this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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More people need to be made aware of information like this, so they can understand it's not all doom and gloom.
Yeah, definitely! Much of Lemmy seems to be rather cynical, so I really like places like !upliftingnews@lemmy.world and slrpnk.net.
Are also worth checking out.
Elsewhere the following sites are great for more positive content:
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ https://fixthenews.com/planet/ https://www.positive.news/ https://www.goodgoodgood.co/impact/environment
Every time I see news about renewable energy expanding, I don't feel uplifted because I know how much ewaste photovolatic cells create. We should be investing more heavily in nuclear fission and retrofitting those plants for fusion later.
This isn't a binary choice. We can do both, whilst we wait for governments to sort out nuclear or fusion. I'd prefer we do what we can to reduce our emissions via renewables now, rather than doing nothing whilst waiting for some potential solution in the future.
Also, ewaste from renewables can be recycled
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-023-02925-7
Why create exceptional amounts of trash when you don't need to? It's not a binary choice but it should be. It makes absolutely zero sense to waste so many resources when it can be focused into a solution that doesn't do that.
Yeah we can keep burning gas in cars or we could transition to EVs. Transitioning to solar and wind respectively is creating more electronic waste. That's the reason not to use it in the meantime. It's a different kind of pollutant but still a potent one. We're literally shipping garbage to third world countries.
Focus on the best solution, now, not a better solution and then figure it out later. Nuclear. Now.
OK, so whilst we wait the 7 years for the reactor to be built we should, what? hope that coal and gas stops polluting in the interim? Or should we continue to use the tech that, whilst not perfect, is better than the currently most widely used alternatives?
Nuclear is expensive, slow to deploy and has a inherent risk that renewables do not:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3
https://eu.boell.org/en/2021/04/26/7-reasons-why-nuclear-energy-not-answer-solve-climate-change
Plus the ewaste renewables produce can be recycled easily, cheaply and with far less risk than the waste for nuclear. Is the process perfect? No, so lets concentrate on improving the circular economy around recycling panels, turbines etc. Spend the money and effort on improving the tech that is already proven to be cheaper, more effective and ready now.
And seven years seems quite optimistic considering how effectively local governments and committees of concerned NIMBYS have been blocking any new nuclear construction for like, my entire lifetime, at least in the US. Apparently nobody wants a nuclear power plant going up near them and they find a lot of creative ways to jam up the works. I'm not sure we have the time to try to ram dozens of nuclear power plants through those folks while the world is burning.
Definitely. That 7 years was just the construction phase. All in the average nuclear plant takes about 14 years to build from planning to switch on.
Lmao no the fuck it doesn't. From start to finish the time to build has been set by Japan at 3 years. Stop fucking commenting on shit you don't even try to learn about.
Great, but unless you can get Japan to build every Nuclear reactor in the world, that's a meaningless statistic, isn't it? The average construction time for a PWR remains 7 years globally:
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/42/105/42105221.pdf?r=1&r=1
This doesn't account for planning etc etc so the actual time from pre project to switch on is closer to 11 years, which is admittedly 3 years less than my original figure:
https://www.iaea.org/publications/8759/project-management-in-nuclear-power-plant-construction-guidelines-and-experience
Also the fastest Nuclear power plant construction in the world is currently held by Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 NPP at 5.41 years, construction start to commercial operation:
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/020/30020307.pdf
That often quoted 3 years doesn't include inspections, testing etc.
"a meaningless statistic" goalposts? Gone.
The time to create nuclear plants is far lower than what you quoted, should have been started a decade ago, and we're still sitting here fucking debating whether we should start.
In the most respectful way I can manage, stop bitching about time to build and start now. Encourage the people in charge to do it, now. Stop kicking the can down the road so we can go "damn I guess renewables weren't enough, we should have made those plants a long time ago."
I'm hostile because I'm sick of the same attitude every year. "top expensive, too long, too unsafe" when it makes more power per dollar spent than any other method, is only a few years away even with inspections, and causes less deaths per GW/H including renewables and including the deaths/affected peoples from nuclear disasters.
There is no more room for debate. Nuclear is and has been the option for decades and anyone saying it isn't is just helping coal and oil. Full stop.
The average construction time is 7 years. I quoted the International Atomic Energy Agency. I think they know what they're talking about.
That's fine, I get you're passionate about nuclear and that's good, it's better to be passionate about that than coal or gas. But you're not going to 'encourage' anyone by hurling insults at them, are you?
Also, your data is out of date. The LCOE of Nuclear is getting more expensive, not less. Wind is now the cheapest:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
And solar now has the fewest deaths per unit of electricity:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Look, I get that nuclear probably has its place. But you need to understand that renewables are rapidly becoming the option for carbon emission reduction, and that the evidence supports this. They're doing this so quickly that by the time we start the process of constructing a NPP now, they will be even better by the time the plant goes into operation. Your point about how we should have started earlier is a valid one but, for a multitude of reasons, that isn't the world we live in. So why spend time and money trying to change the global attitude towards nuclear when we can spend the same time and money building an arguably better solution that is almost unanimously agreed to be more effective right now?
Reactors can be built in as little as 3 years, thanks for your outdated input.
Cool, but that's not how averages work, is it.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/712841/median-construction-time-for-reactors-since-1981/
Also the fastest Nuclear power plant construction in the world is currently held by Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 NPP at 5.41 years, construction start to commercial operation:
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/020/30020307.pdf
That often quoted 3 years doesn't include inspections, testing etc.
All I'm hearing is we should have started a decade ago and people are still giving bullshit reasons to not start right now. You're part of the problem my man.
You need to put this in perspective. Solar and wind waste streams are bigger than nuclear, but much, much smaller than coal and completely insignificant compared to regular old municipal waste.
If you switch from coal to solar right now you will save much more waste than waiting a decade for a nuclear plant to come online. Even if you start building the nuclear plant now, you will still save waste by building solar and throwing it in the trash once your nuclear is online. Anything to switch away from coal faster.
Retrofitting a nuclear fission plant for fusion? There's no way that's even remotely feasible, the two are radically different in construction.
They sound pretty similar. How hard can it be?
Just make the plant go in reverse.
Both make heat. Both need heat exchangers. Heat exchangers and the surrounding facility is the majority of the construction. I wish people would stop blabbering without knowing a thing on power production.
Go look at a video on ITER and see how hard that will be to fit inside a fission plant.
If ITER is a success they were planning to make a bigger one for commercial use.
So you make a seperate building to enclose it while keeping the multiple tons of pipes and concrete used for the fission heat exchanger. Listen, this is both above our heads but the general concepts are applicable. Make the sites now and worst case scenario we keep using fission. Oh no.
It's certainly above both our heads but I did nuclear physics at university and I'm not sure what you are talking about is possible. I'm happy to see something otherwise but my limited understanding makes me think it is entirely impossible.
Honestly that's pretty cool that you studied nuclear physics, I'm not sure if it's possible either but we still need the plants even if it isn't. My understanding of energy production, even with a 7 year or longer time frame, tells me we need these facilities three decades ago but right now works too.
Just to clarify I did a module on nuclear physics. I didn't get a full degree in nuclear physics.
The only difference is the core. The entire apparatus around it that converts heat into steam, those big ass funnels of concrete, are what take fucking years to build. It would still safe a ton of time if and when fusion becomes sustainable.
Highly optimistic. For one, the specific parameters of the core dictate the shape, size and configuration of all of the apparatus around it. You can't just slot in a different heat generator and call it good to go. Secondly, there's no guarantee that your future fusion reactor core even fits in the footprint of your fission plant. You have no idea what size and shape it will take.
Finally, your assertion is incorrect. Steam turbines, heat exchangers, and cooling towers are comparatively simple, low risk, and well understood parts of a nuclear reactor. The safety features, checks, design reviews, bureaucracy and permitting surrounding the core itself are what take the most time. Any part that could lead to radioactive containment breach.