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Joe2187

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,521
Im just curious as to why whenever the topic comes up, in terms of getting away from fossil fuels and such that we never even mention Nuclear energy in the same discourse?

Has there been new investments in nuclear energy in the past decade at all? I know that the US is probably the one country that uses it more than any other, but you never really hear anything about it.
 

Cow Mengde

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,713
Because of the stigma of nuclear energy. People are afraid of it.

Doesn't help that one of the biggest pop culture icon Godzilla is a nuclear energy monster.
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
Fear and environmentalists spent a lot of time in the 80s opposing nuclear. They did a really good job at the time so now modern environmentalists have to avoid the word "nuclear". Nuclear is still being advanced, it's just kept out of the spotlight for political reasons.

And France is, to my knowledge, the biggest user of nuclear power by percentage.

1000px-Electricity_in_France.svg.png


Oh, but the US is the largest gross producer:
20750.jpeg


There are other posters here who can tell you about specific advances in nuclear technology, it is not really my interest so I don't know much.
 
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shnurgleton

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,864
Boston
at this point it's probably cheaper and easier to build wind and solar than it is to deal with the PR nightmare and the massive costs that would surround the approval of a new nuclear plant
 

collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
Beyond meltdown concerns and general paranoia, long term nuclear waste storage is a problem.
 

Hasseigaku

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,541
It gets mentioned a lot. I have no idea where you'd get the idea that it doesn't.

And until smaller nuclear reactors are proven commercially viable (I know there are pilots and such) nuclear is absolutely not going to be a good near-term solution for kicking our addiction to fossil fuels due to the sheer amount of money and time they take to build.
 

offtopic

Banned
Nov 21, 2017
2,694
It is frequently discussed by those interested in sustainability options. You just don't see it implemented much as politics and fear drive decisions.
 

iksenpets

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,490
Dallas, TX
Environmental groups successfully fought it on waste and meltdown concerns for a few decades, and now we're nearing the point where any nuclear rollout would be coming too late to hit carbon cutting goals. A world where we invested a ton in nuclear 30 years ago would probably be in a way better position to fight climate change today, but now we're more in a place where it makes sense to focus on the transition to solar and wind plus large-scale batteries. That network would have holes that would have to be plugged by natural gas for a while, and nuclear would be preferable for that role, but again, it would take a decade to roll out new nuclear plants that you're aiming to phase out only another decade after that
 

Fatoy

Member
Mar 13, 2019
7,225
The ultimate irony is that "green" parties fought nuclear for so long that we wound up with decades' worth of additional pollution from fossil fuels that could have been avoided, and now it's probably too late for nuclear to be "worth it" compared to renewable alternatives.

Like GM foods, a lot of well-meaning but oddly anti-science people prevented advances that had comparatively few downsides - especially when compared to the long-running alternatives. Obviously nuclear waste storage is an issue, but is it a bigger issue that coal burning?
 

Froyo Love

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,503
The simple answer is that current nuclear power technology is expensive in the wrong ways. It requires enormous up-front costs.

That rules out private construction and operation, because not only does it require ridiculously deep pockets and the patience for an extremely long path to return on your investment, it also requires an enormous stomach for risk. Electricity is a commodity. In order for a nuclear plant that starts construction today to generate a profit over its lifetime, the efficiency of the reactor technology will have to compete with every power technology that's on the market when it starts operating in half a decade (optimistically). A nuclear plant is basically the least liquid investment imaginable, so it's a wager of billions of dollars against every other player in the energy sector, where you eke out a small profit over 40 years if you win and throw it all away if you lose.

Those same factors are all still there if it's publicly financed. You need an enormous political will to put the money together and break ground. That political will is just not going to be there in democracies when viable alternatives that don't require the same massive commitment, like wind and solar, have become available.

Now, all of this changes if small and medium reactor technology develops to the point of being commercially viable. Plenty of money has been spent by many countries funding R&D for these, and obviously the current state of things is still "not viable unless massively subsidized." So even if you assume breakthroughs are going to happen, you're looking at a timeline of decades before a state where lots of these are being built. But reducing the impact of climate crisis can't wait those decades, so anyone who's sounding an urgent call for action is not going to be pitching nuclear.

The influence of environmentalists on nuclear power has been grossly overstated in this thread, I think. It's mostly economics. The oil crisis in '73 kicked off a wave of nuclear power plants. Cheap oil and gas in the '80s killed off future nuclear construction. If nuclear power was a money-spinner, development would not have slowed the way it did just because of fear. But for most of its lifespan, nuclear energy has been more of an expensive way for countries to reach towards energy independence than anything else.
 
OP
OP
Joe2187

Joe2187

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,521
The simple answer is that current nuclear power technology is expensive in the wrong ways. It requires enormous up-front costs.

That rules out private construction and operation, because not only does it require ridiculously deep pockets and the patience for an extremely long path to return on your investment, it also requires an enormous stomach for risk. Electricity is a commodity. In order for a nuclear plant that starts construction today to generate a profit over its lifetime, the efficiency of the reactor technology will have to compete with every power technology that's on the market when it starts operating in half a decade (optimistically). A nuclear plant is basically the least liquid investment imaginable, so it's a wager of billions of dollars against every other player in the energy sector, where you eke out a small profit over 40 years if you win and throw it all away if you lose.

Those same factors are all still there if it's publicly financed. You need an enormous political will to put the money together and break ground. That political will is just not going to be there in democracies when viable alternatives that don't require the same massive commitment, like wind and solar, have become available.

Now, all of this changes if small and medium reactor technology develops to the point of being commercially viable. Plenty of money has been spent by many countries funding R&D for these, and obviously the current state of things is still "not viable unless massively subsidized." So even if you assume breakthroughs are going to happen, you're looking at a timeline of decades before a state where lots of these are being built. But reducing the impact of climate crisis can't wait those decades, so anyone who's sounding an urgent call for action is not going to be pitching nuclear.

The influence of environmentalists on nuclear power has been grossly overstated in this thread, I think. It's mostly economics. The oil crisis in '73 kicked off a wave of nuclear power plants. Cheap oil and gas in the '80s killed off future nuclear construction. If nuclear power was a money-spinner, development would not have slowed the way it did just because of fear. But for most of its lifespan, nuclear energy has been more of an expensive way for countries to reach towards energy independence than anything else.

Thank for this informative breakdown.

I knew it was more than just "fear mongering" keeping it from the discussion table, because if it was profitable that wouldn't stop countries and businesses from investing no matter the danger.

In theory how much would a reactor like you described in the first paragraph cost over time? I see billions invested and lost in trivial things....how much money would it take to create something viable/sustainable?
 

Joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,603
If we were back in time, I'd be 100% behind a big push for nuclear. But at this point, the the regulatory and start up costs, I think solar and wind are the better option.
 

collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
I know space waste is something that we need to avoid, but is firing nuclear waste into space a viable option for disposal?
IIRC it's been proposed but outside of cost concerns, people understandably don't really wanna risk launching a rocket filled with nuclear waste. My understanding is that the issues for storage on Earth are mostly political: cost cutting and justified NIMBYism from areas concerned about it.
 

Menx64

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,774
The cost of investment is big and for there is a lot of stigma around it. Also a geopolitical nightmare. Also solar is incredible cheap nowadays.
 

shintoki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,112
There is no strong voice for it. Conservatives don't want it since it directly competes with O&G, while Liberals don't want it since it is considered "unsafe".

I know space waste is something that we need to avoid, but is firing nuclear waste into space a viable option for disposal?

What happens if it blows up in the atmosphere?

The amount of space needed to store nuclear energy is drastically overestimated. The biggest issue has always been NIMBY. No one wants that heat of being the storage and living by a storage site for it. Put it into perspective, the amount of radioactive waste we couldn't re-use would be around the size of your fingernail per year. Storage for the country per year is around the size of a football field.
 

VariantX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,886
Columbia, SC
I know space waste is something that we need to avoid, but is firing nuclear waste into space a viable option for disposal?

And what happens if that rocket explodes in mid flight in the upper atmosphere? Shit will spread highly radioactive material everywhere. Thats probably not a good idea to do even if that only happens once. The problem is less the waste but the risk coming from the fact that we haven't perfected space travel. It would probably be better if we can figure out how to make use out of nuclear waste so it just doesn't sit in a storage facility and potentially leak out into the surrounding environment
 

4CornersTHSA

Member
Jun 13, 2019
1,555
Any and all options to get away from carbon fuels should be on the table. As has been stated above, the overall cost of huge water pressured uranium and other transuranic fission reactors, even with improvements to safety and efficiency, asks a lot of upfront cost for something with tighter profit margins and far more insurance liability than solar and wind at the moment.

If modular reactors including molten salt/LFTRs are able to compete in a decade or two, you'd better believe they'll start being built. These are perfect for smaller communities and industrial purposes.

Sustainable fusion, be it magnetic tokomak or inertial confinement, should be one of the end goals, IMO, but that's so far away from being commercially or practically viable, and we've got to get a handle on climate change now.

Once fusion is a proven tech, we'll have more excess energy than we'll know what to do with. It's a good problem to have. Desalinization, massive carbon scrubbers, the sky will be the limit.

For now, solar and wind are our best bet to turn the tide. And advancements in energy storage are going to be just as important.
 

Jroc

Banned
Jun 9, 2018
6,145
Hippies ruined it basically.

It's the only green energy source that's high output with zero intermittency issues (aside from hydro which can be quite environmentally damaging). You basically get to have your cake and eat it too.

The PR issues and the cost issues are somewhat related. If activists hadn't done a number on nuclear technology in the 1980s then we might have seen more investment. Less construction and less development will inevitably lead to higher average costs. If the world somehow came together under an anti-GHG dictatorship then I have no doubt they would look to nuclear to solve the global warming problem ASAP.
 

Arkanim94

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,120
Because of chernobyl nuclear energy is a taboo for a lot of people.
The left as a whole should be more willing to embrace nuclear energy as the necessary stepping stone before reaching true renewable energy sources.
 

4CornersTHSA

Member
Jun 13, 2019
1,555
Green energy tech, including nuclear, *should* be a no brainer bipartisan winner.

For the left, the science has been clear for decades, and it creates jobs

For the right, it allows us (and potentially our allies) to be energy independent and not beholden to Saudi Arabia or Russia, and it creates jobs.

How the mainstream GOP has totally lost the plot on what is a slam dunk is one hell of an indictment of their intellect.
 

EntelechyFuff

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Nov 19, 2019
10,162
How much does the lack of appetite for energy have to do with the fact that--at least from what I'm seeing--there's not a strong profit incentive here?

Non-renewable energy sources have an obvious profit motive--supply and demand lets you charge higher prices (and plus you can definitely just plain charge higher prices and then blame it on market conditions or whatever, which I am certain happens).

On the other hand renewables, such as solar, have given rise to a cottage industry rising up around.

Nuclear has some up front money to be made in building and staffing the plants, but once you turn on you're done for decades if not longer. You're not gonna be pulling big margins there.

Am I off base?
 

Nola

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,025
Because of chernobyl nuclear energy is a taboo for a lot of people.
The left as a whole should be more willing to embrace nuclear energy as the necessary stepping stone before reaching true renewable energy sources.
So what cities do you propose we should petition to have the plants built and dispose of the waste in?

Because much more important than getting a persuadable left to come around on nuclear as part of a larger portfolio, the biggest problem I see is nimbys.

People love to handwring about how the Dems won't embrace nuclear, but Republicans won't fund them and good luck getting people to agree on them in their backyards
 

PinkSpider

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,923
Massive leftie hippy (I guess) but Germany shutting down all their plants seemed stupid, areas with no or minor environmental disasters should use it is a middle group whilst we develop cleaner solutions. I would not like it to be long term and would rather see solar and wind (Maybe wave don't hear too much on that these days) take over but it seems cheaper and cleaner.
 

Owl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,126
California
Put it into perspective, the amount of radioactive waste we couldn't re-use would be around the size of your fingernail per year. Storage for the country per year is around the size of a football field.

Yeah, new nuclear plants are extremely efficient (and safe!). Such a shame there is so much of a negative stigma and ignorance surrounding nuclear power. We could really solve so many energy problems if people were educated about nuclear power.
 

dabig2

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,116
Hippies ruined it basically.

It's the only green energy source that's high output with zero intermittency issues (aside from hydro which can be quite environmentally damaging). You basically get to have your cake and eat it too.

The PR issues and the cost issues are somewhat related. If activists hadn't done a number on nuclear technology in the 1980s then we might have seen more investment. Less construction and less development will inevitably lead to higher average costs. If the world somehow came together under an anti-GHG dictatorship then I have no doubt they would look to nuclear to solve the global warming problem ASAP.

*laughs in oil and gas subsidies*

People here attribute WAAAAAAAY much more power to environmental groups, especially when we're talking about during the time of Reagan. Even if these groups stood up to big oil and gas instead of basically allying with them, the same shit would've happened: oil&gas companies would've done what they do and are still doing to kill the competition.
 

EntelechyFuff

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Nov 19, 2019
10,162
I don't believe so but I'm already of the opinion that the "free market" has failed here so... Nuclear is definitely not great business, but neither is halting climate change. If it was, we wouldn't be here.
Oh absolutely, I'm not saying I think it's a good justification, but it might explain why both the left and the right are largely silent on the issue. It's hard to ignore that this was one of the few victory the "hippies" got when they are famous for protesting lots of shit.

Feels a bit like a political handshake--the left gets to say "mission accomplished" and the right gets to focus on profit above all--happened many years ago and was never revisited.
 

SquirrelSr

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,017
Because of capitalism. People overestimate the impact of the hippie movement when it's oil and gas companies protecting their bottom line. And then there's the whole Chernobyl mess that lead to NIMBYism about the safety of a "nuke" as an energy source.
 

Enduin

You look 40
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,470
New York
Nuclear should for sure at least be a part of the mid to long term plan for energy plans going forward. Current Nuclear technologies have their drawbacks, but when weighed against climate change and the overall health and impact that oil/gas has is still likely a major improvement. And emerging nuclear technology could make it even more attractive and viable.

Setting up new plants even in the best of circumstances takes ages though, so short term focus should be on lower barrier of entry solutions like Wind and Solar.
 

RadzPrower

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 19, 2018
6,044
It's not terribly clean. Yeah, it's not the same as traditional energy's pollution, but it does cause its own pollution all the same and it can be deadly for decades or centuries.

The nuclear option (no pun intended) is really fusion rather than fission, but we've not quite cracked that nut just yet...or even determined for certain that there aren't some awful negative byproducts of that in significant use. Doesn't seem likely by any means, but we could've missed something and won't know until we can have a sustained fusion reactor running.
 

Froyo Love

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,503
I knew it was more than just "fear mongering" keeping it from the discussion table, because if it was profitable that wouldn't stop countries and businesses from investing no matter the danger.

In theory how much would a reactor like you described in the first paragraph cost over time? I see billions invested and lost in trivial things....how much money would it take to create something viable/sustainable?
Pulling from a mid-2000s era source here, expect a construction cost in the U.S. in the realm of $6 to 9 billion, before all operating costs. Throw in an extra half a billion to reserve for paying for the plant's eventual decommissioning. Those numbers are probably optimistic because cost overruns on these projects are bananas, the only way they break ground is by being vastly under-costed in estimates. The operating costs, including labor and maintenance and price of fuel, are pretty small in comparison. Probably only a couple hundred million annually.

But take a look at this analysis and it's hard to come away with the impression that this is viable or sustainable.

lcoe-2.png


Nuclear is expensive. But even if you look at it in the most favorable light, and only factor the very cheap marginal cost of nuclear power, i.e. the cost of just generating power from a plant you've already built, wind and solar are catching up:

lcoe-6.png
 
Aug 12, 2019
5,159
It takes years to build nuclear infrastructure, and we've basically had a catastrophic event every time nuclear threatened to come back into style. Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, and Fukushima in 2011 have largely resulted in knee-capping all potential progress for nuclear energy options around the world. It's a tricky power source where things go wrong, they can go very wrong for the local area... But it also comes down to nuclear energy was an easy option to attack and the fossil fuel companies 100% stood to benefit from it, so nuclear's reputation has been easy to ruin across the past 50 years.
 

Blackie

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,643
Wherever
I keep hoping we will change our minds globally and begin pushing nuclear hard again. With energy vs. environmental needs as they currently stand, it's by far the most efficient way to power our overconsumptive world society.
 

Astronut325

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,948
Los Angeles, CA
I'm a lefty and I don't support nuclear. I don't trust people and institutions enough to operate it well enough to prevent massive disasters due to negligence or corruption.
 

Kill3r7

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,414
Many politicians and highly influential people who support renewable energy do not support nuclear because of the stigma around it.
 

Charcoal

Member
Nov 2, 2017
7,514
I think people often forget that the US has 11 nuclear reactors floating around around the world.

Honestly, I wish there was a bigger push for it here in the states.