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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure about that? You should look at the fortunes of the engineering groups McDermott, CB&I, and Shaw and how the cost overruns associated with the Westinghouse contributed to so much trouble for those EPC companies and Toshiba. Nuclear has two big problems: difficulty with costs of constructing new plants and currently completely externalized storage of spent fuel. The latter is poorly defined and understood, even though some people would like to give the appearance otherwise.

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The cost for dealing with the spent fuel isn't externalized. The problem is that the government promised to deal with the waste, charged a fee for doing so, forbade utilities from dealing with the waste themselves (Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982), and then... did nothing.

That little bit of waste can be dealt with, and comparatively cheaply. Think about it, you can produce 8TWh of electricity, sell it for maybe $400M, and you only have to deal with one ton of waste. That's not a big deal, but doing it is illegal.

Don't blame the industry for a dysfunctional government.

> Don't blame the industry for a dysfunctional government.

The Utilizes got exactly what they wanted from the government in this case. Complete externalization of the problem for a nominal fee. The government also capped their liability so they could buy insurance. No insurance, no financing.

> Complete externalization of the problem for a nominal fee.

If you call $750MM/year a nominal fee, your definition of nominal is maybe a bit non-standard?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act#Nucle...

What's the total liability for the maximum area of land rendered unusable by a nuclear plant accident?

Less than a Dam

This is my favourite comment of the day

Someone has to deal with it, and everyone I've read who is a publicly recognized expert in the field says it is actually a hard problem. So blame government if you want, but ultimately someone is accountable for it and it's externalized cost until that is address by whomever.

So I guess Dr. Charles E. Till is not an expert or at least not publicly recognized?

And while "the waste problem" is arguably unsolved thanks to government incompetence, currently the waste is being managed by the utilities. So far, no cost has been externalized.

"Oh yeah, maybe now, but future generations!" Maybe future generations will elect a government that gets out of the way of engineers trying to solve the problem.

IFR isn't easy or solved. Seems like government is the only one funding Gen IV breeder reactor research, as well as Argonne National Lab and Dr. Till's work there, so I think government is doing their part. Until it's solved it isn't. When the facts change, I will change my mind.

Both Moltex Energy and Elysium Industries are developing fast waste burners, and both are privately funded. Neither operates in the USA, though, because that's where the government gets in the way. The US government defunded the IFR project completely back in 1994. (It was too close to building a demonstration plant.)

> I think government is doing their part

This incompetent government declared in 1987 that there is exactly one solution to "the waste problem", and that's Yucca Mountain, categorically ruling out any sane solution (i.e. recycling). Now even Mt. Yucca isn't funded anymore. What part is this government doing exactly?

> When the facts change, I will change my mind.

Bullshit. You will continue to claim that the cost of waste disposal, which is implied to be approximately infinite, was externalized, when in fact it's neither.

is there any reason why we can't conceivably jettison nuclear waste out of orbit?

Because there is no need to. The radioactive material wasn't a problem before it was dug out of the soil. It's not a problem if it returns to where it came from. The problem is that most government try to find an idiotic central storage location instead of simply distributing the spent fuel over many locations.

Oh yeah sounds easy until someone digs it out again and puts it in a bomb.

Or it leaks and reaches our water...

No risk there never has been.

Yes. Launch vehicles sometimes fail. They may explode, or they may not make it all the way to orbit and have to re-enter. Either way, this would scatter the radioactive material over a wide area.

Indeed, to your point:

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/10/science/groups-protest-us...

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