Forgetting Fukushima

[Autumnlicious]

LFTRs don't leave significant amounts of waste.

In fact, they're built to burn either thorium or nuclear waste from traditional Gen I-III reactors.

Shame China is invested in them. If only we were...

[Ryantology]

Solar is the future.

My ass it is.

Why take energy from the sun when you can recreate the reaction which actually powers the fucking thing.

IMO nuclear energy is the future.

Energy from the sun is clean, safe, available to everyone, and virtually infinite in supply. You do not have to mine for it, drill for it, pay for it, store it, refine it, transport it, dispose of dangerous waste, risk environmental disaster if something goes wrong, or fight wars over it.

The earth receives enough energy from the sun, every day, to give us ten thousand times as much total energy as humanity currently requires. It is simply a matter of harnessing it with proper efficiency.

Once the technology matures (and it is doing so, rapidly), solar is a no-brainer. I would support nuclear energy as a backup, or for places in which sunlight is unreliable, but solar will almost certainly become the primary energy source in the coming decades, when solar cells are efficient enough to be commonplace on houses and embedded on panels and windows of cars.

[Anomalocaris]

Nuclear energy as it stands is uneconomic.

We have massive government subsidies just for it.

And China now is using US-designed LFTR technology because old Big Nuclear doesn't want it.

They'd rather use shitty BWRs from Gen II still.

But please, go on, tell me about how "Nuclear energy is the future".

Good nuclear is for China, but it seems that "Nuclear" to the average turnip on this forum is what they see on The Simpsons.

Actually, all Chinese reactors hitherto built, planned or proposed are gen 2+ or gen 3 PWRs comparable to what TVA or Duke is currently building in USA

They are researching some interesting technologies like inert gas pebble bed high temperature reactors that can literally be smashed into smitherins and still hardly leak any radiation. They are ahead of the US on this technology, but that technology is many years away from commercial viability.

The economics of nuclear power in the US is interesting. The pricing mechanism of deregulated electricity sales, the added security requirement post 9-11 makes nuclear impossible to compete against cheap shale natural gas produced by fracking technology. Unless one has a forward view that says natural gas prices will rise substantially, or fracking technology will run into enormous regulatory hurdle, no one would start a brand new nuclear power plant in the US today.

But the same economics does not apply in china and India. There the lack of shale gas and gas distribution infrastructure, and the desire to rapidly reduce reliance on coal, makes nuclear competitive. The US for policy reasons does not really recycle spent nuclear fuel for reuse, so available fissile material in the us will be used up in 2 generations. But India and china have invested heavily to recycle and reuse spent nuclear fuel, giving both the temptation of having a domestic energy source that would last thousand sof years at projected usage.

[Chas]

Switching over power stations reliant on fossil fuels for nuclear fission is akin to giving up smoking so you can take up crack instead.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Autumnlicious]

Actually, all Chinese reactors hitherto built, planned or proposed are gen 2+ or gen 3 PWRs comparable to what TVA or Duke is currently building in USA

True. They've stated publicly that they want to move to pebble bed et al.

They are researching some interesting technologies like inert gas pebble bed high temperature reactors that can literally be smashed into smitherins and still hardly leak any radiation. They are ahead of the US on this technology, but that technology is many years away from commercial viability.

That was our technology first. LFTRs were constructed and successfully run at Oakridge National Labs.

With the rest, you are correct. China has a national interest and a history of sacrificing whatever life is needed to get it.

The US, on the other hand, is hobbled by a conflagration of fear, big business interests, outdated legislation and political in-fighting.

That's not to say China and India are perfect, only that they've other interests and a history of getting such.

[cratehorus]

the reason they consider nuclear power and natural gas to be reasonable alternatives is because they provide scarcity, you can control the world's oil reserve's and you can't build a nuclear reactor in your backyard. You can build a solar panel in your home, and anybody with a set of tools can build a wind generator, therefore you cannot provide scarcity, such is the way and simulltaneuos failings of the capitalist system.

[KichigaiNeko]

How tectonically active is the Indian sub-continent??

[Welsh cake]

How tectonically active is the Indian sub-continent??

Very.

Not only has the Indian subcontinent experienced a history of devastating earthquakes, but the coastal regions where some plants are proposed are at risk from tsunami triggered by Indian Ocean undersea earthquakes.

Lessons from Fukushima have not been learned.

[Something completely different]

How do you know? The lesson of Fukushima is even an obsolete nuclear powerplant, without a waterproof and airtight containment shell capable of withstanding a 747 flying into it, is nonetheless essentially capable of withstanding the third most powerful earthquake ever recorded, and one of the largest tsunami ever recorded, in rapid succession.

The weakness of Fukushima, only made a problem by reliance for grid power for black start and insufficient protection for blackstart backup, in fact easily overcome, and by no means common to nuclear plants. Put backup diesels in the main building rather than the basement, or provide watertight protection to the electrical control of the diesel generators, and Fukushima would still be running today.

How do you know this lesson is not learned???

Question: How risky can a institution or part of the inferstructure be towards the wellbeing of the general public, and still be built?

The question is not "How to prevent a catastrophy", but "who will take responsibility in case of?", "how much risk can one take?"

The lesson I think which should have been learned, and why the german parlament passed a law to close down all nuclear plants by 2020, was that a nuclear powerplant - eaven when garanteed by it`s operating company to be safe, is to big a risk to take.

As to solar power, even in Arizona with cheap subsidized Chinese panels, solar power can not achieve grid parity.

Totaly agree. There is to much naivity and to much optimism within the movement for green energy. No one seems to be interested in the logistics of the matter, when it comes to building the inferstructure for green energy. Logistics only seem to be interesting when calculating the effects of carbon emission.
Probably one of the reasons why currently nothing is moving forward in the "Energiewende" here.

Fact is - solar technology isnt jet fully developed. With the currently used semiconductors between 60 - 70% of energy which could be produced is lost and further developing these conducters is very costly and will take alot of time - which is why solar power stations, such as in spain are enormous in size and due to the big number of panels which have to be cleaned and managed the logistics of such a product have a price increasing effect on the cost of electricity - which makes the product non-competetive without subsidations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_conv...efficiency

[Anomalocaris]

How tectonically active is the Indian sub-continent??

Depends on where.

Much of India outside of the Himalayas is cratonic, that is to say built on stable, monolithic, very old, Precambrian metamorphic basement shield rocks like the middle of Canada. Major earthquakes are as unlikely here as anywhere else on land.

Himalaya belt is very tectonically active, and experience major quakes regularly.

Fukushima shows nuclear powerplants are in fact capable of resisting the very largest earthquakes, provided they are not actually built right over the displaced fault, as some in Japan are.