What Is Nuclear

I used to be against nuclear energy.

I have realized since then that since it is not nuclear energy itself but the not following of proven safe guards which are the problem. For e.g., nuclear energy is proven and safely run in many countries. There are many problem cases such as corruption in South Korea [1], the Japanese not ensuring that there was sufficient safeguards that they were told to implement but did not [2], improper design and lax adherence to safety procedures at Chernobyl [3][4][5]

I had started to research about Nuclear Energy since I believed that as a supporter of the Environment and of Clean Energy I need to prepare myself to add my voice against Nuclear Energy ( this is the result of years of exposure to messaging that nuclear==bad). However, having participated in the electronic automation of factory plants (e.g. using SCADA, touch panels, PLCs and Drives from Siemens) and also having worked as an IT systems administrator, I have come to understand the need for proper design and safeguards and for following safety procedures.

I am opposed to out-dated and flawed nuclear designs - e.g. what the French are trying to sell to India - and I am against corruption ( a given in India for such large value projects).

However, I am also an hopeful that the world can use safer Nuclear designs such as Canada's CANDU, or even Thorcon's Thorium molten salt reactor technology (five plants to be implemented in Indonesia).

When researching about Thorcon's design from…

I think your down votes are because people are tired of rebutting the same old anti-nuclear arguments.

"Civilizationally" The evidence is nuclear has remained safer than alternatives well over half a century even when we have failed organizationally to do the right things (e.g. Chernobyl, Fukushima). IMO let us move on and use technologies that might prevent civilizational collapse rather than avoid them and make such a thing more likely. (Although it's unlikely under any scenario.)

"Proliferation" as a product of civilian nuclear power has been studied and discussed for its entire history and has been disproven. There's no link. In general having civilian nuclear power allows more oversight by international bodies about what you're doing, whereas regimes pursuing nuclear weapons tend to pursue them in secret and using infrastructure fit for the purpose of producing weapons materials.

"Fuel efficiency" simply isn't important when the fuel is so abundant and so cheap. We can afford to worry about that in future if we ever wind up building enough nuclear power it becomes a problem. If anything this is a good reason to stop freaking out about "nuclear waste" i.e. mildly used and 95% reusable fuel and leave that where it's been sitting perfectly safe for decades, above ground.

If someone had the time they could mine every nuclear thread on Hacker News and pull out all the common tropes and rebut them someplace in a similar vein to Skeptical Science's list for Climate Change…

> The real win is that thorium MSRs can eat the existing mountain of "spent" fuel rods from regular reactors

That's not true.

The spent fuel can burn in fast reactors. There are hundreds of molten salt reactor designs (see for example [1]), and some of them are fast reactors.

But thorium MSR are not fast. That's the attraction of thorium, it can undergo transmutation (into protactinium, which then decays into fissile uranium-233) using thermal neutrons. Nobody is proposing thorium MSR as a solution to burn spent nuclear fuel.

> So...Three decades? Maybe if the West keeps sitting on its hands.

The West does not keep sitting on its hands. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of nuclear startups in the West, and they are actually making progress.

However, thorium is hard. Very hard. Breeding plutonium from uranium is much easier than breeding uranium-233 from thorium.

Here's a good post [2] about the thorium myths written by a former active HN forum member, Nick Touran. It's a good read. But, now, for an even better understanding, you can just ask ChatGPT, or any other LLM, how thorium breeder reactors compare to plutonium breeder reactors, and which technology is closer to reality.

[1] https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/STI-DOC-010-489_web.pdf

[2] https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html

> The main problems are 1) that catastrophic events can and will happen in the future. That's why nobody wants to live next to a nuclear power plant.

The chances for such events are vanishingly low when it comes to modern reactors. Seriously, as hard as it is to believe, we've come so, so far from Chernobyl. Thorium-based reactors are meltdown-proof [0], and Thorium comes with the plus in that it's not as easily weaponizable [1].

> 2) Nuclear waste storage.

Thorium reactors also produce less dangerous waste [2], which is great! They're not a panacea by any means- it is still technically possible to make weapons using Thorium reactors even if it's more difficult, and fuel is harder to prepare, but I do think the upsides greatly overcome the downsides.

Solar and wind aren't viable everywhere, which is why we need nuclear. The sooner we get over our inveterate fear of it, as difficult as it may be, the better.

[0] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090038711.pdf

[1] https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium.html#prolif

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257126696_Abundant_thorium_as_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel_Important_waste_disposal_and_weapon_proliferation_advantages

> I have not the instruments for differentiating which is good and which is pushing an agenda, since it's not a clear case of partisanship (like you'd expect from articles pushed from 'the union of conservative scientists')

It it a joke?

"Mike Conley and Tim Maloney, long-time members of the Thorium Energy Alliance, have calculated what they call a “Worth-It Treshold” that gives the answer."

Thorium Energy. Which never worked safely or economically, even if it's "promising" since around end of the WW II.

https://whatisnuclear.com/articles/thorium_myths.html

It's a good approach to calculate the total costs, including the need for the gas plants, also for wind and solar, but the same has to be done for nuclear, not about the gas plants, but all aspects of direct or indirect subventions that nuclear also had or is assumed to get, including again the totals of the whole infrastructure and all aspects of handling the waste etc.

E.g. the cost of nuclear has to include the costs of Fukushima and equvalent events. Or if you worry about the nuclear bombs, the cost of somebody who shouldn't getting the bomb (even the dirt bomb) material.

It's always interesting to see how these companies can progress in a year[0]. Regardless though, for those curious, there's a great presentation by the CEO, Dr. Leslie Dewan on what TPT does differently[1]. The big selling point for their Molten Salt Reactor (compared to others) is that they designed it to be able to use low-enriched Uranium (fresh fuel, as opposed to spent fuel) and nuclear waste. The downside of this is that it can't produce the same volume of electricity that a normal nuclear plant can, but it's significantly safer, and can't be used to produce weapons grade uranium.

For those interested in MSR's this serves as a good starting point too[2].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7922216

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UXXwWOImm8

[2] http://www.whatisnuclear.com/reactors/msr.html