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Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#131

Post by helpme3 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #34
hugi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima was an excellent demonstration of what can happen. You devastate huge areas of land and make them unlivable for generations. This is especially applicable to the United States that has proven entirely unable to handle it's own nuclear waste and just accumulates it at the sites where it's generated, waiting for disaster to happen.

Huge areas of land unlivable for generations is an overstatement. Fukishima and Chernobyl exclusion zones are lush green forests that where wildlife thrives.

The wildlife isn't exactly thriving, but I guess getting dosed is better than human contact for most species: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/science/nature-adapts-to-...

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#132

Post by godelski »

detaro wrote: post #117
acidburnNSA wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you read it? I'm looking for quantitative data and see: "Belastung von 0,008 Millisievert zur Folge." If this is 8 microsieverts... what's the timescale? 8 microsieverts is quite small compared to everyday things like cosmic rays [1]. [1] https://xkcd.com/radiation/

It's for a 200g portion of (relatively highly contaminated) mushrooms, not a timescale.

I'm going to save everyone some time here. acidburnNSA is a reactor scientist (he pops up in most of these nuclear threads). He's leading you on because your information is bad. Fact is that food didn't get to dangerous levels. (I'd trust the domain expert)

Pulling from __ph__'s link (and a google translate).

> The consumption of 200 grams of mushrooms containing 3,000 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram results in a load of 0.008 millisieverts. This corresponds to the radiation exposure during a flight from Frankfurt to Gran Canaria.

> In Germany, it is not permitted to market foods with a radio cesium content of more than 600 becquerels per kilogram. For self-consumption, this restriction does not apply.

(may notice here how overly cautious we tend to be with radioactive dosages.)

> If venison or wild mushrooms are consumed in normal amounts, the additional radiation exposure is comparatively low, but avoidable.

To summarize the article:

Wild mushrooms and some wild life may have higher than normal radiation levels. Take caution if you intend to consume vast amounts of quantities. You'll probably be fine, but why risk? If you are only taking "normal" amounts then there is no concern.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#133

Post by desuyone »

How about we put the reactors in the middle of the desert, then there is no danget of killing a city and no risk of nuclear material leaking into the sea. You really don't need that many people to staff a reactor and if you really do, you can always build a train so people don't need to live close. I know power transmission is an issue. But we have gotten a lot better at that as well, with things like that big DC underwater powerline from scandinavia to the middle of europe.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#134

Post by detaro »

godelski wrote: post #132
detaro wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for a 200g portion of (relatively highly contaminated) mushrooms, not a timescale.

I'm going to save everyone some time here. acidburnNSA is a reactor scientist (he pops up in most of these nuclear threads). He's leading you on because your information is bad. Fact is that food didn't get to dangerous levels. (I'd trust the domain expert) Pulling from __ph__'s link (and a google translate). > The consumption of 200 grams of mushrooms containing 3,000 becquerels of cesium-137 per kilogram results in…

I can read the article, I was merely providing the information asked for and letting people come to their own conclusion.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#135

Post by lstodd »

ajross wrote: post #116
jjordan wrote: post #58

Generation III+ reactors are orders of magnitude safer than everything else that was built before the turn of the century. China is actually leading the charge right now, with AP1000 reactors under construction. One of the plants just went live last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable.

> The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable. Early reactors were hailed as paragons of safety too. Fukushima, remember, had a triply-redundant (or whatever) power supply to ensure that cooling power could be provided even in the event of a simultaneous meltdown and grid failure. Oops. I mean, look. It's... fine. Go nuclear. I agree with you, that these are probably safe designs and are probably…

> But in a world where we can build out solar and wind as cheaply as we can gas plants

It might be that your world is Arizona desert.

Please do not dive into latitudianizm.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#136

Post by est31 »

lstodd wrote: post #127
est31 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we won't build those reactor types any more. But they are still operational, and this is what matters. There is a huge incentive in keeping them operational as the major cost of nuclear energy is building the reactor. Already built reactors don't incur that cost any more so they make loads of money for their operators, especially when they are old and "mortage free". Due to this gigantic incentive, every politi…

There are 11 still in operation, and heavily modified to not allow anything like that thirty-year old disaster. If this bullshit cloud over nuclear got dissolved they'd be replaced with much more safe design. Instead they are forced to continue operation because nothing new can be built. Because of unfounded fears. That's what caused the Fukushima disaster. No new plants - no decommisioning of old plants - old plants…

> If this bullshit cloud over nuclear got dissolved they'd be replaced with much more safe design.

I've outlined above why this doesn't happen. Japan has been severely pro-nuclear in the 80s and 90s, and built tons of reactors, yet they only decommisioned a single old reactor in the 80s and 90s, according to this list [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_reactors#Japan

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#137

Post by skookumchuck »

scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

Or just put the generators on stilts, in a bunker, or simply hardened them against flooding.

There were other design flaws, too, like venting hydrogen inside the building rather than outside.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#138

Post by eMSF »

pfdietz wrote: post #57
quelsolaar wrote: post #31

Nuclear is not a viable solution, due to public opinion. A nuclear reactor has an incident once every 10.000 years. If we divide that with the number of reactors we get an accident every 30 or so years. (Harrisburg, Chernobyl, Fukusima, ligns up well with that) Every time there is an accident, the public turns against nuclear for 5-10 years. Add to that that it takes a decade to plan and build a reactor, and you real…

No, nuclear is sadly not a viable solution, due to cost. If nuclear were affordable it would be pushed through regardless of opposition. But it has just not worked out. The people with the money saw what happened at Vogtle and Summer (and also at Flamanville, Olkiluoto, Hinkley Point). Those efforts to make nuclear affordable failed spectacularly, even with public and government support. Westinghouse and Areva were j…

Olkiluoto was not an exercise to make nuclear power affordable. The company was granted with a permission to build a single reactor, the first permit in decades, so they chose the most powerful one available, a first of its kind.

With all the overruns, it has certainly proved to be an expensive build. However, it's all been done with private money, unlike the so called cheap renewables that cost the public hundreds of millions in subsidies.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#139

Post by godelski »

DennisP wrote: post #73
pfdietz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, nuclear is sadly not a viable solution, due to cost. If nuclear were affordable it would be pushed through regardless of opposition. But it has just not worked out. The people with the money saw what happened at Vogtle and Summer (and also at Flamanville, Olkiluoto, Hinkley Point). Those efforts to make nuclear affordable failed spectacularly, even with public and government support. Westinghouse and Areva were j…

Half the article was about the reasons costs are so much higher in the U.S. than South Korea, and how to fix it.

I never buy the cost problem. I mean look at France. That's another great example. Has some of the cheapest electricity and is 75% nuclear.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#140

Post by davrosthedalek »

yongjik wrote: post #122
est31 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't just count deaths and conclude that a nuclear catastrophy isn't that bad. Far more people had to evacuate their home, having to leave most of their belongings behind. And most times with no or too little compensation. Sure, nuclear is prefferable to coal but that doesn't mean that both shouldn't be gotten rid of.

I couldn't find a definite number, but the total number of people who evacuated are somewhere around 100-200k. (Every source has different numbers because the zone kept changing, I guess.) Meanwhile, coal emission kills ~1M every year, or ~100k every month. (I guess the numbers are just an order-of-magnitude estimate, so take them with a grain of salt.) So, during the month of Fukushima disaster (the second worst nuc…

Also, coal mining, especially surface mining, displaces people too.
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