If you are serious about reducing C02 then you are serious about using nuclear power.
Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
181–190 of 193 posts
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#182Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…
Fukushima has demonstrated that humans aren't great at controlling or predicting the real risk of nuclear. The fact is, even if no one dies from acute radiation poisoning, nuclear disasters are costly and devastating.
We can stop building nuke plants on fault lines right on the coast without abandoning nuclear energy.
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Coal," Don't mix coal... with wind and solar. Coal releases proportional amounts of carbon dioxide when used to generate power. On the other hand, wind and solar release fixed amounts of carbon dioxide (during construction and transport) then generate energy C02 free.
..except for maintenance. Does anybody have up-to-date numbers how long hydro/solar/wind have to run to recoup the energy used in production? For a while, Solar was essentially "let's import energy from Asia in the form of pretty sand", but I think this has changed.
"..except for maintenance."
Good point. Q. Would the amount of energy generated by a solar/wind system outstrip energy used to maintain?
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
We still don't know how to handle spent fuel. So nuclear apologists are simply offering a calculation, where the biggest risk/liability has been left out, because "what number should we put in?". Also, I'm always fascinated of the "Chernobyl was unsafe, today reactors are safe" argument. The exact same line was fed to us when Chernobyl was state of the art. There are good reasons to think that it may indeed be so thi…
> We still don't know how to handle spent fuel. Actually we do, technically, and the amount is trivial (and can be reused, though that isn't currently being done). Spent fuel is a political problem. In fact, last time I checked even just the radiation from coal power plants is greater than from nuclear plants. > The exact same line was fed to us when Chernobyl was state of the art Chernobyl was never state of the art…
Political problem? Yes. How much will the problem cost to fix? Uncertainty has a cost.
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why bother, when you have solar?" Because solar is intermittent, and isn't practical at all in many parts of the world. The true environmental impact of nuclear is also arguably less, since solar requires a lot of space per watt produced by comparison. Next-gen nuclear reactor designs from Thorcon Power, Terrestrial and others are very near to perfectly safe, and also produce much less long-term nuclear waste than c…
> Because solar is intermittent, and isn't practical at all in many parts of the world. The solution to that is simple, use less power at night. I.e. don't make so much aluminum when there is no sun or wind. We could decide as a society to trade a few percent of our wealth for using much less coal and nuclear if we wanted (and if our society were organized in a rational fashion). Also: don't heat with electricty, but…
Night isn't the only source of solar intermittency, overcast also has a large effect. Solar also isn't cost effective at higher latitudes. When people are freezing to death, your simplistic approaches won't appeal much.
Efficiency is great and should be encouraged. We still need increasing amounts of reliable, plentiful and cheap energy going forward. You may be willing to accept a diminishing standard of living, most are not.
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#186An irony I've noticed recently is fans of nuclear saying: "Coal is killing people, if you say anything bad about Nuclear then you are killing people" and then turning round and attacking other, non-coal alternatives like wind, solar or even natural gas. Initially I assumed these were actually coal supporters doing some devious concern trolling to delay the roll out of alternatives that are viable in the short term bu…
The world will need base load power for a long time. Yes, there is a lot of research into grid storage, but except for pumped hydro we are a long way away from that being a major component of the power system. (For example, Gates is investing in startups that are working on innovative nuclear plant designs and startups that are working on storage - maybe they all succeed, maybe none of them will.) NASA has estimated…
That paper basically says "coal is bad" but again, kind of throws natural gas under the bus in a sneaky way.
"almost certainly would have been supplied by fossil fuels instead (overwhelmingly coal)"
So they've established, coal is really bad. That would be a really powerful argument for nuclear if people didn't already know that. How about running the numbers for nuclear plus as much natural gas as necessary to follow load, vs renewables plus natural gas? That seems like the real question. (Numbers here being cost, time, C02, health impacts, deaths etc. because deaths are acceptable if we could have saved enough money to save many more lives elsewhere).
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is just semantics. I am arguing that a nuclear shutdown event would have different long-term effects today. In the short term of course, fossil fuel plants would still be able to pick up the slack, but there would be a larger share of natural gas than in the 1980s and were the shutdown to last longer it would be less costly to set up renewable energy plants. People in this thread are also using the article to ar…
> That is just semantics. Yes, it emphatically is semantics. Semantics: the meaning of things, particularly words. That's important. You probably meant "nit-picking", and I would suggest it was you who was engaging in nit-picking (though incorrectly) that this is outdated/irrelevant because it is from the past. So I see your incorrect nit-pick and raise you a correct nit-pick. > I am arguing that... Yes you are. Argu…
> Yes, it emphatically is semantics.
Quibbling over semantics.
> Yes you are. Arguing, that is. And back then, you probably would have argued that shutting down that nuclear plant would have been a boon to health, because "evil/bad nuclear".
You're not only nit-picking over semantics, you're also making incorrect assumptions.
> Germany: missing nuclear largely replaced with "new coal" > http://www.theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/328841/wh....
A 2014 article with projections for 2013 based on the author's own calculations on a site run by a mysterious owner with no credentials. The projections were completely wrong, by the way, as you can see here: https://www.energy-charts.de/power_inst.htm
> Japan: an industry savior? (The coal industry, mind you) > https://www.worldcoal.com/special-reports/13052015/japan-coa....
Another shady source. I give you that if you shut down all reactors in a country with a large proportion of nuclear energy generation you will still be in a conundrum. Still, Japan made up for the gap almost entirely with natural gas, not coal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/03/11/japan...
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That is just semantics. Yes, it emphatically is semantics. Semantics: the meaning of things, particularly words. That's important. You probably meant "nit-picking", and I would suggest it was you who was engaging in nit-picking (though incorrectly) that this is outdated/irrelevant because it is from the past. So I see your incorrect nit-pick and raise you a correct nit-pick. > I am arguing that... Yes you are. Argu…
> Yes, it emphatically is semantics. Quibbling over semantics. > Yes you are. Arguing, that is. And back then, you probably would have argued that shutting down that nuclear plant would have been a boon to health, because "evil/bad nuclear". You're not only nit-picking over semantics, you're also making incorrect assumptions. > Germany: missing nuclear largely replaced with "new coal" > http://www.theenergycollective…
Your numbers are not up-to-date:
"In 2000, Japan's coal demand was only slightly bigger than LNG consumption, around 60 million tonnes a year versus some 55 million tonnes for LNG, but gas use has now stalled while coal imports have nearly doubled since then."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-energy-demand-idUKKCN...
Also, the numbers for Germany are for "installed capacity", not for actual production.
If you look at actual production, "Braunkohle" went from 146 in 2010 (pre-Fukushima) to 160 in 2012 (post).
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/156695/umfrag...
But please keep believing what you believe.
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nuclear power has a closed fuel cycle: what goes in comes out and is stored. Nowadays yes, but this wasn't always the case. The earliest Soviet reactors were open cycle and discharged directly into Lake Kyzyltash. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay
Lesson learned: Don't trust Stalin and Beria with a nuclear plant. Or anything else, of course, but fortunately for everyone both men are safely dead and their danger thus permanently curtailed.
Just being closed cycle isn't enough. A couple of the early British reactors apparently exposed the public to low levels of neutron and gamma radiation in normal operation because part of the cooling loop was outside the radiation shield for cost-saving reasons.
Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
The world will need base load power for a long time. Yes, there is a lot of research into grid storage, but except for pumped hydro we are a long way away from that being a major component of the power system. (For example, Gates is investing in startups that are working on innovative nuclear plant designs and startups that are working on storage - maybe they all succeed, maybe none of them will.) NASA has estimated…
That paper basically says "coal is bad" but again, kind of throws natural gas under the bus in a sneaky way. "almost certainly would have been supplied by fossil fuels instead (overwhelmingly coal)" So they've established, coal is really bad. That would be a really powerful argument for nuclear if people didn't already know that. How about running the numbers for nuclear plus as much natural gas as necessary to follo…
>...That would be a really powerful argument for nuclear if people didn't already know that.
Yes some people know that, but obviously many people don't or politicians wouldn't shut down all their nuclear power plants while continuing to run coal. Burning coal when there are alternatives is a danger not just to the thousands who will die that year, but to future generations who have to deal with the CO2.
>...How about running the numbers for nuclear plus as much natural gas as necessary to follow load, vs renewables plus natural gas? That seems like the real question. (Numbers here being cost, time, C02, health impacts, deaths etc. because deaths are acceptable if we could have saved enough money to save many more lives elsewhere).
Solar/wind have such low capacity factors that without grid storage at best they can be used as a supplement to a load following base load power source. The people who are afraid of nuclear power suggest to use natural gas as the base load. The CO2 from burning natural gas is less than coal and it doesn't emit mercury or the other particulates and doesn't have a waste issue like coal does. Unfortunately for those who care about climate change, there are inevitable methane releases from fracking and from distribution of natural gas and those are now known to be worse than previously thought:
>...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the climate benefits of switching from coal to gas. We’ve known for a long time that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned. But the IPCC’s latest report, released Monday (big PDF here), reports that methane is 34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale, so its global-warming potential (GWP) is 34. That is a nearly 40% increase from the IPCC’s previous estimate of 25.
https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-wa...
The death rate from natural gas accidents is also much higher than from nuclear energy. There is no defense in depth or a slow progression of accident - one unexpected spark and natural gas is an explosive.
In the San Bruno natural gas explosion 8 members of the general public died and eyewitnesses reported the initial blast "had a wall of fire more than 1,000 feet high". Can you imagine the media coverage if this had been a nuclear accident?? Just because the media finds such stories uninteresting, doesn't mean we should ignore these deaths - that was 8 more people that died in Fukushima. No one can claim that natural gas is safer than nuclear power and unfortunately using natural gas may be as bad for the climate as burning coal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
From a previous comment someone made, here are the death totals for generating power:
Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)
Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)
Solar (rooftop) 440 (Wind 150 (2% global electricity)
Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)
While the death rate for solar farms should be much less than rooftop and the price of solar cells continues to drop, the costs for land do not:
>...To build the equivalent of a 1,000-Mw nuclear plant, a solar park would require 11,000 acres of PV solar panels and a wind farm would need 50,000 acres of wind turbines. By contrast, Diablo Canyon is able to produce twice as much power (2300 Mw) in a footprint of approximately 545 acres.
https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/syst...
The usual response I have heard is to say that we should put all the solar farms in the southwest and rebuild our grid system to handle have the power source thousands of miles away. Unclear how many billions of dollars this would cost (and how feasible this could ever be and the terrorist potential of having so many people dependent on such long distance power lines) but this cost should be added to the cost of solar if this is what people think should be done.
And as far as using natural gas to be the base load for solar/wind, nuclear in France is load following, there isn't a reason it can't be in other places.