Nuclear propulsion advocates

[Pipcard]

I've read statements by these people, saying that environmentalist fears about nuclear propulsion are exaggerated, and talking about how "we need to get over our fear of the 'n-word'" and use nuclear thermal rockets, or even nuclear bombs (i.e. Project Orion).

What do you think?

 

[Castor]

True, people do seem to have a paranoid fear of nukes, which is on a long list of other things. Nuclear development is hampered in many countries due to these "environmentalist" concerns, most of which are not based on fact.

 

[Urwumpe]

I've read statements by these people, saying that environmentalist fears about nuclear propulsion are exaggerated, and talking about how "we need to get over our fear of the 'n-word'" and use nuclear thermal rockets, or even nuclear bombs (i.e. Project Orion).

What do you think?

If we speak about nuclear power on Earth, I would be an environmentalist. I strongly oppose the current solutions and suggest to quickly find a solution that does not assume, that unexpected failures can't happen. Also, I fail to see any economic need now. Nuclear power is too sensitive, too expensive and too neoconservative in the sense of "privatizing profits and socializing costs". Thats so many intrinsic problems in the design, it won't get better in the next 50 years unless a nuclear revolution happens.

In space on the other hand: Give or take a few Sieverts, it won't kill humans faster.

---------- Post added at 05:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

True, people do seem to have a paranoid fear of nukes, which is on a long list of other things. Nuclear development is hampered in many countries due to these "environmentalist" concerns, most of which are not based on fact.

Sorry, but I REALLY recommend you to learn the facts first, before condemning all concerns against nuclear power to environmentalists panic.

I am really happy that Germany decided to leave nuclear power behind, even in the face of the new Russian developments, because nuclear power is no solution. It is a failed experiment as it is now. And we simply can't afford it. Regenerative power would need to get much more expensive, to ever become as expensive as nuclear power is.

 

[Castor]

Sorry, but I REALLY recommend you to learn the facts first, before condemning all concerns against nuclear power to environmentalists panic.

You are right, but considering many developing countries, the people really put up massive protests just at a proposal of setting up a nuclear power plant. Some countries are quite energy starved and I think nuclear energy is the solution. But effecive waste disposal is a growing concern.

 

[Donamy]

Where are we gonna go ?

 

[Pipcard]

Probably Mars.

 

[TMac3000]

Nuclear and geo-thermal power are my favorites. I believe France is run mostly on nuclear power? Can any French Orbinauts confirm this? Are there many problems with it in France?

But what I'd REALLY like to see is fusion power--on Earth AND in spacecraft.

 

[Urwumpe]

You are right, but considering many developing countries, the people really put up massive protests just at a proposal of setting up a nuclear power plant. Some countries are quite energy starved and I think nuclear energy is the solution. But effecive waste disposal is a growing concern.

Not just that. Safety is. A nuclear power plant is a big business solution. You have a huge investment, that the investor wants to protect, by special laws, insurances from the state, etc. You need to make sure that nobody turns it into a terror weapon or steals just the junk from it. You need a MASSIVE industry around it, that serves actually no other purpose than to produce nuclear power plant parts and nuclear power plant metal alloys.

So, it is really a bit hypocritical to suggest that nuclear power could help developing countries, when in reality, all it does is making them depend on heavily industrialized countries.

It is much simpler to create a solar cell factory somewhere. Or to build wind turbines, which you can handle with small or middle-sized enterprises.

---------- Post added at 06:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:12 PM ----------

Nuclear and geo-thermal power are my favorites. I believe France is run mostly on nuclear power? Can any French Orbinauts confirm this? Are there many problems with it in France?

But what I'd REALLY like to see is fusion power--on Earth AND in spacecraft.

France is 74% nuclear power.

In summer or winter, France needs to import electrical from Germany. Not because it is cheaper (which it also is), but also because the nuclear power plants in France have to be massively throttled for about 2/5th of the year and can only run safely at design power for 1/6th of the year.

 

[Castor]

Not just that. Safety is. A nuclear power plant is a big business solution. You have a huge investment, that the investor wants to protect, by special laws, insurances from the state, etc. You need to make sure that nobody turns it into a terror weapon or steals just the junk from it. You need a MASSIVE industry around it, that serves actually no other purpose than to produce nuclear power plant parts and nuclear power plant metal alloys.

Yep, safety is a major issue. But what I am trying to point out here is that the efficiency of such a power system outweighs the cost of construction and safety. For a good comparison of the different power sources : [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source[/ame]

Moreover, most countries in Africa have large deposits of U-235, most of it untapped. I think all this must be put to some good use.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yep, safety is a major issue. But what I am trying to point out here is that the efficiency of such a power system outweighs the cost of construction and safety. For a good comparison of the different power sources : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Moreover, most countries in Africa have large deposits of U-235, most of it untapped. I think all this must be put to some good use.

Have you actually read the numbers? Nuclear power is among the most expensive power sources in all recent studies. Only few of them make it half-way economic.

It even looks bad next to off-shore wind energy, which is quite a feat.

And the most recent German study about it is not even included, which nearly doubled the costs of nuclear power.

 

[Topper]

I'm against fission energy, not against fusion energy.
In my mind, there are two unsolved problems with fission energy:

The first one is the safeness of the powerplants. It can be damaged by earthquakes / tsunamies, plane impacts, asteroid impacts, human faliure and technical failures, terror attacks and so on... In the case of a meltdown or something like this, landscapes becomes contanimated nearly for ever. Statistic calculations said, that every 20 years there would be such a disaster.
On the other hand, there is this radioactive special waste, without any possibility to storage it safely for millions or even billions of years.
So for fusion, I don't see this problems because there, the
radioactive half-live is not millions, but only hundreds of years and then it's possible to storage it safely.

The only big problem we have today is that we have no way to storage energy efficiently but if there would be a way, we can use wind and solar energy as well...

So for propulsion in space, im not against to use such methods if it is far away enogh from earth
I'm even not against to use nuclear power sources as it's done by the Voyager probes, Cassini and Curiosity and so on.

But I belive there are much better ways than "nuclear bombs" for propulsion thrusters as [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoplasmadynamic_thruster"]Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster[/ame] or such things.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Short answer, yes.

Long answer...

This will take some time.

 

[ISProgram]

True, people do seem to have a paranoid fear of nukes, which is on a long list of other things. Nuclear development is hampered in many countries due to these "environmentalist" concerns, most of which are not based on fact.

More or less. Anything people hear that even correlates to the word "nuclear" make them fear radiation, cancer, etc., even if it is not entirely related...

Unfortunately, having the words "nuclear" and "rocket" in the seme sentence will probably provoke even more people into these fears, given the reputation of rockets. Like with the Cassini launch, but it should not be said that they don't have a point. Because [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954"]they do[/ame].

I'm somewhat happy that many agencies are still developing, and looking into, nuclear propulsion. I believe Russian has even funded a concept for such a nuclear tug.

As for the safety issues, there will be a lot, obviously. I'm not worried about the launch phase (since it could be made inert), but more on the failure that could happen when that monster is active and in orbit. A piece of space debris or a failure of the engine nozzle would send a lot of radioactivity into orbit. We all know we wouldn't want that to reenter.

Somewhat relevant...

Also somewhat relevant...

 

[Hlynkacg]

I'm against fission energy, not against fusion energy.
In my mind, there are two unsolved problems with fission energy:

The first one is the safeness of the powerplants. It can be damaged by earthquakes / tsunamies, plane impacts, asteroid impacts, human faliure and technical failures, terror attacks and so on... In the case of a meltdown or something like this, landscapes becomes contanimated nearly for ever. Statistic calculations said, that every 20 years there would be such a disaster.
On the other hand, there is this radioactive special waste, without any possibility to storage it safely for millions or even billions of years.
So for fusion, I don't see this problems because there, the
radioactive half-live is not millions, but only hundreds of years and then it's possible to storage it safely.

The only big problem we have today is that we have no way to storage energy efficiently but if there would be a way, we can use wind and solar energy as well...

So for propulsion in space, im not against to use such methods if it is far away enogh from earth
I'm even not against to use nuclear power sources as it's done by the Voyager probes, Cassini and Curiosity and so on.

But I belive there are much better ways for propulsion thrusters as Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster or such things.

The problem is that most of those safety issues are manufactured, and overblown.

Coal kills way more people per Megawatt than even the most rusty of russian reactors but because those deaths come in easily understood forms (mining accidents and lung cancer) no one gives a . Similar things happen with solar and the nasty side-effects that come from processing large amounts of cadmium, lithium, and other rare earth minerals that go into photovoltics and high end batteries. Nobody notices or cares because the deaths associated with them happen far away. The only reason the dangers of fission get emphasized is because they literally strike close to home.

Hell even the dangers of existing reactors are over stated 1 Fukashima every 20 years is still getting off cheap in the grand scheme of things.

Likewise newer reactor designs are, by design much more stable, but due to various legal constructs illegal.

For instance Molten Salt reactors are much safer than standard steam cycle reactors both in terms of stability and waste produced but because the working medium is by design molten simply turning it on legally qualifies as a meltdown and a nuclear disaster of the highest order even if no radiation escapes. As such the military is the only organization that uses them because they are not subject to the same legal reporting requirements.

 

[Urwumpe]

Coal kills way more people per Megawatt than even the most rusty of russian reactors but because those deaths come in easily understood forms (mining accidents and lung cancer) no one gives a . Similar things happen with solar and the nasty side-effects that come from processing large amounts of cadmium, lithium, and other rare earth minerals that go into photovoltics and high end batteries. Nobody notices or cares because the deaths associated with them happen far away. The only reason the dangers of fission get emphasized is because they literally strike close to home.

Yes - that is true if you also overinflate the dangers of coal a lot. China is not the best example there and the Russian power plants also lack a lot of investments.

But the German coal power plants have to follow much stricter regulations and do that successfully. They are just producing too much CO2.

 

[Topper]

Hlynkacg,

I havn't told that using coal is the soltuion of our problems.
But with the last two big nuclear disasters, we had blessing in disguise (Sorry for saying it in that way I know it was more unluck as luck and for the affected people, it was a big disaster all the time). :-(

In Tschernobyl, we had a thin populated terrotory which was affected and in fukushima, the most of the radioactive particles where blown into the ocean.

But I'm living in a part of europe, where ~500 people lives per km².
If such a disaster happent in this area, you can forgot about the most of my country.
And btw, the calcution regarding one disaster per 20 years was done before the disaster of fukushima happent, but it matched exactly. I know that it matched so exactly may be randomly, but however...

 

[Zatnikitelman]

I'm seeing the same idea on this thread I see elsewhere, namely that nuclear is some new technology that is just getting off the ground. It is not. The United States and France have the most reactors of any nation having 104 and 58 respectively. Combined, there has been one accident with wider consequences, Three Mile Island. I wouldn't exactly call a record like that bad. Unfortunately, I think we've danced far off into Basement territory now so that's all I'll say on the issue.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Rather odd way of looking at it, but from an environmental point of view, nuclear disasters of reasonable proportions are actually quite helpful. The environmental diversity in the area around Chernobyl is actually healthier now than it was while humans were living there, since we essentially created a human-free zone, and removed most of the pressure on local wildlife due to human activities.

Just food for thought...

 

[Glider]

I've read statements by these people, saying that environmentalist fears about nuclear propulsion are exaggerated, and talking about how "we need to get over our fear of the 'n-word'" and use nuclear thermal rockets, or even nuclear bombs (i.e. Project Orion).

What do you think?

I think its incorrect to see all kinds of nuclear devices as equally dangerous. Nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons, nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear fusion a very different in their danger to ecology.

Nuclear power can be usually dangerous because of several things - gamma radiation which almost any nuclear reaction produces and is the least harmless, neutron radiation which causes secondary nuclear reactions in reactor material or any other substances (sometimes producing unstable radioactive isotopes out of stable ones), and unstable alpha and beta active isotopes with half life from millisecons to hundred of years (which are products of fission reaction). Unstable isotopes are highly cancerogenic and have highest danger of all these things. When reactor is assembled and fuel is loaded it isn't highly radioactive - it only becomes readioactive when it is activated for the first time and some of fission products or isotopes, formed by capture of neutrons by the material of reactor, are formed.

Nuclear power plants has power output of about 6-10 GW (thermal) for years and work almost in 24/7 mode. They have tons of fuel(with low % of U235) and nuclear waste(which is a mixture of unstable isotopes produced by fission with remaining fuel and material) inside them (mainly inside reactor and cooling pool for spent fuel). Theres a possibility close to 0 but still not equal to it that all that stuff can go into environment in case of failed cooling system(Fukushima) or reactor explosion caused by a flaw in the reactor design and wrong experiments conducted by people operating it(Chernobyl). So power plants are can be actually very dangerous.

Nuclear weapons are small reactors with about 5-20 kgs or highly enriched U235 (above 90 %) that are designed in a way to maximize rate of reaction and quantity of fissioned U235 before they are vaporized and are blown apart. They can produce alot of unstable isotopes after explosion but not as much as a power plant in case of Chernobyl/Fukushima scale disaster.

Nuclear thermal engines have small light-weight reactor with enrichment between power plant fuel and weapon uranium. When anyone launches it it isn't more radioactive than uranium fuel itself or depleted U238 which is used in things like tank shells. Even if launcher will explode during the launch it won't have any environment effects close to even explosion of anything that has RTG onboard. If thermal engine will explode on LEO during departure to Mars/Moon or whatever it still won't have any large quantities of fission products because the more energy a reactor has produced the more unstable isotopes it has inside and the more dangerous it is, so the sooner it explodes the less danger is.

So TLDR: As long as we don't wanna return used thermal engines to Earth so they can actually explode with alot of highly active stuff inside them in atmosphere and hurt the environment it isn't much more dangerous than use RTG on some deep space probe. But Orion propulsion is actually very dirty since fission products won't be contained inside any reactor after explosions and go into atmosphere, also remember that this Orion thing is probably very inefficient so u will need many explosions.

Moreover, most countries in Africa have large deposits of U-235, most of it untapped. I think all this must be put to some good use.

If deposits of U235 existed anywhere, every country would have build alot of nuclear weapons already because natural uranium is mostly U238 so the enrichment of natural uranium to 95-97 % is what keeps nuclear weapons hard to get today. In case it wasn't a typo.

 

[Castor]

Thanks for pointing out that typo.

Have you actually read the numbers? Nuclear power is among the most expensive power sources in all recent studies. Only few of them make it half-way economic.

But the calculations do not factor in the incentives provided by the government. Fixed O&M costs are higher for nuclear energy and this happens to be where the government brings down tax considerations, etc. That actually makes the fixed O&M costs only slightly greater than that of thermal power.



---------- Post added at 03:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:02 AM ----------

Like with the Cassini launch, but it should not be said that they don't have a point. Because they do.

Fair point, nuclear accidents can and will happen. But people should learn to accept this risk and move on.