• JucheEnjoyer@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 years ago

    What do you think to the thorium molten salt reactors that china is developing/building? They’re better for the environment, significantly safer than old designs, and their waste cant be used to make weapons. I understand renewable green energy is the goal but dont you think that any effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is good, even if its not a sustainable alternative? Moving to renewable isnt something we can do easily and buying ourselves time with the technology we have right now is only positive imo

    • CHEF-KOCH@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      The molten salt reactor idea is not new, they bring it up again because Uranium is a limited resource hear on earth. Latest studies say 130 - 150 years until all Uranium - that we can reach - is gone, lets make that 200 years because it is a round number.

      I did lots of research on the reactor and it is also not an solution. The new idea is actually developed and emulated in a simulation by Microsoft. I bring MS up because you know who is behind this new idea, or shall we say improved. There are also HUGE disadvantages. The biggest one is that some human, in case something goes wrong need to shut down the mechanic mechanism, to close up the reactor. Someone explained this process in-depth to me, so this is no joke and this cannot be done in an electrical way, once you need to do that, this is a death sentence. One can now argue, what is one single life to prevent an accident, nothing but I see it different. You actually have to climb in and shut the vents yourself and there is no going back from that, this is just one single - by design - problem of many, the Wikipedia articles usually do not even mention all advantages and disadvantages, there are more here on this subject. I also forgot to say that molten salt reactor will also only run for 1000 years, that molten salt is no end solution is explained in depth here by an expert.

      I agree - overall - that nuclear energy can give us time until we find better ways because solar panels, water energy solutions still have a carbon offset too, because the recycling problem exists and producing batteries also produces a huge carbon footprint on earth. I do not say that finding solutions is easy or this is done overnight but pushing or building new power plants is madness. You spend money on something that will, soon or later in 200 years come to an end, new reactors that claim to do it better have downsides and are not even jet running. The only one who did bigger experiment and claims to have running molten salt reactor on bigger scale is china, without actual proof except some fancy articles from nuclear supporters that this is the final solution.

      We need drastic changes and this across all countries over the wold, now, not tomorrow. The time is ticking here and we know this for around 50 years now, maybe even longer.

      My own proposal

      • Countries all over the world need to declare nuclear energy as illegal, which also would affect nuclear weapons and facilities. This would be a good thing.
      • We need to invest into new energy networks because the current ones are not designed to handle power from multiple sources, there is the storage problem from wind and water, which can be solved by building big facilities that act like batteries. There are concepts and proposals for that already and it can work, again I do not deny that there is no carbon footprint here but maintaining this is more green then storing toxic stuff under our feed + overall cheaper once the network stands because upgrading it is easier.
      • We need to combine multiple sources and find individual solutions per country. It makes no sense to work with water energy in Africa, so we need to combine solutions when it makes sense. Germany can get green energy from Sweden because they have lots of wind, and when we have some energy left we just send it back. The key here is decentralization of energy networks, every country becomes independent yet, when needed we can buy or sell from or to other countries. This partially already works in the EU. French people sell Germany and vice versa since several decades and it works. This must be pushed across the globe.
      • We need to get rid of old power plants and old networks, this process is not done over night, sure thing but we should replace it and not build new networks. I totally get that the energy demand is high and it will increase but I claim that with combination of independent power sources we can manage this problem. The govt should encourage to put solar panels on your roof, work with thermal power to heat up your water in countries were it makes sense and such combined effort. You know the big picture. Every small drop counts.
      • We should encourage to use bicycles much more. I remember times when I could walk Sundays on the autobahn because no car was allowed to drive there. That is long time ago but the idea was simple, easy and we only make exceptions for things that are urgent, like delivering food etc. I think that can work if we all come to an common ground.
      • The govt must help and fund renewable energy much more. India has lots of sun power yet no one or only handful of people using it, in fact they just said they want to build nuclear reactors which is a tragedy. The common ground here should be that the govt directly understands that working with nuclear energy is not a final solution, it is more to give us time but right-now they communicate this as solution, which I disagree with and I see it as madness to even communicate it like that.

      There are other things to say and to debate but I do not want to go totally off-topic with my personal opinion.

      Same like I spread some privacy stuff we need to do the same with new energies and make this much more public to make people aware. I do not say or pretend there are no downsides, every tech has some downsides but over the long run nuclear is not the solution, never was. New reactors that claim doing xyz better, on paper I might add and the real-world are often two different cases. On paper or a simulation everything looks easy but it is not that simple and we need to clearly communicate this in public and not swipe everything under the carpet. The renewable energy discussion is simply huge.

      My personal proposal has no place for nuclear that is for sure. We can let the existing reactors run until they are finished which is typically in a range of 60-70 years but building new ones is something I cannot respect tolerate or encourage. My opinion is clear, we need to build above mentioned things or expand the existing solutions right now, and not when we hit the point of no return, which is set to 2050.

      • JucheEnjoyer@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 years ago

        This is too much for me to read right now, but i appreciate how in depth it is and that you gave links. I’ll look into it sometime soon

        edit: so i just read it, and the only thing i can think is will we have enough time to actually switch to renewable energy? Most of the biggest polluting countries are capitalist and are they really gonna invest in public transport and solar panels etc when its not profitable? even if its theoretically possible to switch to renewable, i’m sure capitalism will get in the way and make it harder or impossible in the time we have

        nuclear has the potential i think under capitalism to be adopted, especially because its exportable (in the case of thorium molten salt) and it would buy us time we need. the alternative being switching to communism but we cant rely on that as a main solution since its so hard/unlikely

        plus more people die from pollution than in nuclear accidents right? i mean pollution kills so so many people and a reactor in the middle of a desert is only gonna be able to kill a handful, its not a permanent solution but its better than what we have and its realistic in the timeframe and system were stuck with for now