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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

#21

Post by cookiecaper »

massysett wrote: post #14
cookiecaper wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…

Fossil fuels simply dump the pollutants into the atmosphere, killing people without a paper trail.

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.

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

#22

Post by hackuser »

cookiecaper wrote: post #10
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…

The risks from fossil fuels are orders of magnitude greater.

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

#23

Post by CodeWriter23 »

maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

This narrative holds only so long as one completely disregards the potential extinction-level event that continues at Fukushima. The simple fact of the matter is no technology exists to adequately and safely address the worst-case failure scenarios. We would do better to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere, whilst reversing deforestation during a transition to solar than to build even one more nuclear plant.

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

#24

Post by pm90 »

dalyons wrote: post #15
freehunter wrote: post #4

I find the headline weird, "a blow to nuclear power". I feel like 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. Westinghouse has made some bad deals, sure, but the real "blow to nuclear power" has been the massive refusal by both citizens and governments to build new plants, and the few nota…

After reading years and years of discussions like this, it seems like the citizen opposition and (somewhat unfair) demonisation of nuclear power is endlessly repeated as the reason we don't have nukes anymore, despite them being a great source of clean(ish) energy. However it seems the real reason, as in all things, is economics. They're just too damn expensive to build and run, and the expected returns on investment…

I am not a Nuclear Engineer...but here, again it seems like the operating factor is scale. If you were building many nuclear reactors, cost per reactor would perhaps go down. Not to mention: recent advances in technology and automation might help better monitor and operate the reactors, increasing safety and decreasing cost.

All of this is just armchair reasoning though. I have not the faintest idea what the most expensive parts of building a reactor are.

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

#25

Post by hackuser »

stephenr wrote: post #19
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

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?

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

#26

Post by faet »

cookiecaper wrote: post #10
maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…

>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...

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

#28

Post by Zigurd »

maxfurman wrote: post #3

This is terrible news. Nuclear power, while not perfect, is one of the best alternatives we have to carbon-emitting power plants. If there are no companies left to build them, the already impossible task of fighting climate change will get that much harder.

> Nuclear power, while not perfect...

If I had a nickel for every time.

Nuclear power has no excuses. The cost of accidents is astronomical and uninsurable. That's not a regulatory cost unless you think a risk of that magnitude should "go naked" in some free-market fantasy of handling uninsurable risks.

It sure would be nice if there was a grid-scale power source that emitted no CO2. But it's not anyone else's fault but the nuclear industry that we don't have such a thing.

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

#29

Post by moomin »

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 areas.

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

#30

Post by Zigurd »

faet wrote: post #26
cookiecaper wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather deal with fossil fuels than the catastrophic risks uniquely posed by nuclear power generation. The excuse for incidents like Fukushima are "Well, they made these mistakes...". Personally, I'd rather not risk zero-notice forced evacuations, permanent quarantine zones, and making significant portions of populated land uninhabitable for centuries on some people not making mistakes. For those who write th…

>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?
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