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airdvr

Should Nuclear be a part of the clean energy strategy?

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1 minute ago, airdvr said:

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuke "disaster".  I've said in the past nuclear power must be part of the clean energy plan.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707000226/40-years-after-a-partial-nuclear-meltdown-a-new-push-to-keep-three-mile-island-o

Absolutley.  We do need to deal with the radioactive material but it the fastest way to ramp up base load energy production.

 

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25 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuke "disaster".  I've said in the past nuclear power must be part of the clean energy plan.

Yep.  And now we have some better options.  SMR's allow nuclear power for smaller cities/areas, and takes care of much of the risk of waste disposal.

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On 3/28/2019 at 4:31 PM, billvon said:

Yep.  And now we have some better options.  SMR's allow nuclear power for smaller cities/areas, and takes care of much of the risk of waste disposal.

Agree.

But will the Green Peace and extreme liberal groups allow it?

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3 hours ago, turtlespeed said:

But will the Green Peace and extreme liberal groups allow it?

I know you love to group those who don't agree with you as extremists. But there is far more opposition to increased nuclear production than just those groups. I'm a fence sitter. I see the built in advantages but just saying it takes care of much of the risk of waste disposal is bullshit. It just shifts the problem and not by very much. A society that is so full of NIMBYs that it refuses to deal with this problem has no business producing more waste.

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14 hours ago, gowlerk said:

I know you love to group those who don't agree with you as extremists. But there is far more opposition to increased nuclear production than just those groups. I'm a fence sitter. I see the built in advantages but just saying it takes care of much of the risk of waste disposal is bullshit. It just shifts the problem and not by very much. A society that is so full of NIMBYs that it refuses to deal with this problem has no business producing more waste.

You don't know Shit.

You have no idea what I love - you don't even know me.

Ask yourself why you had to start with me instead of content?

Weak arguments are commonly preceded by diversion.

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5 minutes ago, turtlespeed said:

Ask yourself why you had to start with me instead of content?

Because your content started with an attack on extremists, and claims that liberals who oppose nuclear energy are extremists. So cut the fake outrage. It's bullshit. I'm just like you, I call it when I see it. I don't know you in real life. But I certainly know your online posts.

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(edited)
12 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Because your content started with an attack on extremists, and claims that liberals who oppose nuclear energy are extremists. So cut the fake outrage. It's bullshit. I'm just like you, I call it when I see it. I don't know you in real life. But I certainly know your online posts.

So you identified with and took offence to me making reference to extrimist liberals - Gotcha.

I'll be more careful in the future Comrade.

Edited by turtlespeed

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On 4/7/2019 at 5:04 AM, turtlespeed said:

Agree.

But will the Green Peace and extreme liberal groups allow it?

I have friends who were former anti-nuke activists who are now fully declaring ambivalency over nuke power.  One thing to remember is that part of the origins against nuke power was a co-protest to nuke weaponry, the next was environmental.  Those are both issues that are more in control now and very much as a result of that history of protest.

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It isn't called The Devil's Fuel for nothing (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima; there will be more). And what about the waste?

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Well, if the idiotic ban on reprocessing nuke waste was lifted, something like half of the waste would be taken care of. 

TMI & Chernobyl were operator error. Modern designs have reduced the chances of those types of accidents by a huge degree. 

Fukushima was a tsunami. Not putting reactors where that sort of thing is likely is a good idea. I know there's not any place immune from natural disasters, but site selection is important. There's a partially completed reactor site 'somewhere out west' that was stopped when they realized they were building directly on top of a fault line. 
I only know this because I've seen vid of BASE guys jumping into the unfinished cooling tower. 

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35 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Not putting reactors where that sort of thing is likely is a good idea. I know there's not any place immune from natural disasters, but site selection is important.

And the smaller component size of modern reactors makes them easier to isolate from the effects of the natural disasters at those properly located sites.

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On 4/9/2019 at 7:50 AM, DJL said:

And the smaller component size of modern reactors makes them easier to isolate from the effects of the natural disasters at those properly located sites.

Which is why I agree with going forward with nucular ( :P ) power as opposed to fossil fuels.

I would also like to see hydrogen become more prevalent.

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On 4/9/2019 at 7:50 AM, markharju said:

It isn't called The Devil's Fuel for nothing (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima; there will be more). And what about the waste?

Literally the first time I've ever heard that phrase.  Generally, the more educated someone is about nuclear physics and nuclear power, the less opposed they are.  The less educated, the more they throw around buzzwords like Chernobyl, TMI, or Fukushima without adding any context beyond what was dumbed down and pumped out on cable news channels to entertain the masses (by frightening them with no context).

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On 4/9/2019 at 4:50 AM, markharju said:

It isn't called The Devil's Fuel for nothing (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima; there will be more). And what about the waste?

Yes, there will be more.  And even if there is one Fukushima or Three Mile Island a decade (which is pessimistic based on history) it will still be far safer than fossil fuel power in terms of deaths, pollution and area made unlivable.  (I am ignoring Chernobyl because we don't have any RBMK reactors and never will.)

The waste has proven to be pretty easy to handle.  You can store it on-site safely forever.  Or you can put it somewhere else.  Or you can reprocess it.  All three methods can, and do, work.  The only barrier to doing any of them is public fear.

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39 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Bill,

You probably can, but it will take a lot of money & fortitude.

One only has to look at the long-term storage problems at Hanford.

Jerry Baumchen

I don't think it will take a lot of money, just some foresight.

Look at the Oklo reactors.  16 reactors ran for centuries, and then the waste products were safely stored on site for 2 billion years.  And that took no money at all.  With careful selection of a similar site, we could reproduce that result.

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3 hours ago, billvon said:

I don't think it will take a lot of money, just some foresight.

Look at the Oklo reactors.  16 reactors ran for centuries, and then the waste products were safely stored on site for 2 billion years.  And that took no money at all.  With careful selection of a similar site, we could reproduce that result.

Shipping the USA waste from the 130 some odd sites it is currently stored in to Gabon is not really an option. Although I'm sure the US would try to do it if they could get away with it. America is not responsible enough to be trusted "forever". No nation is.

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7 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Shipping the USA waste from the 130 some odd sites it is currently stored in to Gabon is not really an option.

Right, and no one is proposing that.  What Olko demonstrates is that even if you do nothing but bury the stuff, 2 billion years later the waste won't have moved very far.  And "pretty safe for 2 billion years" is a reasonable standard for nuclear waste safety.

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5 hours ago, billvon said:

Right, and no one is proposing that.  What Olko demonstrates is that even if you do nothing but bury the stuff, 2 billion years later the waste won't have moved very far.  And "pretty safe for 2 billion years" is a reasonable standard for nuclear waste safety.

I agree that buried storage is physically possible. However, it seems to be politically impossible. You seem to take a position that this is merely a minor inconvenience. I disagree, unless it is actually dealt with it is a show stopper. Bottom line is until the existing problem of storage is solved it is not time to generate more waste. Proponents of more nuclear energy keep trying to down play this issue. Mostly their words are just talk. The same as they keep talking about newer types of simpler reactors that will be cheaper. Also just talk. Using fission to generate steam has too many downsides. The world is clearly moving away from the idea. And it is not because of Luddites or fear. It is because of the reality of economics.

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4 hours ago, gowlerk said:

I agree that buried storage is physically possible. However, it seems to be politically impossible. You seem to take a position that this is merely a minor inconvenience.

Not at all.  It is _the_ problem.  But political problems require political, not science-based, solutions.

In other words, nuclear waste can be safely stored indefinitely.  Politicians simply don't want that.

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Bottom line is until the existing problem of storage is solved it is not time to generate more waste. Proponents of more nuclear energy keep trying to down play this issue. Mostly their words are just talk.

Uh - all words are just talk.  Nuclear proponents and nuclear opponents alike.   In reality, we will keep generating nuclear waste, since there are a bunch of nuclear power plants operating in the US.  That's real as opposed to talk.

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The same as they keep talking about newer types of simpler reactors that will be cheaper. Also just talk.

Again, all words are talk.  The Korean SMART is a working modular reactor, which is sort of the opposite of "just talk."

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Using fission to generate steam has too many downsides. The world is clearly moving away from the idea. 

It definitely has downsides.  Just far fewer than other forms of power.

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