pretty sight - we are screwed.

See e.g. the last chapter of "energy transitions" by Vaclav Smil.

[Anonymous No.11283563]

>>11283559
More generally again, <your obvious solution> has been thought of, tried out, and found not to be viable.

Solar and Wind are intermittent and require impossible amounts of storage batteries.

[Anonymous No.11283584]

What about reactors that use thorium?

[Anonymous No.11283636]

>>11283336
>Nuclear plants are essentially ordinary steam turbine power plants with a coal burner swapped out for a uranium core.
This is incorrect the steam that comes from a coal power is a much higher temperature which allows the turbine to be much smaller and cheaper. Part of the price increase in nuclear second plant comes from the massive slower steam turbines.

[Anonymous No.11283652]

>>11281723
>why don’t we just elect Andrew Yang for President

[Anonymous No.11283657]

>>11283636
Higher temperature and pressure *

[Anonymous No.11283704]

>>11281723
We have no plan for the waste. We think we can hire a guard with a gun to sit around barrels of waste on a chain-linked parking lot for 10,000 years with no interruptions to our current society.

[Anonymous No.11283707]

Just wait for the meme battery technology so the world can be 100% solar.
The biggest memers are working night and day to bring us meme storage
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH FOREVER

[Anonymous No.11283712]

>>11281723
Why dont you just eat the fucking bugs?

[Anonymous No.11283727]

>>11283652
Because Bernie is the one

[Anonymous No.11283741]

Nuclear, Geothermal, and Hydro are the only energy sources in the world that have been able to shut off fossil fuel plants so far. The second and third require being blessed by geography and geology. Deep geothermal and tidal have a lot of environmental constraints that make them difficult material engineering problems.
Solar and wind have not been anything but peak demand sources in every country that has attempted to push it. A clean energy solution needs a variety of sources to make the energy grid both reliable and shock resistant. And the answer may not be a "one size fits all" approach.
If people want to be serious about "green energy" then all are worth pursuing and that will necessarily necessitate higher energy bills. You are not going to get a free lunch.

>>11283584
Protactinium 233 is produced in copious quantities in Thorium reactors by mass. The activity is so high that no one has yet figured out a way to actually repair a leak or malfunctioning pipe if it may (probably will) be contaminated with Pa233.

[Anonymous No.11283767]

>>11281723
but muh coal minerinos

[Anonymous No.11283775]

Nuclear power has always been the most expensive available way to produce electricity and it still is.
Its not a big conspiracy that its not used as must as autistic retards who don't pay their own bills want it to be. Nuclear as only ever been an effective solution in cases where compact power sources need to be used, everywhere else its an overpriced, overly complicated burden.
"People" who advocate for nuclear power are redddit tier numale faggot incels who should be rendered useful by harvesting their fats, skins and bone meal for industrial and agricultural use.

[Anonymous No.11283781]

Why not make retarded amounts of solar and use the extra capacity to synthetize artificial fuel. Then you have fuel for cars and night/stormy day fuel. No batteries needed.

[Anonymous No.11284321]

>>11283781
The solar panels you'd need for that would cover continents. And "synthesizing artificial fuel" is literally what a battery is.

[Anonymous No.11284424]

>>11283636
Unless the turbines are so big it takes literal years to mine enough ore to make one it shouldn't make building nuclear plants take literal years longer.
>>11283704
>waste
Convince me that's a real issue.
99% of waste is U238 which can go back in the ground we dug it out of to restore natural background radiation levels. Dumping the rest into oceans or landfill or even putting it in nuclear weapons and blasting half of Japan out of existence would be adequate to eliminate exposure to it in harmful amounts.

[Anonymous No.11284432]

>ITER completed in 50 years
>DEMO completed in 25 years after that
>PROTO 25 after that
>first commercial reactors 25 after that

none of you will live that long ahahaha

[Anonymous No.11284651]

>>11281737

>Not wanting marginal states to have the means of producing weapons grade fissile material

US-centric and illegitimate reason to prevent nations from deploying the only effective solution to the climate/energy crisis

[Anonymous No.11284713]

>>11284651
Based sand nigger

[Anonymous No.11284736]

>>11281723
We do

[Anonymous No.11284772]

>>11281723

[Anonymous No.11284810]

>>11284321
But batteries need danerous chemicals. Fuel just need barrelw to store it in

[Anonymous No.11284822]

>>11281723
because
>muh Chernobyl, Fukushima and nuclear waste
those are the only reasons why, people are anti-nuclear because for decades Oil shill industry and now wind/solar industry pay money to take down Nuclear power, even if it is the only solution until Fusion
>>>11283536
>solar price goes down because we put billion in subsidies
>also the nuclear power is fucked because high regulations in EU/US
wow, no shit solar/wind is cheaper.

[Anonymous No.11284823]

just wait until salt and breeder reactors take off, dis shit is gonna be what people from 1950 imagined 2020 to be

[Anonymous No.11285200]

>>11281723
the good nuclear power (fusion) isn't quite ready for the grid yet

[Anonymous No.11285211]

Coal power plants put far more radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere than any nuclear disaster ever has.

[Anonymous No.11285214]

>>11281737
The sooner everyone gets nukes the sooner we'll have world peace... One way or another.

[Anonymous No.11285215]

>>11284424
dont blow japan up

[Anonymous No.11285448]

>>11281737
Pretty soon the ability to produce weapons grade uranium is going to be extremely available (without the need for gaseous diffusion or calutron tracks) if the SILEX tech being developed actually works out.

[Anonymous No.11285452]

>>11284822
>oh noes, reality

[Anonymous No.11286162]

>>11284424
>Convince me that's a real issue.
then spread it on toast and eat it, faggot.

[Anonymous No.11286170]

>>11282005
>be on /sci/
>still scared of fracking
Peak reddit pop-sci know nothing.

[Anonymous No.11287299]

> nuclear will save us from global warming
> have to shut down reactors because it's too warm to cool them

[Anonymous No.11287303]

>>11282005
Hell I grew up with nuclear in my back yard.
But with big enough groups of people the emotional always trumps the rational.

[Anonymous No.11287312]

>>11287299
>doesn't understand how nuclear reactors work
>doesn't know that there's reactors working just fine in the middle east
>doesn't know what "Curbs are placed on the volume of water its plants can use as the rivers temperatures rise." even means
Just so you know all the means is that the plant will need to build cooling towers so that there's less impact on the river

[Anonymous No.11287576]

>>11283110
No one's ever made it work commercially

[Anonymous No.11287590]

>>11285452
>that’s right goy it’s just reality, just keep buying oil

[Anonymous No.11287614]

>>11283727
yikes

[Anonymous No.11287616]

>>11282301
> a cleaver idea to make atomic reactors much safer, much cheaper and much faster to build

Bill Gates, the guy who brought you the reliable, dependable, safe, crash proof wonders that were Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, is working on this problem

Epic Lol

[Anonymous No.11287618]

>>11284321
Do you know any calculations of this?

I am trying to work this out for myself at the moment

[Anonymous No.11287621]

>>11287616

[Anonymous No.11287645]

>>11281723
Here's your nuclear power plant.

[Anonymous No.11287654]

>>11287645
>tfw we netrunner now

[Anonymous No.11287667]

>>11287654
it might even be solarpunk too. Because of it uses SMRs it's compatible with renewable energy sources. Because the reactors are small they have a small thermal mass allowing them to load follow.

[Anonymous No.11287679]

>>11287645
>>11287667
Yuck.
Cooling towers are aesthetic as fuck and this just looks like a shitty art museum.

[Anonymous No.11287681]

>>11287667
This faction seems interdesting as fuck and fairly based if it’s indeed solarpunk.

[Anonymous No.11287707]

>>11283704
still sounds better than releasing the waste out into the atmosphere totally uncontrolled

[Anonymous No.11287728]

>>11281723
Greenpeace.

[Anonymous No.11287732]

>>11287707
But not as good as solar and wind power which are getting cheaper and nuclear is gettiing more costly, difficult and slow to build because of safety regulations.

[Anonymous No.11287811]

>>11281723
Lots and lots of public fear after Chernobyl and Fukushima

[Anonymous No.11287813]

Why don't we just use nuclear power?

[Anonymous No.11287823]

>>11281723
>>11287732
Wind and solar still have substantial room for technological development. Nuclear does as well, but it's almost impossibly expensive and any mistakes around it can cause literal fallout. If America was like China and just silenced any dissent from private industry and people and just built the damn xth gen reactors, then it'd have potential, but until then it doesn't.

[Anonymous No.11287892]

>Nuclear? You mean like, bombs? Nooooooooo that would be too dangerous!!!

[Anonymous No.11289477]

>>11281723
There are literally 1000s of working nuclear reactors

[Anonymous No.11289503]

Our current mode of production doesn't really allow nuclear to exist because of all the reasons discussed in the thread.
Private ownership and a decentralized economy has these sorts of consequences. Read Paul Cockshott.

[Anonymous No.11289661]

>>11283549
>>11283536
Nuclear power plants aren't particularly expensive, over the lifetime of the plant. It has a higher up-front cost than pretty much any other form of energy, in both time until operation and in money, but in the long run you make more money back.

The problem is that the costs of nuclear are artificially inflated by needless bureaucracy, and because nuclear waxes and wanes at the whims of the 4-year presidential election cycle--where it takes 6 years (including bureacracy) to build a plant.

Video by university professor on economics of nuclear power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY

[Anonymous No.11289765]

>>11287618
>Do you know any calculations of this?
Covering every flat roof with panels and every parking lot in the US could be enough to power the nation.
Covering the entire planet with 100% efficient solar panels would make us a Type1 Civilisation. Of course this is not realistic so we would need panels in space.

[Anonymous No.11289767]

>>11281737
>NIMBYs
There are times when that word is appropriately used, and times when it's just fucking bullshit.
Most people opposing nuclear power plants want to see them gone off the face of this planet.
It's not about their backyard.

Also, nuclear power is far from renewable, and guess which country sits on all the Uranium: Iran.

[Anonymous No.11289775]

>>11289767
>Also, nuclear power is far from renewable, and guess which country sits on all the Uranium: Iran.
Sorry, checked to make sure, and apparently I was wrong.

[Anonymous No.11289864]

>>11289765
>covering every flat roof with panels and every parking lot
you don't even understand the amount of resources that would be required for that, solar is barely break-even. There would also be an amount of industrial waste that would make the amount of nuclear waste look tiny

[Anonymous No.11289939]

>>11289765
>Sowloh Freekin Rwodways™

[Anonymous No.11289946]

>>11281723
itt: a bunch of frothing at the mouth CONSUUUUUUUUUMERS debate which destructive form of energy to use next to destroy what little remains of Earth's biodiversity after fossil fuels have been used up.

[Anonymous No.11290033]

>>11281723
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rMqHTbXm3rs

[Anonymous No.11290922]

>>11289864
Nuclear waste is dangerous radioactive and poisonous. Panels are mostly made of glass. We need less then we already use for bottles and windows. You can just melt it for recycling.
It can last for centuries if you don't break it.

[Anonymous No.11291253]

>>11289765
i don't think you understand the amount of resources, monkey waste to build that amount of solar panels, without taking into account how do you store the energy, to transfer it where you need it without losing 50% of it, not everywhere is 24/7 sun is shining, the waste, killing millions of jobs, etc. Even if you somehow you make them, you will still need a second power source, like nuclear/gas or oil, you can't run 100% of solar/wind

[Anonymous No.11291358]

>>11286170
Is fracking safe?

[Anonymous No.11291366]

>>11281723
>Why don't we just use nuclear power?

The TMI-2 accident, commonly known as Three Mile Island, contributed to a decline in public support for the use of nuclear energy, and as a result of the subsequent Chernobyl accident, fears of a similar case in the US and other countries increased. No new nuclear power plants (with commercial applications) have been built in the USA since this incident.

[Anonymous No.11291423]

>>11291253
Nothing you say is true.
We just need very common resources. Also we don't need much more then we already use. Meanwhile solar power is as cheap as wind and natural gas. If you don't live in the Arctic you only need to store energy for a few hours, There is already enough capacity for this. E.g. pumped hydro. Renewable are job machines. Especially in rural regions where jobs are needed most. Of course you can run 100% on renewable. Some nations already do this. Others are on their way.

[Anonymous No.11291553]

>>11291423
>renewable are job machines
Well no shit they are job machines, they create so little power for what they cost that a fully renewable economy would probably take half of it just in the energy sector and the other half in agriculture. So congrats now you've reduced our modern energy living standards to that of the middle ages

[Anonymous No.11291724]

>>11291553
Renewable kill fossil fuel and nuclear because they are much cheaper and use less resources while creating more jobs. It's win-win-win.
It's a great and clean way to the future.