Nuclear Energy

[Razor235]

Some of you are most likely opposed to nuclear power. Here's some information about it, hopefully getting you to consider it.

 

Myths: 1. Nuclear fuel is running low

This is probably the one of the most ridiculous myths I have heard about nuclear power. There is lots of fissile uranium-235 left in the world, and the non-fissile uranium-238 is put into special "breeder reactors" that eventually turn it into fissile plutonium-239. There are two types of reactors: The "burners", commercial reactors that use more fuel than is spent, and "breeders", reactors that produce more fuel than is used. This leads into the next myth...

 

2. Once used, spent assemblies are as useless as the ash from coal plants. They are waste.

So, a commercial reactor has used its fuel. What's left is waste, right? WRONG. Around 96% of spent fuel is able to be reprocessed into useable plutonium-239. The process is messy, but it is much cheaper in the long run.

 

3. Large amounts of waste are produced.

Looking at the previous myth, this looks ridiculous. If you take all of the waste produced by the U.S. and stuck it side-by-side, it would cover an area the size of a football field that is five yards deep. Plus, mot of that is reusable. Lets say 70,000 tons of fuel is buried. That is wasting 66,000 tons of U-238, which is used for the production of plutonium.

 

Essay

 

Nuclear power is a clean, cheap alternative to burning oil or coal. It has minimal carbon output, and that is from shipment of used and unused fuel. The clouds seen coming from the towers are just water vapor.

 

It is very safe, accidents rarely happen, and when they do, it is most likely because a) The reactor was designed poorly (Chernobyl, Windscale), b) Built in a hazardous area (Fukushima-Daiichi), or c) Run by idiots or people who blame instrument malfunction (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island).

 

Nuclear plants do NOT explode, and whoever says that critical mass is dangerous is stupid. Critical mass is what reactions need to, well, react. Super-critical is when things get dangerous. There, a runaway nuclear reaction is GOING to occur, resulting in meltdown and steam explosions, and beautiful, radioactive geysers of water sprouting up once it hits the water table. The fuel, if it somehow stays molten, will eventually work its way down to the core, and stay there, because going to China would work against gravity.

 

Terrorist attacks are unlikely. Simulations were ran involving a Boeing 767-400 crashing into the reactor containment building with full fuel tanks. Nothing happened to the main containment inside the building in any of them. What would you expect to happen to four feet of reinforced concrete? And, anyway, terrorists prefer populated areas with lots of casualties to sparse areas around plants.

 

 

Sources: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202008/Nuclear_waste.pdf

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/4259/

Countless books that I've read

[Eedo Baba]

I think once we get fusion power working, that will be a better option by far, but for now, nuclear fission is the best choice. Contrary to popular belief, it is very safe, and if well organized and perhaps built further from urban areas, the risk is greatly reduced.

Personally, I seriously think that we should be considering space based nuclear power. Geosynchronous nuclear stations that transmit power via laser grids. Persistent radioactivity would be a negligible problem, for the station would run autonomously, and nuclear power in zero gravity actually erases some of the inherent problems associated with the process. Waste products could be stored in vacuum sealed inflatable containment bladders, inside expanding structures, to be disposed of on earth, far into the future.

[Twilight Sparkle]

It's true that nuclear energy can be dangerous, but the risk is minor with well-trained workers and plants that abide by strict safety standards. The three major incidents I can think of are Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island. Chernobyl happened because the plant used obsolete technology operated by inexperienced workers screwing around with things that should have been left to the day shift. Fukushima happened because a tsunami hit it. Three Mile island killed a grand total of zero people, and again was caused by faulty equipment.

 

Nuclear fission isn't a perfect solution, but it is the step that will lead us to nuclear fusion, which not only produces more energy, but is much safer because meltdowns are basically impossible (It will fizzle out before it explodes, if I recall correctly). In addition, nuclear fusion produces very little dangerous waste. To me, it seems like fusion power is the next great leap forward for humanity, and the prospect of enormous amounts of energy safely produced by readily-available resources seems like it is more than worth the potential risks of fission power. Renewable energy is great and all, but Fusion seems like a better solution because so far the only problem with it has just been getting it to work, whereas with renewable energy there are all sorts of negative factors (Wind power only works in windy areas, solar power only if there's plenty of sunny days, ect.) On top of that, fossil fuel plants kill and injure more people than their nuclear equivalents. So yeah, I suppose I don't have to say I voted for the first option.

[Razor235]

was caused by faulty equipment.

 

Yes, but the situation happened mostly because the operators didn't blame instrument malfunction.

 

Remember this?

It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools.

Most of the time, anyway.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I think this better fits in Civilization Problems.

[alphabetagamma]

Nuclear energy eh? Well it's not my favourite form of energy, but it works. Aside from the inherent risks of using radioactive fuel and potentially dangerous waste, nuclear energy is fairly safe and efficient at the moment. But, even at the risk of sounding incredibly redundant, fusion power would be ideal.

 

Hmm, that did sound incredibly redundant.

 

I think once we get fusion power working, that will be a better option by far, but for now, nuclear fission is the best choice. Contrary to popular belief, it is very safe, and if well organized and perhaps built further from urban areas, the risk is greatly reduced.

Personally, I seriously think that we should be considering space based nuclear power. Geosynchronous nuclear stations that transmit power via laser grids. Persistent radioactivity would be a negligible problem, for the station would run autonomously, and nuclear power in zero gravity actually erases some of the inherent problems associated with the process. Waste products could be stored in vacuum sealed inflatable containment bladders, inside expanding structures, to be disposed of on earth, far into the future.

I think the cost of designing, upkeeping and especially launching all the equipment, and later fuel/coolant/moderator, necessary to run anything like that would outweigh any possible benefits by a landslide. You'd also be trusting essentially an enourmous radioactive satellite to run itself, with direct human intervention being hours away. Space debris and/or a coolant leak would be bad news for a few million people.

[Vapymid]

I also think that nuclear fission is a temporary solution to keep the things going until fusion becomes commercially feasible. Until the latter has happened though, fission is a very good energy source, even taking into account that we are using it mostly to boil lots of water

 

Still, it's environmentally clean during normal operation (cleaner and less radioactive than coal burning, for instance) and it's not as dangerous as is popularly believed even in accidents (as Fukushima events showed last year).

 

Once cheap fusion comes online the fission will be too expensive even though it has the highest known energy density save antimatter-matter annihilation but I expect it will then be used mostly for deep Solar System exploration + oceangoing and underwater transport.

 

Regards

[Doom Shepherd]

It's pretty much the best current viable option (Since fusion has been "50 years away" for about 60 years now).

 

However, I take every opportunity to point out that anything run on solar power will be available (with proper maintenance and the occasional efficiency upgrade) for the next 5 billion years. And there's a whole fuckton of it out there.

[Eedo Baba]

I think once we get fusion power working, that will be a better option by far, but for now, nuclear fission is the best choice. Contrary to popular belief, it is very safe, and if well organized and perhaps built further from urban areas, the risk is greatly reduced.

Personally, I seriously think that we should be considering space based nuclear power. Geosynchronous nuclear stations that transmit power via laser grids. Persistent radioactivity would be a negligible problem, for the station would run autonomously, and nuclear power in zero gravity actually erases some of the inherent problems associated with the process. Waste products could be stored in vacuum sealed inflatable containment bladders, inside expanding structures, to be disposed of on earth, far into the future.

I think the cost of designing, upkeeping and especially launching all the equipment, and later fuel/coolant/moderator, necessary to run anything like that would outweigh any possible benefits by a landslide. You'd also be trusting essentially an enourmous radioactive satellite to run itself, with direct human intervention being hours away. Space debris and/or a coolant leak would be bad news for a few million people.

 

I think a computer run station would be miles better than a human run one. As long as safety procedures and on board repair equipment were up to the task, it would work fine.

 

And on the subject of making this profitable, consider the amount of money made by an entire nuclear power plant over the course of decades, and compare that to the relative pittance of construction and launch costs.

[Michael Archer]

Nuclear is great. It's safe, it's efficient, and it's clean. Nuclear power plants take a really long time to build, but they're worth it.

 

I also like nuclear, because it exposes the environmentalists anti-human, anti-captalist ulterior motives. If they truly believed what they preached, they would love nuclear power the most--but they hate it the most. Nuclear power is the cleanest and most reliable form of energy there is. Wind and Solar aren't practical on the scale that they're needed and they're really unreliable. Oil is good but I think, if Ross is right, it's going to peak soon. Australia and Canada have a lot of Uranium, so that's really good.

[alphabetagamma]

I think once we get fusion power working, that will be a better option by far, but for now, nuclear fission is the best choice. Contrary to popular belief, it is very safe, and if well organized and perhaps built further from urban areas, the risk is greatly reduced.

Personally, I seriously think that we should be considering space based nuclear power. Geosynchronous nuclear stations that transmit power via laser grids. Persistent radioactivity would be a negligible problem, for the station would run autonomously, and nuclear power in zero gravity actually erases some of the inherent problems associated with the process. Waste products could be stored in vacuum sealed inflatable containment bladders, inside expanding structures, to be disposed of on earth, far into the future.

I think the cost of designing, upkeeping and especially launching all the equipment, and later fuel/coolant/moderator, necessary to run anything like that would outweigh any possible benefits by a landslide. You'd also be trusting essentially an enourmous radioactive satellite to run itself, with direct human intervention being hours away. Space debris and/or a coolant leak would be bad news for a few million people.

I think a computer run station would be miles better than a human run one. As long as safety procedures and on board repair equipment were up to the task, it would work fine.

 

And on the subject of making this profitable, consider the amount of money made by an entire nuclear power plant over the course of decades, and compare that to the relative pittance of construction and launch costs.

Launch costs? Pittance? Even if you managed to design a station that would perfectly run itself for 40 years. It has an output of 5000 GW*h per year. 200 TW*h lifetime production. At an average price of 0.112 USD/KW*h gross income would be 2.24*10^10 or 22,400,000,000 USD. Assuming an average cost of 15,000 USD per kilogram for geosynchronous orbit, the maximum mass of the station would be 149,300 kg. For reference the ISS weighs ~450,000kgs. If you can fit a nuclear reactor and all the fuel, moderator, coolant and automated repair systems required to run it for 40 years into three ISS's, I applaud you.

 

Of course that's assuming this whole project goes completely untaxed, there would be no need for any kind of reception facility for the energy and the reactor never goes offline.

 

How would you even cool the reactor? You can't just vent all your coolant into space and replace it.

[Vapymid]

If you're going to beam energy from a space-based generator you don't need to use nuclear (or any fuel-based) power generation at all.

 

You can build solar cell farms as large as you want and place them in orbits which will keep them exposed to the Sun 24 hours a day.

 

You will not have to raise all that mass from the Earth's gravity well either - you can make the panels and other equipment on the Moon or even on a silicon-rich trojan asteroid, place the farm near to where the manufacturing goes and relay the power by, say, microwave laser.

 

Regards

[alphabetagamma]

I get the feeling that if space based energy was anywhere near cost effective or safe, at least when compared with 'standard' production methods, it would already exist in at least a limited form.

[Doom Shepherd]

I get the feeling that if space based energy was anywhere near cost effective or safe, at least when compared with 'standard' production methods, it would already exist in at least a limited form.

 

It's both cost-effective and safe. Or could be with a modicum of effort.

 

What it isn't is "easy" and "immediately profitable." Or "funded."

 

Oh, and of course it already exists in limited form. How do you think we power nearly all our satellites and the space station?

 

In actuality, the military is already working on this, so they won;t have to depend on shipping oil through places like Pakistan to power bases in the field.

 

But Japan is working much harder at the moment.

 

Over the past two years, Japan has committed $21 billion to secure space-solar energy. By 2030, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to “put into geostationary orbit a solar-power generator that will transmit one gigawatt of energy to Earth, equivalent to the output of a large nuclear power plant.” Japanese officials estimate that, ultimately, they will be able to deliver electricity at a cost of $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, which will be competitive with all other sources.

 

http://pubrecord.org/politics/9116/race-space-solar-energy/

[alphabetagamma]

Oh, and of course it already exists in limited form. How do you think we power nearly all our satellites and the space station?

I meant for the energy to be sold commercially. Copernicium exists too, but there isn't exactly a lot of it.

In actuality' date=' the military is already working on this, so they won;t have to depend on shipping oil through places like Pakistan to power bases in the field.[/quote']Again, that's not a commercial application. Being cost effective is pretty much the opposite of what the millitary is for.

 

But Japan is working much harder at the moment.

 

Over the past two years, Japan has committed $21 billion to secure space-solar energy. By 2030, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to “put into geostationary orbit a solar-power generator that will transmit one gigawatt of energy to Earth, equivalent to the output of a large nuclear power plant.” Japanese officials estimate that, ultimately, they will be able to deliver electricity at a cost of $0.09 per kilowatt-hour, which will be competitive with all other sources.

 

http://pubrecord.org/politics/9116/race-space-solar-energy/

I think more money has been wasted on projects that never came to light. The SDI cost a few billion and look where that ended up.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Guest (see edit history)

[Doom Shepherd]

I think more money has been wasted on projects that never came to light. The SDI cost a few billion and look where that ended up.

 

Modern ABM systems, Single-Stage-To-Orbit rocket technology, the "Clementine" Moon probe, adaptive optics for telescopes, interferometry technology, piezoelectrics, diamond crystal coating, high-temperature carbon fiber ceramics, nanosatellites, and.. oh yeah, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.

 

No technological nation has ever wasted money investing in space.

[alphabetagamma]

I think more money has been wasted on projects that never came to light. The SDI cost a few billion and look where that ended up.

 

Modern ABM systems, Single-Stage-To-Orbit rocket technology, the "Clementine" Moon probe, adaptive optics for telescopes, interferometry technology, piezoelectrics, diamond crystal coating, high-temperature carbon fiber ceramics, nanosatellites, and.. oh yeah, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.

 

No technological nation has ever wasted money investing in space.

Depends how you define "wasted". I can think of much more worthy causes for a few billion than developing diamond crystal coating.

[Vapymid]

Being cost effective is pretty much the opposite of what the millitary is for.

 

Yes, but that's the beauty of it - the military takes a novel idea, an unfinished technology, throws huge pile of money on it, makes it state-of-the-art, grows bored with it and gives it to civilians to play with...

 

History is full of it - mass production, computers, antibiotics, jet engines, space launchers, nuclear power plants. All here largely due to them being developed by/for the military...

 

And if they are going to spend a lot of taxpayer's money anyway I'd rather they spent it on something useful, like space exploration.

 

Regards

[Doom Shepherd]

I think more money has been wasted on projects that never came to light. The SDI cost a few billion and look where that ended up.

 

Modern ABM systems, Single-Stage-To-Orbit rocket technology, the "Clementine" Moon probe, adaptive optics for telescopes, interferometry technology, piezoelectrics, diamond crystal coating, high-temperature carbon fiber ceramics, nanosatellites, and.. oh yeah, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.

 

No technological nation has ever wasted money investing in space.

Depends how you define "wasted". I can think of much more worthy causes for a few billion than developing diamond crystal coating.

 

And you're going to ignore everything else I listed, cause... why, exactly?

 

[alphabetagamma]

Modern ABM systems, Single-Stage-To-Orbit rocket technology, the "Clementine" Moon probe, adaptive optics for telescopes, interferometry technology, piezoelectrics, diamond crystal coating, high-temperature carbon fiber ceramics, nanosatellites, and.. oh yeah, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.

 

No technological nation has ever wasted money investing in space.

Depends how you define "wasted". I can think of much more worthy causes for a few billion than developing diamond crystal coating.

 

And you're going to ignore everything else I listed, cause... why, exactly?

 

Because

"Depends how you define "wasted". I can think of much more worthy causes for a few billion than modern ABM systems, Single-Stage-To-Orbit rocket technology, the "Clementine" Moon probe, adaptive optics for telescopes, interferometry technology, piezoelectrics, diamond crystal coating, high-temperature carbon fiber ceramics and nanosatellites" sounds terrible.

 

I would place "assisting developing countries" or "curing multiple diseases" or perhaps "making the earth more sustainable" much higher on the list for funding than everything on that list combined. Spending huge amounts of money on space feels ridiculous when there's so much to do down here.