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Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#171

Post by varjag »

nitrogen wrote: post #130
danenania wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 upvotes. Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE . It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can never control without a small but inevitable risk of horrible damage and harm to unlucky populations. In controlling power of this magnitude, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or freak events that allow this power to seep out of whatever is the lates…

Everything we humans do is inherently unsafe. Using the phrase "fundamental force of nature" as though it has a sort of supernatural power behind it isn't going to change that. Gravity and inertia are also fundamental elements of nature, which kill far more people than radiation. Do we refer to automobiles as "fundamental force of nature containment technology"? The main problem with radiation is that it's invisible…

Nobody advocates building more nerve gas plants.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#172

Post by asharp »

RuadhanMc wrote: post #153
asharp wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting, but from what i've seen of it (albiet not all that much), it has two major issues. * It has a low power density, hence requiring large arrays of collectors/etc. this makes it costly to build at scale. * It generally either takes up valuable land (land by the sea is costly), or it requires lots of engineering to try and build/maintain these things out to sea. It is very cool tech though.

The guys on the podcast were saying that the buoy is located 2 km offshore, so not an eyesore as such, though I have not seen one yet, so can't judge. Seems to be a more reliable solution than wind or solar if it can scale and it is designed to withstand monster waves. They say they are 3-4 years from deploying real installations (at the moment they have 3 experimental sites).

Yeah, there are a few different types. One sits on shore and uses wave power to compress air, which then runs turbines. This is probably the most efficient method i've seen. There are a few others though, like the buoy method, etc.

Solar is about the most reliable solution you can come across, aside from an RTG mostly because it has no real moving parts and as such has no real way to fail.

What will be interesting is if they manage to up the energy density to the point where it is economical to build.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#173

Post by asharp »

kalleboo wrote: post #157
asharp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fusion development hasn't been stopped, especially not for fear of proliferation. Do you have any information about this subject that I do not? Also, the major problem with putting solar power plants in deserts is that you lose most of your power trying to get it somewhere useful. Expect this to change when we have commercially viable room temperature (ish) superconductors.

Another problem with desert solar power plants is political - Europe for instance would become dependant on the middle east and africa for power, which after the past couple decades of oil politics doesn't look like a very attractive option. Of course nuclear isn't much better in this regard - while we do have uranium deposits, we don't have any uranium mines, and hence rely on imports for nuclear fuel.

On the other hand, you can always use thorium deposits, use nuclear waste from other nations as fuel, pull uranium from seawater, etc.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#174

Post by asharp »

adrianN wrote: post #141
asharp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fusion development hasn't been stopped, especially not for fear of proliferation. Do you have any information about this subject that I do not? Also, the major problem with putting solar power plants in deserts is that you lose most of your power trying to get it somewhere useful. Expect this to change when we have commercially viable room temperature (ish) superconductors.

With high voltage directed current lines, losses are around 3%/1000km. That's not so much.

Interesting, do you have any links as to how they work/how they are constructed/etc?

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#175

Post by varjag »

nitrogen wrote: post #150
thekevan wrote: post #64

Yes but is it like saying wolves are safer than dogs because statistically your are less likely to be harmed by a wolf than a dog? It ignores the fact that if you do run afoul of a wolf, you are done.

Not quite, because those who actually calculate statistics can account for differences in exposure. For example, the correct statistic to use with wolves and dogs would be something like, "survival rate after pissing off the animal in a similar environment," not just "total number of casualties." With nuclear vs. fossil fuel, the relevant statistic is deaths per terawatt-hour of energy produced, not deaths in total.

IAEA and WHO are notorious for counting only directly attributable deaths. If someone dies from radiation-induced cancer 10 years after in the ripe age of 30-something, it doesn't get in the stats. Then the stats get perpetuated endlessly by nuclear fanboys.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#176

Post by Natsu »

Tichy wrote: post #140

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining : "However, in lesser developed countries and some developing countries, many miners continue to die annually, either through direct accidents in coal mines or through adverse health consequences from working under poor conditions. China, in particular, has the highest number of coal mining related deaths in the world, with official statistics claiming that 6,027 deaths o…

Those accidents are mining accidents alone. It ignores black lung, for example.

For the other thing, if that's the actual reason they're locating plants there, I'm against it, for whatever that's worth.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#177

Post by [deleted] »

nextparadigms wrote: post #71
michaelchisari wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of this article is that nuclear power is the safest , relative to other sources of power currently capable of scaling to needs. That's a very important distinction, so I would ask you to please consider that.

Safer than wind and solar? I don't think so. Those stats that we saw a while ago that people die from solar too because they fall off the roof are pretty ridiculous. 10 years from now all new homes will come with solar panels pre-installed, so people won't have to set them up themselves. Plus, you could always hire someone else to do it for you. In my country we're building giant wind turbines that will generate twic…

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#178

Post by asharp »

nextparadigms wrote: post #71
michaelchisari wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of this article is that nuclear power is the safest , relative to other sources of power currently capable of scaling to needs. That's a very important distinction, so I would ask you to please consider that.

Safer than wind and solar? I don't think so. Those stats that we saw a while ago that people die from solar too because they fall off the roof are pretty ridiculous. 10 years from now all new homes will come with solar panels pre-installed, so people won't have to set them up themselves. Plus, you could always hire someone else to do it for you. In my country we're building giant wind turbines that will generate twic…

Remember that you need to produce massive amounts of toxic waste to produce solar panels. (Semiconductor fabrication is many things, green it is not).

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#179

Post by nl »

jerf wrote: post #17
jbm wrote: post #3

Great. I can't drink milk, had to avoid water for a day or two, having problem finding relatively uncontaminated meat, 20 km or so of this country is probably going to be left unlivable and so on. I find it incredibly offensive to see the Americans on this board downplaying the damage from Fukushima. Mod me down all you want. I will be happy to pay attention when someone purchases land at a fair price near Fukushima…

"20 km or so of this country is probably going to be left unlivable" [citation requested] I haven't seen any hint of that. Is that from actual scientific reports based on sensible standards of "unlivable" (i.e., based in sensible risk analysis), or is it just based on unscientific worries? And did you have a hard time finding "uncontaminated" meat because there was actually a shortage of meat that was scientifically…

But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100 years before the nuclear fuel rods have completely cooled and been removed.

"As the water leaks out, you keep on pouring water in, so this leak will go on for ever," said Dr John Price, a former member of the Safety Policy Unit at the UK's National Nuclear Corporation.

"There has to be some way of dealing with it. The water is connecting in tunnels and concrete-lined pits at the moment and the question is whether they can pump it back.

"The final thing is that the reactors will have to be closed and the fuel removed, and that is 50 to 100 years away.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/01/3179487.htm

I actually heard an interview with this guy, and he was assuming the exclusion zone (20km from the plant I think?) would remain for at least 50 years.

Re: Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity

#180

Post by elliottkember »

veidr wrote: post #77

I looooves me some electricity. So, even though I'm presently suffering some annoyances in my daily life here in Tokyo (sporadically contaminated drinking water, suspect milk and other foodstuffs, not enough electricity to maintain our previous standard of living, Internet outages forfuckssake), and even though I bristle any time anybody (this article's author included) ignorantly implies that we know all the bad thi…

Personally, I feel this way about everything thrust on humanity. Religion, politics, science - so many ideas are excellent ideas in theory, but when implemented by people, we seem to screw them all up. I suspect this may be our undoing.
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