Thoughts,
nuclear "accidents" seem IMHO , all to have been "management" / "cost cutting" decisions

Fukushima
, lets build a sea wall as we know well get a tsunami, then put the back up generators in the basements its cheaper than putting them up the hill
Chernobyl
, lets see if we can find a quicker / cheaper way to burn off the "graphite" nuclear energy stored.
etc.
Given the history of nuclear "accidents"
how long do we think before humans will build a safe reactor system ?

 

We already have! The problem is what to do with the waste material and spent fuel rods.

 

Thoughts,
nuclear "accidents" seem IMHO , all to have been "management" / "cost cutting" decisions

Fukushima
, lets build a sea wall as we know well get a tsunami, then put the back up generators in the basements its cheaper than putting them up the hill
Chernobyl
, lets see if we can find a quicker / cheaper way to burn off the "graphite" nuclear energy stored.
etc.
Given the history of nuclear "accidents"
how long do we think before humans will build a safe reactor system ?

It’s a bit different than that.

In the case of Fukushima is was a terrible reactor design that caused the problem. The seawall was a problem but the fact that the reactor could blow itself up (due to hydrogen production) was the real problem.

Chernobyl was certainly a terrible reactor design, born of economic hardship. The USSR didn’t have the money to build the reactor “safer” but it was running fine and probably could have done so for a very long time. It was pure human stupidity in choosing to test something in a terribly unsafe and uncontrollable way that lead to the explosion there.

So, yes nuclear reactors need better designs, like Pebble Bed reactors, but every significant nuclear incident in a reactor so far, including the original Windscale and Three Mile Island were made possible by bad design but caused by human stupidity or incompetence.

 

 

Keeping all these accidents in mind, I find nuclear power plant extremely dengerous. Specially in corrupted countries where money is more valueable than human life. My country built its first ever nuclear power plant a few years ago. It has not started prduction yet. May God forbid. If anything wrong happens to this plant it may wipe away the whole district where it is established....

 

Keeping all these accidents in mind, I find nuclear power plant extremely dengerous. Specially in corrupted countries where money is more valueable than human life. My country built its first ever nuclear power plant a few years ago. It has not started prduction yet. May God forbid. If anything wrong happens to this plant it may wipe away the whole district where it is established....

I've heard that sacrificing virgins to the volcano god may prevent catastrophe.

 

Hay guys
I was very careful not to put any bias in the question .
Any chance we can keep on topic please.

 

I was very careful not to put any bias in the question.

Me too.

 

Me too.

@joeyd999 , I fail to see how your idea of sacrificing virgins is a time scale you think nuclear will be here and safe.
But thanks for your input.

 

@joeyd999 , I fail to see how your idea of sacrificing virgins is a time scale you think nuclear will be here and safe.
But thanks for your input.

I fail to see how loading your question with '...Given the history of nuclear "accidents" ...' (complete with scare quotes) is "carefully unbiased".

But thanks for your input.

 

Given the history of nuclear "accidents"
how long do we think before humans will build a safe reactor system ?

Sorry, but having served aboard a nuclear submarine, I am not capable of an "unbiased" opinion. At least not "unbiased" in the sense of "I have no first hand knowledge of this topic but I have read information curated by folks seeming to represent two sides of the debate and formed what I believe to be a good understanding of it."

The answer to your question is a negative number. We have safe reactors and have had them for a long time.

It is really frustrating having the answer to our energy problems be so obvious and see so much ignorant resistance to it. It is unfortunate that our introduction to nuclear technology was in form of cataclysmic bombs and it is disgusting that "chernobyl" is in the same sentence with the word "nuclear" every time it comes out of a news anchor's mouth. Drama sells better than information.

We already have! The problem is what to do with the waste material and spent fuel rods.

This isn't that big of an issue. People tend to think of radioactive waste as something foreign, like it was imported from off-planet and has no business being here. But we dug it out of the ground, right here on planet earth. All we need to do is put it back where we found it. If it is buried inside proper containment it is safer than it was when we dug it up.

And there isn't much of it. It's not like there is a steady stream radioactive waste leaving nuclear plants on train tracks. Every 20 years or so a small amount is generated.

 

What about the thorium reactor? It was one of the one of the earlier designs, but didn’t have such a useful byproduct for making weapons as the uranium reactor!

 

Recently saw an article on the number of retired nuclear-powered subs that are still in storage because we can't afford to "defuel" them. We are still in the process of cleaning up the remains of the Hanford, Washington site. The Savannah River site also has not completed their renovation decontamination projects. Yes, we can and do bury it safely but the decontamination process is significantly more difficult than asbestos abatement and disposal. There is a whole lot more to it than just power generation which is safe and very economical.

 

I fail to see how loading your question with '...Given the history of nuclear "accidents" ...' (complete with scare quotes) is "carefully unbiased".

But thanks for your input.

Thank you.
No bias intended , sorry you see it as that. .
It is a simple question , with highlights as to a few of the problems we have seen.
I was trying not to say , so not to bias ,but technically I'm in favour of nuclear ,but the worry I have are that the history so far is against nuclear.
And an wondering when people here think it will be sorted.

 

Thank you.
No bias intended , sorry you see it as that. .
It is a simple question , with highlights as to a few of the problems we have seen.
I was trying not to say , so not to bias ,but technically I'm in favour of nuclear ,but the worry I have are that the history so far is against nuclear.
And an wondering when people here think it will be sorted.

No bias, then you're not human.

These are all engineering problems that are already solved. Ask France when it will be sorted.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx

 

Thank you.
No bias intended , sorry you see it as that. .
It is a simple question , with highlights as to a few of the problems we have seen.
I was trying not to say , so not to bias ,but technically I'm in favour of nuclear ,but the worry I have are that the history so far is against nuclear.
And an wondering when people here think it will be sorted.

I have completely answered both your question and the implied premise of your question in my first post.

If you have some data contradicting that which I provided for you, I'd be happy to see it -- and to change my mind as appropriate.

Aside from that, there is nothing "unbiased" left to discussed.

 

Recently saw an article on the number of retired nuclear-powered subs that are still in storage because we can't afford to "defuel" them.

I won't even bother asking for a citation, this is nonsense. No criticism toward you; all you can do is read and repeat, but you should know that anything the media reports about submarines (the state of the military in general, but especially submarines) is bound to be at least half false. There is very little verifiable fact to be reported on so they fill in the blanks. What is the Navy going to do about it? Call them out, show their hand? They just ignore it.

We are still in the process of cleaning up the remains of the Hanford, Washington site. The Savannah River site also has not completed their renovation decontamination projects. Yes, we can and do bury it safely but the decontamination process is significantly more difficult than asbestos abatement and disposal. There is a whole lot more to it than just power generation which is safe and very economical.

Yes, there have been accidents and mistakes made. Just as there are with every new technology we explore, and along with them lessons learned, procedures developed, designs modified. Those mistakes and lessons were in the early days; they just have more staying power in the collective conscious because we are still dealing with them. We no longer give children horse-doses of penicillin and we no longer leak radioactive waste into rivers. Nuclear power is a mature technology now. Just because disposal "seems" like a challenge because it was a challenge decades ago and people still talk about it like it is, is no reason to avoid it.

 

Recently saw an article on the number of retired nuclear-powered subs that are still in storage because we can't afford to "defuel" them. We are still in the process of cleaning up the remains of the Hanford, Washington site. The Savannah River site also has not completed their renovation decontamination projects. Yes, we can and do bury it safely but the decontamination process is significantly more difficult than asbestos abatement and disposal. There is a whole lot more to it than just power generation which is safe and very economical.

Thank the environmental lobbyists for that. All of those legislative measures have ultimately rendered the process into the bureaucratic mess that it is. "Safe disposal" has evolved into an oxymoron.

 

How about a small nuclear reactor that operates using the spent fuel from a conventional reactor, such as this.
Not only would it be cheaper to operate but would reduce the amount of nuclear waste that needs to be disposed of.
Small size also means a large accident is less likely

 

Two things scare me about nuclear power.

The first, and biggest was unthinkable until recently – that a mad man would attack nuclear plants in the hopes to render the surrounding area uninhabitable.

The second is a callous disregard for maintaining safety of operating and abandoned nuclear reactors. This video, about Russian (what I would call) "decay heat reactors". You typically think of these used in space probes, but Russia has deployed and abandoned about 2500 of them for terrestrial uses, such as powering light houses or remote outputs. Many had little physical protection, and weren't made of materials that would stand up to salt spray.

Scrappers have been tearing them apart, including even the containment vessel. I believe the fuel element, about the size of a pencil, is Cobalt-60, and is marked "drop this and run"! Holding it in your hand for 10 minutes is enough to lose your hand; in 30 minutes, the radiation dose will be fatal.