Vox: Yang wants to bet big on nuclear power.

[crazytown]

Thorium and Fusion reactors. There are no working prototypes on the books (yet).

Andrew Yang wants to bet big on nontraditional nuclear power

By now, most (but not all) environmentalists have accepted that nuclear power, at least in existing plants, has to be part of the solution to climate change. It’s less deadly than coal or natural gas, and produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike solar or wind, it’s low-variability, meaning it could provide ongoing power even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. But nuclear has major drawbacks, not least of which are that it produces long-lived radioactive waste that has to be safely stored for thousands of years.

So Yang proposes massive subsidies for two somewhat speculative alternatives to traditional nuclear reactors. The first, nuclear fusion, involves crashing hydrogen isotopes together at high speeds so that they fuse together, releasing energy; this is the same process through which the sun produces heat. The radioactive materials involved in fusion stay dangerous for a matter of decades, not thousands of years, but after decades of effort, no one has figured out how to make a fusion reactor that “breaks even”: that produces more energy than is needed to heat the reactor up to 100 million degrees Kelvin to cause the fusion reaction in the first place.

That said, there are a number of physicists and private companies around the world trying to make fusion power economically viable, and Yang’s plan is designed in hopes that additional subsidies would get them closer.

Yang’s plan is even higher on the prospects of thorium power. Thorium is a more common element than uranium (and, according to its proponents, easier to mine) but decays into uranium-233, meaning thorium can be used as initial fuel for a nuclear reactor. Advocates of thorium (and there are many in futurist circles) argue that thorium reactors will produce far less waste than traditional uranium reactors, and waste that is radioactive for hundreds rather than thousands of years.

Thorium power is less speculative than fusion, but still in its infancy as a technology. The US briefly ran an experimental reactor using uranium-233 in the 1960s, and both China and India have thorium reactors in development. Yang’s plan to invest $50 billion to have thorium and/or fusion reactors coming online by 2027 may be optimistic but would arguably help the US keep pace with those countries.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/26/20833263/andrew-yang-climate-plan

[Hortensis]

1. It's good we have people talking about these things.

The Republicans sure won't.

Sufficient energy is a primary need. Like life itself, energy is what makes everything else possible. The world's population remained mostly flat, with little change in how or how long people lived for 20,000 years before 1750; then with each advance that created more available energy, life became possible for more and more people. And now the energy that gives life to 7 billion people has to become sustainable, or everything else won't be possible.

Thinking about it, our generations, in our nation especially, have been born into a critical time and have an incredibly important job to do.

Thanks for the post, Crazytown.

[Baclava]

2. Fusion power is a pipe dream, they've been saying its only 25 years away for 60 years lol

Billions and billions spent and they are no closer now than they began in 1950, nothing has changed, first you need to generate heat 7 times hotter than the sun's core, 100 million degrees C

No containment materials we have can withstand that for more than a few seconds, then the enormous power needed to keep it running means they never get more energy out than they put in.

[crazytown]

3. Um ...

Scientific American article I posted today

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212412943

[Baclava]

4. LOL, check back in 50 years and see if gets off the ground, that article is mostly conjectures

ITER is another physicists wet dream, a mega billion dollar Tokomak research project that they've been hallucinating about for 30 years, and even it won't produce usable electric power, its stated purpose is "preparing the way for fusion power plants of tomorrow"


See: boondoggle

[Sherman A1]

5. And if God had intended man to fly

He would have given him wings........

[Baclava]

6. Fusion/fission/ does the same, heats a boiler to produce steam to spin a turbine to make power

There’s nothing wrong with the research, but we should recognize that the realistic gains are in the form of knowledge and technology, rather than a viable source of electricity.

Chasing that holy grail of fusion still means you have to bow down to the reality of cost per kilowatt-hour economics.

[Sherman A1]

9. We will see

[MattInMN]

7. Nice to think about...

...but let's put our money on what is achievable first. Reagan spent butloads (200B+) on Star Wars missile defense and what did that get us?

Everyone complains about wind and solar not having storage capability, that we need unproven and dirty battery technology, but people forget that we already have proven energy storage technology called hydroelectric dams.

Instead of trapping natural streams with those environmental problems, let's build two large ponds, one higher than the other, and let gravity do the work. Wind and solar pump water from the lower pond to the upper pond when excess energy is available, then the water runs back to the lower pond through a hydro generator when the wind stalls and sun doesn't shine. Simple, clean, contained, no hazardous waste, no sustained impact to the environment. Let's put money in that infrastructure.

[FM123]

8. Something to thing about, for sure....

To use Yang's own words:
We can’t dismiss any ideas – especially not those that have support from the scientific community – or rule anything out because it doesn’t fit our ideological framework.

[Sherman A1]

10. Precisely

We have to really look for bold new ideas and this is just one of many that he proposes.


https://www.yang2020.com/policies/

[oldsoftie]

11. Ignoring nuclear power is ignoring realistic progress on climate change. Been saying it for years.

There is NO way that we can generate the power we (the US) needs using only solar, wind and geo.
However, i'm all for covering every warehouse & parking lot in the country with solar panels. It all adds up.
The other issue often ignored is the infrastructure & grid rehabilitation needed in this country. Something ELSE costing billions or trillions

[George II]

12. When people hear about nuclear power they immediately zero in on Three Mile Island....

...Chernobyl and Fukushima.

All three were cases where the rules/regulations weren't followed and they occurred because of human error.

The fact is that nuclear power is the cleanest, least expensive, most efficient way of producing electric power and, when implemented properly probably the safest.