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Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#31

Post by burgerbrain »

lukeqsee wrote: post #19
danenania wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 upvotes. Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE . It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can never control without a small but inevitable risk of horrible damage and harm to unlucky populations. In controlling power of this magnitude, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or freak events that allow this power to seep out of whatever is the lates…

> There's a reason no coal power plant has ever been paid quite as much attention as Fukushima, isn't there? Yes. There is a reason: sensationalism .

Exactly. The only coal incident that has gotten anywhere near the amount of attention it deserves is Centralia Pennsylvania. (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Centralia,_Pe...)

That's just a dramatic case that makes for good soundbites though, unbelievable more places have been rendered effectively uninhabitable by coal mining, to say nothing of the damage it does to local food sources (acid rivers anyone?)

The thought that nuclear is more dangerous, or has done more damage, than coal, comes from nothing but ignorance of the coal industry and it's history.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#33

Post by marze »

When I see a story like this, it reminds me that the events in Japan represent the biggest PR challenge the nuclear industry has faced in many years. Fifty billion dollars of nuclear reactor US taxpayer-backed loan guarantees hang in the balance.

The industry has been working for the past few decades to rehabilitate the image of nuclear power after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and now they have to contend with videos of a 1/2 mile tall mushroom cloud over a Japanese reactor and the continuing press coverage. Talk about challenging.

I think the HN community may have difficulty appreciating the challenges of nuclear reactor design because it is so different from software. In software, you have known bugs and unknown bugs. Once you've got the known bugs down to a low enough level and aren't finding too many new ones, you might release. The consequences of a bug is generally not too bad, certainly not on the order of making 800 square miles of real estate worthless, for example.

In engineering a nuclear plant, you have 90 tons of nuclear fuel generating 3,000,000,000 J of heat every second. The only reason it doesn't immediately turn into a big bubbling blob of molten uranium is that pumps the size of SUVs are pumping water over the fuel and removing all that heat. Every nuclear plant in the world is one minute from 90 tons of fuel melting into the basement if the water flow stops and fall-back systems fail. Fortunately, the engineering on these plants is done extremely carefully, with multiple independent systems in place to prevent exactly this by halting the nuclear chain reactions with neutron absorbing rods as well as by ensuring the flow of cooling water.

However, the events in Japan exposed an "unknown bug" in the design, that if you flood the basements of the plants with water you can lose backup power and coolant flow. While this particular "bug" is relatively easy to correct, it is a reminder that other unknown bugs may exist waiting to be exposed by other unexpected sets of circumstances.

It is good to remember Richard Feynman's quote about the space shuttle Challenger disaster, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#34

Post by danenania »

michaelchisari wrote: post #18
danenania wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 upvotes. Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE . It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can never control without a small but inevitable risk of horrible damage and harm to unlucky populations. In controlling power of this magnitude, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or freak events that allow this power to seep out of whatever is the lates…

What is that reason, exactly? When Banqauio kills 171,000, Bhopal kills 10,000, and 30,000 people die every year from coal pollution, why exactly don't we give energy production methods like that the kind of scrutiny we're giving Fukushima?

Uh, maybe we ought to give them both a lot more scrutiny? I'm not trying to champion coal power here. Fuck coal power. I'm just pointing out the obvious: nuclear power is dangerous.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#35

Post by burgerbrain »

VladRussian wrote: post #20
DarkShikari wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've drank milk and eaten meat contaminated by poisonous chemicals from coal power plants for your whole life. Not a single person has died yet from the Fukushima disaster, yet millions of people have died from ailments caused by coal power plants. Why is that kind of contamination just fine? I find it incredibly offensive to see the Americans on this board downplaying the damage from Fukushima. Perhaps we should f…

why to promote that false dichotomy - either nuclear or coal. There are other options, better nuclear designs, natural gas, wind [ which is baseline type of energy if towers are high enough ], solar - we have so much desert on Earth, and start seriously develop nuclear fusion [ as its development has been practically stopped for the fear of proliferation ]

>better nuclear designs

Nobody is advocating that we build more 4 decade old reactors. On the other hand there are plenty of people suggesting that we not build new reactors. We aren't seeing an attack on old reactor designs, we're seeing an attack on the "other option" you listed.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#36

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #21
danenania wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 upvotes. Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE . It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can never control without a small but inevitable risk of horrible damage and harm to unlucky populations. In controlling power of this magnitude, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or freak events that allow this power to seep out of whatever is the lates…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#37

Post by danenania »

burgerbrain wrote: post #31
lukeqsee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a reason no coal power plant has ever been paid quite as much attention as Fukushima, isn't there? Yes. There is a reason: sensationalism .

Exactly. The only coal incident that has gotten anywhere near the amount of attention it deserves is Centralia Pennsylvania. ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Centralia,_Pe... ) That's just a dramatic case that makes for good soundbites though, unbelievable more places have been rendered effectively uninhabitable by coal mining, to say nothing of the damage it does to local food sources (acid rivers an…

So now the point is that coal disasters aren't being talked about? I thought we were discussing whether nuclear power is safe. Are you actually going to stand up and on the record proclaim that in general, free of context, nuclear energy is safe. Just that one sentence: nuclear energy is safe.

No it isn't. It's fucking dangerous. Air pollution killing lots of people doesn't change this. Radiation kills people too.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#38

Post by philwelch »

phlux wrote: post #29

What is difficult to reconcile is that we all know that nuclear meltdowns are catastrophic events, that the resultant fallout/radioactive contamination is utterly horrible. Yet it seems that we dont build reactors with the types of failsafe systems that truly are needed should meltdown occur. Obviously this reactor is old, and was not built during a time when we really knew what a meltdown looked like in real life. A…

Why do we not have a global energy task force whose singular job it is is to plan, produce and protect the worlds energy?

Large parts of the world actually tried this, not just for their energy needs but for all other goods and services, too. It doesn't actually work that way in reality.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#39

Post by [deleted] »

VladRussian wrote: post #20
DarkShikari wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've drank milk and eaten meat contaminated by poisonous chemicals from coal power plants for your whole life. Not a single person has died yet from the Fukushima disaster, yet millions of people have died from ailments caused by coal power plants. Why is that kind of contamination just fine? I find it incredibly offensive to see the Americans on this board downplaying the damage from Fukushima. Perhaps we should f…

why to promote that false dichotomy - either nuclear or coal. There are other options, better nuclear designs, natural gas, wind [ which is baseline type of energy if towers are high enough ], solar - we have so much desert on Earth, and start seriously develop nuclear fusion [ as its development has been practically stopped for the fear of proliferation ]

[deleted]
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