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To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

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Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#201

Post by nl »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #99
toomuchtodo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got these things you know, batteries. And they don't need to be stored somewhere safe for hundreds of years while they cool off. And they decrease in cost as you make more, which nuclear doesn't. Every time an article about nuclear hits HN or Reddit, everyone chicken littles "Nuclear! Won't someone think of the atom!", while solar is on track to have ~80GW installed this year and next year in the US alone. Its…

"We've got these things you know, batteries." Batteries are expensive, low-capacity, and absolutely horrendous from an environmental perspective. "Nuclear lost. Its never coming back." There are currently 55 new power reactors under construction and scheduled to be in operation by 2020. China alone has 20 in active construction, with many more planned. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and...

Batteries are expensive, low-capacity, and absolutely horrendous from an environmental perspective.

Flow batteries[1] aren't especially dense storage, but nor are they expensive or environmentally horrible.

They make a lot of sense in distributed power generation scenarios (ie, rooftop solar) .

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#202

Post by ianai »

labster wrote: post #182
ekianjo wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous claim. Societal changes occur when the right incentives are at play for the change to occur.

{{citation needed}} Maybe gradual social change works that way, but you certainly can't force change without a little insanity.

I'll remind the court that irrationality merely means "not rational". I.e. "No identifiable rational is known". Often times decision makers appear to be acting without reason merely because they're responding to something the observer does not see/know about. The root reason is stil up for grabs. I'd bet that existential threats tend to motivate people only once they can comprehend the threat as a reality.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#203

Post by wamatt »

Twisell wrote: post #194
wamatt wrote: post #173

It's kind of unfortunate that the label "nuclear power" seems to inevitably bundle both nuclear fission and nuclear fusion into the same public policy debate. Their respective safety profiles couldn't be further apart. While the economic risks for a failed nuclear fusion strategy can be argued, given even a modest chance for eventually producing large amounts of clean and safe energy output 24/7, should we not be pur…

Last year I met a doctor that work at the experimental ITER fusion plant. He was pretty optimistic about the technology but totally desperate about budget. It's an international initiative and US are actually one of the country that pay the least compared to its Income per capita... By today funding it's clear that real solutions won't be ready until 2050, hence fission is still required in the mix until then. I don'…

Although considered somewhat non-traditional, aneutronic fusion[1] approaches may have interesting possibilities on significantly smaller budgets than ITER

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion#Current_rese...

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#204

Post by abalone »

niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

I just want to point out that it's not the number of people who die installing rooftop solar that matters. It's the delta between rooftop solar and regular roof install deaths, given that it will eventually come down to a choice in materials (see: solarcity). From that perspective solar has very little incremental harm while nuclear has vastly greater risk to public health, not just "political capital".

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#205

Post by flexie »

Bluestrike2 wrote: post #171
flexie wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't a 1 or 2 degrees temperature increase be preferable to nuclear meltdowns becoming more frequent because we get much more nuclear power plants?

And just how common are nuclear meltdowns over time? It's a flawed risk analysis, further mitigated by newer Gen-IV reactor designs that are going to be coming out of China and India before long. Altogether, there have only been two INES level 7 incidents and one level 6 incident since 1954 [0]. And while unfortunate and expensive, they're incidents that can be cleaned up and recovered from. By contrast, you're stuck…

Easy now. It's not an analysis, it's a question.

Here are the costs of just a single nuclear disaster, one considered minor: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-...

Please bear in mind that this was the most conservative estimate I found when googling.

According to the below post, even a relatively nuclear heavy country like the US would need 5 times more nuclear power to cover the electricity need: https://www.quora.com/How-many-nuclear-reactors-would-be-req...

So, on a global scale that would be many new reactors, including many in countries with dubious safety records in other areas.

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#206

Post by tmnvix »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #175
niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

And the interesting thing is that no nuclear plant built starting today would have any of the issues that hit Fukishima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island. Both because the material safety is better today, and we better understand how to engineer these to passively fail safe rather than have safety systems that can themselves fail. But the political will is hard to muster. And even though something like the traveling w…

> And the interesting thing is that no nuclear plant built starting today would have any of the issues that hit Fukishima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island.

This might be true and is obviously a good thing but it does not make a good basis for your argument. That we have more faith in our designs now does not mean they are safe. There is still risk.

I think there is a real possibility that nuclear may be necessary (due to climate change concerns). I do not think though that it is helpful to dismiss concerns as being naive or simply emotional. Especially when the only actual proof we have for the safety of nuclear is negative (the historical accidents). What we need is honest cost-benefit assessment. That assessment should include climate change, waste storage, decommissioning costs, comparison with alternatives, and an acceptance that although nuclear accidents are highly unlikely, the consequences are great (loss of productive land is the big concern in my opinion - more so than potential loss of life).

Let me ask you, what are your concerns about nuclear power?

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#207

Post by ywecur »

niels_olson wrote: post #3

My undergrad is in Physics and I took engineering classes in Rickover Hall. I was stationed on a nuclear ship. Even after deploying for the Fukushima disaster, I am a fan of nuclear power. But I have a hard time justifying new investment in an era where solar is competitively priced. The downside of solar is approximately 0 compared to the downside of a reactor accident. I'll even allow for the high, high likelihood…

What about the problem that solar also needs batteries?

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#208

Post by MichaelApproved »

underrun wrote: post #96
fgpwd wrote: post #90

The initial estimates for the cost to repair the damage caused by Fukushima were as far as I remember, around 50 billion dollars. According to a recent news article [1], the costs are now estimated at 250 billion dollars. They just keep on increasing. And then there is also the human/environmental damage to consider. I have been excited about nuclear since my school days, but at this point the downside if something g…

The advantages of advancing technology and building smaller safer reactors would go a long way to avoiding such disasters. Because things can go wrong is not a reason to stop research into making them better and safer. The real way to keep ahead of this is not to extend the life span of existing reactors but to build aggressively in order to take older ones offline as newer smaller safer reactors are ready. And keep…

Iterating aggressively is great when the consequences aren't as dire as nuclear mistakes.

The last thing I'd want is more plants built aggressively when stupid mistakes happen at the non-aggressive rate, such as installing the reactor backwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Onofre_Nuclear_Generating_...

Re: To Slow Global Warming, We Need Nuclear Power (Op-Ed)

#209

Post by bottled_poe »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #73
hueving wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in an era where solar is competitively priced We're not in that era though. Solar is only competitive if you don't account for storage, which is required if it's going to replace any large percentage of generation.

We've got these things you know, batteries. And they don't need to be stored somewhere safe for hundreds of years while they cool off. And they decrease in cost as you make more, which nuclear doesn't. Every time an article about nuclear hits HN or Reddit, everyone chicken littles "Nuclear! Won't someone think of the atom!", while solar is on track to have ~80GW installed this year and next year in the US alone. Its…

Sass, citing reddit. This comment is emotional hyperbole, little more. Even the union of concerned scientists! Stop the press!

I don't necessarily disagree with your argument, it's just poorly constructed.

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