[suprgeek]

Unfortunately the mere mention of "Nuclear" is a trigger word for most people, which is a tragedy considering that due to all the mistakes that were made in the past we have started to (finally) move to safer ways of using Nuclear Power.

If we were realists about Nuclear energy like other forms of energy, we should have been entering a golden age of Nuclear right about now.

[personZ]

Nuclear energy is hugely susceptible to black swan events, with very serious environmental and monetary consequences. Even the best, safest run facility, in an instance of sabotage, terrorism, conflict, or simple unexpected event (seismic, extreme weather), can turn into a maelstrom of troubles that will endure for thousands of years.

Further the nuclear industry is one with a very poor track record of promises versus delivery. The cheap power, for instance, tends to turn into expensive power when plants need to be refurbished at mind-boggling costs (such as here in Ontario where we've gone from the cheapest power in North America, courtesy of huge hydroelectric benefits, to one of the most expensive because of our nuclear legacy). And the waste issue remains a significant issue.

Nuclear was a great alternative to fossil fuels. It is a very poor alternative to alternatives (wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc), and simply increasing energy efficiency.

[rsync]

What you describe is true of the old style nuclear reactors (which, unfortunately, is all of them). I completely agree.

But new reactor designs (thorium, etc.) avoid the black swans and all of the interdependent complexity. We should be deploying them.

[the_solution]

Nothing you say in the second sentence is true.

Thorium reactors do not work reliably (just have a look at those that where actually built). The current designs do not work - we don't even have an idea how to do it right in theory. They absolutely are not less complex and are not in any way safer than any other nuclear reactors.

[bigiain]

"NMR" machines and now called "MRI" machines...

(Not entirely sure if that's because people with serious illness are scared of the work "nuclear", or if it's because the President couldn't pronounce it...)

[Turing_Machine]

You mean Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, or Dwight Eisenhower?

It's especially weird in Carter's case since he was supposedly a trained nuclear engineer.

[arethuza]

I don't think there is much "supposedly" about it - Carter was a highly trained nuclear engineer as part of the US Navy nuclear power program under Admiral Rickover. Indeed Carter led a team to help with the NRX reactor accident in Canada.

"The painstaking process required each team member, including Carter, to don protective gear, and be lowered individually into the reactor to disassemble it for minutes at a time. During and after his presidency, Carter indicated that his experience at Chalk River shaped his views on nuclear power and nuclear weapons, including his decision not to pursue completion of the neutron bomb."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career

[mkr-hn]

A lot of exceptionally smart people say (or have said) robutt.

[sjtrny]

A golden age of nuclear waste? It's not a silver bullet.

[TTPrograms]

For modern fast reactors it really is. Nuclear waste paranoia is one of the main things that holds back feasible cheap green energy in the modern world.

[iSnow]

You cannot simply brush aside this issue. Even if we have 100% safe reactors, generating waste that is deadly in a thousand years is simply not a good idea, no paranoia involved.

Besides: nuclear had its chance - they blew it because of greed and sloppiness, the usual thing that happens when large organizations deal with complex issues. I am 100% sure that even with novel reactor designs the same "human factor" would generate accidents like we have seen with the old designs.

[Bluestrike2]

Greed and sloppiness? Everyone will grant you that in the case of the Soviet nuclear energy program and the result with Chernobyl, but beyond that, there's nothing to support your argument. If anything, the fact that the only significant accident was the result of human error magnified by institutional decision-making is a remarkably positive argument. Modern reactor designs and procedures are radically different than they were back in the 60s. Ignoring the progress of technology and the safety benefits that it results in is an incredibly narrow-minded position. We learn from history in every other field; what supports your conclusion that nuclear power is somehow different?

[ahi]

Here is some support for that argument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site

A lot of smart people being very very sloppy.

[Bluestrike2]

There's a huge difference between any nuclear power plant and the Hanford Site, which was setup as a wartime production facility. The majority of the river contamination took place in the early years, from 1945 to 1951 when knowledge, technology, and experience was extremely limited at the time compared to today. At the time, they sacrificed environmental concerns for expediency because they had a war to win. Even if they knew exactly what would happen in the years and decades afterwards, I'm fairly certain that the same decision would be made. We're stuck with the cleanup, but there's nothing about the situation that would suggest the possibility of a repeat.

[sjtrny]

It's not paranoia. There are legitimate concerns about storing nuclear waste. It's not perfect and it is expensive. Wouldn't it be better to be able to skip past these problems onto something without those drawbacks?

[dasmoth]

Very substantial amounts of nuclear waste already exist.

Stopping making more doesn't make the problem go away (...at least for many thousand years). I'm more optimistic that current waste will be reprocessed or stored safely if nuclear power generation continues than if it all gets quietly forgotten.

[girvo]

Honestly, I'd rather deal with nuclear waste than I would what we're currently doing to our environment.

[danwiding]

A modest proposal would be to slowly depopulate Micronesia and store all our radioactive waste there (we already tested nukes there once anyway). It's either that or let the ocean reclaim the islands over the next 100 years. So we might as well get some cheap energy out of the deal.

[the_solution]

Taking care of radioactive waste for thousands of years requires energy. How do you propose we generate that energy?

[kalms]

Fire that crap into the sun and be done with it.

[chadgeidel]

You are getting downvoted without explanation here. It's a reasonable thought except for a few things. First of which is our space launch and delivery systems aren't 100% reliable. Even one failure means nuclear debris spread over a wide distance - something that would be very difficult to recover from.

I couldn't find a good document from a quick googling, but this was high on the list: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2013.html 81 launches and 3 failures. I don't particularly like those odds.

[noahhs]

Aside from safety, there's another insurmountable obstacle to space disposal: cost. You may not appreciate just how much spent fuel there is. I did the math once. Launch cost per pound, times number of pounds of waste, came out to over $1 trillion. Orders of magnitude away from feasibility, even with advancements in launch technology.

[Bluestrike2]

Compared to a golden age of climate change? In the US, political fear-mongering under Carter killed fuel re-processing; even though it's currently less economical, the ability to lower high-level waste to 1/5th current levels is the sort of thing that can shift the analysis compared to long-term storage. Beyond that, Gen-IV reactor designs can be used to close the nuclear fuel cycle while a number of them can also be used to recycle current waste.

In any case, I'm not sure people realize just how little waste has been produced by volume. Even with the once-through fuel cycle, it's a manageable issue. The biggest problem remains NIMBYism and posturing. It might not be a silver bullet, but it's the damn closest to it.

[driverdan]

We're already in a golden age of nuclear waste. Due to the same irrational fear and NIMBY attitudes that has held back modern nuclear power we don't have a good way of dealing with our current waste. It's piling up all over the place.

[adrianN]

If we wanted to, we could build breeder reactors that burn >90% of what we call waste today and leave only isotopes with relatively short half-lives.

[the_solution]

France tried doing that. I suggest you have a look how it turned out. Hint: It's an absoluty disaster in practice.

[eru]

Nuclear power was always pretty safe. See eg http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml