The waste disposal is a solvable issue, that is still less nefarious than fossil fuel emissions. If you set the goal to replace ALL fossil fuel power generation, then nuclear is a necessary component of a renewable energy based grid. Geothermal and hydro are great and necessary, but can’t provide a reliable base load for the entire grid. Nuclear plants are complemental to renewables, not competition.
There are interesting documentations about this topic.
Basically, you need to plan 1000s of years into the future.
I’m not sure whether there is even one plan that worked for 1k years… I mean… Hitler tried it… He called it “1000-jähriges Reich”… It lasted a few years. Anyway…
How do you want to warn the humans that live here in 4k years about what is down there? They will speak a totally different language. Do you want to use signs? Where do you put them? You do you make sure, they last 1000s of years?
It’s actually not that easy.
In Germany, they tried to find an “Endlager” (a final storage place) for it, but all options have been classified as not good enough at a later point. Additionally, the people here go on the streets when you tell them that you store that stuff in their village or city.
You don’t need to plan “1000’s of years into the future.” Why does Nuclear require a multi-generational plan on a scale that no civilization has ever attained, but burning fossil fuels which will kill most of us within a few generations doesn’t? It’s a distraction, the solution to nuclear waste was solved in the 50’s and the reality is that dangerous nuclear waste is useful and should be recycled, and the low-order nuclear waste isn’t dangerous for anymore then a century at most, and even then it’s only if you consume it.
the solution to nuclear waste was solved in the 50’s and the reality is that dangerous nuclear waste is useful and should be recycled
We in Germany expect to have 10.500 tons of highly radioactive waste until 2080. And you are telling me that there is a solution already? Then why don’t the people with the solution just take the radioactive waste of Germany and recycle it?
Conclusion: There is no “ready-for-production”, permanent solution for this problem yet.
10.500 tons of highly radioactive waste until 2080
Ok, but in 2022 alone Germany emitted 746 000 000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. I’ll take the 10.500 of easily containable waste over 60 years, please. In fact, let’s do 5x that. Or even 10x.
It’s called nuclear reprocessing and it was banned as a compromise between the USSR and the USA because it can also be used to make weapons. The USSR is gone now, and any country that wants to do it is more then welcome to withdraw from the nuclear reprocessing treaty. They can do it unilaterally without any risk at all and that takes care of their existing and future high-order nuclear waste in one fell-swoop.
I think that depends on the definition of “solved”.
In Finland, the Onkalo repository is being steadily built out (honestly, there might already be waste stored there, I haven’t checked in on that story in a while. I know there was some delay due to COVID).
In the United States, there’s been a lot of the usual politicking about where to build something that doesn’t exactly sound appealing to have in one’s backyard. Nobody wants to be the senator who allowed the government to build a nuclear waste site in their state, no matter how safe the site actually is.
This has led to the unfortunate situation where by law, the EPA is only allowed to consider a site in Nevada (because the other sites were in states represented by the Speaker of the House and President pro Tempore of the Senate), but because Nevada became an important state for Obama to become president, the site couldn’t/wouldn’t actually be built there and has been on hold pretty much ever since. My armchair understanding is that the Nevada site is probably one of the better places in the United States that you could store nuclear waste, but politics has ensured it will not be put there for a long, long time.
What do you mean hasn’t been solved? Nuclear waste is being processed and stored constantly and with high safety. Not to mention reprocessing which could be done if not for being outlawed.
The only permanent storage for high level waste is currently being built in Finland, if I’m not mistaken. Germany thought they had found one, but they have to retrieve all waste because of leaks. Back to square one.
All we have up to now is temporary surface storage.
We forgot about the pyramides (4k years ago) and found some of them recently. There is research about how to warn future humans about the thread what turned out to be very difficult, because in 4k years, there have been multiple languages…
I would not call the status quo a permanent solution. Given the time it takes that stuff to not be dangerous anymore, we have got a temporary solution.
Also we didn’t forget about the pyramids. What does that even mean? People have lived right next to them since they were built.
There are more pyramids than just the 3 of Giza in Egypt… During the last 100 years, multiple pyramids (probably 100s) have been found that were forgotten by humanity. There are discoveries in China, Peru, Egypt, …
The pyramids weren’t buried 1km under the surface
Somehow ironic. Yes, the Tomb of Tutankhamun was not buried 1km under the surface. But it was discovered 3.250 years after it was build in 1922.
Anyway… There is Egyptology, which has the goal to find out what they have done 1000s of years ago, because we did/do not know that. We don’t know who some of the pharaohs are, some pharaohs that are mentioned haven’t even been found. He can read some of the writings, we can’t read all of them. Lots of knowledge was lost, and that’s what you need to realized when you are planning to store stuff for 1000s of years.
Yes there are archaeological sites which have been forgotten and rediscovered.
Nothing you’re saying is a strong argument about self sealing deep storage waste burial sites. I don’t think you realize just how little waste nuclear reactors produce, they’re not pyramids, they’re a few barrels across years.
Germany alone expects it to be 10.500 tons until 2080. And that’s only the “highly radioactive” part. That’s more than a few barrels. And there are more countries on this planet than just the one I’m from…
What do you prefer? A power plant where all the hazardous material it generates you throw out into the atmosphere, or one where you can capture all of it into a container and prevent it from going out into the environment?
Renewables plus storage are very well capable of reliable supply.
Don’t get me wrong, they are capable of a much larger percentage of supply than they currently provide, but to handle the predictable periods of peak demand on the grid, it would be incredibly inefficient to rely only on renewables plus storage. It’s not the most environmentally friendly solution for that.
Do you have an english translation for the link in the edit btw?
an institution as unsuspicious of being “too green” as it gets
Being too green is not the problem. The problem is not being green enough…
@Claidheamh
Nuclear is also very expensive. Bioenergy is the one I missed. That is far cheaper than nuclear and could be scaled up easily. I’m sure there will be a need for both the existing nuclear and indeed some fossil fuels for a while yet. But I think we should focus on getting our renewable energy resources in place in advance of building any new nuclear plants.
@Claidheamh straw too. Biofuels are in fact carbon neutral. But yes release CO2. Nuclear also produces CO2 mainly due to the mining, processing and transportation of the fuel. But far less than say coal or gas. The reality is that some new reactors are going to be built. But I believe the money would have been better invested in onshore wind.
That’s what their marketing would like you to believe. But they’re only carbon neutral if you take into account the carbon being sequestered by the growth of plants before they’re burned. By that measure they’re just as carbon neutral as coal.
Nuclear also produces CO2 mainly due to the mining, processing and transportation of the fuel.
That’s not nuclear that produces CO2, that’s mining, processing, and transportation. It’s transversal to anything you build, be it nuclear, bioenergy, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, anything. In the ideal conditions of your power being entirely carbon-free, then so is all of that.
By that measure they’re just as carbon neutral as coal.
Well no, because coal is deep deposits of carbon which have essentially left the carbon cycle. By digging it up and burning it we are adding carbon back which otherwise wasn’t already an issue. Biofuels by definition rely on the carbon currently in the carbon cycle so they do not have this issue.
Sure, but the carbon in coal was captured from the atmosphere by plants previously (that’s what I meant by “by that measure”). Let’s just leave the carbon where it is, whether coal or plants, and not burn any more of it back into the atmosphere, please.
I’m saying they are fundamentally different and it is 100% true in theory that biofuel is carbon neutral. The plants scrub co2 from the atmosphere, then release that biomass out. It is physically not capable of releasing more than it scrubs except for conversion of co2 to higher co2 equivalent GHG.
Coal and oil are talking carbon from reserves which are currently not causing GHG effects and moving that carbon out to the atmosphere.
Point is that’s just as big an “it” as the nuclear costs. Which, in a zero emissions world, is a very small “it”. I’m not arguing against renewables, I’m arguing against fossil fuels. We need to replace all of it ASAP, and realistically nuclear is the easiest, most reliable way to reach that goal. Just compare Germany and France’s emissions per capita, and then the distribution of their power source, and electricity costs.
ASAP? Take a look at planning and construction times of nuclear plants. Like Hinkley Point C in the UK for instance. Announced in 2010, generation now postponed to 2026, years behind schedule and billions over budget. And that’s on an already pre-existing nuclear site.
Cost? Estimated 100 GBP/MWh. The difference to market prices will probably be coughed up by the taxpayer.
Renewables are way faster to install, for a fraction of the cost.
They should have started sooner and with more plants. But it’s still much better for that nuclear plant be complete in 2030, than never. Delays and mismanagement aren’t unique to nuclear, and no excuse to stop from building it.
Renewables are way faster to install, for a fraction of the cost.
So why are we still using fossil fuels then? The best time to start building alternatives is yesterday. Second best time is now.
In that case you should be in favor of nuclear, as it’s the only real replacement we have for fossil fuels, no matter what Shell and BP will try to tell us.
The waste disposal is a solvable issue, that is still less nefarious than fossil fuel emissions. If you set the goal to replace ALL fossil fuel power generation, then nuclear is a necessary component of a renewable energy based grid. Geothermal and hydro are great and necessary, but can’t provide a reliable base load for the entire grid. Nuclear plants are complemental to renewables, not competition.
The story “there will be a solution for the waste” is actually pretty old. And there is none yet that solves this globally.
What’s the problem with how the waste is managed right now?
There are interesting documentations about this topic. Basically, you need to plan 1000s of years into the future. I’m not sure whether there is even one plan that worked for 1k years… I mean… Hitler tried it… He called it “1000-jähriges Reich”… It lasted a few years. Anyway…
How do you want to warn the humans that live here in 4k years about what is down there? They will speak a totally different language. Do you want to use signs? Where do you put them? You do you make sure, they last 1000s of years? It’s actually not that easy.
In Germany, they tried to find an “Endlager” (a final storage place) for it, but all options have been classified as not good enough at a later point. Additionally, the people here go on the streets when you tell them that you store that stuff in their village or city.
You don’t need to plan “1000’s of years into the future.” Why does Nuclear require a multi-generational plan on a scale that no civilization has ever attained, but burning fossil fuels which will kill most of us within a few generations doesn’t? It’s a distraction, the solution to nuclear waste was solved in the 50’s and the reality is that dangerous nuclear waste is useful and should be recycled, and the low-order nuclear waste isn’t dangerous for anymore then a century at most, and even then it’s only if you consume it.
Well, other people have different opinions.
It’s not me who brought up the question. There is an interesting article about it: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time
And also a wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
We in Germany expect to have 10.500 tons of highly radioactive waste until 2080. And you are telling me that there is a solution already? Then why don’t the people with the solution just take the radioactive waste of Germany and recycle it?
Conclusion: There is no “ready-for-production”, permanent solution for this problem yet.
Ok, but in 2022 alone Germany emitted 746 000 000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. I’ll take the 10.500 of easily containable waste over 60 years, please. In fact, let’s do 5x that. Or even 10x.
Yeah, cool that you want to maximize the nuclear waste, but Germany decided not to do that.
As much nuclear as necessary, as much renewavles as possible… That’s the way…
I don’t want maximise nuclear waste, I want to minimise carbon emissions.
Germany decided to minimise nuclear waste, and while doing that they’re having to fire up fossil fuel powerplants. Does that sound right to you?
It’s called nuclear reprocessing and it was banned as a compromise between the USSR and the USA because it can also be used to make weapons. The USSR is gone now, and any country that wants to do it is more then welcome to withdraw from the nuclear reprocessing treaty. They can do it unilaterally without any risk at all and that takes care of their existing and future high-order nuclear waste in one fell-swoop.
Strangely enough it hasn’t been solved in the almost 70 years of nuclear energy. And I doubt it will be solved in the next 70 years either.
I think that depends on the definition of “solved”.
In Finland, the Onkalo repository is being steadily built out (honestly, there might already be waste stored there, I haven’t checked in on that story in a while. I know there was some delay due to COVID).
In the United States, there’s been a lot of the usual politicking about where to build something that doesn’t exactly sound appealing to have in one’s backyard. Nobody wants to be the senator who allowed the government to build a nuclear waste site in their state, no matter how safe the site actually is.
This has led to the unfortunate situation where by law, the EPA is only allowed to consider a site in Nevada (because the other sites were in states represented by the Speaker of the House and President pro Tempore of the Senate), but because Nevada became an important state for Obama to become president, the site couldn’t/wouldn’t actually be built there and has been on hold pretty much ever since. My armchair understanding is that the Nevada site is probably one of the better places in the United States that you could store nuclear waste, but politics has ensured it will not be put there for a long, long time.
What do you mean hasn’t been solved? Nuclear waste is being processed and stored constantly and with high safety. Not to mention reprocessing which could be done if not for being outlawed.
The only permanent storage for high level waste is currently being built in Finland, if I’m not mistaken. Germany thought they had found one, but they have to retrieve all waste because of leaks. Back to square one.
All we have up to now is temporary surface storage.
There is deep salt vein storage here in the us actively being used as we speak.
We forgot about the pyramides (4k years ago) and found some of them recently. There is research about how to warn future humans about the thread what turned out to be very difficult, because in 4k years, there have been multiple languages…
I would not call the status quo a permanent solution. Given the time it takes that stuff to not be dangerous anymore, we have got a temporary solution.
The pyramids weren’t buried 1km under the surface in flowing salt which will further engulf the waste for geologic time scales.
Also we didn’t forget about the pyramids. What does that even mean? People have lived right next to them since they were built.
There are more pyramids than just the 3 of Giza in Egypt… During the last 100 years, multiple pyramids (probably 100s) have been found that were forgotten by humanity. There are discoveries in China, Peru, Egypt, …
Somehow ironic. Yes, the Tomb of Tutankhamun was not buried 1km under the surface. But it was discovered 3.250 years after it was build in 1922.
Anyway… There is Egyptology, which has the goal to find out what they have done 1000s of years ago, because we did/do not know that. We don’t know who some of the pharaohs are, some pharaohs that are mentioned haven’t even been found. He can read some of the writings, we can’t read all of them. Lots of knowledge was lost, and that’s what you need to realized when you are planning to store stuff for 1000s of years.
Yes there are archaeological sites which have been forgotten and rediscovered.
Nothing you’re saying is a strong argument about self sealing deep storage waste burial sites. I don’t think you realize just how little waste nuclear reactors produce, they’re not pyramids, they’re a few barrels across years.
I don’t think that you realize what can happen in thousands of years.
BTW, it’s not me who brought up the question. There is an interesting article about it: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time
And also a wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
Germany alone expects it to be 10.500 tons until 2080. And that’s only the “highly radioactive” part. That’s more than a few barrels. And there are more countries on this planet than just the one I’m from…
https://www.bge.de/de/abfaelle/aktueller-bestand/
I’m well aware of the hazards communication projects. Not really relevant to deep salt storage.
Thousands of years is nothing across geologic time scales.
Yeah 11 tons is literally nothing. That’s only 575 m^3 of uranium.
That’s a third by mass of the average single German households trash production across the same time period. And it’s more dense, so less volume.
What do you prefer? A power plant where all the hazardous material it generates you throw out into the atmosphere, or one where you can capture all of it into a container and prevent it from going out into the environment?
Neither. I don’t buy the assumption that they are necessary. Renewables plus storage are very well capable of reliable supply.
Edit: https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.821878.de/publikationen/wochenberichte/2021_29_1/100_prozent_erneuerbare_energien_fuer_deutschland__koordinierte_ausbauplanung_notwendig.html (in German, published by the German Institute for Economic Research, an institution as unsuspicious of being “too green” as it gets)
Don’t get me wrong, they are capable of a much larger percentage of supply than they currently provide, but to handle the predictable periods of peak demand on the grid, it would be incredibly inefficient to rely only on renewables plus storage. It’s not the most environmentally friendly solution for that.
Do you have an english translation for the link in the edit btw?
Being too green is not the problem. The problem is not being green enough…
Unfortunately, no. Most of the site lets you choose English, but for this specific article you’d need Google translate, or deepl, or whatever else.
It has, it’s just illegal to do in the US. France has been doing it since the 60s.
It was solved less then 10 years after nuclear power was discovered.
@Claidheamh
Nuclear is also very expensive. Bioenergy is the one I missed. That is far cheaper than nuclear and could be scaled up easily. I’m sure there will be a need for both the existing nuclear and indeed some fossil fuels for a while yet. But I think we should focus on getting our renewable energy resources in place in advance of building any new nuclear plants.
It may be expensive to build, but it’s much cheaper to run. Just compare France’s and Germany’s energy prices.
Bioenergy is just more emissions we really can’t afford to put into the atmosphere. It’s basically just a fancy name for “burning wood”.
@Claidheamh straw too. Biofuels are in fact carbon neutral. But yes release CO2. Nuclear also produces CO2 mainly due to the mining, processing and transportation of the fuel. But far less than say coal or gas. The reality is that some new reactors are going to be built. But I believe the money would have been better invested in onshore wind.
That’s what their marketing would like you to believe. But they’re only carbon neutral if you take into account the carbon being sequestered by the growth of plants before they’re burned. By that measure they’re just as carbon neutral as coal.
That’s not nuclear that produces CO2, that’s mining, processing, and transportation. It’s transversal to anything you build, be it nuclear, bioenergy, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, anything. In the ideal conditions of your power being entirely carbon-free, then so is all of that.
Well no, because coal is deep deposits of carbon which have essentially left the carbon cycle. By digging it up and burning it we are adding carbon back which otherwise wasn’t already an issue. Biofuels by definition rely on the carbon currently in the carbon cycle so they do not have this issue.
Sure, but the carbon in coal was captured from the atmosphere by plants previously (that’s what I meant by “by that measure”). Let’s just leave the carbon where it is, whether coal or plants, and not burn any more of it back into the atmosphere, please.
I’m saying they are fundamentally different and it is 100% true in theory that biofuel is carbon neutral. The plants scrub co2 from the atmosphere, then release that biomass out. It is physically not capable of releasing more than it scrubs except for conversion of co2 to higher co2 equivalent GHG.
Coal and oil are talking carbon from reserves which are currently not causing GHG effects and moving that carbon out to the atmosphere.
What’s the difference for the greenhouse effect between burning dead reserves or living reserves?
Wind, solar, geothermal etc. need constant mining of fuel?
They need one-time mining of construction material to build those things, and that’s it, for the next few decades.
Point is that’s just as big an “it” as the nuclear costs. Which, in a zero emissions world, is a very small “it”. I’m not arguing against renewables, I’m arguing against fossil fuels. We need to replace all of it ASAP, and realistically nuclear is the easiest, most reliable way to reach that goal. Just compare Germany and France’s emissions per capita, and then the distribution of their power source, and electricity costs.
ASAP? Take a look at planning and construction times of nuclear plants. Like Hinkley Point C in the UK for instance. Announced in 2010, generation now postponed to 2026, years behind schedule and billions over budget. And that’s on an already pre-existing nuclear site.
Cost? Estimated 100 GBP/MWh. The difference to market prices will probably be coughed up by the taxpayer.
Renewables are way faster to install, for a fraction of the cost.
They should have started sooner and with more plants. But it’s still much better for that nuclear plant be complete in 2030, than never. Delays and mismanagement aren’t unique to nuclear, and no excuse to stop from building it.
So why are we still using fossil fuels then? The best time to start building alternatives is yesterday. Second best time is now.
I don’t support any continued burning it fossil fuels. That’s what every previous generation said and look at the thermometer.
@lntl nor do I
In that case you should be in favor of nuclear, as it’s the only real replacement we have for fossil fuels, no matter what Shell and BP will try to tell us.