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Nuclear power is too safe

jackdevanney.substack.com

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Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#31

Post by rocqua »

a_shovel wrote: post #20

A comment from the author I found interesting (with some minor edits, mainly for spelling): > "All the evacuations at Fukushima were unnecessary, and in the case of the frail [or] elderly murderously so. If there had been no evacuations, few members of the public would have received more than 1 mSv/day peak and some 1600 lives would have been saved, and some 100,000 less lives sadly disrupted. Even the EPA now counse…

Those statements (not yours) are quite surprising, and seem falsifiable. Anyone have the expertise to judge whether the factual claims are true?

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#32

Post by RC_ITR »

ArnoVW wrote: post #18
RC_ITR wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that can kill millions Did the inverse square law stop working recently or do they all take turns touching it?

it's not the irradiation that people are worried about. It's the pollution, in the litteral sense. In the case of a fire (to take an all but too common example), all the radioactive material is distributed as tiny particles that get into the air we breathe and the water we drink. So no, they do not take turns. The live 1000 km away, and just buy a fish that swam 100 km away from the fire.

I suggest you do your research about fallout.

It decays about 1 order of magnitude for every 7^n of time.

That’s the idea behind fallout shelters, you wait until the fallout is no longer dangerous.

The atmosphere is a very harsh place for radioactive particles. We’ve gleaned this from real world testing.

Please don’t be afraid of made up things. Be afraid of real things like climate change.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#33

Post by bottlepalm »

epups wrote: post #6

If nuclear power was invented today, it would have been considered a breakthrough capable of changing the course of climate change dramatically. Since it exists for long and people formed an emotional reaction to incidents that were not that serious, while dying constantly from things they cannot see (like air pollution from coal), we are in this weird scenario where otherwise educated people say absolutely stupid th…

Maybe if it were designed today they wouldn't stop at 'good enough' and actually commercialize a design that is fail safe.

Current reactors around the world only have a limited amount of backup time, days/weeks, before the spent fuel pool boils off and the fuel burns resulting in a massive disaster spreading radioactive ash across wide swaths of land.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#34

Post by throwbadubadu »

tooltower wrote: post #21
epups wrote: post #6

If nuclear power was invented today, it would have been considered a breakthrough capable of changing the course of climate change dramatically. Since it exists for long and people formed an emotional reaction to incidents that were not that serious, while dying constantly from things they cannot see (like air pollution from coal), we are in this weird scenario where otherwise educated people say absolutely stupid th…

I don't agree. If it was invented today, you'd have the same fear-mongering, the same lobbying from the coal industry. In addition, you'd also be lacking the decades of safety data that we can use to turn the tide.

We see again just how fearful and critical the situation is around Ukrainian plant... with climate change conflicts in the world will likely increase. So yeah, call me fearful, we don't need that and could have been long into enough multiple better alternatives. They are no option for most of the world.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#35

Post by nyokodo »

The anti-nuclear lobby won because nuclear has scary failure modes that have been hyped for decades and in general people aren’t good at assessing risk. Unfortunately, I don’t see that changing. But, the climate change luminaries almost unanimously have been behind that opposition to nuclear for decades despite nuclear being the only viable non-fossil-fuel option for cloudy and not very windy geographies. I cannot give a pass on good risk assessment to people whose mission is to spread awareness of climate change risk and who say that risk is literally existential and who do not promote nuclear regardless of the relatively small chance of failure. I can only conclude that they either don’t believe their own rhetoric or they don’t want/care if the decarbonization effort succeeds, or they are ignorant of suitable geographies for renewables. No matter what it’s a total credibility destroyer.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#36

Post by bottlepalm »

coldtea wrote: post #9

LOL. He laments how billions are spent for nuclear reactor safety and then uses the casualty numbers based on those billions being spent [1], to calculate the casualty impact of building nuclear factories with more abandon and without such spending (as if the numbers would be the same). Also hidden in the small print, the assumption that future accidents would be "no worse" that previous ones. Because, you know, that…

He says 'only' 26 more Fukushima/Chernobyl type accidents. Exclusion zones all around the world. Not many people died hopefully, but you can't go back to your home either.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#37

Post by coldtea »

RC_ITR wrote: post #11
coldtea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, heating water with radioactive material. And then having to dispose toxic byproducts that can kill millions for thousands of years.

>that can kill millions Did the inverse square law stop working recently or do they all take turns touching it?

Do you need to take turns touching it for it to be mishandled, stolen, have some accident during transport, leak in the biosphere, the soil, rivers, or underground waters, spread as air particles, be used in a dirt bomb, and several other ways besides?

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#38

Post by coldtea »

RC_ITR wrote: post #32
ArnoVW wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not the irradiation that people are worried about. It's the pollution, in the litteral sense. In the case of a fire (to take an all but too common example), all the radioactive material is distributed as tiny particles that get into the air we breathe and the water we drink. So no, they do not take turns. The live 1000 km away, and just buy a fish that swam 100 km away from the fire.

I suggest you do your research about fallout. It decays about 1 order of magnitude for every 7^n of time. That’s the idea behind fallout shelters, you wait until the fallout is no longer dangerous. The atmosphere is a very harsh place for radioactive particles. We’ve gleaned this from real world testing. Please don’t be afraid of made up things. Be afraid of real things like climate change.

Similar non-chalance and assurances about previous technologies is how climate change came about..

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#39

Post by bottlepalm »

choeger wrote: post #27

Is that the new hot take after "costs are too high because scale is too small"? There are many issues with the economics of nuclear power but too much safety isn't one of them. The Chernobyl comparison conveniently ignores the liquidators by only looking at residents. Residents that have been evacuated, mind you. Even if radiation is not as harmful long-term as the LNT model makes us believe, which might very well be…

Not only does it need water, but the water can't stop for any reason without resulting in a disaster. You have to keep that spent fuel cool otherwise it'll burn itself.

Re: Nuclear power is too safe

#40

Post by xeyownt »

Nuclear fission reactor are intrinsically dangerous, no matter what amount of safety procedure or technology you throw at it. Touting nuclear is safe is like saying asbestos is safe.

I don't understand the motivation of some trying to argue that nuclear is safe, while ignoring all the obvious and huge risks that must be continuously addressed either in the technology, in the procedure or even in laws (eg. trading of nuclear material).

I guess the same will argue that nuclear is as safe as solar or wind, which is like comparing apples to oranges.

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