Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 142 posts

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#31

Post by munk-a »

Sigh... we really need more functional nuclear plants that aren't built to use technology from the 70s. I suspect that one reason Bernie is against new nuclear plant creation is the absolute debacle that was Vermont Yankee[1]. Even a lot of pro and pro-ish nuclear folks in Vermont got pretty disheartened by the whole affair.

These plants cost insane capital to get running and mismanagement can cause serious problems, so economic pressures tightening belts (or just greed for higher profits) is a constant force fighting against safety... Newer reactor designs contain much safer critical failure outcomes that could allow them to safely operate - even within the constant profit pressure of modern culture.

1. General information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_P...

List of articles from VTDigger on the topic: https://vtdigger.org/tag/decommission-vermont-yankee/

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#32

Post by jodrellblank »

kingpiss wrote: post #11

Nuclear seems like the best hope for humanity, really a shame people are so afraid of it. Although, I guess the fear is justified given how many disasters there have been.

https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm... casts doubt on the future of Nuclear growing anywhere near enough to be a best-hope; scaling it up to world energy production of 15TW seems infeasible - burning through the available Uranium supplies in ~5 years - even scaling it up to 1TW would stretch many resources used in nuclear reactor construction such as rare elements.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#33

Post by thiagomgd »

jeltz wrote: post #17
jgwil2 wrote: post #6

Same thing happened in Germany. This is a really hard problem. I consider myself pretty pro-nuclear but it can never be 100% safe. I can't blame Japan for wanting out after Fukushima, but at the same time there has to be some kind of approach that balances short-term safety against the long-term consequences of carbonization.

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

if a windmill falls/explodes, the area wouldn't be unliveable and contaminated for centuries...

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#34

Post by Mythanar »

nicoburns wrote: post #26
jeltz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...

Are you really? If you’re involved in nuclear accident, you get to live anywhere from days to months to years to decades. Even in the worst of the worst cases (you literally touched the fuel rod), you will have time to say farewells to the family, perhaps even write a will.

With hydroelectric accident you drown. The end.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#35

Post by makomk »

throaway1990 wrote: post #3

This is just sad, I thought the regression of civilization described in Foundation by Issac Asimov was far fetched BS. How wrong I was! This is the exact example he uses in his books.

Sort of, but not really. Asimov worried about us losing the knowledge of nuclear power, and whilst there's a little of that what's really lead to its demise is that as we've learnt more about what's needed to build and operate it over the years it's become less and less viable.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#36

Post by smegger001 »

munk-a wrote: post #25
joshvm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common argument used to be that at least the amount of uranium is finite, so we can simply plan where to put it. Another interesting aspect is that we only have a few centuries of nuclear power left at current reserve and consumption rates. Uranium is absolutely a non renewable fuel. This could change with breeder reactors or the various fancy things being researched, but I think there is a public perception that u…

Uranium mined on earth is a finite quantity - but I think the carve-outs you included in your statement are quite wide. We may find a way to artificially produce a high energy substance to use in place of Uranium, and other high number elements may provide alternatives for the primary fuel - additionally space may be an option to find new sources of Uranium if we really want to stick with it. "Peak oil" has been a va…

there are other fission fuel sources, thorium for example is a relatively abundant possible fuel

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#37

Post by zetazzed »

nicoburns wrote: post #26
jeltz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...

Hydro disasters can be dams bursts and are no joke! Thousands dead, towns wiped away, stuff like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure

Luckily not that common especially with well-maintained dams. But it was a huge fear with the Mosul dam in Iraq, which was expected to put over a million lives at risk during the ISIL insurgency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam

I'm not anti-hydro at all! But it's important to understand how powerful these dams are...

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#38

Post by entropyneur »

nicoburns wrote: post #26
jeltz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Suddenly, Chernobyl doesn't sound that bad anymore.

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#39

Post by shawndrost »

lispm wrote: post #20
jgwil2 wrote: post #6

Same thing happened in Germany. This is a really hard problem. I consider myself pretty pro-nuclear but it can never be 100% safe. I can't blame Japan for wanting out after Fukushima, but at the same time there has to be some kind of approach that balances short-term safety against the long-term consequences of carbonization.

> Same thing happened in Germany. Germany turned to coal? It didn't happen. Germany actually turned to renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...

It did happen. Germany has shut down most of its nuclear power generation and is phasing the rest out by 2022. So far, 'researchers [..] found that nuclear power was mostly replaced with power from coal plants, which led to [..] about a 5 percent increase in emissions.'

https://www.wired.com/story/germany-rejected-nuclear-poweran...

Re: Japan Turns to Coal After Closing Nuclear Power Plants

#40

Post by munk-a »

smegger001 wrote: post #36
munk-a wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uranium mined on earth is a finite quantity - but I think the carve-outs you included in your statement are quite wide. We may find a way to artificially produce a high energy substance to use in place of Uranium, and other high number elements may provide alternatives for the primary fuel - additionally space may be an option to find new sources of Uranium if we really want to stick with it. "Peak oil" has been a va…

there are other fission fuel sources, thorium for example is a relatively abundant possible fuel

And actually, to this point, molten salt reactors[1] are one of the reactor search paths that looks pretty promising for better safety outcomes. Especially when compared against boiling water reactors[2].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor

Post reply on HN