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

Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 262 posts

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#141

Post by adrianN »

asharp wrote: post #107
VladRussian wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ]

fusion development hasn't been stopped, especially not for fear of proliferation. Do you have any information about this subject that I do not? Also, the major problem with putting solar power plants in deserts is that you lose most of your power trying to get it somewhere useful. Expect this to change when we have commercially viable room temperature (ish) superconductors.

With high voltage directed current lines, losses are around 3%/1000km. That's not so much.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#142

Post by Tichy »

billmcneale wrote: post #80
marze wrote: post #33

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 vi…

Number of casualties from nuclear plant accidents: a few thousands. Number of casualties from coal mining accidents this past century [2]: 100,000. That's accidents in coal mines alone, not even counting lung diseases and similar. The fact that it takes a 9.0 tsunami after forty years of complete absence of nuclear accidents to bring this to the front page should be indication enough that nuclear is not just safer th…

Your Wikipedia article also says that in China, 1000 times more people die while mining (per "coal unit") than in the US (China produces twice the coal of the US, 6000 deaths/year in China va 28/year US). So throwing numbers around like you do is dishonest. 28 deaths is still too many, but it is a big difference to the sob story you present.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#143

Post by david927 »

asharp wrote: post #126
Tichy wrote: post #119

Not even one mention of solar power? Maybe the technology is not at its peak yet, but combines with saving a lot of energy, is it not an option? Let's not forget that a lot of money went into perfecting nuclear power, probably a lot more than into solar power. Comparing with coal deaths seems a bit like a strawman. Also I don't trust the way the victims of Chernobyl are calculated. Adding up victims from survivor sto…

Strangely enough it takes very little money, nor energy to produce nuclear power. It's very simple at its core. Have a look at the first research reactors and you'll find that you need basically no technology to produce reactors that produce useful amounts of energy. On the other hand solar power, especially photovoltaics is stupidly complex. Photovoltaics requires semiconductor processes, arguably one of the most co…

Yet it takes Uranium and there's less and less easily available Uranium. It's a dead-end.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#144

Post by nitrogen »

dspeyer wrote: post #115
Daishiman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydroelectric has the problem that: 1) You're making tens of square kilometers of land uninhabitable by flooding. 2) Such flooding promotes the formation of anaerobic algae which generate thousands of tons of C02 3) Dams collapse too. Wind cannot provide a stable energy source. The advances required in battery technology and so-called "smart grids" are still too far off. You can't power a steel mill on wind power. So…

What about hydro on natural waterfalls? No space lost. No dam-failure risk. I don't think every rainy mountain is fully tapped. True, they aren't everywhere. Maybe some of the power-intensive industry can move to them.

Fortunately people tend to like waterfalls for their aesthetic value so much that they would never allow industrial processing or power plants near them. I would like to see calculations on how much theoretical power could be obtained from all sources if there were no limits, i.e. every river dammed, every waterfall harnessed, every atom of uranium split, every atom of silicon and necessary rare earths turned into solar panels, every acre of desert used in molten salt solar collectors, etc.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#145

Post by adrianN »

Tichy wrote: post #138
asharp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough it takes very little money, nor energy to produce nuclear power. It's very simple at its core. Have a look at the first research reactors and you'll find that you need basically no technology to produce reactors that produce useful amounts of energy. On the other hand solar power, especially photovoltaics is stupidly complex. Photovoltaics requires semiconductor processes, arguably one of the most co…

And yet nature all around us seems to thrive on solar power alone, with zero toxic waste byproduct. I don't think pollution in production is a must, either. You don't have to dump your garbage in the river.

Nature around us doesn't use eletricity either.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#146

Post by wisty »

jedsmith wrote: post #86
veidr wrote: post #77

I looooves me some electricity. So, even though I'm presently suffering some annoyances in my daily life here in Tokyo (sporadically contaminated drinking water, suspect milk and other foodstuffs, not enough electricity to maintain our previous standard of living, Internet outages forfuckssake), and even though I bristle any time anybody (this article's author included) ignorantly implies that we know all the bad thi…

> nuke power is the safest power we've come up with (among power sources that actually have produced a significant fraction of the power we use) This is crucial, and is why blanket statements like "nuclear power is safe" are dangerous. There is an absolutely essential qualifier required on the end of any assertion about nuclear safety, and I'm glad to see that you put it in parentheses here. Nuclear power is the best…

The python 2 code I write might be in use in 20 years time. But I doubt it.

Nuclear reactors built today will still be in use in 60 years time. By which stage, they will be white elephants compared to newer energy sources (I hope).

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#147

Post by Tichy »

adrianN wrote: post #145
Tichy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet nature all around us seems to thrive on solar power alone, with zero toxic waste byproduct. I don't think pollution in production is a must, either. You don't have to dump your garbage in the river.

Nature around us doesn't use eletricity either.

Of course it does. In any case, it uses power, the distinction is quite meaningless. Converting power can be done with a constant factor.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#148

Post by adrianN »

dspeyer wrote: post #115
Daishiman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydroelectric has the problem that: 1) You're making tens of square kilometers of land uninhabitable by flooding. 2) Such flooding promotes the formation of anaerobic algae which generate thousands of tons of C02 3) Dams collapse too. Wind cannot provide a stable energy source. The advances required in battery technology and so-called "smart grids" are still too far off. You can't power a steel mill on wind power. So…

What about hydro on natural waterfalls? No space lost. No dam-failure risk. I don't think every rainy mountain is fully tapped. True, they aren't everywhere. Maybe some of the power-intensive industry can move to them.

I strongly doubt that you can generate more than 0.1% of our power requirements from that source. The world uses 17 trillion kilowatt hours per year, that's 1900 Gigawatts.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#149

Post by eliasmacpherson »

michaelchisari wrote: post #48
danenania wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we shouldn't mass produce deadly environmentally destructive pesticides either? Would that be a bold statement? Why do you keep changing the subject? Quit talking about coal and pesticides and explain why it's okay to risk the lives of entire cities of people for the sake of extra electric output? Edit: I never disagreed with the article's title. I was agreeing with the parent post's sentiment that regardless…

why it's okay to risk the lives of entire cities of people for the sake of extra electric output? Do you not understand, that's the exact reason why people are bringing up coal. If we were to switch off of coal and onto nuclear, scores less people would die and get sick. A massive amount. Not to mention the benefits of halting climate change. That doesn't mean nuclear is all sunshine and rainbows, and nobody who reas…

You don't know enough to make that statement. If you replace coal with PWR nuclear reactors, you still have potential problems. You are projecting past performance into the future which is extremely foolish.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#150

Post by nitrogen »

thekevan wrote: post #64

Yes but is it like saying wolves are safer than dogs because statistically your are less likely to be harmed by a wolf than a dog? It ignores the fact that if you do run afoul of a wolf, you are done.

Not quite, because those who actually calculate statistics can account for differences in exposure. For example, the correct statistic to use with wolves and dogs would be something like, "survival rate after pissing off the animal in a similar environment," not just "total number of casualties." With nuclear vs. fossil fuel, the relevant statistic is deaths per terawatt-hour of energy produced, not deaths in total.
Post reply on HN