atoms4ca

[atoms4ca]

I wish all environmentalists a very suck cocks in hell

[atoms4ca]

The Radiation Brothers

[atoms4ca]

[atoms4ca]

it is a fun unit but shouldn’t be interpreted literally in terms of the biological impact of eating a banana

it’s more like “if you permanently installed a banana (that never rotted) in your body and for some reason the banana provided no shielding from its potassium 40”

personally I recommend using dental X-rays or CT scans as the “daily life” comparison in radiation SciComm

Was writing about how its funny that every article about radiation exposure uses eating a banana for their point of comparison, but apparently that is in fact the standard unit of measurement for this kind of thing! A little potassium and you are the radiation king of fruit, very cool.

[atoms4ca]

What's wrong with this picture?

Sources:

For 1976: United Engineers and Constructors. Capital Cost: Boiling Water Reactor Plant. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/7317996

For All Other Years: United Engineers and Constructors. Energy Economic Data Base (EEDB) Program, Phases I through VI. Link to Phase 1 here. You can find the reports for the other phases under the "related literature" tab.

What's wrong with this picture?

Source: Strandell, Marjatta (1976). "Productivity in power plant construction." Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Reproduction my own, from a figure in: Scott J. Sebastian (1979). An Exploratory Study of the Major Factors Influencing Craft Productivity in Nuclear Power Plant Construction. Master's Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.

[atoms4ca]

What's wrong with this picture?

Source: Scott J. Sebastian (1979). An Exploratory Study of the Major Factors Influencing Craft Productivity in Nuclear Power Plant Construction. Master's Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.

Reproduction my own.

These numbers add up to 29.9 hours, by the way.

What's wrong with this picture?

Source: Strandell, Marjatta (1976). "Productivity in power plant construction." Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Reproduction my own, from a figure in: Scott J. Sebastian (1979). An Exploratory Study of the Major Factors Influencing Craft Productivity in Nuclear Power Plant Construction. Master's Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.

[atoms4ca]

What's wrong with this picture?

Source: Strandell, Marjatta (1976). "Productivity in power plant construction." Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Reproduction my own, from a figure in: Scott J. Sebastian (1979). An Exploratory Study of the Major Factors Influencing Craft Productivity in Nuclear Power Plant Construction. Master's Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.

[atoms4ca]

[atoms4ca]

Data Source: FERC Form 1, with ancillary data from EIA Form 860. Cost account definitions here. Visualization my own.

I have chosen to present the data on the basis of power (kW) instead of energy (kWh) because basically all of nuclear power's operations & maintenance costs are fixed (i.e. don't go down if the plant operates less).

Nuclear power plants are indeed cheaper to operate per unit of energy produced because their fuel is much cheaper (excluded from this visualization) and they operate at 90%+ capacity factors. In plain English, that means they are very close to "always on," thereby churning out more electricity per year than an identically sized fossil plant. In contrast, fossil-fired plants are first to be powered down when demand falls because (1) more expensive fuel and (2) combustion causes greater wear-and-tear, requiring more maintenance. Nuclear power plants don't have that problem.

[atoms4ca]

Based on estimations by the World Nuclear Association and the International Atomic Energy Agency we can assume roughly 460,000 tonnes of used fuel has been discharged from commercial power reactors so far. 30% of this spent fuel has been reprocessed, which is not taken into account for this visualization. On the flipside, this amount would require a bigger volume for dry cask shielding so the calculated volume in this thought exercise can reasonably be argued for.

The nuclear fuel used in most commercial nuclear power plants consists of uranium dioxide (UO2), which we use as a proxy here. Assuming a UO2 density of 10.97 metric tonnes per cubic meter and a weight of the 460,000 metric tonnes we arrive at a volume of approximately 41,945 cubic meters. That volume would give rise to a simple cube measuring roughly 34.75 meters on each side.

Source: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx

[link to tweet]

[atoms4ca]

reblog if you want to live in a high-trust society

[atoms4ca]

Disposing of nuclear waste is such a non-issue. I’ll take it. Give it to me

[atoms4ca]

@bookworm-blackshoe angela merkel said the opposite of this tho

FOR CHRISTMAS,

CHILDREN WHO ARE NAUGHTY GET

AND CHILDREN WHO ARE NICE GET

[atoms4ca]

[atoms4ca]

Bills will be high, but Europe will survive the winter: It’s bought enough oil and gas to get through the heating seasons.

Much deeper costs will be borne by the world’s poorest countries, which have been shut out of the natural gas market by Europe’s suddenly ravenous demand. It’s left emerging market countries unable to meet today’s needs or tomorrow’s, and the most likely consequences — factory shutdowns, more frequent and longer-lasting power shortages, the foment of social unrest — could stretch into the next decade. 

“Energy security concerns in Europe are driving energy poverty in the emerging world,” said Saul Kavonic, an energy analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG. “Europe is sucking gas away from other countries whatever the cost.”

I wish Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel, Olaf Scholz, and Robert Habeck a very

burn the fuck in hell

[atoms4ca]

rip to cave johnson but i’m different 

[atoms4ca]

Good work!

@atoms4ca among others will, I hope, be glad to hear that I participated in the public comment on the “Workshop” held Friday, 12 August. Curiously, I ended up following Eric Meyer of Generation Atomic ― and if I hadn’t been momentarily befuddled by Zoom, I would have gone just ahead of him.

As usual, when it came to the live comment period, the virulent and vehement voices of the antinuclearites, with their parade of emotional but fact-free or severely misleading statements, put me a bit out of sorts. As a result, I missed mentioning the possibility of supplying San Luis Obispo with fresh water by desalting. But I did include that in my written submission.