
Why We Need Innovative Nuclear Power - jkuria
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-we-need-innovative-nuclear-power/
======
lchengify
The Interchange did a great episode about Nuclear Power a while back [1].

They mentioned a few problems everyone knows about nuclear (NIMBY, financing,
licensing, etc), but one of the unintuitive problems was the lack of
institutional memory for construction. Westinghouse et.al. will design the
core of the plant, but each plant is constructed by a series of contractors
and subcontractors who many times, have never constructed anything this
precise before. Jessica Lovering compared it to constructing cathedrals (in
that each one was bespoke). This makes each one effectively as expensive as
the last.

This is one of the many problems companies like TerraPower are trying to
solve: Not just dropping up front cost (finance) or making it more stable
(NIMBY), but also trying to build a living knowledge of how to build reactors
repeatably.

Total tangent: My pet theory is that if it gets really bad, we'll just start
building floating nuclear reactors and park them within transmission distance
from cities. Ironically we have a ton of experience with floating nuclear
reactors from maintaining a large nuclear-powered navy.

[1] [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-we-make-
nuc...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/can-we-make-nuclear-
power-great-again#gs.2th7GMg)

~~~
sandworm101
Naval reactors are very different. They dont, most of them, generate
electricity. Thier steam pushes propellers. And they are also self-contained
within ships. Getting the power from the reactor to shore is a huge task, the
bigger task imho. Naval reactors are also smaller and not as efficient than a
civilian reactors. They are biult for different priorities (low manning,
variable power, long operation at very low power, decades between refits etc).
And they have a failsafe not applicable to a civi reactor near a city:
evacuate and sink it to the bottom.

~~~
pavpanchekha
No comment on the other points but the reactors in the new Ford-class carriers
generate electricity, not steam, which is part of the reason those carriers
use electric catapult.

~~~
Reason077
_”the reactors in the new Ford-class carriers generate electricity, not
steam”_

All nuclear reactors generate steam. That steam then drives a turbine which
generates the electricity.

The difference in the Ford class is that the steam turbine is bigger, powering
most of the ship’s systems via an electrical bus rather than by piping steam
around the ship. This approach reduces complexity and maintenance costs.

~~~
opwieurposiu
High temperature reactors use helium as the coolant can use the brayton cycle
turbines instead of steam turbines.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-
temperature_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-high-
temperature_reactor)

------
nukemandan
Love this. Close to my heart - Nuclear power is key to making a clean,
reliable, safe, and robusts electrical grid. Plus - this is the only realistic
way _right now_ to phase out fossil fuels!

Great advancements to keep an eye on: [https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-
reactor-technologies/small...](https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-
technologies/small-modular-nuclear-reactors)

Specifically Molten Salt (Liquid Floride) Thorium Breeder reactors are my
personal favorite technology I hope to see come around!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reacto...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor)

Great place to start:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3rL08J7fDA)

Great videos to follow:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/gordonmcdowell/featured](https://www.youtube.com/user/gordonmcdowell/featured)

~~~
piokoch
For years Greenpeace and other "eco" organizations were fighting nuclear
energy and now we have what we have. I understand that using solar or wind
sounds sweet and in some places on the Earth it might even make some sense if
we learn some day how to efficiently store energy. But we need something that
works regardless on the weather.

Nuclear energy does not comes for free, there are nuclear wastes, but the
dangers and difficulties were greatly overblown in the course of anti-nuclear
propaganda.

I believe we can find the way to reuse nuclear wastes - my guess is that
nobody was doing serious research in this area since being "pro" nuclear was
not fashionable (and it is still not in many places).

~~~
walkingolof
>but the dangers and difficulties were greatly overblown in the course of
anti-nuclear propaganda.

The nuclear waste generation is a _HUGE_ problem, the problem is so big that
very few (if any) country really know how to solve it, look a the US for
example as a really frightening example of an out of control waste problem,
both from civil and military sources...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Long_term_management)

~~~
TeMPOraL
The problem isn't big, it's only _tricky_. Countries deal with orders of
magnitude more of even more toxic "regular" waste from chemical industry. Not
to mention the (again, orders of magnitude more of) waste coming out of
powerplant chimneys, that's out of mind because it quickly gets out of sight.

It's tricky because of a combination of factors like long half-lives and
unusual suitability for some of the material to be reprocessed into a weapon
(both fission devices for nation states and terror devices for small groups,
the latter more thanks to public perception than any actual effectiveness).
This creates a lot of political obstacles, as it's easier to pass
responsibility to someone else than it is to double-down and implement methods
to reprocess, transmute or reuse the waste.

~~~
varjag
Organic chemical waste decomposes relatively quickly. Few of them survive 1000
year, and those that do are ironically things we perceive as safe (PET bottles
and bags).

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes. But that's my point. Nuclear waste isn't a _huge_ problem, because there
isn't much of it compared to any other kind of waste. It's tricky, because it
lives longer, it's harder to neuter, and well... it's radioactive.

~~~
abalone
_> Nuclear waste isn't a huge problem, because there isn't much of it_

You just changed your argument. You originally said nuclear waste is less
toxic than “‘regular’ waste from chemical industry,” not just that there was
less of it.

Even a smaller amount of highly toxic waste that stays that way for thousands
of years is a huge problem.

~~~
mercutio2
I’m trying to find a charitable way to interpret your criticism, and I haven’t
been able to find one.

In every post in this thread, TeMPOraL has been making a consistent argument
that nuclear produces orders of magnitude less waste than other not-routinely-
treated-as-horrible industrial waste issues.

You appear to be making the argument that “because there isn’t much of it” is
a new argument, but that appears to be the core of their argument everywhere.

Perhaps you were confusing who said what?

------
ozborn
"But I could already see major limitations looming ahead: the huge amounts of
land needed, the lack of scalable ways to match their inconstant power to
society’s unremitting thirst for energy."

I sometimes wonder if authors of these pro-nuclear articles are paid to
astroturf for the nuclear power industry or if they are just unaware of what
solar is capable of.

The "huge amounts of land" claim is incorrect
([https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/22/we-could-
power...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/22/we-could-power-the-
entire-world-by-harnessing-solar-energy-from-1-of-the-sahara/#7a8b60f5d440))
and in reality much of solar power could be deployed on urban hardscapes.

The second claim seems to ignore the possibility of batteries and other large
scale energy storage, never mind that solar would be complemented by other
renewable energy sources.

The other problem with the nuclear industry (ignoring all the much talked
about safety and waste storage issues) is that it ends up being a centralized
power source. Living in a solar unfriendly state with the most profitable
energy utility in the country (no rate review in 30+ years) I do not want to
see any more centralization and the corresponding corruption. Yeah, I know
centralization doesn't imply corruption and abuse of power, but it sure makes
it easier.

~~~
2trill2spill
The article you cited said we need 43,000 square miles of solar to power the
earth costing 5 trillion dollars, I consider that to be a huge amount of land
and money. That would be half the area of Minnesota the state I live in
devoted entirely to solar panels. Sure it wouldn't all be in one place but
that is still a significant amount of land world wide that have to change land
uses.

Also isn't that article also assuming that all of the solar panels would be in
the Sahara desert? Where solar power is extremely efficient. If we spread
these solar panels across the world we would need significantly more because
they would located in places much less suitable for solar power.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Yet the UK, not exactly blessed with excess sun, has already reached a point
of generating more by renewables than fossil. With little noticeable impact on
anyone anywhere aside from a few windmills in hilly spots, or visible a mile
or so off some areas of coastline, and a fair bit of roof mount solar.

If that is _all_ the space required to power the planet I find cause for much
hope. I doubt there would be much impact on anyone once you distribute across
all the countries. How much area is available globally that is currently empty
roof? Car parks as others have noted. What of offshore, covering reservoirs,
road and rail side verges and medians, wind, wave and nuclear. How much scrub
and desert that provides little for us or the local flora and fauna?

Unless Minnesota plans on actually powering the world it doesn't seem a
reasonable comparison or objection.

~~~
Reason077
_" Yet the UK, not exactly blessed with excess sun, has already reached a
point of generating more by renewables than fossil."_

Natural Gas is still the biggest source of electricity generation in the UK,
by some margin. But it is declining, slowly.

By the early 2020s, it's likely that wind turbines will have overtaken nuclear
as the #2 source.

UK electricity generation mix: [https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-
portal/electricity-generation-...](https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data-
portal/electricity-generation-mix-quarter-and-fuel-source-gb)

~~~
Sean1708
I think they must be including nuclear in renewables (32.97% non-renewables
w/o nuclear, 21.69% renwables w/o nuclear, 36.79% renewables w/ nuclear).

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Correct. Nuclear + renewables as against fossil.

------
killjoywashere
Isn't Myrvohld the same guy that runs Intellectual Ventures? This guy's like
Bond-villian level bearish on humanity.

Anyway, as someone who lived on a nuclear vessel and responded to Fukushima
and has degrees in physics and medicine, I'm honestly fine with nuclear power,
but renewables, by having lower energy density, are just way more managable.
The workforce problems being a major part of it. I have solar on my house. I'm
not putting a reactor on my house, ever. I always go back to this: I'll grant
that more people will die falling from roofs while installing solar, than will
ever die in all nuclear events, including Chernobyl, Hiroshima and Nagisaki.
Still, solar and wind are the better options. Energy density matters. Not to
high. Not to low. Juuust right.

~~~
nukemandan
Why not a "nuclear battery"? ;-)

[https://phys.org/news/2016-11-diamond-age-power-nuclear-
batt...](https://phys.org/news/2016-11-diamond-age-power-nuclear-
batteries.html)

~~~
nukemandan
really this:
[http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20402%20ME%20405%20Nuclear%20Power%2...](http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20402%20ME%20405%20Nuclear%20Power%20Engineering/Autonomous%20Battery%20Reactors.pdf)

------
xvilka
It is fun to see that Germany abandoning its nuclear power due to "green"
protests, but in fact increasing the coal burning rate. Problem of political
populism - it is probably what will destroy humanity one day.

~~~
foepys
Germany is ending nuclear power because there is no consensus on how and where
to store nuclear waste. People tend to forget that the waste is dangerous for
thousands of years to come and Germany doesn't have deserts to put it in.
Putting it in the ground is a bad idea, as you can see if you just search the
internet for "Asse nuclear".

~~~
woolvalley
Export to the sahara?

~~~
b1daly
Maybe nuclear waste should be deliberately stored near population centers,
helpfully incentivizing the populace to maintain the safety and integrity of
long term storage.

------
Tade0
_Here’s why it’s so crucial that we develop better nuclear that we can all
live with: before this century is out, there’s good reason to believe that
we’ll see almost everyone in the world consuming energy at least as fast as
Americans do now._

No, there isn't. EU's emissions/energy use for example has been in steady
decline for years now.

Also Americans tend to use an outsized amount of energy. An amount that also
peaked around 2008, declining since then, so not even Americans will use as
much energy as Americans today do.

My take is as follows: currently nuclear loses with gas + renewables on price
alone and is not getting cheaper, while renewables are.

It takes and average of 7 years to build a nuclear power plant. Renewables
haven't yet exhausted their price reduction potential so it's safe to say that
in these 7 years their price will be even lower.

On top of that cheap energy storage in the form of zinc-air batteries is being
deployed today for a price competitive with gas peaker plants. Needless to say
its price has been decreasing as well.

~~~
riffraff
> No, there isn't. EU's emissions/energy use for example has been in steady
> decline for years now.

where do you get the data for this? I am not saying it's wrong, I'm genuinely
curious.

Also, how much of this is due to heavy industries going to other countries?

~~~
Tade0
The EU loves statistics: [https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/indicators/primary-e...](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
maps/indicators/primary-energy-consumption-by-fuel-6/assessment-1)

About the heavy industries: I don't know, but given that energy usage was
actually increasing before the recession I would say that it isn't a large
factor.

Heating is though and there's a lot of room for improvement here even given
that ironically enough climate change reduced the need for it measurably.

------
arduanika
The way to get bright young minds thinking about nuclear power again is to
start building the nuclear plants that we know we'll need to get out of this
mess. This will signal to every student that there's a steady career in
nuclear engineering. Random grants and Bill Gates' hobby investments aren't
going to cut it. Job security will. And once we start investing in this again,
of course we'll have new ideas, and the next generation of plants will be even
better.

~~~
legulere
> we know we'll need

Do we? Everything points to renewables like wind now. Of course there are
problems to overcome but they’re not bigger than with nuclear power.

~~~
arduanika
"Everything points"

Source (no pun intended)?

See my comment elsewhere on this thread about "workers per watt", which is
about solar, but the same applies almost as drastically to wind. You do the
math.

[https://www.energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-and-employment-
re...](https://www.energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-and-employment-report)

~~~
will_pseudonym
Nuclear also has the lowest mortality rate of any energy source, 0.1 per
terawatt-hour.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-
deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#3b97817709b7)

------
davemp
> This why it is imperative that we __turbocharge__ the pace of innovation in
> nuclear power. TerraPower is just one of dozens of startups around the world
> that are now exploring new and better kinds of reactors

As promising as nuclear power is as a renewable energy source, the last thing
the world needs is nuclear powered by _innovative_ software from VC funded,
fast returns oriented, move fast and break things types.

Nuclear reactors do not have the same economics as software. The field is a
bad investment in comparison (and in comparison to __many__ other fields).
Encouraging young, bright people to go into the nuclear power is dishonest.
The future for nuclear researchers in uncertain. Change that before
encouraging citizens with great potential to gamble their future away.

New, much more efficient reactor designs have and will be in the works. Theses
designs are in various stages of regulatory approval. Most designs are not
economically viable. Rigor is not quick, and is not to be _disrupted_. Again,
change the incentives. (or just have Bill email fellow billionaires who can
afford gambles).

I agree with the main point. The rest of the article is irresponsible and/or
dishonest rubbish that leaves out important details and actionable ideas.
Waste of readers' time and doesn't do much to actually educate the population.
Maybe this article even encourages people to spread ill thought out and
uninformed ideas in the name of the environment. Subpar editing and
publishing.

\--- nitpick below ---

I've worked on embedded software in the nuclear industry (designing inspection
tools). I've done work with formal methods and verifying programs. Anyone who
jabs at "designs drafted during the slide-rule era and adapted from reactors
used on aircraft carriers and submarines" is being disingenuous to the level
of rigor that went into these PE signed engineering designs. Our modern
software development methods are a joke in comparison.

~~~
ekun
The US invests a lot of money into researching advanced reactors only so the
money can be sprinkled around to different labs, companies, and universities
to keep our knowledge/workforce updated until they shift focus every couple
years to a new 'important' reactor concept. With all that money and time we
could have prototyped advanced plants and gone through licensing so we'd be
building them today. Unfortunately I don't think that's a priority.

------
Pristina
Nuclear is too scary. Last time there was an earthquake that wiped out 10000
people and shutdown a bunch of reactors (nobody died from the reactors), a
country shut down all their nuclear power plants.

It would take a HUGE amount of effort to change people's opinion, that's gonna
be 90% of the work to bring nuclear back.

~~~
dancek
It would only take mainstream media to change the way it portrays nuclear
energy and a couple of years.

But yes, you're right.

~~~
KnightOfWords
> It would only take mainstream media to change the way it portrays nuclear
> energy and a couple of years.

The media and government have limited ability to shift public opinion.

~~~
theshrike79
Seriously?

That might be true for certain values of "media", but not otherwise.

------
metaphor
On a related note, Jacksonville Electric Authority is rolling on a 250 MW
distributed solar supplement to their existing grid. Presentation from their
October public board agenda can be found here[1], pp. 65-76.

There's some interesting visuals of their solar distribution, land allocation,
and proposed panel layouts...but perhaps more importantly, a purchase power
agreement comparison against a nuclear deal with the Municipal Electric
Authority of Georgia[2] gone super sour (and currently under litigation).

Takeaway is, indeed, nuclear is in dire need of innovation.

[1]
[https://www.jea.com/Events/Board_Meetings/2018_10_16_Board_M...](https://www.jea.com/Events/Board_Meetings/2018_10_16_Board_Meeting_Agenda_and_Package/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant)

------
atoav
One crucial question when it comes to nuclear power IMO is, how to make
nuclear power without profiting from A) the public and B) from future
generations.

Nuclear waste is toxic, radioactive, hard to operate with, hard to contain and
very often has half life times well beyond a few thousand years. The answer to
the question who is going to be paying for a safe and controlled storage for a
few milleniums has often been answered by the state taking responsibility (and
very often the cost).

Storing anything for multiple thousand years without causing disasters or
having the public take the cost is a non-trivial task, because this surpasses
generations, maybe even nations. Even advancements like this one:
[https://www.deepisolation.com/](https://www.deepisolation.com/) are not that
fulfilling. Somebody has to continuosly check on these things for the future
and a thousand years of guaranteed inspection is even something a nation state
fails to provide. Maybe we should give it to the catholic church?

If you would have to pay the containment/inspection/insurance costs for every
ounce of nuclear waste for the rest of its projected life (to be fair: lets
say only while it stays dangerous), it would get uneconomical quite fast. Not
to mention that this will cost money centuries after all nuclear fuel has been
burned. Is there money layed back for a thousand years in the future? If not,
it is profiting from future generations.

Maybe we find a better way to deal with nuclear waste than letting it rot in
some underground location for centuries.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Maybe we find a better way to deal with nuclear waste than letting it rot
> in some underground location for centuries._

We have ways, but not much is invested in developing and deploying them due to
political reasons (some coming out of mass hysteria, but some that are pretty
legit - like ability to weaponize substances involved). Those ways are:
alternative reaction chains that produce shorter-living waste; reusing parts
of the waste in other industrial applications (e.g. medicine); transmuting
some of the waste into shorter-living elements, including ones reusable as
fuel for different reactors. Unfortunately, I don't have the number on how
much this would cut down the need to store anything long-term.

------
jillesvangurp
There's a big problem with building new coal and nuclear plants: the price per
kwh is a moving target and it has trended down for years in clean energy
projects and widely predicted to continue doing that for the foreseeable
future. Coal plants are shutting down because they are getting too expensive
to operate. Plans for new plants are shelved because they can't be operated
cost effectively.

Clean energy is completely killing investment opportunities in this space. And
that's just at the current price levels. They are predicted to go down further
at around 7% annually for the next few years still.

This is the main reason investors are no longer eager to invest in either.
Sure, nuclear is technically capable of delivering our power needs. It's even
possible to do at vastly increased levels of safety given modern designs for
plants, improved technology (relative to the 1960s era stuff used right now),
etc. It's just that it will be very expensive to do it that way. It will take
many billions to do the R&D, billions more to build the plants. In other
words, these projects are prohibitively expensive and unlikely to be able to
compete on price.

------
WhompingWindows
There is innovative nuclear power already. It's fusion-based, causes no
emissions, and is so modular it can be placed in massive desert arrays or even
on top of anyone's home. Fusion-powered solar energy is here now, cheaper than
nuclear, and far easier to produce and scale.

I'm all for modular nuclear reactors, safe pie-in-the-sky builds that don't
suffer from the long list of problems the huge plants do. For now, the South
Carolina nuclear debacle is enough to show that new nuclear based on old,
clunky paradigms is not ready to compete without carbon taxes or some big
financial incentive.

So yes, either nuclear needs to innovate or it won't beat out renewables and
gas in the 21st century.

------
superpermutat0r
Nuclear power unfortunately comes with invisible tail risk. No mathematical
model can predict it. Unless power plants are built deep below the ground
eventually something will bring the catastrophe.

~~~
ALittleLight
I don't think that's true. We've used nuclear power for decades with
exceptionally few problems or deaths. There are single hydroelectric dam
failures that have killed more people than everyone who has ever died from
nuclear power - including Chernobyl, Three mile island, Fukushima, etc.

Banqio dam killed 174,000.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam)

Chernobyl, on the other hand, the deadliest and worst nuclear power plant
disaster in history killed 45 directly and was possibly responsible for
increased cancer incidence adding another 4-6,000 cancer deaths.

Should we discontinue hydroelectric power because all dams will eventually
fail and may flood inhabited areas? Nuclear power is incredibly safe.

~~~
superpermutat0r
I'm pretty sure no one has done the tail analysis for pesticides, cars,
nuclear or hydro, before they were introduced en masse.

I'd much rather have close to 0 deaths from all of the above guaranteed, when
catastrophe happens.

I'm aware that nuclear is probably the only thing that will solve the energy
crisis. But I'm wary of the long term risks. Just like I would be with the
dam.

------
thewhitetulip
I don't understand why we are still obsessed with Nuclear. Nuclear produces
toxic waste, plants are costly and take years to start functioning.

Compare that with what Tesla Energy did with the electric stabilising grid in
Australia, within 100 days!

For a solar plant all you need to do is deploy panels and battery. Nothing
else. And yet lobbyists, I presume, will advocate clean coal, clean petrol and
whatever clean thing they are probably paid to market.

~~~
RealityVoid
Nuclear has obvious advantages as a network baseline and if you think about it
all energy is nuclear.

Also, usually the choice posed is not nuclear or solar, it's nuclear vs coal.

And, from my point of view,(although this might sound like an insane, non-
pragmatic issue I am thinking about) if we, as a species ever want to become a
multiplanetary species, mastering nuclear is a must. That way we will be able
to create our own, micro-solar system wherever we will go.

~~~
justatdotin
> usually the choice posed is not nuclear or solar, it's nuclear vs coal.

usually? historically.

sure last century that was the choice. Today, no one in their right mind would
build either a nuclear or a coal plant.

in my part of the world, there is no coal, no nuclear, only solar and gas. And
the solar is cheaper than the gas. Coal and nuclear cant get a look in, and no
one is going to build a new gas plant. But new solar is popping up all around
me, at block, microgrid and array scale.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Exactly. We need solar because it is distributed. For nuclear we need a lot of
money, and it is dangerous. Coal is horrible. Solar is cheap and much better

------
rurban
I really wait until one of this disaster is ripe to happen. Diablo, Palo Verde
or South Texas to blow up one day, and we can finally bury those discussions
then. Hurricane Harvey almost blew up South Texas, but nobody noticed or
cared.

Those new designs have a double incident rate, they are not better, but much
higher risk and more trouble. South Texas and Palo Verde are experimental
versions of these 3rd gen reactors, and they are amongst the most risky in the
world. Esp. Palo Verde with no cooling water, Diablo at the heart of ring of
fire, and South Texas with the danger of polluted cooling water besides the
troubling technical problems they have all the time. Once they blow up they'll
carry the cloud all over the midwest, right to New York and then this business
opportunity will be finally over.

The nuclear lobby only needs it to produce nuclear weapons nobody needs.

Nobody knows how to store the nuclear waste. This problem is still not solved
after decades of false promises.

~~~
atoav
This also has conceptual issues:

Nuclear waste will remain dangerous much (very much) longer than it will
produce energy. We might run on uranium for 200 years. The nuclear waste
produced today has a half life of well beyond thousand years.

Today we do as if we can just bury and forget these things but they won't go
away and they will produce cost for the public and future generations in one
way or another (either we have to maintain it, keep it safe and inspect it all
the time, or we loose patches of land forever or there are
environmental/health costs). We speek of inspection, storage and insurance
costs for multiple thousand years that are not paid by anybody using nuclear
energy today.

So we can use up all uranium in the next 200 years, but what then? Who will
pay the next few thousand years of dealing with that corroding, highly toxic,
radioactive waste? I assume the companies who earn their money with nuclear
power don't have that money laid aside. Because if they would, that stuff
would not be profitable at all. These future costs should be paid with every
ton of waste produced today, and not paid by the public and our grand-grand-
children.

------
Reason077
From the article: _" The amount of energy consumed by an average person in
China (averaged over the year) has jumped by a quarter since 2006, to three
kilowatts (kW) ... it’s still less than a third as much as the American
average, which at 9.2 kW is equivalent to nine toasters, running 24/7."_

According to eia.gov[1], average residential electricity usage was 10,399 kWh
per year in 2017. That's about 28.4 kWh per day, or an averaged power draw of
1.18 kW. And that's per residential utility customer, not per person!

So the 9.2 kW claim seems extremely high. Is there really another 8 kW being
used by business and industry? Or does the author not understand the
difference between power (kW) and energy (kWh)?

[1]
[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3)

~~~
Arnt
Yes. Wikipedia's number is quite close to that 8: "Primary energy use in the
United States was 25,155 TWh or about 81,800 kWh per person in 2009."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Primary_energy_consumption)

~~~
Reason077
Right, but that's total energy use rather than electricity use.

Energy consumption tends to drop significantly where fossil fuel applications
can be converted to electric. An electric vehicle is dramatically more
efficient than a fossil-fuel burning one, for example. Likewise, an electric
heat pump is much more efficient than a gas boiler.

~~~
jwilk
Presumably the article is talking about total energy use too.

------
alexnewman
We overvalue the strong entropic and under estimate the weakly entropic
forces. NASA has been trying to scale up nuclear heating as a means of
propulsion but I’ve heard it’s now being used in fracking. On the other hand
I’m psyched about the future of fission and fusion.

------
myspy
Mayor issues that were thought to use over the years are that fuel is not easy
and ecologically good to mine. And it will run dry in two or three generations
and where should we put the radiating waste.

Usually users from the states in these comments downplay the issue of
radiation and the European media / society says it's a big problem.

Probably because Tschernobyl has shown many people what happens when it's
going wrong.

I would like a good pro/contra argumentation for this issue.

------
Annatar
There is no need for better nuclear power; the stellarator works.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X)

~~~
agildehaus
Works? Yes. Produces energy in a self-sustained reaction? No.

~~~
Annatar
It can't do it with Helium, which was used to test whether it is operational.
Still doesn't make searching for nuclear alternatives legitimate or warranted.

------
TangoTrotFox
There are some very practical problems with nuclear that people are hand-
waving away. One of the most significant is simply longterm cost, because you
have to consider what nuclear, at large scale, would entail. Because of the
specifics here costs would likely go much higher, not decline - and it's
already one of, and by some metrics, the most expensive methods of energy
production. Right now nuclear accounts for 10-15% of the world's energy
production, yet even at that level we only have known uranium reserves to run
these for about 200 years. [1] Bump that up to where nuclear is a major player
in energy production and we're suddenly running out imminently. This means
we're going to need to turn to things like saltwater extraction and breeder
reactors. But these technologies are going to send costs skyrocketing. And as
well as scarcity becomes an issue, we can also expect to see the cost of
uranium itself start to skyrocket.

And this is before getting into the other issues of nuclear at scale.
Decommissioning is a lengthy, expensive, and complex process. Nuclear
accidents are rare, but nowhere near as rare as they should be, on paper.
There are currently about 450 plants operating worldwide. That's a
disconcertingly low number given the number of accidents throughout the years.
And breeder reactors would be absolutely required for longterm uranium
perspectives, yet that technology not only greatly increases costs but also
complexity and volatility. And another issue that becomes even more critical
at scale is disposal. We already have some 90,000 tons [2] of nuclear waste
(in the USA alone) the requires disposal. And this waste needs to be stored
for thousands of years before it becomes remotely safe. And that also means we
need to consider the waste that will pile up over centuries of nuclear usage.

And as the article mentions, we're likely to see major increases in global
energy usage over the years to come which further exasperates these problems.
These are very real practical problems that seem to have no clear solution. In
my opinion solar is the most logical option for the future. The one and only
downside there is the lack of production during the night, yet this can be
resolved in a countless number of basic technical ways ranging from batteries
to even just mundane things such as shifting objects (or liquids or whatever)
to create potential energy that can be harvested during off times. If we take
a utopic view of the future, it's even possible to envision worldwide high
energy direct current lines transiting power worldwide. All of these things
involve losses of energy of course, but as far as our needs are concerned
solar can provide a practically infinite amount of energy and so optimal
efficiency is not so relevant.

I also think that the decentralization of energy is also desirable. Even
something as benign as rooftop solar will end up providing an immense amount
of energy. Centralization of energy, let alone when it relies on a scarce
resource is something I think we've learned a lot about for the past century.
A bit of hindsight would be valuable here.

[1] - [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-
glo...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-
uranium-deposits-last/)

[2] -
[https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...](https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear_waste/issue_summary)

------
Uhrheber
Maybe we need it, but we're definitely too dumb to use it safely.

------
amai
We need innovative ways to get rid of nuclear waste first. Otherwise nuclear
power is dead.

------
DoctorOetker
can someone recommend some good books/texts on nuclear reactor design and
control (i.e. with accurate detailed breakdown of the operation controls and
the computation graph for reverse-mode automatic differentiation (adjoint
sensitivities) ?

------
vbuwivbiu
too dirty, too risky, too much burden on future generations, too centralized.

------
nicoburns
Suppose we took the money being invested into nuclear research and put it into
power storage research instead.

Wouldn't that be better all round?

~~~
krastanov
Why should two of the best solutions try to starve each other? The premise
that nuclear is inferior compared to wind or solar in terms of safety or
cleanliness is wrong (especially with the current generation of experimental
reactors), it is just different.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> The premise that nuclear is inferior compared to wind or solar in terms of
> safety or cleanliness is wrong (especially with the current generation of
> experimental reactors), it is just different.

There is no long term storage option for nuclear power in the US. The ability
to recycle it is questionable at best. If you want to build nuclear, I wholly
endorse it, as long as you provide both functional waste recycling facilities
and storage repositories before you load one pebble or rod into a reactor
core. As of today, recycling wind turbines and solar panels is feasible, and
failure scenarios for both are benign. Recycling of batteries from utility
scale storage systems is also readily available through existing supply
chains.

"The United States has over 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that requires
disposal. The U.S. commercial power industry alone has generated more waste
(nuclear fuel that is "spent" and is no longer efficient at generating power)
than any other country—nearly 80,000 metric tons. This spent nuclear fuel,
which can pose serious risks to humans and the environment, is enough to fill
a football field about 20 meters deep. The U.S. government’s nuclear weapons
program has generated spent nuclear fuel as well as high-level radioactive
waste and accounts for most of the rest of the total at about 14,000 metric
tons, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). For the most part, this
waste is stored where it was generated—at 80 sites in 35 states. The amount of
waste is expected to increase to about 140,000 metric tons over the next
several decades. However, there is still no disposal site in the United
States. After spending decades and billions of dollars to research potential
sites for a permanent disposal site, including at the Yucca Mountain site in
Nevada that has a license application pending to authorize construction of a
nuclear waste repository, the future prospects for permanent disposal remain
unclear."

[https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear...](https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/disposal_of_highlevel_nuclear_waste/issue_summary)

Everyone can clamor on for nuclear while wind and solar continue to rapidly
decline in cost, and manufacturing capacity for both continually increases.
The hill for nuclear to climb gets higher every day.

Lazard just released their 2018 Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis (LCOE 12.0);
check out how wind and solar cut the legs out from under every other
generation source.

[https://www.lazard.com/media/450769/unsubsidized-analysis-
ce...](https://www.lazard.com/media/450769/unsubsidized-analysis-
certain-100.jpg?width=994&height=442)

[https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
energy-...](https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-
levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/)

~~~
Fej
Nuclear waste storage is a political problem, not a technical one.

The Yucca Mountain project _is_ the long term storage option. It's isn't
really that hard, relatively speaking, to dispose of nuclear waste. Just put
it in a hole and mark it so no one goes there. But no one wants to be the host
- not because it's inherently dangerous, but because it's scary.

Yucca Mountain would already store all the waste if it weren't for one Senator
from Nevada.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It doesn't matter _why_ it's a problem, all that matters is that it's a
problem, and you have no ability to demand the residents of Nevada allow Yucca
Mountain to open. With that said, there are valid geological and hydrological
concerns as to why Yucca Mountain should not move forward. They are outlined
here [1]. Therefore, there is no adequate solution, only a demand that a
suboptimal solution be implemented to support a suboptimal generation
technology.

[1]
[http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/techcon1.htm](http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/yucca/techcon1.htm)

~~~
acidburnNSA
The salt deposits in New Mexico are a wonderful place for nuclear waste. It's
almost a no-brainer [1].

"It doesn't matter why it's a problem, all that matters is that it's a
problem..."

Intermittency of wind and solar is a problem by any stretch of any
imagination. Year-averaged wind capacity factor in USA is 35%. Solar is 25%.
There are massive seasonal variations that batteries don't solve. It's a legit
concern. Nukes help alleviate that because they're the only known dispatchable
24/7 carbon-free energy that we can scale to the necessary scale. Just gotta
figure out how to make the more cheaply. Curing fears spawning from the linear
no-threshold dose response model will help with that.

[1]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/02/09/americas-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/02/09/americas-
high-level-nuclear-waste-is-gone/#2eb63c6f2e02)

------
varjag
It's amazing how quick HN switches to sucking up Myhrvold when it comes up to
their favourite toy.

------
vectorEQ
stop global warming with tons of reactors adding to background radiation of
the world, increasing decay and causing other further issues. great idea.
let's go!

------
8bitsrule
Shameless.

------
specialist
I support traveling wave reactors.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor)

We need to clean up our stockpiles somehow.

The only other feasible option is dropping it all into the Marianna Trench.
(Meanwhile, we really should store it all deep in a mountain.)

If we get some useful, usable energy out of TWV, terrific. But it's not a
motivator.

(This is me being optimistic: Assuming enough humans survive the clathrate gun
hypothesis that they'll need to bother cleaning up our messes.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis))

~~~
acidburnNSA
Finland is building a nuclear waste repository right now in deep bedrock [1].
It's totally reasonable scientifically. And in the US we have those Permian
salt deposits [2]. Commercial nuclear waste really isn't nearly the boogeyman
that people make it out to be in pop culture. It's solid, sitting around in
dry casks, can be put safely in geologic deposits, and has yet to hurt anyone
as far as I'm aware. Meanwhile fossil fuel kills hundreds of thousands per
year from air pollution and god knows how many from climate change and we're
sitting here saying "but what about nuclear waste?" while looking at 24/7
baseload carbon-free fully-scalable technology that's as safe or safer than
wind.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant)

~~~
specialist
That WIPP wiki entry reads like a strong argument to burn thru our stockpiles
with TWR.

Thanks for Onkalo reference. Maybe the Finns will prove more competent than
us.

Did I mention fossil fuels? No. Did I say TWR or fossil fuels? No.

Any survivable future scenario is wind, solar, and if we're lucky bioreactors
(carbon capture).

It'd be nice if humans could be trusted with (non-TWR) nuclear. But we can't.
And even if we could, anything started TODAY will be decades too late, so why
bother.

Meanwhile, feasible affordable wind and solar capacity is doubling every 30
(?) months. It's happening.

Everyone forgets about the weapons. Assuming we survive to care, what are we
going to do with all the decommissioned nukes? Answer: TWR.

I'm befuddled why anyone supporting nuclear power would oppose TWR. More
power. Less waste. Less proliferation risk.

Probably makes too much sense. Or sounds like magic.

