Nuclear water Japan

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Of course, the most idiotic action possible is seen in e.g. Germany, which closed nuclear plants in favor of coal plants.

Don't you know? A 9.1 magnitude earthquake with associated tsunami might hit a profit maximised nuclear powerplant in Bavaria. *eyeroll*

[Kandorith]

they must be mad, they literally forgot the fukushima disaster.

Wackos.

They are literally talking about pumping treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor into the ocean. Did you read any of the articles linked in the OP?

They did not read, like some others they are just parroting the Chinese Communist Party narrative. Complete with "Japan bad!"

Heck the South Korean and Chinese governments even went as far as mentioning "the atrocities of the Japanese invasion" to say that this is an unacceptable move.

I tried to explain someone I know how the dumping would work and how it's basically harmless, his answer was: "this is why we need to stop with nuclear power!"

So many lost causes...

[Immoren]

What in the fresh hell is this take?

Also the US should be like France and Sweden and increase nuclear power.

I don't think that would be the greatest investment in terms of non-fossil fuel sources of energy, why build atomic reactors that take years, if not decades to be complete and fully operational, when you can just get devices that harness the power of sunlight slapped onto everyone's rooves, or setup windfarms that operate just by the wind blowing in the air, or a hydroelectric dam that generates power through water going through it? Honestly It just seems like a massive waste in both time and money, when governments could instead cut subsidisation for fossil fuel industries and put the money into renewable energies.

I dunno, just my thoughts about the whole "Renewables vs Atomic" debate

Only reason for time and expense of nukes seems to be that they're almost always almost unique artisanal projects that are designed from ground up, instead of designed using pre-existing mass production blueprints with components that are prefabbed.

Or so I remember reading. lol

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Heck the South Korean and Chinese governments even went as far as mentioning "the atrocities of the Japanese invasion" to say that this is an unacceptable move.

Japan should just frankly treat and pump out as planned and when the agents of PRC and ROK and DPRK go ballistic it should just be like "Ja Und? If y'all wanna bitch so much you come and deal with it."

[Mercatus]

What in the fresh hell is this take?

Also the US should be like France and Sweden and increase nuclear power.

I don't think that would be the greatest investment in terms of non-fossil fuel sources of energy, why build atomic reactors that take years, if not decades to be complete and fully operational, when you can just get devices that harness the power of sunlight slapped onto everyone's rooves, or setup windfarms that operate just by the wind blowing in the air, or a hydroelectric dam that generates power through water going through it? Honestly It just seems like a massive waste in both time and money, when governments could instead cut subsidisation for fossil fuel industries and put the money into renewable energies.

I dunno, just my thoughts about the whole "Renewables vs Atomic" debate

All renewable sources of power combined still couldn’t meet our power needs. Uranium as nuclear fuel is unnecessarily restricted, so logically, fossil fuels are the best energy investment. Renewables suck in other ways, like taking up more land, which would cause deforestation and destroy the habitats of wildlife, things that are much more important than some bullshit hoax about our chemical emissions melting the ice caps.

[Apostate]

As far as I know there is no use at all for Cesium 137, especially this contaminated by gods know what, mostly because it's been lying around for 10 years.

It's contaminated with tritium, a radioactive hydrogen basically.

So there's a big woop on fear mongering and "Asian nation bad!" (Honestly I have seen quite the narrative lately in this country on how everything Japan does is bad to the point where the media here is even starting to follow the Chinese narrative on Japan).

For example this explains a bit about it: Why it's OK

And yes the water is within the safe drinking water limits.

I doubt anyone here would drink it or go take a bath in it. Dumping anything into the ocean instead of properly treating it is very 19th century and is a practice we need to grow out of as an entire global community.

The whole “this is a conspiracy against japan” argument seems to be based on bad historical feelings between certain nations, none of which I see as relevant. Japan is being a polluter, and thenPacific ecosystem will be impacted. And all we can hope is they find another way to make it less radioactive before release, or develop better technology and quit dumping anything into the oceans. This goes for all countries, but of course right now we are talking about Japan.

[Tsaivao]

It's contaminated with tritium, a radioactive hydrogen basically.

So there's a big woop on fear mongering and "Asian nation bad!" (Honestly I have seen quite the narrative lately in this country on how everything Japan does is bad to the point where the media here is even starting to follow the Chinese narrative on Japan).

For example this explains a bit about it: Why it's OK

And yes the water is within the safe drinking water limits.

I doubt anyone here would drink it or go take a bath in it. Dumping anything into the ocean instead of properly treating it is very 19th century and is a practice we need to grow out of as an entire global community.

The whole “this is a conspiracy against japan” argument seems to be based on bad historical feelings between certain nations, none of which I see as relevant. Japan is being a polluter, and thenPacific ecosystem will be impacted. And all we can hope is they find another way to make it less radioactive before release, or develop better technology and quit dumping anything into the oceans. This goes for all countries, but of course right now we are talking about Japan.

They already have/are continuing to treat it before they dump it into the ocean. The water barely has more radiation than the background level in the ocean already, and it will be diluted over the entire ocean.

Hell, I think the tapwater where I live might actually be more radioactive, but I blame US water safety in general. I'd argue it's more "19th-century" to stand ground on a null-issue instead of worrying about actual threats to the environment

[Thermodolia]

Actually it’s a light water reactor as heavy water reactors are all pressurized

But LWRs are either pressurized or boiling

Well not a simple one. Where the reactor is directly in the pool. These are mostly used for research though

[Thermodolia]

I don't think that would be the greatest investment in terms of non-fossil fuel sources of energy, why build atomic reactors that take years, if not decades to be complete and fully operational, when you can just get devices that harness the power of sunlight slapped onto everyone's rooves, or setup windfarms that operate just by the wind blowing in the air, or a hydroelectric dam that generates power through water going through it? Honestly It just seems like a massive waste in both time and money, when governments could instead cut subsidisation for fossil fuel industries and put the money into renewable energies.

I dunno, just my thoughts about the whole "Renewables vs Atomic" debate

Only reason for time and expense of nukes seems to be that they're almost always almost unique artisanal projects that are designed from ground up, instead of designed using pre-existing mass production blueprints with components that are prefabbed.

Or so I remember reading. lol

Which should be changing soon. They’ve begun to develop modular and portable nuclear reactors that should be easy to build

[Arisyan]

Oh no! Anyway. This isn't really a problem, there are other problems that are greater than this.

[Thermodolia]

I don't think that would be the greatest investment in terms of non-fossil fuel sources of energy, why build atomic reactors that take years, if not decades to be complete and fully operational, when you can just get devices that harness the power of sunlight slapped onto everyone's rooves, or setup windfarms that operate just by the wind blowing in the air, or a hydroelectric dam that generates power through water going through it? Honestly It just seems like a massive waste in both time and money, when governments could instead cut subsidisation for fossil fuel industries and put the money into renewable energies.

I dunno, just my thoughts about the whole "Renewables vs Atomic" debate

All renewable sources of power combined still couldn’t meet our power needs. Uranium as nuclear fuel is unnecessarily restricted, so logically, fossil fuels are the best energy investment. Renewables suck in other ways, like taking up more land, which would cause deforestation and destroy the habitats of wildlife, things that are much more important than some bullshit hoax about our chemical emissions melting the ice caps.

This is such a dumb post.

Uranium is the best fuel. 1 gram of the stuff produces just as much power as 10 kg of oil. That’s really fucking efficient. And uranium isn’t that restricted as you think. Energy grade uranium doesn’t need to be highly refined, that’s weapons grade. So if a nation is say over refining their uranium then they aren’t using it for power

And no global warming isn’t a hoax.

[Kilobugya]

All renewable sources of power combined still couldn’t meet our power needs. Uranium as nuclear fuel is unnecessarily restricted, so logically, fossil fuels are the best energy investment. Renewables suck in other ways, like taking up more land, which would cause deforestation and destroy the habitats of wildlife, things that are much more important than some bullshit hoax about our chemical emissions melting the ice caps.

This is such a dumb post.

Uranium is the best fuel. 1 gram of the stuff produces just as much power as 10 kg of oil. That’s really fucking efficient. And uranium isn’t that restricted as you think. Energy grade uranium doesn’t need to be highly refined, that’s weapons grade. So if a nation is say over refining their uranium then they aren’t using it for power

Something very interesting about uranium is that there is quite a lot of it dissolved in the oceans, which would make it available to nearly every country on Earth (except a few like Bolivia and Switzerland). We don't know yet an efficient way of extracting it, but that's a very promising prospect. And if we do build facilities that process large quantities of sea water to extract uranium from it, maybe we could also start cleaning the micro-plastics at the same time...

And there is also thorium, which is about 3x more frequent than uranium and more evenly distributed. It's harder to use as fuel than uranium, you need breeder plants, but breeder are doable (we had one in France, SuperPhenix) and can also recycle some of the wastes from regular fission plants and turn them into energy.

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

So we're losing our minds over something that is going g to be done entirely in compliance with international law?

Drinking the pacific radon coolaid

[Senkaku]

This is such a dumb post.

Uranium is the best fuel. 1 gram of the stuff produces just as much power as 10 kg of oil. That’s really fucking efficient. And uranium isn’t that restricted as you think. Energy grade uranium doesn’t need to be highly refined, that’s weapons grade. So if a nation is say over refining their uranium then they aren’t using it for power

Something very interesting about uranium is that there is quite a lot of it dissolved in the oceans, which would make it available to nearly every country on Earth (except a few like Bolivia and Switzerland). We don't know yet an efficient way of extracting it, but that's a very promising prospect. And if we do build facilities that process large quantities of sea water to extract uranium from it, maybe we could also start cleaning the micro-plastics at the same time...

And there is also thorium, which is about 3x more frequent than uranium and more evenly distributed. It's harder to use as fuel than uranium, you need breeder plants, but breeder are doable (we had one in France, SuperPhenix) and can also recycle some of the wastes from regular fission plants and turn them into energy.

Only reason for time and expense of nukes seems to be that they're almost always almost unique artisanal projects that are designed from ground up, instead of designed using pre-existing mass production blueprints with components that are prefabbed.

Or so I remember reading. lol

Which should be changing soon. They’ve begun to develop modular and portable nuclear reactors that should be easy to build

All very cool; now tell us about the research and construction timelines on these promising new reactor technologies! I'm sure there won't be any hiccups in mass deployment before the middle of the century, right?

[Kilobugya]

All very cool; now tell us about the research and construction timelines on these promising new reactor technologies! I'm sure there won't be any hiccups in mass deployment before the middle of the century, right?

First, we don't need breeders right now. We can build traditional reactors first, and breeders later. Breeders are more efficient, can recycle waste, can burn thorium, but we have enough uranium to power the world for decades (even centuries), before having to switch to breeders.

As for construction timelines, France basically built most of its nuclear infrastructure in slightly over a decade, and that was in the 70s, when many of those technologies were relatively new. And that was actually also the case for the breeder reactor, the SuperPhénix project was launched in 1974 and SuperPhénix was powered on in 1984, so 10 years, for the first of its kind.

If we invest into mass-production of nuclear plants, in 10-15 we can convert the energy matrix of a country. That doesn't mean we can also deploy renewable in parallel. Especially since electricity is currently only a fraction of energy usage, transport and heating is massively based on burning fossils directly. Converting those into using electricity will take time, about the same time frame we need to build the nuclear powerplants.

[Thermodolia]

Something very interesting about uranium is that there is quite a lot of it dissolved in the oceans, which would make it available to nearly every country on Earth (except a few like Bolivia and Switzerland). We don't know yet an efficient way of extracting it, but that's a very promising prospect. And if we do build facilities that process large quantities of sea water to extract uranium from it, maybe we could also start cleaning the micro-plastics at the same time...

And there is also thorium, which is about 3x more frequent than uranium and more evenly distributed. It's harder to use as fuel than uranium, you need breeder plants, but breeder are doable (we had one in France, SuperPhenix) and can also recycle some of the wastes from regular fission plants and turn them into energy.

Which should be changing soon. They’ve begun to develop modular and portable nuclear reactors that should be easy to build

All very cool; now tell us about the research and construction timelines on these promising new reactor technologies! I'm sure there won't be any hiccups in mass deployment before the middle of the century, right?

Well the reactors aren’t exactly new, they are just downsized, but they are expected to be in mass use by 2035 at the latest

[Senkaku]

All very cool; now tell us about the research and construction timelines on these promising new reactor technologies! I'm sure there won't be any hiccups in mass deployment before the middle of the century, right?

First, we don't need breeders right now. We can build traditional reactors first, and breeders later. Breeders are more efficient, can recycle waste, can burn thorium, but we have enough uranium to power the world for decades (even centuries), before having to switch to breeders.

As for construction timelines, France basically built most of its nuclear infrastructure in slightly over a decade, and that was in the 70s, when many of those technologies were relatively new. And that was actually also the case for the breeder reactor, the SuperPhénix project was launched in 1974 and SuperPhénix was powered on in 1984, so 10 years, for the first of its kind.

If you're citing SuperPhénix as an example of a success story, that should maybe tell you we're in it in a bad way...

If we invest into mass-production of nuclear plants,

come_on_now.png

It would require massive state-directed investment that doesn't appear likely to materialize, barring some sort of Bright Green coup d'etat. Private backers and a dribble of government research funding are not going to be able push this technology fast enough.

in 10-15 we can convert the energy matrix of a country. That doesn't mean we can also deploy renewable in parallel. Especially since electricity is currently only a fraction of energy usage, transport and heating is massively based on burning fossils directly. Converting those into using electricity will take time, about the same time frame we need to build the nuclear powerplants.

Well, let's hope that happens!

Well the reactors aren’t exactly new, they are just downsized, but they are expected to be in mass use by 2035 at the latest

What's the realistic path for a company like Oklo to go from where they are now-- the Aurora prototype isn't even online-- to having hundreds of units deployed and operational in the next 14 years? I believe NuScale's even further behind, they won't even have a prototype operational till mid-decade IIRC; and foreign countries don't appear to be going big on the technology either-- there was all kinds of controversy about the deployment of Akademik Lomonosov, I seriously doubt that the Russians or Chinese are going to have much more success with or interest in deploying a controversial, costly technology that's still a long ways from being ready to scale.

[Kilobugya]

If you're citing SuperPhénix as an example of a success story, that should maybe tell you we're in it in a bad way...

Why ? It was a prototype of a very novel and promising kind of powerplant, it was built in less than 10 years despite frequent opposition from protesters, and while as prototype it did have frequent issues, it did fulfill it's main job: produce electricity from the wastes of other powerplants. The only real "failure" in it is that the police killed a protester, which is indeed very wrong but a problem of law enforcement, not of engineering, and therefore became a "bête noire" for the ecologists, who managed to obtain the death of SuperPhénix for purely political reasons in 1997.

It would require massive state-directed investment that doesn't appear likely to materialize, barring some sort of Bright Green coup d'etat. Private backers and a dribble of government research funding are not going to be able push this technology fast enough.

Electricity production should be nationalized. That might be hard to achieve in USA due to its irrational fetish for "private markets", but this thread isn't specific to USA, and in many countries in the world it's perfectly possible. Many countries actually do have the electricity sector mostly or totally state-owned.

[Saifberry]

This is a nuclear attack on the Pacific Ocean. I cannot stand with this.

If this is a nuclear attack then no one called it safe.

[Thermodolia]

First, we don't need breeders right now. We can build traditional reactors first, and breeders later. Breeders are more efficient, can recycle waste, can burn thorium, but we have enough uranium to power the world for decades (even centuries), before having to switch to breeders.

As for construction timelines, France basically built most of its nuclear infrastructure in slightly over a decade, and that was in the 70s, when many of those technologies were relatively new. And that was actually also the case for the breeder reactor, the SuperPhénix project was launched in 1974 and SuperPhénix was powered on in 1984, so 10 years, for the first of its kind.

If you're citing SuperPhénix as an example of a success story, that should maybe tell you we're in it in a bad way...

If we invest into mass-production of nuclear plants,

come_on_now.png

It would require massive state-directed investment that doesn't appear likely to materialize, barring some sort of Bright Green coup d'etat. Private backers and a dribble of government research funding are not going to be able push this technology fast enough.

in 10-15 we can convert the energy matrix of a country. That doesn't mean we can also deploy renewable in parallel. Especially since electricity is currently only a fraction of energy usage, transport and heating is massively based on burning fossils directly. Converting those into using electricity will take time, about the same time frame we need to build the nuclear powerplants.

Well, let's hope that happens!

Well the reactors aren’t exactly new, they are just downsized, but they are expected to be in mass use by 2035 at the latest

What's the realistic path for a company like Oklo to go from where they are now-- the Aurora prototype isn't even online-- to having hundreds of units deployed and operational in the next 14 years? I believe NuScale's even further behind, they won't even have a prototype operational till mid-decade IIRC; and foreign countries don't appear to be going big on the technology either-- there was all kinds of controversy about the deployment of Akademik Lomonosov, I seriously doubt that the Russians or Chinese are going to have much more success with or interest in deploying a controversial, costly technology that's still a long ways from being ready to scale.

The DOD is however. That’s who’s building them or plans too. The DOD has put a lot of interest in making them

[Senkaku]

If you're citing SuperPhénix as an example of a success story, that should maybe tell you we're in it in a bad way...

Why ? It was a prototype of a very novel and promising kind of powerplant, it was built in less than 10 years despite frequent opposition from protesters, and while as prototype it did have frequent issues, it did fulfill it's main job: produce electricity from the wastes of other powerplants.

Significant cost overruns and delays in construction for an ultimate "speedy" delivery in less than... a decade... yes, terrific.

The issues it had as a prototype, and its still-relatively-long construction time (versus, say, deploying wind or solar farms, etc.), should indicate to you that it would be a multi-decade process to first develop commercially-viable breeder reactors and then to deploy them en masse, decades we do not have-- and this timeline would probably be significantly complicated by anti-nuclear hysteria.

The only real "failure" in it is that the police killed a protester, which is indeed very wrong but a problem of law enforcement, not of engineering, and therefore became a "bête noire" for the ecologists, who managed to obtain the death of SuperPhénix for purely political reasons in 1997.

Which (along with the rocket attack?!) should tell you that nuclear faces an uphill political battle that you will also have to devote considerable resources to fighting if you want to develop even a single reactor. I'm not saying the opposition makes sense, I'm just pointing out it's there and that it imposes serious obstacles on new developments.

It would require massive state-directed investment that doesn't appear likely to materialize, barring some sort of Bright Green coup d'etat. Private backers and a dribble of government research funding are not going to be able push this technology fast enough.

Electricity production should be nationalized. That might be hard to achieve in USA due to its irrational fetish for "private markets", but this thread isn't specific to USA, and in many countries in the world it's perfectly possible. Many countries actually do have the electricity sector mostly or totally state-owned.

The USA is one of the world's largest emitters, however, so the specific problems of deploying reactors here are unfortunately relevant factors that the rest of the world has to think about (and you should also consider the problems of other countries being unable to afford new reactors or unable to secure hazardous materials).

[Senkaku]

If you're citing SuperPhénix as an example of a success story, that should maybe tell you we're in it in a bad way...


come_on_now.png

It would require massive state-directed investment that doesn't appear likely to materialize, barring some sort of Bright Green coup d'etat. Private backers and a dribble of government research funding are not going to be able push this technology fast enough.

Well, let's hope that happens!

What's the realistic path for a company like Oklo to go from where they are now-- the Aurora prototype isn't even online-- to having hundreds of units deployed and operational in the next 14 years? I believe NuScale's even further behind, they won't even have a prototype operational till mid-decade IIRC; and foreign countries don't appear to be going big on the technology either-- there was all kinds of controversy about the deployment of Akademik Lomonosov, I seriously doubt that the Russians or Chinese are going to have much more success with or interest in deploying a controversial, costly technology that's still a long ways from being ready to scale.

The DOD is however. That’s who’s building them or plans too. The DOD has put a lot of interest in making them

The DOD deploying mobile nuclear-powered anti-air lasers or whatever in 20 years will be very cool, but that doesn't necessarily translate to their widespread adoption for civilian generating purposes, and could end up just sowing further mistrust of the technology (especially if there's an incident, however slight, the likelihood of which is raised by them potentially bringing these things into warzones).

[Rusozak]

Does anyone else find this ironic that China is throwing a fit over this? China, where smog is a normal weather event and there's so much pollution Japan gets contact polluted across the sea. Even if the water was dangerously contaminated (spoiler alert, it's not), radiation might be an improvement.

[Kandorith]

Does anyone else find this ironic that China is throwing a fit over this? China, where smog is a normal weather event and there's so much pollution Japan gets contact polluted across the sea. Even if the water was dangerously contaminated (spoiler alert, it's not), radiation might be an improvement.

Not just that, Chinese state media has released a statement how Japan is lying about the rapport that the dumping is safe because they have evidence they are. The evidence is, wait for it: "Japan lies, because we know they are lying!"

[West Balkan Union]

Well those things are bad and this thing isn't, so it makes sense that people would have different reactions to them.

radioactive water ain't bad?!

2+2=5

have you ever eaten a banana