Sabine
patreon
Coming up on Nov 26
🕑 Added 2022-11-23 15:37:14 +0000 UTCI like to talk about nuclear power. This isn't new. New is that people actually listen to what I say. The renaissance of nuclear power has pushed forward technology development again, in particular when it comes to dealing with nuclear waste. How much nuclear waste is there, how much of a problem is it, and what can we do with it? On Saturday we'll look into it.
Comments
Great discussion and very enlightening. However, I also think itโs a moot point. From a macro perspective, the real challenge with nuclear power is not the technical risks with either generating power or disposing of the waste - its the massive capital costs and construction lead times for new facilities. Until regulatory attitudes change, it simply takes too long to bring new nuclear generating capacity online to provide any practical benefit. And even with the most optimistic assumptions about how we can recycle and safely store waste, the total equivalent lifecycle cost of nuclear power per kW is no longer competitive with the cost of renewables (even if you include the cost of grid-scale energy storage in the capital cost of intermittent renewable sources). So while I agree that the risks of nuclear energy are greatly exaggerated and we have the technology to make it a safe and reliable source of base load power, I think itโs too little too late โฆ there are just better alternatives.
D Brown
Give it to Elon Musk?
My specific concern with storage is when we find out that what we thought was a good containment solution just isn't. I'm thinking specifically of the Alle II mine. Salt mines have been the goto for storage in general, but the large, mined out caverns have structural issues it turns out. Furthermore, the barrels that were thought to be a good solution at the time (1970s) to contain low and intermediate radioactive waste turned out to be lousy containers that dent and rust through. The dry casks that radioactive waste is stored in now are "proven" technology, but what about in 100 years?
Another one to share online and help educate the masses. ๐
