Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest • Hacker News Board

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#241

Post by ekianjo » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #201

datenwolf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly due to the chemistry required to liberate the Uranium from the ore. What you have in the ore is mostly Uranium oxides. You have to strip away those pesky oxygen atoms in order to further process the Uranium. And in that process quite the amount of CO2 is produced. Now keep in mind that this must be done to all the Uranium, before it undergoes enrichtment. So for every atom of U235 you get about 200 (give…

How is that compared to mining for battery and solar material? It's a double standard to hold nuclear accountable for manufacturing when the same is not applied to solar/wind.

batteries and solar components need numerous extracts of minerals and a bunch of chemistry as well but as.you pointed out the solar lobby is happy to ignore all that when claiming they are a clean source of energy.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#242

Post by hueving » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #217

Recurecur wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown. LFRs include an electrically cooled salt plug that seals a holding tank. If power fails, the molten salt melts the plug, and the fuel safely drains into the tank. I particularly like ThorCon's concept, where the reactor is underground. Another plus of this reactor type is that water cooling isn't needed, so siting is much more flexible. Note that t…

"Completely eliminates the possibility" sounds like something a supervillain would say. I'm not saying that this passive safety system won't work, or is a bad idea. It sounds great from the brief description. BUT. There's a terrible, terrible tendency of the pro-nuclear side to use bombastic language, and then sneer at those with doubts as ignorant and emotional rather than logical. Pricing promises are another probl…

>and then sneer at those with doubts as ignorant and emotional rather than logical

That's because you reply with things like this.

>sounds like something a supervillain would say.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#243

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #193

nextos wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taleb would say all this statistics are bullshit, cause they ignore the long tails. I doubt a gas or coal power station can destroy a nation. A nuclear plant has the potential to do so.

Did Chernobyl? The reactor next door kept operating after the accident. A coal fly ash spill closed a river to fishing for weeks. Nuclear accident badness is massively overplayed by the media.

Are you seriously being that callous about Chernobyl? Several dozen people died from it. Many more statistically died from radiation exposure over the ensuing decades. Three hundred thousand people were forced to abandon their homes and relocate.

Chernobyl was a huge fucking disaster that killed people and had a huge negative impact on many people's lives. You don't get to minimize that just because a nearby reactor kept running.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#244

Post by dfox » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #197

Before Chernobyl blew up, nuclear energy proponents promised us, nuclear energy was safe. When Chernobyl blew up, it was obviously a stupid Soviet design, with stupid operating personnel. But now we've got new reactors, they are safe! Nothing could ever happen! Then Fukushima blew up. That was obviously okay, because it was a Tsunami in conjunction with a few other improbable acts, and we obviously can't expect the n…

In my view, most of the environmental disaster that was caused by Fukushima has nothing to do with the tsunami itself but with complete disregard for safety during the incident response.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#245

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #204

datenwolf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly due to the chemistry required to liberate the Uranium from the ore. What you have in the ore is mostly Uranium oxides. You have to strip away those pesky oxygen atoms in order to further process the Uranium. And in that process quite the amount of CO2 is produced. Now keep in mind that this must be done to all the Uranium, before it undergoes enrichtment. So for every atom of U235 you get about 200 (give…

What part of that process produces CO2? I'm reading up on it but everything I find gives a fairly simplified view of things. The chemical reactions discussed on Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_hexafluoride ) don't involve any carbon, but maybe it's from some secondary aspect?

[deleted]

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#246

Post by mikeash » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #233

datenwolf wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly due to the chemistry required to liberate the Uranium from the ore. What you have in the ore is mostly Uranium oxides. You have to strip away those pesky oxygen atoms in order to further process the Uranium. And in that process quite the amount of CO2 is produced. Now keep in mind that this must be done to all the Uranium, before it undergoes enrichtment. So for every atom of U235 you get about 200 (give…

Then you need to count the whole refining process that goes in making usable petrol, too. This is not totally unique to nuclear.

Of course you also need to count that. But accounting for extraction and refining adds something like 20% to fossil fuel emissions, whereas it's claimed to vastly increase total nuclear emissions.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#247

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

bmcusick wrote: post #238

CydeWeys wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if the biggest source of injury from solar wasn't from installers falling off roofs. You can't count all of those injuries against solar itself, though, as roofing injuries will happen regardless, and putting up solar panels greatly extends the life of a roof, so the amortized total injury to installers doesn't go up as much.

Plus with Tesla's solar roof, you might say that the additional risk of solar is zero, since it's (probably, I'm guessing) no more dangerous to install than any other roof.

And if it lasts longer than a tar-asphalt shingle roof, which seems reasonable given the materials involved, it will actually reduce deaths.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#248

Post by padseeker » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

Geekette wrote: post #185

padseeker wrote: post #91

This is the year 2017 - This article deliberately skips over any consideration to Wind, Solar, etc. What kind of BULLSHIT excuse for journalism and scientific study is this? Who in the nuclear industry paid for this? I only read the first 3 paragraphs but I can already tell you this article is not worth your time. The article compares the statistics of energy sources, but all of the charts focus on fossil fuels. This…

"I only read the first 3 paragraphs but ..." You can't have a informed conclusion without reading the entire article. That said, it clearly states in the 2nd paragraph that the assessment is for energy types with the lowest negative health impact, with comparison limited to currently dominant sources including nuclear and not renewable types like wind or solar.

I only read the first 3 paragraphs because when you deliberately leave out a significant portion of the energy industry and make a statement that "Nuclear is safest compared to everything else" and then you don't include everything then you are lying. This article has already established up front it is trying to manipulate people.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#249

Post by gambiting » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #200

nnfy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima was safe, by all standards. This was not related to corruption. It was simply not designed for the rarity of a magnitude 9 earthquake and the scale of the tsunami that followed. Your house in a five hundred year floodplain is not unsafe for lacking stilts. Safety costs money, this wasn't corruption.

How can you say it was safe with a straight face when it clearly wasn't? That's like saying your car is fine when it's smashed upside-down in a ditch on the side of the highway. If some standards claimed it was safe, then those standards were simply wrong. By other standards (including, most importantly, reality), it definitely wasn't safe.

Well, I guess it's because I would consider my car extremely safe, with something stupid like 12 airbags, active brake assist, active collision prevention, it will even call for help automatically after an accident, without any input from me. Yet obviously it's not safe if it gets hit by a truck going 80mph, and it's not an impossible scenario. If they made fukishima stronger to withstand larger tsunamis, it could still be destroyed by an even larger one. It was "safe" within certain parameters. We can argue that those parameters were wrong, but that's a different discussion.

Re: Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

#250

Post by this_user » Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

Recurecur wrote: post #180

simias wrote: post #64

People are scared of nuclear energy for the same reason that they're scared of taking an airplane. Even though it's technically and statistically very safe, the perceived risk appears much greater. In particular in both cases when something goes wrong it tends to go extremely wrong and you're completely helpless to stop it. In contrast getting in a car accident or slowly suffocating in coal power plant emissions seem…

New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown. LFRs include an electrically cooled salt plug that seals a holding tank. If power fails, the molten salt melts the plug, and the fuel safely drains into the tank. I particularly like ThorCon's concept, where the reactor is underground. Another plus of this reactor type is that water cooling isn't needed, so siting is much more flexible. Note that t…

Do these designs also completely eliminate the possibility that human error or outright negligence could cause a catastrophic failure? Because those were almost always major factors in nuclear accidents.