Reply #203: The sun don't shine at night.

[TheMadMonk]

Load ballancing can only do so much and we have no practical way to store excess for later use. No matter what a base load generation capacity is essential.

You are correct there is no way to absolutely prevent catastrophic failure in a self sustaining nuclear reaction. And if you'd read all the way through my post you might have noticed that I addressed this situation. Since failure is not preventable, the trick is to make/force the failure happen the way we want, in a way that causes the out of control reaction to collapse safely before it can result in an uncontrolled release of radiation.

And as a matter of fact there is a way to create a nuclear reactor that is triggered by an external neutron source. Catastrophic failure is physically impossible as there is never enough material in the reaction chamber to sustain an ongoing reaction. Cut off the external source of neutrons and the reaction stops cold instantaneously.

The issue of waste too is not as insurmountable as you might think. Laboratory experimentation has demonstrated that it is possible to irradiate waste in such a way as to render it harmless, and there are no obvious hurdles to scaling it up to industrial levels and do it economically.

Many renewables are about to slam up against a resource barrier. Considerable quantities of some very rare minerals are needed and China controls most of the world's supply. The price of a reactor is four times higher in the US than it is elsewhere for exactly the same reactor. One has to wonder: Who has their hand in the till?

Strange isn't it how in comparisons between renewables and nuclear, the presumption is that the renewables will continue to fall in price, whilst for the cost of nuclear the price is based on continuing with decades out of date designs coccooned in as many layers of safety systems as can be thought up, rather than anything remotely new?