| I also had my fair share with nuclear power plant design and power plant design in general in the past. From that time I have kept a rather moderate/positive view of the technology. However 'we' seem to be implementing it so badly that I am concerned. The total (from end to end) are unknown and even based on what is known not fully accounted for. While you point out that there are technical solution to the challenges I strongly believe Countries/Corporations/Governments are not willing or capable of operating these plants to a safe standard and earn money doing so. The whole issue of decommissioning and deconstruction is only in its infancy and already a huge money drain on the backs of the people and not the Corporates who earned money for 30 years running the plant. I think we should speak of deconstruction and not of demolition. Demolition is mainly smashing buildings to pebbles with a big steel ball, for nuclear power plants that is not the case. See [1] or [2] - sorry both in German Re 1. Until the technology has actually been built and scaled up we won't know what technical details and challenged await us. I don't see that as a reason to not do it but rather a call for caution on over-optimistic timeline. Re 2. Indeed many aspects of the reactors have been improved on paper/in theories. See for example the European Pressurized Reactor [3]. The first 3 plants to that nature are riddled with technical detail problems and budget overruns, see [4]. When I was at Unit learning about EPR most lecturers where approaching retirement or already past retirement. The nuclear power industry - at least for the German part - has had the issue of very few skilled successors.
This might have a big role in the building of the actual new types of plants. 35-45 years ago when the current old plants where built there was a large pool of experts - engineers, construction, QA/QC - they are all retired now. Re 3. That is good, and there surely are technical solutions but I am very sure they are no easy find. Just think about the discussion of material selection for certain vessels in light of the current material embitterment news from Belgium Power plants [5]. I'm not saying that these issues are insurmountable but that the process to get to an agreed (experts and governments) new solution is slow and painful with no ETA. Re 4. In Germany at least the search for a repository was driven by politics into the wrong direction. This should have been driven buy science and technology people. By now the topic is so far down the drain so that changing course is political suicide.
Another point regarding the waste is the discussion of marking the nuclear wasted depositories for >1000 or rather 10000 years. Interesting YC discussion here [6] [1] http://www.focus.de/finanzen/eon-spaltet-akws-ab-muessen-jet...
[2] https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/milliarde...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_energy_in_Belgium#Hydr...
[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14530978 |