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0 pointscbmuser5y ago0 comments

That single hall is for the _whole_ country for _decades_.

Nuclear is the _only_ technology where the fuel and the waste for decades can be stored on-site. It's just extremely dense.

The Russians have a single hall for all their waste plus the waste of other countries such as Bulgaria or Ukraine:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5uN0bZBOic&t=105s

The US even had a nuclear power plant with full fuel reprocessing on site:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1Xja6HlIU

0 comments

laurent925y ago

Just for everyone to have a picture, uranium doesn’t take much room because it is quite heavy: 19.1g/cm3, denser than lead (11.3) but slightly less than gold (19.3) and plutonium (19.8).

fastball5y ago

The density of uranium is secondary to just how unbelievably energetic (per unit mass of fuel) fission is.

loeg5y ago

Energy density is the main reason you don't need much volume of uranium. Fission is just extremely energetic.

That c² factor in E = m c² is huge (9 * 10¹⁶).

It is really hard for humans to intuit about factors of ten to the power of 16 or 17.

Jabbles5y ago

You need to include the units, else that doesn't make much sense - many physicists use units such that c = 1.

In this case the units (for speed²) you want are m²/s² = J/kg

loeg5y ago

The fun thing is, the units are basically unimportant! A factor of 10^3 or two is peanuts on 10^17. Humans have just as terrible intuitions about 10^14 and 10^11 as they do about 10^17.

1 more reply

StreamBright5y ago

Your face when people figure out that burning coal produces 100x amount nuclear waste than an average nuclear power plant.

Your face #2 when people realise that this nuclear waste goes to the environment unfiltered.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-po...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/

random_kris5y ago

When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions

random_kris5y ago

When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

laurent925y ago

Just for everyone to have a picture, uranium doesn’t take much room because it is quite heavy: 19.1g/cm3, denser than lead (11.3) but slightly less than gold (19.3) and plutonium (19.8).

fastball5y ago

The density of uranium is secondary to just how unbelievably energetic (per unit mass of fuel) fission is.

loeg5y ago

Energy density is the main reason you don't need much volume of uranium. Fission is just extremely energetic.

That c² factor in E = m c² is huge (9 * 10¹⁶).

It is really hard for humans to intuit about factors of ten to the power of 16 or 17.

Jabbles5y ago

You need to include the units, else that doesn't make much sense - many physicists use units such that c = 1.

In this case the units (for speed²) you want are m²/s² = J/kg

loeg5y ago

The fun thing is, the units are basically unimportant! A factor of 10^3 or two is peanuts on 10^17. Humans have just as terrible intuitions about 10^14 and 10^11 as they do about 10^17.

1 more reply

StreamBright5y ago

Your face when people figure out that burning coal produces 100x amount nuclear waste than an average nuclear power plant.

Your face #2 when people realise that this nuclear waste goes to the environment unfiltered.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/do-coal-fired-power-sta...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-po...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ih.gov/20005612/

random_kris5y ago

When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions

random_kris5y ago

When our energy consumption increases by 10000 times where will.we store the waste? I am not against the nuclear, I am for it but I like to ask hard questions

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse