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I'm not 100% certain, but isn't nuclear waste usually corrosive? And doesn't the alpha/beta radiation typically end up with a corrosive effect, too? That doesn't make it impossible to deal with as far as I'm concerned, but it does seem like it needs more of a plan than "set in containers and roll out mission accomplished banner." Especially because San Onofre in the middle of the biggest metro area in the US.
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Sep 26, 2018 03:18
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm not 100% certain, but isn't nuclear waste usually corrosive? And doesn't the alpha/beta radiation typically end up with a corrosive effect, too? That doesn't make it impossible to deal with as far as I'm concerned, but it does seem like it needs more of a plan than "set in containers and roll out mission accomplished banner." no, read up on what nuclear waste is classified as and how it ain't simpson green goo edit: if you'all knew the everyday agricultural/industrial/petro chemical hazards being handled lackadaisically compared to the treatment of radiological hazards you might poo poo a brick. radiation is by comparison to chemical contamination so easy to measure that we can make a box and stick sensitive to it instead of having to find out exactly what to look for first. Grognan fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 04:50
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Grognan posted:no, read up on what nuclear waste is classified as and how it ain't simpson green goo The point isn't that ATOMS are scary, it sounds like they're chemical hazards as much as nuclear hazards, and also heavy metals. With the little footnote that if the nuclear chemicals spill, they're also radioactive.
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Sep 26, 2018 05:19
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yeah, but countering the spectre of layman's ephemeral knowledge is going to need some concrete info about what is being discussed instead of dreams of what may be. because we can literally shake a stick at it from a hundred yards and tell it failed or where it is would be a slam dunk suit and clean up says to be mr. videogamesvet might want to keep his expert opinions to cellphone games instead of radiological hazard assessment. like you don't even read some of the poo poo that people in the industry have talked about here on SA. nuclear waste is a huge broad category for anything that comes of out of anything related to radiological interactions, it has layers. "High-level" nuclear waste could be irradiated steel from fuel processing equipment with a radiological half-life of a year but they made the casks for forty just in case. it also has the magical quality of "what could it do" (we do know what it does, sorry you don't) instead of what we know happens with poo poo like coal fly ash, pig poo poo, and dry cleaners. ya'll got an air of woo about the possible hazards of nuclear because understanding half-life and what alpha and beta radiation actually do is literally beyond the news bite. ATOMS are scary as poo poo to you people but who likes acknowledging ignorance in favor of doubling down?
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Sep 26, 2018 05:39
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Holy poo poo dude, could you be a bit less of an obnoxious dickhole about this? Infinite Karma asked a legitimate question, educated himself, and still has some concerns about the matter – there's zero of that "ATOMS are scary as poo poo" attitude you accuse him of.
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Sep 26, 2018 05:52
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still literally inventing a spectre without actually having any material definition while asking me to explain it? not going to fishmech this poo poo, he's still talking a theoretical made up image in their head because no one is actually talking about an actual physical thing. people are discussing the ATOMS spectre of nuclear waste without getting into the specifics anywhere disposal of radiological poo poo been pretty locked up in the US so the only discussion has been in the infinite speculation of how the ATOMS could hurt us. we can even track how other countries do it better or worse Grognan fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Sep 26, 2018 |
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Sep 26, 2018 05:58
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Infinite Karma posted:it seems obvious that the storage won't last long enough without some extra precautions. It may "seem obvious" but waste has been stored that way for near on 70 years now, and it works. You really do just need to stuff it in a few layers of sealing and containment, then move it to a location it can be somewhat guarded against those who might deliberately break into it. Corrosion happens sure, corrosion happens to things all the time. It's a matter of using enough material to start with that it can outlast the particularly violently radioactive time as the high-radioactive material "burns out" as it were. Then you're left with merely taking care of some kinda poisonous debris, which landfills do with much less regard all the time. In fact most of what we put into nuclear waste storage is things that start out low level, like the clothes and computers and plain bulk shielding that were used near the reactor. It's often stuff that isn't dangerous unless you tried to hang out with it all the time for weeks at a time, but we don't want those risks so it just gets piled in with the same safety precautions as the rest.
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Sep 26, 2018 06:03
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GOD loving DAMNIT
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Sep 26, 2018 06:07
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I know I've said this before but it seems to me like a great place to store waste would be in those chemical weapons depots we've spent the last couple decades clearing out - waste of any sort is a hell of a lot less scary to monitor or deal with than loving nerve gas or blister agents.
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Sep 26, 2018 06:49
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I don't want to derail an actually interesting line of thought. Radioactive waste isn't just one thing, it's regulated in dumb ways because people are irrationally afraid, and it's not more dangerous than more common chemical toxic waste. The methods of containing it and storing it are adequate to the risk it presents. Got it. So SDG&E sabotaged their own nuclear plant so they could shut it down, and someone accused them of half-assing the decommissioning process. What should they be doing that they aren't?
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Sep 26, 2018 07:11
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Infinite Karma posted:So SDG&E sabotaged their own nuclear plant so they could shut it down, and someone accused them of half-assing the decommissioning process. What should they be doing that they aren't? Not exactly. They ordered replacement parts and when the parts arrived broken they installed them anyway and then couldn't afford to install new ones. Also SONGS would have eventually had to upgrade their cooling system, the cost of which is what shut down Diablo Canyon so its days were numbered anyway. As far as what they should do that they aren't? Well, even SDG&E agrees that we need a long-term solution that isn't storage on-site. As to specific actions, they can probably start by making sure this doesn't happen again: quote:The canister loaded by a crew from Holtec on Aug. 3 got wedged but the utility said an SCE oversight team discovered the canister was not sitting properly. The canister was then re-positioned correctly and placed at the bottom of the enclosure.
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Sep 26, 2018 07:17
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nuclear plants are basically anti market because they need management over generations and are not as shortable, horadeable, or profitable because of the other two things like petro plants
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Sep 26, 2018 08:21
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Grognan posted:still literally inventing a spectre without actually having any material definition while asking me to explain it? No he isn't. You keep trying to suggest that their concern is radioactivity when the poster made it very clear that that's not their concern. In other words, you're the one inventing that spectre and then trying to attribute it to him, and generally being a real shithead. Multiple people are telling you this now. Chill out a bit
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Sep 26, 2018 08:53
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm reading Wikipedia (and some of the source articles) and it says that a lot of the products are very corrosive... The practices make it sound like part of the storage and disposal strategy is removing all of the water (which also means almost all of the corrosivity) and keeping it impervious to water, because the chemicals are green goo if they mix with water. The leap that I'm taking as a layman is that if a little bit of water does get in there, it makes chemicals that will erode the storage media, which lets more water in, and then you end up with a full-on failure. Concrete and steel both are susceptible to that kind of erosion, it seems obvious that the storage won't last long enough without some extra precautions. If radioactive waste barrels other than ancient leftovers from like the Manhattan project before we knew how to build decent radioactive waste barrels are leaky to the point where water gets in and reacts with the content, they've already failed. The things are ridiculously overengineered, so much that "barrel" as in oil barrel is not really an adequate descriptor. If you see actual barrel-looking nuclear waste barrels they're low level waste, which is basically the contents of the nuclear power plant trash cans, very slightly contaminated maintenance worker tools and uniforms, concrete from demolished buildings that had nuclear material in them, etc. This stuff is usually barely contaminated to being above background radiation and therefore would be fine sitting in random tin cans as long as it isn't toxic/heavy metal waste that just happens to be also a little bit radioactive. Infinite Karma posted:And doesn't the alpha/beta radiation typically end up with a corrosive effect, too? Yeah but unless you have SUPER readioactive waste like spent fuel fresh out of the reactor (which typically gets put in a pool in an on-site bunker to literally cool off and let its radiation die down for a few years before being put it in waste barrels) it can be relatively easily dealt with. Alpha gets caught by a sheet of paper and beta can be stopped by a thin jacket of lead, so you can just put some shielding inside the barrel.
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Sep 26, 2018 11:18
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I know I've said this before but it seems to me like a great place to store waste would be in those chemical weapons depots we've spent the last couple decades clearing out - waste of any sort is a hell of a lot less scary to monitor or deal with than loving nerve gas or blister agents. Yucca Mountain would have been a great place to store waste, but, well. One problem here is that "radioactive waste" isn't a single blanket category. In the context of power plants, the stuff we're concerned with is high-level waste, the used fuel rods that are removed from the core that are very hot and full of fission fragments. Those are stored in cooling ponds until they cool off enough to be packed into dry cask storage. Which is almost a non-problem. Here's Palo Verde, the largest nuclear plant in the country. The first unit was commissioned 32 years ago. I've highlighted the dry casks which contain all the spent fuel this plant has produced in 3 decades of operation:  That stuff's not corrosive, it's a solid material. Now there is corrosive radioactive waste, but it's a byproduct of fuel reprocessing, which we don't do except insofar as nuclear weapons production, and it's basically nitric acid with a bunch of isotopes dissolved in it. But knowing how to safely store corrosive things like nitric acid is something we also have a pretty good handle on.
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Sep 26, 2018 13:01
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suck my woke dick posted:Putting fuel in intermediate storage isn't really a serious issue though. Spent fuel barrels aren't exactly going to spontaneously crack open even if they're attended to by idiots. There was an incident in the last few weeks when that almost happened: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-onofre-plant-20180812-story.html The contractor, Holtec International, was cited for the incident that occurred earlier this month when a canister got caught on an inner ring as it was being lowered into a Cavity Enclosure Container at a newly constructed “dry storage” facility on the site of the plant that is in the process of being decommissioned, Edison said in a statement last week. The transfers have been placed on hold. ... David Fritch said on Aug. 3 one of the canisters being lowered into the cavity enclosure “could have fallen 18 feet.”
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Sep 26, 2018 19:18
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look how insanely nitpicky you have to be to find a problem coal will kill another dozen babies today in their cribs from asthma
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Sep 26, 2018 19:26
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StabbinHobo posted:coal will kill another dozen babies today in their cribs from asthma Ok, but neither SONGS nor Diablo Canyon are going to be replaced by coal. DC isn't even going to be replaced by gas and SONGS was shut down due to them breaking the plant.
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Sep 26, 2018 19:38
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In other nuclear news, the owners of the Vogtle 3 & 4 plants are voting today to either continue the project or abandon it. The big fight is over who will pay if costs continue to ballon? https://www.myajc.com/news/local/nuclear-disagreements-aired-publicly-georgia-project-owners/8Du6Nj9DkUVTXdURycPNXM/ quote:UPDATE: Negotiations were slated to continue Wednesday, with a new deadline set for 5 p.m. “in order to finalize details of an agreement among the co-owners and seek necessary approvals,” according to a brief press release. Originally projected to cost $4.4B its now projected to cost $25B with no existing cost controls in place.
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Sep 26, 2018 19:58
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they basically found a software bug in modern capitalism. its not going to go away until we rewrite the code or give up on the feature.
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Sep 26, 2018 21:51
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The earlier comment about Manhattan Project leftovers being a huge bitch are true (Hanford site, some of the earlier storage tanks as the Savannah River Site), but we mostly have a lock on how to store radioactive waste since the 1960s or so. And the only reason why we are super worried about the Hanford site is that 1) they are single hull containers and 2) *nobody wrote down anything about the containers* which kinda shits on our remediation efforts. Since then it's kinda hum-drum.
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Sep 26, 2018 21:58
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VideoGameVet posted:There was an incident in the last few weeks when that almost happened: Well, nucular waste barrels are designed to survive a full on trainwreck so I doubt this was a serious safety issue by itself. It’s just that “lol we just drop the things who gives a poo poo” is generally an unacceptable standard of workmanship at a nuclear site.
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Sep 26, 2018 22:33
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suck my woke dick posted:Well, nucular waste barrels are designed to survive a full on trainwreck so I doubt this was a serious safety issue by itself. It’s just that “lol we just drop the things who gives a poo poo” is generally an unacceptable standard of workmanship at a nuclear site. 0.625" Stainless with less than a 40 year life, not the permanent stuff. San Onofre storage canisters may start leaking radiation into the environment as early as 2020, possibly sooner. The NRC reported a similar container at the Koeberg nuclear plant in South Africa failed after 17 years from chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC), triggered by corrosive salt in the marine environment. Koeberg is located in a similar corrosive marine environment as San Onofre: on-shore winds, surf and frequent fog. The Koeberg container crack depth was 0.61″. The San Onofre canisters are 0.625″ thick. The canisters at other California locations are even thinner (0.50″). There are over 2000 loaded canisters in the U.S. Most are 1/2″ (0.50″). San Onofre started loading canisters with spent fuel in 2003. If San Onofre canisters have experience similar to Koeberg, that means a canister at San Onofre would start releasing radiation into the environment as early as 2020.
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Sep 26, 2018 22:46
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Trabisnikof posted:Ok, but neither SONGS nor Diablo Canyon are going to be replaced by coal. DC isn't even going to be replaced by gas and SONGS was shut down due to them breaking the plant. Trabisnikof posted:Not exactly. They ordered replacement parts and when the parts arrived broken they installed them anyway and then couldn't afford to install new ones. Also SONGS would have eventually had to upgrade their cooling system, the cost of which is what shut down Diablo Canyon so its days were numbered anyway. Still, ultimately it is the responsibility of the SELLER and their deliverable... (You ultimately do not know until after the fact and by that point, money has changed hands...) Cannister storage on site is the current de-facto long term storage option. States do not want spent nuclear fuel cross lines. VideoGameVet posted:0.625" Stainless with less than a 40 year life, not the permanent stuff. I get the feeling there are probably significant differences between the cannister design between South Africa vs. San Ofore. Also things like cathodic protection and corrosion from dis-similar metals... Also I believe, off the top of my head that the cannisters are generally rated for a 40 year design life (minimum) with regular 20 year extensions similar to how the licensing gets handled for the reactors. Also, I don't know who started it but please don't call the thing a "barrel". It is like an order of magnitude or larger in terms of size and just overall "stoutness". I mean the drat thing is about as over-engineered as you can get. "Barrels" regularly get crushed, leak, and compacted. Those cannisters are designed to essentially keep their load secure even if hit by a freight train... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzupfyrWiew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 They are not in the even in the same league. I am not sure what an appropiate "day to day" safety anology or simile might be. But... its like comparing a dead bolt to one of those quarter turn locks on a door handle. Senor P. fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Sep 27, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 03:47
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I read Atomic Accidents by James Lafferty, and why America can't get its poo poo together enough to reprocess spent fuel like everyone else on earth?
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Sep 27, 2018 04:13
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VideoGameVet posted:There was an incident in the last few weeks when that almost happened: yeah that sounds like a fuckup, but not one that would have put the public's health at risk. Those containers are designed to survive a higher drop followed by another drop onto a spike, getting lit on fire for half an hour and then getting submerged. it's clearly something where they need to figure out what went wrong and fix, but it's an averted annoyance more than anything serious.
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Sep 27, 2018 04:26
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VideoGameVet posted:0.625" Stainless with less than a 40 year life, not the permanent stuff. San Onofre is not South Africa's third-hand nuclear program that they got from Israel (not quite) stealing info from the US because Israel found a kindred spirit in apartheid South Africa, so I'm not super certain about that comparison. Hell, we put far, far more radioactive waste in open pits if it isn't coming from a light water reactor. Hurricane Florence probably washed more radioactive waste into the biosphere than the last 20 years of the nuclear industry. Pretty sure the 2014 Dan River spill also rang that bell. A 1/2 inch steel canister is pretty good for most cases.
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Sep 27, 2018 04:30
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Nebakenezzer posted:I read Atomic Accidents by James Lafferty, and why America can't get its poo poo together enough to reprocess spent fuel like everyone else on earth?
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Sep 27, 2018 04:32
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Infinite Karma posted:Because if we reprocess spent fuel, Russia will start making more nuclear bombs. And because we're pieces of poo poo, we'll make more nuclear bombs and lie about it. We are in the process of making more nuclear bombs already. They shut down the reprocessing plant at SRS and are converting it to a pit production line now. Also, we have actually never really fulfilled those START treaty requirements, since we haven't used processes that are really all that irreversible like it dictates.
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Sep 27, 2018 04:46
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VideoGameVet posted:0.625" Stainless with less than a 40 year life, not the permanent stuff. The misconception here is that nuclear waste leaking into the environment is some kind of doomsday event. It isn't. Most likely if a barrel leaks the nuclear waste will just collect around the barrel and no one gets hurt. In the less likely chance that the waste leaches into groundwater the cancer rates in the local population go up by a few percentage points for a few decades. In the absolute worst-case scenario that is essentially impossible to happen accidentally and some fresh nuclear waste is dumped directly into the water supply then yes, several tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands may die from radiation poisoning after they drink the highly radioactive tap water.
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Sep 27, 2018 05:00
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Senor P. posted:No, they will be replaced by natural gas. However, that is still a step backwards. Diablo Canyon, by Californian law, will be replaced with non-carbon emitting power sources.
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Sep 27, 2018 05:58
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Nebakenezzer posted:I read Atomic Accidents by James Lafferty, and why America can't get its poo poo together enough to reprocess spent fuel like everyone else on earth? It's not really necessary since the fuel cost even with a once-through fuel cycle is approximately negligible for nuclear power. Also, Carter.
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Sep 27, 2018 12:58
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qkkl posted:The misconception here is that nuclear waste leaking into the environment is some kind of doomsday event. It isn't. Most likely if a barrel leaks the nuclear waste will just collect around the barrel and no one gets hurt. In the less likely chance that the waste leaches into groundwater the cancer rates in the local population go up by a few percentage points for a few decades. In the absolute worst-case scenario that is essentially impossible to happen accidentally and some fresh nuclear waste is dumped directly into the water supply then yes, several tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands may die from radiation poisoning after they drink the highly radioactive tap water. There are better designs with longer predicted lifetimes than 40 years. Also, I don't live too far from this, so it's not just theory for me. P.S. Love my rate increases due to this "Too Cheap To Meter" screwup.
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Sep 27, 2018 16:51
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strap solar cells to housecats they'll lick them clean
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Sep 27, 2018 17:03
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VideoGameVet posted:P.S. Love my rate increases due to this "Too Cheap To Meter" screwup. 
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Sep 27, 2018 17:17
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Vogtle is alive for now! https://www.enr.com/articles/45295-georgia-power-takes-on-more-risk-for-future-vogtle-cost-increasesquote:With roughly four years of construction remaining, OPC sought to “hold Southern Company accountable for its newly revised budget and let their owners be responsible for any additional amounts beyond this level.," according to a statement issued by OPC on Sept. 24. OPC estimates its share of project costs has grown from an initial estimated $4.2 billion to roughly $7.25 billion.
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Sep 27, 2018 21:23
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Lol technology isn't going to save us. Solar energy is a load of bullshit. It can't replace fossil fuels. Other renewables are even worse. Energy storage technology improves at a snails pace. Nuclear is unsafe and nobody wants it anyway. There's nothing coming down the pipeline to help us. Learn how to hunt, how to fish, how to farm. Make sure your kids learn these things. It's what they're gonna need. Don't even bother with sending them to college.
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Oct 1, 2018 06:45
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Nuclear is safe and tons and tons of people want it Nice doomsday prepper hardon though lol
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Oct 1, 2018 06:53
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One issue related to the exhaustion of fossil fuels that does have doomsday-like implications is where will we get the hydrogen necessary for the Haber process to produce fertilizer. Currently we get it from natural gas, and if we had to switch to electrolysis it would require using a lot more energy to produce the hydrogen.
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Oct 1, 2018 07:22
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Blue Star posted:Lol technology isn't going to save us. Solar energy is a load of bullshit. It can't replace fossil fuels. Other renewables are even worse. Energy storage technology improves at a snails pace. Nuclear is unsafe and nobody wants it anyway. There's nothing coming down the pipeline to help us. Learn how to hunt, how to fish, how to farm. Make sure your kids learn these things. It's what they're gonna need. Don't even bother with sending them to college. Get back on your brain meds, depressionbot. Massive expansion in Hunting and farming are just going to gently caress up the planet further.
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Oct 1, 2018 07:30
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