After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform • Hacker News Board

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#281

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:35 AM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #267

DangitBobby wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just worst case scenario "rates", but the scenarios themselves. What is the worst case scenario from a completely unmitigated core meltdown versus whatever the most extreme failure mode of, say, a coal plant?

Pollution from coal power kills about a million per year, and that's not counting accidents. I don't know why you'd want a "completely unmitigated meltdown," but even if terrorists rent a 747, hoist an active reactor, and drop it onto the middle of Manhattan, it will kill less than the non-failure mode of coal plants during the same year.

[deleted]

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#282

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:37 AM UTC

Teever wrote: post #202

cbmuser wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at Japan, most of the region around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has actually been reopened to the public already: > https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/20/national/beach-... > https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/05/national/evacue... Looking at the radiation levels, most places are already back to save levels: > https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en02-01... You ha…

> Even Chernobyl is mostly safe these days unless you stay at the hotspots for too long. You could say the exact same thing about a house fire.

No. That's how radiation affects for human.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#283

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:42 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #159

notJim wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage. However, I think the resistance is also because the nature of the catastrophe is different. Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone? I know that mining/drillin…

Another part is that people are distrustful, especially when previous promises were broken, and as far as I know, before each major accident (Chernobyl, Fukushima) happened, it was said that such an accident can never happen. That brings into doubt any promise of future safety.

never say never, seriously.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#284

Post by nl » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

controversy wrote: post #177

colordrops wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990): "They told us that nuclear plants were safe. Human accident is the danger, not the nuclear plant itself. No accidents, no danger. That's what they told us. What liars!"

Please stop with this. Nuclear is the only way to keep our current level of society. Our solar plants are going to lead to massive poisoned landfills due to their heavy metals. They are hard to recycle and so many are just dumping them. Modern nuclear can meet all our needs and stop global warming. If we pursued nuclear in the last century, we would be facing global warming now.

> Nuclear is the only way to keep our current level of society.

This is just wrong.

> Our solar plants are going to lead to massive poisoned landfills due to their heavy metals. They are hard to recycle and so many are just dumping them.

They aren't particularly hard to recycle - it's just that there hasn't been significant demand until now (15 year life cycles..).

But plants are opening now, and the economics are quite good (because the heavy metals are quite valuable): https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/industry/first-recy...

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#285

Post by Jedd » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

ozborn wrote: post #63

Folks should parse the article and the platform carefully, it actually reads "existing and advanced nuclear". This could be interpreted as maintaining existing reactors and building advanced (fusion?) reactors and NOT building new fission reactors. From my perspective this interpretation would be desirable (although probably wishful thinking) given that nuclear energy is too expensive in practise (really only existin…

Indeed.

In TFA 'fission' is only used once, and that's as the author quotes from a statement made in 1972:

" ... the party said it supported “greater research and development” into “unconventional energy sources” including solar, geothermal, and “a variety of nuclear power possibilities to design clean breeder fission and fusion techniques.” "

The continued muddling of fission and fusion is regrettable, as the former's increasingly looking unpalatable, and the latter's gaining more credibility & interest. Plenty of people would be for one but not the other.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#286

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

burfog wrote: post #103

himinlomax wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible natural disaster. For Fukushima, it seems that the panicked response of the local authorities (evacuating the whole area ...) was what caused the most problems.

The automatic shutdown contributed. Fukushima needed cooling pumps to operate. There were 3 ways to power the pumps: 1. the reactor itself, automatically shut down when the earthquake was detected 2. diesel generators, shut down by flooding 3. power lines from elsewhere, shut down by the tsunami knocking them down Clearly, shutting down the reactor is a self-inflicted problem. Had they left it running, the pumps woul…

IIRC the reactor itself produces very high voltage power so it can't be used without a transformer that's not on power plant.

Diesel generators should be proper solution but it's sunk on tsunami due to its location.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#287

Post by manfredo » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

cure wrote: post #100

mensetmanusman wrote: post #2

That’s great, anti-nuclear energy was definitely one of the anti-science stances standing in the way of progress.

It's odd to me that anti-nuclear is being labelled anti-science. It's almost like the pro-nuclear people have blinders on. Nuclear is fantastic, in theory. In practice, in the real world, the consequences of accidents are extraordinarily bad and costly. The odds of a bad accident may be very small, but they are not zero (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... ). And dealing with the waste…

> I will be happily become pro-nuclear the moment that all the real-world externalities are actually priced in. How much do you think it cost to have 1,000 square miles in the Ukraine uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years? What if such an accident happens in a densely populated area?

We don't need to speculate here. That's precisely what happened in Fukushima. Evacuation orders were lifted in 2017. Radiation release in populated areas makes cleanup worthwhile. By comparison, the exclusion zone around Chernobyl still exists because the entire town existed to support the power plants. Once the power plants were no longer operational there was no real reason for the town to exist, and thus no incentive for cleanup.

And you're applying a double standard here. Do fossil fuel plants have to price in the estimated damage done due to climate change? That's estimated to

> How much do you think it will cost to keep all that nuclear waste safe for the next half a million years or so?

Million years or so? You realize uranium is a toxic heavy metal? Naturally occurring uranium is toxic. Spent nuclear waste is toxic forever. And it would have been toxic forever even if it was never used as nuclear fuel. In fact, uranium contamination of water is already a concern due to naturally occurring uranium [1]. The risk of uranium water contamination exists regardless of spent nuclear fuel.

Storing it isn't actually all that hard. You bury it in bedrock in an area with no aquifer. The main concern for uranium is water contamination. Putting it in a place with no aquifer eliminates the possibility of contamination even if the containment vessels deteriorate. The scenarios in which waste fuel results in contamination are borderline absurd, typically involving some sort of societal collapse destroying all knowledge of the disposal sites coupled with some future civilization digging up the waste for no discernible reason.

The cost of such a disposal facility is minimal: around $200 million for the Yucca Mountain facility [2]. Disposal isn't very expensive because the amount of waste generated is so small. The entirety of the US's nuclear waste from power generation occupies a volume the footprint of a football field and less than 10 yards high [3].

1. https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/120396/uranium-contaminat...

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

3. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#288

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:55 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #261

pronik wrote: post #199

Not an american here, so it's more of a general comment. I'm all for investing in and investigating nuclear power -- after all, the humanity needed several decades to make electricity itself safe at all; if we manage to make nuclear safer and indeed manageable, that's a fine thing, scientifically speaking. It's good to have options. However, we should be keeping an eye on the costs. Nuclear energy is cheap, but dispo…

What if we shot it in to space? Doesn't Space X think they can get cargo down to $100/kg? That would be a few hundred million in costs for all of the worlds nuclear waste annually.

The problem is failed shot causes catastrophic result.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#289

Post by jgalt212 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

notRobot wrote: post #4

For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…

> and 38 times fewer than gas.

Chernobyl came close to be 10 or 100X worse. In which case, nat gas and fission are even up.

Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform

#290

Post by RhysU » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

cure wrote: post #128

RhysU wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite clearly not limited to one party. Taking coal as an example.. Pro-climate folks would throw the livelihood of coal mining families under the bus, too, to achieve climate policies that pro-climate folks believe will help them long-term.

> Taking coal as an example.. Pro-climate folks would throw the livelihood of coal mining families under the bus, too, to achieve climate policies that pro-climate folks believe will help them long-term. Let me fix that for you: ... that pro-climate folks believe will help EVERYONE short to medium -term. As in, stopping the burning of coal will slow the rate of climate change, which will keep our planet more habitabl…

That pro-climate folks think it'll help everyone else too is irrelevant to the example. Certainly, climate policy aims for outcomes they want for themselves.

The example assumes nothing about the outcome of any such policy other than it surely makes it harder for a coal miner to put food on the table in the near term.

That is, pro-climate folks seek outcomes that are at least short-term detrimental to others. This is a direct contradiction to the earlier claim that one party in the US has a monopoly on such behavior.

> Calling this 'throwing the livelihood of coal mining families under the bus to help themselves' is disingenuous.

Uhh, no.

Source: Extended family that was well-paid within the mining industry until regulatory changes during the prior presidential administration caused a sharp contraction in that industry.