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Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

nytimes.com

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Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#191

Post by ern »

Lramseyer wrote: post #166
pdevine wrote: post #124

Can we talk about the waste that’s cast off when the reactor has finished its use of it? I understand the material will remain radioactive for centuries. Nobody wants that in their backyard.

Not to downplay the issue, but global warming is a much more urgent issue. It's expected to cause far more disasters a lot sooner than any potential disaster from our nuclear waste. To answer your question more practically though, our nuclear waste would fit into a building the size of a football field. There's even a proposal to put it in some mine/cave in the western United States.

I would be pro-nuclear except for the waste problem. I don’t trust humanity to be able to confine the waste for centuries. For all we know it could be seen as some sort of “treasure” by future, ignorant, civilizations, dug up, and spread around in trinkets. If there is a way of permanently and completely removing them from the biosphere, I’d change my mind.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#192

Post by leetcrew »

ilitirit wrote: post #187
scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

> My point is that nuclear power is safe, as long as all disaster scenarios are taken into account To be honest, you could probably make that argument for anything under question in any scenario. But even if we were to skip the logical loopholes ("We took it into account, but we decided the benefits outweighed the costs because of "), let's just look at the raw numbers or simply just historical facts. Have any disast…

coal is arguably worse even when it's working as designed. it's just amortized over a much larger area.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#193

Post by ekianjo »

For folks who think solar/wind/other sources are just as good or better, why not invest in all energy sources anyway? In most cases anyway this will be private investment and there is no reason not to experiment with all types of energies (including new types of nuclear reactors) instead of waiting and see if renewables can achieve their promise.

If you are going to make bets, take as many bets as you can.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#194

Post by ilitirit »

leetcrew wrote: post #192
ilitirit wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is that nuclear power is safe, as long as all disaster scenarios are taken into account To be honest, you could probably make that argument for anything under question in any scenario. But even if we were to skip the logical loopholes ("We took it into account, but we decided the benefits outweighed the costs because of "), let's just look at the raw numbers or simply just historical facts. Have any disast…

coal is arguably worse even when it's working as designed. it's just amortized over a much larger area.

Anything is "arguably" worse or better. But honestly, I would challenge that point any day. As much as I'm against fossil fuels, coal powered plants only contribute a very minor part to global warming compared to lets say... ships, planes and cars. And my point is not about coal specifically - it was just mentioned because that's what the main opposition is to nuclear. Not solar/wind/water.

My point is that failure of nuclear energy provision is demonstrably worse than the failure of any other options we've tried. Does this mean it's better/worse? Who knows.

But you simply cannot say that something is safe if , especially when history says otherwise.

I'm flabbergasted at the number of people talking unironically about "human error" as if it's historically insignificant...

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#195

Post by rorykoehler »

abtinf wrote: post #184
scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

Your post makes it sound like Fukushima failed in a catastrophically unsafe manner. I think it’s important to be explicit about the casualties that resulted from the disaster. The death toll currently stands at... maybe 1. A plant worker died of lung cancer in September 2018–over 7 years after the incident—and the government thinks it might have been caused by the plant.

200k people were displaced

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#196

Post by i_am_proteus »

abtinf wrote: post #184
scarygliders wrote: post #128

Can we just get something straight about the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant? Although it was a 1960's design, the reason it failed the way it did was because of one design flaw... Its backup generators were not placed up on the hills above it. Rather, the backup generators were situated below sea level underneath the reactor buildings. DERP. Fukushima Dai-ichi survived the Magnitude 9 earthquake. It did not s…

Your post makes it sound like Fukushima failed in a catastrophically unsafe manner. I think it’s important to be explicit about the casualties that resulted from the disaster. The death toll currently stands at... maybe 1. A plant worker died of lung cancer in September 2018–over 7 years after the incident—and the government thinks it might have been caused by the plant.

At the time, the media was conflating deaths from the earthquake (there were around 15,000) and "deaths from the reactor accident."

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#197

Post by icelancer »

ajross wrote: post #116
jjordan wrote: post #58

Generation III+ reactors are orders of magnitude safer than everything else that was built before the turn of the century. China is actually leading the charge right now, with AP1000 reactors under construction. One of the plants just went live last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanmen_Nuclear_Power_Station The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable.

> The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable. Early reactors were hailed as paragons of safety too. Fukushima, remember, had a triply-redundant (or whatever) power supply to ensure that cooling power could be provided even in the event of a simultaneous meltdown and grid failure. Oops. I mean, look. It's... fine. Go nuclear. I agree with you, that these are probably safe designs and are probably…

> Fukushima, remember, had a triply-redundant (or whatever) power supply to ensure that cooling power could be provided even in the event of a simultaneous meltdown and grid failure. Oops.

Yeah, and then they installed the backups below where the main plant was, rendering them completely useless. Oops.

This was a human failure. Not a technological one.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#198

Post by rorykoehler »

ekianjo wrote: post #193

For folks who think solar/wind/other sources are just as good or better, why not invest in all energy sources anyway? In most cases anyway this will be private investment and there is no reason not to experiment with all types of energies (including new types of nuclear reactors) instead of waiting and see if renewables can achieve their promise. If you are going to make bets, take as many bets as you can.

People don't want to invest in nuclear because nuclear disasters scare the shit out of them.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#199

Post by rorykoehler »

icelancer wrote: post #197
ajross wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US needs to find a way to make building reactors affordable. Early reactors were hailed as paragons of safety too. Fukushima, remember, had a triply-redundant (or whatever) power supply to ensure that cooling power could be provided even in the event of a simultaneous meltdown and grid failure. Oops. I mean, look. It's... fine. Go nuclear. I agree with you, that these are probably safe designs and are probably…

> Fukushima, remember, had a triply-redundant (or whatever) power supply to ensure that cooling power could be provided even in the event of a simultaneous meltdown and grid failure. Oops. Yeah, and then they installed the backups below where the main plant was, rendering them completely useless. Oops. This was a human failure. Not a technological one.

If it happened once what's to stop it happening again. Think about the type of people who design nuclear power plants. These are some of the smartest people on the planet and they still managed to make this terrible error.

Re: Nuclear power is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonize

#200

Post by jacques_chester »

gwbas1c wrote: post #188
jacques_chester wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about we put the reactors in the middle of the desert Nuclear reactors, much like other kinds of industrial power stations, require enormous amounts of water for cooling towers. They don't put them next to rivers because it looks cool.

Deserts get cold at night, and some even have rain. (Just go to Burning Man!) I suspect someone could figure out some kind of a heat sink that works without lots of fresh water.

Maybe they could.

But water is much better at carrying waste heat and the population centres demanding electricity tend to be close to rivers and lakes anyhow.

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