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Out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest

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

#491

Post by CydeWeys »

eli wrote: post #465
komali2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's like saying your car is fine when it's smashed upside-down in a ditch on the side of the highway. I'd argue it's more like saying your car is safe when it's smashed upside-down in a ditch on the side of the highway. It is safe. The safest minivan is fantastically safe. Then it smashes into a semi truck at 80 mph and everyone dies. It was still a safe car, when compared to other cars.

Indeed, some people would therefore conclude we'd all be better off focusing on ways to get around that don't involve driving...

That's a perfectly valid and logical conclusion, and indeed there are many big companies you've heard of (including Waymo, Tesla, Uber, and many conventional auto manufacturers) who are working on precisely that.

Nuclear can similarly be phased out like human-driven vehicles will be.

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

#492

Post by nnfy »

beat wrote: post #480
nnfy wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats borderline ludditeism. We can't detect CO or even CO2, should that stop us from using fire?

The most pressing problem facing humanity today is "using fire" - that is, CO2 generation from fossil fuel.

That has nothing to do with the nonsense that we should avoid using something powerful or dangerous simply because our human senses are not equipped to detect it. You are literally surrounded by toxicity in modern materials, power transmission, and machinery. 110 volts is enough to arc and create ozone. Basements can accumulate radon. Cooking can release toxic gasses. These are not reasons alone to avoid modern conveniences.

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

#493

Post by prewett »

This article severely underestimates the number of deaths by nuclear power by not considering the deaths caused by leakage of radioactive materials over the course of the next 10,000 years. In fact, there really isn't any way to know that number for another 500 years at least.

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

#494

Post by dpark »

beat wrote: post #437
dpark wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not, but the waste from solar panel manufacturing might. http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-... > The paper’s investigation, published in March 2008, profiled a Chinese polysilicon facility owned by Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., located near the Yellow River in the country’s Henan province. This facility supplied polysilicon to Suntech Power Holdings, at the time the world’s l…

That's not a particularly good argument, though. Are companies manufacturing solar panels breaking environmental laws to cut costs? Probably. Are companies manufacturing nuclear power components with exotic materials not breaking environmental laws to cut costs? Um.

Moving manufacturing/construction out of China and into the US increases regulatory oversight. It's very likely that nuclear manufacturing done in the US is cleaner than solar manufacturing done in China.

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

#495

Post by acuozzo »

mncolinlee wrote: post #434

Not true. In the short run, solar is the safest. A massive spill of solar energy is just called a nice day. In the long run, it's the most dangerous. The sun may eventually consume the Earth and much later, go nova.

> In the short run, solar is the safest.

The externalities of the production and disposal of solar panels cannot be ignored in this kind of assessment.

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

#496

Post by dpark »

okreallywtf wrote: post #455
beat wrote: post #369

Of course, this is only comparing to fossil sources, not solar, wind, or other renewables (except biomass). I don't think this is going to matter in the end, though. The best, most optimistic arguments the nuclear proponents can make would still take 20-30 years to build out enough to make a standard-deviation difference in greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, solar/wind are already hitting production costs that rival or be…

This is the thing I don't get about nuclear proponents. While I'm not an opponent, we can scale sustainable energy sources now, we could have a Manhattan project type of program that, while costly, could replace the majority of our energy sources as fast as we can manufacture the panels and turbines. There is so much lead time in building a nuclear plant, it costs so much and then continues to be pretty costly in mai…

Solar and wind don't provide predictable power. Even places with high reliance on these tend to have an ongoing dependency on coal (or nuclear) to handle times when supply from renewables drops.

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

#497

Post by ekianjo »

Spooky23 wrote: post #357
ekianjo wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what is the alternative in the meantime? Everyone breathing coal particles and many people dying of lung cancer before their time? How is the current energy production safe by anY standards? did you even read the article ?

Natural gas, wind, solar, hydro where available.

apart from gas none of the sources you mentioned are short term solutions.

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

#498

Post by rtx »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #484
Animats wrote: post #458

It doesn't kill many people, because even when there's a disaster, there's time to evacuate. But you lose an entire city once in a while. Major reactor disasters so far: - SL-1. Steam explosion due to control rod lifted too far during maintenance. Small experimental reactor, built in the middle of nowhere (Idaho Reactor Test Station) for good reason. Inherently unsafe design. - Three Mile Island. Meltdown due to cool…

> Some of the recently-touted small reactor designs try to omit a containment vessel on the grounds that their design couldn't possibly melt down. That's probably not a good approach. Agreed, but, fail-safe and walkaway-safe designs coupled with moderate containment vessels seem like a good medium. It is all about mitigating risk. I don't think we should ever accept that a design has actual 0 risk for meltdown, but,…

Even if there is a meltdown it will have localized environmental impact. Which will self correct in few centuries. Greenhouse gases are affecting the whole planet, same with minerals for batteries.

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

#499

Post by meri_dian »

Flying used to much more dangerous than it is now. But we improved the technology and now it's safe enough that most don't think twice before getting on a plane.

Discussions of nuclear power somehow ignore the fact that, like any other technology, current reactor designs are not the final iteration. They can be improved upon.

Look the Chinese Pebble Bed reactor: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600757/china-could-have-a...

If everyone aside from the Chinese ignore nuclear power, then the Chinese may be the ones making a fortune selling their advanced reactor designs to everyone else.

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

#500

Post by lispm »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #420
lispm wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Calder_Hall_nuclear... Early commercial nuclear reactors, here the British Calder Hall Power Station, were producing plutionium and electricity.

That was more or less a prototype. No one uses power reactors to produce plutonium. It just isn't done.

The UK had 26 of these Magnox reactors for electricity production. These nuclear reactors were coming out of military technology and some of them were built and operated for dual use: Plutonium production and energy production.

The UK now sits on around 140 tons of plutonium from fuel reprocessing...

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