Nuclear weapons definitely change the climate.
Literally, plus also too, the Cold War.
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global warming + nuclear winter = problem solved.
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Ideal for the aforementioned cyanobacteria, and anything else looking to do some evolving.
(what a time to be out of likes)
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Yes. But realistically, do we have other option?
Carbon wonât go away anytime soon. And there are those loud pesky antinuke activists that block the other road.
Climate engineering, geoengineering, climate intervention⌠Utterly fraught.
No backup copies (sorry Mars), no infinite levels of âundoâ if we screw up the version of the planet we are currently inhabiting, and very little scientific consensus worthy of the name about what geoengineering/climate engineering steps to take that arenât futile, facile and/or dangerous. Cascading unintended consequences, blowback, ignorance of systems thinking are what got us in this mess in the first place.
Even as the likes of Stewart Brand choose to favor nuclear energy as a fast, last-ditch way to solve the carbon problemâŚ
⌠I simply canât make myself ignore the probability of half-wits and corrupt officials to screw up something as simple to operate as a (reputedly safer) thorium reactor. See various entries on bOINGbOING here and here and miraculously I am able to link to one discussion thread on tha bOING here.
Amory Lovins isnât buying from Brandâs counter on this one either.
This post by Maggie Koerth-Baker was written in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011. Itâs 2016 now and things still donât look so good for Fukushima, land or sea. Carbon problem not solved. Many more problems createdâŚ
And thatâs why we need the molten salt thorium reactors with online fuel reprocessing.
Something goes wrong? Let the molten fuel out of the pipes, just spill it to vessels prepared for that eventuality, dimensioned for the fission product decay heat dissipation, and problem solved. Youâll get some volatile fission products getting out, but thatâs what the online reprocessing is for; you can keep their inventory in the loop reasonably low.
Also, no high pressure in the fuel loop. So no combined radiation/mechanical loading on the materials, no steam leaks, no hydrogen production (no water to hydrolyze) - so no hydrogen explosions, no steam-zirconium fires. No core meltdown, too, as it is already melted.
Should greatly lower the cost of the reactors and increase their safety in one move.
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As both j9c and myself are suggesting, the chief danger of nuclear power generation isnât in the engineering, itâs in the management. Ainât no such thing as user-proof tech.
While you may trust the US government to safely manage large scale nuclear power, do you have the same level of confidence in the government of Mexico? How about the Sudanese?
Who keeps the plants safe when a civil war rolls through the neighbourhood? How good at nuclear engineering do you think Boko Haram are?
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Thatâs why you need better reactors, less unforgiving to a user error.
With solid-state fixed-configuration fuel and pressurized water, you get all sorts of fragilities that are absent in the molten salt loop design.
Yes, Iâd trust even Sudanese to run this. Worst case, minor issues. Keep the fission products inventory in the loop as low as you can, and youâre golden even if it all spills out. Itâs the 90-Sr and 137-Cs that you have to worry about the most; get rid of these and youâre okay. The rest even if it leaks will be gone in a short while, or be so long-lived and therefore low-activity to be of no significant consequences.
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