Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[speedmd]

2.9 million tons has the BSometer going off quite loudly. I see these claims bouncing around the web a bit. Could be as there are mills going back a few years. :lol:

Your point taken, it could certainly become a large issue if nothing done to design in some recyclability. Carbon rivers claims they can do it with a net positive energy. https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-makes-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-and-upcycling-reality-support May prove out.

There may be much better uses for the Ground up Glass composites. They mix in well (unburnt) going directly into cement. Resin bits and all. A point or even less of bonding agent added sticks most everything if higher strength is desired. Most of the concrete suppliers near here are always looking for additional aggregate and would certainly use up most anything like this they could find on many of the jobs that are not requiring gov type certs.

 

[Chalo]

From https://fourearths.com/wind-turbine-blade-weight-how-much-does-one-weigh/

The average wind turbine blade weight is 5200lbs (2360kg), for a blade that measures between 78 and 128 feet. This number increases exponentially as the size of the blade increases.

Because the trend in wind turbines has been for them to grow in size over time, I expect this weight is characteristic of the smaller turbines that are being retired and demolished currently. So that's 7080 kg for three blades per turbine. 2.9 million divided by 7.08 tons per turbine implies about 410,000 wind turbines demolished last year.

Global Wind Energy Council said 29,324 turbines were installed worldwide in 2021. So Hillhater's invented figure presumes 14 times as many turbines were demolished as installed last year. That's clearly erroneous nonsense. It's also not an honest mistake. He's been sipping from the font of lies we know as right wing media.

 

[Hillhater]

Last year, there were 2.9 million tons of turbine blades in the waste stream….
…that would be from those few turbines installed pre 2000…

Yes OK, that was a missleading figure to use as it was mistakenly used (by Bloomberg) to imply an annual figure,…
…when i suspect it actually represents the cumulative total of waste turbine blades to date (2021 article) ,
However, it does indicate the scale of the problem as few of those blades will have been recycled yet.
And Other sources, https://typeset.io/papers/wind-turbine-blade-waste-in-2050-nav7ll3gqn ..report that blade waste will total 43 million tons by 2050, So we can expect over a million tons anually, increasing every year,..until then.

And if you really want to estimate that figure, you may want to use something other than the minimum size !
Most turbines installed since 2000 have been 1.5-2.5 MW up to 5 MW (offshore) with these being the most common..
( note:- the “blade assembly” weight includes the hub, which will likely be 50% of the weight )

GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbines
Blade Assembly: 36 tons
Nacelle: 56 tons

Vestas V90 1.5-megawatt wind turbines
Blade Assembly: 75 tons
Nacelle: 40 tons

Gamesa G87 2.0-megawatt wind turbines
Blade Assembly: 72 tons
Nacelle: 42 tons

https://theroundup.org/how-much-does-a-wind-turbine-blade-weigh/
And….

For a 1.5-MW turbine, typical blades should measure 110 ft to 124 ft (34m to 38m) in length, weigh 11,500 lb/5,216 kg and cost roughly $100,000 to $125,000 each. Rated at 3.0 MW, a turbine’s blades are about 155 ft/47m in length, weigh about 27,000 lb/12,474 kg and are valued at roughly $250,000 to $300,000 each.

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/wind-turbine-blades-big-and-getting-bigger

Whilst the Wind industry claim 85-95% recyclability of their facilities with the blades being the additional 5-10%,…
(Presumeably weight based to minimise the figure ?)
..But arguably, the biggest waste problem is not the blades but the foundations which are 1000-2000 tons of reinforced concrete up to 20 mtrs deep underground.
These seem to be conveniently ignored in their estimates and are rarely even attempted to be removed, simply covered and the site “restored” above them !

 

[Voltron]

The concrete bothers you, but you're ok with leaving radioactive waste that will be deadly for a 100,000 years laying around in water pools that if not constantly cooled will melt down, because they can't figure out what else to do with it?

 

[Hillhater]

The concrete bothers you, but you're ok with leaving radioactive waste that will be deadly for a 100,000 years laying around in water pools that if not constantly cooled will melt down, because they can't figure out what else to do with it?

I think your understanding of nuclear waste processing and storage needs updating !

 

[Voltron]

Are you claiming that leaving spent fuel rods sitting in cooling pools or in casks on site isn't the primary storage method for high level waste currently, given the dearth of actual functioning disposal sites?
And for low level waste, isn't burying it in the ground, or dumping it into the sea like the radioactive water from Fukushima the usual method?

 

[Hillhater]

Yes,
No,

 

[Voltron]

One of us needs our understanding updated I guess.

https://www.nrc.gov/waste/spent-fuel-storage.html

"There are two acceptable storage methods for spent fuel after it is removed from the reactor core:

Spent Fuel Pools - Currently, most spent nuclear fuel is safely stored in specially designed pools at individual reactor sites around the country.
Dry Cask Storage – Licensees may also store spent nuclear fuel in dry cask storage systems at independent spent fuel storage facilities (ISFSIs) "

https://www.science.org/content/article/japan-plans-release-fukushima-s-contaminated-water-ocean
"Japan announced today it will release 1.25 million tons of treated wastewater contaminated by the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. The government said it is the best way to deal with tritium and trace amounts of other radionuclides in the water."

 

[Voltron]

Here's a question for you... How many operational long term fuel rod storage facilities are there world wide?

 

[Ianhill]

Mr musk is cracking the whip on his businesses to keep twitter afloat, while pushing the semi truck again he mentioned nuclear, now im no fan as its known but thats one area i agree there's only one way to power everything we have come accustomed too.

To say fukashima is the norm is crazy, millions of car journeys happen daily lets pick on the worst and say all journeys happen that way, in reality theres safe waste streams that have operated for decades yes there's been lessons but less learn from them not pull the car over turn it off and go with out, just learn to drive safer.

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

Here's a question for you... How many operational long term fuel rod storage facilities are there world wide?

Operational and national security means you'll only ever be able to extrapolate that.

Mr musk is cracking the whip on his businesses to keep twitter afloat, while pushing the semi truck again he mentioned nuclear, now im no fan as its known but thats one area i agree there's only one way to power everything we have come accustomed too.

To say fukashima is the norm is crazy, millions of car journeys happen daily lets pick on the worst and say all journeys happen that way, in reality theres safe waste streams that have operated for decades yes there's been lessons but less learn from them not pull the car over turn it off and go with out, just learn to drive safer.

The Twitter trashfire has been hilarious. Despite Kanye's drop into full naziism and banning Musk re-instated Neo-nazi writers of the Daily Stormer on the same day, but now is staring down the barrel of the EU banning the entire platform. His attempt to bring Trump back for clicks failed miserably with the neon-orange jackass openly mocking him for the desperate attempt- and Trump knows desperation, that greaseball has a supernatural ability to know when someone's trying to play him it seems. I will be shocked if twitter is still up in a year at this rate.

Total agreement on Fukushima. Alpha and Beta rads aren't long-lived, their radioactivity just needs time to bleed into the surrounding area and become apart of the background. Neutron is the only form that isn't like that, but it only occurs within reactors and nuclear detonations so it's out of the scope of the discussion.

 

[Voltron]

The biggest danger at Fukushima has been the spent fuel rod cooling pools, which for some reason they built on the second floor so they need constant active pumping so they don't melt down.

On site storage of the spent fuel rods IS the norm at almost every reactor, as there are no currently operating long term internment facilities for high level waste.

And operating cars for decades has helped produce a global climate catastrophe, so maybe that's not the best example.

If more people tried doing without, instead of using destructive technologies but kidding themselves that someone else will all get figured out someday, maybe the world wouldn't be turning into a toxic hellhole so fast.

But hey, let's take care of those concrete pads from an old wind turbine tower before they ruin everything, right?
And the giant concrete enclosure over Chernobyl...I wonder how many tower bases that equals.
Finland is planning on opening a facility next year supposedly, where the rods will be buried in copper casks for the foreseeable future.... Is that a good use for an important and limited element?

 

[Hillhater]

And operating cars for decades has helped produce a global climate catastrophe, …..

The linkage between car use and any climate effects is unproven.
You may see it as a …”catastrophe” ??….But to some others, effects like ….
Increased global greening..
Increased population..
Increased life expectancy..
…suggest otherwise !

 

[Voltron]

So no answers about where all the nuclear waste is going?
C'mon, help me update my understanding with some facts.

And if climate change isn't real, and global warming is just going to turn us into a global ice free garden of Eden with 12 billion people stacked on top of each other, instead of a future of disrupted weather that creates several billion climate refugees, as whole island chains where people live disappear under water, then why bother with nuclear anyway?
Let's just burn all that coal and get to Eden faster right?
Plus think how much money Australia can make selling coal to China on the way to CO2 paradise.



https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/safer-storage-spent-nuclear-fuel
"Because no permanent repository for spent fuel exists in the United States, reactor owners have kept spent fuel at the reactor sites. As the amount of spent fuel has increased, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized many power plant owners to increase the amount in their storage pools to as much as five times what they were designed to hold. As a result, virtually all U.S. spent fuel pools have been “re-racked” to hold spent fuel assemblies at densities that approach those in reactor cores."

Seeing as how a fuel assembly is used for about 18 months, then needs to be cooled for 5 to 10 years, then entombed under very special conditions for tens of thousands of years (longer than the entire existence of humans on the planet), of which there isn't a single functional facility yet worldwide seems like a problem in the process to me personally.

 

[Hillhater]

And if climate change isn't real…..

Who said that. ?
It is the likely cause(s) and consequences that are disputed .

 

[Voltron]

Not disputed by many.

How's that search for functioning high level waste facilities going?

 

[Hillhater]

How's that search for functioning high level waste facilities going?

Most of the worlds main Nuclear Generators have reprocessing capeabilities…. ( EXCEPT THE USA !)

World commercial reprocessing capacity2
(tonnes per year)
France, La Hague 1700
Russia, Ozersk (Mayak) 400
Japan (Rokkasho) 800*
UK, Sellafield (Magnox) 1500
India (PHWR, 4 plants) 260
Total civil capacity 3860

 

[Voltron]

And after reprocessing, what do you do with whats left over?

You put it in a ground storage facility.... Except there aren't any yet.


https://world-nuclear.org/our-association/publications/technical-positions/how-is-used-nuclear-fuel-managed.aspx
"Plans for GDFs for used nuclear fuel and high level waste are well advanced in a number of countries, most notably Finland and Sweden. GDFs in Sweden and Finland envisage used fuel being placed in copper canisters with cast iron inserts to hold the assemblies in place."

Plans and envisioning is what exists currently.

And the whole turn it into a stable glass like form after has proven to have significant problems.
There's giant abandoned nuke weapons site in Hanford Washington they've been trying that at, and it keeps resulting in accidental radioactive gas releases, and hot spots in the glassy material where they can't adequately control getting too big a lump in one spot so it doesn't go critical.
And they're on limited time, as the radioactive groundwater contamination is heading towards aquifers that supply major population areas.

 

[Voltron]

World commercial reprocessing capacity2
(tonnes per year)
France, La Hague 1700
Russia, Ozersk (Mayak) 400
Japan (Rokkasho) 800*
UK, Sellafield (Magnox) 1500
India (PHWR, 4 plants) 260
Total civil capacity 3860

"The most hazardous portion of the waste is spent nuclear fuel (SNF), or used nuclear fuel, which has accumulated to 400,000 metric tons of heavy metal (tHM) throughout the world as of 2017. On average, the global SNF stockpile increases by 11,300 tHM annually. This will increase 2 – 5% in the short term as 59 nuclear power reactors are anticipated to be shut down by 2025"

I guess they're only 6000 or so tons a year behind production... I'm sure they're working on that. Then they'll start in on that 400,000 ton backlog

 

[Ianhill]

The problems not nuclear, its the shit show implementation with goverments personnal agenda to group into clicks and create war.

Edgar mitchell was claimed to be nuts but he was clever enough to understand from a distance the division we create is childs play.

We promote our youth to attend war while having strong ideologies on issues that have cost humans less lives by far, to me progression has always been about getting a deep understanding and that only comes with getting hands on.

I have to agree we havent done the best at storing the waste in some streams as the incentive is less once its done its job its just extra expense the shareholders could do without so i imagine its where money is saved by dumping at sea like thatchers nuclear barrels in the sea during the 80's just to stab a coal industry in the face.

 

[Hillhater]

"The most hazardous portion of the waste is spent nuclear fuel (SNF), or used nuclear fuel, which has accumulated to 400,000 metric tons of heavy metal (tHM) throughout the world as of 2017. On average, the global SNF stockpile increases by 11,300 tHM annually. This will increase 2 – 5% in the short term as 59 nuclear power reactors are anticipated to be shut down by 2025"

I guess they're only 6000 or so tons a year behind production... I'm sure they're working on that. Then they'll start in on that 400,000 ton backlog

Hmm, ? .. they must have picked up the pace on that reprocessing since 2017 ..
According to the iaea it had already reduced by 30% in 2020…. !

Spent fuel storage
71. To date, around 400 000 tonnes of heavy metal have been discharged from NPPs as spent nuclear fuel, of which about 30% has been reprocessed.

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/gc/gc64-inf2.pdf

 

[Hillhater]

The concrete bothers you,…….

Yes ! , ….but you missed the main point of my comment which was the instutionalised lieing about the recycleability of wind turbines being 85-95%,…when in reality it is more like 25% !

 

[CONSIDERABLE SHOUTING]

and hot spots in the glassy material where they can't adequately control getting too big a lump in one spot so it doesn't go critical.
And they're on limited time, as the radioactive groundwater contamination is heading towards aquifers that supply major population areas.

Nuclear waste cannot go critical. Criticality is where fission is giving you the heat you want, and is self-sustaining.

I'd have to see proof of radioactive contamination of groundwater. The NRC takes it EXTREMELY seriously, unlike with petroleum or fracking.

 

[Voltron]

Do you guys not have the Internet? I mean, this is easily available public knowledge?


https://ecology.wa.gov/Waste-Toxics/Nuclear-waste/Hanford-cleanup/Protecting-air-water/Groundwater-monitoring

During the 45 years of plutonium production at Hanford, waste water was being dumped or injected into the ground. We oversee the monitoring and cleanup of contaminated water under the Hanford site.

Today at the 580-square-mile Hanford site, the water under 65 square miles is still contaminated beyond safe drinking water limits. We continue to monitor the groundwater and the treatment activities to limit the amount of contamination entering the Columbia River.

But back in 2000 the DoE and Bechtel decided to save time and money by starting construction before crucial structures and processes had been designed and properly tested at a scale comparable to full operation. This wasn’t such a good idea, says Dirk Dunning, nuclear material specialist with the Oregon Department of Energy. “The worst possible time to save money is at the beginning. You’re better off to be very nearly complete on design before you begin construction.”


And one of the biggest dangers at Chernobyl is the possibility it would radioactively contaminate an aquifer under it that supplies millions. Fukushima is currently trying to stop radioactive groundwater migration with experimental technologies. What to you seems so unbelievable the ground water gets contaminated?



https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hanford-nuclear-cleanup-problems/
For one thing, there’s a chance that enough plutonium could congregate to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, or criticality—the self-sustaining cascade of atomic fission that releases massive amounts of energy. That would be a serious event even if an explosion did not breach the concrete containment building. Hot slurry could surge backward through the piping, spreading the problem to other parts of the system

 

[Voltron]

The concrete bothers you,…….

Yes ! , ….but you missed the main point of my comment which was the instutionalised lieing about the recycleability of wind turbines being 85-95%,…when in reality it is more like 25% !

How do you feel about this institutional lying? Or is your outrage reflex more selective?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/28/us-oil-executives-congress-hearing-climate-crisis


"The heads of major oil companies will make a historic appearance before Congress on Thursday to answer accusations that their firms have spent years lying about the climate crisis.
For the first time, the top executives from the US’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, as well as Shell, Chevron and BP will be questioned under oath about the industry’s long campaign to discredit and deny the evidence that burning fossil fuels drove global heating"