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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

#651

Post by _Tev »

beat wrote: post #447
sliverstorm wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ignores another factor- we've been decommissioning nuclear and replacing it with natural gas & coal capacity while we wait for the eventual renewable ramp.

Yes, but that's not an effective argument for building new plants in the face of my critique. It's possibly an argument for delaying the decommissioning of older nuclear plants, but those decommissions are probably due to age-related safety concerns - the owners would likely prefer to keep the old plant running, if possible. I've argued elsewhere for a flat-out ban on new domestic coal-fired plants. Coal is by far th…

It IS an effective argument when public accepts solutions like Energiewende - ignore age of nuclear plants and decomisdion them all while building coal capacity.

Guess why so many people like nuclear when observing such stupidity.

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

#652

Post by ntpl »

jbg_ wrote: post #383
outworlder wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you tell me something "completely eliminates" the possibility of failure in complex industrial design - you're being emotional rather than logical. No. Modern reactor designs are actually designed in a way that makes it difficult to maintain the reaction. If you are not actively maintaining it, then it will stop on its own. This is opposed to the most common existing designs, where you need to expend effort to…

> This is not to say that they cannot fail in some novel ways. So, then, they do not "completely eliminate" the possibility of failure. Your last sentence seems to contradict the "No." at the beginning of your reply.

To be fair, Recurecur said:

> New reactor designs completely eliminate the possibility of meltdown.

not necessarily of any failure, to which they were willing to accept that things can fail in novel ways, just not meltdowns in their view.

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

#653

Post by _Tev »

Tomte wrote: post #273
mrb wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" They have been playing with catastrophes of a magnitude we can't really comprehend " Did you even read the article? Statistics show you that nuclear is safer. Coal/oil/etc actually kill about 1000× more people than nuclear per TWh generated.

No, you're wrong. The statistics are based on "what happened so far" and "what we think could happen if things got really bad". The last part has been proven untrue time and again. Every single time nuclear proponents said "that cannot happen" and after it happened they found a new fallback position "okay, that could happen, but it cannot ever get worse".

You do realize it actually is not getting worse? Fukushima barely killed any people, while Chernobyl has ~100 casualties. The radiation of areas around Chernobyl is bigger and more lasting than those of Fukushima.

Not to mention these are 50yo plants, and new ones are just better (whether or not you believe the tests/physics behind that).

It is disingenuous to claim nuclear plant safety is getting worse.

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

#654

Post by HeavyStorm »

hueving wrote: post #222
lispm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy was politicized from day minus one. It was developed out of government driven military technology. In day zero nuclear energy was set up by politicians: goals, strategies, financing, deployment, risk handling, etc. Everything was coming from energy politics. Investments were directed and the market&regulations for nuclear were set up. Government largely financed it and insures it. The large scale, the…

>It was developed out of government driven military technology That's not a justification. The internet was also developed out of DARPA. Most of silicon valley exists because of cold war electronics warfare research, etc.

Agree, but he has a point. First application of the internet wasn't mass destruction.

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

#655

Post by matt4077 »

brianpan wrote: post #390
jsonne wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no biologist or scientist of any sort, but it seems this is a problem with all apex predators to some degree. You get to the top of the food chain by adapting to and being highly reactive to short term and catastrophic risk. Once you get there you have to do a 180 and suddenly be highly attuned to subtle and long term issues to stay there. It's simply a different skill set and frame of mind.

Is there anything in all of biology that IS attuned to subtle and long-term issues? I think I would argue that we are the closest to that.

Yes, of course. Long-term issues aren't any different than others; they only need longer (more generations) to manifest.

One class (meta-)examples are all mechanism actually promoting mutation, or other methods of genetic variation: Horizontal gene transfer is interesting in this regard. It's the ability to incorporate snippets of DNA the organism comes across.

These mechanisms are an adaptation to the "known unknowns": what if a new pathogen appears, or the environment (temperature, radiation, salinity etc) suddenly changes? To achieve some flexibility, these mechanisms make trade-offs, usually sacrificing short-term reproductive success.

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

#656

Post by mSparks43 »

godelski wrote: post #629
mSparks43 wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what ive read about nuclear technology, the reason the west has big non salt reactors is that they wanted them for making nuclear bombs. providing energy was a by product of making nuclear weapons. That also accounts for much of the delays, they are using the tech for so many naughty things they need to wait for staff turnover on the project so no one knows too much about what they are doing. So while I agree we…

> wanted them for making nuclear bombs This was definitely a big part, but there's a lot that goes into it. Things like enrichment plants. The proportions of 235 vs 238 is substantially different in a bomb vs power plant. This is how we can tell what the Iranians are doing. So using big uranium plants is an excuse to make a lot of 235 and 239Pu. But just because the past was focused on war efforts, doesn't mean the f…

By design.

People will oppose/support whatever they are told to as a general rule.

if facts mattered, we would never of had a majority of people supporting the dropping of white phosphorus on the kids of Iraq (at the time)

It wasnt that long ago people were being told wind and solar "would never be green" due to the manufacturing costs.

But none of that changes the basic question. how would you balance the over design v speed trade off. Especially when every change to the initial design adds a few mill $'s to the bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/climate/nuclear-power-pro...

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

#657

Post by novalis78 »

cinquemb wrote: post #182
novalis78 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - at which point I love to mention Thorcon Power and the amount of obstacles that they faced in the US only to have to go abroad and start building their absolutely incredible design and test reactor in Indonesia. Sad.

Wow, I have to try to meet these folks. As an US expat here, I think Indonesia seems to have a promising future.

If you do, let me know. Wish them all the best.

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

#658

Post by lispm »

_Tev wrote: post #644
hrktb wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What this car comparison is missing is that people accept cars getting crushed into flat metal sheets. Agree or not, as a society we have accepted that traffic accident is a problem we don't want to pay the price to solve. A "safe" car is just a mildly safer death trap. In comparison, people haven't accepted that reactors would go shit and somewhat kill hundreds of people and trash whole regions for hundreds of years…

You have your facts wrong. Fukushima didn't kill even ten people, let alone hundreds. The region got so small radiation dose it is already basically harmless ... Decontamination efforts will make it pass even irrational radiation safety levels within 10-20 years. "hundreds" of years is therefore stupid hyperbole. Public has not accepted nuclear risks because it is ridiculously misinformed. Don't spread pointless fear…

Why design robots to work in the wrecked reactors, when there are people without this irrational fear of radiation?

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

#659

Post by okreallywtf »

_Tev wrote: post #648
okreallywtf wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we can't really scale nuclear, not in any kind of reasonable time frame. Take this for example [1], billions of dollars and decades to finish. Nobody thinks there won't be a transition period where we have to use existing coal, natural gas and nuclear but in terms of what we should be investing in right now, sustainable should be the focus I think. I have no issue with new nuclear plants where it makes sense, but…

You forgot the link

My bad - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/climate/nuclear-power-pro...

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

#660

Post by okreallywtf »

_Tev wrote: post #647
beat wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we'll be able to solve the storage-grid engineering problems and scale solar faster than we would be able to scale nuclear. Nuclear is expensive to build.

Please compare it with how expensive energy storage is.

I don't think storage is really the ideal long term solution either, storage is more short term and is more like a buffer I think. The ideal is having large interconnected grids with a great diversity of sources. We essentially have the technology right now, its just a matter of building the infrastructure which nobody is really willing to foot the bill for even though its needed for everyone.
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