Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 679 posts

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

#261

Post by yellowapple »

mikeash wrote: post #167
yellowapple wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure hydroelectric would actually win statistics 1, 3, and 4 "hands down". It'd also be a serious contender for 2 and 6. This is of course excluding coal, which I'm 92% sure makes even hydroelectric (let alone nuclear) look like a peaceful meadow full of fairies and butterflies by comparison.

When you say "win," do you mean be worse? Because I think the others mean it as being better, and I'm getting confused.

"Win" was (I'm guessing) used in a negative context to mean "worse", so I used it in a similar way. Kind of like how Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot tend to "win" competitions for murdering the most people.

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

#262

Post by btilly »

payne92 wrote: post #13

I believe the politicization of nuclear energy (the resulting lack of investment & innovation) will go down as one of the major blunders in human history. We'd be in a far, far better situation with greenhouse gasses if we (as a human race) had continued to invest in nuclear energy. There would have been mishaps along the way, but at a much smaller scale than we're experiencing now with deaths from air pollution and…

The problem with nuclear energy is that a nuclear power plant isn't very different in concept from a nuclear bomb. Getting the latter from the former is a serious concern. Having the former accidentally turn into a dirty nuke (not a lot of force, but lots of fallout), is scarily easy. Just see 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.

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

#263

Post by Tomte »

wbl wrote: post #208
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…

How many people died in all of those? Now compare to the particulate pollution coal releases, which would force evacuation of neighborhoods if we treated them as nuclear plants. The US Navy has operated hundreds of reactors for decades 24/7.

It doesn't matter how many have died in the accidents so far.

It matters what the worst-case outcome is. I don't downplay it with some statistic about how rare it would be.

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

#264

Post by horusthecat »

bmcusick wrote: post #202

Ctrl+F "Solar", "Wind". No matches found. That's weird, huh? I'm all for a rational assessment of risk, but shouldn't they be on the list? Actually, I've seen such comparisons, and solar and wind do pretty well. They don't kill anyone from air pollution and global warming, but manufacturing and maintenance isn't risk-free. When you install things on roofs, sometimes people fall off. Most solar installation these days…

It's almost as if you can frame a 'data-driven' argument and limit the universe of what people imagine to be possible, while pretending to be 'rational' and 'scientific' the whole time!

Of course it cuts both ways. A better headline would have been "Nuclear: sure it's dirty but are you really trying to tell us coal is safer".

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

#265

Post by hueving »

eloff wrote: post #72

My understanding, which is admittedly drawn from HN "napkin math" , is that at current prices for solar and wind, nuclear is a non-starter. That trend is only intensifying. It seems to me that nuclear could have been a good option, but because we've neglected it for so long, squashed innovation with regulations (not necessarily complaining that it didn't need the regulations!) it is uncompetitive economically and wil…

Keep in mind that coal is uncompetitive because of natural gas being so cheap, not because of renewables. Renewables are not supplanting natural gas at a reasonable rate.

While natural gas is better than coal, it's still not good from an emissions perspective compares to nuclear.

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

#266

Post by bmcusick »

CydeWeys wrote: post #247
bmcusick wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right. Great point. It could cut risks in half if it lasts twice as long.

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

#267

Post by Tomte »

dfox wrote: post #244
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.

Exactly, we cannot believe all those pretty statistics about how safe nuclear power is, because (inter alia) precisely this disregard for safety is never factored in.

Nuclear power is always sold on the best case or average case calculation. Because the worst case is probably so bad that it dominates the whole calculation.

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

#268

Post by dfox »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #142
dirtyaura wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has some numbers. Hydro has caused the largest single-event catastrophe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Relevantly, some nuclear plants are paired with hydro schemes, in order to make the flat output of nuclear plants economically match the bumpy daytime peak of consumer demand.

The reason why many nuclear plants are colocated with hydroelectric dams is that the dam is good source for cooling water in 3rd cooling loop and that it is good backup power source for black start of the nuclear plant. Ability of nuclear plant to scale its output power according to demand is usually significantly higher than of hydro.

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

#269

Post by mikeash »

yellowapple wrote: post #261
mikeash wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "win," do you mean be worse? Because I think the others mean it as being better, and I'm getting confused.

"Win" was (I'm guessing) used in a negative context to mean "worse", so I used it in a similar way. Kind of like how Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot tend to "win" competitions for murdering the most people.

You think so? I thought they were using "win" to say that nuclear was good, since fossil fuels are much worse on most if not all of those measures.

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

#270

Post by dsfyu404ed »

I find it amusing that HN is so divided on this issue yet quite unanimous distaste for how the middle east treats people and how the far east treats the environment.

Nuclear power will look a lot prettier when it's competing on price with socially and environmentally ethical solar cells and fossil fuels.

Post reply on HN