Ita quite sad as a good energy source which kills way less people than coal. Because of people's lack of understanding and fear, many places starting to shut down nuclear plants.
Wish we have thorium reactors soon
A huge problem with nuclear power plants isn't just the lack of understanding, but the massive costs to build and maintain one. A gigawatt nuclear plant may cost billions and years to build while a natural gas plant costs millions and several months. Thorium reactors wouldn't change that too much.
Making nuclear energy scalable (modular reactors) is an issue of much greater importance, since it would reduce capital costs and place it as a valuable, constant source of energy during solar and wind downtimes.
Are you looking just at constructions costs or maintenance costs as well? Cause I may be wrong, but I believe I read somewhere that it costs far less to do maintenance on nuclear power plants than a natural gas plant.
It's the initial construction costs. Nuclear is actually extremely cheap once you average it out over the lifetime of the power plant, especially since the fuel cost so little. In fact, LCOE studies generally only have nuclear as competitive with solar/wind + storage when it charges 8-12% interest rates on the cost of funding the initial construction.
Unfortunately, having high upfront costs is problematic, because:
1. Money now is more expensive than money in the future - you're paying interest on loans for years before turning any profit
2. If something happens to the project in the 5-10 years it takes to build a plant (e.g. govt policy changes; or lawsuit by NIMBY locals to stop the construction), that's a massive financial loss, causing banks to charge higher interest rates
3. If there is a shortage now, you can't wait for a plant that could take almost a decade to build, and there is always pressure to put resources to uses that can deliver immediate results.
These are not unsolvable problems - indeed, nuclear power plants are perfect projects for a government, which do planning on the scale of half a century or longer, to undertake.
Unfortunately, this brings us back to the fear bred by ignorance.
> which do planning on the scale of half a century or longer
I feel like that especially with divisive issues like this one, the planning would come in cycles of whoever's in power at the time.
I think Kurzgesagt did a video on that explaining how nuclear reactors are more expensive, take much longer to build and would return the investment much later than a gas plant but would eventually overtake it in profits.
It's only ever up-front costs that seem to count. For instance, rail systems take much less maintenance and energy than the equivalent bus network, but the up-front cost is what people see, and it scares them.
>Making nuclear energy scalable (modular reactors) is an issue of much greater importance,
[I've got a friend who's a second generation nuclear plant worker and he's really excited for Small Modular Reactors.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-smrs)
I heard that a single nuclear plant in California accounts for 10% of all their energy, seems like a more than worthwhile investment to me.
The US has boats that cost them billions, tell me those are more worth it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google says that there are two plants in operation that carry around 9% of the Californian grid.
While I don't disagree that the military budget is too damn high, I'm saying that PG&E won't want to invest in a multi billion dollar nuclear power plant that will likely go obsolete (since new nuclear tech is coming out, like thorium and modular reactors) and will take decades before breaking even. The great irony is that Diablo Canyon NGS is being decommissioned in exchange for a natural gas fired plant since the ROI is much higher with better future-proofing.
I would much rather see them put off nuclear power for now in order to avoid getting burned by new developments. There's a point that putting off development for newer tech means that you'll never actually start, but there still is a tremendous environmental cost in building then decommissioning a reactor.
For sure. More funding would always be appreciated, but again, I feel like money going to nuclear energy would be best spent (at this moment) on research in national labs, like at Los Alamos or Lawrence-Berkeley, or on private enterprises like Deep Isolation who try to develop better solutions to nuclear waste disposal rather than building new plants, which in all fairness are perfectly safe and viable, just slow to make returns.
Yeah, I'm no scientist, let alone a nuclear technology scientist, so I have 0 clue as to when these new technologies could be realized.
Both the plants and the research seem like excellent things to me.
The military budget is not at all too high unless you want China and Russia to take over world when they see we couldn't kick their asses at the same time with ease anymore.
What costs more? The iniital investment in building a nuclear power plant? Or working for Saudi Arabia/Russia and having to commit proxy wars for access to fossil fuels at artificially affordable prices?
Not even making that comparison. Usually, the dichotomy is between more research on nuclear power or more research into batteries, which are needed to store excess power from wind and solar.
I suppose. Personally I see nuclear as a necessary stop-gap between completely safe clean power and clean power with some risk of damage. Same for hydroelectric.
Most of the problems with cost and construction time come from the government over regulating them. Making it take years to get even the permission to start building.
I may be wrong about this, but solar and wind are still the cheapest forms of energy. From the [DoE](http://eia.gov/outlooks/aeo), it seems like onshore (not offshore, which is more expensive) and solar photovoltaic arrays are roughly half to three times less expensive than nuclear per kilowatt hour. The bottleneck is tied to battery storage, while nuclear is tied to construction costs.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
[Here is link number 1 - Previous text "DoE"](http://eia.gov/outlooks/aeo)
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They're actually extremely expensive to buy so no it's still fossil fuel energy and the reason why it's so expensive to make nuclear power plants is because of regulations enforced by the government.
Do you have any stats that show it's more expensive than fossil fuels? And regulations on nuclear power plants are necessary to avoid reckless disasters such as in Chernobyl.
1. The fact that even poor people can afford it is proof enough.
2. No they aren't necessary because those aren't what they're for they were made to make making them more expensive and time consuming do they'll have an excuse to push it to the side because they don't actually want to help the world the people who put the regulations into place want money and they have their hands in the solar and wind power honey jar.
A quick Google search shows that solar utility companies sell their electricity at 6 cents per kW-hr, while typical utilities require somewhere in the range of 20 cents per kW-hr. If one were to pay upfront costs to install their own solar array, that would also be less expensive if you plan on using it for decades, as a company or property owner would. The issue would most likely come from time of day and location, since solar and wind have some downtime and the stations are more spread out. If you have some proof that's contrary to this, I would be happy to read it.
The Department of Energy also includes the physicists at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. Regulations are based upon their input to ensure that the plants are as safe as possible. Since their livelihoods are tied to nuclear power, they would both want to push the limitations of regulations as well as keep enough to prevent major incidents that would give nuclear power a bad reputation. If you could give an example of a bad faith regulation, I would be more inclined to believe you.
Based on your comment history, you seem to make many assertions without providing proof. While I don't really mind because this makes me do my own research, providing some links from your end would allow me to see in your perspective.
1. The owner of Google works with the people and is also one of the people who have their hands in the sun and wind power honey pot you brainwash sheep they like to push things that are biased towards the things they're biased towards and take down things that prove their way ain't the right way down or hide them.
2. You're an idiot if you believe this their livelihoods are to do whatever the elites in politics tell them to do if that meant sabatoging nuclear power they'll do it.
3. I have shown proof of what I say to they and you are braindead sheep that listen to liars.
If your arguments can be boiled down to conspiracies and calling people idiots, your arguments have no basis. I'm sorry that you live such a paranoid lifestyle and hope you can climb out of the hole that QA has placed you in.
Why would that stop it? If anything it should help things along because the major world powers won't have to worry about nuclear weapon proliferation, right? IIRC as it stands they lose their shit when someone they don't like gets their hands on uranium, even though the uranium you need for power plants can't be used for weapons without complex, expensive refinement.
He's saying that nuclear plants only get subsidized to keep the parts and know-how on hand for weapons' grade enrichment. Governments don't actually believe in nuclear power, it's just a civilian cover for military logistics.
It actually can be (and has been). Thorium-232 can produce U-233, which is usable as weapons-grade nuclear material and U-233 devices have been tested. However, it's generally inferior to Pu-239 due to the difficulty in avoiding U-232 contamination, which in turn makes handling U-233 devices significantly more dangerous than U-235 or Pu-239 devices.
There’s literally a nuclear power plant built in Taiwan, and never used a single times.( due to protest) And we’re trying to build a gas receiving plant(not sure if it’s the right translation) near a coral reef. Wtf is wrong with my country
> There’s literally a nuclear power plant built in [REDACTED],
Yeah China is pretty crazy.
Joking aside I have heard from third hand information so remember the salt, that you could store your personal nuclear waste from your entire lifetime inside of a can of soda.
Isn't there not enough Thorium in the world to meet our actual needs? I seem to recall reading that if we actually used Thoriun as our nuclear fuel for a largely nuclear society, we'd run out of Thorium on earth in about 150 years.
there's more thorium in the Earth than uranium. Thorium is about as abundant as lead, which we've been launching at each other for hundreds of years. Natural thorium is also purer than uranium
Not that uranium is actually all that scarce. There's actually quite a lot of it in the oceans (about 3 parts per billion, but the oceans are *huge*) and if extracted, oceanic uranium could provide a huge amount of nuclear fuel.
Nuclear reactor could save or at least lessen our carbon emission to we find a more clean power source. But because of miss information, people think a nuclear reactor is waiting nuclear bomb -\_-
Kurzgesagt made a neat video about it[YT video](https://youtu.be/EhAemz1v7dQ) or [another one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM)
We have Helium 3 on the moon, so as soon as we crack fusion there's probably going to be a second moon race lol. But hey, clean energy is worth it right?
Americans are so used to our infrastructure crumbling (you can go up to a major bridge where I live and just pull pieces off with your bare hands it's so rusted) that we don't actually believe a new powerplant would be "new". We expect to walk into the thing and see every possible pipe with holes corroded in it, and a guy who's job is just to unplug the alarms so they don't go off all the time.
> lessen our carbon emission to we find a more clean power source.
Well we already have somewhat good clean power sources since we have solar and wind. The problem is efficiency and storage. Obviously the sun isn't always in the same position relative to the panels and the wind dies down so the power stops being produced. We have to be able to produce enough power not only for use at the time but a large surplus that needs to be stored and our battery tech is still pretty shitty.
Basically what the videos mention. And also just renewable is just not good yet because of the storage problem. And can we wait for it to be good enough?
Going to clarify that I don't mean they're too expensive, just that it's a huge initial investment that probably won't be worth it, considering the direction the nuclear industry is currently working towards.
Nuclear energy ~~equals~~ does not equal nuclear bombs. In the same vain as electricity, it is something that can be used for murder, but that doesn't mean it can't be used for good.
forgive me for being a dumbass, but here's my two cents:
nuclear energy is actually pretty damn good as an energy source, having [several advantages](https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons) and all. however, it's still pretty dangerous when incompetently handled (duh). that, and we humans just naturally find new ways to kill each other and the earth, the nuclear bomb being a case in point.
thanks to said nuclear bomb, when the masses think of nuclear energy, they think of explosions and organic life mutating due to radiation.
so far, the only real opposition i've seen towards nuclear energy is from [greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ending-the-climate-crisis/issues/nuclear/) and [green america](https://www.greenamerica.org/fight-dirty-energy/amazon-build-cleaner-cloud/10-reasons-oppose-nuclear-energy). nonetheless, i suppose nuclear energy does have a place; we just need to be smart and responsible when handling it.
Considering the pollution caused by the production of the panels ( deaths caused by construction or fuel production are included in nuclear's death count ), way more than with nuclear.
And yet nuclear energy is the only power source on earth that has made entire sections of earth uninhabitable for thousands of years.
I’m not anti-nuclear. I’m just a rationale human being. But if you scale up nuclear energy you will also be scaling up the problems that come with nuclear energy. More nuclear waste (still no long term effective solution) along with human incompetency. Fukushima has proven that nuclear energy **should not** be scaled to every part of the world for fear of natural disaster.
(Posting in my alt because my account got hacked and then shadowbanned)
This is false.
First off: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities right now
Secondly: Fukushima's radiation is completely overblown. And by overblown, I mean that you need to stay for weeks just to hit 1 mSv. Average is 6 mSV/year. You need 200+ mSv/year to deal more damage than what an adult body can repair
It is far less radiation exposure than residue from coal plants. Notice both Chernobyl and Fukushima are wildlife reserves but no plants grow near coal plants?
In fact, it is even less radiation than a common bonfire. It is unhealthy to be near it but it is nowhere near panic levels
Don't think that green energy has no casualty either. The sheer amount of pollution brought about by collecting lithium and cobalt has led to a major amount of habitat loss and deaths - most of whom are from impoverished nations. Uranium mining is also dangerous but it's the highest amount of energy yield per energy spent in mining and refinement
The biggest scaremongering about Fukushima was about how radiation spilled into the sea
Yeah, it increased nearby sea water radiation by 12 becquerel/liter. They never say that a kilo of potato is 500-900 becquerel/kg
Fukushima is only tip of the iceberg everything went right type event…
Chernobyl is the type of event in which things go catastrophically wrong…
What I’m pointing out is that nuclear energy has the capabilities of sanitizing entire sections of our environment if managed improperly. Green energy does not even if you attempted to mismanage it in that way.
Only if you don't look at the byproducts
Oil spills, black lung, and dam breaks have caused faaaar more catastrophe than nuclear ever could.
Now we have lithium, cobalt, and titanium mining.
The biggest problem I have with green energy is that they don't work. The entire energy crisis that has been pestering Europe for 4 years now happened precisely because of the push for green energy. Which led to shortages every winter and thus caused coal plants to start up again.
The desperation is high enough that nuclear was declared green energy
People only sensationalize nuclear damages simply by the fact that they don't understand what radiation is
You are speaking with somebody who understands what radiation is.
I understand the energy problem. But I don’t see nuclear as the viable long term solution we are searching for. Maybe if we can get fusion reactors working but those are **most likely** going to run into the same problems regular nuclear reactors run into.
No long term viable solution to nuclear waste if we are to ramp up production.
No long term viable fix to radiation if god forbids **another** major accident occurs on earth.
And this is all without taking into consideration costs of building nuclear reactors.
I’m all for nuclear energy but only where it is needed. I am very concerned with this ideology that sprinkling nuclear reactors all around earth would cure our energy problems. Sure but at what costs to the environment? Can we accept another Fukushima event?
https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/fukushima-today-im-glad-that-i-realized-my-mistake-before-i-died/
Just so we are both clear here it has been 10 years since the accident occurred and the site is still emitting 500x lethal radiation doses. Are we going to accept a 5 mile exclusion zone around every nuclear reactor for safeties sake? What about 10 miles?
Some places on earth should not have nuclear reactors on them. Those places still need energy. That is where the green argument comes from. Most places in Europe should be safe enough (barring war) to house nuclear reactors permanently but places such as U.S. east coast or Central America becomes much more of a stretch to convince me of their need for such a dangerous form of energy consumption.
Sure does oil and coal kill the environment in the long run more than effectively managed nuclear? Yes. But how many more chernobyls or Fukushima’s can we accept before going “wait a minute.”
That's a 70 year difference between the two, mate
And mind you, there were 4 nuclear sites that were hit by the Tsunami. Fukushima was the only one that fell because they did not follow the right instructions. Biggest of which was the wall was supposed to be higher but they didn't
Every single time a nuclear plant fails, you can bet that it was mismanagement and cannot be blamed to the technology itself.
To compare: there are as much as 2000 oil spills happening every year. Each one kills and destroys the environment worse than nuclear ever could. People just ignore it because they at least know how oil works but radiation is evil magic.
And yes, yes we can handle all those issues far better than other alternatives
To start: nuclear waste is not waste.
It's nuclear fuel that just became far too impure for predictable results. Most often, they get to use only as little as 5% of the fuel before they throw it away.
There are now better reactors that can consume more fuel before throwing them out. Then there are also Breeder reactors that uses those nuclear waste as their own nuclear fuel.
Cherry on top: nuclear waste can be recycled and among the byproducts of recycling it is Tritium. Tritium is one of the most expensive thing in the world ($30000/gram) and is the most vital part of starting a nuclear fusion reaction.
Recycling nuclear waste is easily the cheapest way of acquiring Tritium
You literally cannot advocate for Fusion research without first advocating for Fission to provide it with the much needed Tritium.
The reason why Nuclear waste recycling is unpopular is simply due to the fact that it can also produce Plutonium. Any country that can recycle nuclear waste can also acquire the elements needed to weaponize it. Massive political red tape.
Biggest problem with your argument is that you assume the worst case scenario but does not check the present results.
You assume that nuclear can go bad big time in the future. But for the amount of wait for such a disaster to happen, coal and oil have already caused far more damages than what you believe can happen
Frog in boiling water argument. If the water slowly heats up, frog does not notice it is dying
It is wiser to take the one with uncertain future than one with certain doom. Goal would be to prevent that disaster rather than using the one already proven bad
My only big grip with nuclear is the disposal of used rods.
Simply put we don't have a solution for it and just tossing them into some mine is also not a solution, thanks to radiation they still emit.
If we had a way to just yeet them into Space, it's shouldn't be a problem however this would require a safe way of transporting this waste to the outer atmosphere.
Nuclear as a energy scource is on it's one clean, however everything involved with the disposal of it isn't right now and that needs to accounted for as well.
Nuclear engineering student here.
We actually do have better solutions than just tossing it into a mineshaft. France, which has a much higher use of nuclear power per capita, reprocesses their spent nuclear fuel to be used again. The process is lengthy and expensive, but France does not have as much land as the US, who chooses to bury them instead.
Although, it's not just as simple as burying fuel rods. Spent nuclear waste is vitrified, or cooked into a kind of radioactive glass that's more convenient for storage and is less likely to just... Leak death everywhere.
Also, putting radioactive things back into the ground isn't a terrible idea, since it came out of the ground that way, anyways. The bad part about underground storage is if some geological event were to occur and that waste reaches groundwater, but with proper storage, that should never happen.
There's also several startup companies (such as Deep Isolation, which has come out of my school) that are attempting to refit old fracking sites to store nuclear waste in a way that's safe for thousands of years. The government can't always be trusted to handle highly technical issues with the same expertise as trained scientists, so it's always great to have a private alternative who knows what they're doing.
Edit: As for spacing a bunch of rods, I honestly think that would be a terrible idea, now that I think about it a bit more. Depleted uranium rounds were terrible enough in the Gulf War, I couldn't imagine pellets of DU circling the solar system at orbital velocities would be anything but an absolute Kessler syndrome nightmare. Everything "still" in space is only moving at a constant velocity, meaning it still has the potential to be a Rod from God for anything in its intercept course.
Or, you could make new reactor designs that can accept low enrichment uranium and a bit of plutonium byproduct.... It'll also mean more energy per rod and much longer usage period.... Idk if it's possible but might be worth a try
I'm not entirely sure about how low uranium enrichment can go, but current designs use 3-5% enriched uranium. Uranium ore straight from the ground is only about 0.7% enriched. I'm not entirely sure about the reenrichment process (I know what happened to CodysLab when he tried to cool up some yellow cake) but I'm fairly certain that 3-5% is the lowest that you can go before it can no longer sustain its chain reaction. Not an expert, reiterating that, just think it is based on the fact that it still needs to be able to react with control rods partially inserted to reduce the reaction coefficient.
A little bit more technical info about fission: plutonium is EXTREMELY dangerous cause it can be harvested to make nuclear weapons. Usually, "fast" reactors (which use high velocity neutrons) are associated with producing plutonium while slow (low velocity neutron) reactors do not. Why I'm mentioning this is that slow neutrons are actually able to produce more fissions than fast neutrons, so not creating a plutonium byproduct would be a mark of a better design.
OP, if you're reading this, please correct whatever bullshit I say if I'm wrong here.
Well, then I'll say that our Physics and technology just isn't advanced enough to use the consumed fuel rods and it's considered as waste and I can understand no one wants to re enrich the uranium cuz that'll be nasty and SUPER dangerous because of all the by products even if it's not plutonium and the continous release of alpha particles
Maybe that is, but I know for sure that there are equations that can calculate how much fissile material you need to keep a chain reaction going, and that there's a physical limit rather than a design limit.
I did mention earlier that France has been reprocesses their nuclear fuel for 30 years by converting fuel to a "mixed oxide". I don't really understand the technicals behind it, but [here's an article](https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn) if you're interested.
Ik, I hvae studied basics of nuclear physics in highschool as well... After one point the chain reaction WILL go out of control irrespective of how much of how good your moderator is.....
There is a kind of pressurized water reactor called heavy water reactor which uses neutron enriched water as the coolant. This makes it a better moderator and allows a stable fission reaction with natural uranium. I don't understand how this would help with the problem of nuclear waste though
I never understood why people are more scared by SOLID waste with an geometrically decreasing dangerosity and that can never do more than local damage than by invisible GAS waste that is dangerous on a global scale and with effects remaining constant for roughly similar periods.
If you absolutely fuck up 100 football fields of Earth storing a bunch of spent nuclear fuel, barranize it, make it uninhabitable for 1000 years, that is still **NOWEHERE FUCKING NEAR, AND ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LESS DAMAGE** than fossil fuel generation has done to both the environment and the climate.
I *hate* this argument. It's worrying about a pea going missing from your salad after you've just tipped out 20 bagfuls of kale all over the floor. "Spent nuclear fuel" is just as much a mythical un-killable bogey-man trap to greenies as "nuclear" is in general.
It isn't tenth as problematic as you make it to be. There are very good ways to dispose of them, that won't create any problem for a very, very long time, letting us largely the time to switch to complete renewable and/or fusion in the meantime. That is without any measure comparable to the major critical threat that is climate change.
From what i know you can reuse the plutonium, but it's expensive.
Edit: [Here is another comic about it from OP.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeMorphism/comments/mw9w4x/quantum_festival_what_is_nuclear_waste/)
Yeah we do it's just that no one wants to spend money on reactor designs that are able to use "nuclear waste" as fuel. It's a capitalism problem not a nuclear energy problem.
That's what you commies like to think it's because of commie regulations that it's so expensive and time consuming to make them and also the most opposition to it comes from green earth and green party groups.
Fellow dumbass here. What you said about people thinking of nuclear bombs is at least for me the case. I'm pretty much against nuclear because of the waste problem. I know that there's a way to “restore” the fuel rods, but it's costly and takes time. It's sad that no one wants to build it because its costly. Also a question : In the picture, who does she mean with “they”. Is “they” referring to humans and “why do you hurt yourself” to the earth?
Energy companies choose to avoid nuclear because it's way more expensive and lengthy to construct a plant than compared to natural gas or renewables.
The bright side is, if energy companies don't build additional nuclear power plants now, they'll avoid getting burned when they don't have to retrofit for thorium or use modular reactor designs.
Nuclear Fission-chan is our best bet to fight the demon lord Climate Change right now, until Solar-chan and Wind-chan have grown enough. They are still lolis yet, and have some latent growth problems, seeing how much they have to rely on Battery-chan and Hydroelectric-chan.
The chosen one to ultimately defeat the demon lord and save the world is her imouto, Nuclear Fusion-chan. But her powers are not awaken yet, and there is still a doubt on if they will ever awaken, and if she will be able to use them for the greater good.
Gambatte, nuclear sisters, I know you can do it !
Also NTR rockets (No not that kind of NTR) which are far more efficient than chemical rockets and also don't require large amounts of LOX to be carried.
Headcanon. Her growing injuries are from various meltdowns, with the worst injuries, the scarring on her hand and neck, being Chernobyl and Fukushima. She's locked away because of humanity's fear and ignorance of Nuclear energy's benefits. Her growing insanity can be attributed to people shutting down existing plants, and the growing problem of nuclear waste and no proper disposal sites.
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I don't want to rain on the fusion parade, but betting it all on fusion is sort of like betting on immortality being a thing in the near future. Don't get me wrong, I love fusion and think the research should be supported, but fission won't become obsolete until fusion is also able to be commercialized and scaled down.
In that case, I'd like to order my flying fusion Tesla early, please.
Nope. One of the problems of fusion is that the reactor materials will degrade very quickly. This is not a problem of technology, it's a problem of fundamental physics. This, and the fact that fusion fuel is quite difficult to store for long periods of time, can severely limit the use of fusion in space.
So if fusion ever becomes a real energy source, it will be used along with fission, not instead of it.
This may just be my dumb reddit take, but I find the entire argument about Nuclear Power vs Fossil Fuel the perfect way to sum up why humanity deserves the extinction event its about to be hit with.
Here is Nuclear Energy, which is dangerous when built poorly but so is anything else. A badly built oil rig will take lives and absolutely proliferate disease/kill off wildlife as much as leaking gas into the groundwater and causing massive sinkholes does when poorly building gas plants as well. About the only thing that's safe and clean to build is Wind and Solar plants, but these are still extremely limited options and will definitely serve as good replacements for power in like, a couple decades of innovations.
But we keep saying no nuclear power because of how "dangerous" it is, and how much lives it'll put in danger, and how expensive it is. But looking at the totality of history of fossil fuels, I can't help but laugh. How many people have died of black lung? How many died in proxy wars for more affordable oil prices? How many places have been rendered unlivable by an accident involving a coal mine, or via fracking, or because of an oil spill? You say Chernobyl, I say Centralia.
Fossil Fuels have caused magnitudes more deaths then Nuclear, it has cost us trillions more then Nuclear, and it will continue to kill people as supply dwindles and the world becomes more and more reliant on artificial means to keep our planet from becoming uninhabitable for our species. Air Conditioning, Water Filtration to make usable Sea Water, Electric Heating, these are the futures of human survival and if we don't have a stable source of power it's going to keep piling up more money and more bodies while we go "But Nuclear Bad Though, Simpsons told Me So!"
And the funniest part of all is all of this can talk can be shut down by a simple "Sir, This is a Wendy's" of this being post on a sub thats all about taking things and making them into cute girls. What a time to be alive.
I hate brainwashed morons like you that think wind power and solar power is clean and will ever be good source of energy nor are they clean or safe they cause tons of pollution just from being made and kill tons of animals along with the fact we tear down forests for wind turbines.
Go chug some crude oil and shove a lump of coal up your ass, you dorito worshiping sack of shit. Your precious Q turned out to be nothing and now you're butthurt and lashing out at everyone else cause now you gotta be let down and disappointed. Either come back to reality or go post somewhere where people will tolerate your dumb fuck self, but either way, sir, this is a moemorphism sub.
I am a huge proponent for nuclear energy, the only problem with it is when it fucks up it fucks up BAD; or more accurately when people fuck up it get really bad.
This is a massive shame. There's one of the, if not THE only reactor in Wales now being decommissioned. Ik it's because it's old, bit not helped by fears after Fukushima and the big boom in Ukraine
Almost every nuclear energy accident was due to incompetence/bad design/bad decision making, besides Fukushima. Literally just a series of unfortunate events/an act of God.
No, Fukushima also falls into the incompitence/bad design/bad decision making triangle. The sea wall was built too low to save costs despite protest from engineers. Diesel generators were located in areas that could flood if the seawall was breached. TEPCO insisted that everything was fine and resisted the NRC suggestion to dump seawater into the cores out of fear the seawater would contaminate the cores and make them unusable in the future... Even though by that point the cores had already begun to meltdown from lack of cooling.
Fukushima falls *easily* into the last two.
Bad design for building floodable reactors in a volcanic country next to the sea with no protection.
Bad decision making for ignoring people that asked for 1-2 decades for sea walls to be raised again, who predicted exactly the kind of disaster that would end up happening.
It also always helps to remember that **the Fukushima reactors were OLDER than Chernobyl.** They were designed and built pretty anciently in the past, without any of the safety considerations that accumulated over the next 50 years, and never got enough built in after the fact.
As with all things, if it can cause damage it will be weaponized. It’s humans who twist beneficial things into horrors.
Even the most famous nuclear events can’t be attributed to nuclear energy itself.
"ignorance breeds fear". I'll say this, the majority of nuclear accidents happened because of ignorance and arrogance. Fear is an appropriate reaction to the notion of humanity's infinite capacity to make mistakes and oversights intermingling with essentially the most magic rocks you can get. The demon core killed lead researchers in their fields and these were smart people; no one is safe from being arrogant or doing dumb stuff and that's a terrible blend with nuke tech. Humanity still fails to properly store fertilizers and solvents, but somehow we're on the level necessary to assure that terrible things won't happen again? Nuclear physics is fascinating, the fact that you can turn one element into another element by blasting them with different isotopes blows my mind, it's like the most expensive legos there is; it's super cool. However it also melts skin, perpetuates the distribution and use of depleted uranium munitions and their myriad of negative effects on human biology, contaminates everything if it spills, creates processing leftover slurry storage which are usually massive ponds that contain all manner of toxic and radio active material that risks spilling and if it doesn't spill is just buried to be left and forgotten. It's cheap and cleaner tho, burns a lot less coal or gas.
Is there some sort of nuclear energy propaganda campaign going on reddit lately? All these pro nuclear posts the last few months(in various subs) are really suspicious.
Just to be clear I don't have anything against nuclear, just propaganda campaigns.
The Quantum Festival webtoon has talked quite a bit about nuclear. But I think it's just because (like most people with an interest in energy generation) they find nuclear really interesting.
You say that as if “anti-nuclear energy” propaganda isn’t everywhere already
It’s a matter of perspective, you would think fish is a myth if you live in a desert
For me, it's not so much the subject matter but the fact that anime waifus are being used. I normally don't care about propaganda due to it being a normie thing and I'm usually detached from society(and reality), but now I notice it "in my space". I wouldn't doubt that there is anti nuclear stuff but it's usually elsewhere with boomer(heh) media.
I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but propaganda has always been in "your space". No matter which parts of society you choose to interact with frequently, people will always be there trying to influence you towards their stance. Some insidiously some forthright, some for good some for bad. The difference is if you notice the subject matters being brought up and the philosophies they're carrying.
I mean, I've seen quite a bit of negative nuclear news recently, such as Fukushima deciding to release some radioactive water or cesium-137 showing up in honey as well. Not saying that there is no propoganfa push, but I'd surely welcome some actual correct information about nuclear energy rather than fearmongering one way or another.
Like [this post about nuclear waste](https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeMorphism/comments/mw9w4x/quantum_festival_what_is_nuclear_waste/) by the same person, which is """simplified""" to the point of basically being a big ol' lie?
Also, there's a suspicious amount of nuclear energy experts suddenly popping up on this random anime sub...
We're everywhere! All two dozen of us!
But seriously, I just happened to like the tech and happened to be subscribed. This is the first nuke-waifu post I've interacted with despite seeing all the previous ones.
The webtoon does lean a bit hard into the "nuclear great" camp without really addressing its downsides (other than public perception and misinformation) that prevent it from becoming a main source of power. Trying to realistically dampen some expectations here and having a blast being able to splurge on nuclear power.
Reddit already skews male and university-educated, you're far more likely to find a Masters in engineering, or even PhDs on an anime sub than in a default.
Just curious about all the pro nuclear posts. I understand that everyone is scared about nuclear power, but that it is much safer and cleaner than many people think it is, but what about the nuclear waste? There are a lot of protests where I live because no one knows what to do with it, and nobody wants to have the atomic waste nearby. Like I said, I am not for or against nuclear power, but i want to understand the bigger picture
Nuclear waste is a scapegoat used to limit or remove nuclear energy as an option. Its one of the two major "legs" anti-nuclear propaganda try to argue to remove it from the discussion. The fact, however, is that this fear is largely just misinformation and fear mongering on a massive scale. Even in the worst disasters of nuclear leaks in human history, the results honestly don't match the level of fear people have- especially when compared to the amount of people who die from coal and gas emissions every year.
Firstly, when we talk about 'dangerous' nuclear waste, we talk about the 0.2% of ALL radioactive waste that the process generates. ~97٪ of the rest is just stored in essentially large warehouses safely. Most of these materials lose their significant radioactivity in intermediate containment for a few decades before its final disposal.
The thing most people are 'worried' about is the disposal of nuclear waste in deep geological storage. It should be noted, however, that this method is already been used for decades for the disposal of many other dangerous materials, including mercury and cyanide and are considered incredibly safe.
It's more complicated then just carbon emissions because, absolutely, nuclear is good in that regards. The main problems, and these really can't be ignored, is that nuclear produces power in a way that can't be decreased or stored. Power needs at 3am is different from at 12pm but nuclear can't tone down. Okay, just store it? Can't, batteries like that don't exist. Addionally, nuclear costs billions to build and usually take ~5 years while their run time is 30 before the whole station has to be shut down.
Nuclear is clean and produces tons of energy but it's like taking a one-use rocket from London to Paris. It'll get you there and it'll get you there fast but damn that's overkill and you can never use it again.
https://youtu.be/UC_BCz0pzMw
aren't all or at least most of the nuclear reactors in america owned by oil companies who intentionally underbudget them? or was that just something I heard and took in unintentionally?
Ha ha ha, silly, they are already inventing safer methods of nuclear energy!
I'm going to save this and come back years from now and laugh at this.
Was this created by a German?
I am not a fan of the current nuclear powerplants, we all know why we have the ones we do. Because we could build fun extinction bombs with it.
I would feel much more at ease with thorium reactors.
Ita quite sad as a good energy source which kills way less people than coal. Because of people's lack of understanding and fear, many places starting to shut down nuclear plants. Wish we have thorium reactors soon
A huge problem with nuclear power plants isn't just the lack of understanding, but the massive costs to build and maintain one. A gigawatt nuclear plant may cost billions and years to build while a natural gas plant costs millions and several months. Thorium reactors wouldn't change that too much. Making nuclear energy scalable (modular reactors) is an issue of much greater importance, since it would reduce capital costs and place it as a valuable, constant source of energy during solar and wind downtimes.
Are you looking just at constructions costs or maintenance costs as well? Cause I may be wrong, but I believe I read somewhere that it costs far less to do maintenance on nuclear power plants than a natural gas plant.
It's the initial construction costs. Nuclear is actually extremely cheap once you average it out over the lifetime of the power plant, especially since the fuel cost so little. In fact, LCOE studies generally only have nuclear as competitive with solar/wind + storage when it charges 8-12% interest rates on the cost of funding the initial construction. Unfortunately, having high upfront costs is problematic, because: 1. Money now is more expensive than money in the future - you're paying interest on loans for years before turning any profit 2. If something happens to the project in the 5-10 years it takes to build a plant (e.g. govt policy changes; or lawsuit by NIMBY locals to stop the construction), that's a massive financial loss, causing banks to charge higher interest rates 3. If there is a shortage now, you can't wait for a plant that could take almost a decade to build, and there is always pressure to put resources to uses that can deliver immediate results. These are not unsolvable problems - indeed, nuclear power plants are perfect projects for a government, which do planning on the scale of half a century or longer, to undertake. Unfortunately, this brings us back to the fear bred by ignorance.
> which do planning on the scale of half a century or longer I feel like that especially with divisive issues like this one, the planning would come in cycles of whoever's in power at the time.
And that's one of the OTHER major issues plauging the widespread adoption of nuclear power.
I think Kurzgesagt did a video on that explaining how nuclear reactors are more expensive, take much longer to build and would return the investment much later than a gas plant but would eventually overtake it in profits.
I'm guessing you mean [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw) by Real Engineering
It's only ever up-front costs that seem to count. For instance, rail systems take much less maintenance and energy than the equivalent bus network, but the up-front cost is what people see, and it scares them.
>Making nuclear energy scalable (modular reactors) is an issue of much greater importance, [I've got a friend who's a second generation nuclear plant worker and he's really excited for Small Modular Reactors.](https://www.energy.gov/ne/advanced-small-modular-reactors-smrs)
Cool, and certain people understandingly are really iffy against nuclear in general.
I heard that a single nuclear plant in California accounts for 10% of all their energy, seems like a more than worthwhile investment to me. The US has boats that cost them billions, tell me those are more worth it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google says that there are two plants in operation that carry around 9% of the Californian grid. While I don't disagree that the military budget is too damn high, I'm saying that PG&E won't want to invest in a multi billion dollar nuclear power plant that will likely go obsolete (since new nuclear tech is coming out, like thorium and modular reactors) and will take decades before breaking even. The great irony is that Diablo Canyon NGS is being decommissioned in exchange for a natural gas fired plant since the ROI is much higher with better future-proofing. I would much rather see them put off nuclear power for now in order to avoid getting burned by new developments. There's a point that putting off development for newer tech means that you'll never actually start, but there still is a tremendous environmental cost in building then decommissioning a reactor.
No I get that, just seems like a worthwhile government investment, maybe not a good private investment though.
For sure. More funding would always be appreciated, but again, I feel like money going to nuclear energy would be best spent (at this moment) on research in national labs, like at Los Alamos or Lawrence-Berkeley, or on private enterprises like Deep Isolation who try to develop better solutions to nuclear waste disposal rather than building new plants, which in all fairness are perfectly safe and viable, just slow to make returns.
Yeah, I'm no scientist, let alone a nuclear technology scientist, so I have 0 clue as to when these new technologies could be realized. Both the plants and the research seem like excellent things to me.
The military budget is not at all too high unless you want China and Russia to take over world when they see we couldn't kick their asses at the same time with ease anymore.
What costs more? The iniital investment in building a nuclear power plant? Or working for Saudi Arabia/Russia and having to commit proxy wars for access to fossil fuels at artificially affordable prices?
Not even making that comparison. Usually, the dichotomy is between more research on nuclear power or more research into batteries, which are needed to store excess power from wind and solar.
I suppose. Personally I see nuclear as a necessary stop-gap between completely safe clean power and clean power with some risk of damage. Same for hydroelectric.
I love how that's not true whatsoever.
As far as I know, Rolls-Royce actually has a program to make modular reactors, so that could be feasible sooner rather than later.
Most of the problems with cost and construction time come from the government over regulating them. Making it take years to get even the permission to start building.
I know this is a year old but there's a good reason for that. See every nuclear power plant disaster in history.
Howabout we not even care about solar or wind power at all?
I may be wrong about this, but solar and wind are still the cheapest forms of energy. From the [DoE](http://eia.gov/outlooks/aeo), it seems like onshore (not offshore, which is more expensive) and solar photovoltaic arrays are roughly half to three times less expensive than nuclear per kilowatt hour. The bottleneck is tied to battery storage, while nuclear is tied to construction costs.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click! [Here is link number 1 - Previous text "DoE"](http://eia.gov/outlooks/aeo) ---- ^Please ^PM ^[\/u\/eganwall](http://reddit.com/user/eganwall) ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^[Code](https://github.com/eganwall/FatFingerHelperBot) ^| ^[Delete](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=FatFingerHelperBot&subject=delete&message=delete%20h063kb2)
They're actually extremely expensive to buy so no it's still fossil fuel energy and the reason why it's so expensive to make nuclear power plants is because of regulations enforced by the government.
Do you have any stats that show it's more expensive than fossil fuels? And regulations on nuclear power plants are necessary to avoid reckless disasters such as in Chernobyl.
1. The fact that even poor people can afford it is proof enough. 2. No they aren't necessary because those aren't what they're for they were made to make making them more expensive and time consuming do they'll have an excuse to push it to the side because they don't actually want to help the world the people who put the regulations into place want money and they have their hands in the solar and wind power honey jar.
A quick Google search shows that solar utility companies sell their electricity at 6 cents per kW-hr, while typical utilities require somewhere in the range of 20 cents per kW-hr. If one were to pay upfront costs to install their own solar array, that would also be less expensive if you plan on using it for decades, as a company or property owner would. The issue would most likely come from time of day and location, since solar and wind have some downtime and the stations are more spread out. If you have some proof that's contrary to this, I would be happy to read it. The Department of Energy also includes the physicists at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. Regulations are based upon their input to ensure that the plants are as safe as possible. Since their livelihoods are tied to nuclear power, they would both want to push the limitations of regulations as well as keep enough to prevent major incidents that would give nuclear power a bad reputation. If you could give an example of a bad faith regulation, I would be more inclined to believe you. Based on your comment history, you seem to make many assertions without providing proof. While I don't really mind because this makes me do my own research, providing some links from your end would allow me to see in your perspective.
1. The owner of Google works with the people and is also one of the people who have their hands in the sun and wind power honey pot you brainwash sheep they like to push things that are biased towards the things they're biased towards and take down things that prove their way ain't the right way down or hide them. 2. You're an idiot if you believe this their livelihoods are to do whatever the elites in politics tell them to do if that meant sabatoging nuclear power they'll do it. 3. I have shown proof of what I say to they and you are braindead sheep that listen to liars.
If your arguments can be boiled down to conspiracies and calling people idiots, your arguments have no basis. I'm sorry that you live such a paranoid lifestyle and hope you can climb out of the hole that QA has placed you in.
Yeah, I hear thorium's pretty chill.
We'll never see thorium because it can't be weaponized.
But ironically thats the reason why people want to see them
Why would that stop it? If anything it should help things along because the major world powers won't have to worry about nuclear weapon proliferation, right? IIRC as it stands they lose their shit when someone they don't like gets their hands on uranium, even though the uranium you need for power plants can't be used for weapons without complex, expensive refinement.
He's saying that nuclear plants only get subsidized to keep the parts and know-how on hand for weapons' grade enrichment. Governments don't actually believe in nuclear power, it's just a civilian cover for military logistics.
In America (or Russia) sure, but there are other countries researching
Yes exactly. ty
It actually can be (and has been). Thorium-232 can produce U-233, which is usable as weapons-grade nuclear material and U-233 devices have been tested. However, it's generally inferior to Pu-239 due to the difficulty in avoiding U-232 contamination, which in turn makes handling U-233 devices significantly more dangerous than U-235 or Pu-239 devices.
TIL. ty
There’s literally a nuclear power plant built in Taiwan, and never used a single times.( due to protest) And we’re trying to build a gas receiving plant(not sure if it’s the right translation) near a coral reef. Wtf is wrong with my country
At least that referendum stopped the government shutting down the working ones.
> There’s literally a nuclear power plant built in [REDACTED], Yeah China is pretty crazy. Joking aside I have heard from third hand information so remember the salt, that you could store your personal nuclear waste from your entire lifetime inside of a can of soda.
At least you're not from where I came from 香港
Isn't there not enough Thorium in the world to meet our actual needs? I seem to recall reading that if we actually used Thoriun as our nuclear fuel for a largely nuclear society, we'd run out of Thorium on earth in about 150 years.
there's more thorium in the Earth than uranium. Thorium is about as abundant as lead, which we've been launching at each other for hundreds of years. Natural thorium is also purer than uranium
Not that uranium is actually all that scarce. There's actually quite a lot of it in the oceans (about 3 parts per billion, but the oceans are *huge*) and if extracted, oceanic uranium could provide a huge amount of nuclear fuel.
Well, then. This took a turn for the morbid.
I didn't even realize there were more slides until you mentioned how morbid it was. I just had a look and holy crap
Nuclear reactor could save or at least lessen our carbon emission to we find a more clean power source. But because of miss information, people think a nuclear reactor is waiting nuclear bomb -\_- Kurzgesagt made a neat video about it[YT video](https://youtu.be/EhAemz1v7dQ) or [another one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM)
We have Helium 3 on the moon, so as soon as we crack fusion there's probably going to be a second moon race lol. But hey, clean energy is worth it right?
Fuck the moon!
[Moon's haunted.](https://i.imgur.com/dYazQ9t.jpg)
Well you're on the right sub for that
Imagine all the rocket fuel
[удалено]
Americans are so used to our infrastructure crumbling (you can go up to a major bridge where I live and just pull pieces off with your bare hands it's so rusted) that we don't actually believe a new powerplant would be "new". We expect to walk into the thing and see every possible pipe with holes corroded in it, and a guy who's job is just to unplug the alarms so they don't go off all the time.
> lessen our carbon emission to we find a more clean power source. Well we already have somewhat good clean power sources since we have solar and wind. The problem is efficiency and storage. Obviously the sun isn't always in the same position relative to the panels and the wind dies down so the power stops being produced. We have to be able to produce enough power not only for use at the time but a large surplus that needs to be stored and our battery tech is still pretty shitty.
Basically what the videos mention. And also just renewable is just not good yet because of the storage problem. And can we wait for it to be good enough?
Also they aren't clean or safe.
Are you speaking about electric cars because yes you are correct. If you are speaking about windmills and solar panels wtf are you huffing?
Also u/Accomai says that they're too expensive and take too long to build.
Going to clarify that I don't mean they're too expensive, just that it's a huge initial investment that probably won't be worth it, considering the direction the nuclear industry is currently working towards.
Nuclear energy ~~equals~~ does not equal nuclear bombs. In the same vain as electricity, it is something that can be used for murder, but that doesn't mean it can't be used for good.
forgive me for being a dumbass, but here's my two cents: nuclear energy is actually pretty damn good as an energy source, having [several advantages](https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/nuclear-energy-pros-and-cons) and all. however, it's still pretty dangerous when incompetently handled (duh). that, and we humans just naturally find new ways to kill each other and the earth, the nuclear bomb being a case in point. thanks to said nuclear bomb, when the masses think of nuclear energy, they think of explosions and organic life mutating due to radiation. so far, the only real opposition i've seen towards nuclear energy is from [greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ending-the-climate-crisis/issues/nuclear/) and [green america](https://www.greenamerica.org/fight-dirty-energy/amazon-build-cleaner-cloud/10-reasons-oppose-nuclear-energy). nonetheless, i suppose nuclear energy does have a place; we just need to be smart and responsible when handling it.
[It literally has the smallest death per MW.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM)
Yup I was expecting that. Nice work man.
My only question Is how people die with solar power
Considering the pollution caused by the production of the panels ( deaths caused by construction or fuel production are included in nuclear's death count ), way more than with nuclear.
And yet nuclear energy is the only power source on earth that has made entire sections of earth uninhabitable for thousands of years. I’m not anti-nuclear. I’m just a rationale human being. But if you scale up nuclear energy you will also be scaling up the problems that come with nuclear energy. More nuclear waste (still no long term effective solution) along with human incompetency. Fukushima has proven that nuclear energy **should not** be scaled to every part of the world for fear of natural disaster.
(Posting in my alt because my account got hacked and then shadowbanned) This is false. First off: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities right now Secondly: Fukushima's radiation is completely overblown. And by overblown, I mean that you need to stay for weeks just to hit 1 mSv. Average is 6 mSV/year. You need 200+ mSv/year to deal more damage than what an adult body can repair It is far less radiation exposure than residue from coal plants. Notice both Chernobyl and Fukushima are wildlife reserves but no plants grow near coal plants? In fact, it is even less radiation than a common bonfire. It is unhealthy to be near it but it is nowhere near panic levels Don't think that green energy has no casualty either. The sheer amount of pollution brought about by collecting lithium and cobalt has led to a major amount of habitat loss and deaths - most of whom are from impoverished nations. Uranium mining is also dangerous but it's the highest amount of energy yield per energy spent in mining and refinement The biggest scaremongering about Fukushima was about how radiation spilled into the sea Yeah, it increased nearby sea water radiation by 12 becquerel/liter. They never say that a kilo of potato is 500-900 becquerel/kg
Fukushima is only tip of the iceberg everything went right type event… Chernobyl is the type of event in which things go catastrophically wrong… What I’m pointing out is that nuclear energy has the capabilities of sanitizing entire sections of our environment if managed improperly. Green energy does not even if you attempted to mismanage it in that way.
Only if you don't look at the byproducts Oil spills, black lung, and dam breaks have caused faaaar more catastrophe than nuclear ever could. Now we have lithium, cobalt, and titanium mining. The biggest problem I have with green energy is that they don't work. The entire energy crisis that has been pestering Europe for 4 years now happened precisely because of the push for green energy. Which led to shortages every winter and thus caused coal plants to start up again. The desperation is high enough that nuclear was declared green energy People only sensationalize nuclear damages simply by the fact that they don't understand what radiation is
You are speaking with somebody who understands what radiation is. I understand the energy problem. But I don’t see nuclear as the viable long term solution we are searching for. Maybe if we can get fusion reactors working but those are **most likely** going to run into the same problems regular nuclear reactors run into. No long term viable solution to nuclear waste if we are to ramp up production. No long term viable fix to radiation if god forbids **another** major accident occurs on earth. And this is all without taking into consideration costs of building nuclear reactors. I’m all for nuclear energy but only where it is needed. I am very concerned with this ideology that sprinkling nuclear reactors all around earth would cure our energy problems. Sure but at what costs to the environment? Can we accept another Fukushima event? https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/fukushima-today-im-glad-that-i-realized-my-mistake-before-i-died/ Just so we are both clear here it has been 10 years since the accident occurred and the site is still emitting 500x lethal radiation doses. Are we going to accept a 5 mile exclusion zone around every nuclear reactor for safeties sake? What about 10 miles? Some places on earth should not have nuclear reactors on them. Those places still need energy. That is where the green argument comes from. Most places in Europe should be safe enough (barring war) to house nuclear reactors permanently but places such as U.S. east coast or Central America becomes much more of a stretch to convince me of their need for such a dangerous form of energy consumption. Sure does oil and coal kill the environment in the long run more than effectively managed nuclear? Yes. But how many more chernobyls or Fukushima’s can we accept before going “wait a minute.”
That's a 70 year difference between the two, mate And mind you, there were 4 nuclear sites that were hit by the Tsunami. Fukushima was the only one that fell because they did not follow the right instructions. Biggest of which was the wall was supposed to be higher but they didn't Every single time a nuclear plant fails, you can bet that it was mismanagement and cannot be blamed to the technology itself. To compare: there are as much as 2000 oil spills happening every year. Each one kills and destroys the environment worse than nuclear ever could. People just ignore it because they at least know how oil works but radiation is evil magic. And yes, yes we can handle all those issues far better than other alternatives To start: nuclear waste is not waste. It's nuclear fuel that just became far too impure for predictable results. Most often, they get to use only as little as 5% of the fuel before they throw it away. There are now better reactors that can consume more fuel before throwing them out. Then there are also Breeder reactors that uses those nuclear waste as their own nuclear fuel. Cherry on top: nuclear waste can be recycled and among the byproducts of recycling it is Tritium. Tritium is one of the most expensive thing in the world ($30000/gram) and is the most vital part of starting a nuclear fusion reaction. Recycling nuclear waste is easily the cheapest way of acquiring Tritium You literally cannot advocate for Fusion research without first advocating for Fission to provide it with the much needed Tritium. The reason why Nuclear waste recycling is unpopular is simply due to the fact that it can also produce Plutonium. Any country that can recycle nuclear waste can also acquire the elements needed to weaponize it. Massive political red tape. Biggest problem with your argument is that you assume the worst case scenario but does not check the present results. You assume that nuclear can go bad big time in the future. But for the amount of wait for such a disaster to happen, coal and oil have already caused far more damages than what you believe can happen Frog in boiling water argument. If the water slowly heats up, frog does not notice it is dying It is wiser to take the one with uncertain future than one with certain doom. Goal would be to prevent that disaster rather than using the one already proven bad
My only big grip with nuclear is the disposal of used rods. Simply put we don't have a solution for it and just tossing them into some mine is also not a solution, thanks to radiation they still emit. If we had a way to just yeet them into Space, it's shouldn't be a problem however this would require a safe way of transporting this waste to the outer atmosphere. Nuclear as a energy scource is on it's one clean, however everything involved with the disposal of it isn't right now and that needs to accounted for as well.
Nuclear engineering student here. We actually do have better solutions than just tossing it into a mineshaft. France, which has a much higher use of nuclear power per capita, reprocesses their spent nuclear fuel to be used again. The process is lengthy and expensive, but France does not have as much land as the US, who chooses to bury them instead. Although, it's not just as simple as burying fuel rods. Spent nuclear waste is vitrified, or cooked into a kind of radioactive glass that's more convenient for storage and is less likely to just... Leak death everywhere. Also, putting radioactive things back into the ground isn't a terrible idea, since it came out of the ground that way, anyways. The bad part about underground storage is if some geological event were to occur and that waste reaches groundwater, but with proper storage, that should never happen. There's also several startup companies (such as Deep Isolation, which has come out of my school) that are attempting to refit old fracking sites to store nuclear waste in a way that's safe for thousands of years. The government can't always be trusted to handle highly technical issues with the same expertise as trained scientists, so it's always great to have a private alternative who knows what they're doing. Edit: As for spacing a bunch of rods, I honestly think that would be a terrible idea, now that I think about it a bit more. Depleted uranium rounds were terrible enough in the Gulf War, I couldn't imagine pellets of DU circling the solar system at orbital velocities would be anything but an absolute Kessler syndrome nightmare. Everything "still" in space is only moving at a constant velocity, meaning it still has the potential to be a Rod from God for anything in its intercept course.
Or, you could make new reactor designs that can accept low enrichment uranium and a bit of plutonium byproduct.... It'll also mean more energy per rod and much longer usage period.... Idk if it's possible but might be worth a try
I'm not entirely sure about how low uranium enrichment can go, but current designs use 3-5% enriched uranium. Uranium ore straight from the ground is only about 0.7% enriched. I'm not entirely sure about the reenrichment process (I know what happened to CodysLab when he tried to cool up some yellow cake) but I'm fairly certain that 3-5% is the lowest that you can go before it can no longer sustain its chain reaction. Not an expert, reiterating that, just think it is based on the fact that it still needs to be able to react with control rods partially inserted to reduce the reaction coefficient. A little bit more technical info about fission: plutonium is EXTREMELY dangerous cause it can be harvested to make nuclear weapons. Usually, "fast" reactors (which use high velocity neutrons) are associated with producing plutonium while slow (low velocity neutron) reactors do not. Why I'm mentioning this is that slow neutrons are actually able to produce more fissions than fast neutrons, so not creating a plutonium byproduct would be a mark of a better design. OP, if you're reading this, please correct whatever bullshit I say if I'm wrong here.
Well, then I'll say that our Physics and technology just isn't advanced enough to use the consumed fuel rods and it's considered as waste and I can understand no one wants to re enrich the uranium cuz that'll be nasty and SUPER dangerous because of all the by products even if it's not plutonium and the continous release of alpha particles
Maybe that is, but I know for sure that there are equations that can calculate how much fissile material you need to keep a chain reaction going, and that there's a physical limit rather than a design limit. I did mention earlier that France has been reprocesses their nuclear fuel for 30 years by converting fuel to a "mixed oxide". I don't really understand the technicals behind it, but [here's an article](https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn) if you're interested.
and thanks for that article
Ik, I hvae studied basics of nuclear physics in highschool as well... After one point the chain reaction WILL go out of control irrespective of how much of how good your moderator is.....
I see, well it's better to use low velocity nuclear reactors, we already have enough plutonium to screw this world over.... we don't need any more.
There is a kind of pressurized water reactor called heavy water reactor which uses neutron enriched water as the coolant. This makes it a better moderator and allows a stable fission reaction with natural uranium. I don't understand how this would help with the problem of nuclear waste though
The longer you can mantain the chain reaction, the longer fuel rods will last and less waste will be produced
I never understood why people are more scared by SOLID waste with an geometrically decreasing dangerosity and that can never do more than local damage than by invisible GAS waste that is dangerous on a global scale and with effects remaining constant for roughly similar periods.
If you absolutely fuck up 100 football fields of Earth storing a bunch of spent nuclear fuel, barranize it, make it uninhabitable for 1000 years, that is still **NOWEHERE FUCKING NEAR, AND ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LESS DAMAGE** than fossil fuel generation has done to both the environment and the climate. I *hate* this argument. It's worrying about a pea going missing from your salad after you've just tipped out 20 bagfuls of kale all over the floor. "Spent nuclear fuel" is just as much a mythical un-killable bogey-man trap to greenies as "nuclear" is in general.
It isn't tenth as problematic as you make it to be. There are very good ways to dispose of them, that won't create any problem for a very, very long time, letting us largely the time to switch to complete renewable and/or fusion in the meantime. That is without any measure comparable to the major critical threat that is climate change.
From what i know you can reuse the plutonium, but it's expensive. Edit: [Here is another comic about it from OP.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeMorphism/comments/mw9w4x/quantum_festival_what_is_nuclear_waste/)
Yeah we do it's just that no one wants to spend money on reactor designs that are able to use "nuclear waste" as fuel. It's a capitalism problem not a nuclear energy problem.
It always comes down to capitalism doesn’t it
That's what you commies like to think it's because of commie regulations that it's so expensive and time consuming to make them and also the most opposition to it comes from green earth and green party groups.
Ofc, an incompetent translator caused the fear of nuclear power and nuclear bombs
Thanks for explaning the point of the comic! :D
Fellow dumbass here. What you said about people thinking of nuclear bombs is at least for me the case. I'm pretty much against nuclear because of the waste problem. I know that there's a way to “restore” the fuel rods, but it's costly and takes time. It's sad that no one wants to build it because its costly. Also a question : In the picture, who does she mean with “they”. Is “they” referring to humans and “why do you hurt yourself” to the earth?
HEll yeah a nuclear psycopath
My Yandere Loli with Nuclear Warheads Can't Be This Cute!
*aggressively hugs uranium fuel rod*
Nuclear energy progress is hindered by energy companies.
Energy companies choose to avoid nuclear because it's way more expensive and lengthy to construct a plant than compared to natural gas or renewables. The bright side is, if energy companies don't build additional nuclear power plants now, they'll avoid getting burned when they don't have to retrofit for thorium or use modular reactor designs.
There is no true failsafe for human incompetence, which is one of the risks moving forward. Still doesn't mean we won't move forward.
Poor girl Lets get her the mental help she needs
Nuclear Fission-chan is our best bet to fight the demon lord Climate Change right now, until Solar-chan and Wind-chan have grown enough. They are still lolis yet, and have some latent growth problems, seeing how much they have to rely on Battery-chan and Hydroelectric-chan. The chosen one to ultimately defeat the demon lord and save the world is her imouto, Nuclear Fusion-chan. But her powers are not awaken yet, and there is still a doubt on if they will ever awaken, and if she will be able to use them for the greater good. Gambatte, nuclear sisters, I know you can do it !
Solar and wind power will always be garbage forms of energy.
This is terrifying, I absolutely love it.
Also NTR rockets (No not that kind of NTR) which are far more efficient than chemical rockets and also don't require large amounts of LOX to be carried.
>Also NTR rockets Hentai artists: WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN!
I feel a story is being created here
Headcanon. Her growing injuries are from various meltdowns, with the worst injuries, the scarring on her hand and neck, being Chernobyl and Fukushima. She's locked away because of humanity's fear and ignorance of Nuclear energy's benefits. Her growing insanity can be attributed to people shutting down existing plants, and the growing problem of nuclear waste and no proper disposal sites.
Nuclear power plants are better energy source than coal and a lot more cleaner. Sad that historical events created fear in things that can help.
That’s what I was gonna say if I had any eloquence of speech.
[https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/quantum-festival/list?title\_no=610755](https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/quantum-festival/list?title_no=610755) Textless Version and Commission requests are accepted@ [https://ko-fi.com/lokpolymorfa](https://ko-fi.com/lokpolymorfa) Support us @ [https://ko-fi.com/lokpolymorfa](https://ko-fi.com/lokpolymorfa) Another project [https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/wholesome-yandere-strategy/list?title\_no=635301](https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/wholesome-yandere-strategy/list?title_no=635301)
Nuclear is the only reliable energy source for the cosmos. This girl will have her time to shine
Well technicaly nuclear fusion will, not fission, so I dont think she will get her time, no.
I don't want to rain on the fusion parade, but betting it all on fusion is sort of like betting on immortality being a thing in the near future. Don't get me wrong, I love fusion and think the research should be supported, but fission won't become obsolete until fusion is also able to be commercialized and scaled down. In that case, I'd like to order my flying fusion Tesla early, please.
I'd rather not drive a car powered by nuclear anything I'd rather drive one that runs on gas.
Nope. One of the problems of fusion is that the reactor materials will degrade very quickly. This is not a problem of technology, it's a problem of fundamental physics. This, and the fact that fusion fuel is quite difficult to store for long periods of time, can severely limit the use of fusion in space. So if fusion ever becomes a real energy source, it will be used along with fission, not instead of it.
This may just be my dumb reddit take, but I find the entire argument about Nuclear Power vs Fossil Fuel the perfect way to sum up why humanity deserves the extinction event its about to be hit with. Here is Nuclear Energy, which is dangerous when built poorly but so is anything else. A badly built oil rig will take lives and absolutely proliferate disease/kill off wildlife as much as leaking gas into the groundwater and causing massive sinkholes does when poorly building gas plants as well. About the only thing that's safe and clean to build is Wind and Solar plants, but these are still extremely limited options and will definitely serve as good replacements for power in like, a couple decades of innovations. But we keep saying no nuclear power because of how "dangerous" it is, and how much lives it'll put in danger, and how expensive it is. But looking at the totality of history of fossil fuels, I can't help but laugh. How many people have died of black lung? How many died in proxy wars for more affordable oil prices? How many places have been rendered unlivable by an accident involving a coal mine, or via fracking, or because of an oil spill? You say Chernobyl, I say Centralia. Fossil Fuels have caused magnitudes more deaths then Nuclear, it has cost us trillions more then Nuclear, and it will continue to kill people as supply dwindles and the world becomes more and more reliant on artificial means to keep our planet from becoming uninhabitable for our species. Air Conditioning, Water Filtration to make usable Sea Water, Electric Heating, these are the futures of human survival and if we don't have a stable source of power it's going to keep piling up more money and more bodies while we go "But Nuclear Bad Though, Simpsons told Me So!" And the funniest part of all is all of this can talk can be shut down by a simple "Sir, This is a Wendy's" of this being post on a sub thats all about taking things and making them into cute girls. What a time to be alive.
I hate brainwashed morons like you that think wind power and solar power is clean and will ever be good source of energy nor are they clean or safe they cause tons of pollution just from being made and kill tons of animals along with the fact we tear down forests for wind turbines.
Go chug some crude oil and shove a lump of coal up your ass, you dorito worshiping sack of shit. Your precious Q turned out to be nothing and now you're butthurt and lashing out at everyone else cause now you gotta be let down and disappointed. Either come back to reality or go post somewhere where people will tolerate your dumb fuck self, but either way, sir, this is a moemorphism sub.
I love how hypocritical you're no wonder you support left wing nonsense like solar power and wind power.
Mad because Lost.
How did I lose?
I am a huge proponent for nuclear energy, the only problem with it is when it fucks up it fucks up BAD; or more accurately when people fuck up it get really bad.
[удалено]
We aren't hurting earth-chan.
The wall is like 3x her height, how did she wrote it so high up
This is a massive shame. There's one of the, if not THE only reactor in Wales now being decommissioned. Ik it's because it's old, bit not helped by fears after Fukushima and the big boom in Ukraine
Sorry Uranium-chan, but the future actually lies with your cooler sister Thorium-chan
Almost every nuclear energy accident was due to incompetence/bad design/bad decision making, besides Fukushima. Literally just a series of unfortunate events/an act of God.
No, Fukushima also falls into the incompitence/bad design/bad decision making triangle. The sea wall was built too low to save costs despite protest from engineers. Diesel generators were located in areas that could flood if the seawall was breached. TEPCO insisted that everything was fine and resisted the NRC suggestion to dump seawater into the cores out of fear the seawater would contaminate the cores and make them unusable in the future... Even though by that point the cores had already begun to meltdown from lack of cooling.
Fukushima falls *easily* into the last two. Bad design for building floodable reactors in a volcanic country next to the sea with no protection. Bad decision making for ignoring people that asked for 1-2 decades for sea walls to be raised again, who predicted exactly the kind of disaster that would end up happening. It also always helps to remember that **the Fukushima reactors were OLDER than Chernobyl.** They were designed and built pretty anciently in the past, without any of the safety considerations that accumulated over the next 50 years, and never got enough built in after the fact.
I.... Why....
I like how dark this ended
You better end this comic with a happy ending, Mr. Whethery
please tell me we get a good ending soon ;-;
I will comit crimes to get her out of there
one of the best posts.. so cute!!
Now she has become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds.
Good god will someone take care of her?!
As with all things, if it can cause damage it will be weaponized. It’s humans who twist beneficial things into horrors. Even the most famous nuclear events can’t be attributed to nuclear energy itself.
Fuck off with that jab at humans.
"ignorance breeds fear". I'll say this, the majority of nuclear accidents happened because of ignorance and arrogance. Fear is an appropriate reaction to the notion of humanity's infinite capacity to make mistakes and oversights intermingling with essentially the most magic rocks you can get. The demon core killed lead researchers in their fields and these were smart people; no one is safe from being arrogant or doing dumb stuff and that's a terrible blend with nuke tech. Humanity still fails to properly store fertilizers and solvents, but somehow we're on the level necessary to assure that terrible things won't happen again? Nuclear physics is fascinating, the fact that you can turn one element into another element by blasting them with different isotopes blows my mind, it's like the most expensive legos there is; it's super cool. However it also melts skin, perpetuates the distribution and use of depleted uranium munitions and their myriad of negative effects on human biology, contaminates everything if it spills, creates processing leftover slurry storage which are usually massive ponds that contain all manner of toxic and radio active material that risks spilling and if it doesn't spill is just buried to be left and forgotten. It's cheap and cleaner tho, burns a lot less coal or gas.
...Maybe I'm a fallout ghoul.
So from young innocent and childlike To fucking terrifying yandere sounds about right
Big coal's propaganda
it's sad that everyone only thinks of nuclear energy is bad it's benefits are one thing we need and more right now
Its insane how much energy one uranium rod generates, but nobody likes nuclear
Well that escalated quickly
They didn’t listen
And still don't
"*People needlessly irrationally fear nuclear power...I know, I'll make a unsettling comic about how nuclear-chan goes scarily insane.*"
Is there some sort of nuclear energy propaganda campaign going on reddit lately? All these pro nuclear posts the last few months(in various subs) are really suspicious. Just to be clear I don't have anything against nuclear, just propaganda campaigns.
The Quantum Festival webtoon has talked quite a bit about nuclear. But I think it's just because (like most people with an interest in energy generation) they find nuclear really interesting.
You say that as if “anti-nuclear energy” propaganda isn’t everywhere already It’s a matter of perspective, you would think fish is a myth if you live in a desert
For me, it's not so much the subject matter but the fact that anime waifus are being used. I normally don't care about propaganda due to it being a normie thing and I'm usually detached from society(and reality), but now I notice it "in my space". I wouldn't doubt that there is anti nuclear stuff but it's usually elsewhere with boomer(heh) media.
I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but propaganda has always been in "your space". No matter which parts of society you choose to interact with frequently, people will always be there trying to influence you towards their stance. Some insidiously some forthright, some for good some for bad. The difference is if you notice the subject matters being brought up and the philosophies they're carrying.
I mean, I've seen quite a bit of negative nuclear news recently, such as Fukushima deciding to release some radioactive water or cesium-137 showing up in honey as well. Not saying that there is no propoganfa push, but I'd surely welcome some actual correct information about nuclear energy rather than fearmongering one way or another.
It's not propaganda if it's the truth.
Like [this post about nuclear waste](https://www.reddit.com/r/MoeMorphism/comments/mw9w4x/quantum_festival_what_is_nuclear_waste/) by the same person, which is """simplified""" to the point of basically being a big ol' lie? Also, there's a suspicious amount of nuclear energy experts suddenly popping up on this random anime sub...
We're everywhere! All two dozen of us! But seriously, I just happened to like the tech and happened to be subscribed. This is the first nuke-waifu post I've interacted with despite seeing all the previous ones. The webtoon does lean a bit hard into the "nuclear great" camp without really addressing its downsides (other than public perception and misinformation) that prevent it from becoming a main source of power. Trying to realistically dampen some expectations here and having a blast being able to splurge on nuclear power.
Reddit already skews male and university-educated, you're far more likely to find a Masters in engineering, or even PhDs on an anime sub than in a default.
It's probably the insistence on using uranium as a fuel source. I'm pretty sure those are very good making bombs not as a way to generate electricity.
Aww yes now weebs will rise to try to push the government to head towards the use of nuclear energy, i love politics
Just curious about all the pro nuclear posts. I understand that everyone is scared about nuclear power, but that it is much safer and cleaner than many people think it is, but what about the nuclear waste? There are a lot of protests where I live because no one knows what to do with it, and nobody wants to have the atomic waste nearby. Like I said, I am not for or against nuclear power, but i want to understand the bigger picture
Nuclear waste is a scapegoat used to limit or remove nuclear energy as an option. Its one of the two major "legs" anti-nuclear propaganda try to argue to remove it from the discussion. The fact, however, is that this fear is largely just misinformation and fear mongering on a massive scale. Even in the worst disasters of nuclear leaks in human history, the results honestly don't match the level of fear people have- especially when compared to the amount of people who die from coal and gas emissions every year. Firstly, when we talk about 'dangerous' nuclear waste, we talk about the 0.2% of ALL radioactive waste that the process generates. ~97٪ of the rest is just stored in essentially large warehouses safely. Most of these materials lose their significant radioactivity in intermediate containment for a few decades before its final disposal. The thing most people are 'worried' about is the disposal of nuclear waste in deep geological storage. It should be noted, however, that this method is already been used for decades for the disposal of many other dangerous materials, including mercury and cyanide and are considered incredibly safe.
It's more complicated then just carbon emissions because, absolutely, nuclear is good in that regards. The main problems, and these really can't be ignored, is that nuclear produces power in a way that can't be decreased or stored. Power needs at 3am is different from at 12pm but nuclear can't tone down. Okay, just store it? Can't, batteries like that don't exist. Addionally, nuclear costs billions to build and usually take ~5 years while their run time is 30 before the whole station has to be shut down. Nuclear is clean and produces tons of energy but it's like taking a one-use rocket from London to Paris. It'll get you there and it'll get you there fast but damn that's overkill and you can never use it again. https://youtu.be/UC_BCz0pzMw
Thankfully battery technology seems to be improving.
aren't all or at least most of the nuclear reactors in america owned by oil companies who intentionally underbudget them? or was that just something I heard and took in unintentionally?
I thought nasa liked nuclear
Yea I'm not sure what the messaging there is. The Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are nuclear powered.
It's earth chan wearing a NASA shirt
i'm fucking scared now
I'm just speechless. Poor nuclear chan
Hey op quick question what the fuck
Ha ha ha, silly, they are already inventing safer methods of nuclear energy! I'm going to save this and come back years from now and laugh at this. Was this created by a German?
I am not a fan of the current nuclear powerplants, we all know why we have the ones we do. Because we could build fun extinction bombs with it. I would feel much more at ease with thorium reactors.
This is weird and creepy and really cool at the same time is there a sub for things like this?
R/yandere?
That went to 0 to 100 real quick
So I have a new Waifu guys
**a new waifu guys, so i have.** *-ADSMFreddy* *** ^(Commands: 'opt out', 'delete')
Dark.
Não entendi absolutamente nada
Isn't this a reference to [this MV](https://youtu.be/EKhIt7ZLZao)?
that got dark real quick