181–190 of 279 posts
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Not a big fan of nuclear because of security and waste disposal issues, but quoting 3 accidents over a span of 60 years as a reason for a blanket ban on a whole class of energy production technologies is hyper safetyism.
Sad to see Germany continue to shut down Nuclear while having to greatly expand coal usage because their wind farms significantly under produce due to unexpected weather patterns. (As much as +40% coal generation in the past two years, and -20% wind) https://www.ans.org/news/article-3274/germany-coal-tops-wind... https://energypost.eu/germany-2021-coal-generation-is-rising... And they're replacing it with... gas! Gre…
They're not replacing nuclear with gas. Nuclear has a steady output, gas will be variable output. It will run when deemed necessary.
Despite a lot of investigation it looks like Fukushima did not cause an increase in cancer deaths (and there were no direct deaths from it either). It's sad and strange that we treat it as if it had caused hundreds or thousands of deaths, and our response to it is to increase fossil fuel use, which definitely will lead to more death and pollution. Read for yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disa…
The outcome we had for Fukushima was not the only one possible. It could have been better, much better, and it could have been worse, much worse. That fact that one of the most advanced and earthquake prepared nations in the world even got close to having a Fukushima event, let alone actually had one, should paint a clear picture of pitfalls of nuclear power.
We need power the scales for the world. The most urgent need for clean power is in developing countries, which are actually not the countries who would have the best chance to run a safe nuclear power plant.
Solar is already scaling, it's already safe, it's already cost effective. Utility-scale storage is already more than on the way and is dropping in price quickly, and it's not even a problem with solar until solar penetrates a larger percentage of the grid anyways. Do I think that nuclear plants in modern countries should be shutting down: No. But the real justification to supporting nuclear over solar for the future of our power grid is to be a contrarian or because you think nuclear power is cool.
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It's not politics. It is a practical reality that it is dangerous. As dangerous as coal plants. But for some reason HN likes to turn a blind eye to un-disposable toxic waste and the potential for citywide devastation (Chernobyl).
You are delusional. Coal plants kill millions of people worldwide every year. How many people died from Chernobyl? About 50, despite over 100,000 people working at the site on cleanup. The adjacent reactors continued to run and provide power for about a decade after the incident. How many people died of radiation poisoning at Fukushima? Zero. Zero!
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It is amazing. But two major incidents within 30 years time range are not so amazing. When we continue in that rate we will have a serious problem. And with aging reactors and instability everywhere it does not look good.
We have never had a significant disaster of any gen >=3 reactor. TMI, Fukushima, Chernobyl were all gen 2, and gen 1 is all prototypes. Anything built after 1972 has not had anywhere near this level of incidents. Also Chernobyl had severe safety flaws due to its origin as an early model breeder reactor (and my head canon is that the test that caused the disaster was in some way related to surreptitious fuel changing…
IF new generation reactors can prove to be safe and not create waste and decommissioning problems, and if they can be built economically, then they are worthy of consideration.
But power is fungible. If the cheapest next watt-hour is solar or wind, then why spend on anything else?
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Maybe Brittons got tired of so many ridiculous policies from the EU shoving down their throats?... Not saying I'm pro or against Brexit, just that your point seems to corroborate their decision to leave.
I initially opposed the move but now it sort of makes sense. Previously I was influencing my own thoughts from the liberal media sphere but the more you dig into the reasons why UK left the EU, the more convinced I am. Just look at the vaccine fuck ups by the EU. UK has one of the best vaccination strategies in the world barring smaller nations like Israel, UAE and Qatar. And of course, China.
Yet one of the worst outcomes fighting the virus. "UK had one of Europe’s highest excess death rates in under 65s" in 2020.[a] In practice, what did the EU really get wrong with the vaccines, other than generating some unjustifiably smug headlines from the UK right-wing press? The UK can't even say it got a good deal on the vaccines, having paid 50% more per dose than than EU.[b]
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It's not politics preventing nuclear power it's the eye watering cost. Unless you count getting taxpayers to shoulder the cost as politics.
solar panels killed more people in their short history, than nuclear power plants in their much longer history. if you count roof installers dying/getting injured on the job. do they count or we can just discount them?
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Continent sized landmasses can survive on wind and solar assuming HVDC interconnects. Some storage would be nice to have, preferably more than a weeks' worth.
This is an extremely naive assumption. Do you have any citations for such a theory? Everything I’ve read on the subject (admittedly not much) tells me that wind power is not only a disaster ecologically (kills too many birds, though not as many as domestic cats) but also unable to produce enough power to govern everything even with interconnects. Distribution of power is also difficult, but there was notably a “still…
This is not a good basis for a discussion.
Nuclear Power is the only feasible renewable energy that keeps energy flowing. I'd rather deal with the waste then be mining forever or burning oil.
> I'd rather deal with the waste then be mining forever or burning oil. How does Nuclear Power stop mining? I see how it would reduce the need for coal, but it won’t change our appetite for metals, rocks, or gemstones.
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It's not politics preventing nuclear power it's the eye watering cost. Unless you count getting taxpayers to shoulder the cost as politics.
It 100% is politics. For example in the US, our government is incapable of doing anything on a time scale of longer than 4-8 years because the party in power shifts and undoes everything the other party did during that time. Nuclear power is inherently authoritarian because it works best under unchanging centralized governments that can plan out a 30 year program without interference from other parties.
Some of the costs of a nuclear weapons program can be shared. This is probably partly why France invested heavily in it and why countries keen on it coincidentall almos always have nuclear arsenals. It's unlikely it's because they're secretly authoritarian.