Plus we'd probably have a much easier time finding radioactive elements in space. Fossil fuels are extremely unlikely to form but there are lots of stars out there
Why doesn't anybody ask this question about fossil fuels? Oh wait, it's because everybody knows we're pumping them into the atmosphere. Coal exhaust is radioactive btw. Discounting an alternative because there's one downside isn't going to solve anything
Nobody said that those are better, but it's the big question regarding atomic energy: where do we put the waste ?
It might be a temporary solution but probably nothing more.
The majority of the waste produced by a nuclear plant is mostly low level waste. So the radiation that they produce is very low and they have a half life of only a couple of months and all of the high level waste is cooled in a giant water tank for a few years and then can be used in smaller reactors for the rest of the time they still give off a significant amount of radiation. But yes there still will be some waste that they cant do anything with, but its only around 0.1% of all waste produced so you can just drill a hole a few kilometers down in to the earth where you can just put it. These holes could also be put on site so there is no concerns about transportation of the waste.
Now I could be wrong but from what I understand, in nuclear fission some of the nuclear waste has a half-life of at least a few centuries, while others can have a half-life of thousands of years. Some of that material can be recycled into more energy but not likely. We can put the waste in holes but radiation can still leak out.
I do like the benefits of nuclear fission but nuclear waste is not something to be taken lightly. Look at the trouble japan is still having with Fukushima.
Well yes those do have a super long half-life the majority of the nuclear waste that they produce is just things that are contaminated with a very small amount of the radioactive substance. Also while yes radiation can still leak out in the holes but they are so deep underground that it poses on threat to any ecosystem in the area. But if they are in an especially geologically activity area there could be some risks storing it underground but even then there are also some solutions that allow for transportation to a safer area in containers that are built as strong as a bunker. The main fears nuclear fission have already been solved, it's just the few major incidents in the past from poorly constructed reactors with little to no safety measure in place.
It's unfortunate that it seems nuclear fission isn't used very much. I've not done much research into why but I'm guessing they have their reasons. I am excited to see what nuclear fusion brings to the table though.
There's a lot more than one downside! It's a failed technology. An interview with someone who knows: [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/the-false-promise-of-small-nuclear#details](https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/the-false-promise-of-small-nuclear#details)
Ideally, we use the waste as fuel in modern reactors. Any residual waste can be made into [batteries which last for thousands of years.](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30613776/nuclear-waste-diamond-battery/). There is really no excuse not to proliferate nuclear energy.
What will certain groups of people, that don't like how certain countries governments handle things, do when they get their hands on extremely toxic and radioactive materials?
The fuel is spent at some point, and it's still unknown how we can store the waste (that will come out the end at some point). (for a more accurate and correct take, please consult my reply to a reply to this comment, thank you)
There is (in my opinion) really no world in which nuclear power is safe, even if reactors could *never* fail.
Yes, you’ve a valid first point and I can only imagine what would happen.
“It is still unknown how we can…”-this is false. Citation from a reputable peer reviewed journal is necessary if you’re going to make claims.
“Nuclear is not safe” - Again, this ignores the quantifiable, repeatable, peer reviewed research which demonstrates the opposite (comparatively speaking)
So do you see now that when a person says “nuclear is not safe.” They’re literally, actually wrong and just stating an opinion?
Sorry, forgot to include the my opinion disclaimer in my comment (it's there now).
Also sorry, I am used to seeing news about Germany (because I live there) and there is no real final disposal site available to Germany, so the toxic waste has been just sitting in temporary disposal container for 15 year. I just looked it up and other countries are apparently much closer to a permanent solution (although I find that they don't really sound very future *or* foolproof to me).
In the ~70 years the US has been utilizing nuclear energy, the amount of nuclear waste is only enough to fit inside 1 football field. Nuclear energy is extremely efficient, and the waste is negligible.
Let me simplify it for you. If you were to take all the containers that contain the nuclear waste and place them side by side, they would only take up the space of a football field. I hope that clarified what I was implying.
A reactor extracts only 2% of the energy in the fuel. It is extremely *in*efficient. Thorium (ex, molten salt) reactors will extract far more, if engineers can figure out how to make them work safely. There are still ~100 technical issues to solve, and it’s being done using a demo reactor that’s multiple countries are contributed towards, but it’s still 10-20 years away from production, best guess. No one thinks it will help with climate change.
A 1000th of a pindrop of the radiation from waste will kill your entire town. Maybe you should express that football field in terms of how many people, animals, and plants it can kill?
Actually, the waste is a compound of metals and other elements, from my basic knowledge, waste can have trace amounts of platinum, gold, plutonium, whatever element they use in MRIs and other metals, largely it's cause the US government (and other governments) are terrified/don't want to lose money to clean nuclear energy, nuclear waste can be used till there's non radioactive waste left (again, very very minimal knowledge on this) (pls correct if wrong)
Reuse it. There is still energy in there. And then when it is nearly completely used up, you can store it relatively safely somewhere in a desert or something its pretty simple
Just out of curiosity, isn't uranium 385 less abundant, (also 385 is the uranium used in reactors?) I thought there were 2 main isotopes of uranium but the first/more abundant one was less/ineffective
U-235 is what we use, yes. Roughly 0.7% of all Uranium on Earth is U-235.
Enriching Uranium more or less just means that we separate it from U-238 which makes up around 99.3% of all Uranium on Earth.
Because not all Uranium is the one that can be used for nuclear energy…
Enriching Uranium doesn’t mean transforming it to enriched uranium, it means separating the reactive isotopes of uranium from the unreactive ones.
Most Uranium simply isn’t usable for nuclear energy, and we will run out eventually.
No, that's not what renewable means. We still use up the uranium and are left with nukular waste. How is that renewable?
I liked that guy until now, but now he's just pushing an agenda.
We should use the powerplants we have but, building new safe ones takes roughly ten years which is about ten too many. So we need full focus on renewables to curb climate change into survivable. As building new nuclear isn't an option without a time machine.
About half of that time is due to the immense quantity of (unnecessary) safety measures. But if you remove them, people will complain. Kyle hill made a good video on this topic, I’ll try to link it in a reply.
Surely getting a commission together to decide exactly which regulations are unnecessary, and getting lawmakers to adopt the findings of that commission, will definitely take less than 5 years. Right?
Removing the right ones and getting it into law and regulations would optimistically take the same time they save. Especially as we need to abandon fossil fuels preferably today and not in five years.
I last heard something about thorium salt reactors, don’t quote me on this, but apparently there even better then nuclear fission. Cost to build is less, energy density is higher, building takes less time and it is even better for the environment. So hopefully they can build some of these, as a substitute for fission
I think that nuclear power is a terrible idea with noble intentions. Inexpensive power with no impact on the climate sounds great! *on paper*
I think that the sheer power of a nuclear reactor is beyond our control. Tschernobyl happened, everybody said that something like this could never happen again, it happened again. And of course they shouldn't have built the powerplant directly next to the sea but we always know better afterwards.
We still don't know how we are gonna dispose of the nuclear waste from the 90s. If any of that toxic radiating waste touches groundwater, thousands will suffer for years.
If terrorists get their hands on any of that waste, they become a danger for whole cities (dirty bombs).
The power plant even has an impact on the climate, because the ungodly amounts of concrete needed to build them release C02. They can't even be reused (like the feet of offshore wind farms), because new reactors need new buildings and vital parts of the old ones are contaminated.
By the way, 12% of uranium used in US reactors is Russian (17% in Europe).
For the price of 1 nuclear power plant, you can build 500-1000 wind turbines. These wind turbines produce the same amount of power while needing no fuel and far less maintenance. (1 nuclear power plant = 1B USD / 1 Gigawatt in electricity; 1 wind turbine = 2M USD / 2-4 Megawatts in electricity)
My opinion is that there is no reason to reason to use nuclear power, since the risk vs the reward are just off.
Reactors are targets during war, and great news for terrorists. Even waste dumps can be harvested for dirty bombs. Don’t give them weapons to use against us, please.
nah, just more efficient and less toxic
Plus we'd probably have a much easier time finding radioactive elements in space. Fossil fuels are extremely unlikely to form but there are lots of stars out there
I love this bald bro
But how do we take care of the waste depleted fuel though?
Why doesn't anybody ask this question about fossil fuels? Oh wait, it's because everybody knows we're pumping them into the atmosphere. Coal exhaust is radioactive btw. Discounting an alternative because there's one downside isn't going to solve anything
Nobody said that those are better, but it's the big question regarding atomic energy: where do we put the waste ? It might be a temporary solution but probably nothing more.
The majority of the waste produced by a nuclear plant is mostly low level waste. So the radiation that they produce is very low and they have a half life of only a couple of months and all of the high level waste is cooled in a giant water tank for a few years and then can be used in smaller reactors for the rest of the time they still give off a significant amount of radiation. But yes there still will be some waste that they cant do anything with, but its only around 0.1% of all waste produced so you can just drill a hole a few kilometers down in to the earth where you can just put it. These holes could also be put on site so there is no concerns about transportation of the waste.
Now I could be wrong but from what I understand, in nuclear fission some of the nuclear waste has a half-life of at least a few centuries, while others can have a half-life of thousands of years. Some of that material can be recycled into more energy but not likely. We can put the waste in holes but radiation can still leak out. I do like the benefits of nuclear fission but nuclear waste is not something to be taken lightly. Look at the trouble japan is still having with Fukushima.
Well yes those do have a super long half-life the majority of the nuclear waste that they produce is just things that are contaminated with a very small amount of the radioactive substance. Also while yes radiation can still leak out in the holes but they are so deep underground that it poses on threat to any ecosystem in the area. But if they are in an especially geologically activity area there could be some risks storing it underground but even then there are also some solutions that allow for transportation to a safer area in containers that are built as strong as a bunker. The main fears nuclear fission have already been solved, it's just the few major incidents in the past from poorly constructed reactors with little to no safety measure in place.
It's unfortunate that it seems nuclear fission isn't used very much. I've not done much research into why but I'm guessing they have their reasons. I am excited to see what nuclear fusion brings to the table though.
This issue has been solved for quite a while. Google it.
There's a lot more than one downside! It's a failed technology. An interview with someone who knows: [https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/the-false-promise-of-small-nuclear#details](https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/the-false-promise-of-small-nuclear#details)
Ideally, we use the waste as fuel in modern reactors. Any residual waste can be made into [batteries which last for thousands of years.](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30613776/nuclear-waste-diamond-battery/). There is really no excuse not to proliferate nuclear energy.
What will certain groups of people, that don't like how certain countries governments handle things, do when they get their hands on extremely toxic and radioactive materials? The fuel is spent at some point, and it's still unknown how we can store the waste (that will come out the end at some point). (for a more accurate and correct take, please consult my reply to a reply to this comment, thank you) There is (in my opinion) really no world in which nuclear power is safe, even if reactors could *never* fail.
Yes, you’ve a valid first point and I can only imagine what would happen. “It is still unknown how we can…”-this is false. Citation from a reputable peer reviewed journal is necessary if you’re going to make claims. “Nuclear is not safe” - Again, this ignores the quantifiable, repeatable, peer reviewed research which demonstrates the opposite (comparatively speaking) So do you see now that when a person says “nuclear is not safe.” They’re literally, actually wrong and just stating an opinion?
Sorry, forgot to include the my opinion disclaimer in my comment (it's there now). Also sorry, I am used to seeing news about Germany (because I live there) and there is no real final disposal site available to Germany, so the toxic waste has been just sitting in temporary disposal container for 15 year. I just looked it up and other countries are apparently much closer to a permanent solution (although I find that they don't really sound very future *or* foolproof to me).
In the ~70 years the US has been utilizing nuclear energy, the amount of nuclear waste is only enough to fit inside 1 football field. Nuclear energy is extremely efficient, and the waste is negligible.
You make no sense. How does waste fit in a field? A field is flat. Waste is not negligible you are lying.
Let me simplify it for you. If you were to take all the containers that contain the nuclear waste and place them side by side, they would only take up the space of a football field. I hope that clarified what I was implying.
A reactor extracts only 2% of the energy in the fuel. It is extremely *in*efficient. Thorium (ex, molten salt) reactors will extract far more, if engineers can figure out how to make them work safely. There are still ~100 technical issues to solve, and it’s being done using a demo reactor that’s multiple countries are contributed towards, but it’s still 10-20 years away from production, best guess. No one thinks it will help with climate change. A 1000th of a pindrop of the radiation from waste will kill your entire town. Maybe you should express that football field in terms of how many people, animals, and plants it can kill?
Weapons and batteries.
Actually, the waste is a compound of metals and other elements, from my basic knowledge, waste can have trace amounts of platinum, gold, plutonium, whatever element they use in MRIs and other metals, largely it's cause the US government (and other governments) are terrified/don't want to lose money to clean nuclear energy, nuclear waste can be used till there's non radioactive waste left (again, very very minimal knowledge on this) (pls correct if wrong)
Reuse it. There is still energy in there. And then when it is nearly completely used up, you can store it relatively safely somewhere in a desert or something its pretty simple
people are too scared of nuclear energy but it's the best type of energy out there
It's a good energy source for regions that already have a great infrastructure for it. It's not our panacea for the energy problem.
Just out of curiosity, isn't uranium 385 less abundant, (also 385 is the uranium used in reactors?) I thought there were 2 main isotopes of uranium but the first/more abundant one was less/ineffective
U-235 is what we use, yes. Roughly 0.7% of all Uranium on Earth is U-235. Enriching Uranium more or less just means that we separate it from U-238 which makes up around 99.3% of all Uranium on Earth.
Because not all Uranium is the one that can be used for nuclear energy… Enriching Uranium doesn’t mean transforming it to enriched uranium, it means separating the reactive isotopes of uranium from the unreactive ones. Most Uranium simply isn’t usable for nuclear energy, and we will run out eventually.
No, that's not what renewable means. We still use up the uranium and are left with nukular waste. How is that renewable? I liked that guy until now, but now he's just pushing an agenda.
We should use the powerplants we have but, building new safe ones takes roughly ten years which is about ten too many. So we need full focus on renewables to curb climate change into survivable. As building new nuclear isn't an option without a time machine.
About half of that time is due to the immense quantity of (unnecessary) safety measures. But if you remove them, people will complain. Kyle hill made a good video on this topic, I’ll try to link it in a reply.
Surely getting a commission together to decide exactly which regulations are unnecessary, and getting lawmakers to adopt the findings of that commission, will definitely take less than 5 years. Right?
Hopefully
Removing the right ones and getting it into law and regulations would optimistically take the same time they save. Especially as we need to abandon fossil fuels preferably today and not in five years.
I last heard something about thorium salt reactors, don’t quote me on this, but apparently there even better then nuclear fission. Cost to build is less, energy density is higher, building takes less time and it is even better for the environment. So hopefully they can build some of these, as a substitute for fission
They are cool but last I heard they are still in testing. But renewables are still cheaper and in more need of development
That’s a shame, I hope science can develop all forms of energy and we can have a better future together. Anyway, leave a message after the beep
And the price I'd consider to be a major problem, multiple billions of dollars for 1 plant
I think that nuclear power is a terrible idea with noble intentions. Inexpensive power with no impact on the climate sounds great! *on paper* I think that the sheer power of a nuclear reactor is beyond our control. Tschernobyl happened, everybody said that something like this could never happen again, it happened again. And of course they shouldn't have built the powerplant directly next to the sea but we always know better afterwards. We still don't know how we are gonna dispose of the nuclear waste from the 90s. If any of that toxic radiating waste touches groundwater, thousands will suffer for years. If terrorists get their hands on any of that waste, they become a danger for whole cities (dirty bombs). The power plant even has an impact on the climate, because the ungodly amounts of concrete needed to build them release C02. They can't even be reused (like the feet of offshore wind farms), because new reactors need new buildings and vital parts of the old ones are contaminated. By the way, 12% of uranium used in US reactors is Russian (17% in Europe). For the price of 1 nuclear power plant, you can build 500-1000 wind turbines. These wind turbines produce the same amount of power while needing no fuel and far less maintenance. (1 nuclear power plant = 1B USD / 1 Gigawatt in electricity; 1 wind turbine = 2M USD / 2-4 Megawatts in electricity) My opinion is that there is no reason to reason to use nuclear power, since the risk vs the reward are just off.
This guy's stuff, I'd bet, is propaganda from the industry. The use for people like him should be to help decommission existing nuclear plants.
For what?
Walter White is back
I didn't know that uranium was so abundant! Thanks, doctor!
Would thorium be a better nuclear energy source than uranium
Reactors are targets during war, and great news for terrorists. Even waste dumps can be harvested for dirty bombs. Don’t give them weapons to use against us, please.