51–60 of 227 posts
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What is the other alternative to nuclear power?
And (before you answer), make sure to read Scott Alexander's Livejournal post (linked by ggreer above) in its entirety. Make sure to pay especially careful attention to the last five paragraphs. :)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung#/media/File:Ene...
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IIRC, it's a legacy of the cold war. The game theory strategists realised that any use of nuclear weapons would either escalate, or end up in a massive defeat. You can start with a tactical nuke wiping out troops, it will escalate to larger nukes wiping out ships, and eventually you're dropping very large nukes on population centers. Mutually Assured Destruction was the only solution. (Or peace, but let's be realisti…
I am pro-nuclear, but the above comment is incredibly, maddeningly stupid. It's so amazingly stupid that I don't know where to begin. The hidden assumption that there was an actual alternative to MAD? That the USG used radiation fear-mongering to shove MAD down our throats? That the USSR didn't use propaganda? That radiation isn't a big deal? That radiation only stays around for 30 years (a common mistake is to assum…
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
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You are just creating straw mean to support your own belief. Comparing to other causes of death is hardly relevant. It's only relevant if you weigh two options against each other. So comparing coal to nuclear is kind of valid, except that coal is not the only alternative to nuclear power. Also, if you really want to nitpick, then you'd also have to count the lives that could have been saved with the money that now go…
While it is true that coal is not the only non-nuclear power generation mechanism, it is -by far- the most common in the US. It is also true that > When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly.…
But the nuclear power plant takes up to 2 days to startup. It's not sustainable for the daily life where consumption change every hour.
That's why there is the need for more agile power plant, where fuel, gas, and coal are suitable. Gas being the most agile but the less efficient, fuel and coal being used as the middle between gas and nuclear, depending of the price of each resource.
This is an engineering constraint before anything else.
The worst case scenario for an accident at a solar power plant or a wind farm - nothing like that.
Today's nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Most that are in operation depend on active cooling systems to prevent a meltdown. If these cooling systems are interrupted for any reason (e.g.: power failure, loss of coolant, pump breakdown, loss of pressure control, control rod failure, backup power source failure, control systems failure, natural disaster, attack, etc.) - even for a short period of time - then the fissile material will likely overheat the reactor and result in a core meltdown.
Sheer luck prevented a catastrophe in the case of the 2006 electrical failure at the Forsmark plant in Sweden. Two of the four backup power systems failed to activate [1].
Switching the emtire world's energy consumption over to safe, renewable energy sources would only take 20 years and cost $100 trillion (money which would be spent anyway on non-renewable energy infrastructure) [2]. There is no need to continue building unsafe coal and nuclear plants.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...
[2] http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/sad11...
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While it is true that coal is not the only non-nuclear power generation mechanism, it is -by far- the most common in the US. It is also true that > When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly.…
I suggest you to learn a bit about power grid engineering. Basically, the fact that we can't store electricity means that when you power on your toaster, somewhere a power plant has to increase its power to compensate. But the nuclear power plant takes up to 2 days to startup. It's not sustainable for the daily life where consumption change every hour. That's why there is the need for more agile power plant, where fu…
Last I checked, the majority of the US's power comes from coal-fired power plants. If there was the political will and public understanding, we could likely replace pretty much all of that with nuclear plants, reserving coal-fired, or oil-fired (or pumped-storage hydro, or flywheel storage, or...) plants to meet peak power demands.
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Get the facts straight: Fukushima is human failure. In the accident the neccecary cooling could not be supplied. As a result, people will die of cancer from the radiation. The tsunami is not human failure, and to say that living by the sea is human failure is another discussion completely.
I disagree. You seem to suggest that the fact that Fukushima was not adequately prepared for this tsunami was human failure, presumably because they should have expected such a tsunami to occur. If this is the case, then you can just as well argue that it was human failure that the towns in the affected areas flooded because of the tsunami. After all, if they expected such a tsunami to occur they could/should have bu…
For your information, in France where we use nuclear energy a lot, we look for the most catastrophic events of the last 100 years to see how we protect our infrastructure.
The Japanese looked for the last 50, but there were a tsunami of similar height 85 years ago.
Also the local authority of nuclear security has made a few reports were they recommended to increase the height of the seawalls. Several times. Never followed.
And last but not least, the accident could have been prevented, but has been badly handled. With Japanese hiding information, not cooperating with trained international nuclear-firefighters, and minimizing the scale of the incident until the last minute. This is the biggest mistake of all, compromising lives, resources, ocean and earth...
How is it not a human failure ?
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While it is true that coal is not the only non-nuclear power generation mechanism, it is -by far- the most common in the US. It is also true that > When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly.…
Coal is the most common in the US and honestly you should have stopped relying on it several decades ago. But of course, you got the nukes so you needn't bother with paying for your share of the climate change damages.
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You assume that coal is the only alternative to nuclear power (there are not only other energy sources, but also the option to use less energy), and that there is no way to use coal in a cleaner way. I leave the judgement up to you, just wanted to point out some confirmation bias in your convictions.
The point you are missing is that these articles create a bias against nuclear power, but by rights there should be a deluge of articles documenting the ongoing tragedy of using coal. But there are not. And the result is that people have developed a fear of nuclear power while having an undeveloped fear of coal power. Coal is not the only alternative to nuclear, certainly, but coal has absolutely replaced some nuclea…
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And (before you answer), make sure to read Scott Alexander's Livejournal post (linked by ggreer above) in its entirety. Make sure to pay especially careful attention to the last five paragraphs. :)
This diagramm shows that renewables are replacing nuclear power in Germany, not coal. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromerzeugung#/media/File:Ene...
Nuclear plants are really good base-load plants. I guess that you can design a national power grid that's supplied largely by renewables, but I suspect that it's very hard and not cheap.
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I suggest you to learn a bit about power grid engineering. Basically, the fact that we can't store electricity means that when you power on your toaster, somewhere a power plant has to increase its power to compensate. But the nuclear power plant takes up to 2 days to startup. It's not sustainable for the daily life where consumption change every hour. That's why there is the need for more agile power plant, where fu…
I know that nuclear power is base-load power, not peaking power. Infrastructure is something of a passing interest of mine. :) Last I checked, the majority of the US's power comes from coal-fired power plants. If there was the political will and public understanding, we could likely replace pretty much all of that with nuclear plants, reserving coal-fired, or oil-fired (or pumped-storage hydro, or flywheel storage, o…
The European power grid is very tight and well-meshed, this is why we can let our nuclear power plant and sell electricity to Switzerland, Germany or Netherlands or buy it.
I guess it's not as well interconnected in the US, so that states can't easily lend power which disable the use of nuclear power plant for many states ?
