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Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

technologyreview.com

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Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#101

Post by joecool1029 »

pcr910303 wrote: post #91

Okay, I’m a South Korean citizen. That, is one aspect. Consider another aspect. Nuclear reactors are dangerous. That doesn’t change. We get the Fukushima accident much more prominently because Japan is so close th Korea and everyone (literally everyone) had to worry about eating Fukushima fish. Nuclear reactors are dangerously close to so many cities, and that can’t change, because our country is too small, and there…

> Nuclear reactors are dangerous.

Doesn't Korea have coal? Shows up as over a quarter of your generation. Have you been to a region that uses coal for energy generation and seen what it does to the land? Mining it causes heavy metal pollution of water that kills people, the fish pick up mercury and lead, and people consume the fish. Shouldn't you be more concerned about coal plants in China contaminating your waters?

EDIT: Korea study on mercury sources: https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1309104215302713

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#102

Post by imtringued »

ourlordcaffeine wrote: post #80
rayiner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal can't dispatch fast enough, and most coal plants are at the end of their lifecycle and need to be replaced. So you have to build new baseload capacity, usually gas. (And really, you still need a bunch of batteries to handle short-term fluctuations in renewables output.) The problem, then, is that you have all new coal or gas plants, which are expensive capital assets, that you're basically using for standby powe…

>And really, you still need a bunch of batteries to handle short-term fluctuations in renewables output. Not really the case. Renewable output does not fluctuate fast enough to require the fast response of batteries. Fast responding storage, in the case of the UK pumped hydro, is usually needed due to thermal plants tripping and causing the grid frequency to suddenly nosedive.

Power plant failure also generally happens due to extreme environmental effects. During those events renewable energies often reach their maximum production capacity and therefore actually contribute to grid stability.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#103

Post by cladari »

rurban wrote: post #53

What they didn't explain was that this crazy APR1400 is the same design is the one of most dangerous and experimental US reactors, South Texas and Palo Verde, with vessels of double size and half the security measures. The only ones matching them in size and dangerousness were the experimental Korean 1400 ones.

South Texas is a 4 loop Westinghouse design and Palo Verde is a 2 loop System 80 Combustion Engineering design. Neither is experimental or unusually dangerous.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#104

Post by pjc50 »

arethuza wrote: post #57
davidgay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear weapons are scary, and rightfully so. And they share a word in common with "nuclear power," so there you go. Now you're being specious. They share rather more than a word, they are based on the same physical process.

Yes, but the design of a nuclear power reactor and a nuclear weapon are pretty different - for a start the really nasty bit of most nuclear weapons is the fission of the secondary tamper by neutrons from the fusion component of the secondary. Nothing like that happens in a nuclear power station.

Nuclear weapons require the reactors, and a number were built for plutonium production e.g. Windscale/Sellafield. There are plenty of countries that probably shouldn't be allowed unsupervised reactors for this reason.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#105

Post by imtringued »

saagarjha wrote: post #98
fulafel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but many people are reluctant to give up electricity which is hard to use without metals. But wooden windmills, water mills and heating with fire are tried technology.

Wooden windmills, water mills, and heating with fire are not significant sources of energy.

I don't really see the point of this comparison. If there is a need to give up quality of life why not stop consuming during times when carbon neutral energy is not available?

Low renewable energy production is only a problem for maybe 20 days in a year and those days are not consecutive, they are randomly distributed over the year so gas or battery storage beyond 7 days isn't even needed. It wont be the end of the world as long as we can stop emitting CO2.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#106

Post by mturmon »

jandrese wrote: post #69
mturmon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in particular, Three Mile Island happened in 1979 and crystallized a lot of US opposition to nuclear power. One of the problems it exposed is a too-friendly connection between the NRC and the nuclear power industry. According to a recent book [1], this problem still exists. [1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6424/237

At the same time the NRC is too cozy with the industry it has kept all nuclear projects in the US tied up in red tape for literally decades.

An extended quote from the book review I cited:

Although [former NRC commissioner] Jaczko's account will become standard reading as an antinuclear book, his reasons have more to do with regulation than nuclear energy per se. Jaczko sees two paths ahead. One has a sustainable future with nuclear reactors that includes widespread recognition that accidents will happen and a greater commitment to safety. The other path is the one he witnessed as NRC chairman, featuring waning public trust in a secretive, uncooperative industry that regards safety regulations as unfair and cumbersome.

The problem that plagued the old Atomic Energy Commission [the predecessor agency to the NRC] — that the promoters and regulators were too cozy with each other — is clearly alive and well. Jaczko describes the relationship as a “corrupt, toxic environment.” It may be a hard warning to hear, but it comes from one who had a fuller view of the nuclear regulatory landscape than most.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#107

Post by imtringued »

rayiner wrote: post #42
nickelcitymario wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not if we look at the entire supply chain and the construction of the power plant (whatever the source of power may be). But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal…

> But people don't get as emotional about the resources required to build windmills (so long as it's not in my backyard) as they do about nuclear. And once a windmill or a dam or a solar farm has been built, there's a belief that there's no ongoing environmental damage. Whereas nuclear (and coal and gas) require ongoing resource extraction. But you need massive amounts of battery storage to actually power a grid with…

Why coal or nuclear? Baseload is incompatible with renewables. During peak production of renewables, coal and nuclear can't simply shut down. They are too slow. What happens is that they have to keep running but sell their electricity at a huge loss. Producing energy when you need it the least is bad economics. It's just that simple.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#108

Post by mschuster91 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #95
mschuster91 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This it as tangential to a discussion of nuclear safety compared to the safety of any other power source. No, it is not. No other power source comes even close in the amount of time that has to be covered by insurances. A dam breaks, a gas plant explodes, that's a couple billions of dollars of damage plus a couple billions in payments for the relatives of the dead. For corporations making billions of years in profi…

Forget Munich (don’t but you get my point) what’s the liability of the 40-year old 2GW Indian Point plant, which is constantly receiving safety citations, being 30 miles upwind from NYC? 20 million people live there..

Exactly this. Nuclear power using pressure vessels is simply too dangerous.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#109

Post by imtringued »

bboygravity wrote: post #64
mschuster91 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our coal infrastructure is on the way to be phased out, it won't be around for long-term any more - the Kohlekommission proposed 2035-2038 for the final shutdown, with 12.5 GW of 42.6 GW capacity going offline until 2022 (per https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-01/kohlekommission-kohle... ). What's left will be gas and renewables.

It is planned to be phased out. Just like nuclear. That means that within 15 years Germany will have to replace roughly 70 % of its constant energy sources (nuclear and coals) by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas. Thereby becoming completely reliant on gas from Russia. Creating a massive geopolicital risk that didn't exist previously. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/201... I'…

>by the only scalable constant energy source left: gas.

What makes you think coal and nuclear are scalable? Gas has been the only option from the start and simply switching from coal to gas already results in a 50-60% CO2 reduction.

Re: Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

#110

Post by loeg »

bjourne wrote: post #94
jandrese wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time the NRC is too cozy with the industry it has kept all nuclear projects in the US tied up in red tape for literally decades.

Citation needed! From what I've read the US government has been incredibly supportive of the nuclear industry. For example, both Obama and Trump have secured federal funding for the Vogtle 3 and 4 plants. US public opinion has also been heavily in favor of nuclear power, even after Fukushima. The "red tape is causing all our problems!" seem, to me, to be just a myth spread by the nuclear lobby. https://news.gallup.co…

> US public opinion has also been heavily in favor of nuclear power, even after Fukushima.

Can you source that claim? My personal experience is that people I encounter in the US are pretty nuclear-hostile, but that's just anecdotal.

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