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Nuclear energy is clean

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Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#101

Post by kuhewa »

dhsysusbsjsi wrote: post #93
kuhewa wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetical, but the occurrence of future large scale conflict is overwhelmingly likely. This will remain a valid concern - not just accidents, but intentional attacks - until design of plants advances to be robust against strikes to failsafe without active management

If countries are more self sufficient with their energy security needs, it removes one of the major causes of conflict. Energy, water, food, resource security. Back to basics.

I doubt the self sufficiency yielded by global nuclear proliferation would offset how target-rich the world would become, come inevitable war.

I'd rather the answer be a push for more advances in passive safety and planning that treats military attack as an eventuality.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#102

Post by joebob42 »

solardev wrote: post #100
anonporridge wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few good arguments against nuclear, especially large installations that produce a huge percentage of a region's power. Even if you can design it in such a way that an external attack is very unlikely to cause a meltdown, it's a juicy and easy target for an adversary to cripple your electricity production. A few dozen well placed missiles might be all you need to take an entire nation that's heavily…

Eh, we live in an age when a few dozen well placed missiles can kill millions and destroy entire countries, not just their electrical grid. A few retaliatory strikes later and an entire region is gone, if not the world as a whole. That doesn't sound like a very useful way to make decisions about anything except maybe missile defense and second strike capabilities. Anything can be destroyed with sufficient violence.

While this is technically true, I think a developed-ish nation might blow up your electric facilities before it would destroy a city.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#103

Post by yawaramin »

mah4k4l wrote: post #69
tehsauce wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those accidents combined killed less than 10% of the people that are killed by fossil fuel pollution every single year. Most nuclear accidents are entirely hypothetical.

Has affected millions of peoples health already and whole ecosystems. And the consequences will cumulate from this thousands of years. Count that in your equation and get more informative numbers.

Whose health? Any actual data?

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#104

Post by mah4k4l »

throw0101a wrote: post #97
mah4k4l wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Chernobyl you still today cannot eat fish from the lakes and rivers in 1000+ km radius from the site by Finnish recommendations. Because they are top predators and have enriched the gamma dose in themselves. How often could you eat human meat?

> After Chernobyl you still today cannot eat fish from the lakes and rivers in 1000+ km radius from the site by Finnish recommendations. Limit your eating of pike, but otherwise no major objections: > Children, young people and persons of fertile age may not eat pike caught in a lake or in the sea more often than once or twice a month. > Dioxin and PCB levels in fish from inland waters are normally low, and mercury l…

Ok yes my bad forgot to post the limits. At least used to be lake fish two times in week tops.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#105

Post by Animats »

purerandomness wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #41

Waste disposal isn't that hard. The Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Finland pretty much has it covered. First, you find a hard-rock mountain where geology shows nothing much happening in the last few million years, and there's nothing worth mining. Worldwide, there are many mountain ranges like that. Then tunnel way down, but preferably above the water table. Drill holes in the tunnel floor. Put waste in suitable…

How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain?

Current thinking is not to mark the place. Why attract attention to it? Any future civilization capable of finding that it's interesting and digging down through a mile or more of hard rock and concrete probably knows about radioactivity.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#106

Post by kuhewa »

ekianjo wrote: post #99
kuhewa wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be willing to bet you don't actually believe a post-war Ukraine with several metropolitan areas flattened is no worse off if widespread radioactive contamination is added.

Ukraine does not quality as "a large scale conflict" in any measure. If we had ww3, you'd be much more likely to die by actual nukes falling from the skies than residual radiation form destroyed nuclear plants.

> Ukraine does not quality as "a large scale conflict" in any measure.

That is incorrect. Large scale != global or world war. It's a moot point though.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#107

Post by cesarb »

TheDong wrote: post #31
bad_alloc wrote: post #9

We saw another downside of nuclear power in Ukraine: When Russian troops attacked towards Enerhodar and there was shelling in the area the safety of the reactor could not be guaranteed. In the end, containment can be guaranteed w.r.t to internal accidents but no facility can ever be safe from outside issues like war, natural disaster or politics. Solar has less single points of failure and if it fails not much happen…

Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure Of course, the Geneva Convention bans attacking dams, just like it bans attacking nuclear power plants. The pollution from burning coal has already killed more people than nuclear disasters conceivably could. If…

> Hydroelectric dams typically cause even more damage when they fail, but I rarely see people worrying about whether using them for power will lead to war-time issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure

I believe the reason people worry less about hydroelectric dam failures is because, if they fail, they do not leave behind a contaminated area. Besides, it's just water; many people are used to floods caused by heavy rain, and the danger feels similar. In fact, hydroelectric dams can even help prevent (or contain) flooding, so it's the opposite of causing damage in that case. Of course, we're not talking about tailings dams, which do leave behind a trail of contamination when they fail.

(An interesting case is the failure of a tailings dam many years ago which flooded the Rio Doce with pollution, with that flood being mostly stopped by a hydroelectric dam downriver. The hydroelectric dam contained the damage instead of causing it.)

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#108

Post by jeffbee »

elietoubi wrote: post #4

Super interesting how there is a big push for nuclear in the tech world right now. To play the devils advocate, there are some pretty solid reasons why Nuclear is not ideal.The biggest one to me is the risk or nuclear material proliferation: Iran for instance is hiding their military nuclear program behind a civilian nuclear goal. Nuclear is probably net better than coal but it's not the (only) solution to climate ch…

It's only "super interesting" to those who study astroturfing and other forms of manipulative public relations.

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#109

Post by throw0101a »

purerandomness wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #41

Waste disposal isn't that hard. The Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Finland pretty much has it covered. First, you find a hard-rock mountain where geology shows nothing much happening in the last few million years, and there's nothing worth mining. Worldwide, there are many mountain ranges like that. Then tunnel way down, but preferably above the water table. Drill holes in the tunnel floor. Put waste in suitable…

How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain?

> How do we communicate to civilisations in the future what we did in that mountain?

The more dangerous stuff burns itself out quickly (short half-life), and the longer-lasting stuff is not very dangerous given the type of radiation it is and can be blocked quite easily

So, probably bury it deep enough with little external sign that it's actually there, and if it is actually discovered it won't be that big of a deal:

> The main concern associated with spent nuclear fuel – radioactivity – diminishes with time.

> About 40 years after it's done making power, the heat and radioactivity of the fuel bundle will have fallen by over 99%.

* https://twitter.com/MadiHilly/status/1550148416881180674

> About three containers are needed to store the quantity of fuel that is removed each 12-24 months; the space taken up by even a 60 year plant life is less than is needed for a Wal-Mart even without any efforts to efficiently stack the containers.

* https://atomicinsights.com/time-for-plan-b-yucca-mountain-pr...

Re: Nuclear energy is clean

#110

Post by hammock »

tehsauce wrote: post #13
elietoubi wrote: post #4

Super interesting how there is a big push for nuclear in the tech world right now. To play the devils advocate, there are some pretty solid reasons why Nuclear is not ideal.The biggest one to me is the risk or nuclear material proliferation: Iran for instance is hiding their military nuclear program behind a civilian nuclear goal. Nuclear is probably net better than coal but it's not the (only) solution to climate ch…

If the US built more clean nuclear plants that would somehow help Iran develop nuclear weapons faster? Surely the slope cannot be that slippery.

It might help the US develop more nuclear weapons faster…
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