this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

But Germany has no space for nuclear waste. They haven't been able to bury the last batch for over 30 years. And the one that they buried most recently began to leak radioactivity into ground water.

And.. why give Russia more military target opportunities?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm not a rabid anti-nuclear, but there are somethings that are often left out of the pricing. One is the exorbitant price of storage of spent fuel although I seem to remember that there is some nuclear tech that can use nuclear waste as at least part of it's fuel (Molten salt? Pebble? maybe an expert can chime in). There is also the human greed factor. Fukushima happened because they built the walls to the highest recorded tsunami in the area, to save on concrete. A lot of civil engineering projects have a 150% overprovision over the worst case calculations. Fukushima? just for the worst case recorded, moronic corporate greed. The human factor tends to be the biggest danger here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Not an expert, but molten salt reactors are correct. MSRs are especially useful as breeder reactors, since they can actually reinvigorate older, spent fuel using more common isotopes. Thorium in particular is useful here. Waste has also been largely reduced with the better efficiency of modern reactors.

Currently, Canada's investing in a number of small modular reactors to improve power generation capacity without the need to establish entire new nuclear zones and helps take some of the stress off the aging CANDU reactors. These in particular take advantage of the spent fuel and thorium rather than the very expensive and hard to find Uranium more typically used. There's been interest in these elsewhere too, but considering how little waste is produced by modern reactors, and the capacity for re-use, it feels pike a very good way to supplement additional wind and solar energy sources.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

... there are somethings that are often left out of the pricing

Another example that gets skimmed over or ignored is the massive cost of decommissioning a nuclear power plant. It typically ranges from $280 million to $2 billion, depending on the technology used. More complex plants can be up to $4 billion. And the process can take 15 to 30 years to complete.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

there is some nuclear tech that can use nuclear waste as at least part of it’s fuel

Those are less competitive, and salt reactor attempts have historically caused terminating corrosion problems. The SMR "promise" relies on switching extremely expensive/rare/dangerous plutonium level enriched fuel, that rely on traditional reactors for enrichment, for slightly lower capital costs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If France can find space, surely Germany can.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

If Finland could find space, Germany definitely can.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Idk, Finland has a much lower population density vs Germany. France is something like 1/2 the population density, but they also have >50 reactors, so surely Germany can find room for a few...

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago
  • Finland: 338,145 km² and 5.6 million people
  • Germany: 357,596 km² and 82 million people

Where do you want to put your hazardous waste again?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Yup, but population density should be what matters, because that implies how much usable space there is for waste disposal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Finland with it's vast swathes of frozen tundra.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We don't have vast swaths of Frozen Tundras. This isn't Alaska.

And it's actually stored south not north.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago