Nuclear powered future

[Sn1p3r187]

How likely do you think it is that by 2050 we'll be using nuclear energy as a main source of energy? I hope it doesn't go to Fallout levels of nuclear powered everything. In the games it'd just be too damn risky to even use it if everything was nuclear powered, I wouldn't want nuclear isotopes in my drink, I wouldn't want to drive a nuclear powered car. In a future like that I do see a lot of conflict arising if everything is powered by the atom. So what're you thoughts? What do you think a trend like this would lead up to?

Here's some articles that pique the interest
- http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...-dream-for-a-nuclear-powered-future-just.aspx
-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-really-could-go-nuclear/

 

[SuAside]

I sincerely hope we do not shy away from using molten salt reactors, simply due to preconceived notions of how dangerous nuclear reactors are.
Molten salt reactors are our best chance at plentiful power, available cheaply, without horrendously damaging the environment. They cannot be used for nuclear bombs (though they can be used for dirty ones).
Molten salt reactors can use thorium (extremely plentiful and now considered "waste" in mining of uranium etc) as well as old radioactive nuclear waste as fuel. They cannot melt down, since if such an event occurs, the reaction automatically stops and the molten salt then solidifies in a tank designed for that purpose.

I'm not a huge fan of the EBR-II or IFR, though it's easy to see they're likely better than what we have now.

That's not to say we shouldn't invest in solar, water & wind power, but those things cannot be relied on to provide power at all times. You will always need another primary source of power. To make up for that, people say we should store power. At the moment, batteries and such are horrendously bad for the environment to produce. Yet some environmentalists propose batteries in every home? I don't get it. There's several projects related to energy storage, by pumping water up to a reservoir when there's surplus power, or pump gas into old mine shafts and use the pressure release as a turbine when power is low. But those are not very effective.

Oil and gas will sadly remain king though... I don't see that changing anytime soon. They're just too plentiful, too "cheap" and there's too huge a lobby behind it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

By 2050, or later, we might have access to Fusion reactors. Relatively save and much less waste than nuclear reactors while also offering a high potential energy output.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

I wouldn't worry about the energy economy going exclusively nuclear, there's always going to be a mixture of technolgies used to produce energy and what nuclear is going to largely replace going forward are coal and gas burning power plants. Both because nuclear is much more efficient, it's less supply limited, and also because those two are the most egregious CO2 producers and fission reactors produce fewer greenhouse gasses than even Solar or Wind.

But you're always going to have local contexts where things like solar, hydro, or wind make a lot of sense (it's not like they're going to just turn off the Hoover Dam) and those are going to contribute a significant amount to the overall energy production. Might be a while before Fusion is sufficiently efficient (and reliable) to be worth the expense of building them though.

 

[Stone Cold Robert House]

How likely is it to become our main power source by 2050? Rather unlikely, as unfortunately there's still a lot of money going into less efficient kinds of energy.

How beneficial would it be? Absolutely ideal! Nuclear power is the safest, cleanest large-scale energy source out there. People need to stop thinking it's risky or bad for the environment. Any accidents involving nuclear power plants were entirely due to lack of care or mishandling of equipment - a properly mantained nuclear reactor will practically never have any issues. Fukushima was a direct result of limiting nuclear expansion in the sense that it was an old-style reactor, pushed well past it's service life, because Japan has a moratorium on building new plants. Chernobyl was a cold war result (RBMK reactors are built to generate weapons-useful waste leading to a remarkably bad design plus neglect). Even then, it doesn't reach a fraction of the damage caused by oil spills, mining accidents, dumping hundreds of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and all the other problems with fossil fuels. Nuclear byproducts are collected and led to appropriate isolation rather than ejected into the air or water - it's safer to live near a nuclear plant than a coal plant.

Check this out. Now, for comparison, Chernobyl caused 15 deaths and max 4000 cancer cases in the following 80 years. Even if we had 5 Chernobyl-scale nuclear plant accidents every year - an absurd scenario - it still would be better than using fossil fuels. Nuclear power prevented approximately 1.8 million deaths between 1971-2009 as a result of lower air pollution according to NASA, and that doesn't even count thousands of potential deaths from coal mining (one of the most dangerous professions in the world). And all of that is only accounting current technology, as reactors become increasingly more efficient and safer; that will be especially true when the ball really gets rolling on fusion.

People need to realize that, to prevent increasing amounts of deaths and environmental issues, we have to get pollution down to zero (watch Bill Gates on TED talking about this), and while there are many worthwhile alternate forms of energy, nuclear power is by far the most cost-effective and clean one. I'm all for it and I hope it continues to grow in the future.

 

[Sn1p3r187]

How likely is it to become our main power source by 2050? Rather unlikely, as unfortunately there's still a lot of money going into less efficient kinds of energy.

How beneficial would it be? Absolutely ideal! Nuclear power is the safest, cleanest large-scale energy source out there. People need to stop thinking it's risky or bad for the environment. Any accidents involving nuclear power plants were entirely due to lack of care or mishandling of equipment - a properly mantained nuclear reactor will practically never have any issues. Fukushima was a direct result of limiting nuclear expansion in the sense that it was an old-style reactor, pushed well past it's service life, because Japan has a moratorium on building new plants. Chernobyl was a cold war result (RBMK reactors are built to generate weapons-useful waste leading to a remarkably bad design plus neglect). Even then, it doesn't reach a fraction of the damage caused by oil spills, mining accidents, dumping hundreds of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and all the other problems with fossil fuels. Nuclear byproducts are collected and led to appropriate isolation rather than ejected into the air or water - it's safer to live near a nuclear plant than a coal plant.

Check this out. Now, for comparison, Chernobyl caused 15 deaths and max 4000 cancer cases in the following 80 years. Even if we had 5 Chernobyl-scale nuclear plant accidents every year - an absurd scenario - it still would be better than using fossil fuels. Nuclear power prevented approximately 1.8 million deaths between 1971-2009 as a result of lower air pollution according to NASA, and that doesn't even count thousands of potential deaths from coal mining (one of the most dangerous professions in the world). And all of that is only accounting current technology, as reactors become increasingly more efficient and safer; that will be especially true when the ball really gets rolling on fusion.

People need to realize that, to prevent increasing amounts of deaths and environmental issues, we have to get pollution down to zero (watch Bill Gates on TED talking about this), and while there are many worthwhile alternate forms of energy, nuclear power is by far the most cost-effective and clean one. I'm all for it and I hope it continues to grow in the future.

Sounds like a perfect idea! I love it. But what about the idea of nuclear powered everything though?

 

[Stone Cold Robert House]

Sounds like a perfect idea! I love it. But what about the idea of nuclear powered everything though?

What exactly do you mean by "nuclear powered everything"? You wouldn't stuff a nuclear reactor into, say, a car. That's just crazy, impossible. You would just produce electricity in your nuclear plants, which is then used to power everything else.

 

[Sn1p3r187]

Sounds like a perfect idea! I love it. But what about the idea of nuclear powered everything though?

What exactly do you mean by "nuclear powered everything"? You wouldn't stuff a nuclear reactor into, say, a car. That's just crazy, impossible. You would just produce electricity in your nuclear plants, which is then used to power everything else.

Whew. Eh Just the idiocy and inconsistency in Fallout 3 and 4.

 

[Atomic Postman]

I hope we utilize nuclear power more, it's got a lot of potential. Unfortunately it's not going to solve our energy problems, but it'll help.

The real problem comes with trying to convince the public that their half-baked pop-culture inspired fears of skyrocketing cancer rates, two headed babies and utter atomic annihilation if someone so much as hits the wrong button aren't actually true and that cases like Fukushima and Chernobyl were very unique situations that are very unlikely to happen again.

 

[Sn1p3r187]

Ah. But if we did go full nuclear, would that increase the risk of a nuclear conflict in your eyes Alpha?

 

[Atomic Postman]

I don't really see the connection other than nuclear power.Why would that lead to an increased risk of nuclear conflict?

 

[Sn1p3r187]

I don't really see the connection other than nuclear power.Why would that lead to an increased risk of nuclear conflict?

I mean didn't say it would. Making connections between our technology and the tech presented in Fallout. Since in Fallout there's nuclear powered everything (Well at least in Fallout 3 and 4) it increased the risk of nuclear conflict heavily, but the war happened because of resources running out like oil. But hopefully by the time oil runs out there will be a replacement or a way to replicate its consistency.