How much of the resistance to nuclear power in the US was due to the very unfortunately combination of the Three Mile Island incident and the release of the movie The China Syndrome both happening within two weeks of each other? Add in the nuclear arms race of the time and the emotional aspect for anything nuclear becomes even greater.
After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
151–160 of 489 posts
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish one person who mentioned the long game would also mention that nuclear accidents can make a place uninhabitable for thousands of years. If I had a dollar for every time a pro-nuclear person (not that I'm not) ignored that, or peak uranium...
Every time I've seen one of these threads on HN asserting that nuclear is safer than the alternatives and I've looked more closely into the claims, I've wound up unconvinced because of omissions like the one you've identified. It's gotten to the point that I tend to tune out pro-nuclear arguments on HN. :( I'm sure there are good arguments in there somewhere, but I don't have the bandwidth to sort them out from the m…
The argument is that the human race gets to survive and progress, unlike the one where we destroy our planet with a run-away carbon dioxide greenhouse effect.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#153Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burning coal creates fly ash which needs to be stored somewhere, usually large ponds near the power plant. In Tennessee in 2008 a dike ruptured and released 1.1 billion gallons of coal fly ash slurry that flowed into nearby rivers that drained into the Tennessee River. No-one was injured in the initial spill, but people contracted to clean it up developed cancers from being exposed to the toxic coal ash, 300 people d…
Worth noting that this power plant was run by an arm of the United States government.
Why is that worth noting? I feel like you're being intentionally ambiguous by leaving unstated implications.
Do you believe public operation had an impact on safety? Better or worse, and based on what evidence? If neither, how is your statement relevant to the discussion?
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#155I’m continuously baffled by those that claim that nuclear power is safe. Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible natural disaster. Analysis of nuclear power should take into account Black Swan events: no matter how well designed, some fraction of plants will cause INES Level 7 disasters. If the resulting cost (ie $10…
> Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible natural disaster. For Fukushima, it seems that the panicked response of the local authorities (evacuating the whole area ...) was what caused the most problems.
Exactly zero people died because of radiation at Fukushima. And keep in mind that if the entire exclusion zone was covered with solar panels, it wouldn't produce nearly as much power annually as the nuclear plant did.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now we just need to make it affordable. Cost overruns seem to be a big problem in the industry. The US recently canceled 2 plants, and we’re struggling to finish the other 2.
Ian the same argument for renewables? Subsidize solar panels to make them affordable... the only difference is, solar panels are smaller so we can iterate faster. Maybe that’s what we need to improve about nuclear...
Lots of Small Modular Reactors waiting for political will and funding around. Personally I'm really interested in Soviet-originated SVBR series, but politically it's even more problematic than other designs right now :-(
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#157I’m continuously baffled by those that claim that nuclear power is safe. Look at Fukushima for example. It seems hard to imagine a nuclear power plant design, even Gen III or IV that would be immune to any possible natural disaster. Analysis of nuclear power should take into account Black Swan events: no matter how well designed, some fraction of plants will cause INES Level 7 disasters. If the resulting cost (ie $10…
No one likes to talk about it however the Fukushima disaster could have been prevented with current technology but it was cheaper in the short term not to. Even IF you could have a super safe design a huge part of the problem was the lack of maintenance and actually implementing the safety designs they had. [1] Why would anyone trust these companies to actually do what is right at the cost of the bottom line? [1] htt…
It was an ancient reactor by today's standards, but you will never convince luddites of that.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#158For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…
From Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990):
"They told us that nuclear plants were safe.
Human accident is the danger,
not the nuclear plant itself.
No accidents, no danger. That's
what they told us. What liars!"
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#159For the uninitiated, nuclear power is actually much, much safer than it was in the previous century, and fossil fuel power plants have killed exponentially more people through pollution than all nuclear power accidents combined – it's just not something that happens all at once so it doesn't seem like a big deal to most people. We will not be able to "defeat" climate change and keep this planet inhabitable for future…
Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage. However, I think the resistance is also because the nature of the catastrophe is different. Have coal or gas plants ever created a Chernobyl-style exclusion zone? I know that mining/drillin…
Another part is that people are distrustful, especially when previous promises were broken, and as far as I know, before each major accident (Chernobyl, Fukushima) happened, it was said that such an accident can never happen.
That brings into doubt any promise of future safety.
Re: After 48 years, Democrats endorse nuclear energy in platform
#160My uneducated gut feeling is that the only way nuclear is going to be relevant is if they perfect micro-nuclear reactors. I remember reading about these 10 years ago [1], and have seen a few more since. Basically they propose small "nuclear batteries" kin of design - this avoids catastrophic scenarios and benefits greatly from economies of scale. The only issue I see with this approach is political - you would have a…
There certainly are mini reactor designs which can be put in a grid like network to create the same effect as our current huge-but-old reactors. Luddites, just won't have it, but maybe if leaders just go ahead and get a backbone we can have such things that might just save us from extinction (or at least the end of civilization, I'm sure at least a small cadre of humans will survive, we're pretty adaptable as a species). https://www.energy.gov/ne/nuclear-reactor-technologies/small...