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…
My opinion is that you might underestimate the magnitude of potential nuclear accidents. I think that Germany's decision to decommission over time their nuclear power plants was pretty well studied. Please see: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/...
Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
411–420 of 731 posts
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#412I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…
> I am very concerned for the future of my children that even well educated people (I have these same arguments with my university colleagues) don't realise that. Perhaps it's not very convincing to claim that "a few potential large nuclear explosions due to accident/malice" aren't as bad as an average temperature increase of 1 degree or so. Certainly seems borderline insane to me.
The worst nuclear accidents that could possibly happen have already happened. We couldn't have a worse nuclear power disaster than Lake Karachay even if we tried on purpose. And yet the sum damage they caused is a negligible blip compared to how many people die due to the use of fossil fuels on any given month of any given year.
The environmental impact of nuclear power vs. fossil fuels or even renewables is just a negligible number no matter how you spin it.
I too am confused like the GP poster as to how otherwise intelligent people just break down into baseless fearmongering about imaginary disaster scenarios while ignoring that today's conventional energy industry is literally thousands of times worse.
If every single operational nuclear power plant had a meltdown incident after operating for 20 years, they'd still be orders of magnitude less damaging than what we're doing today. The environmental impact and safety numbers are just that far apart.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#413I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…
I find it puzzling that proponents of nuclear technology make various claims without any calculations to back that up.
'a vital tool agains global warming'? What does that mean in numbers? How many nuclear power plants of what types for what amount of effort would be built in what timeframe for to make any sizeable contribution? How would it work?
A single reactor in the west is >10bn $ and takes a decade or more to build, while not being able to be financed on the market (see the UK).
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I am very concerned for the future of my children that even well educated people (I have these same arguments with my university colleagues) don't realise that. Perhaps it's not very convincing to claim that "a few potential large nuclear explosions due to accident/malice" aren't as bad as an average temperature increase of 1 degree or so. Certainly seems borderline insane to me.
The worst nuclear accidents that could possibly happen have already happened. We couldn't have a worse nuclear power disaster than Lake Karachay even if we tried on purpose. And yet the sum damage they caused is a negligible blip compared to how many people die due to the use of fossil fuels on any given month of any given year. The environmental impact of nuclear power vs. fossil fuels or even renewables is just a n…
far from it. If nuclear fallout had been reached Tokyo, then we would talk about a much greater problem.
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty much because Merkel decided so in the days following Fukushima. Not exactly the result of long term strategy.
That's too simplistic. Retiring nuclear power plants has been the long term goal of the German anti-nuclear movement since the 70s. They were an important faction in the founding of the Green Party. When the Green party came into power in 1998 in a coalition government, they passed a law to retire all nuclear power plants by restricting the remaining energy output they could produce. BTW, this was done in consensus w…
The fact that you missed her name (it’s Angela, not Andrea) makes me doubt the veracity of the rest of your comment.
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just a trade-off of mathematical probabilities. The alleged extreme safety comes with an extreme destructive disasters. When it comes to risk management, the human brain that is bound by evolution to dangers close in time and location, is not capable of assessing the consequences of losing a piece of the planet earth's habitat for millions of years.
The arctic and antarctic regions are literal ninth-circle hellscapes (the ninth circle of hell is the one that is frozen over). Significantly worse than the areas around Chernobyl which is apparently well on the way to becoming a national park. I'm not sure that there is a 'risk' that the human brain can't process. Risk of what, exactly? Huge cost to the generation that has to move, massive risk if it hits farmland,…
The term national park is a euphemism, considering that all life forms in this exclusion zone suffer from genetic diseases.
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#417Nuclear is a political non-starter. No one wants to live near a nuclear power plant, and people tend to fight tooth and nail to fight the placement of nuclear power anywhere near them. The result of this is that nuclear power plants get foisted onto communities that don't have the political clout to fight them, or get thrown where there isn't anyone to fight. What ends up happening is that power plants get placed by politics instead of by science and engineering.
Further, it appears (at least to me) that proponents of nuclear underestimate the degree to which we (as a species) underpredict the likelihood of catastrophic events. In general, we're pretty bad at assessing the risk of so-called "black swans," but when the downside is so high, I understand why people are skeptical.
I personally am pro-nuclear, for many of the reasons described in the article, though I don't think the case is as clear cut as most nuclear proponents. On a rational level, I can understand that the likelihood of disaster is vanishingly small. I still don't want to live anywhere close to a nuclear power plant.
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#418nuclear power is also a local maxima. It won't be enough in the long run and it comes with it's own set of problems that are way too similar to our current fossil fuel problems. Do you want to get stuck at this local maxima? It will be extremely hard to get out of it once it's needed.
Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you that I don't think we can make nuclear safe. But if the choice seems to be between millions of deaths from global warming or thousands of deaths from nuclear, isn't the latter vastly preferable? Shouldn't we set out and build out nuclear to steer us away from the edge, and then worry about better solutions once we're safe? I suspect the reason people don't buy this argument is that they don't truly b…
Can you provide a timeline and justification on "millions of deaths from global warming". Why can't be invest the money in better alternatives and save the same "millions of lives" with actually sustainable tech that doesn't produce what you are describing as "thousands of deaths"
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Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize
#420I am flabbergasted that some commenters here argue against nuclear because of waste and accidents, while ignoring that - coal produce radioactive waste too - it kills a lot more persons (without taking into account global warning) due to air pollution - the economic cost of nuclear may be underestimated, but this is nothing compared to the economic cost of global warming. Renewable (wind and solar) are extremely impo…
And I am flabbergasted (again) because of the pro nuclear power comments. Why should we create energy from something so complicated and hard to control when we have something simple and easy to grasp like water, solar and windpower? I understand statistically speaking a nuclear power plant is save, but the risk is calculated by multiplying propability of occurance and potential loss. The potential loss in a maximum credible accident of a power plant is much much higher than in any other form of energy generation.
Sure, we can build nuclear power plants, but let's make sure that we have used our potential for wind-, water- and solar power generation first (besides other stuff, like having good insulation on buildings, LEDs, etc).
I also feel like people are pro- or contra nuclear power to show their alliance to their political parties more than for rational reasons. We should stop that.