[HN Gopher] A New Specialized Train Is Ready to Haul Nuclear Waste
___________________________________________________________________
A New Specialized Train Is Ready to Haul Nuclear Waste
Author : DamnInteresting
Score : 68 points
Date : 2024-07-17 14:26 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| metadat wrote:
| I wish Congress would leave the decision making on such matters
| to the experts. Politicians have no valid role in this process.
|
| Why isn't this farmed out to an appropriate regulatory entity
| with deep expertise? Akin to the FAA for aeronautical.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| The republicans are actively trying to neuter any agency with
| expertise and default all these decisions to congress.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Some are to be sure. Just look at the Project 2025 plans for
| eliminating NOAA because the talk about climate change
| jojobas wrote:
| The problem is that given enough time, these "expert" bodies
| become just as politicized and worse, completely unaccountable
| to the voters.
| dylan604 wrote:
| just look at the experts involved in the W3C ratifying HTML
| standards
| jojobas wrote:
| Just look at Covid experts refusing to say the truth
| because it would play to Trump.
| FredPret wrote:
| There are strong arguments to be made both for strong
| technocratic bureaus that make decisions, as well as for direct
| democracy where the people decide everything directly or
| through congress.
|
| You don't want to have completely unaccountable bodies ruling
| society (called the deep state by its enemies) and you don't
| want to have zero governing capacity either (what would
| liberals call this, Galt's Gulch?)
|
| There's a balance to be struck.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > Why isn't this farmed out to an appropriate regulatory entity
| with deep expertise?
|
| It is, they just also happen to be a major impediment to new
| Nuclear power in the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Regulatory_Commission
| credit_guy wrote:
| > It is, they just also happen to be a major impediment to
| new Nuclear power in the US.
|
| I'm very pro-nuclear, but I'm glad we have the NRC, and I
| think they are doing a good job.
|
| I'm currently reading the book "The Curve of Binding Energy"
| [1], about the physicist Ted Taylor. It was written in 1973
| and the focus was the possibility, even likelihood, that one
| day a terrorist organization could build a nuclear bomb. This
| was before the split of the Atomic Energy Commission into the
| NRC and the Department of Energy.
|
| Reading the book is a bit like time travel. You move from
| today's industry-hostile NRC to the absolute opposite: the
| AEC was completely industry-captured. The laxity of the
| controls was terrifying. Of course, the author had no idea
| that in 6 years we'd have the Three Mile Island incident, but
| for someone in 2024, TMI now makes perfect sense.
|
| Did the NRC become too much of a break for the nuclear
| expansion. You bet. But I prefer 100 times more to live in a
| world like we have now than in a world like it was in 1973.
| We are very lucky that things worse than TMI, Chernobyl and
| Fukushima didn't happen.
|
| [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968.The_Curve_Of_Bi
| ndi...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Nah, instead atmospheric CO2 is quickly headed to 450ppm.
| 2-3 meltdowns would be far more manageable (especially
| considering the non-existent death toll outside the USSR).
| metabagel wrote:
| > (especially considering the non-existent death toll
| outside the USSR)
|
| Why would you only look at the death toll outside the
| USSR? That doesn't seem like the right way to go about
| risk analysis and management.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why would you only look at the death toll outside the
| USSR?_
|
| The point is the externalities of nuclear power are
| localised. Emissions are not.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Even if I consider it, the death toll from nuclear is an
| insignificant fraction of deaths resulting from airborne
| (or water or food) pollutants from fossil fuels or steel
| and silicon production.
| Herz wrote:
| The damage caused by these regulators and media terrorism
| is far greater than the benefits. As another user wrote, a
| few meltdowns would have been much better than the total
| freeze of plant construction and its price increase.
|
| This is one of those cases where fear blinds people to not
| accept reality.
|
| First, we need to define what "safe" means. And a safety
| threshold that is a fair trade-off between public
| acceptance and the industrial feasibility of the sector.
|
| One might think, sure, increasing safety is always
| necessary. But we must accept the fact that zero risk does
| not exist in any technology and will never be completely
| eliminated in any way. And we already accept the risks of
| dams and renewables, so it means that a threshold of what
| is accepted as safe exists, and we can define it.
|
| It seems universally accepted that renewables are "safe."
| So why not take the deaths per GWh produced and use this
| value to define a nuclear power plant as safe?
|
| On page 175 (chapter 3.5) of this report compiled by the
| European Union research center, it shows how third-
| generation EPRs (modern european reactors) are already
| several orders of magnitude safer than renewables, per GWh
| produced. Demonstrating how they are infinitely safer than
| any other energy source. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa
| .eu/repository/handle/JRC1...
|
| Therefore, if we decide to define renewables as safe, we
| can deduce that modern nuclear power plants are very safe.
| Yet why is this not perceived?
|
| Obviously, the answer is very simple, the death from
| installing a panel is an isolated case often limited to a
| single individual, and often does not make the news.
| Nuclear, however, even if it causes one death (like
| Fukushima), is discussed for decades. Besides, the dangers
| related to the dispersal of radioactive material often
| cause even more fear than the deaths from the plants
| themselves, despite rarely having caused tangible damage.
|
| With this said, it's important to note that this fear does
| not find reflection in the numbers, which remain the
| reading closest to the reality of the facts.
|
| Finally, from my point of view, even if nuclear were less
| safe than this, it would still help fight climate change,
| which should lead to millions of millions of deaths, if not
| billions. It would be a very logical intellectual step to
| accept the risks even of a less safe nuclear (and cheaper),
| because the long-term benefits would definitely be
| beneficial.
| troupo wrote:
| It's hard to find a middle ground between regulation and
| companies playing it fast and loose
| petermcneeley wrote:
| It should be a boat
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench#Possible_nuclea...
| QuiDortDine wrote:
| I saw a video on this, honestly just seems like it'd work. And
| if it doesn't, well, the bottom of the literal sea seems like a
| good place to put stuff to avoid people stumbling upon it.
| senectus1 wrote:
| this issue then is, will dumping this stop it stumbling along
| people...
|
| ie we know nothing much about that area... who's to say it
| wont suddenly turn up on a beach or in fish or plant life
| after 50 years of being down there...?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not saying we know everything but we generally know of
| where geologically inactive regions are, and hadal habitats
| are pretty isolated.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| > who's to say it wont suddenly turn up on a beach or in
| fish or plant life after 50 years of being down there...?
|
| erm, the literal 10 kilometers of water above them?
|
| Also Mariana Trench is called a trench because is a trench.
| A trench 10 km deep.
| senectus1 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41036526
|
| We dont know what we dont know... what else do we not
| know?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I've always thought piling it up in the middle of Antarctica
| would be best. Perhaps in another thousand years we can reuse
| it for some blackhole experiments or something.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| If we are here 1k years from now I am sure we can pick up
| up from the ocean again. Just like how we look through the
| trash of the Romans.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| From your link:
|
| Furthermore, plate subduction zones are associated with very
| large megathrust earthquakes, the effects of which are
| unpredictable for the safety of long-term disposal of nuclear
| wastes within the hadopelagic ecosystem.[53]
| meroes wrote:
| The Meg 3: Radioactive
|
| (Premise of The Meg *** _SPOILER***_ is megalodon sharks
| survived in the Mariana Trench)
| nimbius wrote:
| to _where_?
|
| texas wont take it and no other state is willing to accept the
| political fallout for agreeing to it.
|
| this is the biggest impediment facing the nuclear power proposal
| that shows up on HN every other month, and nobody talks about it.
| plants basically idle nuclear waste on-site. we have no
| comprehensive recycling or storage policy that isnt routinely
| usurped or derailed by serious environmental issues. we just run
| these plants until theyre 60 years over usable life and wait
| until they turn into a superfund site taxpayers have to clean up.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah thats my biggest problem with people promoting nuclear as
| the end of all problems. The nuclear technology today is not
| good enough to be able to meet the world needs because of the
| nuclear waste it produces if they are able to get the tech to
| where the life of nuclear waste left over is less than 100
| years than I think it becomes viable.
|
| Now that the prices of solar, wind and batteries have dropped
| so much the need for nuclear is becoming less and less. Most of
| the world's population currently lives in the perfect area
| where charging batteries in the day and using at night can meet
| all the demand for electricity with solar, wind and batteries
| alone in summer or winter.
| troupo wrote:
| > because of the nuclear waste it produces
|
| It produces very little long term nuclear waste whose overall
| impact is invisible compared to impact of other industries
| and landfills
| Moldoteck wrote:
| We have the tech to make real waste dangerous for less than
| 300 years. With this tech about 90+% of existing waste can be
| reprocessed and reused multiple times. It's not a problem of
| tech, it's a problem of political will and somewhat of
| economical feasibility when buying refined uranium isn't that
| expensive
| erentz wrote:
| Nuclear waste is tiny. It's been stored onsite safely for half
| a century and never killed anyone. Why fix what ain't broke.
|
| Something can't be used 60 years over usable life. Think about
| it.
|
| What happened is that nuclear plants were given 40 year
| licenses in the US. After 40 years they applied for extensions.
| They were studied and it was found they had a lot more life in
| them. So extensions were granted. Why prematurely turn off a
| great carbon free generating asset that's already been paid
| for. (That'd be peak German brain.)
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| The environmental issues relating to nuclear waste storage are
| entirely unserious. Buried nuclear waste poses no threat to
| people or the environment. The issues that derail the topic are
| based on anti-scientific FUD.
| FredPret wrote:
| Off topic, but your site - damninteresting.com - really lives up
| to its name. I've been reading it for probably 15 years now
| parpfish wrote:
| This feels like it's be a plot point for a generic action movie.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| And we would think how stupid it was and a single point of
| failure to do it this way.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Until anyone proves 1 facility that doesn't leak radioactive
| material after 20 years, they can keep that BS in their own
| fall-out theme park...
|
| Fission facilities are just another 1950's loss-leader
| technology. Nonrenewable fuels should be saved for space/remote
| missions.
|
| The film was ridiculous, but fun:
|
| "Broken Arrow" (John Woo, 1996)
| jojobas wrote:
| Nuclear has been the cheapest on the most important metrics -
| human lives per installed GW and human lives per produced
| TW-h.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Unless amortized over 30k years...
|
| =)
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Don't you think that 30k years of burning coal would kill
| more people?
|
| I'm not sure I follow you.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| My point was there are more sustainable options, than
| repeating a detrimental pattern of leaving problems for
| our grandchildren to solve.
|
| There is also the folly of assuming centralized
| distribution grids are economically sustainable in times
| of scarcity.
|
| I remain unconvinced that Goat-carts are not the future
| for our civilization. =3
| jojobas wrote:
| Centralized grids are cheaper, which is even more
| important in the times of scarcity.
|
| There's no "20 meters of horse poo on the streets" for
| nuclear. It was always the way to go. If Chernobyl didn't
| happen, KGB would have it to secure the eternal demand
| for gas, oil and coal.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| "Centralized grids are cheaper"
|
| I used to believe this too, but comparing Sydney/AU to
| Texas/US over the past decade has changed my perspective
| on distributed grid viability.
|
| The end users may simply have no better options
| available. =/
| metabagel wrote:
| 30k years of storage, not 30k years of electricity
| generation.
|
| Presumably, sometime in that 30k years, a method of
| reprocessing the stored nuclear waste will have been
| developed.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| we can hope for Fusion solutions, but renewables are
| proving viable with slightly higher upfront investment
| required.
|
| The panemone windmills have survived several empire ages,
| and continue to operate. =)
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Why? The waste can be reused multiple times. There's no
| political will for this but that's not a tech limitation
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| I agree fuel recovery programs like Frances would reduce
| the waste pile, but the spent part of the fuel can be
| more dangerous in many ways.
|
| Increasing the number of facilities poses a very real
| liability, as most peoples current "short term waste
| disposal" solution is a glorified concrete rusting shed
| in the back of the generation sites. I have yet to see a
| real long term solution that hasn't proven to be utter PR
| BS.
|
| I may be wrong, but I've heavily invested in Goat cart
| futures. =3
| Moldoteck wrote:
| How more dangerous? The ideal method would be reprocess
| 95%, vitrify 5% and store underground, repeat
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| France's reclamation process reduces 17% of natural fuel
| needed.
|
| "How more dangerous?"
|
| Generally, the spent pellet structure and hot decay
| products are problematic to handle as they become a
| strong gamma emitter. Additionally, there are several
| risks from decay product dust, non-solid gases, and
| reactive chemistry.
|
| It would be nice if everything could be stabilized into
| an insoluble oxide ceramic, but this is not how many
| decay-products behave.
|
| I am sure there is someone around that can model the
| exact probabilistic details on how much and when the most
| risky products are significantly present.
|
| My concern is more with long run outcomes, and if it may
| still seriously harm some family 157 years from now. =3
| troupo wrote:
| > Until anyone proves 1 facility that doesn't leak
| radioactive material after 20 years
|
| Where do you think current long-term nuclear waste is stored,
| and for how long?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools and
| or moved to decommissioned facilities because no one wants
| it in there back yard. Even after its finished the short
| initial cool-down decay period. Hardly a dirty secret...
|
| There is also the 5" thick stainless-steel tanks filled
| with low-grade UF6 slowly decaying in the hot sun, in one
| of the many facilities now blurred out on google maps.
|
| There is also one of several concrete disposal facilities
| that leaks into the local river every time it rains. One
| can still find it with a kayak and a cheap Geiger counter
| in about 3 hours. The billions for repair mitigation have
| never seemed to take priority for several decades.
|
| How about you find 3 filled disposal facilities that
| haven't leaked within 20 years. Note, trace exposure to
| tritiated and heavy water isn't so bad anyway, as far as we
| currently know. =)
|
| "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there
| is always a well-known solution to every human problem --
| neat, plausible, and wrong." ('The Divine Afflatus', The
| New York Evening Mail, November 16, 1917)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22pE_9LAxg
| troupo wrote:
| > Until anyone proves 1 facility that doesn't leak
| radioactive material after 20 years
|
| became
|
| > How about you find 3 filled disposal facilities
|
| After you yourself apparently found one. Curious.
|
| Meanwhile "As of April 2024, there are 416 operable power
| reactors in the world" [1] Something tells me it won't be
| hard to find one, or three, or ten.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nucl
| ear_rea...
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| All areas I alluded to read hot to warm, and are
| considered well beyond prolonged exposure recommendations
| for above ground inhalation hazards. Active facilities
| themselves are kept cleaner than most places, but the
| disposal sites rapidly fall into neglect.
|
| Minimally 3 points show a trend, and should be trivial to
| find right... the key added detail was "filled" i.e. used
| for awhile... as an empty facility would also be
| considered leak free as long as it remained unused.
|
| Goat carts for the win... =3
| troupo wrote:
| > Goat carts for the win
|
| It's not "goat carts for the win", it's "moving goal
| posts for the win".
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| True, only if you:
|
| 1. find 1 example that isn't hiding a well known problem
|
| 2. meets the secondary requirement of showing long term
| use at capacity
|
| 3. I cheated more than you know for #2, as I already know
| modern concrete tends to fail in less than 65 years. And
| even if you use the premium long-term stuff, it still
| generally becomes permeable to liquids even surrounded by
| mostly solid rock
|
| 4. a three data-point trend would prove your point better
| if my knowledge is antiquated, and my opinion is out of
| date (more data is not changing requirements)
|
| 5. Goats can survive radiation levels several times
| higher than primates, and are still used for
| transportation in many primitive cultures
|
| 6. Radon poisoning is a thing too...
|
| Goat carts are likely our future, as they are self-
| replicating and do not require sophisticated agriculture.
| =3
| nick238 wrote:
| > ...held in spent-fuel pools and/or moved to
| decommissioned facilities...
|
| Nuclear fuel is usually stored in dry casks on-site at
| running or decommissioned power plants. "Decommissioned"
| doesn't mean abandoned, there is still ferocious security
| present. No dry casks have ever been found to leak, or
| have been damaged intentionally or accidentally since
| they came into use in 1986. [1]
|
| > ...tanks filled with UF6...
|
| UF6 is a gas that reacts with water to form a corrosive
| acid. The fact that it's mildly radioactive is gilding
| the lily, as exposure to it would be pretty similar to
| any reactive fluorine compound and/or heavy metal (think
| mine waste). It's a problem, but UF6, a gas, is the polar
| opposite of dry cask storage, where _even if_ the
| contents of a cask were sat in the open, they 'd just sit
| there because they're vitrified (mixed into a glass).
|
| > ...concrete disposal facilities...
|
| Is this something related to nuclear energy? I don't know
| what this is referring to.
|
| > ...3 filled disposal facilities
|
| Here are 81: [2]
|
| [1]: https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-
| sheets/d... [2]:
| https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2316/ML23165A245.pdf
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Indeed, my point was to encourage folks to reason 30000
| years of facility maintenance costs into their Total cost
| of ownership calculation.
|
| No known container is resilient enough to retain 100%
| structural containment in that time frame. Most thick-
| walled structures including stainless tanks undergo
| degradation from decaying materials, and will slowly form
| leaks over time. Hydrogen embrittlement from water-
| sources/cleaning-acids/anaerobic-bacteria in particular
| will slowly tear small fissures in most alloys. Note for
| dry casks the water presence is necessarily kept under
| tight control.
|
| My point was the existing solutions people were sure
| would work still leaked in relatively short time frames.
| Until a real long term solution is found, no one should
| accept the liability of long term waste stewardship.
|
| The best short-term solution, is mandating fuel recovery
| like Frances program. At least there would be better
| utility in that decision.
|
| I expect people on goat carts will be unconcerned about
| decaying plastics, concrete degradation, and alloy
| specific issues. After all, neither were you...
|
| Have a great day, =3
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _In general, currently mostly held in Spent fuel pools_
| [...]
|
| For the first 7-10 years.
|
| > _and or moved to decommissioned facilities because no
| one wants it in there back yard._
|
| It's generally stored on-site, at least Canada:
|
| > _Canada's used nuclear fuel is currently safely managed
| in facilities licensed for interim storage. These
| facilities are located at nuclear reactor sites in
| Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and at Atomic Energy
| of Canada Limited 's sites in Manitoba and Chalk River
| Laboratories in Ontario._
|
| * https://www.nwmo.ca/canadas-used-nuclear-fuel/how-is-
| it-stor...
|
| * https://www.opg.com/power-generation/our-
| power/nuclear/nucle...
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that deep
| hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner or
| later.
|
| Ontario already has a natural Radon contamination risk in
| many places, so maybe no one will notice the increasing
| lung cancer stats.
|
| Best regards, =)
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Indeed, one thing that happens after people dig that
| deep hole in the shield is it will fill with water sooner
| or later._
|
| The hydraulic conductivity of both considered sites
| (Revell, South Bruce) is quite low:
|
| * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-
| reports...
|
| * https://www.nwmo.ca/-/media/Reports-MASTER/Technical-
| reports...
|
| The repository will be >500m deep, and the geology at
| those depths is such that water penetrates it at a rate
| of a few centimetres per century. And then it would hit
| the human constructed structure, and then it'd have to
| penetrate storage flasks, and then it'd have to get
| through the metal bundles that hold the pellets. And only
| then it could it start dissolving/absorbing the nuclear
| stuff.
|
| And then it would have to go through all those layers
| again to escape the facility.
|
| > [...] _so maybe no one will notice the increasing lung
| cancer stats._
|
| From Geraldine Thomas, co-founder of the Chernobyl Tissue
| Bank, "Look at the science - smoking and obesity are more
| harmful than radiation"
|
| * https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/26/obe
| sity-...
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > In the coming decades, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will
| need to transport that material to future storage facilities.
|
| No doubt at great cost, none of which is being factored into
| current nuclear projects or energy pricing. So, this is as
| unlikely to happen as it has been in the past 8 decades. The size
| of the problem just keeps on growing every year while we don't
| lift a finger to address the issues.
|
| Long term storage is more of an aspirational thing at this point
| than a concretely actionable thing. Only a small minority of all
| nuclear waste ever produced actually sits in long term storage.
| E.g. the Fins have taken into use an underground facility
| recently. But most nuclear waste elsewhere sits in temporary
| storage waiting to eventually be moved. Nobody wants to pay for
| that. Nobody wants this stuff in their backyard. Nobody really
| wants to even talk about the cost. Which is of course
| substantial. Especially people in favor of building more nuclear
| capacity to add to this problem.
|
| Somebody (i.e. future generations of tax payers, for millennia to
| come) will pay for it. Eventually. Which is convenient because we
| can pretend things are cheap short term.
| defrost wrote:
| > Nobody really wants to even talk about the cost. Which is of
| course substantial. Especially people in favor of building more
| nuclear capacity to add to this problem.
|
| Especially, also, those in favour of an electric future filled
| with PV panels and batteries.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm not simping for the pro-nuclear lobby
| and I want to see an electric future.
|
| But very few people ever mention the radioactive waste that
| comes with Rare Earth processing.
|
| eg: The Lynas plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, 264
| km. (164 miles) from Kuala Lumpur, had faced scrutiny over a
| lack of a safe disposal solution for its radioactive and toxic
| wastes. Chang said Lynas's permanent disposal facility, which
| has a capacity of 1.6 million metric tons, holds 1.2 million
| metric tons of waste.
|
| ~ https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/rare-
| earths...
|
| ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKJnbvtjjfQ
|
| I think it's a good thing that people give a damn about
| radioactive waste, it's not so good when they only focus on a
| single source.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| TENORM is generated by oil/gas
| (https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-oil-and-gas-
| production-...), coal (https://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm-
| coal-combustion-residua...), etc. as well.
|
| https://www.epa.gov/radiation/technologically-enhanced-
| natur...
| eru wrote:
| Nuclear has great engineering, but alas politically wind and
| PV is what's feasible. That's still much better than coal.
|
| And if solar and batteries keep falling in price, they might
| drop below what nuclear can provide.
|
| (OK, batteries can mostly move energy from day to night; they
| have more of a problem with moving energy from summer to
| winter. But we can solve that particular problem with eg very
| long cables; and lots of other ingenuity.)
| jamil7 wrote:
| Solar panels and batteries don't typically use rare earth
| metals. Wind turbines do use small amounts and are probably
| the harder of the two to recycle currently.
| defrost wrote:
| Are you saying that rare earth metals have no part to play
| in a renewable future?
|
| There will be no electronics, controllers, et al as part of
| battery grids, electric cars, etc?
|
| The simple point being made is that millions of tonnes of
| radioactive waste arises from _one_ single rare earth
| processing plant. There are _many_ and the demand for more
| is rising.
|
| Solar isn't waste free either:
|
| https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
|
| https://www.power-technology.com/features/recycling-
| renewabl...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
| news/2024/mar/30/solar...
|
| Arguments made on the line of raioactive waste is unique to
| nuclear power are poor arguments made in bad faith or
| ignorance.
| jamil7 wrote:
| > Are you saying that rare earth metals have no part to
| play in a renewable future?
|
| Where did I say that? You just gave examples of two
| things that don't typically use rare earths.
| SECProto wrote:
| > No doubt at great cost, none of which is being factored into
| current nuclear projects or energy pricing
|
| The cost to develop these railcars was 33 million, per the
| article. A rounding error in the cost of any energy source.
|
| Long term storage costs should be much lower than they are, but
| the DGR has been stymied since I was a child. Not to mention
| how most of this waste is actually a resource
|
| How much of current carbon emissions are being factored into
| the cost of electricity (for any of the various sources)?
| eru wrote:
| > How much of current carbon emissions are being factored
| into the cost of electricity (for any of the various
| sources)?
|
| You can relatively easily do those calculations. The results
| are about what you'd expect: hydro, wind and solar don't get
| much more expensive; coal gets a lot more expensive, etc. Of
| course, details depend on what carbon pricing you use.
|
| Funny enough, to go off on a tangent: if solar keeps getting
| cheaper and cheaper, that could make coal viable even with
| carbon costs fully priced in.
|
| What I mean is: assume solar panels keep dropping in price so
| that electricity is approximately free when the sun is
| shining. But still has a very positive cost when the sun
| ain't shining. You can do some carry-over into the night with
| batteries, but seasonal storage all the way from summer to
| winter is much harder.
|
| Now here's something that becomes feasible: when you have
| excess electricity from your solar panels, capture carbon
| from the atmosphere to build up a deficit. Then, when you
| need power but no sun, you can burn coal and use up your
| carbon deficit.
|
| (I'm not suggesting this is in any way optimal, just that it
| might be feasible under certain circumstances; even if you
| fully account for carbon pricing.)
| jakewins wrote:
| This sounds much less efficient than the current proposed
| path of electrolyzing hydrogen?
|
| Direct air capture of carbon has, as I understand,
| extremely low efficiency. What would be the benefit of
| capturing carbon over making hydrogen?
| eru wrote:
| Yes, you could also make hydrogen when the sun is
| shining. (Or you could make methane.)
|
| Instead of doing direct carbon capture, you could also
| spend some energy to grind olivine rocks fine enough for
| something called 'enhanced weathering' to indirectly
| capture carbon.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| That 33 million only covers the rail cars. They would also
| need a destination.
|
| As for CO2, you are right. The fossil fuel industry has the
| same kind of blind spots.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Or future generations will find a way to reprocess and reuse
| that fuel cheaper than now
| throw0101c wrote:
| Future generations will not have to find anything out, as we
| already how to reprocess it:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0UJSlKIy8g
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Hague_site
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing
|
| Though given current uranium prices (i.e. not relatively
| high), it may not actually be worth it--economically speaking
| --to actually do it commercially.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| That's why I've mentioned 'cheaper than now'
| ggm wrote:
| The train isn't very specialised. the specific waste truck is. So
| is the final escort truck called the REV which reminds me of an
| armoured carriage in the Delhi rail museum collection: it's from
| the pre-independence days of the north-west frontier wars.
|
| Those look like pretty normal diesel-electric locomotives.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-01/Rail%20Es...
| says
|
| _As required for operational security, further specifications
| for REVs are not publicly releasable._
|
| So it's "security by obscurity"
| cdchn wrote:
| Security by obscurity is just another layer of security.
|
| The problem arises when its your only layer of security.
| Animats wrote:
| > Those look like pretty normal diesel-electric locomotives.
|
| Yes. Here's UP 8359 hauling a trainload of grain.[1] It's a
| common locomotive type, SD70ACe, with thousands in use. Dull,
| boring, and reliable. Way too many pictures of UP 8359 doing
| ordinary locomotive things.[2]
|
| The armored caboose, VWXX-800, is a custom build designed for
| the Navy.[3]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FX9vgSOAdA
|
| [2]
| http://www.rcbsd45.rrpicturearchives.net/Locopicture.aspx?id...
|
| [3] https://www.twz.com/39654/wait-this-mysterious-heavily-
| armor...
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I'm all for clean energy, but with how it is at the moment, isn't
| nuclear energy basically like pension/ponzi scheme (for lack of a
| better term)? Because other people down the line will pay for
| what we enjoy now.
|
| "Thousands of years" is a long time to put something away and
| ensure nothing bad happens.
| can16358p wrote:
| I think an efficient way to dispose of/neutralize radioactive
| waste will be found in the future, which will be very easy for
| that era, so many are relying on this.
|
| Of course there is no evidence for this is ever going to happen
| but given technological progress, rise of AI's exponential
| capabilities and bright future of robotics one can say it is
| very likely.
| eru wrote:
| Nuclear waste has a half-life, but chemical waste like heavy
| metals never goes away. And we are mostly dealing with that
| just fine.
|
| If we used breeder reactors, we could cut down on the amount of
| nuclear waste per Joule drastically, if we wanted to.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| If you reprocess and reuse the waste it's no longer thousand of
| years. It's barely 300 till the waste is less radioactive than
| uranium we dig to create the rods. And we have the tech, it's
| just cheaper for now to dump the stuff underground. With enough
| political will, 90+ of the waste can be transformed in mol
| multiple times and reused multiple times
| euroderf wrote:
| On a visit to a pub I talked to a guy from VTT, the Finnish
| technology institute, about the wisdom of concentrating nuclear
| waste in particular locations. My point being, Murphy predicts
| that if there is an asteroid strike, it will hit a nuclear waste
| repository - and render mankind extinct.
|
| His response was that if you put the waste far enough
| underground, like a km or more, then if an asteroid actually
| disturbs it, the dispersion of the waste won't actually be your
| biggest problem.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You could also just dump it into a deep part of the ocean.
| Objectively this is safe and effective, but emotionally it's
| just terrible and people will think I'm trolling for even
| suggesting it.
|
| Look up the PPM for uranium in ocean water, then multiply that
| out by how much ocean water there is. The amount of uranium
| naturally dissolved into the oceans is _staggering_. Nothing
| humanity can do will ever come close. Even when you throw the
| nasty transuranics into the consideration, it 's nothing. Dump
| nuclear reactors straight into the oceans and stop worrying
| about it.
| thecyborganizer wrote:
| It would be safe and effective if we had a mechanism of
| distributing nuclear waste evenly throughout the entire
| volume of the Earth's oceans. But we don't have that and
| that's impossible to build!
|
| Dumping nuclear waste into the ocean will, mathematically,
| result in a globally acceptable concentration of nuclear
| waste in ocean water - but it will be locally problematic for
| wherever we put it, and that's assuming it stays put.
| perihelions wrote:
| I don't buy that. Sure, that's true: there's billions of tons
| of uranium in the ocean and nothing bad happens--but it's
| *also* true that we added just a few thousand tons of
| mercury, and there's already fish that are hazardous to human
| health as a result. There's large chemical differences, in
| how different things are absorbed by microbes, and
| bioaccumulate in sea life; it's not an automatic given that
| everything's as comparatively safe as soluble uranium. (And
| don't forget: spent nuclear fuel isn't one element--it's
| about half of the entire periodic table. Many of those
| transuranics are barely researched, chemically).
|
| This is a question that would need to be extensively
| researched, before committing to something that's
| irreversible on a geological timescale. Handwaving arguments
| aren't enough, for something this important, this
| consequential.
|
| (There's actually rather a lot of spent nuclear reactors
| littering the ocean floor, so opportunities to research this
| question are available right now--if any scientists could be
| bothered).
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Imo it's bad not for environmental reasons but bc it's
| wasteful to throw away the waste we could use in the future
| when breeding reactors or reprocessing plants become
| mainstream
| chickenbig wrote:
| Well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_floor_disposal was a
| thing being considered. One of the problems
| associated with this option includes the difficulty of
| recovering the waste, if necessary, once it is emplaced deep
| in the ocean.
|
| That's a big mystery about spent nuclear fuel disposal; why
| do people want to be able to recover it, other than to add
| compromises.
| briffle wrote:
| Spent nuclear fuel in most older reactors retains more than
| 90% of its potential energy.
| chickenbig wrote:
| In the form of Plutonium? Perhaps.
|
| In the form of U-238? Perhaps too, but look near
| enrichment plants and you will see yards full of steel
| cylinders filled with depleted Uranium hexafluoride.
|
| https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.2635448,-2.9592278,327m
| /da...
|
| So the spent fuel does not contain valuable energy.
| Better off removing the requirement to be able to
| retrieve it and just get on with disposing of it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it will hit a nuclear waste repository - and render mankind
| extinct_
|
| You could leave the world's nuclear waste and weapons on the
| surface and not have it be an extinction-level concern in the
| event of an asteroid impact.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| ^^ Excellent applied statistic problem and solution.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > My point being, Murphy predicts that if there is an asteroid
| strike, it will hit a nuclear waste repository - and render
| mankind extinct.
|
| Depleted uranium is not explosive: You will not have an
| explosion like a nuclear bomb.
|
| A nuclear engineer can probably explain this better.
|
| My understanding is that depleted uranium is a highly toxic
| substance, so we wouldn't want it to leech into soil /
| groundwater. I also doubt meltdowns are a substantial risk
| because the fuel pellets would have to fall / land in a way
| that they are concentrated together.
|
| Funny anecdote: Two years ago I took my family on vacation, and
| I happened to be near a pumped hydro storage plant that was
| built to balance an early reactor. I couldn't find it, and when
| I turned around, I looked out the windshield, and across the
| river was a bunch of nuclear waste in dry storage:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Yankee+Atomic+Electric+Co/...
|
| I wouldn't have even known what it was if I hadn't gone looking
| for it on Google Maps a few years prior.
|
| Getting back to the point, if an asteroid hit the dry storage
| that I mapped above, I doubt there would be an explosion. The
| Deerfield river would probably become very toxic, but I
| wouldn't call it an extension event.
| redundantly wrote:
| I don't think the concern is that it would be explosive, just
| that if the meteor were large enough it would destroy the
| storage and send the waste up into the atmosphere and it
| would spread around.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| The Finnish friend has a good education. Little fissionable
| material is dangerous from impact, otherwise it would not
| have taken Los Alamos to build a fusion bomb.
|
| Depleted uranium is very highly toxic. "In a three-week
| period of conflict in Iraq during 2003, it was estimated that
| between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions
| were used."
|
| The Germans did not get a bomb because they did not
| concentrate their fissonable material. ( look it up )
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Depleted uranium is not explosive: You will not have an
| explosion like a nuclear bomb.
|
| This was similar to the confusion in Chernobyl. Engineers
| were saying "The reactor has exploded", while the Chief
| Engineers were retorting, "Tell me how it explodes. There's
| graphite rods and uranium rods". Tangential to the waste
| byproducts, absolutely.
| moralestapia wrote:
| I am the one confused now ... didn't Chernobyl explode?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Not in the sense of a normal chemical explosion, which is
| a reactive substance. Chernobyl was a steam
| overpressurization (or indeed steam explosion) event.
| Similar results but the nuance (and mis/disinformation
| surrounding) are what caused a lot of initial confusion.
| The engineers were taught that it was safe because "it
| can't explode because there's nothing to detonate".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_explosion
| moralestapia wrote:
| Can _spent_ nuclear fuel + water create a similar event?
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| The chances are on par with you encountering a briefcase
| of jackpot SuperBowl lottery winning tickets when you
| exit your apartment at 07:36 on Friday 16th.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| The "explosion" comes from the asteroid itself. The risk
| comes from radioactive dust being ejected in to the
| atmosphere and falling down all over the earth.
|
| Not sure I buy "Murphy predicts" but large asteroid impacts
| carry far more energy than any terrestrial explosion. The
| nuclear materials don't need to add any energy to that for
| the risk to be present.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is not a problem with nuclear energy, not directly. This is
| a political and defense industry issue. The US _actively does not
| want to recycle its nuclear waste_. It is a valuable resource to
| have on hand if you want to one day build more bombs. Equally,
| keeping all that plutonium locked up as "waste" arguably keeps
| it out of the hands of bad people. Should the US decide to start
| actually recycling this stuff, the bulk of the transport/disposal
| problem disappears.
|
| >> The decision to _halt commercial nuclear recycling_ sends a
| clear message that the United States is committed to nuclear non-
| proliferation. Such decisions, together with diplomacy such as
| that taking place in Russia, are deliberate and encouraging first
| steps towards building an international consensus on reducing the
| threat from nuclear weapons.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/460152b
| chickenbig wrote:
| > Equally, keeping all that plutonium locked up as "waste"
| arguably keeps it out of the hands of bad people.
|
| https://thebulletin.org/2020/04/britain-has-139-tons-of-plut...
|
| Meanwhile in the UK we've got 139 tons of the stuff from the
| Magnox program. It was disappointing to see in the Civil
| Nuclear roadmap to 2050 (from earlier this year) decided
| against making use of this tremendous resource (although the
| precise wording does not rule out use in MOX which is
| presumably an existing and so not an "Advanced Technology").
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-nuclear-roa...
| We are providing clarity to vendors by committing not to
| support the use of plutonium stored at Sellafield by Advanced
| Nuclear Technologies whilst high hazard reduction activities
| are prioritised at Sellafield.
|
| Note Plutonium from a power reactor is not "weapons grade" due
| to the presence of less desirable isotopes because of prolonged
| irradiation.
| adonovan wrote:
| It says the "empty buffer cars ... maintain a safe distance from
| the spent nuclear fuel" for the workers on the train, presumably
| from neutrons and gamma.
|
| Wouldn't a thin piece of steel do this better? Isn't the SNF
| container made of a thick piece of steel?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The buffer cars are _made_ of thin pieces of steel. As are most
| other railroad cars.
| ioblomov wrote:
| According to the diagram, the buffer cars are empty flatbed
| cars without walls. Presumably, the inverse square law of
| intensity over distance is what's at play here.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| According to the photograph as well, so my error. On the
| other hand, according to the photograph, there's a thin
| steel wall on the end of the car carrying the cask. And
| then there's thin steel walls on the locomotive and
| caboose.
| adonovan wrote:
| Right; hence my question.
| remus wrote:
| The inverse square law does a lot to reduce exposure to
| radiation and is pretty fool proof. Doesn't seem much point in
| building more specialised rail cars when off the shelf ones
| will be relatively cheap (compared to other costs on a project
| like this).
| analog31 wrote:
| They can put a cask in my back yard for 1000 a month. This sounds
| weird, but if it's safe then it's safe.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Same here. I'm semi-rural with no HOA restrictions too and I
| can set aside some space and a defining access point for them
| so that they can periodically inspect things. My nearest
| neighbors are far enough away that they probably wouldn't
| notice a few extra objects on my place and I could always plant
| some more trees to screen it anyway. This is a great idea for
| neighborhood nuclear storage.
|
| The longer that you store it without issues, the more
| acceptable it becomes for the rest of society.
| binary132 wrote:
| Maybe, but your neighbors won't be cool about it
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| That's one hell of a startup idea if I ever heard one. Probably
| a million other homeowners would also agree to let waste sit on
| the land for cash.
| binary132 wrote:
| I was surprised not to see any mention of derailing hazard. I
| really expected to see some kind of (possibly interesting or
| surprising) discussion of how this design solves it. Maybe I
| missed it?
| chickenbig wrote:
| Hazard to whom? The cask might make quite a dent in an oncoming
| train. There are plenty of videos out there testing transport
| casks against locomotives, planes and fire.
| binary132 wrote:
| sorry if I misunderstood, but are you saying that it's fine
| if this derails because nothing is going to break it?
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Every year, 2,000 tonnes of radioactive heavy metal join the
| growing inventory of fuel removed from nuclear power reactors--
| both operating and decommissioned._
|
| Given how dense nuclear "waste" (mostly unburnt fuel) is, how
| much volume is this? (Either in metric or Freedom Units.)
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| > DOE paying US $10.6 billion to cover utilities' storage costs.
|
| It is crazy that massive amounts of taxpayer money is spent on
| subsidizing nuclear power.
|
| If you are generating waste, you can't get rid of them then stop
| producing it.
|
| Will factories soon get huge subsidies if they refuse to handle
| toxic and dangerous waste that is expensive to dispose of?
|
| The federal gourmet should create huge places to store all toxic
| and dangerous waste.
| 8xeh wrote:
| That's funny. $10 billion just to move junk around.
|
| The Wheatridge solar/wind/battery facility in Oregon produces
| the same amount of power as a small nuclear reactor. $10
| billion buys you a dozen of them.
| chickenbig wrote:
| Arguably this security theatre does everything to make people
| believe spent nuclear fuel is uniquely dangerous. The UK has been
| transporting the stuff by rail for decades; two locomotives and
| the flask.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_flask#United_Kingdom
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-22 23:11 UTC)