The Remarkable Progress of Renewable Energy

[James Brown]

I believe the underlying fear goes back to your 'rusty 44-gallon barrel leaking glow-in-the-dark goo' idea. Sure, those containers might have been adequately sealed a hundred years ago, or a thousand, but there's been wars and economic catastrophes and an asteroid strike that's now obliterated the landscape, and all around the world children are now being born with three heads, and will be forever and ever because no one knows how to clean up nuclear waste. Someday our great-great-great grandchildren will ask themselves, "Why in the world did they build so many nuclear power plants? Did they honestly expect us to clean up after them?"

Of course, another set of g-g-g grandkids will ask, "Why did they build so many fossil-fuel-burning power plants?" and for the same reason.

As for me, I'm hoping they'll say, "This nuclear waste is a problem we can deal with, but at least they stopped burning fossil fuels before it was too late for everyone."

 

[thebeave]

No, it is an ongoing problem. And will be a problem for those proposing to build lots of new reactors. The question to those persons will be, "And what do you propose to to with the inevitable nuclear waste?" The nuclear industry dosen't get its desert until it has eaten its vegetables. The nuclear waste problem won't just go away politically.

Watch this video. Its does a pretty good laymen's level job of explaining the nuclear waste "issue":

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

It is now time to start dealing with dealing with this waste disposal. Carefully, permanently, and with no more fuck ups. No more fires at Yucca Flats because somebody mixed nuclear waste with the wrong kind of kitty litter. Soothing claims these casks are not really a problem ain't a solution. No more pie in the sky schemes that are not being seriously implemented and never will.

 

[bilby]

It is now time to start dealing with dealing with this waste disposal.

Nope, that time was decades ago. And it happened. It's done. We have a solution that ensures complete containment of nuclear power plant waste indefinitely.

You have made it very clear that you don't like this. But not why you don't like it, or what actual problems exist with it other than your dislike.

Carefully, permanently, and with no more fuck ups. No more fires at Yucca Flats because somebody mixed nuclear waste with the wrong kind of kitty litter.

Yucca Flats has never been a part of the nuclear power industry, has never handled nuclear power waste, and has nothing to do whatsoever with nuclear power.

Do you oppose the use of cars, on the grounds that some soldiers died when they mishandled their ammunition and their tank exploded?

Military fuck ups with nuclear weapons and their waste products are not the responsibility of the nuclear power industry, anymore than the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is your personal responsibility, because you once drove across a state border.

There have been no fuckups with nuclear power plant waste. It's the only industrial waste in history that has that distinction.

But if there was a major fuck up tomorrow, what, exactly, do you think the consequences would be?

If, somehow, one of these steel and concrete casks were to split in half (I have no idea how that could be achieved, but let's assume for the sake of discussion that it did), what happens next?

Does the spent fuel go on a rampage, tear through the perimeter fence of the power plant, and stampede into the nearest town, raping women and eating babies?

Or do the power plant workers see the damage during one of their routine inspections, and use the remote handling gear that they already have on site to remove the spent fuel from the damaged cask, and place it in a new cask, without anyone getting hurt, before launching a massive and detailed investigation into exactly what happened and how to prevent it from happening again?

Or something else? How many deaths and injuries would you anticipate, and how would these arise? What environmental damage would occur, and how widespread would it be?

Most importantly, how could such a hypothetical event possibly approach anywhere close to the deaths, injuries, and environmental harm that are caused by other electricity generation technologies, not due to unlikely or rare accidents, but as a matter of normal, routine, business as usual operations?

Soothing claims these casks are not really a problem ain't a solution.

Indeed they aren't. They're a desperate plea for you to tell us what problem(s) you think there are!

Of you think these casks are really a problem, then you can tell us why.

Why won't you tell us why???

No more pie in the sky schemes that are not being seriously implemented and never will.

I agree. There's absolutely no reason for any of these money and time wasting schemes; We already have a complete solution for waste management.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I believe the underlying fear goes back to your 'rusty 44-gallon barrel leaking glow-in-the-dark goo' idea. Sure, those containers might have been adequately sealed a hundred years ago, or a thousand, but there's been wars and economic catastrophes and an asteroid strike that's now obliterated the landscape, and all around the world children are now being born with three heads, and will be forever and ever because no one knows how to clean up nuclear waste. Someday our great-great-great grandchildren will ask themselves, "Why in the world did they build so many nuclear power plants? Did they honestly expect us to clean up after them?"

Of course, another set of g-g-g grandkids will ask, "Why did they build so many fossil-fuel-burning power plants?" and for the same reason.

As for me, I'm hoping they'll say, "This nuclear waste is a problem we can deal with, but at least they stopped burning fossil fuels before it was too late for everyone."

If civilization remains we will understand how to deal with it. If civilization is gone the radiation will be the least of the threats. In either case we simply do not need to prepare for collapse.

 

[bilby]

If civilization remains we will continue to understand how to deal with it.

FTFY

Knowing how to deal with it isn't a future state of affairs; It's the current reality.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It is now time to start dealing with dealing with this waste disposal. Carefully, permanently, and with no more fuck ups. No more fires at Yucca Flats because somebody mixed nuclear waste with the wrong kind of kitty litter. Soothing claims these casks are not really a problem ain't a solution. No more pie in the sky schemes that are not being seriously implemented and never will.

Nothing big has no fuckups. All other sources of power have more fuckups than sanely-measured nuclear. (I am counting Fukushima--there was no need of an evacuation, the death toll should have been zero. I'm not going to blame nuclear for the bonkers actions of the politicians. I am not counting Chernobyl because that would never happen in any place with a sane regulatory system--the control room people knew how fucked up their orders were but under the Soviet system they had no recourse.)

Look at that chart that's been presented. We see nuclear deaths specifically because they're so rare. We generally don't see the deaths from fossil fuels because they're so routine they're not news.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

More excuses for doing nothing better for disposal of nuclear waste permanently.

Why not do the right thing? We have large deposits of toxic coal ash with no plans to deal with that. Toxic brown fields that in recent years, remediation and clean up efforts have stopped. And more. There is always excuses for failures to solve pollution problems. And that is a problem.

The EPA has responsibility to get browfild sites cleaned. Trump budgets demanded 26% percent cuts to the EPA budget. Radical GOP clowns in Congress want to eliminate EPA all together. Only recently has the Biden administration managed to reinstate the oil and petroleum excise taxes to fund brown field cleanups. Outraging extremist GOP politicians. It is not just nuclear waste problems we have to fight.

 

[bilby]

More excuses for doing nothing better for disposal of nuclear waste permanently.

What excuses??

How could what's currently done be better?

Why do you think it's not good enough? What harm might be expected from current practice, and why should we expect it?

Why not do the right thing?

The right thing is to build lots of nuclear power plants, as soon as possible. So my question for you, is, and remains, why not do the right thing?

You STILL haven't said why nuclear waste, as currently handled, is bad.

We have large deposits of toxic coal ash with no plans to deal with that. Toxic brown fields that in recent years, remediation and clean up efforts have stopped. And more. There is always excuses for failures to solve pollution problems. And that is a problem

To which your opposition to nuclear power is contributing.

The EPA has responsibility to get browfild sites cleaned. Trump budgets demanded 26% percent cuts to the EPA budget. Radical GOP clowns in Congress want to eliminate EPA all together. Only recently has the Biden administration managed to reinstate the oil and petroleum excise taxes to fund brown field cleanups. Outraging extremist GOP politicians. It is not just nuclear waste problems we have to fight.

It's not even nuclear waste problems we have to fight. Indeed, you STILL haven't specified a single problem with nuclear waste that we might need to fight. Why not?

All these other things would be easier to solve if we could just use nuclear power to generate the clean energy needed to do the work.

You are standing in the way of something that could significantly contribute to repairing the damage done to the environment, and even more importantly significantly reduce the damage still being wreaked by coal and gas burning.

And you can't even articulate WHY.

What is the problem with nuclear waste?

What harm is it doing, or going to do??

You demand that "something" be done; Asking you what you actually mean by "something" is not "making excuses for doing nothing better"; It's an essential request that YOU must fulfil before it's even possible for anyone to do the "something" you claim to want.

You want less coal ash pollution? Me too.

You want lower, or better still, zero, carbon emissions? Me too.

You want extremist GOP politicians out of office? Me too.

You want existing brownfield sites cleaned up? Me too.

You want to see an end to the petroleum, oil, gas, and coal industries? Me too.

You don't want nuclear power, despite it being an excellent opportunity to get a large fraction of the things we both want? WHY NOT????

 

[Elixir]

You don't want nuclear power, despite it being an excellent opportunity to get a large fraction of the things we both want? WHY NOT????

Invisible things that can kill you are far far scarier than things like coal ash that you can see.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Everybody with a brain wants the coal ash problem dealt with also. And stop making more. Some GOP politicians. "Eliminate the EPA! Freedumb!"

 

[bilby]

Everybody with a brain wants the coal ash problem dealt with also. And stop making more. Some GOP politicians. "Eliminate the EPA! Freedumb!"

Yeah, that's crazy. But your Republican Party have had crazy environmental policies for pretty much as long as any of us have been alive, and idiots keep voting them in. Reagan was bad enough, but since then they've been on a suicidal downhill trajectory.

Still, dealing with coal ash and/or crazy Republicans is a whole new challenge; Are we to assume, from your attempt to steer conversation away from a discussion of "the nuclear waste problem", that you now accept that nuclear power plant waste, as currently managed, is not a problem?

Or have you decided that your irrational belief, that it is a problem, cannot be defended in an environment of facts, logic, and reason, and so changed the subject in order to reduce the cognitive dissonance that arises from believing something that you know ain't so?

I understand that accepting that something you have firmly believed and strongly argued for, perhaps for decades, is not in fact true, can be hugely difficult; It feels like the arguments that demonstrate your prior beliefs to be wrong are an attack on you, personally. It feels like you're being asked to cut off a limb; And worse, that you will be humiliated by those you previously lobbied to believe in nonsense, many of whom are family or the closest of friends.

But this is a rationalist discussion board; applauding people for, and supporting people in, discarding irrational beliefs, is what we do here.

 

[bilby]

You don't want nuclear power, despite it being an excellent opportunity to get a large fraction of the things we both want? WHY NOT????

Invisible things that can kill you are far far scarier than things like coal ash that you can see.

But not more dangerous.

Being scared is a perfectly normal emotion, but as a basis for policy, it's disastrous. Indeed, it's the bedrock of conservatism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

More excuses for doing nothing better for disposal of nuclear waste permanently.

Why not do the right thing? We have large deposits of toxic coal ash with no plans to deal with that. Toxic brown fields that in recent years, remediation and clean up efforts have stopped. And more. There is always excuses for failures to solve pollution problems. And that is a problem.

The EPA has responsibility to get browfild sites cleaned. Trump budgets demanded 26% percent cuts to the EPA budget. Radical GOP clowns in Congress want to eliminate EPA all together. Only recently has the Biden administration managed to reinstate the oil and petroleum excise taxes to fund brown field cleanups. Outraging extremist GOP politicians. It is not just nuclear waste problems we have to fight.

1) Do what? We are satisfied with the dry cask approach currently being used. We see nothing to advocate for until people can get over their fear of reprocessing.

2) This is a situation where a choice must be made--all other sources of power are worse. Much worse. (The only things within an order of magnitude can't realistically power the grid.) The non-choice would be no power which would make even coal look great by comparison.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Everybody with a brain wants the coal ash problem dealt with also. And stop making more. Some GOP politicians. "Eliminate the EPA! Freedumb!"

Yup, basic GOP philosophy these days is to shoot the messenger. It's the message that matters, not the reality. Quit testing and it will go away was simply saying it out loud.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There are many projects underway to find cheap ways to store renewable energy other than using natural gas. It is a matter of engineering. Financing.

Physics doesn't allow it. It forbids it.

There are a large number of projects for industrial sized batteries not based on lithium.

Industrial sized batteries? Please, think about it. Ignoring the issues of redundancy, how small can you squeeze a power plant into? That is what you are asking for. Lead, Lithium... it doesn't matter unless we are talking something like matter / anti-matter (<--- not feasible on planet). The capacity to store power (not merely make it with more common elements) is a fixed limit. We already have an idea what that limit is.

Texas projects to use salt caverns to store hydrogen. Hot storage systems. And sooner or later, it is going to be accomplished. Here in South Texas it used to be we used lignite, brown coal, but that is all but dead. There is and has always been change underway in the energy sector technology. Most importantly. MONEY. Those companies that can find a way to do the deed make the money.

Look at plastic recycling. There is money out there to develop a viable method to recycle all plastics. It never happened. Been decades. Not possible. Some things aren't possible due to the conditions of nature and physics. There is a lot of money in developing a process to make water run uphill... that isn't going to happen.

We have nuclear today. Even if it did create too much waste, that problem would be much lesser than the issue of the planet warming. Intermittent sources of energy can not reliably provide us enough energy 24/7. Batteries are woefully incapable to store enough energy globally, especially when adding redundancy. I saw something on YouTube about pumped hydro, which works in some ways, but people who think we can just pump it don't realize that making fake lakes on a mountain is risky and dangerous, destroys more trees.

People are desperately looking for a solution when we already have it right in front of us. What we need to do is figure out Thorium, because Thorium would lead to much less waste.

 

[James Brown]

There are many ways to hammer nails without having to use a hammer. There are many ways to transfer graphite to paper without having to use a pencil. There are many ways to deliver beverages to our mouths without having to use a glass.

But why spend time and resources on them when we already have good tools for those functions already?

Perfect tools? No, of course not. Hammers find thumbs, pencils break, glasses tip over. But the alternatives are far more costly and won't necessarily do the job better.

 

[bilby]

The capacity to store power (not merely make it with more common elements) is a fixed limit. We already have an idea what that limit is.

To quote Dr McCoy, "It's worse than that, Jim".

The amount of matter required to store or generate electricity is limited by the energy density of the materials used, which is in turn limited by the fundamental forces that we are manipulating.

Wind* and hydroelectric power use gravity as their source of energy (or as a storage medium in the case of pumped hydro). Gravity is pathetic**, so huge volumes of material are needed; But gravity leaves that material effectively unchanged, so on the plus side, pollution is minimal. Nevertheless, it requires a LOT of air or water to make electricity from these technologies, and while both are pushed around by sunshine and are pretty abundant, this still implies a lot of concrete and steel, and often expensive high tech materials to capture and convert that energy.

Combustion, battery storage, and photovoltaic generation, use electromagnetism as their energy source; They move electrons between atoms to extract energy from those atoms. In PV systems, the electrons are stripped away from their host atoms by sunshine, and allowed to drop back into place; Sadly, sunlight isn't very energy dense, and doesn't happen at night, so you need a lot of fairly exotic materials to get not very much electricity. Chemical energy can be quite dense, but ultimately it's limited by the energy available in the electron shells of atoms, which sets a lower bound for the amount of matter required per unit of energy. This is why battery storage is incapable of ever working at grid scales - it requires a vast amount of whatever you make your batteries from, even if you can use the entire energy of all the electrons in the material (you can't even get close, though we are vastly better at it now than we were a few years ago; That improvement has a hard physical limit to it). Chemistry also changes the arrangement of the atoms, leading to the creation of new molecules that you then need to dispose of. And because the energy density is quite low, you get a LOT of these compounds, and managing them is a major challenge (which we historically "solve" by pretending it's not there and walking away with our hands in our pockets, whistling).

The Weak nuclear force is difficult to exploit. Some small power sources for little devices with specific needs (such as cardiac pacemakers) use it; And Radiothermal Generators have been used in remote locations (including space exploration) to good effect, but it's never been scaled up to national grid levels, and likely never will, as the materials used are scarce, expensive, and while they store a very large amount of energy, they release it rather too slowly to be really useful for bulk electricity generation.

This leaves the Strong nuclear force. Fusion power is about sixty years away, and always will be. It's sole major advantage over fission power is that it doesn't upset the neo-luddites, on the single and simple grounds that it doesn't exist. If someone developed a working and practical grid scale electricity generating fusion reactor tomorrow, doubtless the antis would suddenly discover that its components become radioactive in use, due to neutron bombardment, and would immediately declare that they must not be built "until there's a solution to the waste problem", a movable goalpost that is synonymous with "ever". So we're left with fission. It's the only way to make a lot of electricity, without using a lot of resources. And ultimately, that should be our objective, both for environmental and cost reasons.

If you want to make as much electricity as possible with as little environmental impact, and as little resource use, as possible (and I think we do), then fundamental physics says that you should look to nuclear energy; and the current state of our engineering abilities says that fusion is not coming yet in planet Earth, which leaves fission as the front runner.









*Wind power ultimately results from solar heating of the atmosphere which sets up convection currents in the air - it's gravity that makes the denser cold air fall, and thus makes the less dense warmer air rise. This rising and falling air then moves laterally due to the Coriolis effect as the planet rotates, and to a lesser extent due to the movement of the points of maximum and minimum solar heating (midday and midnight), also caused by the rotation of the planet.

**Gravity is so pathetic that the gravity of a 6x10²⁴kg planet can be overcome by the magnetic field produced by a 1g fridge magnet.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The idea of "wind storage" came to mind.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

More excuses for doing nothing better for disposal of nuclear waste permanently.

Why not do the right thing? We have large deposits of toxic coal ash with no plans to deal with that. Toxic brown fields that in recent years, remediation and clean up efforts have stopped. And more. There is always excuses for failures to solve pollution problems. And that is a problem.

The EPA has responsibility to get browfild sites cleaned. Trump budgets demanded 26% percent cuts to the EPA budget. Radical GOP clowns in Congress want to eliminate EPA all together. Only recently has the Biden administration managed to reinstate the oil and petroleum excise taxes to fund brown field cleanups. Outraging extremist GOP politicians. It is not just nuclear waste problems we have to fight.

I will note that the amount of coal ash is magnitudes larger than nuclear waste. We wouldn't need radiation proof levees to hold in massive pools of radioactive material.