The End of The Nuclear Age?

[Bells]

And yes, i had to check myself to no spell it "nuklear"...

So, Germany is jumping off of the Nuclear Train, and now so is Japan (not official yet, but the people are already claiming for it, so it's just a matter of time). 2 of the major Industrial Superpowers in the world are turning away from Nuclear sources of power.

So, do you guys think this is the turning point where our global economy starts to really pick up steam and direction towards a new, sustainable, more advanced form of Power?

I mean, once those countries stop using Nuclear Energy, they WILL have quite a big gap in their energy supply that they will need to fill with something. And the main reason they were using Nuclear in the first place was because it supplied the right amount at the right cost...

So, if they trully turn away from this source, this could very well mean that you will see in the next decade a huge improvement in research and funding of alternative power sources (wind and solar, no doubt). There will be a demand, and now they will need a supply.

More money and Demand, means more corporative interest and more research, more research means more advances in short and long term, and more Advances means cheaper and better production. So on and on until it's capable of supply to the demand.

Being one of the leaders in the science and financial world, the USA down the line will eventually try to tap that. Maybe it's the opportunity that was missing to get off foreign oil at last?

Either way, this is kinda exciting. I'm not sure yet, but it feels like we're moving through a scientific shift that could actually alter the shape and form of modern life if the global economy actually starts to physically change towards Eletric and Solar power in large industrial scale... this could be interesting if it indeed happens.

Also of notice: That also means a entire new landscape of Jobs, trade schools, professions and business opportunities that aren't really wide available today.

[Krylo]

Alternatively: They just build coal plants and fuck everything up.

[stefan]

So, do you guys think this is the turning point where our global economy starts to really pick up steam and direction towards a new, sustainable, more advanced form of Power?


Pfffhahahahahahahaa

[Arhra]

But... but thorium reactors!

To be blunt, solar and wind power won't do anything on their own. We need something that can provide a baseline load to balance electricity supply and demand. Solar and wind have unreliable generation capacity and their power generation profiles do not match the daily load profile for electricity demand.

You need something that can be tailored on demand to match the demand. You know, like coal fired or nuclear power plants. (Or natural gas or hydroelectricity, etc)

Fantastic advances in power storage technology could overcome this but that's got issues of its own.

[shiney]

Let me know what the oil conglomerates think about sustainable energy that doesn't have scaling cost based on dwindling supply, and get back to me on how likely it is the people of this planet will end up with anything remotely worthwhile. I mean, they love lining their pockets, and if they can't keep fucking the consumer with scarecrows about "it's all going to dry up soon" or whatever, then I can assume they aren't interested.

[Sithdarth]

Photocatalysts. Essentially artificial photosynthesis. Light goes in hydrogen comes out. It's actually one of the things I will be working on as a lot of promising photocatalysts are novel functional oxides. (Did I mention I do actual research now.)

Well I mean there is that and then you know not being giant energy hogs and just general efficiency improvements all over.

Also this:

Maybe it's the opportunity that was missing to get off foreign oil at last?

Is laughably wrong. The electricity sector in the US is dominated by coal. Changing the way we generate electricity is going to do essentially nothing to change our dependence on foreign oil. It's like saying that your going to stop drinking by finding a replacement for tobacco. The only way the electricity sector will have any impact on foreign oil dependence is if we all suddenly started driving electric cars tomorrow.

[Aldurin]

And the issue with switching to electricity is that not only does there need to be energy production research (hydropower is a great idea, and nuclear is better than fossil fuels as long as it isn't on Japanese standards), but with making electricity-powered vehicles viable (which would eliminate a heavy section of our oil needs) we would need more advancements in batteries and electric motors (freight trucks, trains and airplanes need a lot of power, especially when on a hill/taking off).

Even if that technology should come out, it will likely be expensive as hell and/or have a shorter lifespan than the cars people are already driving.

And then the transition issue gets worse because these cars will likely be lightweight and maintain the current smartcar standard of crushing like a tin can in the event of impacting a regular vehicle, so people will be put off by safety issues caused by the fact that everyone isn't driving these vehicles.

Convincing a company to start manufacturing electric cars despite all of this will make it a huge struggle to shrug off just the transportation section of oil dependence.

[Bells]

But... but thorium reactors!

To be blunt, solar and wind power won't do anything on their own. We need something that can provide a baseline load to balance electricity supply and demand. Solar and wind have unreliable generation capacity and their power generation profiles do not match the daily load profile for electricity demand.

You need something that can be tailored on demand to match the demand. You know, like coal fired or nuclear power plants. (Or natural gas or hydroelectricity, etc)

Fantastic advances in power storage technology could overcome this but that's got issues of its own.

That's sorta the Paradigm of this whole discussion, isn't it? Right now, it's not a sustainable model. But if Nuclear stops being an option, you have to turn to Coal and Oil to pick up the slack, it may even work on short to mid term, but it's just not sustainable anymore in the long haul, so something else will eventually be needed, regardless of what it is.

So, at first, it's more of the same, but new technologies will have to emerge, specially in nations that don't want to become other nations bitches cause they don't have enough coal or oil to go forward and grow, so "making your own energy supply" does make sense. It's not viable right now (hell, to the best of my knowledge, it's not going to be viable for at least a good 20 years yet...) But large groups of scientist can make some pretty amazing stuff when they are needed and well funded.

[rpgdemon]

And the issue with switching to electricity is that not only does there need to be energy production research (hydropower is a great idea, and nuclear is better than fossil fuels as long as it isn't on Japanese standards)

(hydropower is a great idea, and nuclear is better than fossil fuels as long as it isn't on Japanese standards)

Japanese standards

Are higher than the standards we have here, since they're on the edge of the ring of fire. Even if that perfectly horrible tsunami was a 1/10,000 chance thing, given enough time, those disasters happen, and you can't really get around them.

[TDK]

Also, we have had practical electric cars since the 70s.

[Osterbaum]

Also the REAL problem with nuclear power is nuclear waste, not the potential for accidents.

[Azisien]

I'm thinking between Russia and China probably not backing down much on their nuclear ambitions, and news from Japan that will slowly dwindle, the nuclear sector will be okay. Some EU countries may back out of it, sure, but if China, instead of building nuclear reactors, decided to build coal power stations, I think we could safely change the name of the planet to Smog.

[rpgdemon]

The thing about Nuclear though is it's just as short sighted and polluting of a thing, but just slightly less so than coal.

I was talking to a friend about nuclear waste building up, and he was like, "We'll just dump it into the two mile deep fissure in the ocean." I was like, "The one we haven't fully explored and don't know what's down there?" He was absolutely convinced that there was nothing of interest down there, and we wouldn't be losing anything. And then when I pointed up that eventually, we'd fill it, he goes, "No we won't, it'll never fill up." His logic was that all the trash and waste had to be coming from somewhere, so we'd never fully irradiate the earth.

[stefan]

The thing about Nuclear though is it's just as short sighted and polluting of a thing, but just slightly less so than coal.

I was talking to a friend about nuclear waste building up, and he was like, "We'll just dump it into the two mile deep fissure in the ocean." I was like, "The one we haven't fully explored and don't know what's down there?" He was absolutely convinced that there was nothing of interest down there, and we wouldn't be losing anything. And then when I pointed up that eventually, we'd fill it, he goes, "No we won't, it'll never fill up." His logic was that all the trash and waste had to be coming from somewhere, so we'd never fully irradiate the earth.

you do realize that current nuclear reactors only produce as much waste as they do because the people running them more or less do the equivalent of eating the skin off of fried chicken and throwing the rest away, right? you can get a hellof a lot more mileage out of nuclear fuel than most reactors do, it just isn't seen as as profitable compared to just throwing the fuel away and getting more of it once you've used up the "easy to get" energy.

[rpgdemon]

you do realize that current nuclear reactors only produce as much waste as they do because the people running them more or less do the equivalent of eating the skin off of fried chicken and throwing the rest away, right? you can get a hellof a lot more mileage out of nuclear fuel than most reactors do, it just isn't seen as as profitable compared to just throwing the fuel away and getting more of it once you've used up the "easy to get" energy.

Once again: Incredibly short sighted.

It doesn't matter HOW efficiently we use them, we are creating buildup of toxic waste that we 100% cannot get rid of. No matter how slowly it builds up, it is a thing that is very real, and will eventually fill whereever we put it.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

You are vastly vastly vastly overstating the problems of nuclear waste.


Photocatalysts. Essentially artificial photosynthesis. Light goes in hydrogen comes out. It's actually one of the things I will be working on as a lot of promising photocatalysts are novel functional oxides. (Did I mention I do actual research now.)


What kind of photocatalysts are you working on? The problem with this field is its had fuck loads of research since the 70s without ever really making a super breakthrough. Our lab is working on ethanol on TiO2 with coadsorbates to modify the effective bandgaps.
But that said the field has nowhere lived up to its promise so far.

[Osterbaum]

How exactly is he doing that?

e: We also shouldn't concentrate only on negative effects nuclear waste might have on humans. Just as important is what it does, and will in the future do to any ecosystem it is placed in.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

All the accidents and problems with nuclear waste is due tot hem being improperly shielded and not an inherent problem of the aste itself. Applying proper regulations as well as enforcing reprocessing of waste minimises problems adn will reduce waste output.
As for the claim that we 100% cannot deal with it, that is complete bullshit. Firstly they naturally decay over time. Secondly we are constantly finding ways to process old waste and make more power from it. Proposed 4th generation plants can use vast quantities of our old waste efficiently. And if these plants are processed they will produce waste with lifetimes in the 100s of year rather than 1000s and in much much lower quantities than we produce. More research will continue to improve our ability to use old waste. And in the short term if they are adaqueatly shielded there is basically no risk.
Especially when compared to the real risks of coal and gas that we use currentely.

Also if we bury it under maternity hospitals- the resulting mutated supergeniuses will work it out

[Bells]

But Nuclear power and Nuclear waste will never be Harmless. Right?

So, if we can apply new technology and research to make it more efficient and more effective in use and cost, why can't we simply divert those resources into improving other sources of energy that don't have that much invested into them right now?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It's less harmful than coal and gas while being cost effective right now in a way that alternative green energies aren't. We need to make changes and you aren't going to convince people to adopt wind and solar tech which are still nto great so you should go into nuclear because the cost models for that industry are worked out, you can convince people and companies to adopt it.
Radiation isn't a super bogeyman who hides under your bed and mutates your children.

[Sithdarth]

What kind of photocatalysts are you working on? The problem with this field is its had fuck loads of research since the 70s without ever really making a super breakthrough. Our lab is working on ethanol on TiO2 with coadsorbates to modify the effective bandgaps.
But that said the field has nowhere lived up to its promise so far.

We don't actually have a material system yet. What we've got is collaborators who are usually pretty good at engineering band gaps to desired specifications. I mean it's not perfect but it's better than hit and miss. Mostly what we'd be doing is looking at the band gaps and the electronic structures of purposed catalysts and saying "Yes this has the right structure" or "No this doesn't have the right structure and here is why" so that the people making them know how to make them better.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

An important job. Though really what every seems to be doing is coupling lots of things together so you get multiple bandgaps which all transfger energy between each other and thus get mcuh broader adsorption.

[Fifthfiend]

I'd be more excited if they were taking a bunch of their coal plants offline TBH.

EDIT: also it don't really matter cause the German deadline for being nuclear-free is 2022, they'll find a way to cheat back on that before then.

[Osterbaum]

Is anyone else sort of surprised that of all the EU countries that could've made these kinds of promises Germany was the one who ended up doing so (first)?

[Overcast]

Don't see why I should. Though I am fond of nuclear power, I believe it that capable bridge between our fossil fueled today, to our cleaner tomorrow. Fear is a powerful thing to my dismay, and because people are afraid it ruins progress. Just hope one of the people on this forum is part of the alternative so I can say how I called him mad.

[stefan]

But Nuclear power and Nuclear waste will never be Harmless. Right?

you do realize that standard punishment for making a Perfect Solution Fallacy is to be punched in the dick. right?

no form of energy generation, anywhere, ever, is going to be Harmless. orbital solar would have the chance of frying someone in a private jet who ignored no-fly zones. hydroelectric dams have a possibility of breaking.

I mean, shit, if you took the raw numbers of deaths caused by nuclear reactors since their inception and compared that to the number of deaths caused by coal or oil in the exact same time frame, coal and oil would easily be comparable, if not higher.

[Osterbaum]

Firstly they naturally decay over time.
Over hundreds and thousands of years! I wouldn't exactly call that "not a problem".

[rpgdemon]

I mean, shit, if you took the raw numbers of deaths caused by nuclear reactors since their inception and compared that to the number of deaths caused by coal or oil in the exact same time frame, coal and oil would easily be comparable, if not higher.

That would be a huge argument against nuclear reactors. Considering that coal and oil are far more prevalent, if the two numbers are similar, then the nuclear reactors would be far more dangerous.

And the thing is, everything can fail, but the difference is that a nuclear failure ruins the land and makes it completely uninhabitable, versus a flood from a broken dam, which wouldn't ruin a chunk of the earth for a long period of time. They'd both have the same death toll, perhaps, but one becomes a long term, if not permanent, problem.

[Eltargrim]

Uuuuuuhhhhh...dams have their own set of environmental consequences which can be pretty damn far-spread. Running them is one thing; building them is another.

[rpgdemon]

Uuuuuuhhhhh...dams have their own set of environmental consequences which can be pretty damn far-spread. Running them is one thing; building them is another.

Totally. But the building of them is a controllable thing, and can be done to minimize damage, whereas unplanned destruction due to a force of nature can't be planned.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

More like 1000s and the newest plants 100s. And we can pretty much completely mitigate any damage during that time unlike fossil fuels which we don't really know what to do about. And who cares if the ytook 10000000000000 years to decay, we are constantyl finding new ways to use our old fuel.
Nobody is saying nuclear power is the perfect solution that will make rainbows shit out of your bum and will provide us power for a billion years. What we're saying is that we need to move away from gas and oil and coal right away, alternative technology is not where it needs to be yet particularly from a industry confidence point of view which i sneeded to get them to invest and a move to nuclear will prevent a lot of the fossil fuel damage, is industrially viable- we know how much it will cost, we know it is economical and we can get investors and has no really major problems except when we run out of easily mined material which is a long way away and will give us the time to develop renewables.
Nuclear isn't perfect but its better than what we got and the better alternatives are a long way away and we can't erally afford to wait.

Also you are concerned about the environment damage. I'm pretty sure global warming completely overshadows a few gamma rays escaping containment and then just being stopped by the dirt around them.


Edit: Re death numbers- coal/oil I'm going to chalk up millions to allt he people in third world countries who have died of starvation due to food shortages caused by global warming already. Expect this number to rise quickly into the billions. Pretty sure nuclear hasn't done anyway near that.

[Osterbaum]

I'm mostly undecided when it comes to nuclear power. I agree that (on the long run) fossil fuels are worse. We need to move away from using them, but I'm not all that fond of nuclear energy either.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

If you have another large scale alternative that is ready to go it would be nice to hear it. Because we really need somethign that is ready to go.

[rpgdemon]

My main problem with moving to nuclear is that I feel as if we won't move off of it, even if the next thing is discovered to be way better. To rehaul the power industry to move to nuclear right now is already taking forever, and once we get there, I doubt that people will go, "Okay, 20 years later, let's do it all again!"

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

would like to point out that the word 'Nuclear' is being handed around like a cheap whore on a frat night.

Majority of what I'm reading in this thread is aimed more at nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion is a whole 'nother beast and there's some incredible headway being made. Granted the link is over a year old, but that's still hot off the press in terms of the concept.
Making fusion, one sphere of lasers at a time. (http://inhabitat.com/worlds-largest-laser-a-step-closer-to-fusion-energy/)

Think of it this way: feeder drops pea sized nuclear waste material. lasers shoot fuel pellet. BOOM. Energy. Drop new pellet. zap. BOOM energy. this happens very rapidly. two birds with one stone here. New use for the fission waste which happens to be in abundance AND an energy solution. There'll be a long time until needing to make non-waste borne fuel for that beast.

But because the word nuclear has been so fuckin demonized by rabblerousing idiots it'll be sad to see this (and other useful options) fall by the wayside in lieu of recent events. Might I also point out that every energy source carries an inherent risk. Hell, look at the once thriving Centralia, Pennsylvania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania) still burning up underground releasing extremely hazardous fumes. Not expected to end any time sooooon, estimated 250-1000 years. Where's the demonizing there? What about crude oil? we've all seen what BP's incompetence does there. It seems that noone even gives a passing thought to how stable the reactors are until one thing goes wrong. Then everyone's all over it like a swarm of hungry fat kids to cake.

The argument against nuclear power really is pathetically one-sided. I'm all for it, and it pisses me off to no end how there's such a knee-jerk reaction these days to even the mere word nuclear.

[rpgdemon]

Dude, nuclear fission causes you to turn into Doc Ock. Doc Ock with no spiderman to defeat you!

[Magus]

Alternatively: They just build coal plants and fuck everything up.

This is exactly what I see the U.S. continuing to do in the face of the Japanese crisis, since it was exactly what it did in response to Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Japan on the other hand if they made a commitment to getting rid of nuclear fission plants would probably follow through on it in the direction of wind and solar energy, just because Japan doesn't have a ton of coal lying around, plus a just a general movement in that culture towards things like public transportation, reducing waste, wind and solar power, etc.

I find Germany stating that they are going to completely get rid of it to be laughable, though, especially since they see no problem with continuing to buy it from neighbors which implies that they can't actually get rid of it 100% and meet their power needs.

I really think they and other countries should just use this crisis to try and make nuclear energy safer, or slowly phasing it out (for fission or other alternatives), instead of knee-jerkily saying, "we will have zero nuclear plants ASAP"

As for nuclear waste, I can't figure out why the space program isn't being used to shoot it into space. I'm presuming that isn't cost-effective in comparison to just storing it in Nevada, apparently, but it would get rid of it, for all intents and purposes.