If you oppose the use of fossil fuels as an energy source then you should know that nuclear power is the only realistic...

Literally the only reason these methods haven't been developed is because they'd be so productive that they'd destroy profitability due to near limitless energy

It can only serve to help us along the way while we go full solar or fusion, because of

But, for now, preferable to fossil fuels. Big problem is the high initial cost and long time before a new project comes on-line.

Not him but I agree with OP. Fission is great for now. Thorium should be used too and after India successfully deploy their commercial Thorium the tech will be (re)proven and I'd expect it to pick up. Fusion is the gold standard but hard to do.

it's nothing mate

read Cockshott's article about alternative feasible energy sources
paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/fossil-fuel-and-the-ebbing-of-globalisation/

Soviet initiated project ITER with soviet designed reactor tokamak as its centerpiece may potentially produce basically limitless energy

Sovet science may save humanity from slow energy death even tho SU is no longer around
this makes me really sad and fuzzy inside

youtu.be/jjM9E6d42-M good Thorium rocks vid to make you like nuclear power.

Thorium's already ready for implementation due to Chinese R&D (and is the only good thing which has come out of Dengism). Together w/ uranium, it can last us until we develop fusion. Of course, that's not going to happen because of ==FUCKING LEFT-LIBERALS==
They're even worse than right-liberals, tbqh. At least the latter are honest about what they are.

Breeder reactors and other reactors that allow for a more complete burn can extend that to many thousands of years, while also doing away with most of the high grade waste. I agree with the rest of your post however.

did somebody say… cockshott?

But maaaaan, solar power

YES. Geothermal and hydro are way more capable than nukes

I don't know whom to believe anymore. For a while I was on the molten salt thorium bandwagon but it seems that fission reactors are so expensive that they could never survive without massive government subsidies. There's also the problem that there simply isn't enough fissile material to replace everything with nuclear power and have it last a significant span of time.

What we really need is a drastic reduction in wasted energy through infrastructure and housing projects and eventually lunar solar power.

RIP my ears

Nuclear power is dangerous and pollutes a lot. You can't even get a nuclear power plant insured privately. They're all covered by the government.

If this worked so great why didn't the soviets use it. Seems like more bullshit science will save the day crap.

Nuclear power plants produce weapons grade plutonium too. Fuck nuclear, a combination of solar and drastically reducing energy consumption by making things for use instead of the market is the only way

If you don't take into account the fuel cycle of mining, milling, enriching the uranium, etc., the machines of which run on fossil fuels, sure. That's not to say that stuff like photovoltaics doesn't produce its own waste in the manufacturing process, but as far as I can tell, every other renewable option is cleaner than nuclear.

Source? I find it hard to believe that wind power has caused more adverse health effects/has killed more people than nuclear meltdowns have.

Yeah, but extrapolate that to the population of your city, or to your country. You also have to consider that a Coke-can sized piece of nuclear waste can still give you radiation poisoning. Also, for some reason, we haven't really nailed down a method for disposing of nuclear waste that people can agree on. IMHO Finland has the right idea with their Onkalo disposal site.

Yes it can, as long as the energy extracted from the earth is greater than the energy lost in the process. Meaning that as long as whatever hot spot you're using doesn't grow cold, you're good to go.

It's more that people were spooked by the Fukushima accident. But you're right, nuclear plants are pretty pricey; each of them costs $12-$14 billion each, and the electricity itself costs about $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity, despite indirect and direct subsidies.

We can legitimately extract uranium from sea water, the process just isn't yet economical… For the free market at least.

Mostly we can't agree because perfectly fine solutions SEEM unacceptable to people who don't know where they're talking about. Hell we could just dump that shit in the ocean to no ill effect for anything except those few unlucky fish that literally swim right up to it. (Water is a ridiculously good radiation blocker)

Turns out hydro lakes create almost as much methane as what they're replacing and geothermal is even more fucking geography dependant that notably geography dependent hydro.

no it turns out you can dig a big hole and pump water down it literally anywhere

except the radioactive waste is gonna seep into the water, which is then gonna get into the fish, which we are then going to eat. This is the same reason why we don't pour fucking lead or mercury into the ocean.

Maybe in your shit country. Korea has got nuclear power prices as cheap as fossil fuels. They cost 3bn usd each.

By all analysis the sunken nuclear submarines have done jack shit so that really doesn't seem like a concern.

The primary form of "pollution" from nuclear power is really hot water. A couple pools to let it cool down before you release it and you're home free.

Fuck off with your "muh unreliable and inefficient" meme.

Solar and wind are becoming more efficient and reliable every year. They will continue to become more competitive as the EROEI on coal/oil/gas goes down.

The future of renewables is massive megaprojects capable of powering entire regions. So we set up offshore wind farms and pave over Australia with solar panels and a lot of those regional energy needs become met. The biggest problem is areas where there isn't enough sun/wind/heat/current for renewables to work, but that's where nuclear comes in.

The future of power generation is gonna be mostly renewable, with a healthy amount of nuclear plants and a minimal amount of coal/gas plants to handle variable load factors and provide some grid resiliency. Proclaiming that solar/wind are still as expensive and inefficient as they were 30 years ago and artistically demanding that we go FULLNUCLEAR until the fusion meme happens isn't helping.

Except the amount of radiaoctive material leaked by nuclear submarines is absolutely miniscule compared to the combined nuclear waste of all the world's nuclear power plants, especially if we expand nuclear power. This waste is gonna stay in the water for centuries, and ocean currents are gonna spread that waste all across the globe. Contamination of fish is inevitable, and the way that contamination works means that it's gonna be especially concentrated in the kind of fish that we eat, such as tuna, because contaminated algae are eaten by small fish which are then eaten by the large fish.
You might scoff at all this, because you're a retard, but contaminated food and water is scary as fuck. Heavy radioactive isotopes when they decay mainly emit alpha particles, which are hugely damaging but are short-range and usually blocked by the skin, not a big deal. But if eat or drink something contaminated with radioactive isotopes, those alpha particles are gonna unload into your internal organs. Furthermore, those isotopes are gonna accumulate in your internal organs, such as with iodine which accumulates in the thyroid gland and radioactive salts which accumulate in the kidney, which means you're gonna continue to be blasted with radioactive particles till the day you die, probably of cancer. When the accident in Chernobyl happened, pretty much every export food which had been anywhere near Ukraine was immediately disposed of precisely because of this.

Going to Germany it's pretty apparent that they're going the solar route. I think they have laws prohibiting the construction of new coal facilities.

can please you explain how tidal energy which is extremely regular and predictable is unreliable and inefficient

I'm sorry, but I can't see the point of any other energy system when we have a giant fucking ball of nuclear flame and hellfire shitting out more energy than we know what to do with literally 24/7.
We should probably figure out how to use that better.

Moon energy is gay compared to sun energy, son.

...

It depends on how you mine, the USSR did have mines that used the grid power.

Mostly because capitalists don't like having long term liabilities. There is also the lack of wanting to research in more advanced nuclear physics which could make reactors more efficient in consuming their fuel.

step up senpai
youtube.com/watch?v=8lA-z-FCDLA&t=1m

Nuclear waste is such a red herring. Run of the mill industrial waste is just as poisonous and is actually eternal. Nuclear waste will eventually be harmless but the regular stuff never will be. Especially plastic.

Really reboots the old brain computer doesn't it?

Inclined to agree in the short-mid term, although I also believe we should be trying to reduce energy consumption overall. (Which may come naturally under capitalism anyway as VR-Consumerism surpasses actually manufacturing plastic crap.)

my point is that the nuclear submarines haven't actually leaked at all. it is pretty much trivial to get your nuclear dumping to NOT leak.
Hell, there's legitimately already uranium in seawater naturally because of leaching from uranium that's just in sea rock naturally. There is, at this moment, 4.5 billion tons of uranium in the ocean, human activity is going to be a drop in the bucket!

the materials necessary for solar are actually incredibly damaging to acquire

I think this is pretty relevant to the thread:
ted.com/talks/debate_does_the_world_need_nuclear_energy

It's pretty informative when you watch it, and doesn't have a lot of BS in it.

If we're talking literally throwing barrels of nuclear waste into the ocean, which would be the only economical way to go about it unless you plan on building a secure storage facility on the bottom of the ocean, then no it's not. This shit has to be contained for thousands of years. And by the way, it's not just uranium.
By the way, countries used to dump nuclear waste this way, then it was banned. Why? Because it was more dangerous than the other options.
Also, just to show why dumping toxic, radioactive compounds in the ocean is a bad idea, here's what happens when the containment fails:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4312553.stm

THORIUM
H
O
R
I
U
M

Elaborate, I've heard the manufacture of them pollutes but only because the chemicals used are constantly spilled because the Chinese factories they are built in have no safety rules.

Semi conductors aren't that rare right, it's gotta be cleaner than oil drilling and refinement

Nuclear is awful. It puts miners in high risk of cancer and it pollutes ear by water sources to mine for. When they dispose of it that is more pollution and cancer risk. On top of that it is a big risk for being a target for terrorists attacks.

The whole concept of a central power plant and using AC instead of DC power is why people are struggling to find a solution. DC is more energy efficient. Each community should have their own power source not just one big plant for a huge area because you lose some energy to carry it large distances. You also can use a mix of multiple clean energy sources.

Not thorium.

Not thorium.

Nowhere near as bad as coal plants though. And thorium plants are many times cleaner than older nuclear power plants, and the waste is hazardous for a much shorter amount of time.

You mean for triggering meltdowns or making dirty bombs? Not thorium.

I thought the whole point of AC was that it didn't lose that much energy when traveling long distances. And no one wants to live right next to a plant that produces pollutants.

Even if that were true about thorium it's still strip mining which does destroy the environment.

AC is more efficient at travelling distance which is why I said to use something more local. All your devices use DC though. Converting from AC to DC through the converter is not 100% effective so some power is lost. In the case of some energy sources like solar it starts out as DC a the source before being converted to AC to travel.

Pollutants? Not for wind, hydroelectric, wave power, geothermal, or solar. and so on I would say thermo-solar but those have to be farther away since it generates a lot of heat. T I'm talking about some places have plants and some their own personal generator which may or may not be hooked up to a grid to share what is unused.

Another thing I forgot to mention. Strip mining involves heavy machinery. You cant exactly have nuclear powered equipment. Maybe biofuel but it's still polluting. I'm unsure if they can be electric or not.

You can have electric heavy machinery, the USSR invested it in preparation to mine the moon as electric is the only method that works in space.

t.scientific iliterate

You can extract uranium from seawater, the process just isn't economical YET

It's about twice the cost of normal extraction at the moment, which isn't as bad as it sounds given that fuel costs are only a tiny fraction of the overall costs of running a nuclear plant. It's actually quite feasible to affordably generate power through such a method both now and in the long term.

forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/#9d5765c159ae

What you are saying makes sense (renewables 30 yrs ago =/= renew. now). Do you have some articles to support this?

Nuclear need a lot more research to be "usable"&"safe", and a good way to get rid of nuclear waste.

Oh look a malfunction , kek we must evacute all the irradiated area 11/10 will do it again and all over the country.

name one major malfunction on a nuclear plant designed after 1980.

fukushima

commissioned 1971 with reactors coming online 1970-1979

let's wait 10 - 20 year before we see a problem it's totaly safe, oh look a earthquake :^)

> we need to put more research into nuclear power & not rush it. you can say it will be fine for X time but in the end if anything go bad and it will go bad we face disaster.

web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad1109Jaco5p.indd.pdf

nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/

Entirely renewable energy grids are taken very seriously by at least some people. And this does mean big-ass solar fields and offshore turbines, not to mention geothermal and solar thermal plants, not just those dinky panels and turbines that were put up decades ago in places like California. Solar and wind power end up complementing them very well, and I've heard estimates that you could power the entire Eastern US seaboard with mostly offshore wind if you really wanted to.

Nuclear plants are an order of magnitude more complex to build and maintain, safety and waste concerns aside. It'd be quicker and easier to concentrate on scaling up renewables rather than building a new wave of fission plants. And conventional nuclear will still have its place in areas without easily accessible sun, waves, heat or wind. Thorium/fusion will take decades to build and perfect, they'll be viable eventually but not now.

Nuclear power is unrealistic for reasons given in this thread. The truth is nothing can truly replace fossil fuels and once they are gone we will have to adapt.

Of course there is, we just have to properly invest in it. The problem is that no one is gonna do under Capitalism so long as we have fossil fuels because it would cut into the profits of big oil.

Hey guys, I have an idea:
3 D P R I N T E D T H O R I U M R E A C T O R S
Am I a genius or what?! Think about it:
-thorium reactors use a liquid fuel which can be easily drained into a secure underground containment tub and immediately stop reacting if something goes wrong; it's foolproof, even in the event that it overheats! You could also create a big lever-like mechanism for pulling the water lines away from the liquefied thorium lines by means of a big automated arm - even if the thorium continues to overheat, the water will not split into hydrogen and oxygen (which then recombines and explodes; this is what caused Fukushima, Chernobyl, and 3 Mile Island)
-concrete can be fabricated en masse via 3D printers; look at this: youtube.com/watch?v=SObzNdyRTBs
-3D printing of metal has come a long way. Probably the only things which will require complex machining and cutting-edge composites will be the reactor vessel, the tubing for the super-heated thorium-containing liquid (molten sodium, IIRC), the tubing for the superheated water (possibly, maybe not), the pumps, and the turbine blades.
-use Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model (see this link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model ) to plan out a system of Raspberry Pis with various sensors throughout the plant giving feedback to a central computer in a control room which regulates all processes and gives out commands for Raspberry Pis to run commands stored on their own boards, both automatically and based on what commands are given at the terminal. Use Hardened Gentoo.
-Generators are just shafts with magnets and copper coils - even if not as efficient as high tech ones today, working ones can be fabricated.
-Reservoir, containment structure, generator/condensor housing, cooling towers, control rooms, equipment storage facilities, etc, can all be made out of 3D printed concrete cheaply and quickly

The difference between naturally occurring uranium salts and nuclear waste is that the nuclear waste typically consists of solid chunks of highly radioactive material while the uranium salts are uniformly dispersed atoms.

With uranium salts the whole ocean is very, very, very mildly radioactive. With nuclear waste there are small chunks of highly radioactive material being moved around by the ocean currents. If any of those chunks enter the food chain or get found by people on the beach, the consequences can be very bad.

It should be possible to safely dispose of waste in the sea, but it either involves dissolving it in strong acid to turn it into uranium salts, or tightly sealing it inside a container which can be guaranteed to not break open for the next >1000 years. Either way, it's going to be expensive to process hundreds of tons of waste in that way.

Nationalization

Remember if Fusion was properly funded, we’d have it by now.

Possibly. The piss-poor results they've been having with the tokamaks they've already built doesn't really bode well.

Look at the area under those predicted curves and compare it to the area under the real curve. We haven't spent nearly enough to reach any conclusions about feasibility.

All that graph is telling me is that a US government agency swears we'd already have fusion if we threw more money at them. It does not break down why exactly more money is going to make fusion more feasible. I want to know why the tokamaks we've already built aren't working, for a start.

I'm not against giving these guys a decent budget to work with, and fuck knows there's plenty of idiotic pork and useless pet-projects for career bureaucrats that could be trimmed elsewhere to give these people the funding they need, but I'd ask the guys who are responsible for parsing all the data from the runs we've already done in existing tokamaks where they think we've gone wrong so far.

The tokamaks we build are all test reactors, they near the same stage of development as the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant was in 1954, they technically work but are still not cost effective, though each generation has gotten more efficient.

Thus at this point it is a not a problem with the science but engineering.

That might be good but it depends how it is done. Still I don't really like nuclear power.