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Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

nytimes.com

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Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#101

Post by kpil »

scubaguy wrote: post #40
moomin wrote: post #29

A difficulty I've always had with nuclear power is the problem of clean-up. I'm not scaremongering and saying it's impossible, but it is inarguably expensive. Having a large amount of costs after all the revenue has gone away is a huge regulatory red flag: it's simpler to just structure things so that you won't have to pay. This problem applies to mining as well, but very little mining has to occur near residential a…

Do you have data that backs that cleanup is inarguably expensive? This article, which more concrete, suggests 5% of revenue is required to be saved. http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fue...

Truth is that no one really knows. Deep storage is one alternative, but 100.000 years is a long commitment. Breed reactors might reduce that to 1000 years, but it's still a commitment.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#102

Post by sqeaky »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #83
bgentry wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is not an argument against nuclear power, but an argument against the very complicated reactor designs that are in widespread use. Because they start with an inherently unsafe design, they can only be made safe with many layers of protective measures. Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. On a personal note, I grew up about 10-15 miles north of San Onofre, and I don't think many folks had an idea…

> Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. I have a fundamental mistrust of the industry and our government's ability to properly regulate it. That mistrust is based on historical facts. Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make nuclear viable.

Which is shame, because it could just fix so many of our energy problems.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#103

Post by Spooky23 »

Nrsolis wrote: post #51
cookiecaper wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossil fuel emissions and other pollutants build up gradually and can be controlled. You're not going to get kicked out of your home and neighborhood forever because of a malfunction at the coal plant. And nuclear power generation also emits a very dangerous pollutant: nuclear waste.

I think you have a different definition of the word "emit" than I do. Nuclear waste is stable, does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools, and can be reprocessed if required. All existing spent nuclear fuel in the united states is stored on-site. It's been that way since the beginning of the industry. In contrast, particulate and greenhouse gas (including CO2) emissions from coal-fired plants migrate…

>Nuclear waste is stable

So long as it's stored in stable geologic formations, or controlled by stable human institutions. Where "stable" is a period of time longer than human history in many cases.

>does not migrate when handled properly in containment pools

Which are dependent on active management and security indefinitely. This is challenging as the service life of the plant where the pool is located and revenue is generated is less than indefinately.

> can be reprocessed if required.

Which is also a proliferation risk.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#104

Post by kemiller »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #87
avar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against nuclear for trivial reasons like these is why we have the alternative: coal plants. Those kill an estimated 300,000 thousand people per year[1]. It's only recently that renewables have become a realistic alternative in some (but not all) cases, but for decades we've had people dropping like flies due to coal, entirely because the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere…

> the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere as big of a deal by comparison. Science illiteracy has nothing to do with it. The industry has a history of non-trivial reasons for mistrust. Regarding coal plant deaths, I'm not in favor of coal either. The sooner we can move away from fossil the better.

Statistical innumeracy is what causes the exaggerated categorical fear of nuclear's risks vs the empirical and very present risks posed by fossil fuels. You don't get to just "be against" fossil fuels; you have to propose a credible alternative. Wind and solar are just now starting to become credible, and aren't even all the way there yet. If we had had a less hysterical nuclear policy 40 years ago we would not be in as bad shape now as we are. AND we would also not be stuck with 1960s reactor designs.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#105

Post by beamatronic »

azinman2 wrote: post #71
beamatronic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The earthquake wasn't nearly as much of a problem as the tsunami

Earthquakes cause tsunamis.

The location of the plant, next to the ocean, placed it in greater danger from the tsunami. Had the plant been located up higher, above the centuries-old tsunami warning stones, then there maybe would have been a different outcome.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#106

Post by greglindahl »

hackuser wrote: post #25
stephenr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge risks (both financial type and "boom" type) with building and supporting nuclear reactors seems like pretty solid evidence that they are not "one of the best alternatives".

"best" is relative; what is better, that can scale up sufficiently to meet the world's energy demand? Perhaps renewables can scale up, but last I heard that wasn't realistic on the time scale humanity needs. Does anyone have good information on that question?

Some people have been saying "renewables don't scale" for decades, while renewables steadily beat projections for cost and installed base every year.

Here are some example studies of where things could go: http://blog.ucsusa.org/mike-jacobs/suddenly-the-future-is-cl...

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#107

Post by cmdrfred »

sqeaky wrote: post #102
MichaelApproved wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Newer reactor designs can avoid these issues. I have a fundamental mistrust of the industry and our government's ability to properly regulate it. That mistrust is based on historical facts. Even with newer designs, I think human error and regulatory capture is too dangerous to make nuclear viable.

Which is shame, because it could just fix so many of our energy problems.

It's the only viable fix we have currently, and if I were elected god king of a nation I would push initiatives to build not only enough capacity with atomic power to meet demand but excess to keep costs very low.

People are worried about automation, the nation that can cheaply power automated factories and server farms in the future will prosper.

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#108

Post by striking »

wonderous wrote: post #98
striking wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The de-dupe filter is based on how much discussion went on in past posts. But that actually doesn't affect the current case we're looking at here, as there are no duplicates of this link: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F... Now, in a sense, there was a duplicate, but because the URL didn't match, it didn't count. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=https:%2F%2F*.nytimes.com%2F20... The de-dupe f…

Yes the URL is different, but the canonical URL is the same. Not concerned about the votes, just curious if the topic of canonical URLs, clusters, etc. had come up.

You raise an interesting point. I'd recommend shooting the HN team an email about making use of canonical URLs for de-duping. mailto:hn@ycombinator.com

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#109

Post by avar »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #87
avar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against nuclear for trivial reasons like these is why we have the alternative: coal plants. Those kill an estimated 300,000 thousand people per year[1]. It's only recently that renewables have become a realistic alternative in some (but not all) cases, but for decades we've had people dropping like flies due to coal, entirely because the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere…

> the public is too science illiterate to understand that nuclear isn't anywhere as big of a deal by comparison. Science illiteracy has nothing to do with it. The industry has a history of non-trivial reasons for mistrust. Regarding coal plant deaths, I'm not in favor of coal either. The sooner we can move away from fossil the better.

Yes it is science illiteracy. It's being blind to a much larger diffuse harm in the face of some concentrated but much smaller harm.

It's arguably the most harmful kind of science illiteracy because it has the biggest impact on public policy. Everything from people opposing mandatory seat belt laws, to being overly concerned about e.g. genetically modified food or cell phone tower radiation.

I'm sure you mean well, but really, people who hold exactly the opinion you hold are in the aggregate the reason for literally millions of deaths that didn't need to happen worldwide since WWII.

We had all the data to indicate that burning fossil fuels was causing massive diffuse harm, nuclear was realistically the only alternative in most cases, but people didn't go for it because they were afraid, even though all the science showed that there was little to worry about in comparison to what we were already doing.

Sure someone installed a reactor backwards, but how are minor incidents like these at all relevant compared to literally tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year because we keep using the alternative?

Re: Westinghouse Files for Bankruptcy, in Blow to Nuclear Power

#110

Post by badloginagain »

killjoywashere wrote: post #5

The real concern here is making sure the existing nuclear plants have a clear glide slope toward end-of-life. Nuclear power is an extremely tight community. On the nuclear carrier I was on (powered by Westinghouse plants), there was a valve (a valve!) malfunctioning and the tech rep flown out from the company took one look at it and said "This bit's in backward". "How do you know?" "I designed it". Which means the sa…

Living in a world where technology seems outdated after 3-4 years, having reactors reliably serving up power for several decades is kind of amazing.

On the other hand, this does keep the number of people in the industry small. Sure, demonization of the power source, and regulatory standards that inhibit the development of new technologies also help, but it seems like this would be a problem regardless.

I've always wondered what the demand/pay is for engineers looking to enter the nuclear industry is like.

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