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

nytimes.com

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

#461

Post by optimuspaul »

kuschku wrote: post #408
spangry wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Production and use of solar and wind cause more deaths for GW/H than current nuclear fission (which is responsible for around 19.5% of the US' energy generation [0]). The problem is that deaths from nuclear generation are concentrated in very short, dramatic events. I mean, if you're looking for the biggest killer (by at least an order of magnitude), it's fossil fuels: boringly due to the reduction in air qua…

Except, he's missing quite a few facts. Like, that there's still unsolved engineering problems with finding naterials that survive the corrosive environment within of molten salt reactors. Like, that he didn't inckude waste storage at all. Like, that he calculated prices for renewables based on buying the most expensive panels, but for nuclear, based on the lowest estimates. In reality, the ROI level of renewables ha…

> And you want to give those governments nuclear reactors? Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc?

No, we want to sell them access to our grid and cheap power.

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

#463

Post by natch »

witty_username wrote: post #391
patall wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting how you say that nuclear might be cheaper and at the same time accept an incident like fukushima every 30 years like you pay 1000 peanuts and that it alright again. Maybe you will allow a nuclear plant in your backyard but most people already have a problem with wind power. This has nothing to do with fear about the technology itself but about the decrease in property value in vicinity of the plant.…

Any such decrease in property value is precisely because of the irrational fear of nuclear power. > So, may be your intention is good but not realistic as the Hinkley Point C plant for 30+ billion pound in england shows. Government should not fund or provide any guarantees to such projects; we should tax carbon and let people decide what to do (in which case, we wouldn't even need to argue which is cheaper and we can…

The costs of solar are decreasing over time. And solar is more decentralized, so you're not stuck with huge government boondoggles, corruption, and corporate overlords.

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

#464

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Retric wrote: post #456
mason240 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there is a risk you will be forced to move and lose all your possessions. Can you give me a street address for somewhere that this isn't a possibility? My house is heated by natural gas - it could literally explode while I'm at work today.

Risk X exists has nothing to do with risk Y. Nuclear powerplants increase risks so the local population should be compensated.

Hard to assess that risk. No modern plant has had catastrophic failure like that. Essentially there's no data to extrapolate from.

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

#465

Post by natch »

mseebach wrote: post #406
patall wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting how you say that nuclear might be cheaper and at the same time accept an incident like fukushima every 30 years like you pay 1000 peanuts and that it alright again. Maybe you will allow a nuclear plant in your backyard but most people already have a problem with wind power. This has nothing to do with fear about the technology itself but about the decrease in property value in vicinity of the plant.…

Cheaper compared to every other suggested solution to climate change . If climate change wasn't a thing, sure, I'd probably be on board with writing off nuclear and waiting for some combination of solar and wind and storage to take over. Also, regardless of who pays, a Fukushima-event every few decades is several orders of magnitude cheaper than flood-securing New York City alone (and there are a lot more places in t…

I doubt the flood-securing work is avoidable. But maybe it could be less bad.

Rather than nuclear, which lends itself to big government, corruption, corporate projects, bond issues, and taxes, I'd prefer to see money instead poured into acceleration of the spread of solar, which is less centralized and easier to spread to all kinds of places. Sure, not everywhere, but the potential is pretty untapped.

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

#466

Post by lmm »

lispm wrote: post #426
lmm wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If nuclear power plants have an accident like in Fukushima. then tens of thousands have lost their home for decades or forever and ten thousand workers will fight for three decades to clean up the mess under the worst possible circumstances with costs going into the hundred billion dollars. Sure. But again, compare the area of land rendered uninhabitable - and the homes and lives lost - per megawatt generated. If y…

> uninhabitable by hydroelectric dams Nobody builds one where I live. But there are several nuclear power plants. But most of them are now history. They are not in some remote areas, but near populated areas with millions of people. > If you're considering solar on its own then you're never going to be able to provide reliable baseline power. Why would I 'consider solar on its own' as baseline power? These arguments…

> Nobody builds one where I live. But there are several nuclear power plants. But most of them are now history. They are not in some remote areas, but near populated areas with millions of people.

This is a failure of planning (or possibly of international diplomacy in the case of e.g. Japan). In terms of the engineering constraints, nuclear plants are a lot easier to build far away from people than any of the alternatives: they don't have to be built on particular parts of rivers, or in a sunny or windy area, or a gas pipeline or an endless supply of mile-long coal trains. (They probably do have to be on some kind of rail line just because fuel transport is excessively regulated).

> Why would I 'consider solar on its own' as baseline power? These arguments were brought up twenty years ago and were boring then.

It may be boring, but the issues are still real. Baseline power is a requirement, and the only proven ways to provide it are carbon-based, hydro, or nuclear.

> Even though there are solar power plants which store heat.

There was only ever one in full-scale production, and it's now closed, AIUI. There are various experimental efforts.

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

#468

Post by pdog »

mseebach wrote: post #332
afterburner wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even bother talking about political capital. Nuclear is a worse option because it is overpriced, period. It's not just the downsides that are subsidized by the government, the actual running cost is hidden behind reams of bureaucracy, hidden program budgets, optimistic amortizations, and underestimated decommissioning costs. And even then the reactors still manage to go massively over budget with the initial co…

First, there can be little doubt that a substantial fraction of the high cost of nuclear is down to almost the entire west being scared stiff of the stuff for thirty years. If we gave actual scientists and engineers a real mandate to come up with a pragmatic, realistic (ie accepting a small amount of risk as acceptable, perhaps something on the scale of a single Fukushima every 30 years, just like we accept a small a…

Fukushima was a failure of risk engineering. It's sad that you seem to think that we need to "accept" man-made disasters.

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

#470

Post by natch »

mason240 wrote: post #442
patall wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is interesting how you say that nuclear might be cheaper and at the same time accept an incident like fukushima every 30 years like you pay 1000 peanuts and that it alright again. Maybe you will allow a nuclear plant in your backyard but most people already have a problem with wind power. This has nothing to do with fear about the technology itself but about the decrease in property value in vicinity of the plant.…

I would prefer to live near a nuclear plant than within sight of a wind farm.

As long as we're exploring hypothetical choices, would you prefer to live near a nuclear plant over living in a house with energy provided by solar tiles on the roof?
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