Power plants vs batteries

[charliemagpie]

SpaceX can dispose of nuclear waste by hurling little chunks at a time towards the Sun.

 

[Crissa]

SpaceX can dispose of nuclear waste by hurling little chunks at a time towards the Sun.

-Crissa

 

[firsttruck]

SpaceX can dispose of nuclear waste by hurling little chunks at a time towards the Sun.

Technically possible put way way to expensive in addition to very dangerous.
If the rocket blew up on launchpad or while in Earth's atmosphere you would rain down the nuclear waste onto Earth.

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This Is Why We Don't Shoot Earth's Garbage Into The Sun
By Ethan Siegel, Senior Contributor
Starts With A Bang, Contributor Group
Sep 20, 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/starts...-earths-garbage-into-the-sun/?sh=32121a375d63

.....
it's technologically feasible to launch our garbage — including hazardous waste like poisonous chemicals, biohazards, and even radioactive waste — but it's something we'll almost certainly never do. Why not?

There are currently three barriers to the idea:

* The possibility of a launch failure. If your payload is radioactive or hazardous and you have an explosion on launch or during a fly-by with Earth, all of that waste will be uncontrollably distributed across Earth.

* Energetically, it costs less to shoot your payload out of the Solar System (from a positive gravity assist with planets like Jupiter) than it does to shoot your payload into the Sun.

* And finally, even if we chose to do it, the cost to send our garbage into the Sun is prohibitively expensive at present.

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[HaulingAss]

yes but build the nuclear nonetheless.... and tie them into a battery grid.

I could only support nuclear if it met modern safety standards (totally doable) and could demonstrate a cradle to grave cost that was competitive with wind and solar with battery storage.

Hint: The latter concern is the problem. A power source that is not cost-competitive with other solutions is not a free-market decision, it's a give-away to special interests that ratepayers would have to pay for. This is what nuclear advocates always ignore. Nuclear is expensive to construct and expensive to take proper care of the waste and expensive to decommission at the end of life. These are real costs that ratepayers have to cover.

 

[charliemagpie]

Science

I bet that article was thinking 1 million per kilo Vrs the $10,000 Elon is aiming for.

And it doesn't stop there.

Spacex x has better safety systems... thus far, proven to be uber reliable. the nose cone can jettison and parachute down.

Waste could be in the form of pellets , integrated in a stronger material to withstand a fall.


There is risk, but there is risk in leaving one's house. Is this risk preferable to highly likely mishaps over the coming centuries ?

There are 9 recorded Nuclear Submarine incidents .. I have no idea, and I don't wish to sound complacent. but are our priorities muddled ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines

I am not an expert, but I reckon the oil industry has done a good job to quell any initiatives in this area.

There is a quarter of a million metric tons of nuclear waste in the World. We should build a launch pad in the middle of the Sahara ... Staff it with Robots.

Send it all off on barges towards the Sun.

Elon can land rockets, this is a walk in the park.

Time to start thinking about cleaning up the mess we made.

 

[Crissa]

The problem is a nuclear disaster in near Earth orbit poisons a massive amount of the atmosphere.

It's best to keep these things as close to the ground (or under it) as possible. It's about keeping it contained from the atmosphere.

-Crissa

 

[charliemagpie]

The US detonated a nuclear bomb in Space.

I do not deny issues with disposing of the waste, I do have concern with debunking all solutions.

Like the electric car, someone will break through the barrier, and kill off the scare mongering.

And of course, we know who that is.

 

[Crissa]

A nuclear bomb is fairly small, in weight of radioactive mass. And it was a thermonuclear device, the second active ingredient in it that makes it an H-bomb isn't meaningfully harmful radioactive.

-Crissa

 

[charliemagpie]

Ooops, pardon me.

I just did some math

There's 1.2 Million cubic metres of depleted Uranium. And it's heavy.

We have to find another way.

 

[Cybertruck Hawaii]

Electric Viking just released an article on November, 22 2022 about a new vehicle battery that can charge in under two minutes!? While that may be future of charging EVs, can the grid handle pumping that many amps of electricity in those wires. That’s a lot of energy flowing through the copper wires all at once.

 

[Crissa]

Electric Viking just released an article on November, 22 2022 about a new vehicle battery that can charge in under two minutes!? While that may be future of charging EVs, can the grid handle pumping that many amps of electricity in those wires. That’s a lot of energy flowing through the copper wires all at once.

Stations will have their own batteries if it can't. But it's not different than a hundred people turning their kettle on about the same time. The grid handles that just fine.

-Crissa

 

[Cybertruck Hawaii]

Stations will have their own batteries if it can't. But it's not different than a hundred people turning their kettle on about the same time. The grid handles that just fine.

-Crissa

?Let’s hope that you are right. Otherwise, I won’t be able to cook dinner for my dogs.

 

[jerhenderson]

Why build more nuclear ???

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US and EU dependence on Russian nuclear services. In 2021, Russia provided US nuclear utilities with 14 percent of their uranium purchases and 28 percent of their enrichment services.
US and EU imports of Russian uranium and enrichment services could stop. Here’s how.
By Dory Castillo-Peters, Frank von Hippel | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
August 5, 2022
https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/us-...n-uranium-and-enrichment-services-could-stop/

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SWB ( solar wind batteries ) is much cheaper and even if no protests or permit issues for nuclear you can install SWB in much less time than nuclear plant.

Hardly anyone wants a nuclear within 200 miles of where they live / work / vacation.

Almost nobody wants trucks or trains with radioactive material passing though their town.

The wealthy are certainly going to make sure none of the stuff is near them so as usually the poor areas without powerful advocates will get stuck with it just like they are stuck with the other dangerous stuff.

Private insurance industry will not insure so why should taxpayers subsidize.

What real world long-term solution is there to waste from mining, refining and later on the plant spent fuel.

What about all the long-term security costs so someone does not get some material for a dirty bomb?
Even if no huge physical damage from explosion who would buy property in the area afterwards?
Who is going to pay for the drop in values?

Nuclear plants need cooling water. If you place the plant on ocean shore you have to guard against the worst possible tsunami. Even river/lakes can have tsunami type events if a huge hunk of glacier or side of mountain falls off into the body of water (both of these have happened before). If you locate on river/lake shore you have problems of water levels getting too low and overheating the river or lake. This is happening more and more as droughts affect more areas. If it gets colder than normally the plant can have problems too ( See example Texas where both nuclear and fossil fuel plants stopped working during cold spell).

We still find earthquake fault lines that we had not detected earlier. Can't economically just move the plant. Taxpayers get stuck with the bill again.

Many counties (especially) poorer countries do not have domestic supply of fossil fuels so their economies are drained of funds that could be helping their citizens.
No real independence for them. These countries will also never be allowed to have nuclear plants. Renewables are their only chance.

Even data centers are having water problems and they have little risk of blowing up or irradiating the surrounding counties like what is possible with nuclear reactor.


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Microsoft, Meta and others face rising drought risk to their data centers
In just one day, the average data center could use 300,000 gallons of water to cool itself — the same water consumption as 100,000 homes.
Published Nov 15 2022
By Diana Olick
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/15/mic...ising-drought-risk-to-their-data-centers.html

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because nuclear is by far the best source of energy.... and next generation reactors take care of the waste issue. the fact of modern nuclear technology is ignored by the usual fear mongering crowd over old style reactors used by those to try to discredit it.

 

[KHappe]

Nuclear is limited in its ability to vary for demand. It also take years (decades) to build, and is very expensive per unit.

It's only a solution in the long term, and no one seems interested in having one near them after Fukushima and Chernobyl. Not to mention no one has yet built the waste recycling we've known how to make for the last four decades.

-Crissa

There is a lot of research going into Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR). Hopefully it can be commercialized and developed. They hold a lot of promise being safer than legacy designs.

 

[Crissa]

There is a lot of research going into Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTR). Hopefully it can be commercialized and developed. They hold a lot of promise being safer than legacy designs.

Until someone builds them, and we can buy them, it's irrelevant to the needs of now.

-Crissa