51–60 of 166 posts
The piece is not anti-nuclear.
Also, risk is not binary. Finding out the true risk of something does not mean it's high risk and therefore negative. You can assess the risk of something and conclude that the risk is low and generally overblown, which is the point of the article.
Not sure what to make of this article. Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest way of generating energy for both humankind and nature. Chernobyl was ancient and outdated, which caused issues. And Fukushima had to withstand an earthquake and tsunami. And even then the radiation only killed 1 person. Even wind-turbines cause more damage by killing many, many birds. They aren't as reliable and they certainly cau…
Title doesn't seem to match the article's contents. It concludes: > If there was a meltdown tomorrow in the UK, France, US or elsewhere, it’s likely that our failure to adjust our thinking in light of the experiences at Fukushima and Chernobyl would mean we evacuate too many people for too long. People would die as a result. Indeed, evacuate too many. The "learning about the risk of nuclear" we did "for the first tim…
The researchers are trying to use a system level risk returns balance and using very high level average metrics like risk of reduction in lifespan. How about the distribution around the mean and how about the suffering of people who undergo cancer treatments and survive? Having seen a close relative battle cancer and the family suffering, i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy and their families.
The other piece these macro economic approaches miss is that while a system level cost isn't much, for most people their property, their job and their neighbourhood social networks ARE the major assets they have in life and in the case of nuclear accidents, they lose everything. This fundamentally Behavioral Economics view of consequences is what drives the recent popular opposition to nuclear power and unless nuclear proponents start analyzing nuclear power through a Behavioral Economics lens, they're likely going to be ignored by the population. Comparing risk of death against statistical correlations with air pollution isn't going to cut it.
On nuclear, we're barking up the wrong tree by pushing for economic analysis of old style nuclear. We need to develop and qualify designs that are passively safe with no risk of driving people away from their property and society before the industry will be taken seriously, otherwise the only interest will be in weapons research.
I just skimmed, but they seem to be comparing stress of evacuating vs health risk of staying. What about the stress of knowing you live on nuclear contaminated land. Surely that must be stresful enough to be comparable to the stress of evacuating?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did they teach you where the nuclear waste goes too?
There are good nuclear waste solutions. The "no solution for waste" is a myth propagated by antinuclear institutions who one one hand claim it's infinitely hazardous and on the other block any and all attempts to move it out of the biosphere. They have proven to be quite cynical! More info here: https://whataboutthewaste.com
This appears to be really shoddy research and once again illustrates why a macro economic approach to this problem simply doesn't work and why public have stopped listening. The researchers are trying to use a system level risk returns balance and using very high level average metrics like risk of reduction in lifespan. How about the distribution around the mean and how about the suffering of people who undergo cance…
Evidence is they figured that out in the 1980s. We haven't seen a bad meltdown from any plant built in the last 40 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're not right about the waste. High level radioactive waste will fit in a space about 7 meters high and the area of a football field. That's all nuclear waste since we started operating nuclear reactors... worldwide.
It's not necessarily the amount of waste that is the problem, it's the incredibly long duration of its radioactivity. At some point we will need super long term storage, and it's true that there is no viable solution out there yet. Even the most sophisticated facilities can not guarantee that no leakage will contaminate the surroundings at some point. But as I said, I think finding a solution for this should not be o…
You might change your mind on that after a bit of reflection; it doesn't make sense. We produce a bunch of things that are going to be hazardous forever - I always point to lead when nuclear comes up. The only reason anyone talks about nuclear waste is because 1 football field is small enough that we could contain it forever. Most industrial processes produce too much hazardous waste for that to be feasible.
The US Navy has trained thousands of 18-25 year old men and women to operate hundreds of reactors around the world safety for over 60 years. I was one of them. I have not been an operator for many years, but the latest reactor designs are amazingly safe and reliable. The world needs more safe, clean, cheap and reliable power. Nuclear power is one of the answers.
This appears to be really shoddy research and once again illustrates why a macro economic approach to this problem simply doesn't work and why public have stopped listening. The researchers are trying to use a system level risk returns balance and using very high level average metrics like risk of reduction in lifespan. How about the distribution around the mean and how about the suffering of people who undergo cance…
By using Life Quality Index, which includes Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy, the research takes into account well-being and health impacts other than death; making expected-value decisions on such a metric is a standard way to encode a nonlinear objective function without needing to use higher central moments elsewhere in the decision.
Furthermore, the analysis does look at the economic impacts of relocating people from their homes and does not simply compare the statistics against air pollution.
Finally, economic analysis of old-style nuclear remains incredibly relevant, given that existing "legacy" nuclear power-generating stations represent a significant fraction of total stationary power-generating capacity, and that we have witnessed political movements to replace these facilities with fossil-fuel burning plants due to fear of nuclear accident.