Nuclear plants SHOULD take a long time to build and SHOULD be crazy expensive and built with safety factors and for 1 in 5000 year weather occurrences
This is why it is, in fact, bad compared to renewables. The same money spent on renewables would start producing energy much sooner without the still-unsolved problem of disposing of nuclear waste.
I do agree that existing nuclear should be retained but it’s very hard to see how new investment in it can be justified, given how much more the same investment in renewables and storage would deliver.
All of the nuclear waste ever produced by the entire 70+ year history of the civilian nuclear industry in the US can be fit safely into dry casks and placed one layer high onto 3 football fields.
99+% of that waste by mass is Transuranics, which are unburned fuel. Reprocess that out and of the other 1%, half of it can be separated out in 50 years, and the rest will decay to background in about 300. It’s not a short period of time, but it’s a human manageable period of time. We have human institutions that have lasted 300 years.
We haven’t “solved” nuclear waste because it’s simply not a pressing issue technically, and there’s no institutional will to, mostly due to politics.
You’re right that there is no institutional will, nothing happens unless it suits Money (see also: climate change). But I think you’re downplaying the problems.
I’m not. I’m not saying it’s easy. Just that it is possible. I used to (but no longer) work at the Savannah River Site as a nuclear engineer involved in Plutonium Disposition. I am well aware of the danger and challenges. But I’m also aware that these problems are solvable if we put people onto the problem.
Right now high level nuclear waste from civilian nuclear power plants is not a pressing issue. It needs to be solved eventually, but eventually can easily be more than 100 years. Climate change is a far more pressing issue, and it needs to be solved ASAP. Turning down nuclear power, which is already working and ready to go, to focus on storage, which is still technology that is not quite there yet, strikes me as counterproductive. We should be reaching for anything and everything to get us off of coal and oil.
We don’t have to choose between solar now and nuclear later. We can do both. Perhaps it’s the case that the best time to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants was 15 years ago. But the second best time is now.
Fifteen years ago we would never have dreamed that renewables would work so well. Fifteen years ago we would not have known what to spend the money on instead. Now we do and more renewables make much more sense.
Can you honestly tell me, in your heart of hearts, that you truly think by 2039 the US will be supermajority solar and wind power and that the nuclear power plants coming online won’t be useful to displace the remaining coal plants?
Of course they’ll be useful. Because the money spent on them was not spent on renewables. Renewables would be a bigger, better, and quicker return on investment.
This is why it is, in fact, bad compared to renewables. The same money spent on renewables would start producing energy much sooner without the still-unsolved problem of disposing of nuclear waste.
I do agree that existing nuclear should be retained but it’s very hard to see how new investment in it can be justified, given how much more the same investment in renewables and storage would deliver.
All of the nuclear waste ever produced by the entire 70+ year history of the civilian nuclear industry in the US can be fit safely into dry casks and placed one layer high onto 3 football fields.
99+% of that waste by mass is Transuranics, which are unburned fuel. Reprocess that out and of the other 1%, half of it can be separated out in 50 years, and the rest will decay to background in about 300. It’s not a short period of time, but it’s a human manageable period of time. We have human institutions that have lasted 300 years.
We haven’t “solved” nuclear waste because it’s simply not a pressing issue technically, and there’s no institutional will to, mostly due to politics.
You’re right that there is no institutional will, nothing happens unless it suits Money (see also: climate change). But I think you’re downplaying the problems.
I’m not. I’m not saying it’s easy. Just that it is possible. I used to (but no longer) work at the Savannah River Site as a nuclear engineer involved in Plutonium Disposition. I am well aware of the danger and challenges. But I’m also aware that these problems are solvable if we put people onto the problem.
Right now high level nuclear waste from civilian nuclear power plants is not a pressing issue. It needs to be solved eventually, but eventually can easily be more than 100 years. Climate change is a far more pressing issue, and it needs to be solved ASAP. Turning down nuclear power, which is already working and ready to go, to focus on storage, which is still technology that is not quite there yet, strikes me as counterproductive. We should be reaching for anything and everything to get us off of coal and oil.
Exactly. We don’t have decades to wait for new nuclear to start generating power.
We don’t have to choose between solar now and nuclear later. We can do both. Perhaps it’s the case that the best time to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants was 15 years ago. But the second best time is now.
Fifteen years ago we would never have dreamed that renewables would work so well. Fifteen years ago we would not have known what to spend the money on instead. Now we do and more renewables make much more sense.
Can you honestly tell me, in your heart of hearts, that you truly think by 2039 the US will be supermajority solar and wind power and that the nuclear power plants coming online won’t be useful to displace the remaining coal plants?
Of course they’ll be useful. Because the money spent on them was not spent on renewables. Renewables would be a bigger, better, and quicker return on investment.