What's going to change in a Earth that's 8c hotter?

Will the Tropics and Subtropics eventually become deserts?


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One of the problems rarely mentioned in the debate, is one of sourcing sufficient quantities of several rare elements that are required to prevent embrittlement of structural materials that are necessary for nuclear reactors. Those elements, e.g. niobium, hafnium, yttrium, beryllium, and zirconium (among others) are all used in other industries and processes. There's a limited supply now, and once transmuted, they're gone. (Transmuting them back is not economically feasible.) Therefore,
nuclear plant constructors will have to bid for those materials against many others. That's one economic factor that might sway potential investors to keep away due to the risk and uncertainty.

It is incumbent on the proponents of nuclear power plants to show that they can guarantee the required quantities of those exotic metals for the lifetime of the plant.
Even with sufficient quantities, neutron embrittlement of vessels containing the nuclear reactions means they have a lifetime of 40 to 60 years. Given that it takes about 6-12 years to construct a nuclear plant, and anywhere from 20-50 years to decommission them, the productive lifespan of nuclear plants is not that wonderful.

In a nuclear utopia, where all power was nuclear based (which nobody here is arguing!), that would require the USA expanding from its 60 or so reactors to about 4,000. Good luck finding sites with sufficient water to cool them, and not ruining the rivers/lakes by over-heating them. Air-cooling reduces the efficiency of the plants and means they have to store large quantities of water in case of emergencies.

I'm not arguing that research shouldn't continue, but leaping into construction of hundreds if not thousands of new reactors is just not going to happen in the near future, if ever.
 
One of the problems rarely mentioned in the debate, is one of sourcing sufficient quantities of several rare elements that are required to prevent embrittlement of structural materials that are necessary for nuclear reactors. Those elements, e.g. niobium, hafnium, yttrium, beryllium, and zirconium (among others) are all used in other industries and processes. There's a limited supply now, and once transmuted, they're gone. (Transmuting them back is not economically feasible.) Therefore,
nuclear plant constructors will have to bid for those materials against many others. That's one economic factor that might sway potential investors to keep away due to the risk and uncertainty.

It is incumbent on the proponents of nuclear power plants to show that they can guarantee the required quantities of those exotic metals for the lifetime of the plant.
Even with sufficient quantities, neutron embrittlement of vessels containing the nuclear reactions means they have a lifetime of 40 to 60 years. Given that it takes about 6-12 years to construct a nuclear plant, and anywhere from 20-50 years to decommission them, the productive lifespan of nuclear plants is not that wonderful.

In a nuclear utopia, where all power was nuclear based (which nobody here is arguing!), that would require the USA expanding from its 60 or so reactors to about 4,000. Good luck finding sites with sufficient water to cool them, and not ruining the rivers/lakes by over-heating them. Air-cooling reduces the efficiency of the plants and means they have to store large quantities of water in case of emergencies.

I'm not arguing that research shouldn't continue, but leaping into construction of hundreds if not thousands of new reactors is just not going to happen in the near future, if ever.

You make some good points there, I've only ever heard of zirconium in that list of elements and I know my elements fairly well, so they must be very rare.
It would seem a mix of different power plant options would be the way to go, but it has to be reliable to keep up with demand.
 
One of the problems rarely mentioned in the debate, is one of sourcing sufficient quantities of several rare elements that are required to prevent embrittlement of structural materials that are necessary for nuclear reactors. Those elements, e.g. niobium, hafnium, yttrium, beryllium, and zirconium (among others) are all used in other industries and processes. There's a limited supply now, and once transmuted, they're gone. (Transmuting them back is not economically feasible.) Therefore,
nuclear plant constructors will have to bid for those materials against many others. That's one economic factor that might sway potential investors to keep away due to the risk and uncertainty.

It is incumbent on the proponents of nuclear power plants to show that they can guarantee the required quantities of those exotic metals for the lifetime of the plant.
Even with sufficient quantities, neutron embrittlement of vessels containing the nuclear reactions means they have a lifetime of 40 to 60 years. Given that it takes about 6-12 years to construct a nuclear plant, and anywhere from 20-50 years to decommission them, the productive lifespan of nuclear plants is not that wonderful.

In a nuclear utopia, where all power was nuclear based (which nobody here is arguing!), that would require the USA expanding from its 60 or so reactors to about 4,000. Good luck finding sites with sufficient water to cool them, and not ruining the rivers/lakes by over-heating them. Air-cooling reduces the efficiency of the plants and means they have to store large quantities of water in case of emergencies.

I'm not arguing that research shouldn't continue, but leaping into construction of hundreds if not thousands of new reactors is just not going to happen in the near future, if ever.
Funding for nuclear reactors is a constant and ongoing thing. Nobody "leaps" into the construction aspect (takes a lot of planning, depending on the type of reactor), but mineral availability isn't the be-all-and-end-all. Take beryllium for example, it's only mainly used in CANDU reactors, which aren't in development anymore (and on some further reading, that entire design line - including its successor - has been shelved).

Scaling up nuclear power does present logistical challenges, absolutely. But considering how many existing fossil-fuel power stations could be removed as a consequence, I feel like it's less of one than you're making out.
 
Funding for nuclear reactors is a constant and ongoing thing. Nobody "leaps" into the construction aspect (takes a lot of planning, depending on the type of reactor), but mineral availability isn't the be-all-and-end-all

Nor did I imply that it was. I said it's one of the problems that is rarely mentioned. Just because beryllium isn't used in one of the new generation reactors, that still leaves all the other exotics.

Some proposed new generation reactors will, most likely, operate at higher temperatures and with greater levels of neutron emission, so they will have their own corrosion and embrittlement problems. Thorium reactors (an unlikely future power plant of consequence) have problems too. Their structures can deteriorate due to helium embrittlement because they contain boron and nickel. Tellurium fission products also cause deterioration of critical structures.

Scaling up nuclear power does present logistical challenges, absolutely. But considering how many existing fossil-fuel power stations could be removed as a consequence, I feel like it's less of one than you're making out.

Hahahaha. Find feasible sites for say, another 60 power plants in the USA, roughly double what's there now. Get legislation through, handle the inevitable protests, and tell me when you think that those 60 will be finished. Oh, and you will be decommissioning at least one per year after that. Any ideas (apart from buying Greenland) about where the detritus is going to be buried? :)
 
Nor did I imply that it was. I said it's one of the problems that is rarely mentioned. Just because beryllium isn't used in one of the new generation reactors, that still leaves all the other exotics.

Some proposed new generation reactors will, most likely, operate at higher temperatures and with greater levels of neutron emission, so they will have their own corrosion and embrittlement problems. Thorium reactors (an unlikely future power plant of consequence) have problems too. Their structures can deteriorate due to helium embrittlement because they contain boron and nickel. Tellurium fission products also cause deterioration of critical structures.

Hahahaha. Find feasible sites for say, another 60 power plants in the USA, roughly double what's there now. Get legislation through, handle the inevitable protests, and tell me when you think that those 60 will be finished. Oh, and you will be decommissioning at least one per year after that. Any ideas (apart from buying Greenland) about where the detritus is going to be buried? :)
Okay, so sourcing elements is one of the problems rarely mentioned. Maybe the reason why it's rarely mentioned is because it's less of a showstopper than you are phrasing it as? Beryllium, for example, is best-used in X-ray machinery and satellites. But it's a niche-case use for nuclear based on an outdated model. Each of the elements you mentioned would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

And yeah, absolutely, legislation is a helluva thing. But yikes, you're really going all-in on being depressive about this. You're raising mainly technical issues - why don't we talk about the legislative issues? Why don't we talk about changing public opinion? These are the real battles in my opinion, where the most impact can and should be made. Focusing on some issues on sourcing the right elements for particular reactor designs isn't a worthy talking point when we have bigger fish to fry in order to get nuclear more viable (though notably, the US isn't the only country in the world that we should be focusing on here. I feel discussions are waaaaay too heavily-biased in that regard).

What would you suggest is the best way forward (in the country of your choice, the US if you want) to help nuclear in the eyes of the public, compared specifically to fossil fuels?

You're reading really negatively here about the whole thing. You're pointing out nothing but the problems, and not discussing ways to resolve them. Waste storage is a problem, but sure, let's have that discussion. Let's talk about thorium or barium reactors. Let's talk about fourth-gen designs!
 
I can believe that nuclear presents more problems than I know about. If that's true, it means that I'm more optimistic than I should be. And if that's true, I should be taking greater pains to trim my emissions.

Longer hot showers seem unlikely to solve the nuclear conundrums being presented
 
Nuclear energy has a lot of scaremongering attached. It's a bit annoying really, because the horror stories are either a) ancient, b) caused by human error, or c) both. Like I said earlier in the thread, Fukushima was actually an example of a (dated) design doing its job incredibly well under stupidly adverse conditions.

The issue we have is that fossil fuels will run out, and renewables have even more logistical problems to implementation on a scale required to replace fossil fuel output (if renewables alone even can). So nuclear needs to step in. Needs to! We don't have an alternative.

Which is why whatever problems there are need to be solved. Simply saying "oh well it won't work because bad" isn't an argument anymore. Assuming the point of view in question isn't inherently defeatist or nihilistic and wants us to solve our increasing energy problem (without us giving up electrical power forever).
 
Okay, so sourcing elements is one of the problems rarely mentioned. Maybe the reason why it's rarely mentioned is because it's less of a showstopper than you are phrasing it as? Beryllium, for example, is best-used in X-ray machinery and satellites. But it's a niche-case use for nuclear based on an outdated model. Each of the elements you mentioned would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

And yeah, absolutely, legislation is a helluva thing. But yikes, you're really going all-in on being depressive about this. You're raising mainly technical issues - why don't we talk about the legislative issues? Why don't we talk about changing public opinion? These are the real battles in my opinion, where the most impact can and should be made. Focusing on some issues on sourcing the right elements for particular reactor designs isn't a worthy talking point when we have bigger fish to fry in order to get nuclear more viable (though notably, the US isn't the only country in the world that we should be focusing on here. I feel discussions are waaaaay too heavily-biased in that regard).

What would you suggest is the best way forward (in the country of your choice, the US if you want) to help nuclear in the eyes of the public, compared specifically to fossil fuels?

You're reading really negatively here about the whole thing. You're pointing out nothing but the problems, and not discussing ways to resolve them. Waste storage is a problem, but sure, let's have that discussion. Let's talk about thorium or barium reactors. Let's talk about fourth-gen designs!
I pointed out some engineering problems that proponents of nuclear power can't just hand wave away if they want to be taken seriously.

I spent the last 35 years of my research "career" on quantifying the performance of certain types of wind turbines; reducing the drag of ships, the waves they create and the impact of those waves on the environment; creating fast methods for evaluating certain difficult mathematical functions and solving several different systems of equations - all of which mean using less energy. I didn't embark on those aspects because I want to save humanity. I did them to fill in a few decades before I die with interesting puzzles - they are just games to me, with high scores and world records to beat.

I hate travelling on ships and I have no great attachment or committment to wind power generation. It would be scientifically dishonest if I just touted how efficient
the wind (and hydro-kinetic) turbines my colleague and I developed without also pointing out the inherent engineering problems, e.g. the levels of vibration which can lead to reduced lifespans of some components. Ignoring engineering problems is what many nuclear proponents do and it is simply dishonest and misleading.

Why should I address all of the problems faced by nuclear power proponents? It's not incumbent on me to solve those problems, nor to start the debate on them, nor even to contribute to them, especially when those aspects bore me to tears.

I'm just an applied mathematician - one who spends 4 days per week on theorems, 3 days looking for counter-examples, and 2 days playing Civ. :)
 
I pointed out some engineering problems that proponents of nuclear power can't just hand wave away if they want to be taken seriously.

I spent the last 35 years of my research "career" on quantifying the performance of certain types of wind turbines; reducing the drag of ships, the waves they create and the impact of those waves on the environment; creating fast methods for evaluating certain difficult mathematical functions and solving several different systems of equations - all of which mean using less energy. I didn't embark on those aspects because I want to save humanity. I did them to fill in a few decades before I die with interesting puzzles - they are just games to me, with high scores and world records to beat.

I hate travelling on ships and I have no great attachment or committment to wind power generation. It would be scientifically dishonest if I just touted how efficient
the wind (and hydro-kinetic) turbines my colleague and I developed without also pointing out the inherent engineering problems, e.g. the levels of vibration which can lead to reduced lifespans of some components. Ignoring engineering problems is what many nuclear proponents do and it is simply dishonest and misleading.

Why should I address all of the problems faced by nuclear power proponents? It's not incumbent on me to solve those problems, nor to start the debate on them, nor even to contribute to them, especially when those aspects bore me to tears.

I'm just an applied mathematician - one who spends 4 days per week on theorems, 3 days looking for counter-examples, and 2 days playing Civ. :)
I mean, fair. But I don't think anyone's handwaving them away - like you can't necessarily be expected to address the problem, neither should other folks in the public sphere (like myself, or anyone else advocating for it on CFC).

There are tons of professionals working on various aspects of nuclear power. It's a constant, ongoing thing. I assumed because you were raising the arguments here, that some answers could've been helpful, in case you weren't aware. I don't know. Software development is my particular wheelhouse. Games design is a hobby (albeit an extensive and well-supported hobby in terms of my time with games developers). Nuclear power is simply a (keen) interest, though one I've let wane in the past few years. I used to be heavily into following news from the field, sadly a full-time job and a family mean I just have less hobby time in general. Haven't even done any games engine work recently.
 
Well sadly that's true, our planet is being abused each and every day and eventually will collapse.
Not really. We're talking about a planet which has existed for 4-5 billion years and has endured much worse. What we can seriously compromise is its habitability in relation to current life, meaning we can wipe ourselves out upsetting Earth's ecology. But we can't really turn it into Venus or Mars or Pluto: that'd take screwing with the planetary magnetic field and atmosphere way beyond our ability.

Once we're gone, our homeworld will recover pretty quickly, particularly from the perspective of cosmic timescales. A few thousand years or a couple million at worst is nothing. We'll be out of the picture, but the Earth would've hardly broken a sweat.

Now, ignoring the derailings and on the subject of nuclear warfare, we can't really predict just how much of the arsenals would be used. A LOT of warheads would need to be used to bring about a very serious nuclear winter and massive fallout clouds which could reach everywhere.

I'd like to believe the launches would stop way before the belligerents run out of missiles. The developed world (particularly the Northern Hemisphere) would suffer the most due to harbouring the primary targets, and citizens most accustomed to modern civilization and the many logistical chains we take for granted. Primary causes of death: nuclear blasts in major urban centers in the short-term, starvation and conflict born of the total collapse of organized society in the mid-term, and radiation-related disease in the long-term.

Now, from my point of view, the more geographically remote your location (relative to the main flashpoints, mountains help) and the more used you are to living off the land, the better your chances of survival. I wager all present company would be dead by then, but here's to the least technologically-dependent. They'd be the future of humanity.
 
Now, from my point of view, the more geographically remote your location (relative to the main flashpoints, mountains help) and the more used you are to living off the land, the better your chances of survival. I wager all present company would be dead by then, but here's to the least technologically-dependent. They'd be the future of humanity.

I'm not completely convinced.
It depends on whether and when biological advances, such as enhanced internal organs become commonplace and whether those enhancements are inheritable from generation to generation, rather than requiring surgical implantation.
 
I'm not completely convinced.
It depends on whether and when biological advances, such as enhanced internal organs become commonplace and whether those enhancements are inheritable from generation to generation, rather than requiring surgical implantation.
I'm not sure where that's coming from. I'm talking about average (current) people in a bad but non-cataclysmic nuclear event.
 
I'm not sure where that's coming from. I'm talking about average (current) people in a bad but non-cataclysmic nuclear event.

Sincere apologies. I thought you were referring to the effects of climate change in general, not specifics to do with nuclear war.
 
Not really. We're talking about a planet which has existed for 4-5 billion years and has endured much worse. What we can seriously compromise is its habitability in relation to current life, meaning we can wipe ourselves out upsetting Earth's ecology. But we can't really turn it into Venus or Mars or Pluto: that'd take screwing with the planetary magnetic field and atmosphere way beyond our ability.

Or just waiting long enough, that would do it too. Even if we turn into perfect resource conserving beings overnight we'll eventually need to either move or get roasted. Sun doesn't care about our conduct on Earth and will run out of fuel. Very unlikely any of us are around by then though, even if aging gets solved or something.

We are due for another magnetic field flip in the near future (geologically), could mess us up a bit maybe.
 
Or just waiting long enough, that would do it too. Even if we turn into perfect resource conserving beings overnight we'll eventually need to either move or get roasted. Sun doesn't care about our conduct on Earth and will run out of fuel. Very unlikely any of us are around by then though, even if aging gets solved or something.

We are due for another magnetic field flip in the near future (geologically), could mess us up a bit maybe.
Well yeah, but that's talking long-term even in cosmic timescales. The Sun is barely middle-aged, and still has billions of years of healthy life left.

A million years from now, we'll either be long extinct, or have transcended our cradle and fragile biological existence.
 
Not really. We're talking about a planet which has existed for 4-5 billion years and has endured much worse. What we can seriously compromise is its habitability in relation to current life, meaning we can wipe ourselves out upsetting Earth's ecology. But we can't really turn it into Venus or Mars or Pluto: that'd take screwing with the planetary magnetic field and atmosphere way beyond our ability.
I hope you are joking..humanity is very capable of wiping our planet out, and on a "good" way as well.
Arguments like those make it possible that soooo much still goes wrong, sad really.
 
I hope you are joking..humanity is very capable of wiping our planet out, and on a "good" way as well.
Arguments like those make it possible that soooo much still goes wrong, sad really.

Probably not.

If we completely melted the ice caps that's happened before world has been a lot hotter and higher CO levels.

All our nukes combined still add up to less than the asteroid that wiped the dinosaurs out.

We might be able to wipe ourselves out, even then I have doubts.

Even nuclear winter isn't black out the sun for a decade it's reduce the average temperature and light. You would still have pockets.

Dropping the average temperature by 6 degree would turn where I live into something like northern Europe, the northern part of the country would be like where I live. That's still warm enough to harvest crops in winter.

Fallout effects would also be minimal here.

We can trash our economies and kill a few billion people though.
 
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I hope you are joking..humanity is very capable of wiping our planet out, and on a "good" way as well.
Arguments like those make it possible that soooo much still goes wrong, sad really.
Nah. Humanity can causes terrible damages to the biosphere and to itself in the (cosmological) very short term. But for Earth itself, it's just a blink of the eyes and the equivalent of a mosquito bite, if even. A few million years later and it's back to post-mass-extinction normality.

I mean, archeologists from the future would think "wow, that sixth extinction was something fast !", but on the Gaia timeline it'd be barely a hiccup.
 
I don't know if humans could accidentally Venus the Earth, or drive it to a slow but complete extinction event. At least, I don't know if we could do it yet.
 
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