Germany: Nuclear power plants to close by 2022

Which neglects to account for potential future harms.

Also, wind and solar have a similar effect without the nasty radioactive stuff.
 
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Let's also not conveniently ignore the Fast-Breeder Reactors that are gaining traction the world over and thus could reduce the stockpiles of Pu-239 and other transuranic elements with long half-lives.
 
I am not opposed to a new style of nuclear reactor. I will always be wary of what the nuclear industry say about the waste though.
 
I am not opposed to a new style of nuclear reactor. I will always be wary of what the nuclear industry say about the waste though.

...and I'm wary of geological studies of Yucca Mountain funded by the petroleum industry.
 
How do you figure it was the oil industry that paid for any of those studies?
 
How do you figure it was the oil industry that paid for any of those studies?

Yucca Mountain could become nuclear volcano said:
\snip Now Andrew Woods of the BP Institute at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have found that if an eruption occurred beneath the site, a rising sheet of magma could burst into the proposed storage tunnels 200 to 300 metres below the surface. \snip

src: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17523571-300-yucca-mountain-could-become-nuclear-volcano/

From what I researched, nearly all projects at the BP Institute are funded by BP.
 
I am not opposed to a new style of nuclear reactor. I will always be wary of what the nuclear industry say about the waste though.

They'll never come about, because "HURR DURR NUCLEAR BAD"
 
One thing that makes me skeptical is that they don't say how much power they made.

They do - apparently a gram of juicy content makes up to 15J per day: "15 Joules per day, less than an AA battery." ... what a BS comparison when an AA battery is in the region of 100000J. Yeah it's less, but nobody's any wiser after knowing that... it's also less than a tanker full of oil.

Applications will be extremely limited, only situations where you can make do with low power, have the resources to make these batteries, need the power for centuries, and can't swap out the power source.
It's hardly appropriate for this thread :dunno:
 
They do - apparently a gram of juicy content makes up to 15J per day: "15 Joules per day, less than an AA battery." ... what a BS comparison when an AA battery is in the region of 100000J. Yeah it's less, but nobody's any wiser after knowing that... it's also less than a tanker full of oil.

Applications will be extremely limited, only situations where you can make do with low power, have the resources to make these batteries, need the power for centuries, and can't swap out the power source.
It's hardly appropriate for this thread :dunno:

Are you the official nuclear thread keeper now? I thought it was an interesting way of dealing with some of nuclear waste but also it shows that there are people thinking of things that are much more creative than "stick it in the ground somewhere in Namibia".
 
Are you the official nuclear thread keeper now?

Is this in any way affecting German nuclear politics?


I thought it was an interesting way of dealing with some of nuclear waste but also it shows that there are people thinking of things that are much more creative than "stick it in the ground somewhere in Namibia".

On the one hand you have millions of tons of radioactive graphite, on the other you have a tiny niche application to make diamonds from graphite - that scale isn't balanced at all, no matter how much diamond battery you make you're not going to make a significant dent in the graphite pile. That graphite pile itself is only a fraction of radioactive waste, and one with less problematic properties at that.

That doesn't mean this approach is useless for powering those tiny niche applications like space probes, but I don't see making diamonds as a way of disposing of millions of tons of stuff. The numbers just don't work out.
 
Is this in any way affecting German nuclear politics?
A) We have been having a discussion on how to deal with waste for a couple of pages already
B) You don't think possible ways of productively dealing with waste would make a difference in the overall nuclear power conversation?


On the one hand you have millions of tons of radioactive graphite, on the other you have a tiny niche application to make diamonds from graphite - that scale isn't balanced at all, no matter how much diamond battery you make you're not going to make a significant dent in the graphite pile. That graphite pile itself is only a fraction of radioactive waste, and one with less problematic properties at that.

That doesn't mean this approach is useless for powering those tiny niche applications like space probes, but I don't see making diamonds as a way of disposing of millions of tons of stuff. The numbers just don't work out.
Nowhere have I claimed that this particular process completely takes care of all of waste. However it does show that there are ways of dealing with nuclear waste that we may not have discovered yet or even thought about.

To borrow your own argument about BEVs just because something doesn't work in 100% of applications doesn't mean its a bad idea ;)
 
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A) We have been having a discussion on how to deal with waste for a couple of pages already
B) You don't think possible ways of productively dealing with waste would make a difference in the overall nuclear power conversation?

A) so you agree?
B) making diamonds is not making a difference, no.



Nowhere have I claimed that this particular process completely takes care of all of waste. However it does show that there are ways of dealing with nuclear waste that we may not have discovered yet or even thought about.

To borrow your own argument about BEVs just because something doesn't work in 100% of applications doesn't mean its a bad idea ;)

The articles you linked to make that claim by stating making diamonds as a way to dispose of millions of tons of graphite.

I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad idea to power those niche applications, it just won't make any difference to the pile of waste... Besides, it's essentially saying "take radioactive material, enclose it in a shield, and wait for many half lives" - we already do that, but not on a diamond scale.
 
the official nuclear thread keeper [...]

I'd love that on my resume ... :lol:

I think too that this will not solve the problems with nuclear waste and is not really relevant for the discussion here. But it is interesting no less and at least it shows that there are some people who are still working on this sort of stuff and are willing to come up with solutions. Because of course as nuclear power goes, the only problems are the waste, the security running the reactors and the costs (the waste playing a big part in that too). If we figure those out ... there is no problem anymore. And in that context - it's good to know that there is still some progress being made.
Still doesn't seem we'll have this all figured out in our lifetimes and I still think going "renewable" is the best option for now - but who knows what Progress we will see in a century or two. Maybe a second "nuclear age"?
 
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But it is interesting no less and at least it shows that there are some people who are still working on this sort of stuff and are willing to come up with solutions.

No doubt - it's why we have the technology to make new threads to discuss the technology without too much politicking.
 
I'd love that on my resume ... :lol:

I think too that this will not solve the problems with nuclear waste and is not really relevant for the discussion here. But it is interesting no less and at least it shows that there are some people who are still working on this sort of stuff and are willing to come up with solutions. Because of course as nuclear power goes, the only problems are the waste, the security running the reactors and the costs (the waste playing a big part in that too). If we figure those out ... there is no problem anymore. And in that context - it's good to know that there is still some progress being made.
Still doesn't seem we'll have this all figured out in our lifetimes and I still think going "renewable" is the best option for now - but who knows what Progress we will see in a century or two. Maybe a second "nuclear age"?
Exactly what I was attempting to show.

- - - Updated - - -

No doubt - it's why we have the technology to make new threads to discuss the technology without too much politicking.

Feel free to report post to mods and ask them to move it then.
 
Just wait till we have a space elevator. Then we can send the waist up, fling it out into the solar system and be done with it.
 
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