It looks like you are using an ad blocker. That's okay. Who doesn't? But without advertising revenue, we can't keep making this site awesome. Click the link below for instructions on disabling adblock.
Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post.
Register to become a member today!
I saw on youtube that the sun is a bunch of nuclear explosions. So is doing solar energy as bad as doing nuclear energy because they are the same? Howcome CNN doesn't bring this up?
If I'm actually understanding this I think solar energy is a lot safer too harness. Nuclear energy has such a high potential too go wrong in my opinion.
The sun performs nuclear fusion which is where the hydrogens combine to become helium and so foreth. This convert mass into energy (light).
Nuclear power plants perform nuclear fusion which is the controlled decay of radio active isotopes. It is particularly dangerous but human error can fuck things up.
User1The sun performs nuclear fusion which is where the hydrogens combine to become helium and so foreth. This convert mass into energy (light).
Nuclear power plants perform nuclear fusion which is the controlled decay of radio active isotopes. It is particularly dangerous but human error can fuck things up.
If you have a working fusion plant then tell me where to send the nobel prize to... And hook me up with some free power. Nuke power is fission based, on earth anyway, which is entirely different than fusion.
And yes i know there are experimental fusion reactors, none of which supply power to our homes. So inb4 tomahawk or the euro one.
DrZoidbergIf you have a working fusion plant then tell me where to send the nobel prize to... And hook me up with some free power. Nuke power is fission based, on earth anyway, which is entirely different than fusion.
And yes i know there are experimental fusion reactors, none of which supply power to our homes. So inb4 tomahawk or the euro one.
THEDIRTYBUBBLEThe US needs to get over its fear of nuclear energy and start using it more. It's honestly the best option.
But honestly, nuclear energy is easily the future. Ask any educated scientist who is passionate about the facts. Depite what anyone tells you, it is safe. The only 4 reactors that have failed aren't because they weren't safe, or because they're these super volitaile deth plants. 2 that failed were built before the MOON LANDING, one failed because it was built by a developing country who were haphazardly trying to shortcut to nukes, and another was destroyed in an earthquake and tsunami. Nuclear reactors are easy to control. You just have to be safe. With the modern technolog we have today, there is no excuse. Stop burning coal and start getting clean energy from uranium.
They are way more efficient than any type of energy source. Wind energy is probably the next best thing, as solar is costly (correct me if I'm wrong) and not terribly efficient, and hydroelectric isnt very good at all. I think I remember reading the Hoover damn makes an abysmal amount of energy.
disposing of the spent fuel rods is a problem though
Slushdisposing of the spent fuel rods is a problem though
I think we should just send all of that shit to the sun. all of our garbage, everything. just launch that shit into space. In Idaho there are miles of mustard gas underground just sitting there, and have been for decades. Blast that shit outta here. I don't know I'm bored.
Nuclear power plants really aren't that unstable and there are surprisingly few of them in the world. The issue is disposing of spent fuel rods and knowing how to mark where they are buried in a way that won't make people dig them up even thousands of years from now
powderdrunkieI think we should just send all of that shit to the sun. all of our garbage, everything. just launch that shit into space. In Idaho there are miles of mustard gas underground just sitting there, and have been for decades. Blast that shit outta here. I don't know I'm bored.
Not only are the rods heavy and would be a significant mass to launch into space, you have the hazard of the rocket exploding and spewing radioactive chunks of metal all over the place.
a_pla5tic_bagNot only are the rods heavy and would be a significant mass to launch into space, you have the hazard of the rocket exploding and spewing radioactive chunks of metal all over the place.
SlushBut honestly, nuclear energy is easily the future. Ask any educated scientist who is passionate about the facts. Depite what anyone tells you, it is safe. The only 4 reactors that have failed aren't because they weren't safe, or because they're these super volitaile deth plants. 2 that failed were built before the MOON LANDING, one failed because it was built by a developing country who were haphazardly trying to shortcut to nukes, and another was destroyed in an earthquake and tsunami. Nuclear reactors are easy to control. You just have to be safe. With the modern technolog we have today, there is no excuse. Stop burning coal and start getting clean energy from uranium.
They are way more efficient than any type of energy source. Wind energy is probably the next best thing, as solar is costly (correct me if I'm wrong) and not terribly efficient, and hydroelectric isnt very good at all. I think I remember reading the Hoover damn makes an abysmal amount of energy.
disposing of the spent fuel rods is a problem though
I can't understand why people aren't on board with nuclear, it's by far the best option.
Wind is a good idea however it would take some serious modification to the electrical grid which is kind of a waste in itself.
Solar is the same, might work well in residential applications except it only works in the sun which is when there isn't as much demand thus meaning we would need shitloads of batteries for when you need electricity plus if we try and move to electric cars we will need even more batteries and even more capacity to charge them when there is no sun.
Hydro can make shitloads of electricity but are only available in certain geological areas
Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen because of shitty design, shitty operating practices.
Fukushima is a shitty design, who builds a nuclear power plant on the ocean near a fault line? It was a matter of time.
Three mile island, people still live near it and the other reactors at that plant are still in operation (correct me if I'm wrong, too lazy to look it up), again old technology.
One thing that's always confused me is if both coal power plants and nuclear power plants use steam to drive turbines then why can't we simply replace the coal boilers with nuclear reactors?
The other technology I'm surprise hasn't been exploited is large scale geothermal. Shouldn't we be able to drill down to hot enough temperatures to get steam and then pump water in and get steam out? I know some African countries are all over that.
Slushdisposing of the spent fuel rods is a problem though
I'm a nuclear engineering graduate student studying waste repository development. A deep geologic repository is required for almost all fuel cycles, and the scientific basis for the performance of them has been understood well. The cheapest and safest option (from a nonproliferation standpoint) at this time is direct disposal of the spent fuel. People have this fear that it is done haphazardly (i.e. "dumping"), but nuclear waste repositories are highly engineered systems. The key is defense in depth.
Surprisingly, the waste is primarily a social/political problem, not a technical problem. In nearly all cases around the world where a repository has been proposed, the local community is happy about it being there. They are assured of its performance and understand that it means federal money and long term jobs. In countries with a state/province/prefecture/etc level of government, we see something called the "doughnut" effect - the federal government and the local community want it, but the state does not. Yucca Mountain is an example of failed siting all around. While it's located on federal land (on the corner of the Test Site), the decision was made in a late-night senate meeting before the passage of the amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act without consulting young Harry Reid. He probably took it personally (I don't blame him) and has been out to kill it since.
no_steezeThe issue is disposing of spent fuel rods and knowing how to mark where they are buried in a way that won't make people dig them up even thousands of years from now
Have you seen the concept art they've come up with? The US government and others have conducted studies on this sort of thing. Pretty crazy results.
RusticlesFukushima is a shitty design, who builds a nuclear power plant on the ocean near a fault line? It was a matter of time.
It was a civil engineering failure. The designers of the plant put the backup generators below sea level, so when the tsunami breached the seawall, it took out the generators. Hindsight is 20-20, but should have put them on the roof...
^^ yea, I read up on it and there are some very safe ways of disposing of waste. And it's a damn shame that the public is so ignorant.
The only reason people don't want nuclear, is because they're uneducated in the topic. All they know is that "the scary power plants could explode at any time zomg!" when real thing is that they're perfectly safe and under a high level of control.
Anyone who knows the basic equation E=mc^2 can figure out that nuclear energy can produce shit loads of energy. C, being the speed of light, is 3x10^8... a damn big number! Nunclear energy is the conversion of the mass that comes from decaying Uranium, into energy. Any small amount of mass results in a huge amount of energy, because it gets multiplied by the speed of light! It's an incredibly efficient and productive to convert mass into energy, and our current nuclear energy system is capable of doing such things
r.simpNuclear energy has such a high potential too go wrong in my opinion.
Such a silly thing to say, "in my opinion". What qualifications or knowledge do you have on nuclear energy, besides the fact it has the word 'nuke' in it?
It was proven that Scientist know that the sun cant be forever. So why would we want to speed up its death by taking its energy? We should stick to things that are forever like wind energy,
PM4FreeJiberishIt was proven that Scientist know that the sun cant be forever. So why would we want to speed up its death by taking its energy? We should stick to things that are forever like wind energy,
You're joking, right? Please tell me you're joking.
Solar energy is very safe. There's not a lot of room for human error, and they're pretty low maintenance. Basically how it works is the suns rays move ions in a solar cell to make a DC current that goes into a battery bank for storage, and gets inverted to AC current when power is needed. There is also another way that is a little closer to nuclear, where mirrors focus sun rays to a central point on a tower to heat up water and power steam turbines.
Nuclear is more dangerous (ex. Chernobyl) and a lot more maintenance is involved. Nuclear uses heat energy given off by radioactive decay of isotopes to heat water and power steam turbines. Nuclear also has effects that last a lot longer, because the radioactive waste eventually deteriorates to the point where it can't be used anymore, so it has to be stored somewhere and poses an environmental threat for a few thousand years. The warmer water being returned to nearby water can also be slightly warmer which can negatively effect the local ecology.
Crispy.Such a silly thing to say, "in my opinion". What qualifications or knowledge do you have on nuclear energy, besides the fact it has the word 'nuke' in it?
I mean if you read about Hanford a little bit its pretty much a giant environmental fuckup. They have radioactive waste leaking into the groundwater from their failed storage tanks. Back in the 40's and 50's the government did not give a shit about people. They used the Columbia River to cool the reactor and just pumped the contaminated water back into the river and secretly discharged radioactive material into the atmosphere.
PM4FreeJiberishIt was proven that Scientist know that the sun cant be forever. So why would we want to speed up its death by taking its energy? We should stick to things that are forever like wind energy,
almost every form of energy on the planet uses solar energy in some way. Wind is caused by uneven heating of the atmosphere, the sun gave energy to plants that fossilized into fossil fuels, the sun drives the water cycle via evaporation, and solar power uses the suns rays to move ions. The most disconnected source of energy from the sun is nuclear. The only way they're really connected is that they both are nuclear reactions. The sun is Fusion and a power plant is Fission.
CaseyI mean if you read about Hanford a little bit its pretty much a giant environmental fuckup. They have radioactive waste leaking into the groundwater from their failed storage tanks. Back in the 40's and 50's the government did not give a shit about people. They used the Columbia River to cool the reactor and just pumped the contaminated water back into the river and secretly discharged radioactive material into the atmosphere.
The confusion between nuclear weapons activities and nuclear energy is one of the major problems facing nuclear power. Hanford was a weapons site and was operated during a time when not much was known about the environment and the urgency of the Cold War pushed people to make decisions that, in hindsight, were not so good. Nuclear energy does not require anything like Hanford and operates under wayyyyy more regulation. Just to clear that up.
RusticlesI can't understand why people aren't on board with nuclear, it's by far the best option.
Wind is a good idea however it would take some serious modification to the electrical grid which is kind of a waste in itself.
Solar is the same, might work well in residential applications except it only works in the sun which is when there isn't as much demand thus meaning we would need shitloads of batteries for when you need electricity plus if we try and move to electric cars we will need even more batteries and even more capacity to charge them when there is no sun.
Hydro can make shitloads of electricity but are only available in certain geological areas
Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen because of shitty design, shitty operating practices.
Fukushima is a shitty design, who builds a nuclear power plant on the ocean near a fault line? It was a matter of time.
Three mile island, people still live near it and the other reactors at that plant are still in operation (correct me if I'm wrong, too lazy to look it up), again old technology.
One thing that's always confused me is if both coal power plants and nuclear power plants use steam to drive turbines then why can't we simply replace the coal boilers with nuclear reactors?
The other technology I'm surprise hasn't been exploited is large scale geothermal. Shouldn't we be able to drill down to hot enough temperatures to get steam and then pump water in and get steam out? I know some African countries are all over that.
Actually solar could be a viable option if you utilize other storage methods rather than batteries. Molten salts are an option. I also recently heard of storing the energy as a pressurized gas however I am forgetting which gas that would be. These storage methods would be much more effective than traditional methods and could tide energy consumption through the night. Anyway it is an option and is probably the cleanest/safest method.
In regards to replacing coal plants with nuclear reactors my guess would be that the steam turbine end of the process is much cheaper than the reactor end. Likely the gutting of a coal plant would be too costly and you're going to be able to put better tech and building resources into a completely new plant. And with nuclear regulations being as stringent as they are then a coal plants existing structure is probably not up to code. I'm not an expert at this shit as I am basing it off speculation and a nuke engineering class I took in college 2 years ago but hey I did do an internship at a firm that supported a nuke plant so there's that.
@ OP not at all the same in any way, the only way they'd be comparable is if we harnessed energy from the light given off from the reactor with solar panels
THEDIRTYBUBBLEThe US needs to get over its fear of nuclear energy and start using it more. It's honestly the best option.
and no it is super dangerous and impractical for the US. The US is a place of frequent natural disasters such as tornados, hurricanes and lithospheric activity such as earthquakes and general uplift of the plates, and the US is at a heavy risk of rising sea levels. Also chernobyl will not be inhabitable for over 20,000 years. a small failure in one part of the plant absolutely screws everything, It is insanely dangerous, and not worth the risk. Offshore Wind Power is super easy, takes up no space that we are using, and benefits the ecosystems by creating artificial reef habitats. Solar Can be used on buildings which are taking up space anyways. Both are 100% benign and don't need to be worked by people, so they are effectively free after they are built besides occasional maintenance.
Rosa_Park@ OP not at all the same in any way, the only way they'd be comparable is if we harnessed energy from the light given off from the reactor with solar panels
and no it is super dangerous and impractical for the US. The US is a place of frequent natural disasters such as tornados, hurricanes and lithospheric activity such as earthquakes and general uplift of the plates, and the US is at a heavy risk of rising sea levels. Also chernobyl will not be inhabitable for over 20,000 years. a small failure in one part of the plant absolutely screws everything, It is insanely dangerous, and not worth the risk. Offshore Wind Power is super easy, takes up no space that we are using, and benefits the ecosystems by creating artificial reef habitats. Solar Can be used on buildings which are taking up space anyways. Both are 100% benign and don't need to be worked by people, so they are effectively free after they are built besides occasional maintenance.
I would not call Chernobyl a small failure. There were many many things that they did wrong. From the design of the reactor to the test they were running to incompetent personnel running the test. Plus they were dealing with a work atmosphere that is not what you see at a US nuclear power plant. Also that was 30 years ago. Knowledge of nuclear reactors and advancements in technology make nuclear power plants much safer and more reliable than 30 years ago. I'm not saying it's perfect but by no means is nuclear energy "super dangerous".
The thing with solar is that we're not gonna get anywhere due to budgets and whatever. Everybody wants 99% efficient solar panels and super high energy density storage devices to store our cleanly generated power but nobody's coughing up the money. Thanks obama. Likewise with fusion reactors; everybody wants one but nobody throws money at it. They're doing it in europe with the ITER thing. The PPPL here in NJ made some parts for the reactor to ship over, or is making them currently.
Also the op was a troll attempt, correct? So lol at how this thread has been going.
AuschieActually solar could be a viable option if you utilize other storage methods rather than batteries. Molten salts are an option. I also recently heard of storing the energy as a pressurized gas however I am forgetting which gas that would be. These storage methods would be much more effective than traditional methods and could tide energy consumption through the night. Anyway it is an option and is probably the cleanest/safest method.
In regards to replacing coal plants with nuclear reactors my guess would be that the steam turbine end of the process is much cheaper than the reactor end. Likely the gutting of a coal plant would be too costly and you're going to be able to put better tech and building resources into a completely new plant. And with nuclear regulations being as stringent as they are then a coal plants existing structure is probably not up to code. I'm not an expert at this shit as I am basing it off speculation and a nuke engineering class I took in college 2 years ago but hey I did do an internship at a firm that supported a nuke plant so there's that.
Yeah I'd heard of some of the other techniques like molten salt, I think the gas one has something with heating and compressing gases and releasing it afterwards or something like that. If those are commercially viable then great, but I'm Leary that they'd be able to handle the demand of the grid, especially high demand loads of industry.
As for converting coal plants, a friend of mine who is the electrical superintendent of a coal plant told me that the turbine portion is not interchangeable for some reason. You're probably right though the turbine and generator are not the expensive parts to a nuclear plant and it'd probably make more sense to just replace them. If you built the nuke in the vicinity of the coal plant the grid could remain largely unchanged which should provide some savings
mirozThe confusion between nuclear weapons activities and nuclear energy is one of the major problems facing nuclear power. Hanford was a weapons site and was operated during a time when not much was known about the environment and the urgency of the Cold War pushed people to make decisions that, in hindsight, were not so good. Nuclear energy does not require anything like Hanford and operates under wayyyyy more regulation. Just to clear that up.
You seem to be fairly knowledgable on the topic, how difficult, expensive, and dangerous is storing nuclear waste. From my understanding is it stays radioactive, dangerous for human contact for a few thousand years? Also heard the average human in a lifespan would create about one pop can worth of nuclear waste in their lifetime if all their energy came from nuclear?
What have you heard about thorium? Was it ever developed and function tested or is that just a tinfoil hat theory
RusticlesYou seem to be fairly knowledgable on the topic, how difficult, expensive, and dangerous is storing nuclear waste. From my understanding is it stays radioactive, dangerous for human contact for a few thousand years? Also heard the average human in a lifespan would create about one pop can worth of nuclear waste in their lifetime if all their energy came from nuclear?
What have you heard about thorium? Was it ever developed and function tested or is that just a tinfoil hat theory
Storing or disposing of? The storage of the waste costs very little. After about 5 years in a water cooling pool, the spent fuel can be put in a dry cask and is kept cool via natural convection. Disposing of it will be expensive. There's no good understanding for what the cost will be because there is no operating repository in the world for spent fuel. However, research and repository design can be expensive. For example, research on Yucca Mountain in the US cost many millions of dollars. In Sweden, they plan on using fully copper canisters to contain the waste - that's a lot of copper and will be really costly. Much of this cost is passed onto the utilities. In the US, they pay a tax on every nuclear kwh generated, but that's a story for another post.
The spent fuel will be dangerous for human "contact" for probably a couple hundred years. Right now, if you walked up to an exposed spent fuel assembly recently removed from the reactor, you'd receive a lethal dose in seconds and drop dead soon after. However, the most strongly radioactive fission products are also those that decay the quickest. Given a bit of time, those disappear. After a few hundred years (or maybe less), I might guess that a spent fuel assembly is probably cool enough such that you could pick it up and run off with it (jk it's too heavy for that). You'd receive a hefty dose but it might not be a suicide mission. But that's just your body dose being near the stuff, not ingestion or inhalation. Exposing organs to radioactivity is way worse, which is why the performance requirements for disposal are hundred of thousands to millions of years. For radioactivity in drinking water, the dose needs to be really low.
I did a little back of the envelope calculation to investigate the "soda pop" thing. An average pressurized light water reactor produces about 27.2 MT of spent fuel per year; in the process, it generates 800 MWy of electrical energy. The average American uses about 13,000 kwh of electricity per year. That means that the electrical output of a single nuclear reactor provides enough electricity for about 540,000 people annually, meaning that about 0.05 kg of spent fuel waste is produced per person who uses the energy. So multiply that by, say, 80 years, and you get 4 kg of spent fuel per lifetime. Sounds about right.
As for thorium, I've heard some, but that's not my area of research. New reactor designs are required for its use, and new reactor research and development goes really slowly. The reactors running now were built without the aid of computer simulation. Even today, we're still trying to create models that can accurately represent the physics of a nuclear reactor that was built 50 years ago. It seems that the new generation of nuclear reactors will require this level of understanding before they are built. Plus, the financial aspects of investing in nuclear aren't super hot right now. The thorium fuel cycle has a lot of neat implications that seem pretty favorable to waste disposal. I'll have to read up on that, could be a dissertation topic...
CaseyI mean if you read about Hanford a little bit its pretty much a giant environmental fuckup. They have radioactive waste leaking into the groundwater from their failed storage tanks. Back in the 40's and 50's the government did not give a shit about people. They used the Columbia River to cool the reactor and just pumped the contaminated water back into the river and secretly discharged radioactive material into the atmosphere.
I met a guy at the range yesterday that works out at that plant. He says it's a total disaster. He had some very interesting things to talk about, however. I guess in a nutshell he said that these problems are from years of ironing out all of the kinks to perfect this form of making nuclear weapons, which is a COMPLETELY different process than nuclear energy. He said that now that we know so much about it, these disasters will likely not happen again in the future, but fixing people's mistakes is another ball game. Damn he had so many interesting things to say but I can't remember all of it.
he did say that he thinks wind energy is the best, which was surprising.
mirozI'm a nuclear engineering graduate student studying waste repository development. A deep geologic repository is required for almost all fuel cycles, and the scientific basis for the performance of them has been understood well. The cheapest and safest option (from a nonproliferation standpoint) at this time is direct disposal of the spent fuel. People have this fear that it is done haphazardly (i.e. "dumping"), but nuclear waste repositories are highly engineered systems. The key is defense in depth.
That's so cool. I'm a geology student who also has been doing research on a deep geological repository project. I'm looking at the geochemistry of porewaters of a very low-permeability shale formation that would shield the repository at a depth of 680 meters. Adding to the key defence, it's also very important that the rocks where the waste is buried are stable enough to hold the radioactive waste. I've always wondered about the engineering side of things... Once you dig down to suitable depth of the stable system, it's no longer stable since you just dug a massive shaft to get there? Is it possible to engineer something that can last millions of years after the repository is decommissioned?
Black.BirdThat's so cool. I'm a geology student who also has been doing research on a deep geological repository project. I'm looking at the geochemistry of porewaters of a very low-permeability shale formation that would shield the repository at a depth of 680 meters. Adding to the key defence, it's also very important that the rocks where the waste is buried are stable enough to hold the radioactive waste. I've always wondered about the engineering side of things... Once you dig down to suitable depth of the stable system, it's no longer stable since you just dug a massive shaft to get there? Is it possible to engineer something that can last millions of years after the repository is decommissioned?
Way cool! In the shales you're studying, what is the organic content (if any)? How are the organics organized with the rock and pore water? Shales are interesting to me because the presence of organic material can create a reducing chemistry.
Regarding the stability of the rock, I'm not sure. What do you mean by stable? When I hear "stability", I think of rock that is stable on the geologic timescale, i.e. rock unaffected by lots of geologic activity. I think the structural stability of the repository is bolstered by the backfilling material that you'd fill the tunnels with before you left.
mirozWay cool! In the shales you're studying, what is the organic content (if any)? How are the organics organized with the rock and pore water? Shales are interesting to me because the presence of organic material can create a reducing chemistry.
Regarding the stability of the rock, I'm not sure. What do you mean by stable? When I hear "stability", I think of rock that is stable on the geologic timescale, i.e. rock unaffected by lots of geologic activity. I think the structural stability of the repository is bolstered by the backfilling material that you'd fill the tunnels with before you left.
I personally haven't done work with organics, but others have. However, here is a depth profile of the organics! The cap-shale is the Upper Ordovician section, and it lies on the lower limestone formation. There's a high concentration of organics between both formations, and was most likely accumulated following the inundation of the carbonate system.
There were 6 drill cores drilled at the proposed site.
Yes, that's what I meant by stable. I mean the repository can be stable on a geological sense, but the building stage of the repository can probably jeopardize it's integrity.
Interesting though. I'm assuming the material used will be suitable enough to last a really long time? By long time I mean, will it be able to sustain glaciations or flooding etc?
DrZoidbergIf you have a working fusion plant then tell me where to send the nobel prize to... And hook me up with some free power. Nuke power is fission based, on earth anyway, which is entirely different than fusion.
And yes i know there are experimental fusion reactors, none of which supply power to our homes. So inb4 tomahawk or the euro one.
I had the opportunity to visit the JET Fusion reactor in England and i talked with one of the project managers there who showed me how the new fusion reactor being built in Southern france will for sure become energetically feasible in the sense it'll produce more than what we put into it. While it may seem that clean* and safe energy is still decades away it's actually a lot closer to powering our homes than you think. one big step will be to show the public the difference between the two types of reactors, as most people who will vote on this will still feel the fear of accidents like Chernobyl and the more recent Fukushima meltdown.
*It still produces some radioactive waste but considerably less than a fission reactor.
AuschieI would not call Chernobyl a small failure.
yes the people running it should have been able to prevent it, but the actual system failure was due to a problem with the water system, in which a water pipe burst, and the cooling area flooded while they were doing a test, which ultimately led to explosions in the plant.
If we are going to run the world or even just the country on nuclear power, there will have to be a lot of plants, and the chance of something being missed like that is pretty high. Also that still was not the point, I am saying that natural disasters which are extremely common, could easily cause a small problem like that, which would result in the people and the environment around the plant being killed, sick, or displaced by the radiation that would cause havoc for thousands of years.
Problems like that are extremely dangerous. If you're going to pull the modernized technology card, look at Japan, they were lucky the radiation went mostly out over and into the ocean instead of the country, but it destroyed much of the ocean life in the area, and they still have been trying to figure out a way to dispose of the radioactive waste and material that they have contained. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/fukushima-radiation-continues-to-leak-into-the-pacific-ocean/
Black.BirdThat's so cool. I'm a geology student who also has been doing research on a deep geological repository project. I'm looking at the geochemistry of porewaters of a very low-permeability shale formation that would shield the repository at a depth of 680 meters. Adding to the key defence, it's also very important that the rocks where the waste is buried are stable enough to hold the radioactive waste. I've always wondered about the engineering side of things... Once you dig down to suitable depth of the stable system, it's no longer stable since you just dug a massive shaft to get there? Is it possible to engineer something that can last millions of years after the repository is decommissioned?
yo same dude, i'm a geo major at Colby. I'm no expert in this kind of thing at all, but wouldn't shale (and pretty much all sedimentary rocks) be too weak, because of it's tendency to fracture, (like in fracking and such) I would think a plutonic rock like granite where it's extremely hard, but has almost no porosity would be better? again I'm just guessing from what I know, shut me down if I'm wrong. also I do know (talking with my professor that did some work with oil drilling and fracking ) that in at least some cases they plug the hole by pouring a mix of the broken up rock they drilled with a hard cement, attempting to create a sort of conglomerate plug. I don't know about the stability once that's done though.
Black.BirdI personally haven't done work with organics, but others have. However, here is a depth profile of the organics! The cap-shale is the Upper Ordovician section, and it lies on the lower limestone formation. There's a high concentration of organics between both formations, and was most likely accumulated following the inundation of the carbonate system.
There were 6 drill cores drilled at the proposed site.
Yes, that's what I meant by stable. I mean the repository can be stable on a geological sense, but the building stage of the repository can probably jeopardize it's integrity.
Interesting though. I'm assuming the material used will be suitable enough to last a really long time? By long time I mean, will it be able to sustain glaciations or flooding etc?
That's wicked cool.
And to that, I'm not so sure. I think part of selecting a formation is choosing one that's demonstrated stability despite those events occurring. The Swedish/Finnish repositories are in hard granite that's been stable for millennia. Yucca Mountain was chosen in a historically arid/dry environment. But I'm not sure, that's a good question. Maybe it's generally assumed that the overall formation has enough strength that small bores/tunnels into the greater structure don't compromise performance.
Rosa_Parkyes the people running it should have been able to prevent it, but the actual system failure was due to a problem with the water system, in which a water pipe burst, and the cooling area flooded while they were doing a test, which ultimately led to explosions in the plant.
If we are going to run the world or even just the country on nuclear power, there will have to be a lot of plants, and the chance of something being missed like that is pretty high. Also that still was not the point, I am saying that natural disasters which are extremely common, could easily cause a small problem like that, which would result in the people and the environment around the plant being killed, sick, or displaced by the radiation that would cause havoc for thousands of years.
Problems like that are extremely dangerous. If you're going to pull the modernized technology card, look at Japan, they were lucky the radiation went mostly out over and into the ocean instead of the country, but it destroyed much of the ocean life in the area, and they still have been trying to figure out a way to dispose of the radioactive waste and material that they have contained. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/fukushima-radiation-continues-to-leak-into-the-pacific-ocean/
Dude, if you're gonna talk, at least know what you're talking about. The operators actively disabled the safety systems to run ill-conceived tests on the reactor. The nuclear reaction is controlled with neutron-absorbing control rods, which act to maintain the reaction at a stable rate. The operators withdrew these completely.
The RBMK was a terrible design - it used a graphite moderator to slow down neutrons to energies where they could cause fission, but water coolant. In modern reactors, water is used as both a moderator and a coolant. if the reaction rate gets too high, the core will heat up, decreasing the density of the water and decreasing its moderating capability, slowing the reaction and pushing the core back towards stability. The RBMK did not have that capability; in fact, at the low power levels at which the experiment was conducted, it had positive feedback, meaning that as the reactor got hotter, the reaction got faster and more energetic. This resulted in the buildup of steam in the core which caused a steam explosion; the cause of the second, more powerful explosion is unknown.
I am a supporter of fair and ethical nuclear power. Chernobyl (and to some extent, Fukushima) are not good examples of that. You are absolutely right that if more nuclear is developed, more accidents are inevitable. That is the way of things. But nuclear plants (designed without the aid of computers, mind you) have a nearly spotless record already, and we can do even better. New nuclear will be safer and better understood because of the massive leaps technology has made since the previous iteration of plant development.
mirozThe operators actively disabled the safety systems to run ill-conceived tests on the reactor. The nuclear reaction is controlled with neutron-absorbing control rods, which act to maintain the reaction at a stable rate. The operators withdrew these completely.
as part of the test, yes. There are a lot of things the workers did that would usually be considered poor running of the plant, because the accident happened during a drill that was meant to practice what they would do in case of an accident.
as you said yourself:
mirozat least know what you're talking about.
however, I do agree with you that as computers and such start being more involved, it will be safer, but that doesn't eliminate all of the accidents. we have had 2 in the ~100 years that we have had nuclear power, even if we can go 500 without another, that still sucks, and is more than would happen with other energy sources.
And to that, I'm not so sure. I think part of selecting a formation is choosing one that's demonstrated stability despite those events occurring. The Swedish/Finnish repositories are in hard granite that's been stable for millennia. Yucca Mountain was chosen in a historically arid/dry environment. But I'm not sure, that's a good question. Maybe it's generally assumed that the overall formation has enough strength that small bores/tunnels into the greater structure don't compromise performance.
Dude, if you're gonna talk, at least know what you're talking about. The operators actively disabled the safety systems to run ill-conceived tests on the reactor. The nuclear reaction is controlled with neutron-absorbing control rods, which act to maintain the reaction at a stable rate. The operators withdrew these completely.
The RBMK was a terrible design - it used a graphite moderator to slow down neutrons to energies where they could cause fission, but water coolant. In modern reactors, water is used as both a moderator and a coolant. if the reaction rate gets too high, the core will heat up, decreasing the density of the water and decreasing its moderating capability, slowing the reaction and pushing the core back towards stability. The RBMK did not have that capability; in fact, at the low power levels at which the experiment was conducted, it had positive feedback, meaning that as the reactor got hotter, the reaction got faster and more energetic. This resulted in the buildup of steam in the core which caused a steam explosion; the cause of the second, more powerful explosion is unknown.
I am a supporter of fair and ethical nuclear power. Chernobyl (and to some extent, Fukushima) are not good examples of that. You are absolutely right that if more nuclear is developed, more accidents are inevitable. That is the way of things. But nuclear plants (designed without the aid of computers, mind you) have a nearly spotless record already, and we can do even better. New nuclear will be safer and better understood because of the massive leaps technology has made since the previous iteration of plant development.
Rosa_Parkas part of the test, yes. There are a lot of things the workers did that would usually be considered poor running of the plant, because the accident happened during a drill that was meant to practice what they would do in case of an accident.
as you said yourself:
however, I do agree with you that as computers and such start being more involved, it will be safer, but that doesn't eliminate all of the accidents. we have had 2 in the ~100 years that we have had nuclear power, even if we can go 500 without another, that still sucks, and is more than would happen with other energy sources.
I would love to know what a Nuclear facility's HAZOP/PHA is like.
