How come we don't use nuclear reactors to desalinate water

[brainhulk]

Is that even possible? California could use it...

We could place the reactors on oregon beaches and then transport the water down to California

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Because politics.

 

[IronWing]

No technical reason but it would be a whole lot cheaper to buy out low productivity - high water use industries and redirect the water to more productive uses than it is to build nuke and desalinization plants.

 

[Brovane]

Is that even possible? California could use it...

We could place the reactors on oregon beaches and then transport the water down to California

Treating waste water back to drinking standard is less than 1/2 the cost of desalinization.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Expensive as fuck.

 

[dainthomas]

Is that even possible? California could use it...

We could place the reactors on oregon beaches and then transport the water down to California

A. Oregon beaches>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>California beaches
B. Building reactors in a subduction earthquake/tsunami hazard zone = not awesome idea

 

[WHAMPOM]

Is that even possible? California could use it...

We could place the reactors on oregon beaches and then transport the water down to California

For the same reason they don't tap the fresh water source there and pipe it down.

 

[Smoblikat]

Because kalifornia sucks

 

[CZroe]

I always thought the reactor at San Onofre was also part of a desalination operation.

A. Oregon beaches>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>California beaches
B. Building reactors in a subduction earthquake/tsunami hazard zone = not awesome idea

Didn't stop them from making San Onofre but it was shut down recently.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Because politics.

Pretty much. Anything that makes too much sense does not actually happen.

 

[Zee]

lots of spent rods each year keeps piling up.

 

[marvdmartian]

Is that even possible? California could use it...

We could place the reactors on oregon beaches and then transport the water down to California

You cannot, directly. You could use the steam generated in a nuclear power plant to flash evaporate seawater, remove the "brine" (everything you don't want), re-condense the steam to fresh water, chemically treat it (since even the heat of boiling won't make it safe enough to drink), then pump it into the fresh drinking water system.

That's how the Navy ships with boilers or nuke plants did it, back in my day. Nowadays, however, they're switching more and more to reverse osmosis plants, on both ships and submarines. Not sure if it's less maintenance intensive, cheaper, or what the reason is.

One problem you'd have to overcome would be the lengthy pipe you'd have to lay, to suck relatively clean seawater into your system, though. The US Navy did not make fresh water within 12 miles of ANY shoreline, and fresh drinking water within 25 miles, when I was in. Why? Because not all countries have the same standards for treating human waste, and we didn't want to deal with trying to clean up water that had fecal material in it (or, at least, in higher amounts, like you'll see off the shores of most 3rd world countries). Even here, in the United States, you'll deal with ships that dump all sorts of nasty stuff overboard, once they're at sea, and it's nearly impossible to catch them at it. The further out your suction is, the "cleaner" the ocean water is going to be.

Because politics.

Yeah, and pretty much this. Good luck, ever getting another nuke plant built on the left coast, with all the tree huggers congregated there!

 

[Paratus]

lots of spent rods each year keeps piling up.

Let's burn that shit in a breeder reactor.

 

[Red Squirrel]

lots of spent rods each year keeps piling up.

That's a less worse problem than all the pollution oil makes.

Worse case scenario we shoot the rods up into space, but there are probably ways they could be recycled or used to a further extent, but there's politics behind that too.

 

[UglyCasanova]

lots of spent rods each year keeps piling up.

Thank goodness Yucca Mountain is right there waiting for them.

 

[Tsavo]

Thank goodness Yucca Mountain is right there waiting for them.

Hey now, it's WAY safer to leave nuclear waste laying around than it is to stick it deep underground under a giant mass of solid rock.

 

[LTC8K6]

If they can fund and shove high speed rail through, they can shove a few desalination plants through.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

That's a less worse problem than all the pollution oil makes.

Worse case scenario we shoot the rods up into space, but there are probably ways they could be recycled or used to a further extent, but there's politics behind that too.

whaaaaaat?

i guess the worst case scenario is a government so dysfunctional that it creates a policy of attempting to launch its entire spent fuel stores into space.

 

[LTC8K6]

Hey now, it's WAY safer to leave nuclear waste laying around than it is to stick it deep underground under a giant mass of solid rock.

Launch the spent rods towards the sun.

 

[IronWing]

Let's burn that shit in a breeder reactor.

Yep. Maybe once Iran gets the bomb the US will accept that its self-inflicted refusal to reprocess and burn spent rods has been a failure as a method of preventing proliferation.

 

[MadAmos]

The power pant I work at is helping out with fire fighting water. If a pipe is installed water could be added to the local supply. The power used for the RO system is part of our base load and doesn't change the approximatly 2300 megawatts we supply to our customers.

http://www.keyt.com/news/diablo-canyon-desal-water-now-available-to-cal-fire/33107548

 

[Paratus]

Folks the amount of Uranium mined per year for the world would fit in a 14.5m cube.

That's also the equivalent volume of the worst of the waste.

That waste if completely burned in a breeder reactor has enough energy to power the world 5 times over.

The only reason we should be shooting it into the sun is because we gave it to NASA to build an interplanetary craft that's reached the end of its design life.

 

[brainhulk]

The power pant I work at is helping out with fire fighting water. If a pipe is installed water could be added to the local supply. The power used for the RO system is part of our base load and doesn't change the approximatly 2300 megawatts we supply to our customers.

http://www.keyt.com/news/diablo-canyon-desal-water-now-available-to-cal-fire/33107548

Alright cool, this is what I was alluding to - obtaining fresh water as a by-product of energy generation. Win-win

Once Dave gets his fusion reactor up and running we'll really benin business

 

[Jeff7]

Let's burn that shit in a breeder reactor.

Dear god yes.

And hopefully GenIV reactors see the light of day. It sounds like those things are planned to be insanely efficient, and would also be able to use our barely-used "spent" fuel as fuel. I believe they're also intended to be inherently safe - shut down all of the safety stuff and backups, and you still won't go all Fukushima.

Folks the amount of Uranium mined per year for the world would fit in a 14.5m cube.

That's also the equivalent volume of the worst of the waste.

That waste if completely burned in a breeder reactor has enough energy to power the world 5 times over.

The only reason we should be shooting it into the sun is because we gave it to NASA to build an interplanetary craft that's reached the end of its design life.

People probably think that there are just giant piles of the waste all over, like you could fill Rhode Island with it.

I seem to remember seeing a photo somewhere of a guy holding a tiny stone, saying that that's all the nuclear waste that'd result from a lifetime of energy consumption for one person. I don't remember if that was before or after reprocessing.

Edit: Found it. It's a cylinder about the size of a softball, which represents the waste produced by a lifetime of electricity use. That's before reprocessing. >90% of the usable uranium in a fuel rod is wasted due to our inefficient reactor designs. Reprocessing, and eventually GenIV reactors, extract a lot of that untapped energy.



Still, I love that as a solution to the problem of "How do we store dangerous waste for tens of thousands of years?"
Answer: Don't. Build better machines that can use it as a fuel source, leaving a very small quantity of relatively short-lived waste products.

 

[Tsavo]

Launch the spent rods towards the sun.

In a nuclear powered craft!

We just solved all the problems in the world.