Existential Threat - I urge Stefan to cover

[trentster]

I have only recently discovered Stefan. Since stumbling upon him, I have been voraciously devouring his content and enjoying the fruits of his finely honed intellect that has made him, in my opinion, a true master of philosophy and a great steward for the good of humanity.

 

He has covered so many important topics and important discussion points ranging from the human condition to the many the threats and challenges humanity is currently facing. 

 

That being said, I would love to see him cover what I consider, perhaps the most significant threat to the long-term viability of humanity. This is a topic that frankly gets very little coverage, yet it is what I consider the most realistic threat to the long-term viability of the human race. 

 

This is the threat of Nuclear Power and the severe consequences that a single reactor event / accident can have for many thousands of years. We have just seen the tip of the iceberg with Chernobyl and ongoing Fukushima saga. Most folks do not realize how close Japan came to having to permanently evacuate Tokyo, a city of 13 Million people. You can listen to the Former Prime Minister of Japan (Naoto KAN) talk about how they came within inches of losing Tokyo during the Fukushima incident when one of the spent fuel pools came close to failing https://youtu.be/eYv3w63us5k

 

Over time, humanity has faced many challenges - history is rife with the ebb and flow of civilizations and culture lost to the likes of genocidal atrocities, war, strife, religion, greed - all stemming from the seemingly inexhastable supply of human stupidity. We have seen that history repeats itself, yet we do not seem to learn from these past mistakes. Thus far they have all ultimately been recoverable events, forgotten over time as the survivors rise from the ashes and rebuild. 

 

The dangers of Nuclear power and spent nuclear fuel does not fall into this above category. It has the probability of consequences measured in the many tens of thousands of years and the ability to pose a real existential threat to humanity.

 

I have written about this extensively from a scientific perspective in an effort to explain to folks the inner workings of what radiation actually is and the processes involved in boiling water from the splitting of the atom as well as the physics involved in nuclear fission as well as spent fuel. I would encourage dialog on this issue and really would hope that Stefan would cover this issue. I think it's one of the most fundamental problems we face now and for every future generation. My posts for those interested below:

 

Fukushima-Reality-Dysfunction

is-Elon-Musk-correct-that-AI-is-Humanities-Biggest-Existential-Threat

 

Thanks

 

Mark

[Thomasio]

I only have a few unsorted thoughts on this, but maybe I can give a few starting points of discussion.

 

First of all there is a limited amount of natural energy, such as hydroelectric power, but the consumption of humanity is way more than that could ever produce, so let's take that for a given base amount and let's talk about the rest.

 

Ethanol causes during it's production more pollution than it saves in the end, so that's nonsense.

 

There is no renewable energy that could work without backup, because we do not (yet) have any efficient way of storing energy over longer periods of time.

Whether it's wind or solar, during a night without wind it requires the same capacity of non renewable energy.

The only question is, what kind of backup power to build.

 

A cole or gas fired power plant produces pollution that causes a near endless amount of health problems and (according to the Heal-Study) kills on average 18,000 people per year alone in Europe.

http://www.env-health.org/resources/projects/unpaid-health-bill/

Not sure about the whole world, but I guess it would number in a few 100,000 dead per year.

 

Accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima kill (by inofficial numbers, so don't take them for a fact) 1-2 million people.

Furthermore smaller incidents in atomic power plants kill on average roughly 50 people per year per power plant.

Furthermore atomic waste will cause environmental problems for millennia to come, or at least until technology develops a new generation of atomic power plants that can use spent fuel (which is in development).

 

The calculation isn't easy, but it comes down to which type of power causes less death.

Are two major disasters times 1-2 million plus a few 100 smaller incidents in 50+ years more than a few 100k dead plus millions of sick people per year?

I myself am not sure at all, looks on first view like it's about the same numbers.

I'm only aware, until we develop the technology for cold fusion, there will be no power that doesn't cause harm, above the on start mentioned base amount.

I'm also aware that without using all this power, if we would reduce power consumption to the natural base level, the loss in technological options, slower progress in medical research and all that would cause WAY more death than the production of the energy causes.

[trentster]

First up, thanks for your suggested discussion points. Let's examine them, each in isolation as well as cumulatively. I will try and cover one aspect reply in this thread per day as this is a major topic with a lot of information. 

 

I think a good starting place would be to examine the financial realities associated with the commonly held notion that Nuclear power is inexpensive.

 

Is Nuclear Power really so cheap?

 

A good measuring stick of a technology or service, is to ask ourselves if it could stand up on its own merit and remain economically viable and profitable if run purely as a business in a free market economy. In other words, if we could remove government from the equation, would private industry be able to, or choose to provide Nuclear power and as a feasible, sustainable business model and be able to derive profit from it. If the answer to this question is "NO" and that business would choose other forms of power generation as a business model, then by inference we can deduce that there are better or cheaper forms of energy production. So with that in mind, let's look at how the industry is currently funded and incentivized by big government.

 

Risk:

 

The cost implications resulting from something going wrong with a nuclear power plant is prohibitively high. So much so, that the only way they could get any businesses to agree to build and run a power plant is for governments to limit their liability and to get you, yes "YOU" the taxpayer to foot the bill for the majority of any cleanup costs. To give you an idea, the conservative estimate for mid-term cleanup costs of the Fukushima incident in Japan is probably in the order of $1 trillion dollars. This is probably enough money to put solar panels on every house on the planet. Of particular note is the cleanup costs never go away and will require active servicing in perpetuity. 

 

e.g. As I type this, They are right at this moment, currently building the second "sarcophagus" or shell around the Chernobyl reactor building at a cost of $2.41 Billion USD. It is now almost 30 years after the actual reactor meltdown event occurred. This is the second shell that is being built over the first one and has been designed to hopefully last 100 Years - until such time as the 3rd shell construction project commences in 2117. This will continue on into the future, with each future generation reading about their iteration of the next sarcophagus being built. Even more notable is the fact that Chernobyl is actually considered way less severe than the current Fukushima incident with 3 reactors suffering a meltdown and all 3 reactor cores lost beneath the containment chambers - plus the fact that the nuclear material is being carried into the sea, every single way and they have no idea how to stop it. This never happened in Chernobyl who managed to encapsulate the "Corium" within the reactor building itself.

  

 

Tomorrow, the following days, I will try and touch on:

 

- How much does it cost to build a nuclear power station.

- How much does it cost to process Nuclear Fuel.

- How much does it cost to decommission a power plant.

- The unsolved problem and enormous costs of what to do with spent Nuclear fuel and long-lived radioactive by-products.

 

I will then move onto the other implications related to Nuclear power and the high likelihood / probability of future events which may have cascading failure implications. We can also into the cost and viability of alternatives energy technologies.

[pretzelogik]

Do you have any evidence to suggest that what you (as well as many people as can be convinced to share your concerns, even if it is a groundswell) think is important or not concerning nuclear power can have any influence over those who decide whether to use or not use nuclear power?

 

Also, a few years back I got all wound up listening to Alex Jones and bought some iodine tablets (at some probably drastically inflated price,as everyone was prepping) that are still collecting dust on a shelf to do what little I could to keep my organs intact once the killer wave of radiation made it across the Pacific.  Well, that didn't happen.  Since you have done the research, can you explain how such a monumental threat disappeared into the ether perhaps never to be heard from again?  Also, have you ever been to one of the contaminated sites or do you know anyone that has?

[Thomasio]

It's easy to lose the perspective.

$2.41 bln sounds like incredibly expensive, but divide it by the 100 years it will last, divide that by the amount of atomic power plants that haven't melted down, then divide that by the energy these power plants produce.

You will get to a total cost of (I'm too lazy to calculate that precisely now) a tiny fraction of a cent per kwh.

 

Then compare that to the continuous cost of medical supplies for all those millions that suffer from the pollution of cole and gas fired power plants.

I haven't done that calculation, so I'm still not sure, but I guess you wouldn't get to a result that would give either form of energy a clear edge over the other.

[trentster]

It's easy to lose the perspective.

$2.41 bln sounds like incredibly expensive, but divide it by the 100 years it will last, divide that by the amount of atomic power plants that haven't melted down, then divide that by the energy these power plants produce.

You will get to a total cost of (I'm too lazy to calculate that precisely now) a tiny fraction of a cent per kwh.

 

Then compare that to the continuous cost of medical supplies for all those millions that suffer from the pollution of cole and gas fired power plants.

I haven't done that calculation, so I'm still not sure, but I guess you wouldn't get to a result that would give either form of energy a clear edge over the other.

 

To be fair, if you are going to try and dissect a figure e.g $2.41 Billion for a protective shell for Chernobyl which occurred 30 years ago which was only cited in support of the fact that the costs associated with a reactor incident NEVER goes away, then you should be equally willing to dissect the other figure that I mentioned, namely $1 Trillion dollars for medium term Fukushima clean up.

 

We can not cherry pick one figure while ignoring the other entirely - especially when the main one quoted is not a trivial amount. A point that was further driven home by me suggesting it could put solar arrays on every house on the planet. Also remember there have been 5 reactor meltdowns in 30 years. not a very good record- considering how lucky they got with Japan, if the event occurred at night or one of the storage pools was damaged - then essentially it would have been bye bye for most of Japan, with significant consequences for a big portion of the northern hemisphere. You also seem to skip over the statement and linked video by the Prime minister of Japan at the time of Fukushima occurring who stated how they came scarily close to being forced to evacuate Tokyo a city of 13 Million people. Which is not a trivial number of people either.

 

If you are going to try and cite health issues around normal fossil fuel power stations then you should factor in the number of people who have been affected by Chernobyl and Fukushima as well. But really this is not the main point of the discussion. Which is if a normal power plant explodes and kills thousands of people, it's a disaster - that sucks, YES - but one that will pass, you will mourn the deaths and rebuild or the society will move on. With a nuclear incident there is no recovery, plus you lose vast areas of land permanently and have health ramifications for thousands of years. We have not had an onsite spent fuel storage pool fail yet. The implications of that will make Chernobyl look like a paper cut in comparison. There are over 400 nuclear power stations on the planet. A lot of them are on fault lines, near the ocean, in war-torn areas. There will be more incidents, especially extreme weather, war, terrorism, human error, earthquakes, tsunamis. It's a numbers game, we have had 5 incidents already - let's hope the next one is not a country ender.

[trentster]

Do you have any evidence to suggest that what you (as well as many people as can be convinced to share your concerns, even if it is a groundswell) think is important or not concerning nuclear power can have any influence over those who decide whether to use or not use nuclear power?

 

Also, a few years back I got all wound up listening to Alex Jones and bought some iodine tablets (at some probably drastically inflated price,as everyone was prepping) that are still collecting dust on a shelf to do what little I could to keep my organs intact once the killer wave of radiation made it across the Pacific.  Well, that didn't happen.  Since you have done the research, can you explain how such a monumental threat disappeared into the ether perhaps never to be heard from again?  Also, have you ever been to one of the contaminated sites or do you know anyone that has?

 

Hi there pretzelogik, thanks for your comment. Yes there is a lot of evidence. I would start with reading the link to that article I wrote, which was meticulously researched and has links to all sources and studies listed at the bottom of the article. Should you wish to read it and can get through it, as admittedly it's a long article and a lot of information to ingest - then I would welcome any of your comment or critique on its contents :-)

 

http://blog.smartcore.net.au/fukushima-reality-dysfunction/

 

Also the article is now a few years old and the situation there is worse than it was when the article was written. Sad I know!

[AccuTron]

Chernobyl and Fukushima seem to be treated here by some comments as done deals.  1-2 million deaths...over what time scale?  What arbitrary cut off?  We're talking about thousands or tens of thousands of years.  

 

In these areas there are now large vacancies of former fauna, and genetic distortions in the remainders, bad stuff.  The worst pix of Appalachian coal miners never included large numbers of newborns with one sunken eye or withered limbs (referring to Fukushima butterflies and moths here).  

 

(And one should include in these calculations the increase in Finnish children's thyroid cancer post Chernobyl, attempted to be hushed up by diluting with all Scandinavian data, later whistle blown.)

 

This is essentially a permanent condition; human history in toto has reached a mere fraction of that time scale.  What state or other entity to do this maintenance is to survive in a future that is further away than all human history to date, and nobody, nobody at all, dropped the ball along the way, not even one year, even a few months, over thousands of years?  Who even WANTS to be the state that includes Chernobyl?  Borders are the most movable of all things, short of a high mountain range or big river.  And nobody wants that baby.  Unless to threaten the rest of the world....

 

 

Who is to tend to C's future surface coverings, and worse, who is going to make sure that supply of liquid nitrogen keeps that corium from touching the water table and steam exploding over most of Europe, making the entire European continent full of grossly defective plants and animals, all animals, not just humans or mammals?  FOREVER!  

 

Fukushima is NOT contained.  Any human trying to really get in there would be dead in less than an hour.  No machine has survived an attempt, and these are basically just camera attempts, not actually cutting through explosion-twisted wreckage.  

 

They don't even know where the corium is located!!!  It blew up, it splattered, it melted everything it touched, it's in there somewhere, not sure how much may have gotten into the ground, or if it will later, is the summary.  And since Fukushima is located over an underground river, corium steam explosion?  Good luck.

 

It is leaking massive daily radiation into the Pacific, with the lingering questions of why the massive emerging and ongoing Pacific Ocean never-before-seen food chain crash just happens to be a few years after Fukushima pumps radiation wholesale into the biota, along with the massive unheard-of North American Pacific coast sea star die-offs.  Scientists: West Coast bird die-off “is biggest ever recorded” — “A host of other freakish phenomena”  (WHOA!!  I just looked at the CNN video in that link, and the very last statement...about an issue where the cause is UNKNOWN...a mention about climate change.  CNN is owned.  Not to sidetrack here, but this is HUGELY the way the climate fraudsters work:  they put the words climate change tacked onto any story where there is a problem, never mind any truth to it.)

 

Another earthquake could send damaged fuel rods crashing into huge aerosol dispersal, quite possibly assisted by nuclear detonations.  Most of Japan would become uninhabitable.  And I don't think the radiation would stop at national borders like a no-smoking sign.  Can anyone say "upset China"?

 

Don't be deceived by simply counting noses of the projected dead with an arbitrary cutoff.  Count the deformed, most of which are yet to come.  And read what I just said:  Two oopsies, and write off Europe and Japan.  It doesn't get worse, short of a big asteroid collision and then we're all goners.  And that's just the two disasters, Fukushima actually being a triple disaster.  Still plenty of opportunity for more.  These things write off CONTINENTS, or portions thereof.  A body count is just part of the story.

[grithin]

To address the issue of nuclear power in the future, you must acknowledge some facts
-    nuclear plants built before 1980 (practically all of them) have acknowledged design flaws
-    new nuclear plant designs are considerably safer, with virtual guarantees against the sorts of issues present with the 40+ year old designs

So, here we have a topic in which these two, pretty much ultra-pertinent facts have not been addressed, with the, sort of, notion that new nuclear plants are going to be built using the sort of design of Fukishima, and that this is something to spend(waste) time talking about.

A force multiplier to the meaninglessness of this conversation in combination of the above facts is the near absolute lack of control any of us have on intentionally catastrophe-attracting behavior of those with extreme power. Ex:
-    exploding an nuke in the ionosphere with the concept that it could perhaps ignite it (and kill virtually everyone)
-    building a large portion of nuclear plants on fault lines (japan)

So, we have three parts of consideration about future nuclear power catastrophes, all of which do not merit general discussion:
-    new nuclear plants' safety features remove legitimate concern
-    engineered catastrophe is not something anyone here controls or influences in any manner more so than they control the zeitgeist
-    the old nuclear plants are largely decommissioned or suspended, and there are local pushes to decommission them that needn't be discussed here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Nuclear_power_plants)

Then, there is the issue with spent fuel rod storage, but as already addressed, if no one finds a beneficial commercial use (like projectiles (pray for an alien war)), then we can just shoot them at the sun or elsewhere.

Then there is the issue of the current ongoing Fukishima disaster, which, again, no one on here has any influence over.  Perhaps, for some reason, you think that there was not a massive effort by thousands of people outside japan for years after the disaster to draw attention to it and to get governments to do something about it, and perhaps you did not see the response by governments, which was to deny and lie.  

The factors on this one are:
-    is it causing a continued negative ecological effect? yes
-    can it be resolved? yes
-    will it be resolved? no

You have to wonder, if it can be resolved, why isn't being resolved?  This goes back to the nuking the ionosphere bit - something you might classify as the relentless desire for experimentation.


So, it appears this topic exemplifies either:
-    the desire to talk is much greater than the desire to improve things.
-    the desire to improve things is inexorably detached from the knowledge of how to improve things

[pretzelogik]

Hi there pretzelogik, thanks for your comment. Yes there is a lot of evidence. I would start with reading the link to that article I wrote, which was meticulously researched and has links to all sources and studies listed at the bottom of the article. Should you wish to read it and can get through it, as admittedly it's a long article and a lot of information to ingest - then I would welcome any of your comment or critique on its contents :-)

 

http://blog.smartcore.net.au/fukushima-reality-dysfunction/

 

Also the article is now a few years old and the situation there is worse than it was when the article was written. Sad I know!

I scanned through the article looking for the relevant bits to the initial question and the information there seemed to support the implications behind the question regarding evidence about whether the wishes of the informed matter to those who implement.  The article pointed out the failures of observation of laws and lack of consequences for those failures.  It may be beyond the author to understand the selection of Japan as a site for the Olympics, but my understanding is that the owners of the ranch care not about the desires of the herd.

[WorBlux]

To address the issue of nuclear power in the future, you must acknowledge some facts

-    nuclear plants built before 1980 (practically all of them) have acknowledged design flaws

 

...

Then, there is the issue with spent fuel rod storage, but as already addressed, if no one finds a beneficial commercial use (like projectiles (pray for an alien war)), then we can just shoot them at the sun or elsewhere.

 

Then there is the issue of the current ongoing Fukishima disaster, which, again, no one on here has any influence over.  ...

 

 

Good Points

 

Light water reactors (LWR's)  are fairly suspect any ways. The operate a temperatures too low for optimum thermodynamics, and are prone do sudden failure from pressure loss.  The newest designs keep a 24 hour water reserve above the reactor to  cool it in the event of pressure loss, additional passive cooling is incorporated that will condense steam and extend this time if conditions permit.

 

There are gen IV designs like the MSR (molten salt reactors), LFTR (lithium flouride thorium-cycle reactor) and pebble bed reactor were fuel can be removed for the reactor via gravity and move into containment designed for passive or mostly passive.  cooling.  The point being we aren't stuck with the old reactor designs foreve.  Removing the huge steal vessel as necessary in the LWR's will reduce capital and decommissioning costs.

 

"Spent fuel is really a misnomer, after about 35 years all that is left is uranium, plutonium, (and a few other long halflife tarns-urnaics), Caesium and Strontium. " There is actually more fissile fuel in them than than one you put them in the reactor.  At that point it's fairly feasablie to chemically process spent rods into fresh fuel.

 

Fukashima was a tragedy that should have never happened. The reactor itself was in service far longer than it should, placements was questionable, backups were negligently designed, spent fuel was kept around far longer than it should have been.  (The length of operation and lack of offside processing or stage of spent fuel rods may have been partially the fault of anti-nuclear activists that discouraged new developments)

 

The bottom line is that nuclear is the only process that we know of dense enough, cheap enough,  plentiful enough, clean enough, and reliable enough to bring all the earth's population  to and industrial standard of living.

 

Weather the U.S and Europe pursues new designs with the needed vigor, rest assured that china and India will.  In and economic contest do you really think industry powered by intermittent and diffuse renewable sources  can compete with a nuclear china?

[trentster]

Good Points

 

Light water reactors (LWR's)  are fairly suspect any ways. The operate a temperatures too low for optimum thermodynamics, and are prone do sudden failure from pressure loss.  The newest designs keep a 24 hour water reserve above the reactor to  cool it in the event of pressure loss, additional passive cooling is incorporated that will condense steam and extend this time if conditions permit.

 

There are gen IV designs like the MSR (molten salt reactors), LFTR (lithium flouride thorium-cycle reactor) and pebble bed reactor were fuel can be removed for the reactor via gravity and move into containment designed for passive or mostly passive.  cooling.  The point being we aren't stuck with the old reactor designs foreve.  Removing the huge steal vessel as necessary in the LWR's will reduce capital and decommissioning costs.

 

"Spent fuel is really a misnomer, after about 35 years all that is left is uranium, plutonium, (and a few other long halflife tarns-urnaics), Caesium and Strontium. " There is actually more fissile fuel in them than than one you put them in the reactor.  At that point it's fairly feasablie to chemically process spent rods into fresh fuel.

 

Fukashima was a tragedy that should have never happened. The reactor itself was in service far longer than it should, placements was questionable, backups were negligently designed, spent fuel was kept around far longer than it should have been.  (The length of operation and lack of offside processing or stage of spent fuel rods may have been partially the fault of anti-nuclear activists that discouraged new developments)

 

The bottom line is that nuclear is the only process that we know of dense enough, cheap enough,  plentiful enough, clean enough, and reliable enough to bring all the earth's population  to and industrial standard of living.

 

Weather the U.S and Europe pursues new designs with the needed vigor, rest assured that china and India will.  In and economic contest do you really think industry powered by intermittent and diffuse renewable sources  can compete with a nuclear china?

 

Hmmm, I consider good points ones that are supported with data or studies. Don't get me wrong I am just as happy to have a barn burner of an intelligent debate as the next guy - but please let's keep it on valid points rooted in reality and keep it to facts devoid of sweeping opinions or statements without a factual basis. The debate is really on the consequences of should we be doing it, not hey China is doing it we better do it too to compete ;-) or hey going for a swim in an erupting volcano is a great idea cause I don't have to pay for the energy for the bath, is a non-sensical argument. If you think Nuclear power is good in any form, regardless of the type of reactor, then prove it, or at least to do so by quoting studies or data that supports your opinion or invalidates points I have made.

 

When you say sweeping statements like the below one - without any proof or data to back it up, you frankly just sound like a PR person waxing lyrical for the Nuclear Industry Lobby:

 

"The bottom line is that nuclear is the only process that we know of dense enough, cheap enough,  plentiful enough, clean enough, and reliable enough to bring all the earth's population  to and industrial standard of living."

 

 

I would love to see your data on how its no biggie to process spent fuel as well as your justification that it's the only feasible source of energy for our needs when there has been multiple studies conducted that say otherwise. I guess countries like Germany and other parts of the world are phasing out Nuclear because it's so awesomely cheap, safe and easy to get rid of the by-products. If you look at the trend worldwide where Nuclear is on the decline this contradicts your conjecture and shows that it's factually just not the case.

 

PS "Here is a documentary for you to watch on spent fuel - one that comes to the conclusion no-one on the planet wants to or knows how to process the waste and the fact that there is essentially nowhere safe to put it. Yes hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on studies to find isolated regions to put it with the conclusion there is nowhere safe for geologic time periods that are required"

 

Journey to the Safest Place on Earth

Here is the trailer, I highly recommend watching it on Netflix and if you do I would love to debate your facts about what you feel is inaccurately presented.

[csekavec]

Breeder reactors are by their nature unsafe because of the hot reaction chain they use. 

 

Non breeder reactors are very safe, especially low pressure reactors life LFTR and others. 

 

Coal has put more radioactivity into the environment than all world wide nuclear plant emissions, disasters, and bomb testing combined.

 

 

Nuclear is where we want to be. The only thing stopping the safe low pressure reactors from being built is government regulation has forbidden it. There already are several private concerns ready to build. Some have built elsewhere in the world because of the United States and Europe retarded policy.

[rosencrantz]

The only thing stopping the safe low pressure reactors from being built is government regulation has forbidden it.

 

If it wasn't for the interest of the government in the first place, no reactors would have been built. The current design was used to generate fission material for atomic bombs. It's doubtful that nuclear reactors would be used in a free society because the premiums for insurance would be astronomical. Today, these are socialized by the public.

[Torero]

 

The bottom line is that nuclear is the only process that we know of dense enough, cheap enough,  plentiful enough, clean enough, and reliable enough to bring all the earth's population  to and industrial standard of living.

 

If it really would be

- dense - what do you mean exactly?

- cheap - what is your cut-off value?

- plentiful - uranium still needs to be mined

- clean - questionable

- reliable - except when disasters happen

enough,

wouldn't we expect that the portion of nuclear fission would be much larger?

In 2012 it was not even 11% of the total electricity market; 2.5% of the total energy consumption:

 

[csekavec]

If it wasn't for the interest of the government in the first place, no reactors would have been built. 

And without the government there would be no highway either.  Don't be ridiculous! 

 

 

If it really would be

- dense - what do you mean exactly?

- cheap - what is your cut-off value?

- plentiful - uranium still needs to be mined

- clean - questionable

- reliable - except when disasters happen

enough,

wouldn't we expect that the portion of nuclear fission would be much larger?

 

If it were a free market then you'd have a point.  Quite the opposite really. Nuclear is the most regulated of all energy sources. Were it not for that the adoption rate would be much higher.

 

And again nuclear isn't one thing - it is a diversity of processes, reaction chains, heat exchange technologies, and byproduct management that together comprise a reactor.  Treating reactors that make bombs, can melt down, use high pressure water or salt, and produce nasty byproduct  as being exactly the same as a reactors that cannot make a bomb, cannot melt down, use low pressure salt, and produce waste that is less dangerous than the raw mined fuel already in the earth:  again again treating these as the same is intellectually dishonest. 

[trentster]

And without the government there would be no highway either.  Don't be ridiculous! 

 

 

 

If it were a free market then you'd have a point.  Quite the opposite really. Nuclear is the most regulated of all energy sources. Were it not for that the adoption rate would be much higher.

 

And again nuclear isn't one thing - it is a diversity of processes, reaction chains, heat exchange technologies, and byproduct management that together comprise a reactor.  Treating reactors that make bombs, can melt down, use high pressure water or salt, and produce nasty byproduct  as being exactly the same as a reactors that cannot make a bomb, cannot melt down, use low pressure salt, and produce waste that is less dangerous than the raw mined fuel already in the earth:  again again treating these as the same is intellectually dishonest. 

 

csekavec,

 

Let's not confuse regulation with the artificial propping up via forced government grants, incentives that are underpinned by making the buck stop with the mandatory taxation of the individual in society. This is true for both the grants and incentives as well as for any clean up or liability issues should things go awry.

 

So in essence, this proves contrary to your point that the government is holding back the industry with too many regulations.

 

This is simply not factually true and in reality, it's the government funded grants and offsetting of financial risks to the tax-payer that makes them viable in the first place. Without this, no free market organization would touch them. There are many economical reasons that in a free market, no company would consider building and running a nuclear power plant - but the main show stopper would be risk / liability. No board of directors would ever in a million years allow a CEO to take on that kind of risk or liability period.

[trentster]

Is Nuclear Power really so cheap?

 

We have now discussed the financing of "Risk" and have thus far not seen any data put forward by any fellow forum members to refute this, I would like to touch a bit more on the economic side. I would like to link to some recent studies and articles citing additional data around the subject. Would love to hear your data, thoughts  and views regarding the video lectures below:

 

 

The Economics of Nuclear

 

About the Author: Arnie Gunderson

Lecture: World Uranium Symposium April 2015

 

Arnie Gundersen has more than 40-years of nuclear power engineering experience. He attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he earned his Bachelor Degree cum laude while also becoming the recipient of a prestigious Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship for his Master Degree in nuclear engineering. Arnie holds a nuclear safety patent, was a licensed reactor operator, and is a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his nuclear power industry career, Arnie also managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants in the US.

 

 

Part One: Economics Of Nuclear Power with Arnie Gundersen

 

 

Part Two: Economics of Nuclear Power with Mycle Schneider

 

 

 

About the Author: Mycle Schneider

 

Mycle Schneider, an independent international energy and nuclear policy consultant, Nuclear analyst and lead author of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report, provides an economic analysis of the cost of nuclear power including data using charts and graphs. Mycle has been an advisor to members of the European Parliment on energy issues for more than 20 years.

[csekavec]

Anyone can put bold text in burlesque attempt to deflect from the fact that one has an ax to grind.  

 

You keep making an argument about a thing I'm not quibbling about. If you don't even know the difference between uranium and thorium based reactors and aren't willing to educate yourself then I suppose this conversation is over. If such a basic delineation is lost on you it would be impossible to illustrate the more nuanced aspects of the different nuclear solutions.  Just keep on painting with your broad brush and repeat your mantra "nookleer bad, mmkay?"

[Torero]

If it were a free market then you'd have a point.  Quite the opposite really. Nuclear is the most regulated of all energy sources. Were it not for that the adoption rate would be much higher.

 

What are your aguments to base this claim on?

 

 

 

And again nuclear isn't one thing - it is a diversity of processes, reaction chains, heat exchange technologies, and byproduct management that together comprise a reactor.

 

Electricity from coal or gas is then also not "one thing". The drilling for gas and mining for coal, exploration, planning, development, production, engineering, royalties to governments, risk assessments, etc. etc. etc.

 

I didn't call it "one thing", but maybe I didn't get you right?

 

 

 

Treating reactors that make bombs, can melt down, use high pressure water or salt, and produce nasty byproduct  as being exactly the same as a reactors that cannot make a bomb, cannot melt down, use low pressure salt, and produce waste that is less dangerous than the raw mined fuel already in the earth:  again again treating these as the same is intellectually dishonest.

 

The question is if nuclear technology is indeed capable of producing clean, cheap and reliable energy as is supposed.

 

I have my doubts about it, but if you know more, feel free to enlighten the souls wandering in the dark...

[trentster]

Anyone can put bold text in burlesque attempt to deflect from the fact that one has an ax to grind.  

 

You keep making an argument about a thing I'm not quibbling about. If you don't even know the difference between uranium and thorium based reactors and aren't willing to educate yourself then I suppose this conversation is over. If such a basic delineation is lost on you it would be impossible to illustrate the more nuanced aspects of the different nuclear solutions.  Just keep on painting with your broad brush and repeat your mantra "nookleer bad, mmkay?"

 

You would do way better trying to enlighten us with some facts as I have done, by citing sources and linking to relevant articles that you consider authoritative. If you have counter evidence to prove that I should have no need to grind an axe on this subject - then please by all means present it. Resorting to mockery and attempts to belittle others are traits of a schoolyard bully and not someone who is looking for truth and enlightenment.

 

If you have something intelligent to say in the form of a counter argument backed by some data - and not a pie in the sky, poorly thumb sucked feeble retort aimed at eliciting a response- then please present it. Until such time, this will be the last direct response you will receive from me. 

[sb23rd]

Much appreciated OP. I've since coming across this thread done some minor reading, a couple of websites and just then finishing an article on counterpunch. I suspected like one suspects a cough a symptom of a common cold instead of a malignant tumor pressing upon affected organs that this was bad when it happened but not to the extent it appears to be.

 

Like FFS the Japanese prime minister Abe and his statist goons amended the constitution (which apparently forbids such a change but we live in a statist world postcode arbitrary) for power to invoke secrecy laws and jail anyone deemed spreading state secrets. Such seems the need to limit information flow.

[Donnadogsoth]

Existential threat:

 

Islam?

 

The derivatives bubble?

 

No, "nuclear power"!  By which you mean "nuclear fission," which is already obsolete.

 

Nuclear FUSION holds great promise and is a very clean source of power.  So, fine, end fission, but replace it with fusion or else you're not serious about solving the energy crunch this side of condemning people to power-poverty.

[trentster]

Much appreciated OP. I've since coming across this thread done some minor reading, a couple of websites and just then finishing an article on counterpunch. I suspected like one suspects a cough a symptom of a common cold instead of a malignant tumor pressing upon affected organs that this was bad when it happened but not to the extent it appears to be.

 

Like FFS the Japanese prime minister Abe and his statist goons amended the constitution (which apparently forbids such a change but we live in a statist world postcode arbitrary) for power to invoke secrecy laws and jail anyone deemed spreading state secrets. Such seems the need to limit information flow.

 

Thanks for taking the time and initiative to investigate further and do some of your own research. Sometimes the burden of having an enquiring mind is not being able to unlearn something you wish you could after you have discovered them ;-)

 

That being said, in my opinion, it's always better to live an informed life - rather than one of ignorant bliss.

 

Yeah - the stuff that government's get away with, specifically in Japan regarding the ongoing Fukushima incident is astonishing. My particular favourites (sarcasm are) :

 

• Arbitrarily changing the law around safe doses of radiation so that they do not have to pay to relocate millions of people. I guess people's lives are truly worth nothing when it comes with a price tag. Rather than evacuate these areas, Japan chose to rather raise the safety limit 20X from 1 millisievert to 20 millisievert’s exposure per year.
• They decided it is/was good science to take hundreds of different radiation readings and report the lowest reading recorded in the dataset as the average. I guess my 3rd-grade maths teacher would have something to say about this.
• They also used detection equipment that could only detect a certain max threshold of radiation and reported these levels. This is like putting a kitchen thermometer into a furnace and concluding that the temperature is only 80 Degrees C because the kitchen thermometer can not display higher than that.
• When all else fails, they simply make it illegal to report anything negative about the situation and make it a jailable offence. Bye bye "free press" and the right to be informed and inform others.
• There has also been a major relaxing of food testing by Japan and other countries in order to get Japanese food sold world-wide without ringing any alarm bells. In some situations this was not even necessary e.g. Like in the US where radiation limits for food are much higher and food that can not be sold in Japan as radioactive can be sold in the United states.
• Forcing people back into contaminated areas by telling them if they want to continue receiving reparation payments from the government they have to go and live back in the contamination zone. This to me is truly despicable, deplorable strongarm tactics deployed by a goverment against their own citizens to knowingly force folks into harms way.

 

I could go on, but I am sure you get the idea :-)

[trentster]

Implications of Radiation on Health and the environment.

 

Here are a couple more video resources for anyone interested in hearing / learning about the long-term consequences and ramifications for ourselves, our children and future generations. I try and learn from experts in the field who have been doing this research for a long time, unfortunately, a most of the time their voices simply never get heard and they never receive any mainstream media attention. My hope is that this thread puts this issue on Stefan Molyneux's radar and results in him covering the topic at some point. I really value his opinion, meticulous research and brevity when it comes to telling folks about issues. I would love to hear his opinion and research on the subject.

 

Youtube: Dr. Helen Caldicott: The Medical Implications of Fukushima

 

Youtube: Steven Starr : Implications of the Massive Contamination of Japan with Radioactive Cesium

 

Symposium: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Co-Sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility

[sb23rd]

I could go on, but I am sure you get the idea :-)

 

Indeed and it gives me chills even with my novice understanding.  I was born a year after Chernobyl in southeast Ukraine, and even though the heroic efforts contained the corium preventing wholesale contamination of the river, the radiation release went west and to this day afaik nobody knows the actual human toll vast as it probably was/is. That disaster is firmly part of the cultural fabric of the former soviet lands, everyone knows Pripyat and its very mention is like Berezina to the French.

 

What is your view on Gen III reactors vs Gen II such as Fukishima and is there some prospect to minimise the potential for catastrophes? What about Gen IV reactors, I'd assume with each iteration in design the emergency response to disasters would see some practical advances. I don't think expensive and supposedly complex machinery used at Fukishima for the clean up had a lifespan lower than that of a butterfly would count as adequate or competent response! 

[trentster]

Indeed and it gives me chills even with my novice understanding.  I was born a year after Chernobyl in southeast Ukraine, and even though the heroic efforts contained the corium preventing wholesale contamination of the river, the radiation release went west and to this day afaik nobody knows the actual human toll vast as it probably was/is. That disaster is firmly part of the cultural fabric of the former soviet lands, everyone knows Pripyat and its very mention is like Berezina to the French.

 

What is your view on Gen III reactors vs Gen II such as Fukishima and is there some prospect to minimise the potential for catastrophes? What about Gen IV reactors, I'd assume with each iteration in design the emergency response to disasters would see some practical advances. I don't think expensive and supposedly complex machinery used at Fukishima for the clean up had a lifespan lower than that of a butterfly would count as adequate or competent response! 

 

Yeah, I know quite a few folks in Australia that are originally from the Ukraine and Poland. When Chernobyl disaster occurred the world was fortunate that Soviet-era Russia had the ability the mobilize hundreds of thousands of people and leverage the might of the military to try and deal with the issue. I think if Chernobyl occurred today with current politics the situation would be so much worse.

 

When I watch people filming in Pripyat today it reminds me of some kind of post apocalyptic movie scene like "Book of Eli". Check out this documentary of a guy visiting the most radioactive places on earth - he visits the basement of hospital in Pripyat where some of the firemen removed their clothing. you can see the radiation detectors going crazy!  - it starts around the 8 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL7o2kPqw0

 

My view on newer reactor technology is pretty simple.

 

Until they know how to deal with spent fuel, radioactive waste and by-products as well as all the issues related to uranium mining, I am not in favour of any technology that uses Nuclear Fission for energy production period. Yes there are better reactor designs and technology now compared to 30 years ago - but this still does not mitigate the huge risk and consequences felt over thousands of years surrounding spent fuel, human health consequences and impact on the environment.

[Worlok]

From both this thread and everything that I have read about harmful radiation and nuclear power, including nuclear meltdowns, I don't actually see any of this as a significant threat. This compounded with the fact that we are still running almost exclusively Gen II reactors while already developing Gen IV reactors, I'm not at all worried.

 

If Stef decided to pick this up, I imagine he would collect a good deal of information from both perspectives.

[AccuTron]

"-    can it be resolved? yes"

 

I think it's no.

 

My understanding comes from daily visits to enenews.com, run by a retried nuclear engineer, Arnie Gunderson, which was devoted to Fukushima for the first years, and will still keep updates.  

 

It is not obvious at all how this can be resolved.  The corium location isn't truly known, it's over an underground river, the explosions make the whole thing a twisted and unstable metal jungle, and no human can ever get near anything meaningful.  A machine doing so is a joke.  It's constantly draining radioactive water into the Pacific, and nobody knows how to stop it.  The ice wall attempt is only partially useful, and introduces it's own problems of ground instability.

 

 

" the selection of Japan as a site for the Olympics, but my understanding is that the owners of the ranch care not about the desires of the herd."

 

The Japanese government wants the Olympics of course for the money it gives various parties.  Also, to dismiss the Olympics is to admit Fukushima is out of control, and since Japan sells nuclear power plants, that ain't good sales material.

 

 

 

The bottom line is that nuclear is the only process that we know of dense enough, cheap enough,  plentiful enough, clean enough, and reliable enough to bring all the earth's population  to and industrial standard of living.

 

Given the use of later generation reactors, this makes sense.  I wonder if SpaceX and it's future competitors will be the carrier of spent fuel to a sunward path.  That sounds expensive, but would be peanuts to another WIPP, which can't be found anyway.  As to a crashed rocket, I can envision crash proof containers, plus transportation technologies tend to mature into reliable states.  It's already really good.  And it's the only complete solution, the waste is really gone.

 

 

 

I guess countries like Germany and other parts of the world are phasing out Nuclear because it's so awesomely cheap, safe and easy to get rid of the by-products.

 

I wonder how much of that was political response to Fukushima and Chernobyl.

 

 

 

This compounded with the fact that we are still running almost exclusively Gen II reactors while already developing Gen IV reactors, I'm not at all worried.

 

That's the problem, the early models are what are running.  It's about getting to a future where that's reversed.  And as to worry, ask people around the British Windscale nuclear fire area, or Pripyat, or Northern Japan.  These are not theoretical.  Places on Earth, big places, are now forbidden zones.  Various facilities have piping past useful life, maybe leaks.  The water table in the USA near NYC is threatened by an old nuclear plant.  Ponder decades ahead, the future stealth terrorist missile, or an errant meteorite hitting that baby.  Low odds, but Earth has had mass extinctions against low odds.

[WorBlux]

 

If it really would be

- dense - what do you mean exactly?

- cheap - what is your cut-off value?

- plentiful - uranium still needs to be mined

- clean - questionable

- reliable - except when disasters happen

enough,

wouldn't we expect that the portion of nuclear fission would be much larger?

In 2012 it was not even 11% of the total electricity market; 2.5% of the total energy consumption:

 

 

Dense - 4 million times more J/Kg than coal, you can hold a lifetime supply of energy in the palm of your hand.

Cheap - The goal is to match coal for capital costs.  It's certainly cheaper than any scheme devised to store energy from renewable, or a huge trans-national grid.

Plentiful - Mining, or seawater extraction, or breeder reactors with reprocessing, and mix in thorium. Bottom line is more than a thousand years vs less than 200 for fossil fuels.

Clean - France has a lower number of death from air pollution than any other European country. No C02, particulates, nitrates, suftates.... The radioisotopes produced are not waste and can be processed into new fuel, medical compounds, or other useful industrial products.  Additionally pushing the price of energy down,  certain types of recycling suddenly become economic to do.

Reliable- 24/7.  Disasters are rare and due to human factors,  the designs continue to improve.

 

11% world, but something like 90% France. Additionally much of the world doesn't have the supply chain and expertise for nuclear. You can buy an off-the shelf natural gas turbine and hood it to an off-the-shelf generator. Nothing like that exists for nuclear. Designs and plants tend to be one-off or small batches. And you can't exactly order a batch or enriched uranium on amazon.com. Public opinion against it has also played a role. Waste has been an issue at least in the U.S with the long-term storage site falling through and the prohibition on re-processing fuel. The technical issues are very much on the way to being overcome, it's just a question if politics will follow.

[trentster]

For any folks still interested in this topic, I have just published an article on Medium.com : Spent Nuclear Fuel which has some opinions and content applicable to this thread topic.

[csekavec]

I understand that you are concerned about this. Am I right that spent nuclear fuel has recently come to your attention?  I earlier told myself that I wouldn't engage with you again because your zeal seemed impervious to facts. This was my perception at the time. Because of your essay I've revised my opinion and am going to try again- your essay persuaded me that you are genuinely concerned about this. 

 

I'm not an authority and I'll not appeal to them. I'm not going to link you youtube videos or other people posing as authorities. What I can say is: I have worked around cesium-137 in close proximity. I wrote software designed to harvest mass measurements from hydroscopic substances during various manufacturing processes. Since I often had to climb in and around the frame containing the sensor array (and thus the radioactive source) I did my due diligence in researching radioactive isotopes. Add this to the physics and maths knowledge to write meaningful software that gave correct results.  I'm not a nuclear engineer. I've been in a nuclear plant 2 times and on a nuclear sub once: during tours. My point in this paragraph is just this: I speak from experience but consult a text book and maths to confirm please. 

 

Radiation is dangerous. No argument. But I say again: there is no reason to be afraid of it. Nor spent fuel. Nor even the existing (aging) nuclear plants. And especially not the other reactor designs.  Not a criticism but I notice you wrote things like unfathomable, beyond comprehension (3x), unbelievable - yet the tone of your writing is so authoritative.   Perhaps the reason for your fear is the misunderstandings/errors/omissions you made in your essay. If you don't mind I'll correct the misunderstandings I think you made. 

 

Cesium-137 doesn't emit much gamma radiation. The primary radiation is beta particles (that I used to measure with). Gamma radiation follows the inverse square law. Beta radiation does not.  

 

However as a byproduct of losing these beta particles the 137 isotope transmutes. There are two decay chains. One chain goes directly to a non-radioactive state. The other goes to a highly volatile isotope that lasts about 2 minutes and emits massive gamma radiation.  But within minutes of beta transmission even the volatile isotope has reached a non-radioactive state. 

 

A half life of thirty years isn't so bad as compared to the 2 minute half life of the product of the decay chain that is dangerous. 

 

One way you might think about the relationship between half life and danger is this.  There is a fixed about of energy change required to transmute from one form to another. Released all at once you have a nuclear explosion. Released over time and the same explosion energy might be static in your car radio.

 

Generally speaking, a radioisotope that has a longer half life is safer than one with a shorter half life.  There are of course decay chains that are safer or more dangerous.  But with a sufficiently long half life even the most energetic decay chain is nothing. 

 

For example if cesium-137 had a half life of 30,000 years then there would be 1/10,000th atoms undergoing decay. Still dangerous in quantity, but more anemic due to a slower decay rate.

 

Long half life = good half life. My choice of the best nuclear fuel has a half life of 14,000,000,000 years. Not all nuclear is the same. My primary complaint is that regulations make no distinctions. When I was at Oak Ridge the radiation badge I was so sensitive that if you wore it to lunch (offsite) it would turn color. I forget the exact numbers but I think the max indicator was an exposure of +10% of daily ambient. So you could literally watch it turn colors just from standing in the sun light. 

 

You make a long example of cesium dust in central park. But it isn't there - it is safely contained within storage vessels or buried. But know what dust is in central park? The radioactive wastes from burning coal and oil. Strontium, uranium, and dozens more radioactive elements. They are weaker than cesium it is true. But unlike cesium they are present and in far greater concentrations than 1g/km^2.  Studies have been going on since the 80's on this. It is well documented how many curies we put into our air by, as you put it, boiling water. 

 

Now, given the known quantities of radiation which do you choose to imbibe? If all our power was nuclear your central park daily dose from boiling water might fall 500%. Less if you live rural.  Even counting disasters.

 

For me, I'd far rather have no radiation at all. But given the alternatives currently available I'll choose readily the option that keeps the radiation out of the air. 

 

And even more so the option of modern plants that create little/no waste at all because the primary reactor waste feeds the secondary reactor. And I'd literally put a thorium fluoride salt reactor in my backyard. I could build one within a year if I wasn't forbidden by the government. The plans are public source and available online for free. 

 

I hope this is helpful to whoever reads it. I wrote much of this earlier but hopefully by being more verbose my communication will be more effective.

[trentster]

Hi there csekavec,

 

First up apologies for the huge delay in responding to your post, I need to adjust notification options so that I get an email for all responses. Secondly thank you for taking the time to reply in such a detailed and succinct fashion, I really enjoyed reading your intelligent response and ingesting your knowledge.

 

Yes, you are correct, I have fairly recently started researching this subject, prompted after the Fukushima incident and later from research and watching symposium speakers like the "Symposium: the Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Co-Sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility". So about 5 years of interest and reading thus far.

 

Although the world currently faces a lot of challenges (e.g. Rampant Islamization and fall of the west) I can say this subject is one that I am extremely passionate and concerned about, second only to a war involving the use of Nuclear weapons.

 

In regards to the science and your presented points, I agree with you on the majority of your facts. Let's be clear, as you rightly mention neither you nor I are Nuclear engineers, nor can we be sure that any of the facts we research or expert opinions we are exposed to are 1) 100% factually correct 2) free of bias 3) not influenced by political or industry affiliations.

 

That being said, I do try and get research and opinions from the most expert sources I can find, from people who do have the right credentials and experience that as far as I can tell are as closely aligned to points 1) 2) 3) above as possible. I also like to rely on empirical evidence namely: Chernobyl, 3 Mile, Fukushima disasters have all occurred and we are still dealing with the consequences.

 

The fact that they did occur, do exist and can be observed today can not be contested and the consensus is with all of them we have been extremely lucky, the consequences could have been far far worse.

 

 

For the sake of simplicity lets not argue whether Nuclear power is safe when everything goes right under optimal conditions. My point is not talking about the merits of Coal plants vs Nuclear Plants when operating normally. My concern is what happens when they do not operate normally and when something goes wrong, which history has shown does occur and will inevitably occur once again. The likelihood of this happening in the future is increasing. Look at the data about the recent attacks in Belgium and how we now know their original target was to bomb a Brussels Nuclear Reactor.

 

So for the purpose of this discussion lets talk about risks associated when things do not go according to plan:

 

1. Blow up a Coal Power Plant and the result will be a power station that needs repair. Blow up a Nuclear Power Plant and the result could be deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, mass permanent evacuations of entire cities or states, the loss of huge geographic regions for potentially thousands of years and ramifications of mass cancers and long term implications of radiation in the food chain. Hundreds of Billions of $ in continual clean up costs. We are talking hundreds of generations here and the potential loss of an entire country.
2. Have to abandon a Coal Power Plant in a time of war and the result will be an abandoned power plant. Have to abandon a Nuclear Power Plant in a time of war and the result will be a core meltdown and see point 1 for implications.
3. Natural disaster takes down a Coal Power Plant and the result will be a temporary disruption of power. Natural disaster takes down a Nuclear Power Plant and the result could be a core meltdown and see point 1 for implications.
4. Terrorist gets hold of Coal Power Plant by-products he has some scary grey mud ash. Terrorist gets hold of tiny amount of Nuclear Power Plant by-products he has some material to make a Dirty Bomb and take out a % of a city and make it permanently uninhabitable. My point about Central Park comes to mind here where as little as 1/3 of a gram can make it uninhabitable.

 

I could go on, but I think you get my point. It's about the risks my friend, and the consequences of those risks when things inevitably do go wrong. You are 100% right, this is not rocket science ;-)

 

Potentially - yes it is conceivable to build safer Nuclear Power plants and as you say have a

 

thorium fluoride salt reactor in my backyard

 

 

, but this is not the reality for the vast majority of Nuclear plants scattered all over the world Today that is subject to severe risk implications. It is also true that we can not get rid of the waste and can not even be sure that burying it deep underground for 100 thousand years is safe. We can not be sure that the evil doers will not get hold of it.

 

For me, I'd far rather have no coal at all. But given the alternatives currently available, I'll choose readily the option that keeps the coal burning, wind turbines turning, sun shining and get rid of a risk that I think any sane informed human being would find simply unacceptable. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I understand that you are concerned about this. Am I right that spent nuclear fuel has recently come to your attention?  I earlier told myself that I wouldn't engage with you again because your zeal seemed impervious to facts. This was my perception at the time. Because of your essay I've revised my opinion and am going to try again- your essay persuaded me that you are genuinely concerned about this. 

 

I'm not an authority and I'll not appeal to them. I'm not going to link you youtube videos or other people posing as authorities. What I can say is: I have worked around cesium-137 in close proximity. I wrote software designed to harvest mass measurements from hydroscopic substances during various manufacturing processes. Since I often had to climb in and around the frame containing the sensor array (and thus the radioactive source) I did my due diligence in researching radioactive isotopes. Add this to the physics and maths knowledge to write meaningful software that gave correct results.  I'm not a nuclear engineer. I've been in a nuclear plant 2 times and on a nuclear sub once: during tours. My point in this paragraph is just this: I speak from experience but consult a text book and maths to confirm please. 

 

Radiation is dangerous. No argument. But I say again: there is no reason to be afraid of it. Nor spent fuel. Nor even the existing (aging) nuclear plants. And especially not the other reactor designs.  Not a criticism but I notice you wrote things like unfathomable, beyond comprehension (3x), unbelievable - yet the tone of your writing is so authoritative.   Perhaps the reason for your fear is the misunderstandings/errors/omissions you made in your essay. If you don't mind I'll correct the misunderstandings I think you made. 

 

Cesium-137 doesn't emit much gamma radiation. The primary radiation is beta particles (that I used to measure with). Gamma radiation follows the inverse square law. Beta radiation does not.  

 

However as a byproduct of losing these beta particles the 137 isotope transmutes. There are two decay chains. One chain goes directly to a non-radioactive state. The other goes to a highly volatile isotope that lasts about 2 minutes and emits massive gamma radiation.  But within minutes of beta transmission even the volatile isotope has reached a non-radioactive state. 

 

A half life of thirty years isn't so bad as compared to the 2 minute half life of the product of the decay chain that is dangerous. 

 

One way you might think about the relationship between half life and danger is this.  There is a fixed about of energy change required to transmute from one form to another. Released all at once you have a nuclear explosion. Released over time and the same explosion energy might be static in your car radio.

 

Generally speaking, a radioisotope that has a longer half life is safer than one with a shorter half life.  There are of course decay chains that are safer or more dangerous.  But with a sufficiently long half life even the most energetic decay chain is nothing. 

 

For example if cesium-137 had a half life of 30,000 years then there would be 1/10,000th atoms undergoing decay. Still dangerous in quantity, but more anemic due to a slower decay rate.

 

Long half life = good half life. My choice of the best nuclear fuel has a half life of 14,000,000,000 years. Not all nuclear is the same. My primary complaint is that regulations make no distinctions. When I was at Oak Ridge the radiation badge I was so sensitive that if you wore it to lunch (offsite) it would turn color. I forget the exact numbers but I think the max indicator was an exposure of +10% of daily ambient. So you could literally watch it turn colors just from standing in the sun light. 

 

You make a long example of cesium dust in central park. But it isn't there - it is safely contained within storage vessels or buried. But know what dust is in central park? The radioactive wastes from burning coal and oil. Strontium, uranium, and dozens more radioactive elements. They are weaker than cesium it is true. But unlike cesium they are present and in far greater concentrations than 1g/km^2.  Studies have been going on since the 80's on this. It is well documented how many curies we put into our air by, as you put it, boiling water. 

 

Now, given the known quantities of radiation which do you choose to imbibe? If all our power was nuclear your central park daily dose from boiling water might fall 500%. Less if you live rural.  Even counting disasters.

 

For me, I'd far rather have no radiation at all. But given the alternatives currently available I'll choose readily the option that keeps the radiation out of the air. 

 

And even more so the option of modern plants that create little/no waste at all because the primary reactor waste feeds the secondary reactor. And I'd literally put a thorium fluoride salt reactor in my backyard. I could build one within a year if I wasn't forbidden by the government. The plans are public source and available online for free. 

 

I hope this is helpful to whoever reads it. I wrote much of this earlier but hopefully by being more verbose my communication will be more effective.