(March 12, 2022 at 2:18 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:(March 11, 2022 at 9:33 pm)polymath257 Wrote: The actual amount of highly radioactive material is quite low. And the lower level stuff is less dangerous overall than a lot of the stuff emitted by conventional plants.
People tend to freak out about radioactivity, but you get more from a stone wall than you would get from most man-made sources. And definitely more if you ever fly in an airplane.
Allow me to play devil's advocate a bit here. (For rhetorical purposes.)
First, we can acknowledge that, with climate change on our plate, the benefits outweigh the risks of nuclear power. But there are still risks. Chernobyl. Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Yes
(March 12, 2022 at 2:18 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: And isn't solar activity a concern? (I'm asking. Because I don't really know the science involved.) Isn't it bad if we install mini nuclear plants all over the place and then get hit with a barrage of solar activity? Couldn't that lead to potential meltdowns all over the place?
Again. I'm just being rhetorical here, and maybe hoping to learn something.
No, I don't think solar activity can reach the Earth with such power that it can jeopardize any structure, let alone a heavily (radiation) shielded place like the radioactive region of a power station.
Out in space, high neutron fluxes can damage semiconductor based electronics and biological tissue... Most everything else should be fine. There's is also the risk of electromagnetic interference and some satellites getting blacked out, but these should be temporary.
Our atmosphere absorbs most neutrons and other energetic radiation from the sun and other cosmic sources and we get a small amount of those on the surface.
I think the higher risk of having many small nuclear stations is keeping all that enriched uranium away from unintended hands. Many plants represent many nuclear sites licenses, lots of security forces and many more opportunities for failure.
Maybe one station per 5 or 10 million people, complemented by renewables...
Let me see... At ~6MWh per capita per year, your need 30,000 GWh of power for 5 million people. The UK is currently building Hinkley point C which will have an output of ~3MW, which amounts to ~26,000 GWh in a year..., So yeah, that's a good estimate.
If we can make it so that renewables count for half the supply, then we can extend it to one station per 10 million people.
If nuclear fusion ever becomes viable, it will replace all fission plants and most renewables... Until then, we have to juggle all the options.
