51–60 of 106 posts
In difficult times, those with power will always choose to hurt the weakest. Something to remember going forward.
Seems like this isn't so true now with the COVID crisis. Lots of talk about giving everyone checks. Lots of companies continuing to pay workers who aren't working. What drives your statement?
I used to be pro-nuclear, but here in South Africa, we can't even keep our coal plants running - nevermind nuclear. Last week a 930MW nuclear turbine at Koeberg went down because the cooling pump filters had not been cleaned in years and was filled with fish and jellyfish. Small-scale, independent solar producers and perhaps geothermal or CSP (molten salt) seem to be the only strategies that can work. There will alwa…
> There will always be corruption, war and fraud. To be pro-nuclear, you have to guarantee political stability for 100+ years, and I don't think many places could guarantee that. Indeed. This is the crux of it. Nuclear run by the US military? Very safe. Nuclear (as a power source, not talking munitions) run by the rest of the world as a commercial operation? Fraught with peril. I'm not anti-nuclear; I'm anti-humans-r…
https://news.mongabay.com/2013/06/burning-coal-responsible-f...
A NASA estimate is that the use of nuclear power has saved approximately 1.8 million lives in the years 1971-2009.
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/
Long term, coal usage is also obviously a big driver of climate change. What many don't realize is that natural gas, it might be as bad for climate change as coal due to methane releases during the extraction and transportation of n
History will not look kindly on those who want to shut down nuclear power and keep coal and natural gas.
Unfortunately trying to rely only on intermittent power sources has huge storage requirements due to weather along with daily/seasonal variation. If grid energy storage was a simple problem it would have been done decades ago. For example, one estimate is that for Germany to rely on solar and wind would require about 6,000 pumped storage plants which is 183 times their current capacity:
>...Based on German hourly feed-in and consumption data for electric power, this paper studies the storage and buffering needs resulting from the volatility of wind and solar energy. It shows that joint buffers for wind and solar energy require less storage capacity than would be necessary to buffer wind or solar energy alone. The storage requirement of over 6,000 pumped storage plants, which is 183 times Germany’s current capacity, would nevertheless be huge.
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/144985/1/cesifo1_wp5...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see you've never personally experienced the US military... Kidding aside, while many service members do uphold their oath honorably, there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability. And to the grandparent, the military does run reactors outside of ships (but typically for research as far as I know)
> I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the mili…
I used to be pro-nuclear, but here in South Africa, we can't even keep our coal plants running - nevermind nuclear. Last week a 930MW nuclear turbine at Koeberg went down because the cooling pump filters had not been cleaned in years and was filled with fish and jellyfish. Small-scale, independent solar producers and perhaps geothermal or CSP (molten salt) seem to be the only strategies that can work. There will alwa…
Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fue…
increased cancer rates in Belarus (especially in Mogilev and Homel regions - the regions which took the brunt of Chernobyl and where the breast cancer rate for example is double) produce several thousand extra deaths per year. I wonder how a natural gas power plant - the present day alternative to nuclear - would be able to kill so many people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
People are advised not to eat too much tuna, because coal polluted the entire ocean with mercury. The worst nuclear disasters pale in comparison to what we did with fossil fuels.
It is much easier to ask people to reduce tuna consumption, than to relocate 100,000+ people, as happened in Fukushima.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I see you've never personally experienced the US military I see you haven't bothered to actually look at the record. The U.S. Navy has decades of operating many nuclear reactors on ships and submarines with no incidents. > there's plenty of non-compliance and outright malfeasance without accountability Not in the U.S. Navy's nuclear program. Even what would be considered minor infractions in other parts of the mili…
The Navy has the advantage that they don’t have the same cost pressure a civilian reactor has. I am pretty sure their MW/$ cost is much higher than would be acceptable for a nuclear power plant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fue…
This isn't really the criticism that the OP is making. Coal may kill more people, but it doesn't irradiate the surrounding area for hundreds of years if something goes wrong. Personally, I agree that nuclear is probably not anti-fragile enough to be a widespread solution. Political instability is the norm, not the rarity, throughout history.
Actually, coal irradiates the surrounding area when it is working properly, and it adds to global warming at the same time, it can do both!
To be clear, the major concern with nuclear disaster is ground water contamination. That is, the reactor melts through and the corium gets into the groundwater, contaminating it with radiation.
After initial evacuation, most of the elements that spread have a relatively short half life and decay quickly. The heavy elements are too heavy to get blown around, but they can irradiate other things (like water) that can get around fairly easily.
Chernobyl was a special case because they actually blew up the reactor, and their graphite moderator caught fire, so you got lots of radioactive smoke. Most plants use water or heavy water as a moderator, so at least it doesn't catch fire in a disaster (the steam cloud isn't that great either, but at least it doesn't stick to stuff).
Anyway, agree with your anti-fragile opinion in terms of the current (ancient) reactor designs. We really need a new design if it is going to be viable over a longer term.
I used to be pro-nuclear, but here in South Africa, we can't even keep our coal plants running - nevermind nuclear. Last week a 930MW nuclear turbine at Koeberg went down because the cooling pump filters had not been cleaned in years and was filled with fish and jellyfish. Small-scale, independent solar producers and perhaps geothermal or CSP (molten salt) seem to be the only strategies that can work. There will alwa…
Actually, when the alternative is fossil fuels (and it frequently is), you only have to understand that, even if your nuclear reactor goes kaboom, it will still kill less people than your fossil fuel plant that does not blow up. And please don't give me "we should all use less energy." Even if we should all use less energy, it's still better to generate this less energy from nuclear, as long as we're using fossil fue…
So, no, nuclear disasters did actually kill people and objectively more than coal power plants.
"The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday ordered ¥1 million in additional damages be paid each to some 300 evacuees from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, down by two-thirds from the amount awarded by a lower court ruling."
"Additional damages" vs "down by two-thirds"
If it's down by two-thirds, it's not additional, its a reduction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but a person with an AK-47 and TNT isn’t safe regardless of the setting
A person with an AK-47 and TNT can't render vast tracts of land uninhabitable for decades in the way that nuclear waste can. I am very pro-nuclear in the US (and the EU etc.), but I think the concern about nuclear in potentially unstable nations is absolutely valid.