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Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#141

Post by Krasnol »

peterfirefly wrote: post #125
Krasnol wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how you went for this and didn't even touch the actual topic anymore. Pretty representative.

Ok, please explain what you mean by "results of radiation throughout generations". Or how nuclear power in France can go wrong if you didn't have either a Chernobyl scenario in mind or a "tsunami hits the right bank of the Seine". If what you did wasn't a reference to Chernobyl or Fukushima then, pray tell, what was it?

> Ok, please explain what you mean by "results of radiation throughout generations".

https://www.chernobyl-international.com/

> Or how nuclear power in France can go wrong if you didn't have either a Chernobyl scenario in mind or

I'm no nuclear scientists, but even they were unable to prevent the accidents which happened. So what's your point? Or didn't you get mine?

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#142

Post by osigurdson »

Gud wrote: post #126
osigurdson wrote: post #8

Public support for nuclear is a pure function of time since last disaster. The last one was in 2011 so in the public's mind we are back in "probably will never happen again" territory. However, we will still see more Fukushimas in the future (according to [1]). A 100X improvement in safety would really help the cause. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961... .

Fukushima wasn’t a nuclear disaster, it was a natural disaster. How many died from the nuclear reactor meltdown vs the flood?

Wouldn't it be more accurately characterized as a natural + nuclear disaster? Clearly things would have been less bad without the nuclear plant.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#143

Post by Gud »

osigurdson wrote: post #142
Gud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima wasn’t a nuclear disaster, it was a natural disaster. How many died from the nuclear reactor meltdown vs the flood?

Wouldn't it be more accurately characterized as a natural + nuclear disaster? Clearly things would have been less bad without the nuclear plant.

No, I don’t think so. In that case it would be just as accurate to describe it as roof cave in disaster, as I am sure a great deal of people died when their roofs fell down on them.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#144

Post by pydry »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #100
pydry wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It depends on how realistic you are. What is it about historic strategic arms limitations treaties that you find so unrealistic exaxtly? >Nope. Gen III+ reactors are competitive with solar within a few years. Vaporware is always competitive with reality.

> What is it about historic strategic arms limitations treaties that you find so unrealistic exaxtly? Nothing. Just that they’re about arms reduction, not elimination. You’ll still have a military nuclear sector. Also, there is zero chance this makes headway in the near term; we’re in a phase of great power competition. > Vaporware is always competitive with reality We’re dealing with unknowns across the board. For s…

>Nothing

Then your objections dont make much sense.

>We’re dealing with unknowns across the board.

With respect to solar and wind the costs and build times are very predictable, actually.

We've already had one round of "we can create cheap mini reactors" in the 90s. That vaporware didnt work out so well, but the nuclear-military industrial complex got just as excited about it.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#145

Post by mpweiher »

Krasnol wrote: post #139
mpweiher wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again: nuclear is either the safest or one of the safest forms of energy we have. Hydro is less safe, Wind is less safe (thought not by much). Solar is about the same. You know how much soil is contaminated by arsenic and heavy metals used in the production of solar panels or wind turbines? I don't either, because it isn't in the news. When an installer falls off a roof, it doesn't make the news. And the other t…

> Once again: nuclear is either the safest or one of the safest forms of energy we have. Hydro is less safe, Wind is less safe (thought not by much). Solar is about the same. This "assessment" is base upon a single image which is being handed up and down the nuclear astro-turf, and it's ignorant and disrespectful. There are still victims of Chernobyl out there, and there will be for generations. You can give them som…

> "assessment" is base upon a single image

Incorrect. This assessment is based on the actual data.

> https://www.chernobyl-international.com/

A "charity" that's a .com domain and has an illegal "consent" form. (Not all consent forms are illegal, but that one clearly is). Yeah, sure what more reliable source could there possibly be?

I actually went through the reports by the WHO. The official reports they did every 10 years after the accident. Did you? Were you even aware of those reports? They are on the WHO website.

Each subsequent report lowered the estimate of "negative health effects" from the previous report by an order of magnitude. Yes, that's a factor of 10. Each one, and there have been a number of them. By the last couple, the negative health effects of the evacuation were significantly higher than those of the accident itself. Which has also been the case in Japan.

> > And the other thing that people don't understand is the energy density of nuclear.

> Sure they do. They don't care because you know what's even better? The sun in the sky, for example...

Thanks for so skillfully demonstrating how the lack of understanding of energy density looks like in practice! Very much appreciated.

> [Ukraine] How the hell is this supposed to be an argument FOR nuclear?!?

Everything you say should be, in your world, the best reasons for getting OUT of nuclear. Yet they are not just not getting out, they want to expand.

Maybe they know something you do not?

>> The countries with the most experience with nuclear accidents ... favor nuclear.

> ...greenwash, rip off, renationalize ...

To which you have exactly no response, except that they must all be corrupt and ignorant. Really? That's your position? You know better, the people who actually do have first hand knowledge and hundreds if not thousands of experts know nothing and are all corrupt.

Hmm..

Or maybe, just maybe, they know something you do not.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#146

Post by mpweiher »

laszlojamf wrote: post #119
mpweiher wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, this is including two accidents. And Concorde was retired because they could no longer operate it, for example no spare parts.

And also didn't it just turn out that people weren't really interested in spending a lot more money to get to where they were going a little bit faster?

One might think so, but no, that wasn't the case. Concorde was operating profitably with reasonable load factors.

And of course you now have aviation startups trying to tap the same market.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#147

Post by mpweiher »

osigurdson wrote: post #142
Gud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima wasn’t a nuclear disaster, it was a natural disaster. How many died from the nuclear reactor meltdown vs the flood?

Wouldn't it be more accurately characterized as a natural + nuclear disaster? Clearly things would have been less bad without the nuclear plant.

No, not really. This is what is regularly done in the press in Germany, and it looks like essentially like this:

there was (an earthquake + tsunami) AND A NUCLEAR ACCIDENT IN FUKUSHIMA IN WHICH 15000 PEOPLE DIED.

Now this is technically not a lie, just a "slight" skewing of emphasis and grouping, but it's how we've managed to anchor in the German population the "fact" that there was a horrible nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima where tens of thousands died, which we think was caused by a Tsunami or something, but that part doesn't really matter.

When, to belabor the obvious, that is not at all what happened. The Tsunami killed over 15000. The accident at the plant caused by the Tsunami killed no one. The over-eager evacuation, on the other hand, has been made responsible for a number of deaths.

So of course, technically it is true that there was a natural disaster and also a nuclear accident caused by that natural disaster. A lot of accidents were caused by the natural disaster that day, so singling out just that one seems a bit weird. And yes, the natural disaster was made slightly worse by every piece of technical infrastructure that failed to withstand this unprecedented earthquake + tsunami. For example all the seawalls built around towns that were, like the one around the plant, built to handle 7M waves. And were swept away by 14m waves that proceeded to kill thousands.

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#149

Post by mpweiher »

tedivm wrote: post #57
mpweiher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe better communication? Nuclear is, depending on what stats you use, either among the safest or actually the safest energy source. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy (And the top 3 are so close that differences are essentially noise)

Just looking at deaths doesn't really tell the whole story. There aren't a lot of towns that have had to be evacuated and abandoned due to solar industry accidents.

Hardly anything ever tells the whole story.

But deaths is a pretty good high order bit.

Whole towns have been resettled for lignite coal and for other mining activities. Not just once many, many times. And guess where the power to make those cheap Chinese solar panels comes from? Coal.

So, yes almost certainly towns have had to be evacuated and abandoned, not due to solar industry accidents, but due to the solar industry working as intended.

And there are other effects:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industr...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/12/clean-energy-china-xinj...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/climate/electronic-marvel...

Re: Nuclear power gets new push in U.S., winning converts (2022)

#150

Post by mpweiher »

Krasnol wrote: post #141
peterfirefly wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, please explain what you mean by "results of radiation throughout generations". Or how nuclear power in France can go wrong if you didn't have either a Chernobyl scenario in mind or a "tsunami hits the right bank of the Seine". If what you did wasn't a reference to Chernobyl or Fukushima then, pray tell, what was it?

> Ok, please explain what you mean by "results of radiation throughout generations". https://www.chernobyl-international.com/ > Or how nuclear power in France can go wrong if you didn't have either a Chernobyl scenario in mind or I'm no nuclear scientists, but even they were unable to prevent the accidents which happened. So what's your point? Or didn't you get mine?

> https://www.chernobyl-international.com/

LOL.

Just tried a browser that goes through their illegal consent page without giving consent and it's actually worse than I had imagined.

It's all about orphans in Belarus, which for some reasons becomes "the Chernobyl region". No connection to radiation or the nuclear accident whatsoever. Certainly no "results of radiation throughout generations"

Oh, one claimed connection: "The effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the Belarusian economy prevented building and repair efforts, leaving many orphanages and Day-Care Centres poorly equipped,..."

Yeah...no.

Trying to verify those claims brings up articles that link back to this "charity". Nicely circular.

And of course what effects there are are socio-economic effects of the evacuation and stigmatization, not "results of radiation"

For example:

"The widespread public image of socially and economically depressed territories with traumatized populations often prevents economic activities from developing in the affected communities."

Of course the effects of the fall of the Soviet Union and the dictatorship in Belarus vastly exceed the effects even of this stigmatization.

We have similar effects in Fukushima, for example the fishermen have been negatively affected. Not by radiation, because the fish are totally fine+safe, but by people not wanting to buy fish from "Fukushima", because of their irrational fears.

So it all goes back to my old observation:

Fear of nuclear energy is vastly more dangerous than nuclear energy.

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