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Had They Bet On Nuclear, Not Renewables, Germany & California Would Already Have 100% Clean Power

VAL0R

Banned
Molten salt thorium fueled reactors are the future of nuclear energy, according to some:

Including reasons such as:

1) Thorium is virtually limitless, found in common dirt all over the Earth and a small palm sized amount would provide all the energy needs for your entire life.
2) Molten salt reactors can be much, much smaller.
3) Molten salt reactors are far safer than old school water nuke reactors. Among other safety features, they can be built with a frozen salt plug that is cooled by gases during operation. In any power loss, catastrophic meltdown cannot happen because the salt plug melts (without power) and all the fuel is dumped into a designed catch tank for this purpose. The reaction stops immediately. (Unlike Fukashima which relied on cooling systems that were disabled by power loss and tsunami damage.)
4) This technology has been tested and proven to work in the US.

And so on. They are brilliant and will be the middle ground until we get the "star in a jar" fusion reactors some day.

Even environmentalist tree hugging hippies are getting on board with nuclear because it's so clean:
 
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pr0cs

Member
And you grossly overestimate waste "danger" because you believe that if you put that waste 2 km underground to be FOREVER burried under rock and dirt will "somehow" lead to "danger"
The key there is "forever".
This isn't something you can't just forget about and it means that this location is permanently disabled. Nothing ever can ever use the surrounding area.

Until we figure out how to disable or reuse the resultant waste it will be a Thorn in our side "forever", made worse if we continue to generate said waste
 

Maedre

Banned
Molten salt thorium fueled reactors are the future of nuclear energy, according to some:

Including reasons such as:

1) Thorium is virtually limitless, found in common dirt all over the Earth and a small palm sized amount would provide all the energy needs for your entire life.
2) Molten salt reactors can be much, much smaller.
3) Molten salt reactors are far safer than old school water nuke reactors. Among other safety features, they can be built with a frozen salt plug that is cooled by gases during operation. In any power loss, catastrophic meltdown cannot happen because the salt plug melts (without power) and all the fuel is dumped into a designed catch tank for this purpose. The reaction stops immediately. (Unlike Fukashima which relied on cooling systems that were disabled by power loss and tsunami damage.)
4) This technology has been tested and proven to work in the US.

And so on. They are brilliant and will be the middle ground until we get the "star in a jar" fusion reactors some day.

Even environmentalist tree hugging hippies are getting on board with nuclear because it's so clean:


According to nuclear lobbyists. Both.
Unbelievable what’s happening here. Hey let me bring on an NRA member to explain us how important weapons in private homes are. That would be the same.
 
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WaterAstro

Member
LOL nuclear is the least cleanest energy right now. Absolutely devastating effects of nuclear waste that isn't going away for millions of years.

There is that man who is trying to figure out how to completely deplete used uranium so it will be safe, so until then, nuclear is not clean.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
LOL nuclear is the least cleanest energy right now. Absolutely devastating effects of nuclear waste that isn't going away for millions of years.

There is that man who is trying to figure out how to completely deplete used uranium so it will be safe, so until then, nuclear is not clean.
Why does it have to be "clean"? What if it was just cleaner by a factor of 10? Would it still not be worth attempting?

Wind and Solar are using Fossil Fuels and pollutants, so your argument kind of breaks down if you approve of one but not the other.
 

hivsteak

Member
Way less of a problem that creating sollar panels from rare metals which require a lot of fumes released into air and are super expensive and inneficient AND there is still no battery technology capable of storing huge amount of energy for use in for example city.

Thats a one time cost and not a constant one like burning coal. Still better to equip your home with panels and a battery than rely completely on the grid. You benefit in the long run and so does anyone else who buys/occupies the property in the future. Plus any excess power can go to the grid.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Thats a one time cost and not a constant one like burning coal. Still better to equip your home with panels and a battery than rely completely on the grid. You benefit in the long run and so does anyone else who buys/occupies the property in the future. Plus any excess power can go to the grid.
So the panels last forever? No one has to drive out and maintain them? Same for the Wind turbines?

Just because you say "one time cost" doesn't make it true. :messenger_grinning_squinting:
 

hivsteak

Member
So the panels last forever? No one has to drive out and maintain them? Same for the Wind turbines?

Just because you say "one time cost" doesn't make it true. :messenger_grinning_squinting:

Sorry let me clarify one time environmental cost per panel produced. That’s still better than coal is it not? Even with maintainance. Weirdly against solar and wind aren’t you?
 

Tesseract

Banned
nuclear waste ain't really a big deal, you just encase and dump it in a mountain somewhere.

in the future, we'll probably just dump it into the molten core.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
Sorry let me clarify one time environmental cost per panel produced. That’s still better than coal is it not? Even with maintainance. Weirdly against solar and wind aren’t you?
In order for it to be better than coal, you'd at least have to show me how it can match or exceed the energy output of coal while not matching or exceeding the waste produced by it.

Cost-wise, Solar is nice but it takes a while for it to pay off. My wife and I are still looking into it ourselves (although we live in a cloudy region). The problem is that it's still a pretty big investment at this point.

All that aside, I'd prefer nuclear, which is the subject of the thread.
 

Maedre

Banned
nuclear waste ain't really a big deal, you just encase and dump it in a mountain somewhere.

in the future, we'll probably just dump it into the molten core.

That's not how it works. You can't just dump this stuff... Molten Core, really?


Just some information pieces:

Plant to expensive... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...south-carolina-nuclear-power-reactors-n788331

US Power plants are closing because they aren't profitable anymore https://www.powermag.com/u-s-nuclear-power-plant-closures-slideshow/

The new building in Hinkley Point C will officially cost £92.50 ($131) per megawatt hour, price increase not yet included. New solar parks in the USA and Africa guarantee prices between $25 and $35 per megawatt hour, some including battery. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/09...st-bid-of-0-02488-usd-kwh-for-50-mw-projects/

"The 2018 edition of the Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) reveals that nuclear power capacity grew by only 1% in 2017, while wind and solar saw their share increase by 17% and 35%, respectively. The report also recognizes that solar and wind are now the cheapest grid-connected sources of energy. Investments in new nuclear plants, on the other hand, are only being driven by public support, and by nuclear weapon states. " https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/09...ing-left-behind-nuclear-industry-experts-say/
 
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Dontero

Banned
Just some information pieces:
/QUOTE]


Move completely on solar and you would see instantly price skyrocketing. Only reason solar is allowed to have such prices is because:
- they don't supply most of the power to network, meaning that when solar is doing its work those nuclear reactors waste energy because they can't just shut down power plant like that.
- they don't pay for power grid and proper load balancing.
- the don't cover energy requirement, meaning "regardless of what happens you need to deliver power constantly 24/7"
 
Just coming back to this thread after a few days.

I would like to state that while I'm in favor of nuclear power, I also support industrial scale solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energy sources alongside nuclear. I also wholeheatedly support steamrolling the environmentalists and NIMBYs; I don't care about some obscure species of cricket keeping us from throwing up massive terawatt solar plants all over the southwest desert, and I don't care about rich liberal's property values of their Boston beach houses from industrialized offshore wind farms. We are also the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, so while not perfect from an emissions perspective it's still better than traditional fossils fuels. I want us to be squeezing megawatts out of every bit of 'useless' space we can, using every method we have to produce relatively clean energy.

This will all require a massive infrastructure investment in our aging power grid. I'm not in favor of government boondoggles, but with the right people behind the various projects the US can cut it's foreign energy reliance to zero while also significantly cutting it's carbon emissions. In addition we can finally tell OPEC to fuck right off.

We can do this all right now with currently existing technology. It will only take money, effort, and the will to put our nation first.
 
The only questions about nuclear are what are the costs, and how long will it take? That's its achiles heel. It can only be done with deep government involvement, guaranteeing loans, enforcing safety and putting up money.
 
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gela94

Member
Of course not. And I can’t hear this anymore. With the costs of over 15 billion per Plant without fuel costs and subsidies the 480 billion are not enough. We call this in Germany a milk man calculation.

Current calculation show that our net would work with 80% solar and wind without extra battery storage. And solar and wins are free. There is no radiation. The production of solar panels and wind turbines are getting cleaner and cleaner every year. the whole production cost of energy without subsidies are even lower with wind and solar than any other method at this point.

And those 480 billion € created hundreds of thousands of jobs that are generating taxes. You won’t get that with nuclear. Just look at France. The are practically 100% nuclear and need! Regularly! Power from Germany to stabilize their nets.

I’ve worked some years with a German power grid operator. So please give me counterarguments.



Nice concepts, but look at all those many and nice Gen III reactors out there in the wild. Oh wait! Gen IV is at this point not more realistic than a net positive fusion reactor.
The projected timeline talks about 2030. that’s 12 years from now (there won’t be a working Gen IV reactor in 2030) where do you think the renewable will be st that point?

I don't know enough about all of this but I watched a speech which I found pretty interesting.
 

Maedre

Banned
I don't know enough about all of this but I watched a speech which I found pretty interesting.


Hans-Werner Sinn? Its an interesting video but he is not the right person for this topic. And the Situation from 2018 is not comparable to the data of 2011 he used.

Move completely on solar and you would see instantly price skyrocketing. Only reason solar is allowed to have such prices is because:
- they don't supply most of the power to network, meaning that when solar is doing its work those nuclear reactors waste energy because they can't just shut down power plant like that.
- they don't pay for power grid and proper load balancing.
- the don't cover energy requirement, meaning "regardless of what happens you need to deliver power constantly 24/7"

What I like about this thread that many here ignore that the nuclear power industry is not able to survive without subsidies. And it's not going better. Its getting worse. But just let us ignore this fact.

Dontero can you give me the €/$ per MWh from a nuclear plant that includes those not so liked stuff like waste disposal and plant dismantling?
 
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