Nuclear vs. Renewable: Drawbacks?

[darthvader5300]

And we Russians already have a commercial prototype already operational for years simultaneously producing electricity and using the waste heat to desalinate sea water into drinkable fresh water from the Caspian Sea. Not to mention other reactors, some of w/c are modified to function as breeder BREST reactors to produce additional Pu 239 from U 238 to power additional BREST reactors, both nuclear reactor breeders and nuclear reactor non-breeders to expand the power supply indefinitely.

[darthvader5300]

The Russian BREST nuclear reactor can be scaled up in size and uses lead as a coolant combined with passive natural convection and conduction and dissipation cooling system to naturally dissipate the heat without the need for pumps. Using plutonium nitride fuel rods it has an extremely high melting point and their spacing eliminates meltdowns and IT CAN CONSUME IT'S NUCLEAR WASTES, CREATES NEW NUCLEAR FUEL, RECYCLES IT'S NUCLEAR FUEL INDEFINITELY WT A BUILT-IN REPROCESSING FACILITY WT IT.

[thecurledfreckle]

Thanks for this! Helpful in my Nuclear vs. Renewable powerpoint.

[SteveAstronaut]

"Most of the costs are incurred in production (of a power station)" Try telling that to the former residents of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

[khatack]

@SteveAstronaut

Fukushima didn't really cause any environmental problems, and the accident at Chernobyl was caused by idiots who decided to try just how much heat they could generate with the reactor if they turned off the coolants. The fact is that we do need more nuclear power if we're to reduce the amount of carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

[bogusnachos]

There is a silver bullet, its called the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. It can power us for millions of years with the cheapest cleanest energy man has ever known.

[RiotTor]

@bogusnachos legit?



[bogusnachos]

@RiotTor I think so. I've been following energy issues since 1973 when I was 17 and had to wait in 3 hour gas lines. I've seen a lot of duds and interesting but impractical ideas. This one I think will work. First, the lftr reactor either eliminates or greatly reduces every problem with the light water reactors of today. A meltdown is impossible, wastes are less the 1/1000th, it is simple and safe and cheap - and we've already built one, back in the 60s.

[RiotTor]

@bogusnachos yea i looked it up and it does seem alot more promising than nuclear

[kayhaus1]

wow, 2 years after my previous comment! i suppose this discussion is coming up again due to the japan disasters. honestly, that whole situation has made me re-think some things. generally nuclear is so ridiculously expensive BECAUSE we're so conservative with accident prevention. it bothers me that the fukushima plants were not designed to withstand earthquake/tsunami events that had occurred within the last 100 years. in the case of yucca mtn, for instance, we consider far longer time periods.

[ynnebbenny]

Renewables are a make it once solution, with minimal waste and the need to never search for more energy supplies. Reactors have a dangerous useby date, they will continue to need fuel supplies. With renewables the coming generations dont have to worry about the waste I produced so I could watch my plasma in air conditioned comfort. If renewables cost 4 times the ammount and took up large amounts of desert, then they are still worth it for myself and forthcoming generations.

[diysolarpanels100]

Thanks for the good time.

[ph11p3540]

I do like a wide choice in power generation technology but the real issue is a more complex and advanced power grid. Fortunately power distributors are spending great sums of money just to do this.

[engbur]

haha...frye? frye?

[popcornfilms1]

finally someone with sense. someone who looks at both sides of the problem.

[captinseperoth]

how about replacing coal energy with atomic energy

coal actual produces far more radioactive material in fly ash than atomic energy in the form of fuel rods.

a person produces 70 tons of radioactive fly ash in a pure coal life vs a a metal pop can of atomic energy

we could also reprocess the atomic waste,or use thorium which has more supply and shorter half life than uranium.

you don't hear about fly ash due to powerful coal corp entities buying out gov

[vmelkon]

@captinseperoth The radiation in the environment will stay near NBR even if you are using coal. If a nuclear reactor leaks, it would be a disaster.

[captinseperoth]

@vmelkon

today,its impossible for a Chernobyl accident to happen.

but every thing these days have risks.....

Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill-Monday December 22, 2008

Martin County sludge spill-October 11, 2000

[HoOkEdOnBlEaCh]

@vmelkon No it wont. Read up the infamous Three Mile Island accident, notice how there wasnt ANY radiation outside of the reactor building itself? Chernobyl was because of horrific operator error, horrible reactor design, utterly stupid lack of a simple safety measure of a cotainment building, and the core was surrounded with GRAPHITE, which is pretty much carbon. And Carbon can burn. Which means the radioactives got carried up to the atmosphere and spread from there.

[vmelkon]

@HoOkEdOnBlEaCh yes, I suppose you are right. They have come a long way in terms of safety. Probably the reason why there isn't any accidents now.

[jordanreeseyre]

@vmelkon tell me how many people were killed due to the absolute worst nuclear disaster ever: cherobyl? thousands? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands?.... around 50. More people got sick over worrying about the "deadly radiation" and plaese work out how many are made sick or killed due to the coal industry.

[vmelkon]

@jordanreeseyre The coal industry? If people want to work in that field that is up to them. I don't know about those coal-slurry accidents. It didn't make international news even if they were big. Anyway, both coal and nuclear are dead ends. I wonder if people will use them until all natural sources are exhausted.

[jordanreeseyre]

@vmelkon well I agree with you there nuclear is certainly not a permanent solution but but still preferrable to fossil fuels. Hopefully all other power generation will be obsolete when we crack nuclear fusion in the next 20 years. I guess Im annoyed that the fear of nuclear power is far worse than the actual danger of nuclear power.

[Illumified]

Nuclear plants require much less space than wind as well. 4,500 MW about 421 square miles for wind farm, and with 2 reactors 3,200 MW about 1 square mile for a nuclear site.

[captinseperoth]

how about fusion, more money is spent on ring-tones yearly world wide than fusion research

. There have been countless fusion successful tests, but the problem is that right NOW,it takes more energy to sustain a fusion reaction....

[DancingBProductions]

to nuclear reactors can power one of the largest ships in the world (the ronald reagan) for 20 years!

[takinogawa424]

other drawbacks of nuclear.

1. Dealing with waste.

2. Building plants on faultlines - over 10% of nuclear powerstations are on active faultlines - nuts but true. Recent build in Niigata prefecture Japan. 26 fires in 12 months. Local fire brigade refused to come out again until authority cleaned it's act up. Search Kashiwazaki-Kariwa

3. Potential targets - you don't need nuclear missiles to make a nuclear disaster, just an adversarial government throwing a hissy fit.

[XPLAlN]

Thank you Kyle for a well made video. A good and accurate summary of the current facts.

[tavisho]

whats your major??

im working in a nuclear power facility in mexico........and my country is trying to reconsider the uclear energy by building a new reactor in our existing plant, and a bunch of new plants all over the country.

[dubistverrueckt]

@tavisho Best news I've heard about Mexico in a long time! I hope it happens!

[CHRIS1974100]

Nuclear energy can support a growing industrial society and population while all the second free energy cannot support it. Watch the video made by the Larouche youth movement about the fraud of free energy

[jeremyteh]

Well, German did it, with renewable energy......

[XPLAlN]

Incorrect. Germany still gets most of its power from fossil and nuclear. Renewables are still a very small proportion. As the tiniest bit of research would have revealed.

[boomerangcraig]

these scientist are hoplessly uneducated regardless of how instructed they might be !

[boomerangcraig]

the way to design a wind mill is to make a big hollow wing thats on a rotating pole the wing funnels wind in the same as venturies in a carburator and increases the speed of the air inwards toward smaller turbines very simple

[boomerangcraig]

these wind mills you are talking about went out with the square wheel there just big quasi bird killers

[WarOnWind]

Solar and wind don't even work! Wind does NOT add power to the gird. it fluctuates. Where are you going to get the power when it doesn't make power? Coal, oil, NUCLEAR, natural gas. It just puts power plants on standby, which wastes fuel. It takes 2-3 times for a coal power plant to come back online.

[DarkTemplarKain]

...there are more power plants than just wind power, there also are Waste-to-Energy, Geothermal, and about 16 more that i can think of.

[WarOnWind]

Wind and solar don't work.

[amethyst8teen]

True, there are lots of different methods of renewable power generation, but I think he focuses on wind because it currently produces the most energy as far as renewable energy goes.

[skyhawk33]

You should cite the sources for your numbers. It's give this presentaion some kind of credibility.

[CaptainFudges]

This discussion about price is generally retarded. You need 1600 acres of solar pannels for JUST 150 megawatts, and almost 4000 acres of wind turbines for the same 150megawatts. This is utterly idiotic. Clearly YOU CANNONT afford to waste so much terrain, and, even if you did, which is impossible, the maintenance would be huge. A modern 8 reactor powerplant can generate up to 10 GIGAwatts of power, and occupies just 10 acres. This discussion is utter crap.

[kayhaus1]

Precisely. Keep in mind we have >150 MW power on tiny submarines, just to even the comparison to the 1600 acres. As for cost, it's all about technology. All this stuff is horribly expensive now. And don't even try to claim that your square MILES of solar cells will not levy a huge bill. To make all this stuff affordable, we need smart folks to make big breakthroughs. Just look at the pentium processor. Show that to someone in the 70's and she'd be in awe. Where there's a will, there's a way.

[ynnebbenny]

@kayhaus1 Don't you guys have deserts?

[ynnebbenny]

@kayhaus1 Don't you guys have deserts? How much land space is used for mining and well as storage of the waste?

[ynnebbenny]

@CaptainFudges Don't you guys have deserts?

[ynnebbenny]

@CaptainFudges Don't you guys have deserts? How much land space is used for mining and well as storage of the waste?

[cole3454657]

@CaptainFudges seriously? i always knew wind and solar paled in comarison but not by that much, a U235 atom when undergone fission gives off 7.55 megawatts per nucleon, so 236 nucleons, per atom and 1 mol, which is roughly a fourth of a kilogram, so, 7.55 x 236 x avogardos number, = a ridiculous amount of energy for a fourth of a kilogram of U235

[piggy933]

@CaptainFudges have you considered that solar panel can be mount on rooftop?

[coolducky22]

@CaptainFudges Yeah just berry the nuclear waste under ground for future smarter generations to figure out.

[VoterHub]

@CaptainFudges That's a good argument, but I wouldn't dismiss the entire debate so quickly. Rooftop solar uses existing land and can recover costs over time for consumers and taxpayers that invest in it. The life cycle cost of solar has to become competitive enough to foster mass investment. I'm not saying it's definitive, but it's definitely worth further debate. I'd be happy to get your input for the nuclear article I'm writing at voterhub.ca ; message me if interested.

[milofonbil]

kuronekoyama,

It would seem to me that wind turbines could integrate very well with gas power plants that can be brought on line very quickly to produce energy when a diverse set of windmills all across a large state or region are not able to produce the electricity.

Storage could be handled using 1)Hydro kinetic 2)Compressed air 3)Vanadium Reflux 4)Hydrogen

[cuajonpr]

this video is bullshit, what about radiation leaks?? i don`t care if I have to pay more for eolic, solar, geo termal energy, at least they give a secure future, what about wars and terrorists atacks on nuclear plants? complete disaster

[FermentingMadness]

Did you watch the video before this?

[iceheart920]

you're exposed to more radiation from the sun and coal plants than you are from nuclear power plants; pull your head out of your ass kindly

[cuajonpr]

iceheart920 .. go fuck your self you piece of shit

[gkyy3c]

yeah, sun is a big eletromagnetic radiation emmiter, it's ionizing your atoms now :)

[milofonbil]

The drawbacks of Nuclear power are pretty clear:

1) Large capital investment. The loan guarantees are so expensive that it takes government subsidies to pay for them.

2) Uranium fuel in high enough ore grade is running out. Fuel is used once-through and technologies to reprocess are far too expensive.

3) Hazardous radioactive wastes produced throughout the fuel cycle. The waste issue is still not resolved.

4)

[nucflashevent]

Reprocessing is MORE THAN AFFORDABLE when you consider the cost of high grade Uranium ore.

The point we are all making (including yourself) is that the CURRENT state of the art probably isn't good enough to bet the farm on, granted.

BUT, the future (through reprocessing, breeder reactors, etc.) are MORE THAN enough to warrant continued investment.

We can more than see the light at the end of the tunnel, we're actually half in the light and half out.

[nucflashevent]

(Cont'd)

To be fair, the same could probably be sid of true renewables.

[milofonbil]

Today, it is still cheaper to produce low enriched uranium from new ore than to separate plutonium from previously irradiated fuel elements.

I would bet the farm on technologies that are getting cheaper rather than more expensive. Wind and solar are rapidly coming down in price. Nuclear is going up.

[nucflashevent]

I'm not talking about separating plutonium, I'm talking about recycling the Uranium.

90% of the ORIGINAL URANIUM is able to be recycled and used again. This is has been the backbone of the French Nuclear Industry for decades.

[milofonbil]

There is a difference between able and do. AREVA reprocesses spent fuel at its LaHague facility, producing both plutonium and uranium. France's nuclear program produces 1,250 tonnes of high-level waste. France has only capacity to re-processes 850 tonnes of that waste, yielding 810 tonnes of RepU. So far, they are only enriching 1/3 of the RepU to use in reactors. The process also produces 8.5 tonnes of plutonium, which they use to produce 100 tonnes of MOX.

[milofonbil]

(cont')France ran out of uranium in 2002 and must now import 10,527 tonnes u3o8 per year (2008). That's about 3,500 tonnes of uranium fuel after it has been enriched. And they're able to get 910 tonnes from refueling. That's at most 25%

[milofonbil]

* Refueling -> Reprocessing (oops)

[WOLFMAN1469]

uranuim reclaimation(recycling)is done by adding chemicals to the radioactive soup from around the reactor and is the same process as plutonium seperation. although i dont nessisarily think that ore minning is more economic as ore is found at 4-5 parts per million meaning larger mining scale and then must be refined a process in which coal is still used and yet more radioactive waste is produced and must be contained and stored.

[01PGEE]

@nucflashevent

Reprocessing plants around the world have exhibited poor records of waste containment, and security. For example, at the Hanford military plutonium reprocessing plant in Washington State, over a million gallons of high-level liquid waste has escaped from steel-and-concrete tanks into the soil. One gallon of this waste is enough to ruin an entire city's water supply.  In the US, large quantities of plutonium are missing and "unaccounted for"

[captinseperoth]

@01PGEE

build them where it's inhospitable to consider living for hundreds of miles,rip out the soil and line the vast area's with concrete.

I'm glad we all know some what about atomic energy,and none of us are uninformed folks who think atomic waste will make their dogs glow.

[01PGEE]

@captinseperoth As well informed as you are I am sure you have read the study confirming that no mammal has survived ingestion of only several micro grammes of plutonium, which has a half life of 24'000 years. I hope you are not suggesting that the spillage of this high level waste is not a major environmental disaster ? In the soil and or seeping in to ground water.

[captinseperoth]

@01PGEE

What would happen if

any of

arsenic, beryllium, boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, selenium, strontium, thallium, and vanadium, along with dioxins and PAH compounds

were ingested?

that's fly ash,and unlike anything radioactive,fly-ash is carelessly take care of in most cases,which revolve around making mountains of it in the open

AT LEAST 3 MAJOR accidents happened due to fly ash in USA alone,one happened in 08- 1.1 bill GAL

[01PGEE]

@captinseperoth Coal has got to go ....given. Nuclear is not the tidy solution you suggest. mining of uranium also produces mountains of tailing's waste. up to 1992, 63% of world production produced 1,681 million tonnes of processing residues. All of which have to be quarantined from the environment. (and our glowing dogs ; )

[captinseperoth]

@01PGEE

I wonder what is the case with thorium?

any ways,if the uranium is mined underground,just put the waste back where it came from.

Also, Nixion called for 1000 atomic power plants to be built by today, or more accurately the year 2000.

imagine the power from 1000 atomic power plants, let alone all from all of the solar,wind,hydro,and coal

--------------------------

also this is an off note, but we seriously got to stop over engineering our infrastructure,it's to costly when we do!

[11leonidas11]

@01PGEE But much of those tails are reprocessed into fluorine and depleted uranium for military rounds(ironic, being that it is at this point actually intended to kill people). And although it sounds like a lot, it doesn't take up much space given it's large atomic mass. But I agree, coal DOES have to go.

[jordanreeseyre]

@01PGEE and since the beggining of nuclear power excluding the obvious atomic bomb. Just how much plutonium has been leaked into the enviroment???

[hotFusionReaction]

Apprently you do not understand economics, but that is EXACTLY why supply ramps up.

That is why Oil is as high as it is right now. In the US at least, the price has begun to retreat as talk of drilling offshore has come to light.

It is a CLASSIC example of Supply ramping up to meet demand.

How much the price goes up (whether 10x or 100x) is immaterial. BTW, the Megatons to Megawatts program will probably be renewed, seeing how both the US and Russia are still disabling nuclear weapons.

[milofonbil]

What you are saying does not fit the facts. If mining could ramp up to support the demand, then the uranium price would not be 10 times what it was just a few years ago, it still would be at $7.00.

Although a considerable uranium reserve may remain, the discovery rate for uranium is decreasing exponentially with cumulative exploration. This is a sign that the supply is going to get tight in 2012. You have to discover the uranium in order to mine it.

[MegOMegOMegO]

University of Toronto is doing AWESOME work in solar nano technology.

Nuclear technology is better than coal, but we can't give up renewables!

Or when are we going to develop that lythium crystal Star Trek stuff?!?!? Can anyone get on that?

[kuronekoyama]

Indeed, we can't give up renewables. As energy storage technology improves in cost-effectiveness, I imagine we can eventually phase out all non-renewable energy sources. But for the moment, with rising energy demand that must be met on a large scale, we're pretty much faced with a choice of coal, natural gas, or nuclear, and nuclear is by far the best choice of those three.

[braino2000]

Very good presentation! Pro nuke people are constantly ridiculed as thinking its the only solution... It isn't. We just need to use more nuclear, more renewals, and less coal/oil/natural gas. And that's a bummer!! That sounds like a nice bike, my GT aluminum mountain bike (very expensive) got ran over by a reversing truck last year! haha.

[milofonbil]

What makes you say that? With the current growth rate, wind will supply more electricity than nukes in 10-12 years. The nuke industry won't finish building two new reactors by then. Wind is now far cheaper than nukes. It is a no-brainer to go with wind. Your IEA survey is old, wind turbines can run on lower speed wind now. No one installs wind turbines in unproductive locations.

Nuclear power requires water for cooling. This limits where nukes are located.

[hotFusionReaction]

There isn't a place in the world arid enough to restrict the building of a Nuclear Power Plant IF the demand for electricity warrants it.

If you think we can survive on Wind anywhere we choose, you're dreaming.

[milofonbil]

I don't think you could build a small nuclear plant in Timbuktu, Mali. You don't have enough water to cool it.

And you are right. There are places that have no wind. What is the point of this? Location does matter.

[hotFusionReaction]

Which is precisely why I said IF THE DEMAND WARRANTED IT.

I do not think Timbuktu has a demand for electricity that demands a much more than Diesel Generators.

Before you ask, you also couldn't build a Nuclear Plant in the SAHARA DESERT. Again also, there wouldn't be enough demand even if you could.

EVERY place where the population demand is high enough, however, you CAN build a Nuclear Power Plant. They recycle more water than they consume.

[BeondaPale]

lol - Just THINKING about EXPERIMENTS that bring matter & antimatter together makes me cringe- much less a power source.

[bastardchild17]

GO CANADA

[NorskeDivision]

Agreed!

Large scale solar power with energy storage will eventually be practical. But we can't wait around for that day, we need carbon free power right now!

[milofonbil]

Why wait? Large scale solar power with storage is happening now. Read-up about Solar-thermal. They have eight solar-thermal projects in the southwest. Why go nuclear as a standby?

[hotFusionReaction]

Because we know for a FACT that Nuclear Energy can do everything it says it can do.

We have no idea if Solar and Wind can be scaled to the massive sizes needed.

[01PGEE]

@hotFusionReaction BZE.com

[prashanth817]

Technically and perhaps logically, Nuclear energy is also considered as a renewable source. Nevertheless, we need to push ahead with Nuclear power.

[milofonbil]

Technically, nuclear power is not renewable. Never has been, never will be.

[hotFusionReaction]

I don't know why someone voted milofonbil down.

Nuclear isn't Renewable. It will last hundreds if not thousands of years with proper care taken with the supply of fissionable material, but it is not renewable.

Sometime in the future (probably after we start to colonize Alpha Centauri :)), it will begin to run out.

[milofonbil]

It's actually being consumed faster than it's being mined right now. The world consumes 70,000 tonnes annually. The world mines 36,000 tonnes annually. The difference is being made up by downblending nuclear weapons.

The estimated reserves are 2 million tonnes. If we mine the reserves at the current rate of 36,000t/yr, this would last us 55 yrs. One problem. The nuclear weapons run out in 2012. Once they are gone, we have to mine at 70,000t/yr or face shortages. We have about 30y left.

[prashanth817]

@milofinbil

My argument that Nuclear power is renewable:

You account the Uranium and perhaps Thorium on the Earth's land surfaces, but the largest reserves are in the oceans and it is economically viable to extract them. If you double the World's current energy demand and use it to calculate the lifespan of those reserves, it would last around 5 billion years.

5 billion is the remaining lifespan of the Sun and all renewable resources will only last as long. So in numbers, Nuclear is renewable.

[milofonbil]

Uranium and Thorium are NOT renewable. Uranium and Thorium are finite resources.

Uranium in ocean water is not a reserve. No one has ever recovered more than a few kilograms of uranium from the oceans. Their whole apparatus is not scalable. What I mean by this is that it is possible to get uranium oxide from the ocean, but the process cannot be scaled up to supply even one reactor. It takes 200 tons of uranium fuel to fuel-up a reactor. Do the math on the materials required to do this.

[prashanth817]

@milofonbil

If Uranium and Thorium are finite sources, so are solar and wind. when it comes to energy, renewable doesn't mean being used over and over again , but rather that there is a constant source which will last as long as the earth would.

The 200 tons(or 150 rather)you spoke of is for a year's operation. And when you say that only a few kilogram was extracted, it was always on an experimental case rather than industrial so it no point trying to justify your math with that.

[milofonbil]

I don't think you understand the meaning of renewable.

I guess the amount of uranium fuel depends on the size of the reactor. The US consumes 25,400 tonnes U3O8 per year now. At 103 reactors, that's 246 Tonnes per year.

The Japanese experiment has never been scaled-up to even provide a small fraction of their needs. The Japanese have been experimenting with sea water recovery since the late 80's. Since they have no uranium, if this really worked, would they not be on it?

[milofonbil]

(con't) The problem with uranium currently is that it's used once-through. The reprocessing plants that do exist can only recover a very small volume of uranium relative to the world's needs. Breeders can make plutonium out of the abundant U238. But they are limited by the small breeding rate they have achieved. The costs of reprocessing and breeding are so high that mining new uranium is cheaper. So with developing nations building new reactors, we will hit peak uranium in 25 yrs or so.

[prashanth817]

Maybe I don't understand your definition of 'renewable', please enlighten me and let me know why Nuclear isn't renewable, keeping in mind my earlier arguments.

As for a rebuttal against "Japanese experimenting since 1980's" I am not sure of when they started, but know that they have stepped up efforts recently. Also the price of Uranium was pretty cheap then and the idea of spending $400/kg was just not economically sensible when the market value was $10 or so. And keep in mind, ...... cont

[prashanth817]

cont...

that the cost of Uranium doesn't effect the cost of electricity as coal and oil. Capital and decommissioning costs are more significant.

I strongly support solar and wind, but having them as the primary energy sources needs a national grid and other infrastructure which could be unsightly and can harm the environment. I firmly believe that we can solve the hurdles of nuclear power with improved technology, but that comes only if we significantly increase the share of nuclear power.

[milofonbil]

Uranium does not affect the cost of electricity at $5 per kilo. At higher prices fuel *does* become a significant cost of producing electricity from nuclear power.

We have a national grid. It carries all the electricity made currently. If we are replacing coal, oil and gas, why do we need more of a grid? This is electric companies begging for a subsidy

The problem with solving the tons and tons of hurdles with nuclear power is that we've been working on it for 55 years and no major changes

[milofonbil]

Renewable: Natural resources that have the capacity to be naturally replenished despite being harvested. Eg. Solar, Wind, Hydro, Geothermal, Biowaste,... Uranium and Thorium do not naturally replenish themselves. They are both a finite mineral that is used up.

Uranium from seawater is a lab experiment at best. 200 tonnes per year requires 600,000 of their cages measuring 3 meters on a side. Where are they going to put them all? That's 6,000 kms of cages for one reactor.

[milofonbil]

Perhaps you voted me down because you can't stand hearing the truth.

The world needs 70,000 tonnes of uranium per year. The world mines 36,000 tonnes per year. The difference is being made up downblending nuclear weapons. They run out in 2012. There are 2 million tonnes of reserves. There are many new plants being built. They all consume uranium. The sad fact is that the world uses uranium once through and does not reprocess. There is 25 years left. Why don't you do the numbers?

[hotFusionReaction]

If you had bothered to park that chip on your shoulder for a second, you would have seen I was AGREEING with you, about not being renewable at least.

But, Nuclear Weapons aren't being downblended to make up the difference in Uranium mined, it is being done to simply get rid of them.

When they run out, mining will ramp back up to support demand.

There is still a LOT of Uranium in the ground. It's just waiting on higher prices to make it justifiable to mine it.

[milofonbil]

You know the problem with the waiting for high prices to make it economic to mine is that as uranium prices go up, the cost of mining goes up. Now that the price of uranium has gone up ten times in the last 5 years (and spiked even higher), the amount of uranium discovered and mined has really not gone up much at all. There is lots of uranium. However, the rate at which sufficiently high enough grade uranium can be mined is not there to support the world's growing number of reactors.

[kayhaus1]

@MegOMegOMegO In addition to my other comments, I think we need to focus more on the demand side. We need to re-examine how we live. A more responsible lifestyle with changes like...less time spent commuting, are not only more pleasant and enjoyable, but also reduce our insatiable demand for energy.

[BeondaPale]

You mention that solar is improving quickly.

It is indeed please check out the amazing, phenomenal article on large scale SOLAR ENERGY VIABILITY in the January 2008 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN!

Also have you also analyzed the viability of WAVE power which is not intermittent like wind?

[microfactory]

1. When a new nuclear power plant with a rating of 1.6 GW is shut down for whatever reason you need a reserve capacity of 1.6 GW even if capacitiy rating of the nuclear power plant was 99%.

2. As opposed to waterpower plants or biogas power plants, nuclear is not flexible or incredibly inefficient and costly if not run at its rated power level.

3. Nowadays energy storage lakes store inflexible nuclear energy every night in the future they store renewable power.

Get your facts straight.

[Bleezz]

Nice vid. i believe you ;) lol. Very well presented honest representation of the facts (glad to see waste was not one of your major issues :). Even though its not very practical now, I think solar has a much greater future potential than wind to produce intermittent renewable energy. Technologically, wind is at a stand still (there aren't many ways to improve a turbine), theres still plenty of research in solar. I say nuclear for now, stop the wind funding and get working on solar and fusion :).

[milofonbil]

Some of the negatives of Nuclear power that you failed to address are 1) The nuclear waste issue 2) The decommissioning issue 3) The fact that nuclear power stations must continue to operate when demand is low (such as at night) 4) the dangers of transporting spent fuel and 5) the risk of terrorism issue.

[milofonbil]

The parts you fail to mention for wind power is that windmills are grid connected. While the wind might stop in one part of a state, the wind does blow in others.

You scrubbed solar because you think it's not viable. Several solar deployments in California are providing electricity at 6 cents per kWh.

You don't mention geothermal although that technology is also viable in many of the western states.

[kuronekoyama]

Solar isn't totally non-viable, and I've pointed out in previous videos that I'm excited about new solar cell production techniques that are very low-cost and reliable. All I said in this video was that I was focusing on wind because it is the most viable of renewables.

The aggregate supply curve for a whole state's wind farms is very similar to the supply curve for a single farm, with slightly less variance. It's still very peaky.

[milofonbil]

As a matter of fact, costs of solar are falling below a dollar per watt and efficiencies are going beyond 40% now. Let's hope they can do both - bring up efficiencies and reduce costs.

Yes... it does have peaks. But there are viable storage technologies being brought on line to level the peaks: pump-storage and compressed-air energy storage.

[lwnf360]

Pump storage is impractical due to its poor efficacy and lack of associated infrastructure (you can't realistically build enough new dams). Wind and solar have very low operating capacities. They are inherently not reliable enough to provide base load power, or peak power for that matter--when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine, you get no power. Society cannot handle unpredictable blackouts.

[milofonbil]

I'm not sure I would use the word efficacy here. That's more related to the effectiveness of a drug. But I understand you. You can certainly pump water back up into dams that are already build. The operating capacity is really not an argument there is a big spread between minimum wind required to generate power and the peak that can be used.

[milofonbil]

(con't) What you are really saying is that the average amount of wind available is about 25% of the peak wind that most windmills can handle. I don't see it as an issue as long as planners know the difference between peak power out and the nominal amount of electricity they will produce. They know this well.

[milofonbil]

(con't) finally, what wind is available is very well known. There are many places that the wind is pretty continuous and predictable. This is all on wind maps you can find online. The wind blackout argument is not nearly what you claim it is. In many states, wind is already being used with much success.

[HiTekVagabond]

With the new 90 meter wind turbines (such as Vestas V90 5MW), and proper siting, the capacity factor is now at 45%. Keep in mind that nuclear power stations have a capacity factor in the high 80's.

The capacity factor 20% you quote is for wind turbines made 10 years ago. Also, the smart grid has for the most part solved the 20% limit you are referring to.

[milofonbil]

Take a close look at the Solar-Thermal projects being built in the US and other places. They are at near nuclear power plant sizes now.

tinyurl 6j8xal

[kuronekoyama]

And geothermal is great in the areas where it is viable, but that is completely dependent on the geography of the crust and mantle below. There has been some recent research into cheap ways to do surveying for geothermal power sources, but it's still in the preliminary stages. Until there's an easy and cheap way to find geothermal hot spots to place a plant there, wind is still the better overall choice.

[milofonbil]

Many of the "hotspots" have already been mapped out.  They are looking very closely here in Washington and Oregon at harvesting the geothermal power. geothermalDOTidDOTdoeDOTgov/ma­ps/wa.pdf

[lwnf360]

1) It is completely safe, and already fully paid for by the industry to construct and operate the Yucca Mountain waste repository. It is also completely safe and economical to reprocess the spent fuel to recover the +80% of usable fuel. This is why the utilities are not pushing very hard to open Yucca Mountain--they know the "waste" they have in storage on-site is too valuable to throw away.

[lwnf360]

Decommissioning, by law, is paid for by the industry and is factored into the cost of power production. The utility pays a per-kilowatt hour tax for both decommissioning and waste disposal. I have not ever heard of decommissioning as a serious argument against nuclear power (the waste issue is legitimate--though technically and economically addressable)

[milofonbil]

Decommissioning is much more expensive than previously expected. Trojan's decommissioning is 1 1/2 times the cost of construction for example (inflation adjusted).

[lwnf360]

3) This is a non-issue. There is continual demand, based on the load duration curve, of about 30-40%. This is power that is needed 24/7. This is called the "base load." Coal and nuclear plants fill this niche of the power generation industry. By the way, coal power plants are required to fire their boilers 24/7 in order to operate. Does this mean we should also be against coal power for this reason?

[milofonbil]

Nuclear and coal are able to very well deliver electricity to cover the base load. But both coal and nuke have problems with producing a surplus of energy when it's not needed. I think that selling the extra capacity for transportation. Electric cars can charge up at night when there is excess production.

[HiTekVagabond]

Also, advances in Geothermal energy can produce a stable baseload. Instead of having to have a nuclear furnace, the new dry rock geothermal plants use rock beds down 6 miles or so to produce steam to run a steam plant. It's a lot lower tech than a nuclear plant, and the fuel is free.

[lwnf360]

4) The transportation of spent fuel is no more dangerous than transporting other hazardous cargo. In fact, it is much safer than the transportation of many common industrial chemicals, fuels, and lubricants.  This is because of the high degree of safety-dedicated engineering which surrounds spent fuel.

[milofonbil]

I am very aware of Sandia Lab's work in this area. It's safeguards are proportional to the risks and cost to clean up a HLW disaster.

[lwnf360]

4.1) The shipping casks are specifically designed to withstand even the most worst-case scenarios--tanker trucks/rail cars carrying hazardous materials are not--which is why they make the news all the time. There has never been, in the 50 years of transporting nuclear waste in the US, a radiation release associated with shipping.

[milofonbil]

Yet

[lwnf360]

5.) The risk of terrorism is real--for every aspect of life. There is also a very real risk that a large asteroid could impact the planet tomorrow causing a mass-extinction. Does this mean that we should not have large office buildings, sporting events, oil refineries, and power plants? Of course not.

[milofonbil]

I think in fact that the terrorist threat has been largely overplayed in this country to shut off their thinking. We have largely been duped into fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq for example. But it's really not fair to change the subject here. We'll leave this can of worms alone.

[lwnf360]

5.1)The terrorist's goal is to cause the maximum disruption/casualties with minimum effort. The question to ask is: "will a large scale terrorist attack on a nuclear power station accomplish these goals?" The answer is clearly: no. The buildings which house radioactive materials are constructed in the same manner as bunkers--by law. (cont.)

[lwnf360]

5.2) Bunkers are penetrable, but it requires special, expensive, and difficult to deploy weapons to do so. The best terrorists could realistically do is use a commercial aircraft as a missile against a nuclear plant. This will be ineffective at penetrating the hardened buildings--although would cause massive damage to the other buildings and surely close the plant.

[lwnf360]

5.3) Aircraft fuselages are made of almost entirely aluminum--there simply isn't enough mass in an aircraft traveling at a lowly 700mph (in projectile terms) to penetrate 3 ft. of heavily reinforced concrete. The only massive elements of an aircraft are the steel cores to the jet engines (which are shaped similarly to hardened penetrator rounds used in tanks).

[lwnf360]

5.4)The question is: "will these engine parts penetrate that much concrete at the speeds a diving commercial aircraft can attain?" The answer again is no. This has been scientifically demonstrated by mathematical-physical modeling, AND by tests conducted by Sandia National labs--the video of an F-4 Phantom (which has particularly massive engines) impacting a reinforced concrete barrier are widely available. The concrete target was barely damaged on the surface let alone penetrated.

[lwnf360]

5.5) The next question is "are nuclear plants particularly vulnerable in other ways to terrorism?" and the answer, again, is no. Nuclear plants, in stark contrast to large sites in the petro-chemical industry (whose accidents have killed tens of thousands in the past 20 years) are required by law to have sizable paramilitary forces on guard at all times.

[lwnf360]

5.6) These are no mall cops--they are highly trained former military/police and heavily armed with assault rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, multiple perimeter towers, a plethora of electronic monitoring equipment, and double razor wire fences. Nuclear plants in the US are more secure than most prisons.

[lwnf360]

5.7) I feel that I have successfully demonstrated that nuclear plants are hardened targets. Why would a terrorist attack a nuclear plant when it has a high likelihood of failure? This is why they were not targeted on 9/11/01--there is a much higher degree of likelihood of sucess by attacking densely populated soft targets--such as large buildings, mass transit systems, and large sporting events. This is why that those are what the terrorists target.

[kuronekoyama]

(1), (2), (4), and (5) I have dealt with in previous videos. (3) is indeed an issue, which is why I say that nuclear is best at providing baseload power. It works partly into the scalability issue.

[powerhawk56]

I have to post, I love your vids. Also no it is not hard to believe that someone is not paid to be pro-nuclear. It really shows that you do your research. Its going to drive the anti-nuke people even more crazy that more and more of us college people do are research correctly! Hope you find your job.

[pixman83]

I never understand why people think nuclear OR renewables. I see no reason why they shouldn't both be done since they support each other so well. Personally I think that solar fits just as well as wind, but it can really be argued either way.

As long as things get better ASAP, then does it really matter how it is done?

[pixman83]

The first 6 minutes of the film were VERY well done. It was simple, focused, informative, and to the point. Good job! I saw only 2 things I would recommend you doing differently:

1. Show the stats as well so that people can see them and have time to analyze them.

2. Show your sources. That way other people can see where you are getting your data and won't say you are using numbers provided by the nuclear industry. ;)

The last 3 minutes of your film were hilarious. I loled long and hard. :D

[kuronekoyama]

The only reason I didn't add more text (including figures and sources) was that I was using Microsoft Movie Maker, which is very restrictive on text space available.

[pixman83]

Thats a good reason.

[DrBuzz0]

Very good and well balanced, although I do think the costs of nuclear were given as a bit high. The cost of a nuclear plant, as mentioned, are very front-loaded, but that can be thought of as something of an "Investment" because once built the nuclear plant provides lots of energy cheaply and for a theoretically unlimited lifespan. Yes, reactors do get decomissioned but there is no finite life to the plant as a whole.

[kuronekoyama]

Well, that's essentially what I said in the video--a nuke plant is only risky or expensive before it's built. Once it IS built, it's reliable and fairly cheap. The costs were all coming from the latest update of the IEA's "Projected Costs of Generating Electricity" which is a pretty reliable source.

[milofonbil]

The cost of decommissioning is also very significant. Many power companies have taken nukes off line, but only a few have actually been decommissioned. They have been working on decommissioning Trojan since 1992, almost as long as it was operational.

[thespyofcharles]

haha... great work! keep it up! lookin forward to the next one...

and for any doubters still out there... making competent, informative videos isn't the M.O. of lobbyists. they make stupid propoganda designed to scare u or confuse u cuz they expect ure stupid enough to believe something like "carbon... we call it life". they would be turning over a new leaf if they actually wanted to educate people about issues and make informed choices.

[kuronekoyama]

Oh god. I hated that commercial.

"Carbon dioxide.  They call it pollution. We call it life."

[1obamaman]

Still, while you are not spending your money on furniture and I can't prove you are bought and paid for by the nuclear energy industry, the very film you made screams that you are a shill for the industry.

I just don't believe that a non-industry representative would have the capacity to put that video together.

[kuronekoyama]

This film?

Seriously. Windows Movie Maker. It comes for free with all versions of Windows, like the Vista Business that I'm running. Which I get for free from my school, in fact.

The microphone I used is a clip-on I bought at Office Depot for like eight bucks. I don't even have a camera, that's why I needed to borrow my friend's.

[1obamaman]

It's the information and the well-organized lay-out that is more impressive than the aspects you've described.

Just my opinion. If anyone else out there agrees, maybe they'll speak up.

[kuronekoyama]

Thanks?

I still think you have a low opinion of college students in general if you find it hard to believe that one of us could make this. There are plenty of people in that Facebook group I mentioned who know a heck of a lot more than me. Colin Kingsley, Brian Kiedrowsky, Mike Edge, and Hans de Kulenauer come to mind.

I know the first two of those are students, I think Mike may be too.

[kuronekoyama]

And I mangled poor Hans' name.  De Keulenaer.

[kuronekoyama]

And I don't just mean about nukes. Colin and Brian are great with nuke stuff, Hans seems to know a lot about the renewables industry in general, and as far as I can tell Mike knows all there is to know about wind.

We have some... spirited discussions, in that group.

[1obamaman]

Well, you are a grad student who works as a teaching assistant, so you are not exactly a college student.

[1obamaman]

Well, you have a great cover story ready to go. I'm quite impressed. Even Valerie Plame would be proud. :)

OK, I'm convinced - reluctantly - that you are a student. Given that, you are definitely on the wrong professional course.

[mrraraibyouka]

lawl 1obamaman == ownzed

+ please give me back my camera ear sad.

[kuronekoyama]

Bitch bitch bitch. Drive over here and I will.