Why California May Go Nuclear (forbes.com) 292
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, a California state legislator introduced an amendment to the state's constitution that would classify nuclear energy as "renewable."
If the amendment passes, it would likely result in the continued operation of the state's last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, well past 2025, its current closure date. Diablo generates 9% of California's electricity and 20% of its clean, carbon-free electricity. It is also the most spectacular nuclear plant in the world, made famous by an employee's photo of a humpback whale breaching in front of the plant.
"I'm not going to argue it's not a long shot," said the legislation's sponsor, Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham. "But we can't make a serious dent in slowing the warming trend in the world without investment in nuclear power." If Governor Gavin Newsom decides to support the legislation it would likely become law and Diablo Canyon could continue operating to 2045 or even 2065. That's because Newsom, who was elected last year with an astonishing 62% of the vote, exercises extraordinary power over the legislature, particularly on energy.
"I'm not going to argue it's not a long shot," said the legislation's sponsor, Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham. "But we can't make a serious dent in slowing the warming trend in the world without investment in nuclear power." If Governor Gavin Newsom decides to support the legislation it would likely become law and Diablo Canyon could continue operating to 2045 or even 2065. That's because Newsom, who was elected last year with an astonishing 62% of the vote, exercises extraordinary power over the legislature, particularly on energy.
Never going to happen... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus, the reason nuclear has a reputation for being expensive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
AND the reason that the Fossil Fuel industry has been quietly funding Green Peace since the 70's
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If not snark, that is the dumbest comment made on the internet this week. Maybe you should check and see if there's a prize for you to collect?
Re: Never going to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest I'd normally dismiss that as a wild conspiracy theory, which I'm usually quick to do, and I still think that it is highly unlikely. However, when you think about it, Greenpeace has done more favors for the coal industry than anybody. I'm in the process of getting solar for my house right now, and let me tell you, when you look at the reality of what solar does provide, and more importantly, what it does not, you quickly understand just how much it can't be relied upon for the energy needs of the general population. Sure, it does you a favor in terms of cost cutting, but it's quite temperamental. The general public can't rely on power sources like solar that aren't reliable. Wind power isn't reliable either. Pretty much the only (mostly) reliable sources that Greenpeace will accept are geothermal and hydro. Oh and don't even think about battery storage as that requires strip mining to procure, which Greenpeace also hates, even in cases where it will only disturb the terrain and won't bother any natural habitat.
So if you can't have any of that, and you can't have nuclear, what can you have? Well...Aside from petrol and natural gas, there's coal, which is generally more economical than the first two.
Greenpeace is also working it's ass off to make agriculture less sustainable, but that's another topic.
Re:Never going to happen... (Score:4, Informative)
Please consider these elements before dismissing and let me know what 'fits'
While Green Peace appears to be a heavily radicalized pro-environmental group, the ultimate outcome of their anti-nuclear stance is that hundreds of coal, fuel oil and natural gas plants have been built PRIMARILY due to the difficulty of building new nuclear plants, thanks to the efforts of Green Peace.
See below what happened when a leader of Green Peace decided to attempt to start a conversation regarding nuclear power (TLDR: Green Peace went nuts and continues to savage him at ever step). I can see this sort of emotional response in a personal relationship, but this goes so far beyond necessary that it resembles a religion.
Former head of Green Peace Canada was fired for making statement that nuclear power should be considered for baseline power, has been severely attacked by Green Peace since leaving and speaking freely about nuclear power. [wikipedia.org]
Green Peace continually attacks Patrick Moore [greenpeace.org]
More discussion about the motivations from Green Peace and Greens in general regarding irrational approach to nuclear power [wattsupwiththat.com]
So, yeah... based on OUTCOMES Green Peace has made the fossil fuel industries $BILLIONS, simply by attacking nuclear power with baseless accusations and constant harassment lawsuits.
Re: Never going to happen... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Never going to happen... (Score:4, Informative)
Greenpeace hampers nuclear power plant licensing and construction via numerous (one could say un-ending) lawsuits
Even when they cannot raise lawsuits, they use numerous stunts and propaganda to turn people against nuclear power
http://environmentalprogress.o... [environmen...ogress.org]
Re: (Score:3)
That and the fact that it is. Name one plant that rolls the complete costs of construction, insurance, security, decommissioning and storing the waste for a hundred thousand years.
Newer designs can burn old waste (Score:4, Informative)
... decommissioning and storing the waste for a hundred thousand years.
Some modern reactor designs can burn that waste as fuel. Converting it to less hazardous material that only needs to be stored for several centuries.
So modernization and deployment not only can create green energy but it can clean up the current mess for which there is no real solution.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't really burn it, and they aren't "modern". The breeder reactors make make weapons grade fissil fuels out of sub-weapon grade fuel. They can also concentrate spend fuel and made it viable again. The problem is that they are a lot more costly and less efficient than traditional nuclear plants, and plants that can make nuclear weapons are politically problematic. This type of reactor was the reason for all the issues with Iran's nuclear program. They said they only wanted nuclear power, but by trying to make this type of reactor the rest of the world didn't trust them.
The *designs* are newer, not the underlying technology. "Molten-salt breeder reactors (MSBR’s) are being developed [2017] by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for generating low-cost power while extending the nation’s resources of fissionable fuel. The fluid fuel in these reactors, consisting of UF4 and ThF4 dissolved in fluorides of beryllium and lithium, is circulated through a reactor core moderated by graphite. Technology developments over the past 20 years have culminated in the successful
Re:Never going to happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
But they aren't. [lohud.com] Leaving the taxpayer to bend over and take it with no lube, same as they've done at every other step of nuclear power.
I wonder if you actually think that solar, wind and batteries require 20 mile evacuation zones or create waste problems that will be with us for more than a hundred thousand years.
silly headline - already nuclear (Score:2)
that's a huge chunk of the state's power, all from 1 plant. they're nuclear.
Hardly (Score:2)
"I'm not going to argue it's not a long shot,"
The universe isn't big enough for that shot.
Won't human being ever learn? (Score:2, Insightful)
California has this thing called the San Andreas fault running through it.
The last seismic zone where a nuclear reactor was built is called Fukushima. We all know how swimmingly that went when Japan was hit by a big shaky-skaky. And it's not like it happened so long ago that nobody remembers either: we can see the unmitigated disaster Fukushima was and still is *right now*.
What makes Californians think they'll fare any better?
I just don't get it...
Re:Won't human being ever learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear power plants need large amounts of water as coolant. It's great you're hyper paranoid about tsunamis but as far as we can tell there hasn't been one in So-Cal in thousands of years. Prepping for something in the context of a geologic timescale is retarded. You might as well start planning for when the sun will inevitably fail.
Didn't fail from earthquake (Score:5, Informative)
The last seismic zone where a nuclear reactor was built is called Fukushima.
Yes, which failed because of a TSUNAMI [world-nuclear.org].
The reactors proved robust seismically, but vulnerable to the tsunami.
So maybe just don't build it right on the ocean.
Even then it probably would have been OK except that it was a very old reactor design.
If you want to keep CO2 emissions high, continuing to spread fear about nuclear power is certainly a very good approach to ensuring large scale CO2 emissions continue indefinitely.
What makes Californians think they'll fare any better?
Because they would be building newer more stable reactors.
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Because they would be building newer more stable reactors.
Building a new reactor is very expensive though. The more likely result is old reactors being kept running for longer; the summary even mentions one specifically. When a reactor is kept running past its designed life span and as little money as possible is spent in maintaining it, that's not nuclear at its safest.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So maybe just don't build it right on the ocean.
A quick Internet search: "The elevation of the Fukushima site is approximately 20 feet above sea level, while Diablo Canyon sits on a bluff 85 feet above sea level."
I was about to say this would be dramatically higher than what was seen in Japan, but some areas did see the water run up to a height of over a hundred feet so this is a valid concern. Still, even Fukushima power station could have been fine (and most of their reactors survived) with a more resilient design.
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and because they kept the backup generators in the basements, which were floodable
Re:Won't human being ever learn? (Score:5, Informative)
A specious comparison, wouldn't you say? Fukushima didn't melt down because of the earth quake, but rather the resulting tsunami.
There are plenty of space in CA where tsunamis, and even earth quakes, aren't a consideration. Being CA, of course, the larger consideration is the actual management and oversight.
Re:Won't human being ever learn? (Score:5, Informative)
Totally irrelevant. Earthquake did not harm Fukushima, water did, and only because their generators were not elevated (in the USA they are)
Fukushima didn't have containment buildings either.
So pointless to bring up Dukushima Daichi, has nothiing to do with U.S. nuclear power.
Re:Won't human being ever learn? (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, let's be specific here.
The Fukushima plant survived the actual temblor portion of the quake INTACT.
The ONLY reason it didn't survive the tsunami is because TEPCO cheaped out on a few thousand cubic yards of rebar and concrete to heighten the wall appropriately.
And they STILL might have been okay had the on-site generators NOT been at the lowest geographic point in the facility.
So trying to lump the reason the site failed to "not earthquake proof" is both stupid AND incorrect.
The reason the Fukushima plant failed was due to corporate greed and cost cutting when it came to safety.
I think the thing is (Score:3)
Californians believe in government oversight more than most Americans, so who knows, maybe it'll work. Me? I'm in a red state. I wouldn't trust a nuke plant.
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The last seismic zone where a nuclear reactor was built is called Fukushima. We all know how swimmingly that went when Japan was hit by a big shaky-skaky.
It wasn't the earthquake that caused the problem, it was the tsunami. If they had made the seawall a few feet taller it would have been fine.
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1950-60s design, placed right by the ocean, tsunami, diesel generators failed.. such a clusterfuck and totally preventable.
Re: Won't human being ever learn? (Score:3)
Every place on Earth is susceptible to seismic events, even if only rarely. Floods, tornados, hurricanes, and civil unrest are also of equal concern to earthquakes.
I think we'll keep building unsinkable ships (Titanic) and meltdown proof reactors. And all we can realistically do is weight the risks and have contingency plans in place. Progress is not going to be stopped by fear of what we cannot control.
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For starters, tsunamis are incredibly rare in the Americas. Here's a list of the most significant tsunamis to hit California https://www.nbclosangeles.com/... [nbclosangeles.com]
Going by the list we have no record of one hitting Southern California where Diablo Canyon is. Given the lengths that are geographic time, humans preparing for something that might, on a long shot, happen in the next thousand years is retarded.
What you don't get are the odds of probability. I don't sit in terror at the idea a satellite might fall from
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California is huge. Not all of California is near the San Andreas Fault or indeed any known fault of concern.
Ignoring the future problem of decommissioning any new plants, to make a substantial move into nuclear power California would need a new, more advanced grid to carry power across the state to where it is needed.
Such a grid would also make *actual* renewable energy more viable.
Nuclear could play a bridge role in getting off of fossil fuels, but a crash nuclear construction program, aside from not bei
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. We've got roughly 400 centuries of fuel based on easily obtainable Thorium alone.
That isn't "forever". But that's basically longer than recorded history (10K BCE to today).
That should give us PLENTY of time to look into better energy options and let the technologies we have NOW mature.
Seriously, solar PV, solar thermal, nuclear power, battery/capacitor type energy storage. They all only a few measly decades old at BEST.
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Was under the impression that it was the tsunami that took out the plant, not the seismic. Working 6 yrs in naval nuclear power i can tell you that when we are at emergency ahead flank, the cavitation from the main screws shook the engineroom like a s.o.b.
Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (Score:2)
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
That's going to be a big part of the reason why this amendment will struggle to make it out of committee. He'd be better off trying a ballot initiative.
Too rational for California (Score:2, Redundant)
Whale breaching in front of the plant? (Score:2)
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Gotta nuke something.
I thought we were running out of uranium? (Score:2)
I saw someone comment about nuclear power warming oceans. I seriously doubt a few power plants will cause any significant change to overall ocean temperature.
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Uranium shortages is not a real problem. It is so abundant we stopped looking for it. If we just recycled our current used fuel rods we could power our society for 10,000+ years. If we moved to IFR or Thorium reactors we would have enough usable material to last 100 million years +.
Also San Onofre was shutdown so it could be replaced by natural gas. Jerry Brown is from one of the richest fossil fuel families in the state. Do not forget nuclear energy is much cheaper than renewables+natural gas.
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I have never, in my entire life, heard that nuclear fuel was so scarce that we were worried about running out in any realistic time frame. In fact, the US pays for uranium mines to stay closed as a means of inhibiting nuclear proliferation. Please supply some data for your preposterous claims as I have no more interest in spending my time disproving them as I am in "proving" that dogs can speak French.
"Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt". Do a casual google sear
Re: (Score:3)
4 billion tons of it in the ocean.
At least...
Back in the 1970s, the Japanese demonstrated an ion-exchange process to extract uranium from seawater at a cost of a few hundred dollars a pound, in 1970-something dollars.
Dollars-per-megawatt-hour, even in 2019 dollars, that's still very very cheap.
Renewable? (Score:2)
"Carbon Free" seems like a much better description... at least until we figure out fusion.
Re: Renewable? (Score:2)
I think if we could define "renewable" to mean that we can either replace it faster than we can consume it or we can't consume all of it before the Solar System is uninhabitable.
Re:Renewable? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as you ignore all the carbons used in mining the uranium and the gigantic quantities of concrete used in construction, sure. Both for the plant itself as well as cooling ponds and long long long term storage facilities.
Tell me something, just how much CO2 is produced from nuclear power plants and how much electricity comes from them? How does this compare to "carbon free" energy sources like wind and solar? You do realize that like nuclear power those solar collectors and windmills involve a lot of concrete in their construction, don't you?
Go look it up and then tell me how nuclear power is not "carbon free" and yet how wind, solar, geothermal, or whatever else do fit the definition of "carbon free".
Our Greedy leaders will never allow this to happen (Score:2)
Gassy Gavin would never allow nuclear energy in California just like Brown before him. Their families are too interconnected to the fossil fuel industry. He personally stands to make millions from the shutdown of Diablo Canyon because it will be replaced by natural gas.
The average cost of electricity in California is ~$0.18 per kWh. The cost of Diablo Canyon is $0.0278 per kWh. The shutdown of Diablo will increase costs, poverty and pollution. It will also create a recession in San Luis Obispo
Nuclear is surprising. (Score:2)
Old reactors suck. New designs are great if you are cautious (Fukushima was 100% not).
Harnessing that kind of power is some pretty strict shit anyway.
Probability: 0% ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Newsom (Score:2)
If Governor Gavin Newsom decides to support the legislation
He won't. The man is a stooge, through and through. I'd rather have Gray fucking Davis back.
Finally, reality has to kick in (Score:5, Interesting)
People will slowly come to realize that you can't power the most populous state in the union without releasing more CO2 with just wind mills and solar panels.
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California is along the coast. Offshore wind farms produce large amounts of energy. Much of the state is sunny much of the year. Your argument is invalid.
But how much will that cost? Here's an analysis of the problem that shows nuclear power would be cheaper and more reliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I'll have people tell me how Europe, the USA, or some other location has enough wind and sun to meet 2, 10, or 25 times their current energy needs. Of that I have little doubt. But how much will that cost? How does that cost compare including nuclear power as part of the solution?
If California can afford to build more offshore windmills then they can
Bad Idea. (Score:2)
Really not a smart move for anything more than a 5-year extension. It makes a lot of sense for California to build a new nuclear power plant, ideally in the Central Valley (not that it will ever happen). But Diablo Canyon has fundamental issues that people are well aware of.
Hell, selling the land might even pay for a new plant.
Something in the neighborhood of 5GW in small modules would be perfect to address long term energy use profiles. It is sad that California has/will lose 4GW, when the night time base
Nuclear might well play an important role. (Score:5, Insightful)
But there's no way it's "renewable". A renewable energy source is where the energy extracted naturally replenished on a timescale less than a human lifespan.
Legislating that nuclear power be called "renewable" is like legislating that pi equals 3. It doesn't alter the underlying reality.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For a given amount of energy produced, nuclear produces (by mass) about 0.0001% the waste of fossil fuels. By volume (counting only the solids) it's about 0.000003% the waste, and the waste is solid making it easy to transport and store (that's why there's no calamity even though the long-term nuclear storage site keeps getting canceled - the nuclear plants can
Re: (Score:2)
Intercepting sunlight does not actually consume any of the sun's own energy.
Carbon free is not 'clean' (Score:2)
Until I've heard a better solution for dealing with nuclear waste then (hide it under a mountain and hope it doesn't bother anyone in the next 5000 years) I'm not buying there is such a thing as 'clean' nuclear power.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]
Re: (Score:3)
So basically instead of presenting a solution, you simply attack another solution.
Essentially it's people like you that would essentially have us do NOTHING.
Most of the waste you're talking about STARTED IT'S LIFE IN THE GROUND. And has been there for billions of years.
Know why? Because it's not actually all that radioactive in and of itself.
You can actually handle nuclear fuel with rubber gloves.
You need to wear the gloves so YOU don't chemically contaminate IT.
Another option is to implement breeder rea
The other important reason (Score:5, Interesting)
PG&E is currently in bankruptcy. The state of california (through the energy regulatory board) forced PG&E to build Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, and then promised PG&E that they could recoup the cost through (effectively) raising rates on consumers to pay off the "mortgaged" cost of building it at ~$4 billion dollars over ~20 years.
Then the same energy regulatory board forced PG&E to close Diablo Canyon well before the payoff period, which actually increases the total cost of the building because 1) they are no longer making revenue to offset operating cost and 2) decommissioning a nuclear power plant to the satisfaction of CA environmentals is staggeringly high
There's currently ~$2 billion outstanding on the cost of the plant so either the state (tax payers) absorbs it, the bankruptcy absorbs it (which is partly backed by the state (tax payers)), or rate payers (who also pay taxes) pay for it.
TL;DR closing Diablo Canyon before 2030 is not a good thing to do as it will cost tax payers more money than it's worth
Nuclear Desalination (Score:3)
California should be leading the world in nuclear desalination for it's 3 major coastal cities.
It's ridiculous that this hasn't been investigated more thoroughly.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:4, Insightful)
You're ridiculous. Even if you're one of those that still thinks global warming isn't a thing the logic for keeping the plant open is completely sound.
Sacramento has a goal of reducing greenhouse emissions. If 9% percent of the state's power comes from this site then shutting the power plant down is directly contrary to those goals.
I know you wear that blindfold to protect yourself from "impure" notions but I think it's making you an idiot.
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:5, Insightful)
I would even support building out the remaining power plants at Palo Verde [wikipedia.org], and I live in AZ
Nuclear power is essential for reducing pollution from baseline power generation
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, saying opening an new plant is improbable due to the current climate is pretty accurate. Shutting down a currently running one is a such a completely different topic I can't believe you brought it up in this context.
The biggest problem with nuclear power is A) Building them as current costs for Western built plants have shown themselves to be ridiculously expensive and B) The tremendous amount of waste to deal with from a decommissioned plant.
Strictly speaking in the context of nuclear waste, keeping
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:4, Insightful)
Both your points A) and B) are pretty well dealt with by the newer Gen IV plants such as those proposed by TerraPower. The principle problem for the Gen IV plants seems to be that GE and other existing nuclear power players are ensuring that modern plants can't get certified. TerraPower started the certification process over a decade ago, and still doesn't have permission to build a plant. I think Toshiba started even earlier.
Like in so many other area, the US is going to get stuck with antiquated technology and outdated business models and China is going to eat their lunch.
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He was actually asked about that in an interview once, and he was aware of the difference. He didn't think that an audience of a thousand half-drunk people would understand so he stayed with 'average'.
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:5, Informative)
Deregulate the nuclear energy industry and it's suddenly one of the CHEAPEST carbon-free and green energy sources.
Yeah, and deregulate the labor market, and suddenly slavery happens to be a terribly efficient form of employment. The point is that regulations are needed because private companies demonstrate again and again that they only optimise for what produces a direct benefit, and externalities such as security, reduced radiation leakage or local ecological impact are not part of their action plan.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:4, Informative)
So you're referencing the report that literally opens with,
"This report was prepared under the supervision of David Zizmor. The authors thank many CPUC staff and UCB
colleagues for helpful discussions, but retain responsibility for any errors or omissions. The views expressed in this
paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC), California State agencies, or San Louis Obispo County public agencies. CPUC does not
guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of
their use." In other words, it's an independent study that does no reflect on anyone you're trying to put it on.
Good for you for being a fucking liar.
Re:I doubt it will pass (Score:4, Interesting)
True 'dat.
While I support the concept, wouldn't it be semantically better to replace "renewable" with "low-carbon"? I mean, it's not like fission is in any way renewable. It's a vast, low-carbon energy source but they're not making any more uranium. Well, not locally anyway, which is good because a nearby supernova would have net negative consequences.
I guess it doesn't matter. All the other renewable energy sources get the energy from somewhere. It may be the sun (in the case of solar, wind, hydro, or biofuels), core fission (in the case of geothermal), or rotational momentum (tidal).
Re: (Score:2)
Excuse me?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
https://energynews.us/2016/09/... [energynews.us]
Which relates to:
https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]
and this:
https://inis.iaea.org/collecti... [iaea.org]
Re:Nope (Score:5, Informative)
To simplify, heat flow is: Sun -> Earth -> Space.
Re:Nope (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:A danger I had not considered (Score:4, Insightful)
Solar energy is based on UV rays. UV rays cause Skin Cancer. Hence Solar Energy will cause cancer. We need to ban solar energy
Windmills cause noise pollution and kill birds. We need to ban wind energy
Dams flood ecosystems. We need to ban Hydro energy
Tidal plants block the migration of Sea Turtles. We need to ban Tidal energy
Geothermal plants will cause volcanic eruptions. The one in Hawaii happened near a Geothermal plant so it must have caused it
If all non fossil fuel energy sources were judged at the same level that Nuclear is judged all we would have is Coal and Natural Gas.
Nuclear works and we have already spent the money building the technology. Why shutdown perfectly working plants?
Re: (Score:2)
lol, anonymous 'geekoid' is OBVIOUSLY a nuclear power plant engineer... side splitting stuff there troll
Re: Nope (Score:2)
tl;dr - Heating the ocean with water that is too close to ambient temperature to extract mechanical energy is NOT a concern.
A nuclear power plant's primary operation is to create steam to turn turbines. As that energy is used the steam condenses back into water and you heat it again. Auxiliary cooling to keep the condensers working is not going to matter with the size of the ocean and relatively tiny energy in a nuclear reactor.
Re:Nope (Score:5, Informative)
"But we can't make a serious dent in slowing the warming trend in the world without investment in nuclear power."
False, and ignorant.
Nuclear warms the ocean, and the warmer the ocean gets, the less effective nuclear plants are.
Sorry: you're the one posting things that are false and ignorant.
Calculate the amount that a 10 GW nuclear plant will heat the ocean. Here's a start: 1.335 billion cubic kilometers of water.
You can't heat the oceans enough to measure.
Global warming isn't due to the direct heating of the climate by energy generated (or even by the waste heat from energy generated). It's due to the recapture of the infrared radiation, preventing it from leaving the Earth and radiating to space.
Re:Nope (Score:5, Funny)
Calculate the amount that a 10 GW nuclear plant will heat the ocean. Here's a start: 1.335 billion cubic kilometers of water.
What kind of measurement system are you using?! This is ./, use proper football fields! Must be new here.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you're both new here. If you want to measure something, it must be in Libraries of Congress.
Re: (Score:3)
Let's do some monster math (Score:5, Informative)
global electricity generation [wikipedia.org]is 26,614,800 GWh. That can also be expressed as 2.66148e+13 kWh.
Next, we need the heat capacity of water. I'm going to neglect the effect of the salinity, which may or may not matter a whole lot. Other factors like temperature and pressure come into play for this figure, so it gets complicated but we're looking for ballparks here so I'm going to use a conservative figure from these tables [engineeringtoolbox.com] of 0.001132 [kWh/(kg K)], based on reading the low figure from the 40C row, which is lower than the figures from lower temperatures. In other words, I'm already assuming the ocean is a bit hotter than human body temperature, just to make it easier for us to heat the ocean more.
Finally, we need to mass of the ocean in kg. As usual somebody else had done the work. [hypertextbook.com] and all their figures are on the order of 10^21 kg. We're going to round this down to 1, just to keep it simple and make it even easier to heat the oceans.
OK, now we're ready to dump the entire world's electricity output for a year into the oceans and see how much we raise the temperature of an already over-heated ocean:
First, divide the energy by the mass of the ocean to get the kWh/kg figure. That works out to 0.0000000266148 kWh/kg.
Now it boils down to (no pun intended) understanding that heat capacity is "the number of kWh needed to raise the temperature of 1kg of water 1K". So if we were putting 0.001132 kWh of energy into each kg, the ocean would go up 1K, but we're not. We're putting in far less, and the temperature rise is proportional. The energy in divided by heat capacity is roughly 2.35113e-5, so there we are.
We'd raise the temperature of the ocean less than 3e-5K by dedicating the entire world's electricity output to ocean heating. This is a fancy way of saying, "we couldn't directly heat the ocean in any meaningful way, even if we tried".
Not sure if I made any mistakes, but I'm sure somebody will correct me if I did.
Re: (Score:2)
You really have no concept of the vastness of oceans. A billion gallons sure sounds like a big number but it's fucking nothing compared to to the overall volume of water in the ocean. Sure, nuclear makes an impact in such minuscule contexts but you bitching about nuclear's impact on global warming is like complaining about your neighbors use of a gas grill while the other neighbor operates a fully functioning coal power plant supplying power to multiple cities.
Humanity's collective urine has more impact.
Re: (Score:2)
a billion gallons a day per plant, times ten thousand plants (pretty sure that's an over estimate) is 10 trillion gallons a day - 1e13 gallons. Which is about 38 cubic kilometers, so it would take 35 million days (aka 96 thousand years) to finish heating all that water by 20 degrees. On average, in a century, those 10k plants (which again, mostly don't really exist) could do 0.02 degrees.
Certainly, poor planning around a plant can result in heating of smaller bodies of water by problematic amounts, but at t
Re: (Score:2)
A typical PWR power plant has the hot part at around 580K. If we assume that the background ocean water is at 290K (17C) and goes up to 300K then the efficiency loss would be on the order: (580-290)/580 - (580 - 300)/580 ~= 0.017.
Drop in bucket (Score:5, Informative)
While a billion gallons a day heats up to 20 degree isn't much for a plant, it's a lot for all plants. Global warming is a bucket filled with drops.
Global warming isn't warming caused *directly* by human. We punny humans can't generate ourself enough energy for the planet to register.
Global warming is caused by another ginormous source of heat that continuously blasts the Earth: the Sun.
Before Global Warming, the Sun blasts the Earth surface with its crazy amount of energy, but a significant par of it bounces of away, back into space.
With Global Warming, suddenly a bigger fraction of this energy stays trapped thanks to the gases that we have releases in the atmosphere.
We've been digging carbon out of the ground and burning it and pumping green-houses gases into the atmosphere at a (literally) industrial scale for decades, releasing back carbon that was never been in the atmosphere during the current geological era (not since the Carboniferous).
Even if it is still small in absolute terms (we've reached 400ppm of CO2), that amount of greenhouse has proportionally increased a lot (we raised it from 280ppm to 400ppm), and that increase is enough to cause a greenhouse effect and cause more heat to stay trapped on earth and increase the global temperature.
To keep your metaphor of bucket:
- the warming directly caused by the nuclear power plants is like using a pipette to add a few drops of very hot water into the bucket. Yes theoretically, you're adding heat, but you probably won't even be able to measure an effect.
- global warming is like, well, building a *literal* green house around the bucket. One with very thin glass panels (we're adding an absolute amount of CO2 that isn't giant), but nonetheless a green house, which will cause the sun shine to heat the water significantly and maybe even accelerate the evaporation of the bucket and raise the humidity in the green house.
So again, Global Warming is not about US *adding our own heat* to the environment. Global warming is US fucking up the equilibrium of the heat coming from the sun due to dumping a non insignificant about of green-house gasses in the atmosphere.
Nuclear plants help a bit when compared to the coal burning plants used in some part of the world today because:
- even if they aren't renewable technically (they are still consuming fissil material like Uranium - they just happen to burn an absolute minuscule amount compared to coal in coal-plants, mostly due to E=mc^2)
- they are releasing nearly NO greenhouse gasses as part of their function (they are releasing fission products, and again due to the minuscule amount of fuel burned, these product are of tiny quantity).
So nuclear plants do not worsen the green house effect.
(In fact, due to the crazy amount of fossil (coal, etc.) that non-renewable plant need to burn, even if there's only traces amount of radioactivity in coal and other such non-renewable, in total non-renewable plant release nearly the same amount of radioactivity in their sooth than a nuclear plant).
Re: (Score:2)
Did someone say, "false and ignorant"?
Because that's what your post is.
Nuclear is in its technological infancy.
Re: (Score:2)
As a solution gor GW, THAT time has past.
Everything I posted is accurate.
Re: Nope (Score:2)
Lay off the dope for a while. You wouldnt recognise accurate if you tripped over it you clown.
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And for now, is as justifiable as recommending Ebola as a weight loss program.
Re: Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who laments Climate Change and at the same time dismisses Nuclear is unserious and merely talking to hear themselves talk.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Nuclear warms the ocean
And what about Gen IV reactor designs that don't use light water for cooling?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but of all the options available nuclear, in the long term, is still cheaper than solar or wind.
Wind and Solar CANNOT replace coal/oil/gas as baseline power without power storage technologies that DON'T EXIST.
Simply going solid Wind/Solar with enough capacity to cover the entire country, you're talking OVER TWENTY SEVEN TRILLION DOLLARS every 25-30 years.
Adding storage technology to that basically DOUBLES the cost. Not to mention the production capacity to actually CREATE that much storage simply doesn't exist.
With nuclear, you're talking a few hundred billion dollars every 50-100 years, with replacement costs being lower if we do on-site replacements.
And we're not simply dumping megatons of solar panel and wind turbine waste into landfills.
At worst, we have a few hundred tons of highly concentrated waste.
Sorry, but simply saying "Solar and wind!" doesn't solve the actual logistical problems.
So come on back when you're ready to talk actual, implementable solutions.
Re: Nuclear renewable? (Score:2)
Fusion is renewable, if only we had a practical reactor in operation.
Fission isn't renewable by really any definition. Practically we have centuries(?) before we can't get any more fissile material on Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Nuclear -- fission or fusion -- is not renewable.There's only so much nuclear fuel available on Earth. Lots perhaps, but it is finite. The Sun isn't making any more for us. (Of course the Sun is finite too, but that's a whole other discussion.)
Granted, nuclear energy has many environmental advantages over other energy sources (setting aside of course the serious waste-storage problem and the consequences from leaks a la Chernobyl) but it is not renewable.
Re: Nuclear renewable? (Score:4, Interesting)
If we define solar power as renewable then nuclear fission is renewable. If solar power will "only" last until the sun goes out, and we have enough fissile material on the planet to also last that long, then nuclear fission is renewable. There is an unfathomable amount of uranium dissolved in the seawater, and while it might take some work to get it the return on that work is quite large and "makes room" for more uranium to dissolve from the uranium in the bedrock as it erodes.
We will never run out of fissile material, there is just too much of it.
Re: Nuclear renewable? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You know Solar energy is basically nuclear energy. If you want to think on geological scales where uranium will be exhausted than solar will also be exhausted when the sun dies.
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Compared to nuclear waste that will be a problem for those born a hundred thousand years from now? Pull your head out.