Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors
by Moldoteck on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @04:58AM
(#41846499)
agree best strategy should be purex or fast reactors
Re:Google Funding Construction of Seven U.S. Nuclear Reactors
by BlueTemplar on Tuesday October 15, 2024 @05:23AM
(#41846658)
Burying radioactive waste in places unchanged for hundreds of millions of years is probably safe enough.
(Sadly, we have to consider that long because the current climate change is also unprecedented on these timescales.)
I am appalled though that anyone is seriously considering the idea of container-sized reactors, for which we can be nearly certain, if this seriously takes off, and we make million(s) of them, that hundreds if not thousands will end up abandoned in random places, and weathering will pierce them before they become radilogically inert.
Unscheduled maintenance intervals exist everywhere. This is not a unique problem.
> They are intermittent and unreliable.
On a 24 hour ahead basis. On a year to year basis, they're always available, and are absurdly reliable.
> And natural gas is a poor choice if greenhouse emissions matter.
There is nothing that can save you from being required to hold a broad mix of power generation technologies. Building a monoculture here is completely counterproductive and probably hastens the destruction.
> despite it being extremely tiny and safely contained
That container is mechanical. It has a failure rate. Failures never occur when you _want_ them to. Again, a _depth_ of strategies is appropriate here.
"Send it by train then bury it under a mountain and just forget about it" is not an actual strategy. It seems to work, because we probably just don't know any better yet, but the people who are uncomfortable are right to be so. Pretending that they simply lack "education" is a pretty rude point of view.