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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Sorry, but I don't see any evidence that reprocessing would get any different of a reaction from the public over the current reaction various waste disposal plans get. People are afraid of atomic energy, and any moving of waste around to reprocessing facilities would run into the same stupid opposition that we see from green party types. Reprocessing involves a more serious proliferation risk, that's a fact. That fact is the connection to nuclear weapons in the public eye that nuclear power proponents try desperately to avoid. "Don't worry, this fuel cannot be used to make a weapon, the physics won't work" is an important PR phrase. Also, considering realistically how massive new legislation on reprocessing would have to be, I can't see any reason to waste political capital on that. Spend your time lobbying for zero cost loans for new plants, a new process for certifying designs, or something else meaningful instead.
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Nov 20, 2015 02:39
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Deteriorata posted:The fundamental problem with reprocessing was transporting the waste. Period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 What the gently caress more do they want on transportation safety?
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Nov 20, 2015 03:01
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Bolow posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 Teleportation.
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Nov 20, 2015 03:04
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Trabisnikof posted:Reprocessing involves a more serious proliferation risk, that's a fact. "Proliferation risk." Every single group that would have poo poo itself over Iran building a nuclear reactor in the 1970s is...standing there either doing nothing or actively participating while Iran builds a nuclear reactor. What a joke.
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Nov 20, 2015 03:05
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Phanatic posted:"Proliferation risk." Every single group that would have poo poo itself over Iran building a nuclear reactor in the 1970s is...standing there either doing nothing or actively participating while Iran builds a nuclear reactor. What a joke. Iran building a nuclear reactor in the 70s would start with a phone call to AMF. Er was your point that the US is the one that exported highly enriched uranium to Iran and Pakistan in the first place?
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Nov 20, 2015 03:18
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Bolow posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 What they wanted was no nuclear power anywhere. Transportation safety was simply a pretext, and arguing about it help spread the impression that nuclear power was unsafe. They wouldn't be complaining if there wasn't some validity to it, right? As with most political arguments, the real agenda is never the public one.
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Nov 20, 2015 03:21
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CommieGIR posted:But they generally don't get recycled. Little phone batteries, sure, but no way gigantic commercial- or even housing-grade batteries that have gigantic recycling deposits or just are worth a lot as recyclable scrap would just be tossed. Also maybe having a recycling deposit on phone batteries would be a good idea.
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Nov 20, 2015 03:58
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Sinestro posted:We have a stupid environmentalist problem and a need to get rid of our left over chemical weapons problem. Why can't we put this together? This is such a hosed-up thing to say. What exactly is wrong with you?
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Nov 20, 2015 04:00
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Boten Anna posted:Little phone batteries, sure, but no way gigantic commercial- or even housing-grade batteries that have gigantic recycling deposits or just are worth a lot as recyclable scrap would just be tossed. Also maybe having a recycling deposit on phone batteries would be a good idea. A little goes a long way.
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Nov 20, 2015 04:16
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Phanatic posted:"Proliferation risk." Every single group that would have poo poo itself over Iran building a nuclear reactor in the 1970s is...standing there either doing nothing or actively participating while Iran builds a nuclear reactor. What a joke. I don't understand any part of your post. FIrst, are you implying that people were making GBS threads themselves over Iran's nuclear program more in the 70's than they are now? How does that work? The Iranian revolution was in 78-79. Prior to that, the US was relatively enthusiastic about nuclear power in Iran, with the US discussing the possibility of Iran buying an U.S. built reprocessing facility as late as 76! Such a thing is of course totally unthinkable now. The 1970's was the last time anyone would consider a closed fuel cycle for Iran without making GBS threads themselves. Second, you imply that Iran is building a nuclear reactor that would constitute a proliferation risk, with (implicitly) western help....which reactor is this? Existing Iranian nuclear plants are 1.) A 5 MW (!!!) research reactor in Tehran supplied to them by the US back in the 60's, that in no way constitutes a proliferation risk and which runs on HEU making it double useless for weapons work, 2.) A handful of also-useless tiny research reactors in Isfahan, 3.) A Russian built WWER pressurized light water reactor which is about the least proliferationey type of reactor possible, and finally 4.) A 40MW heavy water reactor in Arak that has not been commissioned yet. Of these, only the 40MW heavy water reactor could be considered a proliferation risk, and it isn't operational.The only plans for "new" reactors in Iran that I am aware of revolve around modifications of this facility to a LEU fueled, infrequently refueled design that would not constitute a proliferation risk. Finally and most importantly, Iran does not have, and has never had, any reprocessing capability. They are not anywhere near capable of having a closed fuel cycle, and have not even hinted and beginning the work necessary to remedy this. Also, in case you haven't noticed, Iran's nuclear program is arguably the most scrutinized in the world, and they have at least nominally agreed to the most stringent anti-proliferation regime ever devised. I'm really at a loss for how Iran can be used as an example of US anti-proliferation efforts being a "joke".
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Nov 20, 2015 05:04
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Morbus posted:... the US was relatively enthusiastic about nuclear power in Iran... 
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Nov 20, 2015 05:43
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Trabisnikof posted:Reprocessing involves a more serious proliferation risk, that's a fact. That fact is the connection to nuclear weapons in the public eye that nuclear power proponents try desperately to avoid. "Don't worry, this fuel cannot be used to make a weapon, the physics won't work" is an important PR phrase. Why are you arguing with me. That's what I said from the get go. Don't waste political capital fighting for reprocessing.
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Nov 20, 2015 06:45
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Reprocessing in the US has zero proliferation risk because no one is going to be able to steal plutonium out of the middle of the US.
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Nov 20, 2015 07:08
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Bolow posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 Man, how could they edit out the footage of the rocket boosters lighting off on that locomotive? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_JhruRobRI
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Nov 20, 2015 07:22
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-Troika- posted:Reprocessing in the US has zero proliferation risk because no one is going to be able to steal plutonium out of the middle of the US. But what if all guards decide to have a nap at the same time and terrists waltz in, steal plutonium  and waltz right through a border checkpoint with also-asleep guards? No risk is too small to be ignored after all.Effectronica posted:This is such a hosed-up thing to say. What exactly is wrong with you? says the person who tells anyone who disagrees to die in a fire 
suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 11:14
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:says the person who tells anyone who disagrees to die in a fire I agree with Effectronica. This thread's obsession with what fringe misguided environmentalist groups do is honestly pretty unhealthy. In the minds of many of the posters in this thread they are like the Illuminati behind the scenes in the US government pulling the strings to spoil the rapid expansion of nuclear power plants. It's frankly absurd and flies in the face of how the US government works.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:19
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silence_kit posted:I agree with Effectronica. This thread's obsession with what fringe misguided environmentalist groups do is honestly pretty unhealthy. In the minds of many of the posters in this thread they are like the Illuminati behind the scenes in the US government pulling the strings to spoil the rapid expansion of nuclear power plants. It's frankly absurd and flies in the face of how the US government works. Except Greenpeace really does do a lot of damage, they are generally pretty scientifically illiterate, and shape a lot of public energy policy through appeals to emotions. Yes, the chemical weapons post was in poor taste, but they really are a scummy group.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:21
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silence_kit posted:I agree with Effectronica. This thread's obsession with what fringe misguided environmentalist groups do is honestly pretty unhealthy. In the minds of many of the posters in this thread they are like the Illuminati behind the scenes in the US government pulling the strings to spoil the rapid expansion of nuclear power plants. It's frankly absurd and flies in the face of how the US government works. "How the US government works" is by following the path of least resistance, 99% of the time. When environmental activists are screaming bloody murder about stuff, the people in charge have to decide whether the issue in question is important enough to call out the riot police or not. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn't, and the expedient course is then to pacify them by finding another means to the desired end. So loud, obnoxious interest groups do tend to hold a disproportionate sway in how government policy proceeds, but not because they actually control individual decision-makers. The bureaucrats just want them to shut up and go away so they can get home for dinner.
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Nov 20, 2015 17:58
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Deteriorata posted:"How the US government works" is by following the path of least resistance, 99% of the time. When environmental activists are screaming bloody murder about stuff, the people in charge have to decide whether the issue in question is important enough to call out the riot police or not. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it isn't, and the expedient course is then to pacify them by finding another means to the desired end. If nuclear energy were actually the slam dunk technology that people in this thread claim (low cost, low risk, zero sociopolitical side effects), the US government wouldn't kowtow to a powerless advocacy group that few people care about. In reality, there are drawbacks to the technology that many people in this thread pretend don't exist. Instead they prefer to believe in some kind of environmentalist conspiracy preventing rapid buildout of the technology. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 18:33
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silence_kit posted:If nuclear energy were actually the slam dunk technology that people in this thread claim (low cost, low risk, zero sociopolitical side effects), the US government wouldn't kowtow to a powerless advocacy group that few people care about. In reality, there are major drawbacks to the technology that many people in this thread pretend don't exist. Instead they prefer to believe in some kind of environmentalist conspiracy preventing rapid buildout of the technology. I guess by this same logic, if coal was really so terrible then the US government would stop using it by now.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:36
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It really is a very promising energy source though, it's well understood, the fuel is quite readily available, it doesn't pollute anywhere like as much as conventional power sources, and the primary inhibiting factors are a lack of investment and irrational public fear. It's not a perfect energy source but I don't really see how it can be described as anything other than a very good improvement over what we currently use in terms of environmental factors, and arguably much better than the alternatives in terms of practicality. It's not more economical than coal in the short term because the entire planet runs on coal and there's massive amounts of infrastructure devoted to it. If nuclear power had that kind of inertia we'd be a lot better off, but it's never going to get that inertia as long as people are a) terrified of it because ignorant mouthy people like to portray it as satan's own power generation system. And b) if people don't get over the initial investment hurdle. Chucking money at large scale projects that people won't cough up for privately, yet which benefit the country in the long run, is exactly the thing governments exist for. Nuclear power should be a major priority for governmental investment and that it isn't is entirely a political issue. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 18:39
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computer parts posted:I guess by this same logic, if coal was really so terrible then the US government would stop using it by now. That's what makes blaming environmentalists such a loving joke. Environmentalists have been fighting coal for decades and yet we still burn coal. Environmentalists have been fighting mountain top removal tooth and nail, but that's not banned nationwide. Environmentalists have been up in arms about fracing, but that's not banned nationwide. OwlFancier posted:It really is a very promising energy source though, it's well understood, the fuel is quite readily available, it doesn't pollute anywhere like as much as conventional power sources, and the primary inhibiting factors are a lack of investment and irrational public fear. Of course, the reason there is a lack of investment is because building a nuclear plant is a huge expensive (financial) risk. Ask Crystal River or SONGS if they got their ROI. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 18:40
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silence_kit posted:If nuclear energy were actually the slam dunk technology that people in this thread claim (low cost, low risk, zero sociopolitical side effects), the US government wouldn't kowtow to a powerless advocacy group that few people care about. In reality, there are drawbacks to the technology that many people in this thread pretend don't exist. Instead they prefer to believe in some kind of environmentalist conspiracy preventing rapid buildout of the technology. computer parts posted:I guess by this same logic, if coal was really so terrible then the US government would stop using it by now. Note the bolded part. "If nuclear energy were so great then why don't I like it."
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Nov 20, 2015 18:43
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Nevvy Z posted:Note the bolded part. "If nuclear energy were so great then why don't I like it." Actually, it is things like the sociopolitical side effects that keep, say, WV pro-coal. But why pay attention to reality when we can cry borated tears into our drinks.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:46
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Trabisnikof posted:Of course, the reason there is a lack of investment is because building a nuclear plant is a huge expensive (financial) risk. Ask Crystal River or SONGS if they got their ROI. Like I said, that's why it's exactly the sort of thing that should be nationally financed. It may not be economically competitive right this moment but it is an arguably necessary long term infrastructure investment, as well as being something that should become more economically viable the more it is pursued, and as fossil fuels become more scarce/environmentally nonviable. But I know "government spending" is something American politicians hate, along with a depressing amount of the rest of the world as well.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:56
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Trabisnikof posted:Actually, it is things like the sociopolitical side effects that keep, say, WV pro-coal. I don't think it's fair to call that a drawback of the tech, which the quoted poster explicitly did. All progress has social cost and I do not weep for the lighters of gas lamps.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:57
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Nevvy Z posted:I don't think it's fair to call that a drawback of the tech, which the quoted poster explicitly did. All progress has social cost and I do not weep for the lighters of gas lamps. Eliminating coal mining will consign large regions of the country to complete poverty. That's something that needs to be dealt with. Just saying "Tough luck, suckers!" isn't going to win any points. Particularly when people will be able to point at it directly and say "Nuclear power did this." The social costs cannot be ignored. They must be mitigated for the policy to succeed.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:04
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Deteriorata posted:Eliminating coal mining will consign large regions of the country to complete poverty. That's something that needs to be dealt with. Just saying "Tough luck, suckers!" isn't going to win any points. Particularly when people will be able to point at it directly and say "Nuclear power did this." Uh, those areas are largely already in complete poverty, because you need a whole lot less workers for modern coal mining but very few people have managed to move away. Your argument would make a lot more sense if this was still 1950.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:24
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-Troika- posted:Reprocessing in the US has zero proliferation risk because no one is going to be able to steal plutonium out of the middle of the US. what about how israel actually did this
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Nov 20, 2015 19:26
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Also, the coal world is rapidly shifting in the US. The new Mercury rules are making Illinois coal and basically all non-powder river basin coal more cost effective because plants have to install scrubbers for the Mercury now. So plants are switching their contracts to closer mines, the massive mines near Gillette may be in trouble faster than expected. Meanwhile WV has no more unionized mines left. Oh yeah, and people are still trying to find coal terminals. Hopefully those
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Nov 20, 2015 19:32
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silence_kit posted:I agree with Effectronica. This thread's obsession with what fringe misguided environmentalist groups do is honestly pretty unhealthy. In the minds of many of the posters in this thread they are like the Illuminati behind the scenes in the US government pulling the strings to spoil the rapid expansion of nuclear power plants. It's frankly absurd and flies in the face of how the US government works. Why are you posting this hyperbole? I haven't read a single post in this thread that would imply Illuminati-like qualities to the environmentalist movement. silence_kit posted:If nuclear energy were actually the slam dunk technology that people in this thread claim (low cost, low risk, zero sociopolitical side effects), the US government wouldn't kowtow to a powerless advocacy group that few people care about. In reality, there are drawbacks to the technology that many people in this thread pretend don't exist. Instead they prefer to believe in some kind of environmentalist conspiracy preventing rapid buildout of the technology. Oh, maybe you weren't posting hyperbole and are just an idiot. Nuclear power is a slunk dunk technology from a science and engineering perspective, but the purse strings are held by politicians. Politicians seek to get reelected. Large government expenditures (putting up capital for new nuclear power plants) and nuclear power are both unpopular right now, so it's hard to find politicians that support government capital investment for nuclear power. It doesn't take an environmentalist conspiracy for that to be true, it just requires more people to be afraid of nuclear power than not (which is true) and for a political environment where new government spending is verboten (also true, thanks Tea Party!)
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Nov 20, 2015 20:15
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I really like the term Slunk Dunk. It's like past tense form.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:18
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OwlFancier posted:Like I said, that's why it's exactly the sort of thing that should be nationally financed. It may not be economically competitive right this moment but it is an arguably necessary long term infrastructure investment, as well as being something that should become more economically viable the more it is pursued, and as fossil fuels become more scarce/environmentally nonviable. It really shouldn't be that complicated. Just have the government (with its access to more or less zero interest rate borrowing) build plants wherever there is demand, and sell the electricity at cost or with slight margins. If private producers of energy can do it a lower cost, go for it. If not, too bad. No net government spending (because the energy is being sold), cheap energy, fighting global warming, and a retirement program for submarine engineers - what more could you ask for?
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Nov 20, 2015 20:21
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:It really shouldn't be that complicated. Just have the government (with its access to more or less zero interest rate borrowing) build plants wherever there is demand, and sell the electricity at cost or with slight margins. If private producers of energy can do it a lower cost, go for it. If not, too bad. It's not cheap and that's the problem.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:22
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Anosmoman posted:It's not cheap and that's the problem. It's mostly capital costs, which are exacerbated for private industry because of financing costs. The government can borrow money for (just about) free, and amortize those capital costs over the life of the plant.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:25
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QuarkJets posted:Nuclear power is a slunk dunk technology from a science and engineering perspective, but the purse strings are held by politicians. Politicians seek to get reelected. Large government expenditures (putting up capital for new nuclear power plants) and nuclear power are both unpopular right now, so it's hard to find politicians that support government capital investment for nuclear power. It doesn't take an environmentalist conspiracy for that to be true, it just requires more people to be afraid of nuclear power than not (which is true) and for a political environment where new government spending is verboten (also true, thanks Tea Party!) I think you're ignoring the fact that nuclear power may not make sense from an economic or social perspective, even taking externalities (e.g. climate, environment, communities) into account. We have the safest nuclear industry in the US because we asked a bunch of good engineers to make nuclear power safe. They loving did it. It is safe as gently caress, but at the cost of money and complexity. I'm not talking plant complexity, but process complexity. That process complexity adds uncertainty and cost as well. Look at the last few plants to shut down, they shut down because either they hosed up during an outage (Crystal River), their manufacturer hosed up and the replacement would take too long (SONGS), or they couldn't compete as a <1GW plant (Vermont Yankee). That's not political purse strings, that's a changing economic niche. Increasing the size of the US nuclear fleet is not such a clear slam dunk for vastly lower economic and social risk. (Once again, when I say risk, I'm not talking *~*Atomz*~* I'm talking "oops Mitsubishi hosed up, time to decommission the entire plant") AreWeDrunkYet posted:It's mostly capital costs, which are exacerbated for private industry because of financing costs. The government can borrow money for (just about) free, and amortize those capital costs over the life of the plant. O/M costs aren't too low. Fuel is cheap though. The real issue isn't the costs, its the capital risk. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 20:28
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Process costs for safety cannot be understated. My wife does work for Nuclear plants sometimes and safety is considered down to computers having their hardware and OS/Excel versions certified and tested to make sure there are no calculation errors. They don't gently caress around at all.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:37
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Trabisnikof posted:The real issue isn't the costs, its the capital risk. Which is represented by financing costs, something the government is able to circumvent entirely.
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Nov 20, 2015 22:16
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Which is represented by financing costs, something the government is able to circumvent entirely. You're correct, the U.S. Government would be able to eat the costs of shutting down a nuclear plant early without a problem. That doesn't magically make the plant an economically viable plant nor would it make the capital investment wasted by the early closure go away. It doesn't matter who the investor is if the risk from the project failing outweighs the marginal economical and social improvements. If the taxpayers had given SONGS new steam generators for free, it wouldn't have kept SDG&E from shuttering the plant.
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Nov 20, 2015 22:30
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Trabisnikof posted:You're correct, the U.S. Government would be able to eat the costs of shutting down a nuclear plant early without a problem. That's the thing though, private entities typically finance individual plants to limit the impact of a project going bust. So the risks of that individual plant failing have to be priced into the cost of capital, even the market cost of which would drop considerably if that risk was spread across the entire nuclear industry. The government backstop of a nationalized nuclear industry would certainly drop the costs further, and granted, that would effectively be shouldering the risk on taxpayers. That said, a broad expansion of nuclear power would just about eliminate the carbon footprint of US power generation - a nearly 40% drop in CO2 emissions. On top of that, all of the particulate pollution and other fun stuff spewed out by coal and gas plants would be replaced by waste sealed in casks and nice, clean steam. I would argue that those social benefits would far outweigh the cost of subsidizing the risk of a nationalized nuclear industry.
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Nov 20, 2015 23:01
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