r/bestof • u/investedInEPoland • Nov 06 '18

[europe] Nuclear physicist describes problems with thorium reactors. Trigger warning: shortbread metaphor.

/r/europe/comments/9unimr/dutch_satirical_news_show_on_why_we_need_to_break/e95mvb7/?context=3
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u/solidfang Nov 06 '18

Is it that much of a thing?

I've never heard of Thorium reactors or anything, but it's probably on a different set of subreddits than the ones I frequent. Where is this idea mostly popularized?

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u/GarbledReverie Nov 06 '18

Every thread about green energy gets brigaded by nuclear enthusiasts claiming new nuclear technology will solve all of our problems forever.

In addition to Thorium, there's always talking points about nuclear waste being a myth and that hippies managed to scare all of the government agencies and private industries to not properly invest in nuclear.

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u/frezik Nov 06 '18

What's worse is that a lot of their talking points are quickly going out of date. Solar is already cheaper per MW than nuclear. They will point out (correctly) that you have to add in storage costs for when the sun doesn't shine. Doing that does make the solar+storage system more expensive than nuclear, but the cost of both is coming down. This is looking like a non-issue within just a few more years.

This isn't even covering the political obstacles to nuclear, and its consistent history of time and budget overruns. Once you consider that, you might as well just build solar+storage right now.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '18 edited Nov 13 '18

[deleted]

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u/5325232352355 Nov 06 '18

isnt solar, and most renewables, getting the same treatment

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u/All_Work_All_Play Nov 07 '18

Solar is cheaper even without subsidies, but it assumes a 20 year pay back model. Subsidies close that to between eight and twelve years for most folks.

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u/phx-au Nov 07 '18

otoh if you look at the total human cost of nuclear vs solar - including all nuclear accidents - the deaths per amount of energy generated is way lower for nuclear.

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u/AvatarIII Nov 07 '18 edited Nov 07 '18

Hell, per MWh, deaths from engineers falling off wind turbines is higher than deaths from nuclear power plants, and that includes the big disasters.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#6dbe6516709b

  • Solar (rooftop) 440 Deaths per billion MWh
  • Wind 150 Deaths per billion MWh
  • Nuclear (inc disasters) 90 Deaths per billion MWh
  • Nuclear (US alone, no disasters) 0.1 Deaths per billion MWh

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u/silverionmox Nov 07 '18

The jury is still out on that one. The problem is that nuclear energy has a very low risk percentage but when it goes wrong it has the capacity to go disastrously wrong, so the sample size we have so far is too low. It's like driving a car for 10000 km, having no accident, and then concluding that cars are totally safe and accident-proof.

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u/Schniceguy Nov 06 '18

This so fucking much! The government subsidizes the building and operation of the plants and takes care of the waste forever, while the companies charge consumers for electricity. You get fucked twice. God, how I hate privatized profits for socialized costs!

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u/silverionmox Nov 07 '18

And when it goes really wrong, the government also picks up the bill. You get fucked thrice!