Posted on 03/14/2019 12:05:09 PM PDT by grundle
This 18 minute TEDx Talk by Michael Shellenberger is one of the best pro-nuclear power, anti-solar power, anti-wind power arguments that I have ever heard.
He cites a huge number of statistics to show that compared to solar power and wind power, nuclear power is far better for the environment, far cleaner, far better for animals, far safer for humans, far more reliable, far cheaper, and has a far smaller environmental footprint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w
Nuke Ping.
Shouldn’t there be an adjective following the adverb in that title?
So true! It’s a shame that nuclear has been stigmatized here in America.
“far more environmentally”?
Public school ejukashon’, right?
Typo goof by whoever posted this.
Dude, where are you? It’s pile-on the blogger time for his blog-like grammar. (see previous comments)
I are had wroting my blogs leave my alone you bolghater trole.
proof reading the headline helps....
Sorry. Couldn’t help it. Being I are environmentally and stuff.
Yes. My error. “Environmentally friendly.” Thanks for pointing it out.
Home viewing bookmark.
Environmentally more friendly? Well, nuclear waste is lethally more destructive for a lot longer than sun and wind damage. But even then, about 95 per cent of our nuclear waste is not from commercial power generating sites. It is from the manufacture and degradation of weaponry. No one tells you that, but it is true.
If one wants to avoid the redundant blog.
https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/
But that's not all of the news. For heavy-water devices, the tritiun starts to degrade into uselessness the moment that the nuclear device using it is made, so after a short time, such devices have to be scrapped, and new ones made to replace them.
All this waste problem has little to do with electric power generation.
Getting past all the grammar Nazis out there, the idea of Thorium-fueled Molten Salt thermonuclear reactors has been put into actual use elsewhere, but research on this energy source has all but dried up. The only nation actively pursuing this line of research is India, and they are still some few years from putting this design into wider use.
Advantages:
MSR offers many potential advantages over current light water reactors:
Inherently safe design (safety by passive components and the strong negative temperature coefficient of reactivity of some designs).
In some designs, the fuel and the coolant are the same fluid, so a loss of coolant removes the reactor’s fuel.
Unlike steam, fluoride salts dissolve poorly in water, and do not form burnable hydrogen.
Unlike steel and solid uranium oxide, molten salts are not damaged by the core’s neutron bombardment.
A low-pressure MSR lacks a BWR’s high-pressure radioactive steam and therefore do not experience leaks of radioactive steam and cooling water, and the expensive containment, steel core vessel, piping and safety equipment needed to contain radioactive steam.
MSRs make closed nuclear fuel cycles cheaper and more practical.
If fully implemented, a closed nuclear fuel cycle reduces environmental impacts: Chemical separation turns long-lived actinides back into reactor fuel.
The discharged wastes are mostly fission products (nuclear ashes) with short half-lives. This reduces the needed geologic containment to 300 years rather than the tens of thousands of years needed by a light-water reactor’s spent nuclear fuel.
It also permits the use of more-abundant nuclear fuels, such as thorium.
The fuel’s liquid phase might be pyroprocessed to separate fission products (nuclear ashes) from actinide fuels. This may have advantages over conventional reprocessing, though much development is still needed.
Fuel rods are not required.
In new solid-fueled reactor designs, the longest-lead item is the safety testing of fuel element designs. Fuel tests usually must cover several three-year refueling cycles. However, several molten salt fuels have passed validation.
Some designs with fast neutron spectrum can “burn” problematic transuranic elements like Pu240, Pu241 and up (reactor grade plutonium) from traditional solid-fuel nuclear reactors.
An MSR can react to load changes in less than 60 seconds (unlike “traditional” solid-fuel nuclear power plants that suffer from xenon poisoning).
Molten salt reactors can run at high temperatures, yielding high production efficiency. This reduces size, expense and environmental impacts.
MSRs can offer a high “specific power,” that is high power at a low mass as demonstrated by ARE.
MSR power plants may be suitable for ships.
A possibly good neutron economy makes the MSR attractive for the neutron poor thorium fuel cycle.
LWR’s (and most other solid-fuel reactors) have no fundamental “off switch”, but once the initial criticality is overcome, an MSR is comparatively easy and fast to turn off by letting the freeze plug melt.
Disadvantages:
Little development compared to most Gen IV designs.
Required onsite chemical plant to manage core mixture and remove fission products.
Required regulatory changes to deal with radically different design features.
MSR designs rely on nickel-based alloys to hold the molten salt. Alloys based on nickel and iron are prone to embrittlement under high neutron flux.
Corrosion risk.
As a breeder reactor, a modified MSR might be able to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.
The MSRE and aircraft nuclear reactors used enrichment levels so high that they approach the levels of nuclear weapons. These levels would be illegal in most modern regulatory regimes for power plants. Some modern designs avoid this issue.
Neutron damage to solid moderator materials can limit the core lifetime of an MSR that uses moderated thermal neutrons. For example, the MSRE was designed so that its graphite moderator sticks had very low tolerances, so neutron damage could change their size without damage. “Two fluid” MSR designs are unable to use graphite piping because graphite changes size when it is bombarded with neutrons, and graphite pipes would crack and leak.
MSR using fast neutrons cannot use graphite anyway to avoid moderation.
Amazing how much damage 1 Hollywood movie did.
Just one of many articles/videos about Thorium as an energy source...Apparently the US has abundant reserves...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kybenSq0KPo
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