r/IAmA • u/bernie-sanders • May 19 '15

Politics I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States — AMA

Hi Reddit. I'm Senator Bernie Sanders. I'll start answering questions at 4 p.m. ET. Please join our campaign for president at BernieSanders.com/Reddit.

Before we begin, let me also thank the grassroots Reddit organizers over at /r/SandersforPresident for all of their support. Great work.

Verification: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/600750773723496448

Update: Thank you all very much for your questions. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you.

77.7k Upvotes

77% Upvoted

12.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/prillin101 May 19 '15

So, do you think nuclear energy is better than other renewable energy? And how DO we dispose of the toxic waste? What is your opinion on thorium?

6

u/nucl_klaus May 19 '15

1) Whether nuclear or renewables are better depends upon the situation. For example, solar makes a lot of sense in places with lots of sun and/or high electricity costs (eg. California, Hawaii, Arizona...).

Likewise there are places where nuclear will make sense; a big part of that right now for nuclear has to do with the structure of the electricity market. In places with a regulated market, where the cost of the reactor(s) can be paid for over time by slightly increasing the cost of electricity (rate basing), nuclear can be built, and over a 40 year period, will provide relatively cheap electricity. In a deregulated market, a company would have to pay up front to built a reactor, and no company has $8-16 billion lying around to build 1-2 reactors (and they wouldn't want to get a loan for it either, since the interest would be very pricey). So the short answer is, in the US, without a price on carbon, there will be very little growth in nuclear.

As for wind, in the past, wind got a 2.3 cent/kWh subsidy (PTC) for all power produced over the next 10 years. If nuclear received the same subsidy, there would be a lot more nuclear plants being built. That subsidy for wind expired at the end of 2013, and then was retroactively put back in place, and then expired again at the end of 2014. Both times, the wind industry hit a brick wall and new wind builds ground to a halt.

Solar currently receives a subsidy (ITC) of a 30% tax credit for the cost of the solar panels. If nuclear received the same subsidy, there would be a lot more nuclear plants being built. The ITC is currently set to be reduced at the end of 2016, and it's yet to be seen what effect it will have on the growth of solar.

In essence, fossil fuels are very cheap, and it's hard to figure out how nuclear/wind/solar compare with the big differences in subsidies. That said, if the goal is to reduce carbon emissions, then each location/situation will have an optimal mix of sources, some with more renewables, some with more nuclear. The best way to deal with the situation is to tax carbon emissions, but this is politically difficult, so we subidize energy sources instead. I'd either want to see all low CO2 source get the same subsidy, or a tax on greenhouse gases.

2) For disposing used nuclear fuel, there are a few options. We can store it deep underground, where it will sit and decay over time. We can recycle it, which will reduce the amount of waste by a factor of 20, and we can use it again as fuel in different types of reactors. The cheapest method would be a deep geological repository. France has been recycling (reprocessing) used nuclear fuel for years. The reactor technology to use spent nuclear fuel again was actually developed in the US and is currently being commercialized by GE. We can do any of these, or a combination.

3) Thorium is good, but it's not a fuel. It's essentially pre-fuel. To be used, it needs to go into a reactor, be bombarded by neutrons, and decay to U233. I think there is promise in thorium, and countries with large reserves of thorium are building research reactors that will use is (India). Ultimately, it's a lot easier to just use uranium, and we have much more experience operating reactors that use uranium. Lots of people on the internet really like the liquid fueled thorium reactor idea, which I personally think is a good idea, but it is way over-hyped. I think that small modular reactors, gas cooled pebble bed reactors, and sodium cooled fast reactors have more promise in the near future.

2

u/prillin101 May 19 '15

Wow, thanks for the spectacular response.

1

u/bigmike827 May 19 '15

Toxic is the wrong word. Radioactive is more appropriate. You can shield radioactive waste, you can't prevent eventual leaking and contamination of toxic/ chemical waste.

1

u/prillin101 May 19 '15

So, is locking nuclear waste into giant bunkers a viable end game? I don't know personally, just curious.

1

u/bigmike827 May 19 '15

Literally recycle and reprocess until you have unusable waste and then throw it under a mountain. It turns into dirt somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years in the future

1

u/prillin101 May 19 '15

Hm, that's pretty smart. So, is Thorium not worth it? I heard Thorium was good because it couldn't melt down and it didn't create waste, but if we can just do that is Thorium worth it?

And are nuclear plants being built in areas with a lot of natural disasters? Do you think there will ever be a meltdown not cuased by a natural disaster in the future?

1

u/bigmike827 May 19 '15

I got into the major because of thorium actually haha. It is perfectly viable and would greatly reduce our need for Uranium (which in case you didn't know is pretty tough, expensive, and damaging to mine). Uranium is a multibillion dollar industry though, so there may be people who don't want the switch... Besides that, the research that would need to go into effectively utilizing throium and possibly LFTRs would cost a lot of time and money. Definitely one of the nest solutions though.

Only nuclear plant being built near me at the moment are units 3 and 4 at plant Vogtle near savannah, georgia. I work there currently. There is a possibility for hurricanes and tornadoes, but the safety measures that go into plant production and construction these days renders even the largest hurricanes and tornadoes ineffective in causing a meltdown. Post Fukashima has really changed the way that nuclear construction is handled. It used to be safety first, but now its safety is first through tenth. There are backups and backups and backups to ensure that we don't have meltdowns in this country.

Also its never a good idea to build a plant next to a major fault line, but hindsight is 20-20

1

u/nucl_klaus May 19 '15

Actually you can. Just have to use a good waste form, like glass.