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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

#191

Post by ouid »

opo wrote: post #130
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.

>...That mistrust is based on historical facts What historical facts would those be? Historically nuclear has been about the safest form of mass power when looking at accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents Anything at all related to nuclear is covered by the media orders of magnitude more than other power sources so people have an understandable perception that it is much more dangerous than the re…

if we could use nuclear power exclusive to fix carbon, I think it would be worth it. I think a lot of people would say that this is worth it, and this inequality is in favor of nuclear power over the safest possible coal power.

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

#192

Post by kwhitefoot »

samstave wrote: post #147
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…

This is one of the best annecdotal posts I have ever read on the internet. My grandfather was a nuke eng for GE his entire career, built Hanford - he is the reason I got into what I do... He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out... My dads best friend was sec energy under reagan.... I am speechless with respect to how moronic this admin is to n…

> He died of cancer as they didnt quite yet know that radiation was a problem for human health when they started out...

That's putting it a bit strong, after all Marie Curie died of "aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation" in 1934. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie

And "actress Midori Naka, present during the bombing, was studied extensively for radiation poisoning. Her death in 1945 was the first to be officially documented as having been caused by radiation poisoning" http://www.news-medical.net/health/Radiation-Poisoning-Histo...

So they might not have had good statistics but they certainly had reason to be cautious.

Of course radiation is also used to treat cancer, there is a good side to many things.

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

#194

Post by freeflight »

cmurf wrote: post #73
hackuser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear power is possibly the most attacked form of energy that exists, and that includes coal and petroleum, both of which are still heavily used despite any public outcry It's interesting that the fossil fuels do far more harm, but nuclear is what everyone fears. (In fairness, nuclear problems do far more harm locally to the plant.)

IEA says 6.5 million die per year from air pollution. WHO says it's 1 million deaths per year from specifically burning coal pollution. And it's roughly 1000 deaths per year from nuclear. Air pollution deaths are "normal operation" not catastrophic event. Whereas normal operation deaths for nuclear is essentially 0, where deaths happen as a result of catastrophe. So there is something of a lizard brain mentality goin…

>Whereas normal operation deaths for nuclear is essentially 0, where deaths happen as a result of catastrophe. So there is something of a lizard brain mentality going on when it comes to near term risk assessment.

Has nothing to do with lizard brain mentalities but a lot with the history/culture in different regions of the world and the false dichotomy of "anti nuclear = pro coal".

The US never had a large scale catastrophic event like Chernobyl happen to it, something that's burned deep into many people of Europe to this day. From one day to another, millions of people had been told they shouldn't eat the "fruits of the land" anymore. When I grew up my family used to regularly gather mushrooms in the woods, that just stopped just like eating any game meat, that had a huge impact which can be felt to this day.

For most US Americans that scenario is only a theoretical one they played trough in pretend during the cold war but for many Europeans Chernobyl made it an way too scary actual reality.

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

#195

Post by Nrsolis »

cookiecaper wrote: post #174
Nrsolis wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got news for you if you expect guarantees about every possible risk you might face in life: We've had not one but several nuclear disasters in the past several decades and in each case the sky hasn't come crashing down. The risks from a nuclear plant disaster are localized and controllable. The risks from runaway climate change are global and uncontrollable. The planet is going to be fine. Whether human society…

>We've had not one but several nuclear disasters in the past several decades and in each case the sky hasn't come crashing down. Unless of course you're one of the people who lived in the nuclear exclusion zones created by Chernobyl and Fukushima, in which case, yes, everything you own and possess, very potentially including your long-term health, were destroyed in a matter of hours. Those residents can never go back…

I would argue that if you compared the risk profiles of fossil fuels vs nuclear power you'd come to the conclusion that nuclear has and continues to have, by a wide margin, the safest profile of ANY energy source except maybe wind and solar. I'm only excluding solar because I don't think we fully understand all of the safety impact of the construction of large windmills all over the windiest parts of the planet nor do we fully understand the impact of solar panel manufacturing.

When you account for the full lifecycle of fossil fuels, from the extraction, refining, transportation, and ultimate consumption and measure that impact in both short-term impact (coal-mining deaths) vs. long-term impact (climate change, pollution, cancer) you'd find that nuclear is the best option.

I'd risk a %0.00001 chance of dying by cancer sooner living next to a nuclear plant vs. a 1.0% chance of dying in a road collision with a fuel tanker or a 0.05% chance of dying sooner with emphysema by living close to a coal-fired plant. (I made those numbers up by the way; but my order of magnitude is spot-on)

As a person who worked in this industry, understands the economics of it, and has compared the costs of coal/wind/gas/nuclear, I can confidently say that nuclear can be safe and affordable as an energy source if we are committed to safe and conscientious use of it.

(BTW, for a month, I slept next to a nuclear reactor that was approximately 500 feet away from my bunk. My total radiation dose for that trip was less than I'd get in the same time hanging out at Grand Central Terminal (a location that would it to be certified as a functioning nuclear reactor would be out of specification as emitting too great a dose of radiation to those who work there)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/inter...

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

#197

Post by nbanks »

Zigurd wrote: post #30
faet wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you want to risk that happening to your area? Already do. 55% of my state's power comes from Nuclear. Coal releases 100x more radiation and 68x more CO2 than nuclear for equal energy production. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/202/4372/1045 And it isn't like coal is immune from having zero-notice forced evacuation, and making land uninhabitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly..…

That's for properly functioning plants. When a coal plant fails, how much radiation does it emit? Compared to Fuk?

Although it's oil not coal, the deepwater horizon accident was probably worse than Fukushima from both an environmental standpoint and number of lives lost. The most tragic failure of a power generating facility of all time was probably the Banqiao Dam disaster, not Chernobyl.

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

#198

Post by fnj »

Balgair wrote: post #137
MichaelApproved wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying it catastrophically destroys my trust in the industry. You're saying that you trust an industry that... > In 2008, the San Onofre plant received multiple citations over issues such as failed emergency generators, improperly wired batteries and falsified fire safety data. In its annual review of 2011, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) identified improvements but noted that in the area of human perform…

Do you install your own brake pads on your car? This goes for a lot of parts on the car you may drive. Yes, it's just your passengers and the possible victims of an accident, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong on your car. Is your trust in the auto-repair industry similarly 'catastrophically destroyed'?

The last time I did that was in 1978 on a Rabbit - with no experience whatever. It was a piece of cake and they worked fine. I did the timing belt, too.

I sure as heck wouldn't try it on my 1999 Golf. I can't even change the headlight bulb.

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

#199

Post by logfromblammo »

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…

"Oh. So you designed it so that it could go in backward, and that would cause it to malfunction? Must be embarrassing for you to come out and fix that now."

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

#200

Post by vidarh »

Chathamization wrote: post #145
vidarh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the meantime, in real world nuclear decommissioning currently increases the dependence on fossil fuels, and so every nuclear plant decommissioned in practice has a significant cost in lost lives from fossil fuels. E.g. Germany's rush towards decommissioning after Fukushima has had a massively detrimental effect in Europe for this reason. The death toll as a direct result of fearmongering against nuclear is by this…

> E.g. Germany's rush towards decommissioning after Fukushima has had a massively detrimental effect in Europe for this reason. This says that German emissions from electricity generation were down, but that was offset by heating increases from a cold winter and emissions from increased good transportation: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-reiterates-g20-...

Two problems with this:

1) you can not look at Germany in isolation. You need to take into account the import/export market. Decommissioning nuclear plants at a faster schedule substantially altered that, which affected other countries dependency on fossil fuels.

2) Germany is to their credit aggressively trying to get rid of its fossil fuel dependency, but the decommissioning of nuclear meant they needed to offset a significant shortfall. To the extent that hole was plugged by new clean energy capacity, that meant delaying decommissioning of far more lethal coal plants.

Until fossil fuels is at 0, decommissioning nuclear is bad policy.

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