The Nuclear Approach To Climate Change 432
Harperdog writes "A new roundtable at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explores the question of whether nuclear energy is the answer to climate change, particularly in developing countries where energy needs are so great. This roundtable, like the ones before it, will be translated into Chinese, Arabic, and Spanish within a week of each article's publication. Here's a summary: From desertification in China to glacier melt in Nepal to water scarcity in South Africa, climate change is beginning to make itself felt in the developing world. As developing countries search for ways to contain carbon emissions while also maximizing economic potential, a natural focus of attention is nuclear power. But nuclear energy presents its own dangers."
I RTFS (Score:2)
and it states the bleeding obvious... Is TFA more interesting?
Not THE answer, but (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone whose concerned about safety, I want you to go and look up how many nuclear reactors are over 30, 40 years old. These antique behemoths are being run because there are many unnecessary obstacles to overcome if you want to build a new plant. Nuclear technology as well as construction and information systems have improved dramatically each decade, so how is it that people can react to modern reactors as if they have no safety advantages over their retro-ancestors?
Re:Not THE answer, but (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what we saw with Fukushima. That reactor was well designed - and the others in the region held up decently. If the plant had been kept up even close to spec - there wouldn't have been a disaster. Hell, even if after the initial issue, if they had just dumped the core, it would of been a passing mention in the newspaper. Instead, somebody who valued money over other peoples lives, decided to make a profitable decision instead of a safe one.
It only takes one stupid idiot to ruin a good thing.
Re:Not THE answer, but (Score:5, Informative)
This is what we saw with Fukushima. That reactor was well designed - and the others in the region held up decently. If the plant had been kept up even close to spec - there wouldn't have been a disaster. Hell, even if after the initial issue,
The reactor was well designed to faulty assumptions that in retrospect never should have been accepted.
if they had just dumped the core, it would of been a passing mention in the newspaper. Instead, somebody who valued money over other peoples lives, decided to make a profitable decision instead of a safe one.
It only takes one stupid idiot to ruin a good thing.
I'm not sure what you mean by "dump the core", but I believe the reactors all underwent a SCRAM to shut down after the quake. But even after shutdown, the reactor core continues to emit a significant amount of heat for quite some time, and when the cooling failed, there was no way to dissipate that heat.
Re: (Score:2)
My concerns are not the original designs, or the engineers.
The design was one that guaranteed meltdown if mains electrical was lost and the generators failed. The design was faulty. There are any one of 100 things that could have been done differently that would have prevented the tsunami-related issues (there are statements that the earthquake alone would have caused the meltdown, but the tsunami exacerbated the issue, I'll assume that they managed to survive at least one of the two disasters it was explicitly designed to withstand). Putting the generators insi
Re: (Score:3)
It's the cheap profit seeking idiots who attempt to cut corners while running them. Fundamentally, Nuclear is a great idea! Unfortunately, Nuclear Power in the hands of a capitalist society which values immediate profit over the chance of blowing themselves up is actually really freaking dangerous.
Unless you lived in Soviet Russia, in which case nuclear power was in the hands of a socialist society which valued... actually, I'm not sure. But Chernobyl didn't work out too well either, so perhaps we should a
Re: (Score:2)
I will add, however, that I agree with most of your point - we need to start iterating new generations of nuclear plant designs - that's the only way they will ever improve. I do think that modern designs have some significant safety advantages. But, my Hoover Dam example, if it's not obvious, is meant to point out that just because something was designed and built before 1970 doesn't mean it's necessarily dangerous, even though it has the potential to be.
An old but well maintained structure or machine can
Re: (Score:2)
We don't need an interim solution, we need to push forward with other forms of clean energy instead. Scotland will produce 100% of its energy needs from renewables by 2020, for example. Obviously they won't be totally reliant on them, that would be foolish and having a mix is always a good idea, but the point is that it can and will be done, right now.
Scotland 100% renewable by 2020? (Score:3)
I'd like to see a source on this claim. All too often when I see such projections it's heavily weighted with unrealistic assumptions and back-end installations. For example, stuff like 75% of the renewable power will be installed in 2015-2020, and they're already behind their 25% goal by 2015.
A google search - seems the goal is 100% electricity from renewables, not energy. The goal for heating [scotland.gov.uk] is only 11% by 2020:
Not until 2030(by Oil&Gas, admittably) [news.stv.tv]
Equivalent, not 'actual' 100% [solarpowerportal.co.uk] - They'll be trading
Re: (Score:3)
While renewable energy technology is the answer, nuclear energy is an excellent interim solution.
Why does nuclear need to be an intrerim solution? With IFRs, nuclear "waste" is actually fuel which can be processed, nuclear is cheaper, and safer, than it has been before. I don't see why we should throw this tech away.
Re: (Score:2)
Those types of problems can change pretty fast if need be. If we need more containment vessels per year, you build more foundries (that, itself, will take a few years, it's true, but the point is it *can* speed up over time).
The nuclear industry worldwide is trying to move to a relatively small number of standardized designs. If the demand to build them is there, while the first few of any given design will almost surely run into delays and budget overruns (such is the nature of building the first 2 or 3 un
SOS (Score:2, Insightful)
Same Old Sh*t
the nuclear industry is enormously profitable (if you ignore waste disposal) and long-lived (if you ignore a thousand years of aftermath).. these f*** wait in the wings and try this again and again.. What about an accounting system that values the natural world and rewards efficiency ?!!? If we are to survive as a species, the question is not "where do we get more power" but rather what we do with the capacity we have.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Look, if you mean "shit", say "shit".
If you mean "fuck", then say "fuck".
It's not like you're going to get struck by lightning or the ground's going to open up and swallow you or some such nonsense.
See? I just did it and nothing bad hap*á%æ(*&*;u***$çç~``````__NO_CARRIER__
Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
A small scale nuclear war to produce a nuclear winter to offset global warming will do the trick, and possibly cut the population at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
A small scale nuclear war to produce a nuclear winter to offset global warming will do the trick, and possibly cut the population at the same time.
I was going to suggest the same thing -- creating a nuclear winter is probably not any more risky that other ideas that have been floated around that have side effects that are just as poorly understood -- like large scale seeding of oceans with iron to encourage phytoplankton growth that will be a carbon sink.
Re: (Score:3)
The great advantage of this solution, is that it will not require agreement and action among all nations. The current attempts to agree on a plan are all failing miserably, because there are too many nations with conflicting interests involved. Now, everybody just sits back and waits for someone else to do something.
Now if two nuke armed countries start squabbling, the rest of the world will not be able to agree on what to do about it. So the small scale nuclear war, will just happen by itself. No need
Just stop and think about it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
As though the US is the only place in the world with reactors?
In fact it's a US company building the next generation of reactors for China (PRC). Lots of progress has been made, but if you want to cut government spending (which is a stupid plan right now, but that's the one we're going with) building nuclear reactors isn't going to fly because they do cost a lot of money.
Re: (Score:2)
Evolution is description of how we came to be.
Not a way to describe how we should act.
Re: (Score:3)
If you took all the effort and energy spent, developing nuclear energies and weapons, cleaning up after them, clean coal, fracking, drilling for oil. Couple that with all the energy spent fighting renewables for what ever reason. Just think how safe and efficient 2020 green energy could be.
FTFY.
Re:Just stop and think about it. (Score:5, Insightful)
PS. My mum is a vegetarian because she doesn't like meat. Some vegetarians just don't like the idea of factory farming and killing animals for food. I'm not sure how that is counter to evolution.
Re: (Score:3)
Point your mum to this research paper from a professor in the agriculture department at Oregon State University:
http://www.morehouse.edu/facstaff/nnobis/papers/Davis-LeastHarm.htm [morehouse.edu]
If half of the total harvested land in the US was used to produce plant products for human consumption and half was used for pasture-forage production, how many animals would die annually so that humans may eat?
60 million ha, plant production x 15 animals/ha = 0.9 billion
60 million ha, forage production x 7.5 animals/ha = 0.45 billion
Total: 1.35 billion animals
According to this model then, fewer animals (1.35 billion) would die than in the vegan model (1.8 billion). As a result, if we apply the LHP as Regan did for his vegan conclusion, it would seem that humans are morally obligated to consume a diet of vegetables and ruminant animal products.
His conclusions:
1. Vegan diets are not bloodless diets. Millions of animals of the field die every year to provide products used in vegan diets.
2. Several alternative food production models exist that may kill fewer animals than the vegan model.
3. More research is needed to obtain accurate estimations of t
Re: (Score:3)
Its like vegetarians who believe in evolution. It just doesn't make since.
Vegetarianism is a moral or health stance. Evolution is a scientific stance. I'm baffled why you think there is any possible contradiction between them.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. Imagine if the only commercial planes we could fly in were De Havilland Comets? They were good planes for the day. They had some problems but figured out most of them. But anyone that has built any complicated system knows you would never build the next generation from the same way. With each generation you have a lessons learned and the next one is typically better. If we had a new generation every 20 years we would be 3-4 generation more advanced than we are now and it would be a non issue.
As a l
Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:5, Interesting)
Just not the king we use. Uranium and plutonium are terrible ways to achieve nuclear power. There is relatively little power output and a large amount of waste product, which we know will kill us if we even come close to it. The only benefit is being able to create nuclear weapons.
Thorium on the other hand produces much more power per gram and has very little waste. The waste it does produce is exceedingly less dangerous than the current 1950s style reactors.
Plus, there is craps loads of the stuff everywhere. Time to switch. I think we have more than enough Nukes to destroy the world population many times over, so there is no need to stick to a dangerous tech just so we can make more.
Re:Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:5, Informative)
Thorium on the other hand produces much more power per gram and has very little waste. The waste it does produce is exceedingly less dangerous than the current 1950s style reactors.
You forgot most important part (assuming you are referring to the molten-salt thorium reactors), there is no boom. The reactor can never go out of control. Hence there is never a nuclear cloud or fall out. And also, the reactor can be designed to be started and stopped in minutes rather than hours or days or months.
Re: (Score:3)
Just not the king we use. Uranium and plutonium are terrible ways to achieve nuclear power. There is relatively little power output and a large amount of waste product, which we know will kill us if we even come close to it. The only benefit is being able to create nuclear weapons.
We could even get rid [wikipedia.org] of the "waste product"
Re:Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:4, Informative)
Experience suggests that this is an oversimplification. The HTTR (High Temperature Thorium Reactor) had a few unexpected failure modes that led to some discharge of radioactive stuff into the atmosphere. The other german experimental Thorium reactor (Juellich) almost went boom because, for some nowadays not so mysterious reason, the graphite was heated way beyond what it should have. Nobody knew that back then. While nothing happened, it still is a mayor waste problem to this day.
This leads us to another issue. The failure mode of the HTTR was not that unexpected. It was, like the Tsunami issue at Fukushima, predicted by other people and ignored by those responsible. The designers and builders of the the HTTR made a point about how they were completely sure that nothing could possibly go wrong, and whoever claimed otherwise was an idiot. Doubts were brushed aside. The moral of the story is that we cannot trust the judgement of nuclear engineers to the extent that would be necessary.
"The design is inherently safe, nothing can go wrong" -- yeah, right.
Re:Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:5, Informative)
That's why we are talking about LFTR and not the reactor type you are refering to.
The german reactor was more or less a Uranium reactor that ran on Thorium as well. A LFTR runs almost purely on Thorium, needing Urianium only as a starter.
Do NOT mix the two up.
Please make yourself familiar with that concept. Thorium is a fuel. The reactor design is somewhat independent of it.
Re:Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:4, Informative)
Experience suggests that this is an oversimplification. The HTTR (High Temperature Thorium Reactor) had a few unexpected failure modes....
True. I was talking about Liquid fluoride thorium reactor however. It is simply not possible for this design to explode like Fukushima. When power is gone, the reaction cannot continue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor [wikipedia.org]
Re:Nuclear is the answer (Thorium) (Score:5, Insightful)
That is exactly the type of claim I take issue with. If you are talking "gigawatts" and "can't blow up", then you are likely talking nonsense.
That's a very narrow definition of safe. It will most likely have its own way of making a mess. Perhaps it will be bloody unlikely in theory, but in practice, corrupt, greedy and stupid operators will make it happen.
I think not (Score:2)
Nuclear power will be a perfectly viable solution, except in all the cases it will not be. How many nuclear reactors will the western nuclear powers allow to be installed in North Korea, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, or Zimbabwe? How about Venezuela or Cuba? What about failed states like Somalia, or non-states like Somaliland? Not many I venture. The problems are large, overwhelmingly political, and even less likely to engender consensus than 'no-brainers' like reducing emissions as a risk-mitigation strat
Re: (Score:2)
Solution: nuke "western nuclear powers" (after evacuating Iran that "western nuclear powers" will then nuke in response).
Let the fourth world burn oil and coal. (Score:2)
Honestly, if all the sane nations get a majority of their energy from nuclear power, we can let those "fourth world" states burn all the fossil fuel they want - there will be a lot more supply available to sell to them at probably lower prices, and their consumption is not likely to be anywhere in the ballpark of what we are currently consuming.
In the meantime, we can build safer next-gen nuclear in many more stable third-world nations to help them develop. 5 or 10 small countries burning fossil fuels would
Re: (Score:2)
Thorium doesn't produce plutonium or anything similar.
So, yeah, give the tech away to everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
In a sense... (Score:2)
Water power (Score:2)
Almost all our power generation requires water.
If you don't have water security, you can't have power security.
Even in the USA, we're dealing with nuclear and coal plants on the brink of shutting down,
because the mild winter and extended drought is bringing rivers down near critical levels.
In Africa, you need to desalinate water before you can do anything.
And desalination creates its own set of problems (what do you do with the brine?).
Re: (Score:3)
Even in the USA, we're dealing with nuclear and coal plants on the brink of shutting down,
because the mild winter and extended drought is bringing rivers down near critical levels.
Fortunately, most of the population lives close to the coasts where there's lots of water available.
In Africa, you need to desalinate water before you can do anything.
Why not use the seawater to cool your cooling fluid instead of using saltwater directly? Pump the heated waste water far offshore.
And desalination creates its own set of problems (what do you do with the brine?).
Why not put it back where it came from -- the ocean? Let it seep out of miles of pipe to reduce local effects of high salinity.
Atmospheric cooling (Score:2)
High Temp Gas Cooled Reactors do not need water cooling to attain reasonable efficiency. There are various designs approaches for this - in some, you use fuel "pebbles". There's also a concept called a molten salt reactor, which could be designed in a high-temp gas cooled configuration.
With such reactors, you just dump your heat into the air instead of the water. This would be a good idea for Africa, US West/SW, etc.
Fusion (Score:2)
Pick One (Score:4, Interesting)
Global Warming, Nuclear Energy, Agrarian Society
This is news to few; heck the bumper sticker [zazzle.com] I made for myself with that saying has this in its footer metadata: "Made on 4/24/2007 1:19 PM".
I hear Richard Branson has repeatedly tried to get appointments with Obama to talk about IFR reactors (and been rebuffed), so I probably don't need to be prosthelitizing them any longer.
nuclear winter (Score:2)
nuff said.
irrational fear (Score:5, Insightful)
yes, nuclear is the answer.
Our culture has an irrational fear of nuclear power, much like in the early trains of steam trains, people thought they would die from asphyxiation if the train went too fast.
Some nuclear technology is dangerous. Thorium reactors (see other comments), for example, aren't.
But through our irrational fear, we've actually put us into a worse situation. In most western countries, we have nuclear reactors running well beyond their lifetimes, because we are too afraid to allow the construction of new, modern reactors. So instead we have old, less reliable, less safe and slowly falling apart reactors. Do you really think that's an improvement?
Burning coal and oil and gas is what has to stop, right now. I'm with a power company that offers renewable energy right now. But if there was one that offered renewable plus nuclear, I'd sign up immediately. For some reason, there isn't. You either get totally dirty power, with nuclear and fossil, or renewable. But nobody has the balls to ask the market if maybe there are enough people like me who don't really mind nuclear, but do mind fossil.
Third world not ready for nukes (Score:3)
The recent debacle in Japan and the previous disaster in Chernobyl illustrate why nuclear energy isn't a viable option for third-world economies. If first-world countries can't manage the risk of nuclear power plants effectively, third-world countries will be much less able to do so, and they'll wind up fucking themselves over much worse than Japan did if they try. The economic strains will inevitably cause them to skimp on safety and maintainance, with the result of more breakdowns and meltdowns per facility. That is, until a better, more fail-safe, lower maintainance design is developed and demonstrated in the first world.
Then there's the issue of transporting nuclear fuel all over the place and dealing with spent fuel in a responsible manner, another thing that the first world can barely do.
Wrong Nukes (Score:3)
Alternatively.... those who can afford to will move to Antarctica while the rest of the continents become to hot to survive and everyone else dies. Then when it starts to become too hot even there they can bomb the now de-populated old continents. So... you see... bombing Antarctica is actually an optimistic view on the future compared to what else might happen.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Honest question (Score:4, Informative)
And even nuclear power is a problem there - mining and enrichment are very expensive phases and they produce carbon dioxide.
It's a question of calculating the total emissions for each type of energy source, and it's not an easy process.
Add to that the environmental impact that each type of energy has, both under normal conditions and under extreme conditions. Just look at Chernobyl - that disaster made quite an impact over a large area for a long time. Fukushima wasn't as bad, and partially thanks to a large amount of the spill being diluted into the pacific.
Hydroelectric power isn't free from making an environmental impact, but it's also of a more local type and if a disaster strikes the area suffering will be usable relatively soon. Wind power has it's own problems, one is that it's not very efficient so it requires a lot of space, and the wind doesn't always blow.
Coal and oil - they are finite known resources. We better prepare ourselves for the day when they run out by looking for alternative energy solutions.
Geothermal energy is quite interesting. It's available in many locations, but requires some investment to be usable.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
And even nuclear power is a problem there - mining and enrichment are very expensive phases and they produce carbon dioxide.
It's a question of calculating the total emissions for each type of energy source, and it's not an easy process.
If you had practically unlimited and cheap electrical power available from nukes (an awfully big "if"), you could eliminate much of the carbon emissions while extracting nuclear fuel. If nothing else you could split hydrogen out of water and use hydrogen as a fuel for equipment and processing plants. There'd still be some carbon emissions from things like deforestation during mining, etc.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
cheap electrical power available from nukes
That's not really true.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
cheap electrical power available from nukes
That's not really true.
That's why I said it's a big "if", but in any case, the cost of nuclear power versus fossil fuels depends on how seriously you believe that there is a link between carbon emissions and global warming. Global warming could result in many trillions of dollars of damage as coastal areas are inundated by rising seas, droughts and other extreme weather, crop loss, etc.
If Nuclear power really does emit less carbon and carbon is causing global warming, then nuclear power could be far less costly even if the raw price per kwh is higher.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, it's science. The link between human carbon emissions and global warming is a model. It fits very well with the current data, including the estimations of past data (with the associated big error bars). However, new observations CAN invalidate the model, either with new data or better estimations of past data.
Be careful. It's science, not faith. It's a theory, just like relativity. It CAN be falsified by real data, just like Newton's gravitation was falsified in the large-field regime by Einstein. It's
Re:Honest question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
If power, from whatever source, was free, what would the world look like?
A whole lot brighter at night!
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be like magic, almost post-scarcity. Energy is *the* price setter. We tend to think raw materials and technology are more limiting, but actually more energy can substitute both raw materials and technology. For example, it is possible but energy inefficient to separate dilute chemicals.If energy is free, it would be possible to mine *everything* from waste and oceans. If you need a complex molecule, make an organic soup and separate useful stuff. If a certain production process has low yield, do not research ways to increase yield, instead increase capacity, separate, reuse. If farmland is not sufficient, use hydrophonic farms with artificial lightning and synthesized fertilizers. Need water, desalinate. Need water in the middle of Sahara, pump. Need cold air, condition. Make a dome over the a city o a desert; you don't need an impermeable dome if you don't mind using energy inefficiently...
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
Energy that is so cheap that it is easier to give it away than to sell it will be given away, while money is made from other sources. For example, the energy is so cheap that it might not be cost effective to charge households for its use, but you WOULD charge customers that use more than a certain amount (ie factories, large buildings, etc). This is similar to the way we treat roads now. Yes, we pay a gas tax, but commercial vehicles pay a use tax that is assessed by the mile. If roads were so expensive that they couldn't pay for the roads that way, then it would be more likely for roads to cost money to use for individuals.
I think a major mental block you are dealing with here is the fact that you aren't able to wrap your mind around the way that economies of plenty work. This is understandable because almost all real goods are governed by scarcity economics. Luckily, we have created a realm that is governed by economics of plenty--the internet. Think about the way internet services are provided. Free email. Free websearch. Free porn. Free everything. Yet the services continue to be provided, even by big companies that use expensive infrastructure. There would be nothing to stop a company like Google from providing free power to consumers if they could do it effectively.
Re: (Score:2)
With enough electrical energy we could convert to a hydrogen/oxygen economy, rather than a carbon-based one. There are some issues though, like the Hindenburg. It turns out that Hydrogen in a normal Earthlike atmosphere is explosive. Also, it wants to be a gas rather than a liquid, which limits its utility. And as a gas, it passes freely through any known material at room temperature because hydrogen2 molecules are as small as molecules get.
And then there's the whole "we get half of our electrical energ
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
With enough electrical energy we could convert to a hydrogen/oxygen economy, rather than a carbon-based one. There are some issues though, like the Hindenburg.
Then don't build your airship with a highly flamable skin - hydrogen was only part of the problem.
It turns out that Hydrogen in a normal Earthlike atmosphere is explosive.
So are many other common fuels like gasoline and natural gas, yet we've learned to harness them safely.
Also, it wants to be a gas rather than a liquid, which limits its utility.
As does natural gas, yet there's growing talk of using Natural Gas to fuel long haul trucks due to the dropping costs of natural gas.
And as a gas, it passes freely through any known material at room temperature because hydrogen2 molecules are as small as molecules get.
Generate it at the filling station so it doesn't have to be pumped for long distances, and dissolve it in some other substance [wikipedia.org] to ease storage.
And then there's the whole "we get half of our electrical energy from coal" thing, and the conversion losses.
But the whole premise of this article is that we need to move to "clean" nuclear power, not fossil fuels.
Unless we get some good watts from some other source, your electric hybrid is likely generating more CO2 than my Chevy truck.
Unless your Chevy truck gets better than 53/48 mpg, then my electric hybrid generates less CO2 than your truck since both of our vehicles are powered by the same fuel - gasoline. Even when electric cars are powered by coal plants, they than conventional cars. [mediamatters.org]
If I had an electric car, most of its power would come from hydroelectric power.
Re: (Score:2)
If I had an electric car, most of its power would come from hydroelectric power.
Me too, but that hydro power would be taken then away from people who would make up the lack with coal power because that's what they have. Have I saved carbon atoms from being freed into the atmosphere they were captured from long ago? No.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Come up with a solution other than "The government needs to ...." and I'll weigh your solution with patience and objectivity, then likely participate.
F*** the government. They just want you to be a serf with a government-issued energy ration card and a electricity monitoring meter on your home.
Not to mention a food voucher, an apartment with X# sq feet of space (as determined by some federal bureaucracy to be what you "need") and a job that pays slave wages from whatever corporation paid the most in ca
No, he's made a simple mistake (Score:4, Informative)
Where he is wrong is in failing to realise that this only compares like with like. If I put a big electric motor in a Chevy truck and drove it like a redneck, it would possibly result in similar emissions to the Diesel version (there are benefits because the electric motor doesn't use power when stationary, and there is no auto transmission to waste fuel). But a hybrid isn't nearly as big and heavy as a truck, and it has much better aerodynamics. If I am transporting up to 4 people plus luggage, a hybrid is far more energy efficient than a truck. The problem is people who commute in overly large vehicles, for reasons of status.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"A new roundtable at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explores the question of whether nuclear energy is the answer ..."
Dear Atomic Scientists, if all you got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
FYI: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a noted anti-nuclear publication. Their name comes from long ago when a number of atomic scientists put it out to oppose nuclear weapons.
This is like having the RIAA do a review on the future outlook of The Pirate Party,
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the other commentor's point about using nuclear power to extract, transport, and enrich fuel would allow you to dramatically decrease the carbon footprint of nuclear, there's also the points that:
2) Newer enrichment technology like centrifuges and, soon, laser excitation enrichment, dramatically reduce the energy needed to enrich uranium (which is a proliferation concern of course, but us keeping ourselves from having centrifuges doesn't seem likely to stop Iran from building them). I mean, the energy requirements for a gas centrifuge is something like 1/50 the power needed for the old gas diffusion plants (which were just horribly inefficient). I don't know what laser enrichment will be, but I gather it will use something like 1/100th the the power of gas diffusion facility.
3) If you use Thorium in a molten salt reactor, you don't need any enrichment at all (well, ok, you need startup fissile and for the first few decades, that probably means some enriched uranium or U/Pu mix, but eventually you can start new plants from the U-233 which was bred in old Thorium plants which will be being decommissioned, so you wouldn't need much Uranium mining at all), and it is currently a waste product of mining other minerals, so there's essentially no additional mining footprint (as demand grows, this may eventually change).
Re: (Score:2)
Coal is also mined and refined, and oil is used so seldom for power you can almost say it is not used.
Coal for power has the downside of being mined, then refined, then burnt.
At least uranium just has the first two. They use the heat it produces to generate power with only 1 intermediate step, so generally speaking, it is the best for climate change between the two.
I agree with you, but... (Score:3)
Being a bit of a precisionist, I feel the need to point out that coal is generally NOT refined in any practical sense of the word; simply crushed and sorted a bit. That's part of the reason for the pollution problem with it - any non-coal bits go into the burners as well.
Oil is used for 'power' all the time, it's just not a significant source for *electrical* generation.
Many people use 'burn' as a term for using up uranium/nuclear fuel.
Coal: Mine, crush, burn.
Uranium: Mine, refine, enrich(sometimes), cas
Re: (Score:3)
Coal: Mine, crush, burn.
You left out a step: Coal: Mine, crush, burn, dispose in atmosphere
Re: (Score:2)
It's a question of calculating the total emissions for each type of energy source, and it's not an easy process.
While I support the merit of evaluating energy sources on metrics such as emission, it can lead to the flawed notion that we need to look for a single, perfect energy source.
Instead, we need to look for multiple energy sources, at least for the time being. Solar in some regions, wind in other. Wave-energy in Scotland, and BS-power in Washington and Pyongyang.
Mining and processing is negligible (Score:2)
Saying that mining and enriching nuclear fuel produces greenhouse gases is a really pointless thing to focus on, considering that other fossil fuels also require mining and processing. Even if a given quantity of nuclear fuel required 100x the processing of oil, you'd still be ahead by several orders of magnitude because it contains so much more usable energy.
Re: (Score:3)
Not in the case of solar, or solar-derived [britannica.com], energy sources (wind, tidal etc). These convert solar energy to electricity, which would've been almost completely radiated as heat anyway (excepting chemical storage, such as photosynthesis).
Fission, fusion, geothermal etc add to our waste heat. Fossil is technically solar-derived, but is releasing millions of years of accumulated solar energy all at once.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
Short answer: it does matter.
Longer answer: The amount of energy that we use is a small fraction of the amount of energy that the earth receives from our nearest star (aka the sun). The heat we create from the energy that we use is also a small fraction of the heat the earth retains from the sun and the earth retains in its molten core. So if we are doing something to change the amount of heat we retain from the energy we receive from the sun** with different sources of power, it could certainly make a difference.
Of course the $64G question: does buring carbon based fuels significantly change the amount of heat we retain on earth? Probably (that is the whole AGW debate). Of course we don't know for sure, but there is some evidence that it is true, but the bigger picture may be that things totally out of our control (e.g., volcanos, meteors, solar variation, etc), may in the end drown out our effect, but that doesn't mean the effect isn't there.
**for completeness, we might also consider the distribution of the heat between the surface and the molten core, but to be fair, other than the trivial amount of geothermal energy we use, there's a negligible amount to think about here.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
but the bigger picture may be that things totally out of our control (e.g., volcanos, meteors, solar variation, etc), may in the end drown out our effect,
Total from conduction, vulcanism, and plate tectonics: 0.1 W/m^2
Total from solar variation since 1750: 0.12 W/m^2
Total from human activities so far: 1.6 W/m^2
Nothing is going to drown out our effect (Ref IPCC AR4).
For completeness, the worldwide electricity production is about 2 TW. The heat from combustible fuels not used for electricity is probably comparable. Compare this to the value for conduction, vulcanism, and plate tectonics which has a value of about 44 TW (~0.1 W/m^2).
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
**for completeness, we might also consider the distribution of the heat between the surface and the molten core, but to be fair, other than the trivial amount of geothermal energy we use, there's a negligible amount to think about here.
Well thanks at least for including it for completeness, since that one source exceeds our current electrical energy needs for the next thousand years with current technology - by which time technology may have advanced a wee bit. The Yellowstone Caldera by itself throws off more thermal energy each minute than, converted to electrical energy, the world requires. And cooling that damned thing might be in our best interest since it's likely to bury 60% of the US in ash someday - again, as it has many times before.
Solar is great too, and can also be baseload power with a big enough heatsink - or balanced with geothermal plants that produce on demand solar and wind can use geothermal for a heatsink / corrector for low/no production. Geothermal plants can with slant drilling occupy a tiny surface space and tap a vast region, and can be baseload power as well as a peak power source.
There are a lot of other sources we aren't using right now. Petroleum refineries throw off a lot of waste heat, as do pulp mills, organic composting, server farms, volcanos, iron and aluminum and glass refineries. Any place there is a reliable significant thermal delta is an opportunity to reap electrical power, and the question is whether or not it can be done economically. As science progresses the delta and size of the installation becomes smaller. It's not as much "geothermal" as it is "thermal delta" electrical power.
There is no reason not to use both solar and geothermal to diminish our dependence on oil.
Nuclear works on thermal deltas too, but doesn't exploit them enough. Spent fuels, for example, heat their pools for a decade before they're considered "cool" enough to put into permanent storage (should any ever come available). That's a waste heat that's dissipated by evaporation (phase change) of water rather than claiming it as electrical power through modern energy capture technologies. Given modern technologies the spent fuel might give more electrical power than the reactor if it were exploited. I have issues with the whole "we don't have to take the trash out" mentality of nuclear proponents, but I have no problem with making the most of what they do.
We need to come to grips with the idea that "a big enough thermal delta is an electrical energy source." And then moderate the "Big enough" term with advances in technology. That's the ultimate recycling: finding utility for the thermal energy we are now throwing away.
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
things totally out of our control (e.g., volcanos, meteors, solar variation, etc), may in the end drown out our effect
the earth had reached sort of an equilibrium - CO2 released by volcanoes etcetera was being cancelled out by plants taking it out of the atmosphere, but in the latest few centuries humans have changed the co2 concentration in the atmosphere from 200/250 to 400 ppm
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
The amount of heat generated by power consumption is small compared to the energy received from the sun and emitted back into space. The earth receives around 175 PW of power from the sun, and the amount emitted back into space is around the same providing an equilibrium. The global power consumption by everyone on the planet is around 15 TW. So that's a ratio of 175 PW to .015 PW, which means we consume around .008% of the amount of power we receive from the sun / radiate into space.
A lot of our energy comes from fossil fuels, so basically that is releasing energy that was solar originally, so technically we aren't adding energy to the earth. Solar, geothermal and hydro is just converting / moving energy around from place to place within the existing system, so that doesn't add energy either. Nuclear would be the only way we'd be changing the amount of energy in the system, as we're directly converting it from mass. So it would matter what power source we use from that standpoint, and if your argument has merit, then nuclear would be the issue from an entropy standpoint.
That is completely incorrect (Score:2)
Burning gas increases entropy. Burning coal decreases mass, very slightly. And it doesn't mean what you're appear to be thinking because earth is not a closed system.
Re: (Score:3)
Burning coal decreases mass
What? Gases have mass too. Unless you're trying to tell me that CO2 magically blows off into space, in which case what exactly is the problem with CO2? Please don't try to rationalize things through a scientific approach unless of course you're a scientist. Those extra years of university weren't all just about partying.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds about right, seems like when I ran the numbers a while back the extra solar-energy retention due to anthropogenic CO2 dwarfed our energy production by 2-3 orders of magnitude.
Well, if it was fission-based then the limiting factor would be fuel - there's only enough easily accessible uranium to power the world's current energy consumption for a few decades, extendable to a few hundred to a thousand years if we work out an efficient method for extracting it from seawater. Thorium would easily get
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Interesting)
1. total world energy production - 2012 = 12 x 10^6 kT oil [goo.gl] - thus about 5 x 10^20 J.
averaging over 356 days => average power produced=1.6 x 10^13 W
2. Solar constant - 1361 W/sq m [wikipedia.org]
Surface of Earth intercepting Sun's energy = PI*(6384 km [wikipedia.org]) ^ 2 = 1.28 10^14 sq m
Sun's radiation total power on Earth = 1.74 x 10^17 W
Average power produced by the world / Sun's radiation power = 0.01%. Yet, until recently, Earth (or Gaya - to encompass the ecosystem as well) managed to deal with the Sun's radiation without warming.
Conclusion: the major cause of the warming is very unlikely caused directly by the world's energy production (ultimately transformed in heat) - as it contributes with only 0.01%. Look elsewhere.
Re:Honest question (Score:4, Interesting)
Right - the problem is primarily due to an incremental increase in solar energy retention due to greenhouse gasses. Basically all of that 1361W/m2 ends up radiated back into space - some reflected, but mostly as infrared radiation (heat), but let greenhouse gasses capture even a fraction of a percent more of that infrared energy and it dwarfs humanities energy production and the global temperature will rise until it's hot enough that the amount of escaping energy again matches the incoming. Of course all manner of ecological feedback loops can contribute as well, and that's where the question really gets complicated. So far though it seems like, at the rate we're forcing the system, there are more positive (self-accelerating) feedback loops than negative (self-limiting), and that's a scary proposition for any engineer.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I moved to Alaska several years ago. After three winters, I am acclimatized. For instance, when it gets up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit I am strolling around in shorts and a t-shirt. Trying to survive shifting climate is something life has always done. Those who migrate and adapt survive. Those who nuke themselves deserve what they get - just leave the rest of us out of it.
It's much easier to adapt to a cooler climate than a warmer one. When you get cold you can put on another jacket. You can only remove so many clothes to remain comfortable when the temperature rises to 101 degrees with high humidity.
cooling is a disaster (Score:2)
It may be easier to keep warm in a cold climate, but things don't grow well there. Even brief and light periods of cooling in the past ("little ice age") have cause massive famine and death. Furthermore, with global warming, we lose far less arable land around the equator than we gain up north.
Cooling is a disaster for civilization, warming is merely an inconvenience.
Re: (Score:2)
Parking lots in Phoenix seem to do just fine.
Of course, Phoenix expects 110 degree temperatures so they plan for it when they build things. Unlike other areas [myfoxdc.com] that usually don't see those high temperatures.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its much easier to adapt to climate change than it is to control the global climate.
Depending on what results from the changes in the global climate.... If increasingly acidic oceans kills off ocean food sources and changing weather conditions turn formerly productive farming regions into drought stricken arid wastelands without also changing formerly unfarmable areas into productive farming regions, then the adaptation will mean dramatic reductions in the population the earth can support.
If Nuclear really is the answer, then vastly increasing our use of nuclear power over the coming deca
Re:Migrate! (Score:5, Insightful)
For want of modding... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I'd seen your post earlier, I might of modded you up.
At this point I'll concede on the global warming/climate change point. As you point out, the real question now is: Is avoiding the damage economically worth it? In some cases I hear people advocating to switching to electric sources that run 10X the cost of conventional ones.
As somebody else pointed out, if we were given a source of essentially free unlimited electricity we'd be 99% of the way towards post-scarcity. Cheap power enables so many things.
I think we still need a healthy mix of power sources, and I don't like coal due to the ancillary pollution - not just global warming. By the time you pilo on enough pollution controls to qualify coal power as 'clean', it's more expensive than nuclear.
We dearly need affordable power, and I think nuclear has the best promise. Even then I don't propose making it our 'sole source.' I like to place my ideal non-carbon electric mix at 40% nuclear, 20% solar, 20% wind, and 20% 'other' such as hydro. In order to reach this in the USA we simply need around twice as many nuclear reactors if we keep building them in the 1-1.4GW size range. We could use a whole raft of the small kw range devices for both providing electricity and heating remote Alaskan towns. Put the solar panels on roofs south of the Mason-Dixon line, the wind turbines in North Dakota and such, where they make sense.
Re:Migrate! (Score:4, Informative)
What did it cost you to move you and your family from the continental US to Alaska? How much energy was required? And what's different about the area around what's now your home since you took up residence there?
Now multiply that by 7 billion. Well... you did say *everyone* should migrate, right?
But they'll all get to smoke a joint without being hassled, so that makes it sensible. Yeah, right.
BTW, I live just as far north as you do. Also in a place where people don't pay much heed to the War On Some Drugs.
And yet... I'm pretty sure that you've managed to contribute little or nothing of use to the discussion here.
Re: (Score:2)
Good plan. Let's not use a non-fossil power source because "someone might make money off it".
Re: (Score:3)
Nuclear Energy is stupid. It's bad enough we have a bunch of cartels making massive profits of oil, nuclear power has an even higher barrier to entry than that.
So what's your answer? Only generate power from generator-bicycles so there's a much lower barrier to entry?
Nuclear fusion may ultimately prove to be an even cleaner source of power -- with an even higher barrier to entry than fission. Should fusion be abandoned because it will have a high barrier to entry?
Re: (Score:2)
"Cost" in money is irrelevant when you have a truly sovereign country (or at least one that doesn't have to buy everything from large American companies).
Cost in time, number of people, and depletion of natural resources, is far lower for nuclear energy than for anything else.
Re: (Score:2)
Where to dump the radioactive waste so we can be *sure* it won't be able harm anyone anymore?
In another type of reactor [wikipedia.org]?
TWRs are also capable, in principle, of reusing their own fuel.
Re:Waste problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, for one thing, our current approach to nuclear waste is completely moronic. Trying to bury it for 100k years is a bit of a fool's errand.
The only sane solution to the nuclear waste problem is to force the long-lived waste (mostly plutonium, but some other actinides as well) to fission, and the only way to do that is in a fast nuclear reactor.
In truth, we've painted ourselves into a bit of a corner. We NEED to do R&D on fast reactors (especially molten salt fast reactors, and the Integral Fast Reactor), and start to build whatever is going to be the safest, most effective nuclear reactor.
When you burn off the long-lived waste in a fast reactor, you do get more radioactive waste as output BUT that waste cools off "quickly" - it becomes basically non-radioactive after 300 years (I say "basically non-radioactive" because you do get extremely low levels of lingering radiation for a long time - that's how half-lives work, mathematically, but the radiation is lower than average earth crust after about 300 years).
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a 300 year problem than a 100k year problem, wouldn't you?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm always suspicious of such calculations. It seems you can get whatever answer you want.
But in mining coal, is there no CO2 emitted? No CO2 in the construction of the plants? All the workers get to the plant by bikes?
In theory you could construct and mine both of these with 0 CO2 emission: just use electricity from solar power, and electric vehicles.
Re: (Score:2)
Well of course, but a transparent calculation can be checked and it adds at least a little bit more credibility than pure guessing. If you have one calculation supporting one opinion and one supporting the other you can compare both and look for the differences.
Re:Please Journalists, get facts! (Score:4, Informative)
As others have pointed out, building and operating the plant has to be done regardless of the energy source, so factoring that in won't change much - though admittedly historically nuclear plants have been larger and more sophisticated. There's no reason that has to be the case though - the Hyperion reactor designs for example consist of a sealed reactor unit a few cubic meters in volume that produces 70MW of heat energy for ten years. The rest of the power plant could then be a retrofitted coal-fired plant for all that it matters. Well, aside from the underground vaults protecting the reactors from accident or sabotage, but that's just a big concrete-lined hole in the ground.
As for mining - a pound of U235 contains roughly 2.3 MILLION times the energy of a pound of coal. Even once we factor in the fact that only 0.7% of uranium is the readily fissile U235 isotope, and modern light water reactors (LWR) only extract about 0.6% of the available energy that's still about 100x the energy from a pound of mined uranium than a pound of coal. Refining it cuts even further into that energy budget, but still the shear reduction in the amount of "stuff" you need to move around should make it apparent that uranium has an edge in mining energy costs. And you can reprocess the "spent" fuel, which still actually contains most of the original U235 and improve that return considerably.
And things look considerably better for Thorium, 100% of mined thorium is the fertile Th232, and it "burns" much more efficiently without reprocessing - it has roughly 10,000x the energy density of coal, and at those levels it becomes painfully obvious how much lower the CO2 emissions from mining and transportation are. Plus it's a common by-product from rare-earth mining, so you get a fair amount for "free" in that regard.
As for handling the waste - with the exception of the spent fuel, which is all valuable isotopes and should be reprocessed anyway(in a LWR) or only moderate risk relatively short-half life isotopes in a Thorium reactor, the ash from a coal plant is actually more radioactive than anything coming out of a nuclear plant, as well as being highly toxic and far more voluminous. If we held everyone to the same environmental standards I suspect coal plants would have the higher energy footprint to deal with their waste.
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't Australia just build their own fuel facilities? They have, I believe, the worlds largest Uranium mine, or second largest, something like that. I guess they can't currently enrich it and fabricate fuel, but that seems like a problem they can fix, if they wanted to.
Re: (Score:2)
Were they working with GE? Because I've heard of Laser Excitation Enrichment (I had heard GE was working on it), and that yeah, it dramatically reduces the power needed to enrich U. I've also heard about the fears of weapons proliferation, but that seems kind of like BS to me - those countries already have weapons programs.
So, I'm not sure how depriving ourselves of useful technology stops other countries from getting weapons. . .
Re: (Score:3)
I found this with a quick Google search:
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/laser.html [nrc.gov]
That mentions the process as being Australian, so I'm going to conclude that is likely the same process you refer to.
Looks like, at least in the US, it hasn't been buried. Maybe in AU they buried it, dunno.